So This is Paradise?

I'm getting better at this hair thing.  She is SO cute.  This morning she kept saying "I, I, I" and patting her head which is what she does when she wants a hat.  I got her a hat and she said "no no no" and made me follow her to the bathroom.  Yesterday I did her hair with her sitting on the bathroom sink with the water running so she should splash her feet in the sink and see herself in the mirror.  Then she declared she was "Pitty!"  She wanted me to do her hair again! <3  I managed lopsided piggies this time.  *dies*  I thought this child could not get any more adorable and I was wrong!  Cutest. Baby. Ever.

So I think my picture issues have more to do with Bloggers photo uploader than my camera.  They seem to come out better if I load them in Photobucket and paste them.  I'll probably just do that from now on.  Using this thing for pictures feels like banging my head against the wall anyway. 

New word on the street is that we'll be here for Thanksgiving!  That was what I had secretly originally hoped anyway.  As much as I want to get the heck out of dodge it'll be nice to have one last Turkey Day down with the Arizona family before we head off.  Garrick doesn't want to come back to the states at all once we've left.  We'll see about that.  Our new date is looking like the first week of December.  Christmas in the Navy Lodge.  Awesome!

Let me see... of the 6 Christmases we have celebrated since Garrick and I got married - He was deployed for 2, I was pregnant for 2 (one of which he was also deployed during), we were in the middle of moving for 1 (which I was also pregnant during), we had the inlaws visiting for 1... I think we've had 1 normal family Christmas.  Number 7 will be spent in temporary lodging.  Oh joy of being in the military!

But you know, as much as I whine and carry on.  I think I would go insane if my life was any other way.  I get bored staying in one place for too long and the Navy has totally solved that problem for me.  Because it'll NEVER happen.  At least there's that!  Being a Navy wife is a lot of things, but it's never boring!

I'm too sleep deprived at this point to form a coherent post... but look!!! Autumn has enough hair for a little sprout on her head!!  I've been waiting for this day!  Next milestone: pigtails!

There's been a lot going on lately!  Unfortunately, no real forward movement in our move to Japan.  They keep saying "we're working on it, we're working on it" yeah yeah... I'm getting frustrated.  We've been living in this kind of limbo since July and it's grating on my nerves.  I just want to get there and be settled and feel home again.  Hopefully it'll happen this month!  I have good feelings about November!

And, I'm obviously still getting used to the settings on this camera.  I keep taking bad pictures though :(.  If anyone has any ideas on what I can tweak to reduce the noise in these shots I'd love you forever!  The blurry/pixelation is driving me crazy.  If I should try another camera let me know too, please!  I have a Sony Cyber-shot 220.  I love the camera... the shutter speed is awesome.  But I can't get it to take a good picture to save my life!

Halloween was fun!  Autumn was a bee and Aidan was a vampire.  Garrick insisted on doing Aidan's makeup and I think it made him look crazy, but they had fun with it.  Autumn was terrified, at first, of all the people dressed up in their costumes.  Once she realized she could get candy from all those crazy people she was diving into their bowls with both hands!  We only got one trick-or-treater once we got home from taking the kids.  I was the boring house handing out pretzels, so that may have something to do with it!  Haha, oh well, at least it's something I can use and won't have to throw out.  Candy and my kids just do not mix.
I have to vent about the stupid sprinklers on this base.  They always seem to come on when I'm walking Aidan to school or trying to take Autumn to the playground!  Aidan's always getting into the mud on the way home.  I walked around for a half hour the other day trying to find a playground that wasn't soaking wet!  We finally found one and I took some cute pictures of Autumn running around and being her silly little self.  Looking at the pictures I realized she's actually starting to grow hair!  Maybe my pigtail days aren't too far off!  I cannot wait until I can do something with her hair!  I'm tired of people saying what a cute boy she is, no matter how much pink I put her in!  I think she's beautiful... but whatever, people are weird!


Oh, and I thought I'd share - My favorite soup at Olive Garden is the Zuppa Tuscana so I made some with this recipe last night.  We had our own soup salad and bread sticks!

1lb turkey italian sausage links
1 onion chopped
1 garlic clove chopped
4 slices turkey bacon chopped
1.5 qts water
2 Tbs chicken base
4 red potatoes halved and sliced
3 stalks Kale chopped and ribs removed
1/3 cup cream

Remove the sausage from casings and saute in a little olive oil.  Once cooked through remove from pan and set aside.  Saute onions, turkey bacon, and garlic until translucent.  Add water, chicken base, and potatoes. Simmer for 15 minutes.  Add sausage, Kale, and cream. Simmer for 5 minutes or until the sausage is heated through.

SO good and so easy!  Enjoy :)

Yay, I finally broke down and bought a new camera.  It's kind of a crime to have kids this cute and not take 100 pictures of them a day.  Maybe I'm biased but I'm sure others agree! I ended up with a Sony.  I was wary of the whole Pro Duo Memory Card thing but it looks like I can plug it in to get the pictures off so it's not a big deal.  Plus, the camera is pink. Can't go wrong with a pink camera.

Last weekend we went to a pumpkin patch in Visalia to get our pumpkins.  It was gross hot outside but the kids had fun.  Aidan got to ride on a little tractor and Autumn got to run around and get filthy and play in a big sand box full of corn.  Pretty much their favorite things.

Forgive me if the pictures are all over the place in this post.  Blogger seems to have changed editing formats since the last time I used it and I can't figure the darn thing out.  They keep moving around on me... or not moving around on me.  Whatever is the opposite of what I want them to do!









Garrick did the carving last night.  Autumn was not impressed by pumpkin guts.  The finished product is pretty fun, though!






Here we go again with the pictures being all screwy.  Hopefully I get better at this because It's driving me nuts!  Apparently I also need more interesting things to write about because I'm heavy on the pictures and light on the talk so far. 
Autumn has decided that naps are not the hippest new toddler trend.  I've tried just about everything to get her to take a halfway decent nap and honestly... I'm about to just stop the fight.  Aidan was a million mile an hour kid but he usually crashed somewhere around noon and took a 3 hour nap for me.  His bedtime was 6, too.  It's obvious that it's not going to be so easy with Autumn.  She just doesn't need as much sleep as Aidan does.  He still goes to bed without a fight around 8 and I'm up dealing with her most nights for at least another hour.  It's tiring!  It's probably partly because I just don't feel like it's worth the huge battle to get her to nap when I'm about to flip her whole world upside down anyway.  *sigh* Toddlerhood.

We do have good times while Aidan is at school, usually.  We hide in suitcases, and try on everyone's shoes, and make faces when mommy tries to take our picture......... Tell me how you really feel little girl!  The second one is much better :)

To the crazy hats.  Today was crazy hat day at school and I remembered a couple hours before we had to leave.  I'm pretty proud of my masterpiece.  Aidan calls it Smuzzies.  Okay... whatever you say!

As crazy as it gets around here... at the end of the day they're pretty big fans of each other and I'm a pretty big fan of them!  At least there's that!

Japan is still pretty much on hold.  I still have my class this weekend and Garrick says it's looking like the first week in December now.  We could get as little as 7 days notice for packout and taking off.  That scares the crap out of me but we have to do what we have to do!  I have no choice but to deal with it as it comes.  I just hope our move comes sooner than later.  I'm sick of waiting and wondering already.