Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Alek....almost 4 months














































I cannot believe he is almost 4 months. He has come so far and impressed us so much! He has his two bottom teeth in and is getting his two top ones. He seems to do alright with teething. It has been 7 years since I have had to deal with the whole baby teething thing! It seems like Iam new at it again! haha! But he doesnt really fuss a whole lot, just chews on his hands and drools everywhere. Poor baby! But he is doing really good. He is rolling everywhere. Its hard to change his diaper because he wants to move around! haha! he will roll over to his belly and kind of do a little army crawl type thing. Still hasnt figured out how to do it and go, but he is working on it! Right now, he just rolls to get where he needs to go! haha! He weighs about 16lbs ( he has made up for lost time!). He didnt get to eat for the first 26 days of his life, so he is definetly doing well now. He eats about 6 oz with rice in each bottle and one jar of baby food with each feeding. He has such a great personality. Alek is usually always in a good mood. Unless he is tired or hungrey. He is like his mommy and gets cranky when he is tired. :) He laughs about everything and it almost seems like he is trying to talk, he will look at the stickers on his wall and stare very hard at them and kind of make a " bbbbbb" sound. A little while before he starts talking.....but he is trying!


















Finally in Arizona!










































































































His mom and step dad







Our house



Us on our long road trip and Alek sound asleep in the back :)

Cj, Ricky, and Alek


Cj's Grandma, Cj, Ricky, and Alek



It has been such a long time since we wrote in this! We finally got set up in Tucson ( we LOVE it) and got our house. We have nothing IN the house yet, but we have a house. All of our household goods are still in shipment to come here. They said it can take up to 4 months. So, as of now, we have an air mattress and a computer in the house and thats it! haha! After we got to Arizona, we decided to take some leave and go see the family. Since, I have YET to meet my in-laws we drove to Florida. It was a great time! Cj's family lives outside of Gainesville and in Panama City. So we drove out there ( about 28 hours with all of the stopping for bottle time for Alek) in our NEW truck! Nothing like putting it to the test the day we get it, right!? We litterally got the truck, and about 3 hours later were on the road! Since I have never really seen the desert, I was taking all these pictures of the mountains, cactus, and....dirt. After about....19 hours of nothing but desert, I was ready to never see it again! So anyway, after a long, long, lonnnng trip we finally arrived in Florida! I finally met Cj's parents ( which I feel like I knew before then already because we talked so much). Then we drove down to see his grandma ( who makes quite possibly the best lemon meringue pie I have ever had!!). I met Ricky finally! Who is a little image of Cj. I put Cj, Ricky, and Alek together and they all look identical! haha! Very cute. Ricky is 6 ( going on 26). I cant wait to get Ricky and Jonathan together. They will have so much fun.






























We drove down to see my grandma in Venice, and my aunt happened to be there. So I got to visit with them. Which was awesome, because it has been a long time! (Living in Japan does that).






























After about a week and a half, we said our good-bye and got on the road. We were suppose to go to michigan to see my family and get some of my furniture up there, but money got tight. We put more down on the truck than we had planned so it might our trip short. So, anyway, we got on the road back home. Alek did soo good on the trip! He barely made a sound, he would start to fuss when he would get hungrey and we would pull over to a rest stop or gas station to feed him and get right back on the road, and he would fall right back asleep! So we finally got back into Tucson, and got our base housing all set up. We were going to buy, but decided that we would stay on base and save more and find a good house that we really love since we will be here for a while before we buy. So thats what we did. We got offered a house immediatly. We got very lucky, they just got done building new houses on base and we got into a house right after they finished building it! It is amazing. Very nice. A lot nicer than the houses on Kadena in Japan, I must say. We have a three bedroom, three bathroom house....best of all...we have grass in the backyard! haha! At first the backyard was just dirt, and I told Cj that was so weird to me, growing up in Michigan there is obviously grass everywhere and everything is GREEN! Here...its all desert and dirt! So as you can imagine I was very happy about the fact we have grass in the backyard! Tucson is absolutly beautiful. I have never seen the mountains before, so before CJ went back to work we did a little exploring. He was stationed here before he went to Japan, so he knows the area pretty well. So he showed me around, and I fell in love instantly. We went to the top Mt. Lemon at night. It was beautiful. Our plan is to go camping up there when Jonathan and Ricky get here. :)