Our New Place

We have signed our lease and will start moving our stuff in on Tues.! Thought everyone might like to see. The right half is us. Hopefully, I will put up pictures of the inside once our stuff is in and straightened up. I love it, though, the rooms are all plenty big for 2 rambunctious boys. We are so happy to have gotten this, and to be close to Mom!

Shiloh pics courtesy of Melissa!! (here you go, Daddy!)

My friend Melissa has fallen madly in love with my daughter, and possibly has as many pictures of her as I do, already! Here are some that she has taken, hope everyone enjoys them (especially you, Tyrone!! love you!) Oh....as an added bonus, Melissa got up with Shiloh for her 1:30 feeding, and let me sleep! How cool is that?!

That is some GOOD sleep!

Pretty!

Eating (alot....all the time!)

Melissa's daughter, Kearstin. She loves the baby!

Sweet girl

GA

I just thought that I'd let everyone know that we have made it to GA. The drive went very well, and, all things considered, the kids were all excellent travelers. Tyrone was absolutely wonderful and tireless. We had dinner with Mom and Jeanie on Tues. night, and took care of a few things yesterday, and then Tyrone took his bus back to New York. He should be arriving there sometime this evening. His flight is scheduled to leave tomorrow at 8 am. We miss him like crazy...Thank you for the continued prayers and support.

We are settled in for now with my gracious friend Melissa, and hopefully will be in our place soon. I will keep everyone updated on Tyrone, and I will put up new pics of all the kids soon.

The Last NY Post

I just thought that I'd let everyone know that tomorrow, we head for GA. In the morning, we have some paperwork-type things to take care of, and then we're off! With two of us driving, we are going to drive straight through without stopping for a night, but allowing for rest stops to let the kids run off some energy and to feed Shiloh. We should be in GA sometime Tues. late morning to early afternoon.

Our plans are to just hang out, and we are going to have dinner with Mom, Jeanie, and Tyler that night....something that we haven't done since Christmas! We will spend that night in Savannah, and Tyrone takes a bus back to NY Wed. afternoon. He will be back up here Thurs. evening, and will fly out on Fri., although we don't know what time that will be, yet.

I am so grateful that Tyrone can do this trip with us, and that I will have Mom, Jeanie, and my dear friend Melissa right there to help me. I know this is silly, because everyone already knows...but I love Tyrone so much, and he will be so missed. Those words don't even begin to cover it, but they'll have to do.

My beautiful family enjoying a pretty (but windy) day at the park

Counting My Blessings

Last Friday, Tyrone and I found out that he was scheduled to deploy this coming Friday, the 21st, which gave us exactly one week to get everything done that we needed to. We were suprised, to say the least, because we had been under the impression that we could possibly have until November before he left. I had not posted about this partly because we had been very busy trying to clear quarters so that I could leave right after he flew out. I am moving back to Georgia, as we had planned. It was becoming apparent that this was going to be difficult to accomplish, on top of all the emotions involved.

Today, after some things happened that made us doubt that I would be able to make the trip at all, some wonderful things came through. First, Tyrone's deployment was pushed back one week, to the 28th. Second, when he sat down with his commander and explained what was going on, he got an interesting response. His commander said something along the lines of "She's going to be traveling by herself with three small children? I don't like that. We'll have to think of something else." The end result of this, is.....Tyrone is being given leave to drive us down to GA!!! This is more than we possibly could have hoped for, none of this could have happened if God had not intervened for us.

I want to thank everyone for praying for us, obviously, prayers were answered here! We know that this is still going to be so hard, but how wonderful to get this unexpected time together, and what a burden off of me to not make this trip by ourselves. God is good! Please, continue to pray for us, and especially Tyrone's safety. Thank you, so much!!

My Wonderful Family

Big Brother Presents!!!

Mom sent the boys presents for when their sister was born. They thought this was a wonderful idea! :)

Gabe has discovered that a hooded Diego towel doubles wonderfully as a cape, and paired with his new spotting scope, is all you need to become a super hero!

Kaleb's present was wrapped VERY well....and he worked on it.....

and worked on it....

and REALLY worked on it, until.....

success!!

Sweet Shiloh

Calm....

and cuddly.

(in the car, but parked, engine off, I can assure you!)

All about Shiloh :)

Here are some more pictures of our beautiful Shiloh Isabelle. She is a wonderfully sweet baby. We are so happy that she is here. The boys have done very well with her, Gabe loves to give her her pacifier, and I haven't seen any signs of jealousy (yet!) The dog even thinks she is great, whoever is holding Shiloh is a magnet for Tito! I thought that I would just tell a few things about her.

*Sweet as she is, she does NOT want to be undressed! She had a weight check today (she's doing great!) and screamed at the doctor when he was examining her with just her diaper on, but slept right through getting her blood drawn for a jaundice test.

*This baby does not cry for no reason! If there is screaming or crying going on, she needs something, and as soon as you take care of it, she is happy again.

*Shiloh loves to eat!! We are averaging nursing every 1-1 1/2 hours! There is about a 3 hour stretch in the evening where she sleeps straight through, but other than that, she EATS!!

*At 3 days old, she is already having these wonderful quiet, alert periods where she looks around, looks for me when I talk, and is just wide eyed and beautiful!

*Tyrone gets most of these quiet, alert times :) When I hold her, she smells milk and wants to eat.

The first picture is one of these wonderful alert times, and the second is her sleeping on a pillow on my lap after getting a full tummy.

Here's Little-Miss-No-Name!!

We are proud to announce that Shiloh Isabelle Martin was born at 1:08 am on Sunday, Sept. 9th (her due date!)

Shiloh weighs 8 lbs and 7 oz and is 19 1/2 inches long.

She is absolutely beautiful and we are all in love. The boys are adjusting well.

We just got home from the hospital, and we are all a little tired. More detailed posts are guaranteed later, but for now, here are some pictures.

Way to go, Kaleb!

Somehow, this just made it's way home from school yesterday afternoon, so it's a little belated, but we're as proud as we can be!!!

Powerful Stuff

Every morning, my Mom sends me an online devotion that I really enjoy. This morning, I found a passage that really spoke to me and our family's current situation. How wonderful it is to be reading along and find something that is JUST for you, no matter how long ago it was written down.

This passage reminds me of where my heart, mind, and hopes should be while contemplating Tyrone leaving for Iraq, and while he is there. No terrorist or suicide bomber has anything on the One who is not of the flesh! How wonderful to be reminded!!!

"Though I walk in the flesh, I do not war according to the flesh. The weapons of my warfare are not fleshly, but divinely powerful to overthrow strongholds, casting down arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."
(2 Corinthians 10: 3-5)

Just in case anyone was wondering.... :)

It's my countdown!!! (we hope she doesn't wait any longer than that!!)

Kaleb: Official Kindergartner

Kaleb's day went wonderfully by all accounts!

We started the day VERY early, when I suppose that he just couldn't stand it anymore and woke me up. He heard the big kid's (high school) bus going by and just knew that he was missing out. So, we got up, and since we had extra time, he got to call Grandma (my mom) to tell her all about what he was going to do today. That was very special, since we've always shared EVERYTHING important with mom, and not being able to do that is the hardest thing about being away from Georgia.

Soon, we woke Gabe up, and they ate breakfast together, although Kaleb could barely get his down in between talking about all the things he planned to do at school. Not long after this, Tyrone made it back home in time to walk with us to the bus stop. We stood out there for a while (being the first day, the bus was running about 20 min. late), but we got to meet a couple of other kids who go to K's school and ride his bus. They were older than him, and had done this last year, which made me feel better. Their father assured me that they were very careful with the little kids, and introduced K to his children, so he had some people that he could follow.

Well, soon, the bus got there, and off my big boy went to his first day of Kindergarten. The only one with any reservations was me, he was ready to go, and didn't seem worried at all.

Our day without Kaleb was interesting. Gabe did well, and while he asked where Kaleb was several times through out the day, he did not seem concerned in the least. Really, Tyrone and I agreed that he seemed to be reveling in being the "only" for once. He was very well behaved, and it certainly was nice to have ready made one on one time with him.

When the time finally rolled around to go get Kaleb off the bus, we walked up to the bus stop and waited (and waited, and waited....) but, eventually, they made it. Kaleb started telling me about his day before he was off the bus steps and actually hasn't completely stopped yet!! It seems that he is in love with his school! So far, the highlights seem to be art time, recess (no suprise there!), lunch (they got pizza!), and a little girl name Kaylyn.

So, Kaleb had a blast, and is already ready for tomorrow! How did he get so big?!

Bright and early, and very excited!

Waiting for the bus

Off to school!

Update

I just thought that I would give a general update for everybody on what's going on up here in New York with us.

First of all, as you've probably guessed, I'm still pregnant....39 weeks today. She has stayed in as long as we needed her to, and then a little bit, to ensure that Tyrone doesn't have to deploy right now. I appreciate everybody's prayers as far as that is concerned. I did have an appt. last Thurs., and we are making progress towards the baby getting here, I won't be pregnant forever. It does feel that way, though, and I'm sure that anybody who has ever been pregnant can sympathize with that feeling. IF she's not here by Wed., I have another appt. then, so we'll see where we stand!

On a more serious note, although Tyrone is not deploying right now, his platoon leaves along with the rest of the main body sometime in the next 48 hours. 1st Brigade is composed of 3,500 soldiers, and they all need our prayers. It is hard to watch what the families are going through, you can literally tell, just by people's demeanors, who has a loved one leaving this week. And, of course, the inescapable fact that runs through my head is that soon, it will be us. Just please keep us, and all of the soldiers in your prayers. We need all we can get.

I keep hoping that every post I put up will be my last before announcing the birth of our little girl, and, just maybe, this time it will be true (but I'm not holding my breath!)

Daddy Time

Video games....such a boy thing!

It's fun to go to the store with Daddy...you come back with Oreos and Doritos all over you!