Peyton laughing in her sleep

She's here!!!

Peyton McGuire was born at 5:14am Sunday morning the 14th. She was 6lbs 11oz and 20in, and is absolutely perfect! Check out snapfish or facebook for pictures.

Monster in my belly

Since no-one can see it in person, I tried to capture the baby moving and kicking again on video. In the 3rd video the baby's moving around a lot at first, but then doesn't move until later in the video after I push down on it (because it felt like it was pushing up into my lungs) :-)

The End of 2009.....The Beginning of 2010

Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and safe traveling. Let me try to catch you all up on what's been going on without writing a novel!

Thanksgiving turned out fantastic. Michael had to work Thanksgiving day but had the whole weekend off, so we celebrated Friday instead. A friend of ours came over with Michael after work Thursday and he spent the weekend with us as well. For dinner we had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, green bean casserole, applesauce, and bread with butter. For dessert we had homemade apple turnovers, pumpkin pie, chocolate rum cake, rice crispy treats, and cupcakes. Our friend (Jeremy) brought over the game Mario Kart for Caleb to play, along with the steering wheel, so he had such a great time playing games with us! We spent all weekend stuffing our faces, playing games together, and just hanging out and enjoying ourselves...it was such a wonderful weekend.

The base had a tree lighting ceremony for the big Christmas tree they had set up. Caleb's teacher set it up so that the class all met up at the library and walked over to the ceremony together. Caleb also gets so excited when he sees his friends outside of school! The Navy band was there playing music, there were various groups of children singing Christmas carols for the crowd, and they had refreshments. I'm not sure how many grades participated, but Caleb's class was one of the classes that made a "Christmas card" that was set up on display at the ceremony. It was a huge poster with all of their hand prints and presents with a child's name on each one. Apparently it was a contest as well, and his class won second place (which was the same prize as first place)...so all of the children and parents get to take an ITT trip together! We haven't found out where or when yet, but Caleb asks about it all the time he's so excited!

Jenna came December 18th and stayed with us until the 30th. For those of you who don't know who Jenna is...she's my best friend that I have known since preschool. It was so great to see her and have company from home for the holidays! Unfortunately we ran into a lot of problems when it came to making plans and getting off the base to explore with her because the Navy picked that week and a half to screw with Michael's schedule and call him in for unexpected meetings and work...but we still had a wonderful visit and got to spend a lot of quality time together! The weekend she got here we took her to Pompeii to explore, got harassed by a scary old lady trying to sell us stuff, and then had her experience true Italian pizza at a little restaurant. Because of all the unexpected switching around and shit the Navy was pulling, that ended up being the only trip we got to take while she was here. We spent a wonderful Christmas together, and then Monday night we went out to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant to let her experience a real Italian dinner. We all tried a dinner and dessert we'd never tried before (mostly because we didn't know what it was when we ordered it...being that it was in Italian haha) and had a phenomenal night! Tuesday was Jenna's last night here, so we got a babysitter and us grownups went to see Avatar, which we all thought was a really good movie. All-in-all it was a great visit and we really enjoyed having her here!

Seeing as how Michael's schedule got switched, he ended up having to work Christmas day and the whole weekend. So we celebrated our Christmas Eve on the 23rd, and did our Christmas day traditions on the real Christmas Eve. Our friend Jeremy managed to get Christmas Eve off so he came over to spend the holiday with us as well. Our Christmas Eve tradition is a big seafood dinner...so we had fried calamari (I actually had to clean and prepare the fresh stuff...so that was a new experience!), fried shrimp, baked clams, gnocchi, green beans, corn, applesauce, and we baked up a ham. It was SOOO yummy! For dessert we had mississippi mud and Christmas cookies. I let everyone else pick what kind of cookies they wanted and we ended up with chocolate chip, peanut butter, cut outs, and peanut butter blossoms. Next year I think we'll shoot for something new! Caleb went nuts over all of his gifts...he definitely made out really good this year! He got lots of toys like cars/trucks/tractors, action figures and transformers, a pirate ship, games, kitchen playdough set, etc. He also got lots of new clothes, two pair of sneakers, art easel, football, baseball bat/glove/teeball kit, and a bike. He got a really neat clock from my friend Jenna that not only shows the time but will also say the time for you when you press a button. It also glows red or green depending on how you set it up...so that your child will know when it's time for them to get up and when it's time to sleep. There is also a game that helps them learn time, but we haven't tried out that feature yet. This was a great idea considering the fact that Caleb asks what time it is about every 10 minutes throughout the day...now instead of asking us we'll just hear his clock telling him all day long! The couple that I babysit for also bought a vtech camera for Caleb that takes over 400 pictures, lets you do fun little edits, and also has games. We can hook it up to the computer and upload the pictures, so I'll have to get to that one of these days so you can all see the world through the eyes of Caleb! I know there are other things he got, but I can't remember it all to list right at this moment!

We had a very quiet, alcohol-free New Years by ourselves this year. Not that we don't love and appreciate having company over, but we decided to take a little break and have some "us" time! The Italians out in town started shooting off fireworks in the afternoon. Around 11pm New Years Eve they kicked it into high gear! Michael and I have never seen anything like it in our lives, not even on tv. It was a grand-finale that was spread across the entire horizon in a 365 degree circle around the base....miles and miles in every direction...and it lasted nonstop until close to 2am. There's no way I can describe how awesome it was.

Not much else has been going on. The past couple months we've been busy with the holidays and lots of company over all the time, so things are just slowing down and going back to normal now. Caleb has been out of school for 2 weeks, but he finally goes back tomorrow. Michael is getting switched back to working nights the middle of January unfortunately...but hopefully that means he'll be switching back to days not long after the baby is born. Keep your fingers crossed for us. I'm 29 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty large and uncomfortable already! The baby is quite the feisty one, always kicking and punching and rolling around. Lately it's taken to shoving it's arms and legs so far down and to the side it feels like it's almost sitting on my hip bones! We are starting to get pretty excited for the big day and can't believe how fast it's all going by. I also spend a lot of time playing piano again, thanks to my amazing husband! It's so funny because I'll be practicing piano and Caleb will go play his drums at the same time and he will get all excited that we're playing music together!

We have decided to take a little family vacation for the last time before the baby is born. The 15th we'll be driving up north and staying at Camp Darby. The 16th we're going to a ski resort but just plan on spending the day sledding with Caleb and playing in the snow together and having fun. The 17th we're going to go to Florence and experience everything we can there, and then we'll come home on the 18th. We are SO excited for this trip...it has been long overdue!

I uploaded what pictures I have right now onto snapfish and am sending them out. We apologize that a lot of the Christmas pictures came out blurry, but we've been fighting with our camera because it seems to have a mind of it's own sometimes. It's not the best but it gets the job done most of the time. We love and miss all of you, and we hope you are all doing well and keeping healthy! We will send more pictures and update again after our trip up north. Ciao!

Quick December Update

Merry Christmas! Things here are good. I will update more this next week after I've gotten the house back in order and pictures all together...but here are a couple short videos of the baby in the meantime. Watch closely! Hope you all have a happy and healthy new year, and we'll be writing more soon!

...life is good...

Can't believe it's the middle of November already! Time has been flying by for us lately. The family is doing great.

Michael is working dispatch for a little while so that he can expand his training and learn more and different jobs. I'm also very proud to announce that, by request of his chief, Michael will be taking an EMT course to become certified, which would carry over to the U.S. outside of the military as well. It's a very tough one month course that starts the middle of January and goes into February. He has been working days since he went to dispatch, which has also been absolutely wonderful for all of us, as we get to spend a lot more time together.

I have been feeling better than I have in a long time. I finally have some energy back and, as long as I stay away from smells like poop and cigarettes, I don't get sick anymore! I still babysit part time and just take care of Caleb. My college classes will be starting in February...I'm only taking 1-2 classes at a time so it won't be too overwhelming at first. I'm 22 weeks pregnant Monday and definitely showing now.

Caleb is doing fantastic in school. We have been getting nothing but good reports from his teachers about how well he works with the other kids and is excelling for his age. We recently found out about some sports programs that are available to kids his age. Unfortunately it was a little late to get him into the soccer program, but t-ball is starting in April, and they are trying to see if they can set up a basketball program soon.

Good news...we finally have a kitchen table! It's wonderful to be able to sit down together as a family to eat dinner, and it's a damn nice table if I do say so myself. We also ran across a couple dressers that were being given away for free. They're extremely nice, heavy duty dark wood dressers...so for the first time in 2 years we don't have to live out of boxes and suitcases anymore! We also picked up a spare twin size bed the other day, and a good size dresser came with that as well. It's not as heavy duty as ours, but it has a lot of space. I'm making it my project to paint and fix up, and we're going to use it for the baby's room.

Halloween was a blast. Unfortunately, the company we had ordered Caleb's costume from never got it out to us (long story), so we ended up getting him an FBI kit at the NEX. It turned out great though because he plays with it all the time, his favorite thing is the baton to beat up bad guys! That morning Caleb and I got up and went to the breast cancer awareness 5K run/family walk. There was a huge turnout, bigger than anyone expected, so it was really exciting. Caleb had a good time walking with me because he said we were like a parade! They had a lot of tents set up and a big blown up jumping thing for kids, so he had a lot of fun jumping in that too. That evening we all went out trick-or-treating and it was a lot of fun! There were a lot of balconies decorated, kids and adults were running around in costumes, and people were giving out handfuls of candy. A couple times while we were walking, a random adult dressed up in a costume would run up to Caleb and throw a handful of candy into his bag!

Today we spent the day in Pompeii. It is absolutely beautiful there! We spent a good part of the day there, and we probably only saw about 1/4 of it. It's enough to just look around and take in the views and the structures...but if you look closely, there are little carvings and statues and paintings everywhere. We plan on taking at least 1-2 more full day trips there so we can actually see it all. After we were finished walking around the ruins, we walked to a little restaurant just outside of it and had some FANTASTIC Italian pizza. We sat outside at some cute tables underneath a big tent/canopy, and the weather was absolutely perfect the entire day. The paths and walkways in Pompeii are all uneven rocks and big stones, so parts of it were like a hike. If you're not careful you can trip and fall with every step, but we had a great time and couldn't have asked for a better day.

Here are some videos I've taken in the past month or two, and I'm also sending out a link to snapfish for our Halloween/Fall 2009 and Pompeii pictures. We hope you enjoy!

Beginning of September Update

Sorry we haven't updated much lately, life has kept us very busy! I don't have any new pictures or videos to share right now, but I will get some to post soon. Now that I'm pregnant, we're eligible for a 3-bedroom on base...so we spent this past labor day weekend moving ourselves into our new place. We couldn't be happier with the apartment! There is a ton more room in the living room, lots more cupboard space in the kitchen, two bathrooms, a separate laundry room, and obviously an extra bedroom for the baby. The balcony off of the living room is a little smaller than the old place, but it's still perfect for us, and we also have a small balcony off of our bedroom (that also links up to the baby's room). We have a couple more things to get, and then I'll make a video to show you all what it looks like here. We have also gotten extremely lucky when it comes to appliances! We have a brand new washer, new microwave, brand new fridge and dishwasher, the showers look almost new with no mildew whatsoever (much different from the old place), and we now have a big extra freezer that we got for free! Some people moved out downstairs and left it, so Michael went and talked to the people down there and they let us have it. A freezer that size goes for around 300euro here, so we are VERY fortunate!

Michael is doing great. He finished one of his online classes, is still taking another, and a new one will start this next month I believe. He has been doing great in school, works hard every night (can't wait until he works days again!), and spends lots of time with us. In the next few months he should hopefully be able to start talking to his detailer to start negotiating his next set of orders. I pray to God he doesn't have to do a year unaccompanied tour, but unfortunately it's a good possibility. Things change every day, and they're always making new rules and switching people around, so who knows what will happen by then.

I am doing pretty good as well. Overall, I'm feeling a lot better than I have been the past couple months, but I have my good days and my bad days. I'm still babysitting a couple days a week, one baby in the mornings and one in the evenings. Besides that I just spend my days with Caleb and do lots of reading and research about natural births. I'm really pushing to have a home birth, but no-one out here has dealt with that before and is having a hard time giving me answers right away, so it's taking time to work things out. There are a few different possibilities at this point, and thankfully I have a couple people who are helping me out now with finding answers, so cross your fingers!

Caleb got accepted to school!!! We are SO excited for him! He is supposed to start September 15th, and it's Monday through Friday from 7:55am-1:30pm. It is going to be a wonderful experience for him, and he is really happy as well because he loves school. If he hadn't gotten accepted we would've continued taking him to the "drop-off" program, but this will be much better for him because he will actually learn things, instead of just going to play for a couple hours. This will also be a great opportunity for him to meet more kids his own age, since all of the kids in his class are 4, turning 5.

We went out to dinner at our first real Italian restaurant this past Saturday night, and it was fantastic! We got there around 7:30pm and opened the restaurant...since most Italian restaurants don't open until 8-9pm. They started us out with a taste of the house wine and little pieces of some sort of sandwich with vegetables on it, and then a basket of some sort of really good crusty herb bread with pieces of meat in it (which was all free). Caleb wanted pizza, so I ordered him pizza for 6euro, thinking it would just be a big slice of pizza, but instead he got an 8 piece pizza all to himself! Michael and I got appetizers of the most fantastic mozzarella cheese I've ever tasted, surrounded by paper thin slices of ham. For dinner, Michael had a lobster and pasta dish, and I had pasta and scampi topped with tomatoes. It was delicious! Throughout dinner they also gave us more free bread, but this time it was a plate with some sort of a breadstick tasting bread that was cut like slices of pizza. Afterwards, we all had a little gelato. Some people say that there are better restaurants and food than this one, but this was our first real Italian restaurant, and we thought it was a great time and great food!