The Field Grade Officer of the year!

I found this in my email inbox this morning.

It is with great pleasure to announce the Space and Missile Systems Division 2008 Annual Military Award Winners. Their outstanding contributions, accomplishments and dedication to the Division are worthy of this recognition. These winners include both active duty and reserve. Please join me in congratulating them. Thank you for your dedication and commitment to excellence!

Field Grade Officer of the Year & Best in Service (USAF) (Active Duty)
Major Heather Bragg, USAF, DCMA Lockheed Martin Dallas

Woo Hoo! This must be why I got called yesterday and told to provide a recent picture of me wearing my dress blues. I had to go to the military clothing sales this morning to update my uniform because I hadn't worn it in ages, so here's what I look like now! What you can't tell is that I'm still wearing my camouflage pants because I had to get the picture fast and getting the boots off takes a while.

I think she understands blackmail

This morning, Johanna insisted on wearing a Cookie Monster costume to daycare. As I am more motivated in the morning to get out the door than anything else, I helped her put it on. When I went for the camera to document this event, she screamed NO CAMERA! at me. So I think she might get the idea that these photos could be used against her in the future. I can't really show a picture of a child screaming in a cookie monster costume without looking bad myself!

Time flies when you're sleep deprived

I have been so bad about updating this! Here is the news:

Both Kenneth and Sarah are rolling. They are also both trying to crawl despite my insistence that they need to stay nice cute little babies for longer!

We took some awesome pictures when the inlaws were in town for Johanna's third birthday. They are so gorgeous I can't decide which ones I like best, and I don't have rights to the pictures so I can't link them yet. Once I buy some, I'll be asking about the legalities of posting them on the blog if I give the photographer credit. :)

Johanna has been doing well in gymnastics. Today she was front rolling (aka somersaulting) around the upstairs. I was able to convince her to stay on the carpet and away from the top of the stairs. That was about it for my parenting competence.

We're in the process of starting to prep the house for sale. We will be moving next year, and as you might have noticed from infrequent updates, we don't have a lot of free time. As such, we need a lot of lead time to accomplish ANYTHING. At this point I've managed to pack up some extra toys to work on keeping the playroom cleaner. We've boxed up some books that just looked messy. We're putting clothes that Johanna has outgrown but Sarah has not grown into and will not grow into before we move into storage. The garage storage areas are currently well packed. And I'm still working on getting rid of things.

I need to remember to start posting the cute stories as they happen. I forgot everything I wanted to tell you that was cute and sweet. Turns out that even coffee can't cure the type of sleep deprivation these sweetlings can cause!

The birthday obsession continues

Miss Nora came by yesterday to help out Daddy when Mommy had some errands to run for a lengthy period of time. Johanna had a lot of fun, and when Miss Nora was leaving, she decided to tell Miss Nora all about her birthday (which I keep telling her is later). There are going to be balloons, and cake, and presents, and apparently Miss Nora is going to be there. I hope her birthday can live up to her expectations!

Psst, don't tell her, but I did make sure to reserve the gymnastics place for the Sunday afternoon after her birthday. She's going to have a blast! And they will provide balloons for me. Woo Hoo!

Important Life Lessons

Birds are territorial about snacks. Johanna was playing with her zoo set last night and the polar bear was asking (quite nicely I might add) to have some of the bird's snack. The bird said no and pushed it down the slide. I found it very amusing.

Kenneth and Sarah are in daycare today for the first time. Daddy is in a class this week to get training on teaching AP courses. We'll see how this goes - it's good practise for when we have to get them all to daycare at the same time in the fall!

I am very tired at work today because I was up too late making sure we had everything for the daycare. And then forgot to make sure Johanna's bag was ready! Argh!

At least all three of them are adorable, that should help them get additional pity for their mother's scatterbrainedness.

Will you help me find it?

Johanna is very interested in the concept of Birthdays. Her friend from the neighborhood and daycare, Jay Jay, had his birthday party today. A friend's son Willie who she likes had his birthday yesterday. We had a small celebration of my birthday last night. So naturally Johanna wanted to know about her birthday. After I told her it was in August, Johanna asked if I could help her find it. At a loss, I told her to go ask Daddy to help. I just needed to buy some time for a better answer and she forgot what she was going to ask Daddy for on the way to the other room. Thank goodness!

It's just too fast!

Little Kenneth is doing something at 2 months that older sister didn't do until she was 4 months old. I want my babies to slow down!

Mommy, I have enough

So, last Friday I got home from work and there was the need to take care of dinner, and babies, and still pay attention to Johanna. Well, I found a chapstick in a flavour I don't care for and since Johanna likes taking my chapsticks, I thought she might enjoy it. So I gave it to her and reassured her that it was her chapstick. She's been very good with using my chapstick properly and was very happy to have her own.

A few minutes later, she emerged from her playroom and handed me a mostly empty tube of chapstick and said "Mommy, I have enough". I replied "Why yes honey, you do have enough" as I looked at the little sweet images you can see in the attached pictures. That is in fact even chapstick on her neck. I was in fits of giggles over her chapsticking skills, and luckily it came off relatively easily without a major tantrum at bathtime.

I guess everyone has to learn at some point that two year olds will not behave the same way all the time and you shouldn't give them chapstick and then let them play relatively unsupervised with it!

The song that never ends

Johanna has turned "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" into a song that never ends.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,
and the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out...

It's lovely until she uses it as a bedtime stalling technique!

We're zooper!

Okay, I just needed to make another entry to add more zoo pictures.

More zoo mania

Sorry yesterday was so short. I was really tired for some reason after pushing a fully loaded stroller and periodically carrying a toddler. Yesterday I was very glad we have a zoo membership so there isn't the pressure to have a "perfect" zoo day. Johanna's favorite parts were the carousel, the splash river, and taking her first pony rides ever! We tried to entice her to look at animals, but with the notable exception of the penguins, she only wanted to look at ducks and water. Yep, can't see that anywhere but the zoo! She was temporarily placated by monkeys upon occasion. The penguin pictures are from an earlier zoo visit (pre-blog days) and the rest are from yesterday. Enjoy!

The Zoo!

Here are some videos of Johanna on the carousel!

Happy Belated Mother's Day!

We had a wonderful Mother's Day at our house. We had a nice relaxing morning, and then spent the afternoon at the park. Johanna drew some lovely designs on a frame for a picture of the entire family, and we just had a wonderful time relaxing as a family. Here are some pictures!

So it's May 4th. Kenneth and Sarah are now exactly two months old! The time already seems to be flying. Of course, with two months under their belt, it was imperative that I get some cute pictures. While folding laundry yesterday, I realized not only did we happen to have two of the exact same sleepers for Kenneth and Sarah, but they almost exactly matched a pair of Johanna's pajamas. The wheels of a mother started turning and a photo shoot was born.

Sarah was really bothered by the whole thing, and I think now that it's because she had a nasty cold. Poor thing. She's been full of snot all day. Unfortunately Mommy seems to have the same cold. Hopefully we'll all be feeling better soon!

Well it's been quite a while since I posted, so let me just mention the highlights.

In the middle of the night, technically Easter, Heather went to the ER in what ended up being a gall bladder attack. Apparently it's common for women to develop gall bladder problems during and immediately after pregnancy. Something about babies squishing all your organs out of the way just seems to mess some of them up. Because of the severity of the attack, they recommended surgery on an emergency schedule, and after the insurance company stuff was all worked out, Heather had her gall bladder removed on April Fools Day! No fooling.

Kenneth and Sarah continue to grow. Right now it looks like they'll both have dark hair, and Kenneth's eyes are already turning brown. Heather still holds out hope that they'll end up hazel like hers. Sarah's eyes are still blue, and Heather thinks it would be neat if she had the dark hair and blue eyes of John.

Johanna has started gymnastics. We wanted to make sure she has something just for her, and that will help her burn off some energy while encouraging us to get moving on Saturday mornings to get her to her class at nine. She loves it. She's also a natural at the things they are asking her to do, as the teacher was surprised when I told him it was only her first class after the trial session last week. He was a sub for the regular teacher and assumed she'd been there a lot the way she responded to instructions. John thinks it's because she's had lots of practice jumping on his stomach and leaping around on the beds. I hope she continues to enjoy it this much because it's so much fun watching her try these new things.

We had a photo shoot several weeks ago, and got some excellent pictures. Some of my favorites are in the entry above for you to enjoy. Johanna wasn't very interested in pictures, but we got some good ones once she found a very fascinating caterpillar!

Daddy can post too!!

And so it begins

I've been meaning to set up a blog for a long time to help communicate with family and friends. I just put down two wee babies in their beds, and I hear John snoring in the other room so hopefully Johanna fell asleep too. It's apparently very easy to set up a blog these days so here we go!

Kenneth and Sarah are two weeks old today. Johanna is adjusting very well to being a big sister so far. Now instead of being excited to see Mommy and Daddy, she wants to see the babies when she gets home. I'm good with that! Today she was also sitting on Grandma Sally's lap singing Mary had a little lamb to them. I really need to get the video camera charged, but I did get some sweet little pictures.

No pictures tonight, because I need to get to bed, but this is at least a start.

PS. I'm just starting to invite people to read this blog. It's a private blog, so I will get around to inviting more people, but I've only invited a few people right now to make sure this works.