Where o' where will we go?

Though the Army has treated us well and thankfully Stephen has never deployed, it hasn't been the best place for Stephen.

Stephen is the kind of a guy who would like to spend all day everyday reading books like the one he just finished "Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition", watching James White debates and debating with Catholics on Facebook.

He is an abstract thinker.

The Army is more a place for do-ers.

He is surrounded by guys who love to work out, watch football and be "hooah".

He longs to be an eternal student/professor.

So he has put in his paperwork to get out of the Army (and go into the Reserves) in September.

This is really exciting and really scary at the same time.

I am so excited for him to start doing what he loves but I am also nervous about not having the wonderful safety net of the Army, and the steady income.

He has applied to 9 grad schools.

Some for a Ph. D. and some for a Masters.

All in either philosophy or political philosophy (and one is environmental philosophy).

We are hoping he gets into a PhD. but they are really competitive and it is difficult since he has been out of school for so long.

Now from my perspective, I don't know much about the different schools but I did care to know about where we might be living for the next 2 (masters) or maybe 6 (Ph.D.) years.

As Stephen started his research into what schools he wanted to apply to and he would tell me where they are located, I got more and more dismayed.

I was hoping for East Coast or West Coast.  Or at least not somewhere in the middle of nowhere or that was really north (cold) or really south (hot).

Nope.

Here is a map with red "X"s that show where he has applied.

Seriously?!

And that Colorado one was a last minute addition so I didn't even have that one to hope for at first.

Now let me say that I have never been to any of those states that are marked and they could be wonderful and I could actually love it.

But based on preconceived notions of these places, I was less than thrilled.

But I have gotten over it and have come to terms with our next big adventure.

I am rooting for Colorado State University and for Notre Dame (Stephen wants Notre Dame too but it is also the hardest one to get into)

I have to admit I have a silly reason for rooting for Notre Dame.

It started when I discovered it's in South Bend, Indiana.

One of my all time favorite movies is "The Philadelphia Story" (Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart, it doesn't get much better than that!)

In that movie James Stewart tells Katherine Hepburn that he is from South Bend, Indiana and she replies with her wonderful Hepburness "South Bend!  It sounds like dancing, doesn't it?"

Silly right?

Oh well.

So now we are waiting to hear back from the schools which is a real test of patience.

There is a chance he wont get into any of them, though I can't imagine that happening since he is obviously a genius, but then again I may be a bit biased :o)

Or maybe he will get excepted to all of them, who knows.

I will keep you updated.

Alice: 5 Months

Weight:  About 14 or 15 pounds

Height:  Uknown

Appearance changes:  Um, she pretty much looks the same, just bigger.

New Skills:  She can sit up by herself for about 60 seconds.  She "blows bubbles".  She can hold onto objects really well now.

Likes:  The dogs, especially Lilo.  Watching me brush my teeth.  Sitting up in her bouncy chair.  Stephen.  She gets so happy when he comes home from work.

Dislikes:  Long naps and sleeping well at night.  She takes like 4 or 5, 20 minute naps a day and squirms and fusses at night.  Me and her have started sleeping in the guest bed so we have more room and so Stephen can sleep undisturbed.

Firsts:  First bump on the head.  We got into the bad habit of not always buckling Alice into her bouncy chair and when we weren't looking she leaned forward (she was never strong enough to do that before) and fell on the floor.  She cried and had a small bump on her forehead that was gone the next day.  We felt really bad and now always buckle her in.

She is now big enough to wear on my back.  It makes it a lot easier for me to do chores or cook.

Unfortunately I didn't realize the importance of a hood when I bought this carrier.  She does this when she starts falling asleep.

Her hair is long enough now for me to mess with and put bows in.

Petting the kitty.  Right after I took this picture Alice fell over on Giselle.  She didn't seem to appreciate that.

She loves chewing on her toes now.

She preferred her toes to the flamingo.

"No more pictures mom!"

Alice the Model

So on top of my monthly photo shoots with Alice, I can't seem to help myself from doing more photo shoots with her.

She is just to darn cute!

Stephen and I often talk about whether Alice is objectively an exceptionally cute baby or if we just think so because we are her parents.

Here is plenty of evidence so you can decide for yourself :)

New Camera

Using my Christmas money I was able to get a new camera!

Some of you may be wondering why I needed a new camera seeing as that I obviously already have a nice camera (my Canon Rebel XTi)

Maybe this picture will shed some light on my reasoning.

See that huge camera?  Though it takes very nice pictures, it is a pain to carry around.

Because of this we usually end up not taking it with us on outings.

Now that we have Alice and a diaper bag to carry around, we really don't want to carry this big guy around.

But also now that we have Alice, I really want to have pictures from when we go out and do things (other than on my iPhone).

Hence the new camera.

It's a Panasonic DMC-LX7.

It's really cute and small and takes nice pictures.

I have actually had it for a few weeks now but I was having a hard time figuring out how to download the pictures onto the computer.

Thanks to Stephen and our computer genius friend Nick Dunne, we got it figured out.

Of course since we got my new camera we haven't gone and done anything, so I have just taken some random pictures around the house.

Here is the camera.

Here is Alice smiling.

Here is Alice crying (because she is in the car seat).

Here is Alice asleep when we failed in trying to keep her awake so she would nap during church.

Here is Lilo watching Alice.

Did you notice what is the same in all those pictures?  

It's the giraffe, Sophie the Giraffe to be exact.

It squeaks.

It squeaks exactly like Lilo's favorite dog toys.

Lilo really wants that giraffe.

Here is Alice grabbing Lilo's nose, she then proceeded to yank on the hair around Lilo's mouth. 

Lilo took it like a trooper.

 Here is Alice in her highchair for the first time.

 The end.