Only a month late...

Wow I can't believe how much I have been slacking on keeping up with my blog! I finally put pictures on the computer from Joshua's first birthday (yes, December 3rd was his birthday). Let me do a little update on what's happening in our lives right now, and we will end with pictures!

Hmm where do I start?! We got an e-mail from our Realtor a couple days ago, we are set to close on the 21st of January at 3:00 pm. I am so excited!! We haven't been at the house since the inspection, and I am so ready to go HOME. We are planning on taking at least the day we close and the day after to clean it out, and get ready to move all of our stuff in. Hopefully Ryan will have good hours those days so we can get stuff done! Otherwise I will go get it done without him :)

Tomorrow my dear husband will be having his second surgery on his ankle. He had this surgery right before we left Japan in 2009, but apparently they didn't do it right. He has bone spurs (OUCH!) growing on his ankle joint, they removed them the first time but they grew right back. This time they are going to go in, scrape the bone clean, rinse it out, and drill holes in the bone so that new, healthy bone will grow back. He is going to be out of work for at least a week, while he is on crutches. After the crutches are gone, he will have a boot for 4-6 weeks while he goes through physical therapy.

I recently started as a PCA (personal care assistant) for my little brother. He was drug and alcohol exposed while his birth mother was pregnant with him. So far 4 of my younger siblings have PCAs to help with day to day things, lucky for my Mom she has my older brother, older sister and me living so close we are her PCAs. This couldn't have come at a better time! Since Ryan has only been at his job a few months, he has no vacation time. So at least we will have some income while he is out of work after his surgery.

Well I am off to play a game while Joshua sleeps :) I don't do it very often so I am gonna relax and enjoy myself during his nap today! Here are his birthday pictures I promised.

Hope everyone is having a great week so far! love Love ♥

We wish you a merry Christmas

Merry Merry Christmas from our family to yours!! I hope everyone has a great couple days planned and gets to spend a lot of time with family. I know we are :) This is the first Christmas since Ryan and I got married that we will be home in Minnesota with our families ♥ I couldn't ask for anything more this Christmas!!

My Mother in law had Open heart surgery last Monday to remove the lining of her heart. She was in the ER while we were home visiting last year, (actually the same time we were in the hospital having Joshua)and ever since then she has been having problems with her heart, on way to many medications trying to fix the problem. But nothing worked so they ended up doing surgery. She is doing pretty good recovering here at home. Please keep her and all of her family in your prayers, he older brother passed away on Wednesday morning. Christmas isn't going to be the same here at the Strickland house, but we are doing our best to make a happy Christmas!

We had our ultrasound on Tuesday morning, we were torn up until the last minute if we were going to find out the sex of our baby. We ended up finding out, I think more for my peace of mind than anything. We are buying a 2 bedroom townhouse and it really put my mind at ease finding out the gender if this little one :) We are going to be having another little boy in May! Now we know we will be able to stay in this town home for at least a couple years. Joshua and this new baby will have so much fun growing up together!! I will have my hands full with two little boys but it will be so much fun ♥

I hope everyone had a great week and is having a great Christmas so far! The guys and Amy just went to get some groceries so we can start our Christmas eve dinner :) I am making a lot this year, since my MIL is still out of commission from her surgery. Ham, Potatoes, stuffing, corn & biscuits are on the menu! Yummy Yummy in my tummy! Have a great weekend friends, enjoy your families and don't forget about all of our military families that are spending Christmas apart this year, because they are sacrificing for YOUR freedoms! Love Love ♥

Merry Christmas!

We got our Christmas cards made a couple days ago. My daddy made them for us :) I was hoping to get some new pictures done here, now that I am actually looking pregnant and not just chunky. That just never worked out though. Ryan has been working some strange hours so it never worked out to get him and my Dad available at the same time.



Merry Christmas blogger friends :) With all the snow we are getting around here I wish Christmas was here so it could start warming up! Too bad that won't be happening for a few more months still. Why did I ever want to come back to Minnesota?! We got at least 19 inches this last Saturday and are supposed to get 2-4 inches over night tonight. I love how beautiful it is, but I'm over the cold!!

I hope everyone is having a great week so far. Love love ♥

We did it!!

We did it!! What did we do you ask? We made an offer on a home and it was accepted!! We have started the process to owning our very first home :D

Tomorrow morning we have our home inspection, and we need to get the report of the inspection to the Realtor ASAP and then as long as nothing major is wrong, the whole va/mortgage process should be starting! I can't wait to be in our own home again, and cook our own meals, and start our life outside of the military. Even though he has been out for almost 2 months it still doesn't feel real to me yet... and the only thing I can think of is because we don't have our own house. I still feel like we are just visiting. I think this will be a great start to moving on with life.

We will have about 4 months to get settled in before the baby comes and disrupts our whole lives again. I am hoping Joshua will get into some sort of a routine before this little bundle of love comes :)

I hope everyone has a great week! I plan on bringing my camera to the inspection tomorrow so hopefully I will post more pictures of our beautiful home soon! Love Love ♥

We did it!

Our Realtor came by today and we put in an offer on a townhome that we totally fell in love with a couple weeks ago when we were out looking at houses! We don't know when we will hear, but hopefully it will be soon. If they accept our offer our closing date with be January 21st. We were hoping to get something by the end of the year but that would really be pushing it! It is a beautiful town home, it was built in 2005 so it is only 5 years old. Very good quality for the cheap price they are asking :)

Here it is!



hopefully we will find out this week if they want to accept our offer, and then we can set up our inspection and get the whole process started! I am so ready to be on our own again and get ready for this little jumping bean in my belly to come.

I hope everyone is having a great Wednesday! Love Love ♥