We're BACK!

We have officially come back to the blogging world! I didn't add a new post all summer. The last one I did was in May...whoops! So, we've had a super busy summer, what can I say? We had visitors all of August, which was spectacular! Bill and Ruth(in-laws) came first, then Jordan(my sister), and finally Granny Alice(my grandma-in-law :). It was a super filled month!!

Now things have finally slowed down, for the time being, and I promise I will continue to keep this updated!

Now a little info about my favorite baby in the whole world. Well, he isn't really a baby anymore, more like a toddler.

--He is 13 months old! On August 9th, he turned 1!

--He officially has 4 teeth and 3 more working on coming in. He is such a cheeser when he smiles, you can see all of them :)

Smile!

--He almost weighs 21 pounds. Not exactly sure how long he is...

--He loves peanut butter toast, blueberry muffins, prunes, yogurt, steamed carrots, and ICE CREAM! Just like his daddy!

Messy eater...cupcake for his birthday!

--He can say: mama, dada, ball, dog, Snoop(ssspp), and grandpa(pampa).
--He likes to play with his doggy, his vacuum, his wagon, and basketball hoop.

--He really likes to run from daddy, try to get into Snoops water and food bowls (as fast a possible, before we catch him), explore the fridge, listen and look at books, hum while mommy is singing to him, dance, and take baths.

--He sleeps like a champ. Sleeps through the night and usually takes two 1-2 hour naps a day.

--He is going to be a class clown. He loves making people laugh and if you are laughing at something he is doing, he will keep doing it until you stop :)

--He can almost walk. This past weekend, he took a couple of steps all by himself. He will walk if he is holding mommy or daddy's finger. Almost there! He wants to do it sooo bad.

So, I was saying that things have finally slowed down, but I take that back now. In just a few days they are going to go crazy again. Billy leaves for 2 weeks this Friday. Towards the end of September, Halen and I get to finally meet the beautiful Averi Nicole. Early October, Billy leaves again, for another course. Halen and I will be going back to Iowa around then to visit family and friends, and for Abby's wedding!! Soooo, hide ya kids, hide ya wife, and hide ya husband, 'cause Halen an I are comin to town! :) If you have no idea what I am talking about, disregard that last sentence. Anyway, back to our craziness...In November, Billy will be graduating!! For real, I said graduating!! So we will be having family visit for that awesome day (he is set to graduate Nov. 19th which is also his bday!) Somewhere in there we will be finding out where we are moving to and then in December we will be moving out of Fayetteville and hopefully to Colorado!! Keep your fingers crossed for us! 

 Take care everybody!! I will post again soon!

Silly Baby :)

Funny faces Halen was making when Grandma was taking his picture...

Finally a normal one :)

Grandpa and Halen mowing the lawn

Way too long...

It has been almost a month since I last updated, booooo me. Last time I wrote, it was 2 days after Billy left. I CAN NOT believe he has been gone that long...I sure do miss him a lot. Let's see...where do I even begin??
Halen and I made it back to Iowa safely and it has been wonderful so far. The first weekend, we went to Jordan's wedding shower in DSM. It was great because, I suprised her with a wonderful gift, Amanda! It was so fun, she had no idea that she was coming :) My first big secret that I have EVER kept.

This past weekend, my big brother got married! I am so happy for him. Abby is amazing and they are so perfect together. You can just feel their love for each other. It is a pretty awesome thing. The wedding was so much fun. It was outside at a castle. Gorgeous! I loved having our whole family together. Those are my favorite times, when we are all together. Kimber was the flower girl and she did it! We weren't sure if she would actually walk down the aisle, but she did! She was throwing the flowers out as she walked and when she got to the end of the aisle, she realized she had a lot of flowers left over, so she just turned her basket over and dumped them all out. She makes me laugh.

Last night, Halen and I went and stayed with my sister in Omaha. We went to the Omaha Children's Museum. Halen and Nora (little girl Jord nannies) had lots of fun together. I don't think she quite knows what to think about him. He LOVES her, but when ever he grabs at her, she looks at him like "why are you touching me?"  Hahaha Then we went to Dave and Buster's and I loved it! We were like two little kids running around playing all the games. By the way, I beat my sister at everything. I can't wait to bring Billy there, he will love it too!

Halen is 9 months old! He turned 9 months on Mother's Day! It was a great day! The night before, I got to talk to Billy. I hadn't been expecting to talk to him, so it was an amazing suprise. He is doing good, exhausted but good. He says the hardest part of this all is just being away from us. And as long as he knows we are ok, then he is ok. I miss him a lot...so stinkin much. Everyday that passes, we are one day closer to being together again.

I can't believe how much Halen has grown in the last month. I feel like he is huge now :) He has chubby legs, and big belly. I love it!! He has been eating so good lately that I think he is finally putting on weight. He loves him some baby food, doesn't really matter what kind it is, he will eat it. He tried meat for the first time tonight, turkey, and he liked it. He loves Ritz crackers. And cheese. It is so fun figuring out what he likes and doesn't like. I haven't really come across any food that he doesn't like yet. He used to really only eat veggies, but he loves fruit now too.

Here are some fun new things Halen has learned (or is working on):
*Crawling!!
*He says Mama all the time now! If I walk by him while he is playing he will say it, or when he wants to be picked up! It is the cutest thing!!
*Waving bye-bye
* Giving high fives
*Kisses

He is such an amazing little boy. He is just the happiest little guy. If someone smiles at him, I would say that 95% of the time, he will smile back. He also laughs so much now. I can't believe that God chose us to be his parents. We are so blessed. My little family is my whole world. I feel so lucky to have such an amazing husband and baby boy. I love the life I live.

double ear infection

what the...seriously?? My poor little guy has a double ear infection :( and we discovered it by complete suprise...I took Halen to the doctor today because he stands on his toes. He never stands flat footed. So, I was worried about it; I didn't know if it could be an indication of something...I know, I know, sounds silly. Right before we left, I took his temperature and it was almost 100 degrees. Hmmm....he seemed to be acting fine so i didn't know what was going on. Because of his temperature, the dr checked his ears and found the infections. His first ear infections, so sad...On a positive note, she said that we caught it early, so hopefully the medicine will get rid of it quickly. Oh, and she said he stands on his toes now because it is a reflex. It is nothing to worry about now, but when he starts walking and continues to do it, then we would look into it. But most likely he will just grow out of it.

If Halen feels ok tomorrow, we are going to a friends house to have a playdate! They are always so much fun. And the other 2 babies, Jax and Aubrey, are around Halen's age (a little older), so it's really neat to watch him interact with others. And it's fun to have adult conversations :)

My toes are yummy!

Time for some cleaning and laundry now that Halen is sleeping. Good night everyone!!

Day 2

Day 2 of 547...just kidding, more like 90 days, but who's counting. That would be me...Billy left yesterday morning. He was up bright and early and left around 5:00am. We sure do miss him in this house. But everyday that passes is one day closer to when we will get to see him again.

Today was a really good day! Halen and I started the day off with mommies group, then we had lunch at Jax and Jenna's, Halen took a 2 hour nap!!!, and finally we went for a walk with Snoop. It has been so nice here lately and they finally opened up our pool. Mary is on top of it, she LOVES the pool. If she could she would probably be out there all day. I love that girl :) Anyway, we took Halen out there yesterday. The water was super cold, so I just dipped his feet in...he didn't cry, but I think that is because he was in shock. We didn't try any more after that. We just took a little nap together in the shade.

18 days until we are back in Iowa. Oh, my, I am excited! Jordan's shower is that Sunday when we get back and I am so excited to see all the girls! It has been way too long. She is going to be Mrs. Beynon very soon! She is going to be a gorgeous bride! 

Tulip time here we come!! I missed it last year, so I am super excited to be going and bringing Halen :) Can't wait to see all of our family while we are there! 

                         
                                                         Sweet dreams everyone!

Half of my heart is off in the woods somewhere...

Billy left yesterday morning to do his land navigation. So, right now he is out in the wilderness, trying to find his points. I can't talk to him until he gets back tomorrow, but I bet today was pretty rough. The high here was around 94 degrees. I took the trash out earlier and got the mail and by the time I got back to the apartment, I was sweating. And they have to wear their uniforms (there is a name for them, but suprise, I forgot)...hot, hot, hot. This no communication thing really stinks. He will be home tomorrow :) But...he will then leave again on Monday for 3 months :( And we can't talk during that time either. That is the hardest part for me. I obviously hate when he is gone, but I can deal with it when I get to talk to him. He is my best friend and I am really going to miss him. Halen is going to miss his daddy too.

On a positive note, we got a new camcorder! I am super excited about it! We got it so that I can record all of the new things Halen learns while Billy is gone. He won't miss a thing. I already have some really cute ones to show him when he gets home tomorrow. I am going to experiment and see if I can upload a video onto here. Wish me luck!

Halen is thisclose to crawling. He wants to SO bad. He rocks and rocks and usually yells while he is doing it. I think he is telling me he is frustrated when he does this :) Since he can't quite crawl yet, he has two new methods. For the first one, he scoots both of his knees forward at the same time. He doesn't cover a lot of ground with this manuver. He also gets into the crawling position and then gets on his toes, sticks his butt way up and then belly flops forward. LOL He covers more ground doing this, but it can't feel good on his little belly. Billy is really really hoping that he crawls before he leaves on Monday. I hope so too.

25 days until Halen and I are back in Iowa! I can't believe Christopher's wedding is almost here. I am so excited for him and Abby. They are so good together :) It is going to be a gorgeous wedding. Can not wait!! Miss you brother! And I miss my sister and other brother too :)

Joe (Billy's brother) came to visit this weekend. We had so much fun with him. The timing worked out great, he was able to spend a lot of time with Billy. He got here on Friday and left this morning. We went putt-putt golfing, (I didn't get last...that award goes to Mary haha), played tons of games, ate out a lot, watched quite a few basketball games, and even went to the beach yesterday. We were very glad that he was able to come all the way across the country to visit us :) Oh, and he is so good with Halen. Halen is lucky to have such a wonderful uncle :) We miss you already Joe!!

Counting down the hours until my hubby gets home! I love you William!

The Fox family has a lot of new things going on lately...First with Halen news...

-He can sit up all by himself now. He is such a big boy!

-Halen is now big enough to sit in his highchair to eat...which is wonderful for mommy, because now eating isn't such a disaster.

-He can do push-ups now...at least this is what daddy calls them :) He has been trying really hard lately to get into the crawling position, he just hasn't learned to put his knees down yet. He is also pushing himself backwards. He wants to move SO bad. He sees his friend Jax or other babies at Mommies Group crawling all over and he wants to join them.

-He sleeps completely through the night now. He goes to bed at 6 or 6:30 and usually doesn't wake up until 6:30 or 7 the next morning. I think he sleeps so well at night because he isn't such a good napper during the day...He will take a few half an hour naps throughout the day, but usually not more than that. I guess he just doesn't want to miss out on any of the action during the day :)

Now for Billy news...

-He finished his language course finally. He tested today and will find out in a few days how he did. I know he did great! And I am really proud of him...now on to the next step...which is good and bad...good because he is one step closer to finishing the course, and bad because he will be leaving us soon :( 

In Nikki news...

-I booked our flight home!! Halen and I will be home May 1st through June. Can not wait!