A visit to the Ouma and Oupa

So sorry for the long blog world absence, but yes, we are back and lots of pictures to share!! Malone and I ventured out and traveled together for the first time this week. We went to Alabama to visit my parents and little sister and Malone's Ouma and Oupa and Tannie Christelly. *Ouma is Grandma in Afrikaans, Oupa is Grandpa and Tannie is Aunt. We had such a splendid time visiting with one another. But instead of me narrating to you about it, I'll explain the whole story in pictures.

I admittedly was a bit nervous traveling with a three month old. So, like any neurotic new mom I called the airline a few days ahead and asked a poor customer service agent a million and one questions. My friend Hillarie volunteered to take us to the airport in Lawton (the closest semi-large town about an hour away) early Tuesday morning. We headed out wondering if there really was an airport in such a small town and soon found out that there indeed was an airport although it was little more than a building, strip of pavement and 2 airplanes. Let no one say that I was not prepared for everything but a hurricane!Picture 1: Here we are on our layover in Dallas, stroller, car seat, and backpack filled with everything I could possibly need for a few weeks. Imagine trying to go through airport security where I had take Malone out, hold her, break everything down, take off my shoes, put everything through the x-ray machines, all while holding Malone with one arm, and then setting everything back up again. Needless to say, next time I think I'll take it a bit easier on the stuff.

Malone did great and slept on most of our flights...to the great delight of everyone on board who was visibly nervous about the lady with lots of stuff and a baby.
Picture 2: Here is Malone on her first flight ever. Apparently they are very serious about the fact that the baby HAS TO sit by the window. I found this out after the flight attendant repeatedly made an announcement on the plane PA system saying, "Ma'am, the baby has to be by the window." It took me a little while realizing she was talking to me :)

Finally, we arrived in Birmingham where we were met by my parents. It was love at first sight, Malone and the family. Everyone fighting over who would get to hold her, play with her and rock her to sleep....with the exception of changing diapers. My dad informed me that part of being an Oupa was that you no longer had to change diapers :) Tannie Christelly blew on Maloney's belly to make her laugh and had numerous photo sessions with her.Ouma rocked her to sleep, worked on her hand/eye coordination, held her, and played with her endlessly.Oupa would come first thing in the morning to make Malone smile and giggle with his stories and even had "tummy time" with her on the floor.Oh, and they did their part to make sure that she will be a bi-lingual baby, speaking only Afrikaans to her the whole week.

We also had a few visitors who came to meet Malone. Malone and I worked very hard on her first impressions, but alas, I think she missed the part where you are not supposed to scream a lot when there is new people. That and how farting in front of people was a bit of a faux pas. On Thursday afternoon, one of my best friends, Emily came to see Malone and visit with me. We had a great time catching up.

Then Friday night the Oom Johan and Tannie Karin, longtime South African family friends of ours arrived for a nice weekend visit. Saturday morning we woke up, drank some tea and ate beskuit (very South African) and later had a nice brunch outside while the sun was warming us up nicely. Malone just sat on Ouma's lap and looked at all the people, even joining in the conversation a bit. Later, Christelly and I had the best bike ride ever! All in all just a great weekend. Here's Malone fascinated by my mom's coffee cup.

Uncle JD sent Malone a beautiful pink blanket as well as a lovely letter written in Afrikaans. My mom is reading it to Malone.

By the way, in the midst of our trip Cameron and I finally officially became homeowners as we closed on our new house. Here's a picture of our house. I'll put up a few more pictures in a few days.

Sadly, our lovely time with the family had to come to an end. I packed up our stuff, which somehow had increased quite a bit since I had arrived, and we were off to the airport. We truly enjoyed the trip so much and I'm sure Malone will miss her Ouma, Oupa and Tannie Christelly very much.



Here some more pictures for you:

Malone trying to figure out what's going on as we're on the airplane.

Just for cuteness.

How cute is she when she wakes up?

Malone loved the swing at Ouma and Oupa's house. She tried to hard to play with her toys.

She was soooo tired when she would take a nap. It would take forever for her to fall asleep because she was just too interested in everything going on.

Auntie Christelle and Malone bonding a bit.

2 month check-up

Malone had kind of a hard day on Monday. First, she didn't sleep so well the night before because there were heavy thunderstorms, sirens going off due to the very close proximity of a tornado and then the tv on for a few hours (I was a bit freaked out and had to track the storm at 3am). We were hoping that Monday would be a great day, Malone's 2 month doctor's check-up.

The good news is that she has gained 3 lbs and 2 inches, just perfect. She is in the 50th percentile for her weight and head size and in the 75th percentile for her height. The doctor said that he liked her curves....ha ha...growth curves, that is. So yay, for Malone growing!!!

Not so yay for what had to happen next, her first immunizations. Missy was already getting hungry and tired, so she didn't need a reason to be cranky. Four needles shoved into her little thighs, one drink of some sort of gross immunization, blood on her clothes and lots of pitiful goat screaming later and she had had enough! But now she is protected from all kinds of gross bacteria and diseases, so it is kind of worth it.....I think.

Picture 1: Look at her little legs. Note the blood on the bottom of her little onesy. Ouch :(
Picture 2: Here's the other little leg
Picture 3: Her sleepy, groggy, scared face all day Monday

In other news, I think Malone is having a style identity crises. I don't think she can decide whether to be a ghetto gangster or a punk rock star. My vote is for the punk rock star.

Picture 4: Her ghetto gangster self relaxing while waiting for her homeboys to bring her some food.

Picture 5: Her punk rock self practicing singing into her...ehm...microphone...
Isn't she getting beautiful? Just too cute!

Picture 6 & 7: Just hanging out while mom folds the laundry. I think the camera kind of scares her...she always looks terrified.

Sleeping/Napping Shenanigans

I hate naps. I mean, I love naps but I'm a bad nap taker. Everyday, I desperately want to take a nap, just to rest my eyes for a few minutes, but the cost is too high for me. You see, I can't take a cat nap because it takes me forever to fall asleep during the day, one of many reasons I should never be a grave-shift worker. Rather, I have to take a REAL good, long nap in order to feel like its worth it. But who has time to take a two hour nap? And this is the bad part, then I wake up groggy, in a slumber and just plain in a bad mood. Cameron on the other hand is the king of naps. He can take a 5 minute nap and feel as fresh as a daisy in Spring. My dad, too, is a good napper, laying down for his 15 minute cat nap after lunch is a daily ritual (he gets up so early that it is only expected for someone to take a nap midday). Not me.

You know who else is a bad napper? Yep, Miss Malone. She whines, cries, rubs her eyes red, scratches her face and tries to break the world record for longest eating session when its nap time. And when she's finally asleep, its like a game of Russian Roulette, will she really sleep or is she just faking it? **Side note: anyone have any advice on getting her to nap better? Oh, and I forgot to mention that when she does nap well (my lucky day!!!) she wakes up not in a good mood. I think I can hear my parents rejoicing as they read this, thinking "Oh the irony of Karma!"

Keeping all this in mind, Cameron and I REJOICE every morning when she wakes up, because she wakes up in the best, cutest, most cuddly of moods, all full of smiles and giggles. I think its my favorite time of day. So in honor of Malone and her crazy sleeping/ waking up shenanigans, I'm posting some pictures of her when she woke up this morning.

Waking Up
Picture 1: She just woke up and is starting to smile because she saw us. Ooh , she looks a bit rough...look at that bed head.
Picture 2: Look at that goofy smile...I think she got a bit over-excited.
Picture 3: Beautiful smile

Awake
Picture 4:Here's smiling Malone. Obviously glad to be awake and looking a bit more pulled together.
Picture 5: Here's scared Malone. " What? I'm going to have to take a nap?"
Nap Time
Picture 6: Will she or won't she? Note how proper she is folding her hands one over another. Cameron and I were catching up on some LOST episodes while she was napping yesterday. It lasted about 15 minutes.

Happy Easter

**I wrote this yesterday, but little missy wouldn't let me finish it, so pretend today is yesterday!***

Today is Easter Sunday, one of my favorite days of the year. It is a day that signifies life, light and new beginnings. We woke up pretty early in order to get ready for church on time. There is no room for "fashionably late entrance" on Easter Sunday. Plus, we decided to go to church on Base and wasn't quite sure how many people there will be. Cameron looked quite handsome in his dress clothes and I have to admit I didn't look too shabby either even though an Easter pastel color was nowhere in sight in my outfit (who remembers to pack an Easter outfit 2 months ahead of time?). But the one who stole the show was our little girl. Dressed to the tees with her pink dress (courtesy of Kenzie Kotby) white socks and white dress shoes, she wowed everyone who laid eyes on her. If only we could get her hair to lay flat!

We enjoyed church and then celebrated the resurrection of our Lord with a nice Easter Brunch Buffet at the Officer's Club. Oohh, it was so good! We enjoyed a spread of the best kinds of Brunch foods. We enjoyed the food so much that we needed to rest and recuperate a little afterward. And that is where we are at in our day, full, still coming out of our afternoon slumber and deciding what to do for the rest of our day. This is the best Sunday afternoon ever!

Here's some pictures of our little Easter bunny:

Picture 1: Look at that cute outfit!
Picture 2 & 3: Malone and her handsome daddy










Picture 4: Malone and mommy
Picture 5: There were little bloomers to go with the dress. They were a bit big...

Picture 6: She's posing
Picture 7: We went for a little workout...she even has her workout outfit on.

2 month birthday!!

I know its been 10 days since I last made a posting, a fact I am shamefully admitting. However, I want to make sure that your visit to my blog is worthwhile and since our minutes are not all full of excitement I collected our newsworthy moments for a post like this.

We've been enjoying lots of family time lately because Cameron has been doing his C-17 training at night instead of during the day. Malone has really enjoyed some extra time with her daddy. She loves the songs he makes up for her and appreciates his crawling coaching. She is growing like a weed. We've noticed that she looks a bit chubbier (only to make her cuter), especially in her cheeks and legs. Here's a nice chubby picture of her in her car seat.

Check out those cheeks.
Here's a nice one where you can see the rolls on her legs....FABULOUS!!! She was really excited to go on a walk.
But not to worry, she doesn't just lazy around all day, she's working on her sitting and spitting up skills. She is getting so strong. We bought her this awesome little chair to help her with her sitting up. She loves her chair even though she just has little 5 minutes stints in it at this point. Here she is trying out her Bumbo chair.

The weather has really been warming up, making it really nice for us to go on walks around the base in her sweet stroller. The other day, we put on Malone's first summer outfit, a sunny yellow tennis dress. I think its a sign of things to come, Malone playing tennis with mommy and daddy. How yuppy of us?! Here's some pictures of her in her super cute summer tennis outfit.

She was kind of giggly and getting sleepy so not so sturdy in the neck and body department.We've come to realize that Malone doesn't like pacifiers. How? By her vehemently spitting them out with disgust every time we try to put one in her mouth. She doesn't suck her thumb either. Rather she sucks her whole hand! Its so funny to see.

She randomly fell asleep the other day on her Boppy pillow. Cameron and I call this her lazy boy...and she fell asleep on it without us even noticing. I think we were doing something and all of a sudden she got kind of quiet (which made me nervous) and I looked over and she was doing the eyelid dance. The eyelid dance is when someone is so tired, but they are desperately trying to stay awake. So their eyelids kind of dance between being closed and open. Then all of a sudden she was out like a light, with her hands resting perfectly on her belly. SO cute!

Last but not least she is a squabbling machine. She is making all kinds of noises that sometimes even resemble words. Every once in a while Cameron and I will look at each other in amazement and ask, "Did she just say 'hello'?" We love hearing her interacting with us a bit more and can't wait until she can actually talk. Here's one last picture for you of Malone and her big beautiful blue eyes.
We are so thankful to have this little girl. It feels like she has always been in our little family. So here's a toast to Malone and her 2 month birthday! Hip, Hip Hooray!