2010 in Photos

2010 was quite a year for us. We spent quit a lot of time apart but the time we spent together we made the most of it.

We started the year off enjoying Hawaii together with a local hike ending at a nice cold waterfall.

In March while Gil and my Dad were both gone for work, my Mom flew to Hawaii to surprise me for my 25th birthday.

In June Gil took a lot of long lunches and time off to come home and watch the World Cup. We had lots of early mornings and donuts for several weeks while the games were on.
We finally got to spend a 4th of July together in Hawaii. We cooked a big dinner then took Kai down to the water and watched the fireworks.
July we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary with an amazing dinner in Honolulu at a Sicilian restaurant.

In August we moved to a brand new house on base.

All the while this stuff was going on, my belly was growing bigger and bigger with our baby girl.

September started with the purchase of a new car after my little Focus died.

And just two weeks later we welcomed Aubrie Ann Desroches into our family!

We had newborn and family photos taken when Aubrie was 2 weeks old.
We spent October enjoying our new family and getting Gil ready for deployment. We celebrated Thanksgiving, Gil's 25th Birthday and Christmas all in one night.
The end of October we said goodbye to Daddy.
And celebrated our first Halloween as a little ladybug.
November took us to the Zoo for the first time...
and to the airport for our first flight of 5 by the age of 15 weeks!
Not only did we fly across the country we then drove for 2 days to Ohio to celebrate Thanksgiving with family.
We received our first photo of Gil and his marines in December. We were very happy to see his smiling face (even if he was forced into the photo!)
We took a trip to the Yankee Candle Factory were Aubrie met Santa Claus.
And on December 25th we celebrated Christmas with the whole Desroches Gang.
By the end of December we enjoyed our first snowfall and made little baby snow angels.
We rung in the new year by meeting Great-Grandma Desroches and all of our Aunts, Uncles and Cousins...
And having some Mommy/Daughter time while we waited for Daddy's phone call.
2010 was an amazing year and we are excited to be in 2011 (the year Daddy comes home!) We are looking forward to Gil coming home, enjoying time together as our new family and moving back to the mainland!

We wish you all a wonderful 2011!

And A New Christmas Tradition Was Born

Today's adventure took us to The Yankee Candle Co. in South Deerfield, MA. Yes, they have all the candles you could ever want but even better they have all these little Christmas villages, kitchen and country stores and so much more!

Our first stop was to see Mr. and Mrs. Claus. Unlike Santa at the mall (who we saw yesterday.) Mr. Claus at Yankee Candle was so JOLLY! He sat in his work shop surrounded by toys and letters from all the little children. He even had a real beard! He spent 5 mins. or more talking to each child and you could take all the pictures you wanted.

Aubrie did so great! Here are a few pictures we took today with Santa.

Here I am trying to get her to smile for Santa.

After Santa we stopped for some hot chocolate at Mrs. Claus Cafe and to feed Aubrie. That is about the time that I decided that this has to become a Christmas tradition. Anytime we come up to NH for Christmas we have to go to Yankee Candle, get our picture taken with Santa and pick out our ornaments for the year.

I was very excited to have found Gil's ornament. I try to have each ornament represent something from the past year. I really wanted to find an ornament that would represent Gil in Afghanistan over Christmas. I was lucky enough to find a guy dressed in full cami's, helmet, vest, gun and all. We had it personalized with "2010 Afghanistan." I also found a cute stocking stuffer for Aubrie and Kai.

After our hot chocolate break we strolled through the "Black Forest" it began to snow...or we waited the 4 minutes like the sign said ("Snow's every 4 minutes") to see it. Either way it was really pretty and Aubrie just stared at it as it fell on her.

We found these great big bears in the forest and couldn't resist taking a picture with them. They are so big compared to Aubrie...or even me for that matter.
We had so much fun walking through all the shops that just oozed Christmas.

On another happy note, Aubrie was awake almost all day, so I think...or hope that she will sleep really well tonight.

After Yankee Candle we decided to stop at a candy store that we saw on "The Best Thing I Ever Ate - Nutty Episode" Alex Guarnaschelli said that the dark chocolate dixies at Richardson' Candy Kitchen was the best nutty thing she had ever had. Now, I watch this show regularly and have been waiting for the day to be able to actually go and try one of their favorites so, I was really excited to find out that this candy shop was right down the road from Yankee Candle. I always wondered if the things they chose were really that great. Well we just had a dark chocolate dixie after dinner and I have to say, they really are that great! So if you live in the area stop by and if you don't you can order them online!

Our next Christmas activity is finally buying our tree (tomorrow) and building a gingerbread house. As soon as I find a kit like this one...

It must be a no-bake kit...last time I tried to bake one myself it was a disaster. This year I want it to be enjoyable and we all know that the fun part is decorating it, not baking it!

Hope you are all enjoying the holiday season!

Happy Birthday Gil!

Happy Birthday from your girls!

Thinking of you on your Birthday,

Wishing we could be together to celebrate!

The Girls...

I haven't been that great at keeping this blog up to date but then again since we got back from Ohio for Thanksgiving we haven't been doing to much other than shopping, trying to stay warm and being easily entertained by Aubrie, Kai & Hattie.

Here are a few pictures of the girls that have been filling our day full of laughs.

Kai watching the neighbors with her little friend.
Aubrie loves to stick out her tongue and slobber all over her hands.
That puppy from the first picture...is no more!
My mom was working on more items for her etsy shop (Hattie Designs) and I am in the process of getting my etsy shop open so we were busy working on the dining room table. We wanted to give Aubrie a little tummy time but it's a little hard to do with two big dogs who haven't learned you can't lick the baby so she had supervised tummy time...and eventually fell asleep, at our office...the table!
I just love this picture.
Aubrie has become very focused on whatever we are doing. Whether it is surfing the internet, reading a book or cooking.
All that reading is very tiring...
We got a new play mat for Aubrie and as much as she likes it...I think Kai likes it even more!
All set to go shopping and get some new clothes.
First snow on the ground calls for a walk...snow suits are still a bit big on her but we just couldn't miss out on the snowy walk.
We also had our 2 month appointment. She was great. She got 3 shots and cried for all of 5 secs. She now weights 10 lbs 10 oz and is 22 and 3/4 ins. long. Our pediatrician while we are here is very nice and thorough. Aubrie also had her appointment with the orthopedic specialist who said she looks great. We will have another appointment at 6 months in HI but there are no more signs hip dysplasia! We have ourselves a happy healthy baby!

From Hawaii to New Hampshire

We have been so busy I don't really know where to start so I will use a selection of photos to explain.

Before we left for NH we were lucky enough to skype with Gil. Where he is stationed he only has a phone but about once a month he goes to another base where they have computers and internet. It was really nice to be able to see him and he got to see how much Aubrie had grown since he left. Aubrie was awake for about the first 10 minutes of our conversation and was all smiles which was really nice!

We practiced using the moby wrap before we left and Aubrie loved it; both times we used it, she fell asleep.
We had brunch with the girls the day before we left. It was sad to say goodbye for 3 months. Parker and Aubrie will be so big the next we all get together!
We went from one extreme to the other. Once we arrived in NH Aubrie learned all about hats and snowsuits!
Kai is making herself right at home. I think me and my girls are going to enjoy our time in hopefully snowy NH this winter.
Aubrie jumped right into her flannel once arriving in New England.
My first morning waking up at my parents there were a few snow flurries. Nothing substantial but it was still exciting. Kai has no idea what she is getting herself into. Below is me and the pups watching those few flakes.

Past Few Weeks With Our Baby Girl...

I know it has been quite some time since I last posted...about 6 weeks actually. We have been pretty busy since September 21st. I thought I would be one of those people that once I had the baby I would stay at home for about the first month and just enjoy being at home but we ended up being really busy. We were out and about just a few days after we got home from the hospital.

We were mostly busy getting things ready for the upcoming deployment...some things were fun (like buying children's books for Aubrie for us to record Gil reading to her) some things were just business (like power of attorney's and deployment meetings.)

We did managed to get in a few fun events before Gil left. One day Gil surprised us with tickets to Cirque du Soleil: Alegria. A friend of ours let us use his apartment since he was out of town so we packed what seemed like everything we owned and traveled down to Waikiki and made a night of it. The show was amazing and Aubrie did great. She slept through the first half, ate during intermission and dozed during the second half.

The family at Cirque du Soleil

So Gil's surprise for us was Cirque du Soleil; our surprise for Gil was Merry-Hallo-Thanks-Birth-Mas. We celebrated all the holidays Gil would be missing the rest of the year. We decorated, carved our pumpkin, had a Thanksgiving/Christmas meal opened presents (deployment and birthday presents)and sang Happy Birthday over a cream puff 'cupcake.' It was a lot of fun and Gil was completely surprised.

Aubrie dressed for the occasion in her halloween tutu onsie!

Excited about surprising Daddy!

Our signage explaining the day we were getting ready to celebrate.

Eating our Thanksgiving/Christmas meal.

We combined our favorite dishes from the two holidays.

Singing "Happy Birthday"

Enjoying some family time the night before Gil left.

Sunday we celebrated Aubrie's first Halloween. We dressed her as a little ladybug. We sat on our front steps and passed out candy to all the cute little kids. There were quit a few clever costumes as well. One family that had three kids dressed as Rock, Paper, Scissors and an older kid had a t-shirt with little cereal boxes on it and blood...he was a "Cereal Killer"!

Our little ladybug and our pumpkin we carved with Daddy.

I loved the little wings on her back.

On another note I have started to learn how to get things done when she doesn't want to sleep or sit in her bouncy chair. Sometimes you just want to be held by mommy which is where the Bjorn comes in!

Cooking dinner with Mommy!

Lastly, we have had our last doctors appointment with Dr. Durkin for Aubrie's hips. Since she was born breach there is a concern for hip dsyplasia. She showed a few signs so we had an ultrasound done at 2 weeks and 6 weeks. If it doesn't correct itself she will have to wear a pavlic harness, which is more upsetting to Mommy than her. Our appointment today showed that her right hip has corrected itself and her left hip is only 2 degrees off. Since she has gotten so much better Dr. Durkin thinks her left hip will fix itself so we are going to have another scan in about a month and from there we will determine if she needs the harness. It looks like we may get away without having a harness at all which would make me very happy!

We are in Hawaii for another 2 weeks then Mom, Baby, Grandma and puppy all fly to NH for the holiday season. We will be in Ohio for Thanksgiving, New Hampshire for Christmas and Florida for New Years.

I will try to start posting more regularly now that we have somewhat of a routine down.

Till next time.