EARLY RELEASE

We found out a week or so ago that Ryan will be coming home early!!! YEAH!!

He's scheduled to leave about September 10th and it usually takes at least a couple of weeks for him to fly back to the states and to demobilize. So by the time he actually gets back it will be around the 24th of Sept to the First of October. After that he should have about 20 days of pay available. We were originally talking about waiting for him to come home and then moving but have decided maybe it would be better to get the kids started in school in VA in September instead of moving them after 4 weeks. So, all of the original plans our gone and I'm on the hunt for a place to live. If I find something then we will move earlier but I'm sure we won't go until the end of the summer. This could still change depending on if we find somewhere that we like and if I decide to wait for Ryan to help me move the family. So I'll keep you all posted.

We're excited to finally have him home for good. It's been a long year and a half since he first left for Qatar.

Zadek's 12 month stats

So he's officially one year and that means more shots!!! Poor kids, can't we just leave them alone. He finally cut his 7th tooth on Sunday and is now feeling better and I take him to the Dr for 3 more shots. So, my biggest question this time was is he still going to be small. Because he seems huge and at his last appointment I had just switched him to formula and he was only in the 10th percentile on weight. So I wanted to know if he started growing faster because of the formula, plus he just seems humongous. Especially next to his little cousins. Drum roll please!!!

Height: 29.75 in 50%

Weight: 21lbs 7 oz 25%

Head: 47 cm 60% (although there was some speculation that this calculation was probably off a little because last time he was in the 25% as well and as we all know not every calculation is correct. At Zadek's two week appointment he was 2 inches shorter than when he was born)

So, yes he is small for his age group!! And, my smallest baby at this point! Even smaller than Javin was. However, Javin was 25% on weight but 90% on height so he just seemed littler. And of course Cael was 90% on everything!

My monster is actually a little on the small side. CRAZY!!

Zadek's Birthday

Living in Utah sure has it's perks if you're a birthday boy!!! So many people to love you and make a fuss over you! I'm sure glad we got to celebrate with everyone! Thank you so much for making his first birthday a great one

Party with the Parker Family

I loved this cake out of cupcakes. I was going to do the same type of cake for both parties but couldn't resist this one.

Opening presents was a little bit tricky at first but he soon got into the groove. And of course he had all of his cousins and brothers to help him.

While this wasn't the first cake of his life it certainly was the first that I've ever let him do by himself. At first he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. But he certainly got over that by the end. As you can see in the next picture.

By the end of the night he had just had way too much fun!! Good thing uncle Zane was around to let him veg with a toy for a little bit.

Party with the Thompson family!!

Grandma and Papa were nice enough to let us have Zadek's party at their house. We decided to make a dirt cake in a dump truck. Cael helped me pick out a construction hat pinata and another game.

We started the night roasting hot dogs followed by marshmallows. Of course there was a lot of jumping on the tramp and playing in the sand box as well. The kids love to play at grandmas. Even Zadek wanted his turn in the fire pit. I don't know if it's irresponsible to take this picture and then try to stop him from putting his hand in the fire or if I should have maybe just stopped him? Oh well it's a cute picture.

Zadek sure loves getting new toys and presents!! And his brothers sure love to help him open them.

This is a sucker from the pinata. I have to say it was the first one of his short little life. He really did love it!!!

And of course the famous cake pictures. Every one year old has to have one!!

As you can see not shy at all this time!! Although it did take him awhile to dig in because he was fascinated by the fork and gummy worm that were also on the plate.

Random pictures

Since it's been forever since I've posted on here I decided to just do a short post with some random pictures from the spring.

Spring means soccer, well so does fall in the house, but we had a fun spring soccer season!! Javin was one of the best goalies on his team. He is super competitive and just can't stand to have the other team score. He will sacrifice his body in order to stop that ball. He's also great at all of the positions but played goalie a lot because he pretty much stopped everything that came his way.

Cael actually had fun this season. The kid can run forever! He isn't as in there as some of the kids but it will come with practice. I loved going to his games just to watch everyone run with the ball in a cluster even when it went out of bounds. Cael is a great ball handler and had tons of fun.

This is just a random picture of everyone playing. Zadek just loves to play with his brothers and they are super good about his crawling all over them and getting into all of their things.

Gina brought these back from Florida and they were super excited to eat them.

We all went to Park City this year with Grandma and Grandpa. It snowed while we were up there so instead of walking main street and shopping at the outlets we ended up at the new bowling alley. It was the nicest bowling alley I've ever been to. Some of the kids got bored after a few tries but not Javin! He not only bowled for himself but ended up bowling for a couple of the other kids as well.

Cael had a really great time in preschool this year. On the last day of school they had a circus party and their teacher dressed up like a clown and painted every one's faces. He says it was tons of fun and they even got to eat ice cream.

While he isn't walking on his own yet, Zadek sure loves to walk along all of the furniture and is always using things as walkers to walk across the house. He loves laundry days so he can push the laundry baskets all around. Now, he uses his dump truck and pushes it everywhere. I'm pretty sure he could walk by himself but he's just taking his time. Once he actually lets go he'll be unstoppable

He's 9 months old

Can you believe how time has flown and my little baby is 9 months old now. On his nine month old birthday he was switched to bottles because those lovely teeth are not so fun when they are biting you!! He actually switched over really well and I think I have to say thank you to his cousins who have been frequenting my house. He has been trying with no avail to get their bottles and when I finally gave him one of his own he was happy. SInce switching he is now sleeping through the night for 8 hour stretches. Totally awesome!! anyway I took him and Cael to the Dr on Wednesday for their well visit checks.

Zadek
Height: 28 1/2 in 50%
weight: 18# 7 oz 10%


SERIOUSLY he's a small baby. You should see all of these rolls. It's hard to believe that he's small for his age because he's a huge baby

Cael
I know he turned 4, 3 months ago but with the moving and everything it took a little longer than planned. Hes' 50% on height and weight. He was also really mad at me because he got a flu shot and it hurt. I finally got him better and what do I do give him the flu on purpose am I crazy or what


Zadek is such a fun good baby. He yells when he wants to eat. He says momma all the time and loves to be big just like his older brothers. He can get anywhere he wants and is just generally crazy. He's tons of fun. Cael is about the funniest kid I know. I love the things he comes up with. I am constantly laughing. He has started writing his full name which is quite long. Caellum Mack Thompson. Javin is the best reader ever. He just got the DIary of a whimpy kid series and is reading them super fast. He's helping a lot around the house and of course he always loves the babies.

Generally we're doing well. It's taken a lot of adjustment to having Ryan gone. Speaking of which he left Monday night and is still not in Afghanistan yet. Who knows if he'll ever actually get there. We miss him a ton but are glad that he is fulfilling his responsibilties and as always working hard. I've been sending him tons of videos and when I get around to ever putting them on the computer I'll post them as well. I'm grateful for all of the love and support from everyone.

MILITARY LIFE

Ryan left on the 9th of January. He went to Columbia SC first. He ended up staying there for about 12 days. Since we used to live in Augusta we have been to Columbia many times. He did some inprocessing and is now back at Goodfellow Airforce Base in San Angelo Texas. This is where he did his AIT training when he was in the military so he is familiar with the base. He thinks he'll be there for a few weeks and then be assigned a unit. The kids and I are living with my parents. Javin has started school here and I think is slowly making friends. We also found a preschool for Caellum and are settling into life here. It's really nice to be close to family.

Fall Fun!!

I didn't take any pictures of Thanksgiving since it was just our family but as Javin would say, I made a feast!! It was the day after Thanksgiving that I was proud of. This is a turkey pot pie using our leftovers. The thing that the kids loved were the initials of everyone in our family on top. I have to say, I'm getting pretty good at pies. We had a great day and are thankful that Ryan got to be here with us.

Recently we had Zadek's 6 month check up. His stats:

Height: 27 in

Weight:17 lbs

I've been thinking he's humongous and then while I was packing and going through our important documents I found all of the stats from Javin's well baby appointments. I always remember Javin being super tall and skinny (I guess compared to Caellum anything was) Javin's 6 month stats were height: 27 1/2 in and weight: 16.4 lbs So, I guess Zadek really isn't so huge. He's right on par to what Javin was. He's gone down on all of his percentages but he's so full of rolls. The Dr's aren't worried about the drop. He's sitting on his own, can roll both ways, and generally wants to be just like his brothers. Every night we have to dance with him and fight with dad, Javin and Cael

.

Also, Caellum turned 4. Can you believe it!! My kids just keep growing and I can't make them stop. He had a toy story cake and then pirate decorations. He chose to make pizza and then we had to get a ton of decorations. He was super excited that Papa was here the weekend after his birthday so he could go for his traditional birthday breakfast. I can't believe how big he is getting.

Don't you love all of my pirates?

WE'RE MOVING!!!

So, on December 2nd we found out that Ryan's request for an exemption from deployment with the army was officially denied. In other words, he's going to be leaving for Afghanistan on Jan 9. After much debate we decided to hurry and move over the holidays so that he could see his family one last time before leaving and I can get Javin started in school at the first of January. We're really sad that he has to leave us again after only being home for a few months from Qatar but we're grateful that at least he gets to spend Christmas with us and see his family first. His approximate date of return is March 9 2012. Everyone cross your fingers that they don't extend him past that. When he comes home he will still have his job here so we'll be moving back. In the meantime, I've had 15 days to get the entire house packed up, into storage, and moved back to Utah. Let the craziness commence. Somewhere in there I need to remember that it's Christmas too. The boys have been super helpful and it's been nice to have Keith here on the weekends to help out a little bit too. So, Utah here we come!!