Our First Thanksgiving

Hello everyone!! El Capitan here. Not much going on in Georgia these days...except that Erin and I will be PARENTS in like two weeks!! Woop woop! Yep, our little baby girl will be making her way into the world on or around December 14-16. This is old news for most of you, but I feel led to share it anyway...mostly because I am really excited about being a dad. And, with our new niece, Sydney, arriving on Wednesday morning, things are just that much more exciting!

I trust everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving yesterday...Erin and I sure did. We kicked the day off with an early morning rendevous to the Fort Gordon Provost Marshal's Office (basically, the police station) to serve up some breakfast for some of my Soldiers that had to work the 12-hour day shift on Thanksgiving. We arrived around 4:15am (OUCH!) with supplies and utensils in hand. We decided to go with pancakes, fresh fruit, and OJ. Pretty simple, yet highly effective. I put my skills to the test by attempting a Mickey Mouse pancake, as well as an MP pancake. Not bad, Pants, not bad.





It was our first Thanksgiving away from either family since we married in 2006. Knowing it was just the two of us, we had to make sure that we didn't prepare too much food. I think we did pretty well! Check out the pics...



Once Thanksgiving was officially over, we then shifted gears towards Christmas, and the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. AWESOME!!! So, we spent the better part of today re-arranging furniture, putting up the tree and other festive decor, and wrapping presents. Erin and I really love ornaments, so we tried to make it a point to really spice up our tree. Job Well Done is what I say! The tree topper is new for this year...Sweet, right!!?? I know. Behold, the Barricklow Family Christmas Tree...



To top off the day, our beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers walked out of Boulder with a win over the Colorado Buffaloes. Not the most beautiful win, but a win nonetheless. That, my friends, always goes down smooth. Now if we can only take care of those pesky Longhorns...

Sydney Paige Thomas has Arrived!!

On Wednesday November 25th at 1:45am Sydney Paige Thomas was born to Ryan and Martha Thomas. Everyone is healthy and resting! Sydney weighs in at 8 lbs and is 21 1/2 inches long! :)

Pictures to follow!

I do have to do a few disclaimers:

I do not know how they decided to spell her name, this may or may not be correct, I got this info via Josh via Ryan...so we are guessing. Don't take it to the bank till until further notified! :)

We are sooo excited for them!! SHE'S HERE!!!!

Martha's in the Hospital!!

Right now Marth and Ryan are sitting in the hospital room eating breakfast. :) She got to the hospital around 7 this morning and they began the induce-ing. Induction sounds like the hall of fame or something. ha ha. She's not being medicinally induced yet...they are trying other methods (due to the mixed audience I'll not explain further) so, they are waiting to see if in the next 4-6 hours she goes into labor by herself. If things are progressing nicely there are still a couple more things they can try before starting the all out induce-ing with pitocin like she had with the boys. Speaking of the big brothers, they are having a great time with Grandpa Joe this morning. :)

If you would like to know more of the events leading up to today, check out THIS

Check back later for more updated information!

Photo Update

Here's last week....week 33:



And, yesterday marked 34 weeks:




Only 3 more weeks left!

Also, check this out- one of my friends from Summer Project (Myrtle Beach 2004!!) makes diaper bags amongst many other things, and I have seen many of these diaper bags at different Army functions over the years so I knew that I wanted one. So I asked her if she could make me one out of Josh's old Iraq uni's and she went above and beyond all I described. I also like the fabric I picked out for the inside...super cute! Here's some pictures of what I can't wait to carry around with me...and neither can Josh! AND yes, we did THOROUGHLY launder these uniforms. They are sand and germ free. Albeit very worn, and carry a very slight odor that is familiar to all clothes worn in Iraq. I LOVE IT! Good job Lynsie!






Also: The Martha update: Nothing new to report, except the number 41 weeks. Yup, today is 41. Don't worry, if there is ANY news, I will post it ASAP!

Ode to my Niece

Little Niece Little Niece it's time to come out
Little Niece Little Niece come out and shout!
It's been over 10 long months that we've waited for you
If only, if only you'd make your debut!

It may seem scary, coming out in to the unknown,
Leaving your dark and warm house and letting your face be shown.
We promise to make you feel welcome and cozy,
Your Mommy and Daddy will hold you if on out you'll just mosey!

You have two 'big' brothers who are anxious to meet you,
To hug you and kiss you and make you smile and laugh, too.
They'll show you Buzz and Woody and all of their toys,
Daddy and Mommy can't wait to add you to a house full of boys!

There are many many others anxiously awaiting your arrival,
However, this overdue debut is threatening our survival!
Uncle Josh and Aunt Erin are so anxious to see your face,
Come out, come out, come out so we stop having to pace!

We jump at the phone, we call all the time,
Your parents are hospital ready at the drop of a dime.
Remind them in their frenzy, when you finally begin to arrive,
that the phone, a charger, and the laptop (with a webcam) HAVE TO make the drive.

We're sad to miss your opening act,
We'll return the favor soon, and that is a fact.
We pray you and your cousin will be extra close,
There's nothing like family and friendship to make of life, the most!

Maybe that's why you're waiting, how patient you are,
Waiting for your cousin to be born from afar.
Unfortunately, if you wait that long, Mommy (and I) will go crazy,
So get on your horse and come out, don't be lazy! :)

LOVE YOU!

SEC Football

Living out of the Midwest makes it hard for us to maintain our goal of attending a Nebraska football game every year, but we have been able to watch all but one so far this season so we are thankful!

My wonderful husband surprised me with tickets to a great SEC battle:

South Carolina vs. Florida

I am a Tim Tebow fan (I will not say I'm a Florida fan) because very few people in the spotlight can maintain their integrity and back up their faith week after week in high emotion situations. You know what I'm talking about. If I had a camera on me those moments when I'm extremely frustrated, angry, under pressure...etc. I would probably have MUCH apologizing to do. I am amazed at his ability to SHOW his faith. In the way he plays with intensity, yet with control to those ugly emotions that can come out in the blink of an eye. And, he's a great athlete. He's using the gifts and talents God has given him to be glorifying for God! I am a Tebow fan.

So Josh, knowing this, hooked us up with GREAT SEATS on Saturday. He's such a considerate man. He got Row 1 in the upper deck. Knowing, that if I had to stand the whole game my back would die. So, we were up high enough I could see the whole field, and I had no one in front of me. OH it was great.

However, one fly in the ointment. South Carolina ran a Wounded Warrior campaign leading up to and during the game. Fort Jackson is in Columbia, so for Veteran's day they did some really cool stuff for pre game and halftime. Now patriotic stuff, and soldier stuff gets me anyways...but add being pregnant...yeah I CRIED most of pregame, and nearly all of halftime. Oh my. Poor teenage boy sitting on my left.

Before the game they honored 3 Wounded Warrior soldiers (those wounded and in rehab), two that had amputated legs, one with no arm and brain damage. They made them honorary captains for the game and they represented SC for the coin toss and such. Of course when introduced to a standing ovation and an entire stadium full of grateful Americans it was pretty moving. The SC football team wore special jerseys with camo on the sleeves and camo shoes. They removed their last names from the back of the jerseys and instead put either INTEGRITY, HONOR, DUTY, SERVICE.

Then at half time, they played all the Armed Forces songs and asked those who had served or who are serving to stand up. They introduced 5 men from different wars who found themselves in incredibly difficult situations and survived. The man from WW2 was a Medal of Honor recipient. So all Armed Forces members in the stadium were at attention when he was on camera (that's a rule in the presence of the Medal of Honor). His story was outstanding. Here are pictures from all that:



Seriously though, the game was really fun, the atmosphere was great- the stadium was loud and the game was fairly close! We had a great time. :) SO MUCH FUN!

SCCC Graduation and an OCF Fairwell

Many of your have heard of FCA...well OCF is the Army Officer version of that. Officer Christian Fellowship. Josh and I love it, and through OCF have been able to plug in quickly and make friends! At Leonard Wood we had a great group, and here we've had a great one, too! I say HAD because everyone attending, except the host couple and Josh and I, graduated from the Signal Corp Captains Career Course last week. So, there went all our friends... :( BUT, that means that a new class will be starting soon, and hopefully new members for the study! Nothing better than knowing people all over the country!




I do have to mention that Matt (the one not smiling in either picture) is not accurately pictured. He is super goofy...and I'm quite surprised he isn't making silly faces in these pictures. Very strange that both these moments in time he was not smiling. But there you have it! More great friends- good luck Stokes and Bentons at Ft. Belvoir!

Another Project

Here's a idea that Martha gave me for the huge wall in our bedroom- it turned out awesome! And it was really fun to paint! :)

My Veteran

So today I had a special day with my favorite Veteran! We heard that Applebee's was offering free meals to Veterans today so we decided to go out for lunch. We knew it would be busy so we held off till 2pm. Sure enough we get there...PACKED. Applebee's is located near a movie theatre and the adjoining movie theatre parking lot had a LOT of overflow vehicles parked in it. WOW. So that was not going to work, we were hungry. Josh remembered that there's a pizza place (called the Pizza Joint) nearby that has 50% off on Wednesday for military. What luck- it's Wednesday! So we decided we would go there. Not free food, but close. :) So we get there, turns out 50% doesn't start till 5pm. It's 2:30 by now. We say, just forget it, we'll have pizza. It was super good! However it was full price. So now we've filled our out-to-eat quota for November. Probably not a bad thing.

So we headed home, passed the Applebee's again on the way back and what do you know 3:30...even more packed. DANG!

For supper we made one of Josh's favorite meals. Pancakes. I've included pictures. I'll let you guess who's is who's. Josh really likes making pancakes, if you can't tell! He's great at it, too. Very yummy! Side note: Josh is wearing the shirt the nurses gave him after my surgery last year. I got one, and he asked if he could have one, too. Sooo they found him one just big enough to be adult sized. ha ha ha. (It says, my operation was bearable at Children's Mercy Hospital.)




We had an excellent day together. One thing I love about the military getting time off on Federal holidays is that we get just a little bit of extra family time to make up for the reason he is a vet to begin with! God has given us so much to be thankful for, and I'm thankful to have insight into a lifestyle I never gave a second thought to before becoming an Army wife. I'm glad we have this day!

I'm proud of you honey! Thank you for following the Lord and serving Him and us all at the same time! I know there are many sacrifices and frustrations, but you handle it well and I'm so thankful to be YOUR wife! LOVE YOU!

Diversity: What it means in the Kingdom!

I spent Thursday thru Sunday of this last week at the PWOC Southeast Region Fall Retreat. PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) is the main ministry for military wives on base. Since I was introduced to it at Ft. Leonard Wood, it has been one of the first pieces of information on my list of 'find outs' for a new base. This weekend, God opened my eyes to even more reasons why PWOC is such an amazing ministry.

PWOC contains women who have husbands who do all sorts of crazy jobs in the Army. Wives who have been through 6 deployments in 9 years, wives who have moved 13 times in 16 years, brand new wives figuring out Army life, those new arrivals to the base, those who have retired there and continued to be involved, new moms, moms of LOTS, prior service soldiers who have married soldiers, gotten out of the Army themselves, and started attending PWOC...etc. Ages 21-86, black, white, asian, hispanic - some who met their husbands while their husband was stationed in Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, Cuba, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine...etc. Are you getting my drift- there are women of all kinds here!

I say this all to paint a picture of the experience at conference. 20 different Army and Air Force bases were represented, and over 400 women were there. The keynote speaker was telling us how blessed we are to get to experience God on a different level than most. Here's why. Picture God as a diamond- a huge diamond with 1000 different facets. In my life, I have experienced God meeting needs and answering prayer in a way that has shown me who He is. When I worship God, I am praising Him for the part of Him that I know and have experienced. For our picture sake, lets say I see one facet of all of who God is. Now my PWOC friend from Korea, who's been married to her soldier husband for 15 years, brings an entire different experience of the Lord with her. Not just because of her culture and upbringing differences, but because of her own life journey is different than mine, and she sees different characteristics of God differently than I do. Take my PWOC friend who has been stationed with her husband in 13 different places...5 different countries included! She brings yet another aspect of God to praise, things she's seen and experience in her walk with the Lord.

All this to say, that God gets BIGGER praise when we worship and fellowship together (because more of who He is has been recognized by those present) than if I was by myself, or if I had simply surrounded myself with women who were exactly like me. The challenge came in noticing our tendencies on how we invest ourselves into other believers. If I check out my top ten friends, or top ten social events, are they all late twenties, married, expecting/young kids...or am I following the example in Revelation 7:9 that says God's Kingdom includes those from every tribe, tongue, and nation. We can experience so much more of HIM by expanding our friendships to those of all socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities, age groups, denominations, etc.

It was a wonderful retreat. I will probably post more about it, because that was only 1 session of 8 that I went to. It was really encouraging and challenging- just what I needed! :)

Ta Da!

And now the moment you've all been waiting for... more pictures! ;)


This is me at 28 weeks.




This is me at 30 weeks...what a difference 2 weeks makes!



And this is me now. However, it is not the best picture because I am wearing a shirt that is too small so it's stretched like a tent and still too short so you can't see the shape as well. BUT, do you like our new baby room curtains? I do!

Speaking of...Martha- you haven't posted pictures of your finished baby room yet. Not that you're not busy and all, but you should probably get on that. :)

Well, thus starts another week! On Thursday we met with the Doc and Baby weighed in at 3 lbs 5 oz and about 17 inches long (estimation). I can't quite remember if I put this on here before or not, but nearly every ultrasound we've had (we've had 7) she has had her legs stick straight above her head. And both hands by her face. So she's been folded in half for months now. Find something comfy and stick with it I guess! She's going to start running out of room soon enough. She must take after her dad in wanting something over his face/by his face when he sleeps. However, Josh could not get his feet by his face to sleep if his life depended on it- ha ha. That would be funny.

So...6 weeks left!

Even more exciting: Martha is counting in at 38 weeks...ANY DAY NOW!! Bring on my niece!! :)