Happy Anniversary...

to us! We celebrated our 4th anniversary tonight by going out for a late (truly European) dinner downtown at a nice, little Italian place. We waited until Michaela was fast asleep at our friends' house and then took off for a couple hours before she would need the milk machine again (she does not take a bottle well and definitely not at bedtime!). It was nice to have a little date night...thanks Loefferts!

4 months!

Michaela is 4 months old already! It is amazing for us how much she has grown and changed. When people say to enjoy the time while we have it because they grow fast, they are so right! Michaela is growing to be a happy girl. Now she is usually only fussy when she is tired and falls asleep much easier than she used to. She loves standing up (which is why she loves her new jumper!), grabbing anything she can in front of us, and being outside. She also still loves music and movement. If you will dance for her, she will definitely smile for you, and if you dance a little more crazily, she will definitely give you a delighted giggle! She also continues to love her books and is getting more coordinated with her hands that she can hold onto her toys better and even started trying to turn the pages for me as we read her little hard cover books. We are enjoying her more and more everyday. I have not taken specifically 4 month photos yet, but a couple mornings while Michael was gone, I entertained myself by having some mini photo shoots of her. Below are some of the photos from this past week.

Check out these monkey feet! She loves trying to hold onto things with them! (and kick, kick, kick, of course!)


Right after bath time, check out the little bum back there. :)

These are her two favorite fingers...

And if you are wondering about the outfit in the above (and several below) photo, yes, it is old school. I wore it in 1981, and it now fits Michaela perfectly...including the little matching shoes. The neck ruffle was the best part of the retro outfit, but I'm not sure any of these shows it well.

Of course, the little wiggle worm wiggled her way down and the hair bow off.

So, in person, the little girl looks EXACTLY like her daddy (with a hint of me in her every once in awhile), but in a few pictures that we have, she looks exactly like my baby pics. This next one would be one of those, and she is wearing my outfit, so I like it and can't wait to hear my mom's reaction. The weird thing, though, is that I really don't think she looked like this in person.

Here she is in her new jumper! I think this was only the second day she was in it. The first time I put her in it, she stood up tall and gave me a big smile like she was so proud to be standing on her own. She also loves being on the same level as the dogs and smiles and giggles at them whenever they are near her in it.

My mom gave me a few more outfits from when I was a baby so there may be some more retro baby pics in the future. :)

Michael is Back!

Michaela and I made it through our first TDY/deployment since her birth, and Michael is now back safely to us. We are grateful it was so short and excited to all be together again! Thank you friends and family for helping me stay entertained and offering some adult conversation while he was gone!

HOT, HOT, HOT!

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year and possibly the hottest day of several years here in Wiesbaden. According to weather.com, the average high is only about 75 and yesterday's high was 95! We used the heat (and welcome invitation from Kathrin) as an opportunity to experience a German pool for the first time (and first pool experience period for Michaela). The pool was VERY crowded as it seems everyone in town had the same idea since it was so hot, and they don't believe in A/C around here. The water was very cold compared to the air temp so Michaela didn't like the water much, but she loved watching all the big kids running, swimming, and splashing. And believe me, those German kids do all those things BIG (they aren't really disciplined). Michaela did very well considering the amount of splashing going on. The first pic below shows the bigger girls loving on Michaela. The second one is only added so you can get a sense for how busy it was there, and the last shows my sweety conked out in the midst of the craziness. It was fun!

Reminiscing

August 17 is one of our favorite dates of the year. God seems to do big things/reveal big things in our lives on August 17.


August 17, 2003 was the big accident that started it all...

This is the next day (after discharge from hospital) reenacting my unconscious state. I woke up in love.

5 years later, August 17, 2008, my husband lost consciousness from the shock of soon becoming a parent (really he was jet-lagged, but he really was shocked too).

And what a difference a year makes...

This pic wasn't actually taken on August 17 because Michael is currently on a short stint to Afghanistan but it was taken about a week ago which is close enough. I just love that it is a shot of them in bed (baby in exchange for pee stick) almost exactly a year later when he was a little stunned and didn't know what to think a year ago and is soooo in love now. I know viewers might want to ignore the hairy chest, but this is one of my new favorites of the two of them together. :)

Michaela made some friends

Besides meeting Walker (in previous Reunion post), Michaela got to meet some more babies (and so did I!)!



Little Safiya (rhymes with mafia) was born just 6 days before Michaela just across the ocean. I am holding Safiya (just in case you don't visit the blog often enough to know what my baby looks like), and my friend Mary is holding Michaela. I am very sad that I didn't get a picture with Safiya's mom, Nancy. She and I have been friends since 8th grade. Hopefully next time, we will get that pic and more playtime for the girls!





Baby Natalie (due in September) is still in the belly, but Michaela touched that belly before she fell asleep!



Leah was very interested in Michaela. As you can see, her smart mommy put her at a considerable distance from Michaela to save her from big toddler movements, but it didn't take Leah long to wiggle her way over to get ahold of some part of Michaela! The progression in the pics is very cute, but I only put the beginning and end here for your viewing pleasure.




Michaela seems to have mostly boyfriends here in Germany, and all the girlfriends are in the U.S. Another girlfriend was born while we were in the U.S. (July 22) to one of my very best friends, but she was all the way in FL, so Michaela hasn't met her yet! She did have one big boyfriend (18 mo) in Lititz, but we didn't manage to get a picture of him, for some reason. Sorry Luke!

Reunions

We had some fun reunions while we were home (as you can see from previous posts, as well). This one was quite fun for me (although the car ride to VA with Michaela definitely was not - thank you so much, Mom, for driving with us). These are my college girls!! We were all randomly put in a suite together in the only all-girls dorm freshman year of college. There were 3 bedrooms with a living room in the middle. Erin (redhead beside me) was my roommate that year. Elizabeth, Courtney, and I all lived in an apartment off-campus junior and senior years with Beth (prego in the middle) joining us senior year. "Randomly put together" freshman year means "God put together"...these are friends for life! This reunion was a blessing and about time because I hadn't seen Beth, Courtney, and Elizabeth in over 3 years!




As the president of the Warwick High School Class of 1999, I had the great fun (sorry for the sarcasm) of organizing our 10 year reunion. Although it ended up kind of small and some of my ideas got nixed at the last minute, I was pleased with the success of it as most people seemed to really enjoy themselves.

People Came from Near and Far to Meet Michaela

This baby is so loved...so many people wanted to meet her. I am disappointed I did not take pictures of everyone that she met, but here are pics of some of the great friends and family she had the privilege of meeting...

Uncle Gary came all the way from Seattle, WA to meet Michaela at the wedding in Maine.

Her Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Cookey all the way from NM to Lititz.

Great-Auntie Susan from WV.

Our dear friends Emily and John from the UAE (definitely the farthest but they did have other reasons for being in the area:)

One of my closest friends, April, and her husband, Shane (who chose not to be photoed) from Dallas. (Michael and April actually went to prom together one year too - just a little trivial knowledge for you.)

Another of our closest friends and wedding speech makers, Graham, and his new love, Susana made a special trip from D.C.

The Courturiers and the Dunns from Lititz.

Auntie Jami (aka Tante) had already met Michaela in Germany when she was just a few weeks old but made an insane amount of trips back and forth from Philly to Lititz to see Michaela at every opportunity she could during our stay.

Other firsts for Michaela in the U.S.A.

Her first real, belly laugh occurred while playing with her Gramps on this bed on July 13. I could even hear the giggling from the other room. Unfortunately, we don't have a pic of that exact moment, but the two of them spent a lot of time playing and bouncing on the bed during the trip. As you can see in this pic, he used his bouncing on the bed to put babies to sleep skill that he acquired 33 years ago from a similar baby, Auntie Jami.

First family wedding - cousins Damien and Maryia - in Maine, July 17. As you can see, Grandpa also has the touch with Michaela after all his practice 28 years ago with her same exact temperament daddy.

First time to Hosanna, the church where her daddy grew up going and where her grandma works, July 26.

First time cooking with Grammy, Aug. 3.

More to come at a later date.

Michaela's First Night in the U.S.A.

Michaela's first night consisted of sleeping through dinner (cause it was nighttime for us) and then waking briefly to meet both her grandfathers and great-grandmother and see her grandmas again. I tried to upload the pics of her grandfathers holding her for the first time, but I don't think it's going to work, so you will see them holding her in future posts. :)

Happy Birthday Grandma Smith!

On our trip, Michaela got to meet her grandfathers, uncle, and some of her great-grandparents. One of the highlights was when she met her great-grandma Smith who turned 93 yesterday! Happy Birthday, Grandma! Michaela can't wait to see you again soon!

Absenteeism

Hello! Just wanted to apologize for the long period of no blogging. We had a wonderful trip back to the States for the majority of July into the first week of August, and it is taking me awhile to get back in the groove. Really there is so much to blog about with Michaela meeting so many people while we were home that I was procrastinating it more because I didn't know where to start exactly. Michaela had a lot of firsts in the past month, and so I guess we will start here with a photo of her first flight. It was July 12th, and she did great! (which was an answer to prayer) About 4 hours into the flight, she got a little fussy, so we took turns bouncing her in the back of the plane for about an hour, and then I was able to sit with her, feed her, etc. She was even entertained for almost an hour just looking at a magazine, and then proceeded to fall asleep as we landed (her usual bedtime in Germany and right after this photo was taken hence the sleepy look). The flight back here was even better because she slept the entire flight since it was night time on the East coast. More to come about our trip soon.