Pacific Ocean

We've been in the States for almost two weeks now and I've yet to write a blog so shame on me. I'll be sure to write about Reese's first adventures next time I get a chance, but right now I'm sitting in the Disneyland Hotel while the rest of my family is asleep so I decided I'd post some pics of Reese's first beach trip.

We flew down to Orange County this morning for our Glass Family vacation to Disneyland. We weren't going to Disneyland until to tomorrow and since my parents were going to a museum exhibit today I decided it would be the perfect chance to take Reese to the ocean and indoctrinate her in the ways of ocean appreciation. So after we checked into the hotel and dropped my parents off at the museum Nate and I wheeled the "orange dream machine", that would be a lovely burnt orange minivan, over to Huntington Beach. When we first got there Reese was loving it, there was a nice breeze on her face and she enjoyed watching the waves and listening to the noises. Then I put her feet in the sand which she felt indifferent towards until a wave came up and tickled her toes. She didn't quite seem to know what to think of it but then when I dipped her little feet in a little more she decided the water was a bit too cold for her taste and we got the sour fat lip face. We didn't stay long, but I'm pleased that from my vantage point she seemed to enjoy her first trip to the Pacific.

Showing Off

I got the video of Reese rolling over a lot faster than I thought I would. We had Finding Nemo on while we were playing with our sea creature stuffed animals and when I put her on her stomach she was a rolling over machine. I secretly think she was trying to get a better view of the tv, but hey whatever works. When I tried to tape her from the front she would look at me and then just lay there, she's too smart to perform, so I had to take the video from the side. Anyways, here she is in all her rolling over glory.

WE ROLL OVER!!

Footage of said milestone coming as soon as I catch her on camera. She did it twice today but as soon as I got the camera out to tape her, her sixth sense kicked in and she went limp. Hopefully it won't take as long to get this as it did to get a photo of her smiling.

All Smiles

Sometimes life is going so well that you don't even feel the need to strangle T-Com when the internet goes out for the 9 billionth time; life is just that way for us right now and I'm loving it. It may have taken three months but I finally have all my energy back and I'm getting things done at a ridiculous pace. I feel like someone flipped a switch and I'm no longer constantly tired and struggling just to make it through the day, instead Reese and I are on a roll getting things done and it's a nice change considering how long the list is of things we need to get taken care of before we go on vacation in two weeks. I think this weekend was the turning point in the battle of motivation, Reese and I went on a Mother-Daughter outing to the mall in Koblenz since Nate was working 12 hour night shifts all weekend and sleeping the majority of the day. When we came back from a long day of shopping, which by the way Reese was totally into, we set to work getting the multi-purpose guest room all set up and then boxing up some baby stuff that Reese had outgrown. That was actually a really sad task because as I looked at the little pink turtle jammies that she had worn home from the hospital I realized how much she had grown in the last three months and how much she had changed in other ways as well. Then Sunday night after Reese went to bed I went down to the basement and organized all our boxes in preparation for the other boxes I was going to be bringing down, you have to admit it takes a pretty motivated person to organize a basement. Now we're just taking a break from our final steps of getting things done and I'm quite proud of myself. I look around and my house looks the way I want it to, granted I still need to hang some picture frames and eventually I want to paint the hallway, but our house is a home now and it feels nice.

Puppy Princess

Jaeger is all about comfort to the point that she'll randomly go off and find what she deems to be the most comfortable location in the house to sleep which last night happened to be a pile of old blankets and a big pillow that was sitting in the entry way.

Usually she just naps on the blanket that she commandeered from me or one of the throw pillows on the couch, but every once in awhile, when I toss the throw pillows on the floor for whatever reason, she'll act like true royalty and leave her post on the couch to go lay on the massive pile of pillows. It's quite entertaining to watch her scale a wobbly pile of pillows in order to mount her throne. You also have to be careful in the evening if you get up and leave for a second Jaeger will slide in and steal your spot almost everytime. As I'm typing this Nate got up to get something to drink and came back to find Jaeger laying on the pillow he was using, oh and she is refusing to get up despite his threat to aly on her. Now as you can imagine Jaeger's desire to be in the most comfortable position often leads her to try and lay on Reese's quilt or mat or anything else that she knows she's not supposed to be on. The other day as I was feeding Reese I looked up to see Jaeger slowly twisting herself into the perfect position in Reese's boppy pillow. She looked so cute that I just let her stay there.

Now since I'm already on the subject of Jaeger I'll continue to say that her and Reese are getting along very well. Reese has gotten to the point that when she sees Jaeger she'll smile and Jaeger will try and cuddle up next to Reese when she's playing on her playmat. Jaeger is also very helpful when it comes to watching Reese, a few times now I've left Reese in her swing asleep while I go try and get somethings done and when I leave I'll jokingly tell Jaeger to babysit Reese. Well if Reese starts crying while I'm gone Jaeger doesn't like the noise so she'll come find me. That's a pretty good babysitter if you ask me.

Somedays

As I was reading through my friends' blogs this evening, Mark's comments on being a temporary stay at home dad made me think about my own experiences at home with Reese over the past nearly 3 months. I never thought that being home with Reese would be that much work, I mean I didn't think it would be easy but I definitely didn't think everyday would be filled with attempts at accomplishing things. Like Mark, I assumed I would be able to get everything done that I needed to while Reese was sleeping because I had witnessed my mom do it while babysitting my niece numerous times before. However I'm learning that it's not as easy as she made it look.

Most days my living room is littered with toys (both dog and baby) and blankets and other random objects, the dishes don't always get done right away and that last load of laundry always seems to sit in the dryer for a day or so before I go down and get it out. We've been living in this house for a month and a half and there are still things that don't yet have a place and a room full of things to be put in the plastic bins and stored. It seems that whenever I get going on a project or even simply washing the dishes, Reese decides that she doesn't want me to leave the room and I don't care what people say I'm completely incapable of cleaning with her strapped to me in the baby bjorn. Somedays she'll play quite contently alone on her playmat while I pick up the living room, and somedays she'll sit in her bouncer chair and watch me cook or do the dishes as long as I pretend I'm the star of a cooking show and describe everything I'm doing to her in detail, somedays she'll even take an afternoon nap for more than a half hour. Then there are the days, which are the majority of the time, when I just can't take my eyes off of her because I realize how fast time is going bye and how someday she won't need or want me by her side. So in the mean time I just consider myself lucky to have a husband who helps out so much and doesn't mind the days when he comes home to a frozen pizza and a sinkful of dishes. I know I'm not supermom and I don't expect I ever will be, but Reese is happy and the way she looks at me makes me realize that I don't need to be.

Spangdahlem Open House

This past Saturday our base had an open house so that all the local nationals and military members could come on base and see the various airplanes and other equipment that we have. It was a really nice day so Nate and I decided to take Reese over. I admit that I was really excited and Nate was less than excited about coming since these are the things he sees everyday at work, but once we got there he was really excited to show me the different things.
Reese and I with an A-10 Reese and Nate with an F-16 Reese driving a "jammer" just like Nate does at work
Reese riding on a bomb
Nate showing Reese some of the missiles he works with Getting my hands on a rocket launcher
Sizing Reese up against a mortar shell
Nate and Reese preparing to board a C-130
Reese finding herself a seat on a C-130

Moving and the 4th of July

Nate, Reese, Jaeger and I are no longer residents of Binsfeld, Germany...we now reside in Arenrath which is all of about 3 miles from Binsfeld. We had decided back in March, when we found out that we would be adding 3 years to our stay in Germany, that we wanted to move to a larger house after Reese was born. Finding places out here that are nice and functional is a little difficult to do because Germans build their homes in a very closed off way, there is no openness to the space so things often feel very cramped. Plus there aren't any built in closets so when you look at a room you have to imagine the space that the wardrobes are going to take up in it. Luckily enough, a guy from Nate's shop was moving out of a house in Arenrath and we decided to move in. It's a two story house plus it has a basement and an attic, which is nice because we had zero storage space at our last home. Downstairs there is a large office, a living room, a dining room, a guest bathroom, and a super dinky kitchen (I'll post some pics a little later). Upstairs there are 3 bedrooms and a really nice large bathroom. Basically we have all the space we were looking for and it's nice to have a guest bathroom that doesn't contain the only shower in the house and the washing machine like the last place did. In fact, here we have a laundry room in the basement with an AMERICAN WASHER AND DRYER!!!!! That won't mean much if you haven't seen a german washer dryer, but the german ones are really really small, like they only fit 3 bath towels kind of small, so it takes FOREVER to do the laundry. Plus at the old house I had to take the laundry from the washer and go outside and down to the garage to put it in the dryer, not the most convenient set up. Another bonus of our new place is that we have our own backyard which Jaeger really enjoys. There are definetly things we miss about our old place, but all in all we're very happy with our new place.

Well since we moved into our new house the end of June we decided to have some friends over for a BBQ for the 4th of July. We had a lot of food and Nate even talked everyone into playing Rock Band, which for the record I like to play but he always wants to play so it gets a little old. Once it got somewhat dark we went over to base for the fireworks show which was actually really good. Reese was really cranky when we got there, but she fell asleep a few minutes before the show started and didn't wake up despite the ridiculously loud booms. I admit I was a little scared for her hearing so I covered her ears and held her super close to me. Oh and the next day I checked her hearing by dropping stuff behind her and seeing if it startled her, it did so I guess she didn't have any damage.

Internet=Bad Mommy

They finally sent a tech out yesterday to fix whatever was stopping my internet from working so I'm back online now. Granted when I woke up this morning it was off again and I had to call the help desk and get it fixed so I'm skeptical of how long it will be on this time, maybe I'll have to call the help line every morning to get it turned on. Truth be told, calling the help line is always an interesting situation since my German isn't fantastic (although I've recently been told otherwise....yup that's me patting myself on the back) and it definetly does not cover technical topics. Most the time I get someone who knows enough english that between the two of us we're fine, but other times we have to rely on my German and it's a little touch and go.

Anyways, it's back on now which means that I have a lot of stuff to catch up on and the one who gets to suffer is my poor child. This is the current scene at my house:

That's right, it's one o'clock in the afternoon and Reese is still in her pajamas, asleep in her chair. Granted she's quite content but I still feel a little bad.

Stupid Fat T-Com

So we have no internet at our house and we haven't had any internet at our house for a long time, 3 weeks to be exact, but I came over to the coffee shop to post a couple of pics so you can all see how big my little girl has gotten in the past 3 weeks. She's simply adorable and I promise as soon as our internet is back up I'll regale you with all the amazing stories of the past 3 weeks.

The one short story that I can fit in before the coffee shop closes and kicks me out is of our first somewhat long outing with Reese. We went to Cologne Cathedral last Saturday because Nate's mom was visiting and that was one of the things she wanted to see. So I get up that morning and pack Reese's bag with tons of diapers and wipes and a complete change of clothes and 4 bottles just in case something happens and.....well you get the point that I was trying to be super prepared. So just before we're going to leave I feed her and tell Nate that I'm going to change her diaper right afterward. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked getting things ready and forgot to change her diaper. Anyways, we make the hour and a half journey to Cologne, finally find parking which is a nightmare there in and of itself, and make our way to the cathedral. When we get inside I take Reese out of her carseat to notice that her diaper was leaked and her pants are soaking wet....this is when I remember that I forgot to change her diaper. So Nate and I leave the cathedral to look for a place to change her, the only possible place was a McDonald's on the corner but there was no countertop or changing table or any place other than the bathroom floor to change her so we ended up on a parkbench outside the cathedral trying to discreetly change her diaper and her clothes. Now I stress that we were trying to be discreet because this lady and her 4 year-old come walking over right when we're in the middle of trying to do this just to see Reese. I mean come on folks, when you see me changing my kid, wait til I'm done and then come over to admire the baby. Who walks over to look at your kid when she's naked?!?! Anyways, we got her changed just as it started to rain so we rushed back inside the cathedral. The only damage done for the day was the the adorable outfit I had previously had her in was not in any pictures and instead she's rockin sweats. What can you do? Lesson learned.