It’s Official
For those of you that haven’t heard yet, Tobin received nonconcurrent orders a week or so ago. That just means that Bristol and I can’t go with him; unless, that is, we’re willing to rent in Minot somewhere. Which we are; however, the housing situation in Minot is ugly right now with the after-effects of the flood. Renting is expensive or nonexistent, and buying a home is not really something we want to do.
Our solution is for Tobin to go ahead and live in the dorms on base while Bristol, the dogs, and I head north to Chicago for the time being. We’re on a waiting list to live on base. The wait times are unknown, ranging from the official 12 months to the unofficial 5 months to the rumored 2-3 months. I’m hoping for 2 or less!
It is probable that Tobin will be deploying in April, so I hope to be living in Minot by then. If not, Bristol and I will head to North Dakota to see him off.
It’s crazy to me that our time here in Barksdale in almost over already. The moving company packs us up on Thursday, and we’re planning to drive out of here on the 24th. It will be a busy 2 weeks!
Skeletor Baby Shower
Our friends Dale and Mary Frances Russell are expecting a baby this spring, so we threw them a baby shower today. At their anatomy ultrasound visit, the tech kept calling the baby “Skeletor”, and the nickname has stuck. So we planned the theme for the party around that name; incidentally, it was pretty much a Halloween themed baby shower. :) I made the food while our good friend Margaret planned the games and made the cake & favors. (thank the Lord, game-planning is not one of my strengths) Thanks to her creativity, we ended up with a daddy-long-leg (for the dad) and “Mummy” (for the mom) theme for the food. Cute! Here are the results.
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- Daddy Long Leg Avocado Sandwiches
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- Mummy hot dogs with cheese
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- Mummy pizzas
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- Green punch
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- Margaret’s cake…she hand drew that skeleton! Wow.
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- Margaret’s amazing masterpiece, the Skeletor Candy Land
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- Skeletor game pieces for the Candy-Land board
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- Don’t land on the black holes.
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- Playing Skeletor Candy Land; the mom-to-be is in white with boots.
Someone Turns One!
Enjoy some preliminary pictures from Bristol’s first birthday! We had nicer photos taken by our amazing friend, Kristen, but those aren’t back yet.
Bad idea of the day…take photos of Bristol right when she wakes up! Ah, memories.
Ok, we calmed her down and she’s looking more awake. Only partially dressed, however. We had a 50′s themed party for her, so the rest of her outfit is a poodle skirt with a tutu underneath.
No sewing for this mama! All I did was iron on some appliques to a white onesie, cut a simple felt poodle skirt, iron on a poodle, and cut & tie a simple ribbon tutu. Easy peasy!
Bristol was a tad frightened of her pokey tutu. It was better once we got the poodle skirt on.
And these are all the photos I have! Totally left the camera behind as we had at least 14 adults and 5 or 6 kids in the house that day. Happy birthday, Bristol!
Christmas Videos
In the first video, Bristol shows off her present-opening skills. In the second video, she does something unexpectedly sweet.
Bolton Christmas
Videos to come soon!
Merry Christmas! Well, for us anyway. We opened up all the Bolton presents we had in the house, including presents from Norma Jean.
Bristol was very excited to begin! ”Where’s my presents, Dad?”
Titus and Rogue were very excited too, but they weren’t quite sure why.
A photo of one of my presents, though this is nowhere near all I got. Thanks, Gma Norma Jean!
Bristol was a pro at opening gifts! Good thing since she got so many! She got a baby doll, a baby doll blanket, a BIG blanket, puzzles, books, and socks, among other things. Wow!
Part of Tobin’s haul: a shadow box! We were stoked about this one, since there is a lot of military paraphernalia we would love to display as Tobin collects it.
In Bristol’s stocking was a coloring book and crayons; here is her first attempt at coloring! As you can see, she has minimalist tendencies, more about precision really than about volume of color. Look at that little hand in the corner! Precious.
And once we finished opening gifts, I wrapped a bunch. Now we’re ready for the Rumley Christmas next weekend! Sad, none of these are for me. :)
Surprises from Bristol
Every day I find out how much I’m underestimating my daughter! Today, for instance, I was reading her a book about animals. I pointed at the duck and said “quack”. She crawled off and I rolled my eyes, thinking she was done with reading. Then she turned around and handed me her toy duck. I always say “quack” when she plays with that duck. It’s crazy that she can put that together on her own!
The other day I was dressing Andersen and she had crawled off with his socks. She came back but had left the socks behind. I said “Where are his socks?” And she crawled back to the foyer, opened the dog’s crate, and went inside to get the socks she had left there! She even brought them back to me with a tad bit of coaching. WHAT?! I had no idea she understood me so well.
At the table, Tobin decided to give her food on a fork. She picked it right up and fed herself! I would never have thought to let her try on her own yet, but she was definitely ready. My goodness.
And last but NOT least, she’s taking teeny tiny steps all on her own! I wouldn’t say she’s exactly walking on her own yet, but she’s taking adventurous attempts at it! She does the best when she tries all on her own.
Making our home more beautiful
One pillow at a time!
This is a super belated post, but I made these lovelies ages ago to make our living room a bit more homey. Not homely. Homey.
Couches before:
Couches after:
Halloween 2011
Here they are…the long awaited pictures of Bristol’s Halloween costume. We had the great pleasure of having Tobin’s parents in town for the holiday and his older brother as well.
Template created from cardboard and some handy-dandy online instructions:
Fabric pieces cut to the shape of the template:
Modeling the pieces sewn together…almost done!
Our sweet Bristol Sprout! The hat was stitched up by her grandma Jacque, and I think it really brings the whole ensemble together, don’t you? Hehehe, we couldn’t stop laughing when Bristol tried bear-crawling in this get up!
Bristol Sprout and her buddy Davy Crockett. :) He thought her costume was very comfortable.
Bristol is shocked by Uncle Bill’s choice of reading material.
Maybe I’ll have Thanksgiving photos up by Christmas!
Visitors
We got a visit from some good friends (from college), Jesse and Mallissa. And their sweet pooches, Piper and Ziva! We spent yesterday bowling, visiting the El Dorado buffet, and walking the boardwalk.
But today, we got to take a tour of the B52 on base! It was my first time getting to see the guts of the plane!
Mallissa and Bristol driving on the flightline!
Tobin driving to the Buff.
Jesse ready for a good time!
Erin and Andersen enjoying the ride!
The tiny little hatch the crew has to go through to get inside the plane. Can’t even believe it. Tobin’s nav seat is just crammed in there. It was an eye opener for sure!
Sorry about all the red eye. I’m not feelin like editing online at the moment. Well, off to enjoy the rest of our visit and some homemade soup and bread!
Sneak peek
Headed to a 1920′s flashback party yesterday evening! Here we are on our way (better pictures to come):
A little glimpse into my day:
I failed at my attempt at putting up a picture. Maybe next time, folks.
Temporary Picture Hiatus
Just until my little laptop is feeling better. Tobin’s gutting the poor thing, so I don’t have tools on hand to edit photos. Anyone know a way to compress pictures to document size without using an office program? In addition, anyone know how to do that in Picasa?
Until then, I’ll try to keep movies and little wordy posts coming!
Good times
For the 4th of July, we headed to downtown Shreveport and camped out on the top of a parking garage. It was a great view! Here’s our redneck setup in the back of the truck. It felt so nice, since there was a storm blowing in to help ease up on the heat.
Sure enough, the storm started pouring on us and we headed inside the truck. Here’s Bristol, she’s starting to stand while holding onto sturdy objects. So grown up!
An hour later than scheduled (and far past a little squirt’s bedtime), the fireworks show began! It was beautiful, and you can see some of it in my earlier post. Bristol looooved the fireworks! She was so excited, her whole body was shaking! Here she’s watching in papa’s arms.
We headed to brunch one day at a southern breakfast joint (Another Broken Egg), which we found out was quite the preppy place to be! Good thing Bristol came dressed in Ralph Lauren (see below). What a sweetheart!
The week before the 4th (ok, my pictures are a tad out of order, I’ll admit), we got a visit from Grandma Sue, Aunt Emily, Aunt Betsey, and Aunt Elyse! It was so awesome; I have lots more photos, but haven’t sorted through them yet. Here’s one of Gma Sue & Aunt Elyse with B. Bristol has never been held so much in her life as that week! Except maybe the first month of her life. Aunt Elyse was her buddy all week long!
We flew to Ohio for Tobin’s younger brother’s wedding. It was such a wonderful ceremony. Made me tear up! Here’s Bristol in the dress Gma Jacque got for her. I call it her Minnie Mouse dress. So cute!
And just this weekend, we spent a day at the races…a local racetrack (Louisiana Downs) with a group of aviator friends. All the ladies got together and made fabulous hats for the event! Here’s mine, oo la la! Hahaha!
Bristol is learning things so quickly! She’s trying desperately to crawl now. These photos show her planks or baby push-ups. Girl’s stronger than me!
And after she fell down:
I’ll attempt to not be so delayed next time. Enjoy the photos!
trying out a new theme…
It’s the long weekend for us, so I’m fiddling with the site a bit. Leave opinion comments if you have one, good or bad. So far, I’m mostly enjoying playing with a “new” (to me) picture editing program, Picasa. Anyone else have a favorite photo editing program? Is it worth it to go ahead and buy one, or are the available free ones sufficient?
Twenty-One Thousand Words
Bristol’s Easter dress:
Take 2:
Mama & Bristol on Easter Sunday:
We had visitors for Easter, Jesse & Mallissa. They came down from Little Rock before their move to New Mexico. We fried a delicious turkey and put together a huge Easter meal! The lovely flowers were a gift from Mallissa. So sweet…and so pretty!
Fried turkey. Mm mm mm!
Here’s my little Andersen in his cool dude hat.
And some random honey whole wheat bread. This is good stuff!
The picture of Bristol’s first bite of solid food EVER! She’s doing great at it now, didn’t get too much in her this night though.
Tried to get a picture of us in the mirror…not so good at it. She loves sitting here while I brush my teeth or put in my contacts etc. (oh, and we have outlet covers in there now! hehe, for all you worried types)
Birthday boy (a few days early)! This present was wrapped all of 5 minutes. Maybe not even that. He already knew what he was getting anyway!
Sleepy sweetie fell asleep in my arms.
Mother’s Day rolled around, and here’s what we put together for Tobin’s mom. Once Bill deploys, she’ll have sons in 3 different time zones. This way, she doesn’t have to calculate the time constantly, she can just set the clocks. For my mom, we put together a picture calendar. I think that turned out well too, but don’t have a picture of it!
Bristol at 5 months. Laughing at her papa doing something crazy, I’m sure.
Birthday boy at his actual birthday dinner! Grilled steak, grilled corn, and his favorite homemade mac n cheese. Silly me forgot a dessert. What was I thinking???? Someday I’ll be good at this birthday stuff.
Mmm, steak.
My first produce from my garden! These lovelies went in a killer salad made by Tobin. It was awesome! We already have more in the fridge waiting on the next salad. Woohoo!
Homemade flatbread sandwiches. WOW! These were so amazing. We were in a state of euphoria for a couple hours afterwards.
And one of our beautiful pups! Isn’t he great? The other one wasn’t nearby, so she didn’t get her picture taken.
Bristol brushing her teeth! This is part of her nightly routine. She mostly likes chewing on it, I do the brushing part while she makes faces.
Hugging her Build a Bear puppy from the Luke & Lacey clan. The recording always makes her smile!
Video 1 and Video 2 of her listening to the recording. She’s usually more animated, but the camera is a distraction.
Videos, as requested
Alright, ya whiners! Here are some videos. Pictures later. Later, I say!
Operation SSU
Operation Stop the Spit Up has commenced! We started Bristol on rice cereal two days ago in an attempt to slow down the constant stream of spit up we’ve been enduring since she was born. And you know what…so far, it’s been working! Sure, it’s only been two days, but that is a lot of time in Spit Up world. And our clothes and furniture are thanking us! Not the dogs, so much. They loved a good spit up. Gross.
Don’t worry, I have pictures and a video (of course, lol). Unfortunately, I’m on the wrong computer to edit the photos, so I’ll get those up later.
Did y’all know Tobin’s been in training? Heh, it’s already been a month, sorry for the belated news! He’s been in the classroom and the sims; no flight time yet. We’re looking forward to that day! Also, within the next couple of months we should find out which base we’re staying at: Barksdale or Minot.
That’s enough for now.
Easter Eggs, Pasta, and Movies
Grandma Jacque was in town from Saturday afternoon through Monday evening. It was a wonderful visit! Sunday, we spent some time decorating Easter eggs, making homemade pasta, and shopping for Easter baskets (and fillings, mm mm mm). Monday evening, we headed to the airport to drop Jacque off. It always makes us more homesick to see family leaving! We really enjoyed the visit.
Looking forward to celebrating our Savior’s resurrection next Sunday!
GJ with little Bri!
Miss Personality. Ready for some hardcore gardening.
Painting Easter eggs! Which we are fabulously horrible at, apparently.
Uh, helping?
Here’s the finished product. Believe me, the colors look much better in negative. We’re not the most talented egg-painting bunch.
In real colors. Ug.
But apparently we’re not too shabby at making homemade pasta! Last Christmas, GJ bought me a pasta roller for the Kitchen Aid mixer (which Gma Dixie bought me for T & I’s wedding). This is our first attempt at using it! I am making pirogies (sp?) later this week…suuuuper excited!
(Partially) Whole wheat pasta sheets.
Whole wheat pasta sheet being cut into spaghetti. Cool, huh? And it’s so EASY! Pretty quick, too. It fed 3 of us twice and one more meal for 2. Yipes!
GJ and Bristol. In our pretty front yard. :)
Easter baskets! GJ put together the one on the left for Bristol. And I fashioned that handcrafted masterpiece on the right for Tobin. :) Shoulda been an artist. I know. In case you’re wondering, yes, that is a hippo in the baskets. May I recommend Happy Hippos by Kinder (found at World Market). Marvelous piece of crispy & creamy wafer & chocolate. Delicious. And yes, in Bristol’s basket there are two chicks wearing bunny ears. CUTE! Also a WM purchase.
And FINALLY! I got a picture of Bristol’s teeth! Here they are.
And Little Miss working on her sitting skills. Kinda leany, but exciting nonetheless!
Grandma Jacque’s in Town!
So we don’t actually have a picture of Gma Jacque yet, but here’s the ones we did take. We took a hike in a wildlife preserve, which got us good and hungry. Then we headed to the Louisiana Boardwalk to get some delicious burgers from Fuddruckers. That kept us full while we shopped for some items for Bristol & Jacque. We finished up with a stop at Chocolate Crocodile to spend some Easter money. It was a great, tiring day! Check out some photos below.
She’s getting so expressive with her arms!
With Papa!
Hiding from the sun.
Ready to hit the hot LA boardwalk again.
Ok, so these might work better than a blanket!
HAHAHHAHAHAHA! Ohhh, goodness.
Yep.
Awwwww! My babies.
Look! Radishi!
Freshly mulched front flower beds.
And…flowers! Or soon to be flowers!
Teeth!
I tried and tried to get a decent picture of Bristol’s teeth. Here’s a video, though I don’t think you can see much:
And a fun video of B on T’s shoulders:
We’ve been working outside a lot recently. I’ll have a couple pictures up soon of our freshly weeded & mulched front flower beds, and our growing garden!
Better Late than Never
I’ll start out with some videos of Bristol:
BIG NEWS: Bristol got two teeth yesterday AND rolled over for the first time! Here’s how she USED to “roll over”…that silly arm got in the way:
And this is after she figured it out! She was so pleased with herself.
We’ll get a picture of those teeth soon! It’s kinda hard to get her to pose just right.
Here’s Bristol ready for a walk:
The newest member of the family:
More bread making, the first “loaf” bread I’ve made:
Bristol posed for me!
4 month pictures:
This is an outfit from Great Grandma Bolton! It’s one of my new favorites. The hat is hilarious, however! It’s supposed to be tied, but it was too small (Miss Big Head), so I untied it and couldn’t help laughing! Bristol thought it was pretty funny, too. Apparently.
And now GARDEN PHOTOS! We’re pumped about our new garden. We went for about 6 X 15 in size, and ended up buying way too many vegetables for the space. Whoops. Live and learn!
Here’s Tobin roto-tilling. Don’t worry, I helped! Just didn’t take a picture of me.
Garden tilled and planted! We have corn, Big Boy tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, beans, strawberries, peas, onions, carrots, lettuce, and radishes. I didn’t have room for any of the cucumbers, and lots of seedlings & seeds didn’t get planted. Oh man. I’ll do better next time!
This may be a pepper. Or a tomato. Hey, it’s my first garden. I don’t know my plants.
Strawbees! These I actually can identify, they’re pretty easy to recognize.
Um, this is a tomato.
And one last photo of Bristol in a new outfit. Just love it!
Bread Maker
My first foray into bread making:
French bread.
It was ok, but I think I’ll invest in some bread flour and non-expired yeast if this is going to become a habit.
Oh, and of course a photo of Bristol because it happened to be on the camera:
