A lot going on

I have a whole bunch of pictures to share with ya'll. First thing is Arica's new bedroom. While it isn't completely finished; it is done enough for her to sleep in it. I still have to switch out the outlets to child proof ones. Heather and I haven't started painting her growth tree. But here is a couple of pictures.







Johnathan has finally cut down the tree in the front yard. Now I'm just waiting for him to replace it with another one. The tree was rotting from the inside. Here is a couple of pictures to help you realize how messed up my wonderful husband can be.
I finally reported to the ship. I have a lot of junior guys that need to be babysat all the time. And babysitting adults is the worst. Other than that, it is going pretty good. Johnathan has a 33% chance of going IA; they are looking for a Cuba billet to get filled. It pays really well, and all of the hard core prisoners are already been transferred to the states. I really don't care if he goes or not as long as I'm still in the ship yards. Or his Master Chief was wondering how long I have in the ship yards, for him to go TAD to another ship for a while. That wouldn't be too bad either. He will get extra money and benefits for advancement, but it will be more time away from us.
Well, I need to get some sleep. 0400 comes by fast.

Phone Calls Home

March 13, 2009

You should have been here to see this.
This is a picture of Arica walking around
the house with the cell phone talking.
Arica talks to mommy almost everyday.
She does not like to talk on the house
phone as much as the cell phone. She
gets so excited to talk on the cell phone.
We put the phone on speaker so we can
help Arica talk to her mommy and daddy.
I tell her mommy is on the phone and
she takes it and puts it up to her ear.
Sometimes her chin touches the buttons
and makes beeping noises. Mommy
asked if she was using Morse Code to talk
to her.

Sometimes she would also stand at the
window looking out and jabber away on
the phone. Then she would move to the
next window and keep talking.
It is very hard to get her to give up the
phone. Now when the phone rings, she
thinks it's mommy. She keeps saying
"mommy, mommy." Sometimes I have
to tell her it's not mommy. Sometimes
she reaches up to the house phone and
says, "mommy!" I ask her if she wants
to talk to mommy. She giggles and she
shakes her whole body back n forth.
This means "yes". She gets really excited.
So then we have to try to call mommy!


Written with Love by Grandma

March 13, 2009

Arica is having a lot of fun in Wisconsin.
Besides playing in the snow, she is being
creative with the kitchen set. She spends
a lot of time playing "in the kitchen!"
One day, she took out the shelves in the
oven and tried to crawl into it herself and
close the door. She tried this a number of
times before giving up. If she would have
taken the shelves out of the refrigerator
next to her, she would have fit inside. Lots
of hours are spent playing with the kitchen
toys.





Arica loves the swing set in the back yard.
Here is a picture of her after she crawled
through the tunnel. Sometimes as she comes
out, Toby, our dog is at the end of the tunnel
to greet her and she giggles. She is wearing a
pair of grandma's warm mittens because it
is too cold here for her little mittens. They
are easier to get on and we can pull then way
up over her jacket sleeves and the don't come off.









She also enjoys the slide and the
swing. The sand in the sandbox
was frozen so we took some of her
toys out one day so she could play
with them in the snow. She was
playing very nicely. She all of a
sudden got distracted. I didn't
notice at first but she climbed upon
the bridge going up to the slide and
then crawled up to the platform. She thought this was pretty cool. Whenever we used the slide, I would lift her up to the top of the slide and then she would slide down. So she has never seen the bridge before. Once on top of the platform, she wanted to slide down the slide head first.
I helped her to sit on her butt and go down the slide.

I want to go out!

March 10, 2009

This is a typical day for Arica. She is always anxious to go outside. On this perticular day, she got her boots and went to the door. There was no way of convincing her to stay in.
As you can see, we have a lot of snow outside. It has been
fun to go out and play.

Arica had a big day

Message to Mommy and Daddy and anyone else who cares to listen:

Arica had a big day today.

(Arica's view)
Today started out with grandma washing my pink blanket. At first, while grandma took my pink blanket out of my crib, and carried it down-
stairs, I was so happy! But then she wanted me to put in the washing machine. I didn't like that at all! So we took it back upstairs and put it back in my crib. (When I wasn't looking, grandma sneeked it out of the crib, put it under her shirt, took it downstairs and put into the wash machine.)

Arica went to church with us this morning. We came equipped with snacks, water and toys. We were sure the toys didn't make too much noise. She did very well situated between Uncle Kevin and Grandma. Grandpa was ushering and Aunt Vanessa was singing in the choir. Arica liked the singing and added her own tone to the songs. There was a little girl behind us that had a green rubber alligator. Arica wanted it. I told her that it was the little girls toy. She was pretty good about it. Later the little girl had a small 3 by 4 inch paper book. Arica pointed to it. The girls dad talked to his daughter and then took the book and gave it to Arica. Arica took it and proceeded to give the dad her toy milk bottle that she loves so much. The dad was very surprised and didn't know what to do with it, so he set it down on the chair next to us. Arica looked through the book for awhile and then handed it back to the dad and pointed to her toy milk bottled. He picked it up and gave it to her. When it came to peace, at first she didn't want to do it, but after seeing the other kids behind her giving peace, she wanted to give everyone peace also. She went around at least 2 times and wanted to do more but we needed it end it. It was evident she wasn't going to quit anytime soon.

Grandma and Arica went swimming in the afternoon. Arica loved the water. She didn't mind getting splashed and even when under the water twice.

After all that she was ready for bed shortly after 7pm. But before bed she talked to mom and dad on the phone.

She was so exhausted that she slept till after 8am.

Vehicle issues

I hate having vehicle issues. It never ends, once one thing gets fix, something else goes wrong with them. Last night Johnathan got into an accident. We are still waiting for damages. Right now we have a rental, it isn't a bad car except for the fact that it is RED.
Arica fell down the stairs again today, it was only 2 steps. But she bit her tongue pretty good. She didn't want to eat dinner at all tonight.
School is going okay, the instructor said that we are 3 weeks behind though. So it will be faster, which means harder. But I know for sure that I'm in the top 5 of the class. I don't know how high, but I would like to at least keep it there if not number 1.
Here is a couple of pictures. I will be bringing all of the picture to WI, when I come up. The first one is our trip to S.C. at a hotel room, and the other is her having fun in the bath tub.

School

Well, school is going good for the first week. I have 4-5 tests, and 9-10 quizzes. I took my 1st test on Wednesday I wish I would have done better, but I can't complaint about a 98%. I was fair warned that the class is hard and only 50% pass it. I heard that the other class had a Master Chief failed. So, I'm really nervous. On a good note, I know just about everything the instructor is talking about. So I figure the harder stuff will come. But in the mean time I will try to Ace all of my tests and quizzes. Every point counts.
I have lots of pictures of Arica to share. I will hopefully get them put in when I have a little more time. Arica is getting so big. She is taking my schooling considerable well, with my attention else where. I still have plenty more of homework waiting for me, unfortunately 2 hours isn't enough.