Annabelle's Baptism

When Sean deployed back in 2009 I started going to church regularly and was very lucky to finally, after many years finding a church home for the first time since my grandparents church when I was in middle school. Tierrasanta Lutheran Church is that home. When I got pregnant with Belle I was very excited to have a church, MY church to baptize her in.

Pastor Bohdan is one of my favorite ministers I have ever met. Probably because he's around our age and he can easily relate to younger couples. I'm not sure how many times he said he was happy to share this day with us, and I can't express how happy I was to have him baptize our baby.

We have been stationed on the west coast for almost 4 years now and life away from our family has been hard but the unique thing about the military life is that over time you develop a "military family". My mom flew out from Atlanta for the baptism but the rest of our guests in church were our military family. Each and everyone of them mean more to Sean and me that we could ever express.

Belle's godparents, Bill & Ko Sumption have been a large part of our lives for the past 2 years. Bill & Sean deployed together and Ko loves our kids as much as we do. I can't put into words the special role they have played in our lives and are very honored that they agreed to be Belle's godparents. Their faith inspires us. God truly blessed us by putting them in our lives.

Welcome to your life in Christ Annabelle. We all love you more than you will ever know!

It's almost been a year!

Well obviously it's been awhile since I've been on here. Life has been crazy busy! Since my last blog we found out we were expecting baby # 3, moved to a new house to accommodate our growing family, both kids started (and are about to finish) their first year of preschool, and we were blessed with our beautiful daughter, Annabelle Brynn, just to name a few things! I'm hoping to blog more but keeping up with three kids is time consuming to say the least!

Our newest angel

Annabelle Brynn

The Newest Stamps Family Member

Well it's been about 2 months now since we welcomed our newest member of the family! Duffy Stamps is about the cutest thing around, next to Logan and Peyton of course!

Duffy is about 2 years old, a German Shepard mix. A mix of what is a good question, we think chow & boxer but who knows! We rescued him through Baja Animal Santuary. They rescue dogs in Mexico and bring them to San Diego for adoption.

Duffy is the sweetest, gentlest dog on the planet. He takes everything the kids dish out is stride and has never showed any aggression towards them. He is also mommy's new best friend. He follows me everywhere I go and sleeps next to my side of the bed.

When we first brought him home we bought him a crate to sleep in. However he wanted nothing to do with it unless the kids were in there too. This isn't a great picture but both Logan and Peyton are in there with Duffy. This is less than a week since we brought him home. He adjusted so well, and so did we!

We now know the reason we waited so long to adopt a dog, we were waiting for Duffy to come into our lives! I can't even express how happy we are to have him in our family!

Logan's 4!!

With Logan's birthday just a few days before Sean's homecoming we new we would have to have a belated party. April & May also happen to be "birthday season" with our friends so we ended up waiting until May 9th (Mother's Day) to have Logan's 4th Birthday party. His biggest request that he have a bouncy house with a slide. Here's the birthday boy cheezin for the camera while bouncing!

Logan wanted a train theme, but not just Thomas, trains all around. His new favorite cartoon is Chuggington on the Disney Channel. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out, it's a great show that teaches wonderful lessons. Our friend Angela Williamson made Logan his cake. I asked him what kind of cake he wanted and he said Wilson from Chuggington. Here is Logan with the most awesome birthday cake EVER! It looked JUST like Wilson!! We loved it and it was tasty too!

Singing "Happy Birthday" and getting ready to blow out the candles. Did I mention how much he LOVED his cake???

Keeping with the train theme I was able to find this awesome website, www.trainparty.com (no not kidding), that had all kinds of non-Thomas train party items. I ordered a pinata that was shaped like a train but I wasn't really happy with it, but it wasn't Thomas & looked like a train. The one that came was SO cute! Almost a shame to smash it, but the kids did a great job! Here's Logan swinging at it!

Hallmark knows Logan. They had a 4 year old birthday boy card with a train on it. I bought it when I saw it back in February! He also received 2 others! He loved them all & at one point had them all lined up too!

We all had a Chugging-good time celebrating Logan's birthday. It's hard to believe that my little baby boy is 4 already. It seems like yesterday that we were in Pensacola awaiting his arrival. Happy Birthday Son!

Homecoming!

After 200+ days our long awaited Homecoming Day was finally here! The kids and I had fun painting a sign for Sean and getting everything else ready for Daddy's return!

Our two signs. The 2nd one was made with lots of love!

Our princess was Too Tutu Cute for homecoming! Thanks to our friend Rachael Wunderlich for designing and making Peyton's homecoming outfit!

I can't even begin to describe the feeling of 15 helicopters appearing & flying overhead knowing that your Marine is aboard one after 7 long months. It was an awesome sight! Sean flew with the Commanding Officer so he was in the 00 aircraft. In the last picture Sean is on the far right awaiting the formation to be dismissed! The first actual sighting of him was SO exciting!

These are my two favorite pictures from our reunion. You can just see how happy we all are to be together again!

They say your wedding is the happiest day of your life. I always added the birth of my children to that list. Now I have yet another. Homecoming Day is my reward for the hardest 7 months of my life. The memories we have of that day will be what drives me through the next deployment!

Welcome Home My Marine, My Hero, My Love!!!

Logan's Birthday Zoo Trip

Since Sean's Homecoming is just around the corner, for Logan's birthday we just decided to get together with some friends & head down to the San Diego Zoo. It was a great way to celebrate Logan's 4th birthday! We had a great day & once again realize how very blessed we are to have our military "family"!

Peyton wanted to ride alone so she was in a friend's stroller & her daughter was riding with Logan. She was so content to be a only child for once in her life! And Logan loved to be riding with a friend!

Here's the birthday boy checking out the giraffes. He thought the baby one was so cute!

They just opened a new polar bear exhibit at the zoo. Although we never saw the polar bears all the kids had a great time playing in & on the polar bear cave. Peyton kept crawling around roaring like a bear! Logan was sliding on the top. Too cute!

After a long walk up to the polar bears we decided to take the Skyfari back to the front of the zoo. The kids totally loved it!

It was a beautiful day in San Diego, we had great friends to celebrate with, and in a few short days we will be going to base to pick up Sean! Life is Good! God is Great!

Easter

One of the hardest part of being a military family during a deployment is facing holidays alone. Since we were home for the first part of the deployment we had our family there to celebrate with us. But now that we are back in San Diego that support system isn't there. However the blessings of military life include a stand-in "family". So with Easter approaching, I opened our house to a pot-luck Easter dinner & egg hunt.

We had 4 other mommies and their 6 kiddos come to dinner on Easter Sunday. We are so blessed to have such great friends to surround ourselves with and celebrate Easter!

The day started out with a visit from the Easter Bunny! Logan got a bunch new Geo Trax pieces! Including a "ding ding gate" which he LOVES! Peyton racked up on Dora stuff!

Next on the agenda was church. The kids & I have started attending Tierrasanta Lutheran Church and really love it! I truely feel at home there! I can't wait to bring Sean with us. This is the kids in their Easter best ready for church!

The egg hunt was the highlight of the day for the kiddos! The Easter bunny left a stash of eggs with all the mommies to hide for this egg-tra special hunt with friends!

I think the most memorable thing for the mommies was the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that shook the house pretty well. It was not my first earthquake but for some it was. It was cool at first until it continued & got worse. Then it was a little scary! Nothing was broken, the kids didnt even realize anything was happening, just a few mommies in awe of what had happened.