Tic Tac Toe!

It's three girls in a row!!

We started off Claire's Birthday week with a trip into town for our twenty week ultrasound.  It's hard to believe we are already halfway to welcoming number three!  Justin and I both saw it before the ultrasound tech said anything-another precious girl!  She was moving and squirming and sucking her thumb, doing best to make the ultrasound tech's job as difficult as possible!  It's so fun to feel her move more and more every day.

We can't wait to meet Mallory Ryann sometime in June.  She and Reagan will have the special bond of sharing the same due date.  Our good friend Anna, has two boys born in the same month and she tells everyone they are twins born two years apart.  She says it's lots of fun to watch people try to figure that out!

It was different this time because we didn't go in knowing exactly what the name would be if it was a girl.  It was fun to look for ideas and discuss what we wanted.  Daddy was pretty set on Mallory or Abigail, while mama really liked Ryan Ann.  We had always intended for our third girl to be Mallory, but I didn't know how I felt about the name meaning "unlucky."  However, after lots of prayer and discussion we knew the name was perfect for our little girl.  We decided to combine Ryan Ann into Ryann (still pronounced like Ryan) because we love that it means "gracious descendant of the King." We also wanted to honor Uncle Bub who all our girls adore!

We appreciate all your continued prayers for another healthy baby and healthy mama.  We know this last half will fly by before we know it.  Justin has TDYs coming up in March and April.  Then we'll start getting ready for baby and hopefully to move next door into a four bedroom house after Mallory arrives (although we will be sad to see our neighbors leave).  We just can't have a baby and not move!

Christmas 2012

We had a wonderful, white Christmas this year-a first for everyone!  Granny and Grandpa were able to come up for three weeks.  We got our first peek at Baby Whitaker #3.  Claire celebrated her first Christmas.  Uncle Bub even got to come up for a few days!  Here are a few highlights.

Reagan was so excited to make Grandpa a birthday cake.

Reagan made her first gingerbread house.

Presents! 

Bundled up waiting for Santa to drive through the neighborhood. 

Sweet Claire always has a smile.

Girls enjoying their Minnie Mouse beanbag chair.

The Ice Museum in North Pole, it got above 0 on Christmas Day! 

Rea and Daddy on the ice slide.

Claire and Grandpa

Taking Uncle Bub to Silver Gulch, the required pipeline stop.

Rumble even got to come to Alaska!

Reagan's Granny (she made it clear to Claire that she wasn't going to share!)

Claire and Grandpa were good buddies!

August Update

Justin pinned on Captain on August 17th.  We are very proud of him!  He was also hand selected by the General for a Wing-level training position.

Claire has turned into quite the crawling machine.  Last week, Reagan left the door open when she went outside to play.  Claire watched her from the door for a while, then decided she didn't want to miss out on the fun.

Reagan is really excited to start Mommy and Me dance class on base this week.  She likes dancing, but an activity that involves special shoes-yes, please!

Both girls are also starting swimming lessons.  Reagan is really excited that Baby gets to go too.

We've had a big wildfire burning about 15 miles from base.  It has made for some very smokey days.  This summer has actually been very calm for wildfires, some of the locals have said that it's usually smokey most of the summer.

That's smoke, not clouds outside the clinic.

Ranger found a new groomer who wants to help him work through his grooming phobia (ha ha!), we were grateful that she didn't kick him out right away.  She is also a dog musher.  We are looking forward to taking some mushing lessons from her in the winter.  We will all get to pile into a cart, and Justin and I will get to take turns driving.  I was very excited because I didn't think the girls would be able to go mushing.

We've been enjoying story time at the library on Thursdays, so much that I volunteered to be in charge of it for the year!  It's been a good outlet for my teacher side.  Thankfully, another mom agreed to help. She's going to be in charge of the crafts and I'll take care of the reading and games.  Reagan really enjoyed the day in the picture because they had wild Alaskan blueberries and ice cream for a snack to go along with the book-two of her favorite things.

Captain Whitaker celebrated his birthday this month.  Reagan talked for weeks beforehand about making daddy a cake.  She was eager to help.

This was after the flour-covered clothing was removed.

It was a mess, but so hard to stop laughing.  Rea didn't know what to think when flour started going everywhere!

She also thought Daddy needed balloons for his birthday.

She just knew he would love a Mickey Mouse balloon.  A few seconds later:

Our weight wasn't quite heavy enough.  Thankfully, Justin is quite handy-a few broom handles, a wire hanger, and some duct tape rescued the balloons.

This is as still as we could get everyone.  Reagan wanted to keep blowing out the candle over and over, Claire was sure she was finally old enough for some cupcake!

Fall is quickly on its way out and winter is beginning to creep in.  The leaves and the wind have both changed.  We've been trying to spend as much time outside as possible before we are stuck indoors.  We had an end of summer/fall block party with the neighbors last weekend.  

Heritage Park

Reagan loves to drive by Heritage Park and see the airplanes.  She had even more fun when we went to visit them while Granny was here.

Granny's Visit

We had a fun two weeks with Granny here.  It was over way too soon!  We are so thankful she was able to come.  We had done a lot of unpacking, but with the extra set of hands (and organizing/decorating skills), we were able to get almost everything done, plus have lots of fun.

Reagan almost mastered saying Granny while she was here.  It comes out Ganny, but "r" is a very hard sound to produce.  It won't be long!

We made a visit to Santa's house.  We had been saving that outing for when Granny arrived.  Reagan did better with Santa than she did at Christmas, but there is still no way she is sitting on that guys lap!  She has, however, asked to go back and visit "Nana" every day since then.  I finally asked her if it was because he gave her candy.  She said yes.  I should have known!  Reagan really likes looking at his Reindeer and inside has so many fun things to look at, she just didn't know which direction to run first. Apparently, Rudolph really is an outcast because he isn't on display with the other reindeer.

It took us a whole week to find a moose for Granny.  Normally, we see a lot in our neighborhood.  We live right across the street from their favorite pond.  After that we saw quite a few.  We went for a drive her last morning and saw two mama-baby pairs.  Those were the first babies we had seen.

We also had trouble capturing a picture of Mt. McKinley for Grandpa.  Fall has arrived in Alaska, so we've had many cloudy, cool days.  Justin and I went for a drive after the girls were in bed one evening.  We randomly turned down a street and there was the best view of the Denali range we have had.  We went back home as quickly as we could.  J stayed with the girls.  Granny and I grabbed our cameras and headed back out.  We can't wait to take a trip to Denali next summer!  I can't imagine how beautiful it will be up close.

We also made a trip out to Fox, Alaska to visit Silver Gulch, the most northern brewery in the USA.  The best part of that evening was stopping to see the Oil Pipeline.  Rea enjoyed running up and down under the pipes.  She cracks me up when she runs, it is so cute!

We also went to Pioneer Park, a gold rush era theme park of sorts.  They have cabins from the turn of the century that have been moved to the park.  There is a steam engine, a flight museum, a carousel from 1920, and even a place where you can experience what -40 feels like if you aren't lucky enough to visit in the winter.

The horses were all hand painted.

The oldest church in Interior Alaska, they still hold services every Sunday.

The Crooked Creek (our street in OK) Train

They had Dallas!

A glove accompanied our trip to Pioneer Park.  We've had to hide them now that Claire is semi-mobile.

 A Wolverine Parka

We had a busy two weeks with Granny.  I thinks she might still be recovering!  It was a lot of fun, though.  We can't wait until October when Gma gets to come.  Then Granny and Grandpa will be here in December.  We are hoping that Pops can come in February so that he and Tiny can celebrate their birthdays together.  We have lots of room, though, so come see us in Alaska!