Congrats, Bud!!!

We had a very exciting Friday morning around here....after many bumps in the road, Bud finally graduated EOD school! He is officially an EOD tech, and has his badge to prove it. He keeps staring at it as if someone is going to take it away, I don't think it has completely sunk in yet that he is DONE!

Not only did he graduate, but he graduated as the honor grad. He finished school with a GPA of 95.4%, which is incredible. During the ceremony, he was brought up in front of the group while the CO of the school talked about what it meant to be honor grad. In order to be eligible for honor grad, you have to have never failed a test twice. Very few people do this, of Bud's class of 13 only 4 were up for honor grad because everyone else had failed at least one test twice. Before the CO presented him with the certificate, he said "Whoever this Marine belongs to should come up and take some pictures, because this is something to be extremely proud of." He apparently wasn't paying attention to the crazy lady (aka me) who had already been sitting to side taking pictures the whole time he talked. :)

We are so excited to be moving soon and Bud can not wait to get to work and start learning more. We have a lot to look forward to! Here are a few pictures from the ceremony and after...

Getting pinned!

His badge...they call it a "crab".

Bud tells me it looks like a crab, my non-creative, black and white mind does not see it.

Bud and the CO of school, getting his honor grad certificate.

Bud and his dad.

Our Little Family

Claire and I are so proud of you, Bud!

3 Months Old!

Where in the world have the last three months gone?

We had a little photo session today...here are my favorites.

I took these all with my new camera that I got for Christmas...it worked so great!! And, Bud is very thankful that I didn't have to go spend $100 to get her picture taken! :)

2 Month Picture and Videos

I never posted the picture of Claire with her puppy at 2 months, so here it is....(Even though she will be 3 months on Tuesday....better late then never, right?)

This was taken literally minutes before we walked out the door for our road trip to MN...and seconds before she spit up alllll down her shirt. Thank goodness she did that before we got her in her seat! :)

Here are a few videos from the last week or so...

Playing in her little ocean-she loves it!

Working on ab muscles with Daddy.

Lacey today--darn cats just torment her! (sorry it's sideways, can't figure out how to turn it! Any ideas?!?)

Christmas Pictures

She absolutely adores this lovie that Grandma Toni got her. I love that she loves to snuggle, it is so precious.


How funny is this? "Are you kidding me, Mom?!?"

My princess in her Christmas dress!

So pretty.

(Not sure why this one is sideways...)

Winter Wonderland!

Meeting Great Granny for the first time.

She did a lot of this with Grandpa Tim.

She loved the lights on the tree! I didn't put one up this year (much to my dismay), so I was really excited to see her reaction to my mom's tree.

Meeting Great Grandma Carey for the first time.

Claire and her daddy
My first picture with my amazing new camera!



As you can see, we had a great time at home this year. It was crazy busy, but Claire had a lot of people she needed to meet! She slept until 8 am almost every day, proving she was just exhausted. She was an absolute angel (almost) the entire time though. And, she was an excellent road tripper, sleeping almost the whole way, just like her momma! :)

In more exciting news, Bud took his VERY LAST test on Friday! He has a few more days of class, but he has officially passed EOD school and is graduating on Friday, January 21st. I am so incredibly proud of him; this was a long year with many, many very early mornings. He worked so hard to get to this point, and we are so excited to get to our next part of our journey. We haven't been able to schedule our move yet due to a 'whoopsie' on admins part, but we are hoping to be outta here by the end of the month.

Funny enough, we will have been here almost exactly a year, which is the longest we have lived in one place since we got married in 2008. We can not wait to get settled somewhere for 3 years...that is going to seem like forever!

Our plan for the next couple weeks is just enjoy our time in Niceville, hopefully go through some boxes and purge (if we haven't touched it in a year, we don't need it, right?), and enjoy our last weekend of company before beginning the crazy moving process again. Although I love having other people pack for me, it would be really great if they would unpack and put it all away too. Sigh.

2010 In Review

This is going to be a ridiculously long post. You have been warned. :)

I didn't send out a Christmas letter this year...I was in a bit of a time crunch and just didn't think it would be worth it, so here is our year in review.

January was spent enjoying our last few weeks in Jacksonville. At the end of the month, we (well, the movers) packed up and headed on a new adventure.

February started with a bang. We moved in to our house on the 1st, I got a positive pregnancy test on the 2nd, and our stuff was delivered on the 3rd. Bud started school and was completely exhausted every day, so we were in bed by about 9 most nights in February. :) Party animals!

In March, I had my first appt for baby and we told our friends and family that Baby #1 was on the way! We got in a trip to the beach, a visit to a museum and lots of eating out as I was way too tired to cook!

The highlight of April was when the Spellman's came to visit. We love having visitors, and it was so great to see them. I also started to get a belly in April, which was very fun.

May was a busy month. I worked a lot of extra hours since I finally had some extra energy. I also made a trip home for my sister's bridal shower. Bud and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary, and we spent a lot of time on our friends boat enjoying the weather before it got too hot.

June 1st we found out we had a Claire on the way! It was a very fun day. I went home again in June, this time for my sister's wedding. It was a great day, and I couldn't be happier for Sarah and Jed. 2 days after the wedding, Bud was in his motorcycle accident that changed the course for the rest of the year. He had surgery and began his long road to recovery. The end of the month seemed to drag on forever.

In July, Bud started to feel much more like himself again, which was wonderful. The Spellman's came to visit over the 4th, and it was a wonderful holiday. We had more visitors the weekend after the Spellman's, and we got Claire's room painted which was a huge job done. We also made a trip to TN for a high school friend's wedding. We made a big purchase at the end of July--I got my 'mommy car'! July was a very busy, but very fun month!

In August, Bud was able to take some leave and go home for a couple weeks, which was really nice. I flew in to town on the tail end of his vacation for my baby shower. It was a great weekend. After that weekend, we were done traveling until Claire arrived. I was starting to get huge, and we were starting to get a little impatient for her to come.

September saw me getting really uncomfortable as my belly continued to grow. Bud was able to get back into class; that was a very happy day in our house! We finished Claire's room, got the house a bit more organized and started to wait for our little lady to make her debut.

Every day for the first half of October, I was hoping and praying that it was "the day". Claire had other plans. She finally arrived on the 18th, and the rest of the month was spent enjoying her and our company.

In November, we started to get in a bit of a routine with the baby and she started sleeping through the night! I was so happy when that day arrived! We had more visitors this month, and enjoyed every day with Claire.

In December we had our first road trip with Claire, along with her first Christmas. We had a fabulous Christmas and really enjoyed our time in Minnesota with family and friends.

I am sure 2011 will be just as eventful as 2010, our life is never boring. :) We are looking forward to the beginning of this new stage of our life, it will bring many challenges, but we are up for it. I couldn't ask for a better life as we begin a new year, I am so extremely blessed.

Check back in a few days for lots of pictures. :)