Video Games

What is the obsession with video games? Justin just purchased a Playstation 3 for himself tonight. He had already gone on Ebay and purchased a soccer game BEFORE he even had the system! The postman delivered the game today and he promptly went to the store and bought it. Not only that, he bought ANOTHER game while he was buying the system. So tonight consisted of me doing homework with Justin shooting at Italians and Germans in Sicily in the background. This was our saturday night. He has been talking of buying a video game system since he got home from Iraq. He has done the research for a while and was debating on which one to actually buy. He decided Playstation would be the best out of all of them. I think he has spent more time researching a video game system than the government has with the bail out. And he gets to kill Nazi's in the end.

I guess I will never know what the draw is for spending so much time and energy on researching, planning, buying and playing video games. As for the games, unless you want to kill something, fight something or race something, then you are out of luck. At least for Playstation. He wouldn't buy the Wii. I really would have loved to relive my childhood with some Super Mario Bros...I guess I know what the obsession is.

Liv Chatting Away

Although Olivia can't talk yet, she likes to chat anyway. Her version of chatting could be called growling. She only gets really excited about things like the coaster she is holding. Watch as she tells you all about it.

O at the Beach

Heather decided to try some pig tails on Olivia today. Her hair is just about long enough but I'm not sure how Olivia felt about it, as shown in the picture.

Later, while Heather was at school, Olivia and I decided to go to the beach. It was O's idea. We had a really good time and Olivia couldn't stop chatting. She got a little wet and sandy but had a great time. In case you missed it the first time around, this is the same beach (link here) just about 14 months ago.

Olivia checks out her footprints in the sand.


Olivia checks out the birds further down the beach.


Olivia looks like she can't wait to get a surfboard and ride the waves.


When we left to go home all that was left was her prints in the sand.

Swamped

Hi everyone. We are sorry for being so lax in posting new blogs. We have been swamped lately with Justin's new position at work and me starting school again. We are trying to juggle parenting as well as our other demanding commitments. As you can tell, we are struggling a bit in keeping up with the blog. O turned 13 months today. I can't even remember this time last year when she was just a month old. It seems like so long ago. She is such a big girl now-totally a toddler. She is exerting her independence every chance she gets and figuring out who she is and what she can get away with. She is also teething again; this time with the bigger teeth. This makes for an interesting person at times. I am sure those of you with kids can concur on that one.
Justin has started working in defense now and has to defend the good and the bad in the military. He likes it but was given some big cases right from the start. He is most certainly doing some on-the-job training. This means that he is coming home late and having to do some homework as well. Not an ideal situation but we are coping. As for me, I have jumped in to my fall semester at William and Mary. Of course, homework is coming in every week and I am trying to juggle being a stay-at-home mom with school twice a week. I have a child that has hit the needy stage so it has not been easy getting work done during the day. Ugh.
FYI-We are awaiting our next duty station assignment. We are due to leave Virginia Beach at the end of next summer. We will be going overseas and are hoping for Europe or Pearl Harbor. We will keep everyone posted as soon as we find out. It should be soon...

The Norfolk Botanical Gardens

The Norfolk Botanical Gardens has a children's water park that we took O to on Sunday. She just started walking in earnest and was thrilled to walk through the water fountains. I think she could have spent the entire day walking through the water, but eventually she grew too tired to walk. You can see we got there early and had almost the entire place to ourselves.


O hits the fountains.


O and her friend Ava wait for the fountain to shoot into the air.


O tries to figure out how the fountains work.



O shows off her new found walking skills.

1st Birthday

It's been a really long time since I posted and we had several good pictures to post - so here is a post from me. The first photos are from O's birthday parties in Illinois (yes, she had two) and she was obviously excited to get her first tastes of cake. Olivia had an Olivia themed party in Bloomington. Olivia, along with being my daughter's name, is also the name of a pig in a children's book. We aren't trying to make any kind of statement about Olivia (ours) by comparing her to Olivia (pig) but O is such a big fan that the theme seemed to fit perfectly. For those of you who don't know who Olivia the pig is, you can see her on the table with the cake and presents.


Very first tastes of birthday cake. She is a big fan. This was the maternal birthday party.


Very first time to open birthday presents. I think Heather was more excited, but O did love the paper and boxes.


Olivia themed party table complete with Olivia stuffed animal and cake at the paternal birthday party.


Hmmm, cake #2.


Olivia loved the colors of the wrapping and after her practice at her first party was ready to go with the pulling and tearing.


Olivia and Heather enjoying her first plane ride on the way back from Illinois. She hung in there really well and took a nice nap too!


Wheee, on the swing during the command picnic. We attended the picnic on O's actual birthday.