Welcome Baby Adam!

Welcome Adam Christopher Yoder!! He was born around 10:30pm on Oct 2nd. 7 lb 15 oz. I haven't gotten any pictures yet, but Erin, I stole this off your page. :) We're so glad that Blake has a boy cousin so close in age! Can't wait to meet you at Christmas. Congrats Chris and Michelle!!

Let's try a video...

I'm going to attempt to put on some movies of the kids. Not sure if it'll work but here goes!

This one is of Natalie and Blake first thing in the morning. Don't mind her crazy bedhead or my high pitched baby voice. :)

I debated putting this one on here... I actually caught a fall on tape but it looks worse than it actually was because I was standing above her. It's pretty typical of Natalie though--she just gets right up and keeps on going.

Thanks for all your notes and emails and prayers for Brian. We both appreciate it and he said that he feels really supported so thank you! He had the board today and it was only 15 minutes and only questions this time. He feels like he did pretty well but it's hard to know how the others did and they don't tell you how you're doing or what the points are so it makes it all the more stressful. Apparently they are going to try to wear them down by keeping a really tough schedule--having them up really early and busy all day and then doing events at night too. Brian does really well at that though. When other people start to complain and get tired and lose focus, he is able to push through and finish strong. That has always helped him on the other competitions. (At USAREUR, he actually completed a 10 mile ruck march with a 50+ lb pack after spraining his ankle in the first mile! He's definitely not a quitter! :) Keep praying for him.

Best Warrior Competition

Brian's competition starts tomorrow! I just went to the website and I am so proud of him! He has been working towards this for over two years. We counted all of the Boards he's been in and I think this is the eighth one! For those of you that don't know, last year he competed up to the USAREUR (all of Europe) level and then got 2nd place so he wasn't able to go to the Department of the Army competition. He was really bummed and jokingly said he was going to win all of the boards when we got to Hawaii so that he could go to DA this year. And he did!!
I talked to him today--they had the welcome dinner where they get to meet the Sergeant Major of the Army and the rest of the competitors. He will be up against 13 other people. He was only up against at most 6 people in all of the other competitions so that means there are that many more people to try to beat. It's a lot of pressure so pray for him--that he's able to keep a clear mind and focus on what he knows and what he's studied. And that he is a light to the people around him in the way he acts and conducts himself throughout this competition.
Tomorrow is one of the hardest events--the Board Appearance before all the Sergeant Majors. You have to walk in and stand at attention and then they drill you with questions. There is a huge manual of stuff they can ask you about--most of it really specific like the numbers of certain regulations or dates of important Army history. I don't know how he does it but he always does extremely well--he takes such pride in making sure his uniform is perfectly squared away and he goes the extra mile whenever he can. (For example, they sometimes ask you to sing the Army song (or the other command songs) and he always learns all of the verses whereas most people usually just know the first verse and the chorus. Brian says they always get blown away as he stands there in front of them belting out all the verses--he says they don't stop him just because they want to see if he really has memorized the whole thing. :)
Wow, didn't mean to write so much... I'm just so excited and so proud of Brian. He excels in whatever he puts his mind to. I have no doubt that he can win this but even if he doesn't, it's still a huge huge accomplishment just to get to compete at this level. He's amazing. And he's even more awesome at being a Daddy and a Husband. I love him so much! :)

I'm giving you the link. There already are pics up of the dinner. If you click on "Warriors" you can read about Brian (even though it's cheesy--they pick random things out of your bio to put on there). They should be putting his specific pictures under his name so keep checking this week. Also, Spc Batten is the guy that won the soldier part of the competition for the Pacific a few months ago. It was held here in Hawaii and I got to go to some of the evening events so we got to know him too. He's actually in Brian's same unit even though he lives in Japan so we're rooting for him for the soldier competition.

http://www.army.mil/bestwarrior/2007/index.html

I know this post is long and wordy... sorry! I'll try to put pics up of the kids tomorrow! :)

Cute kids

I was putting pictures on the computer from my camera and had to laugh at all the cute things we've caught Natalie and Blake doing lately. Hope you enjoy!

Natalie lined up all these things with Blake and said, "Choo Choo. Choo Choo."

Natalie helping clean with her own water bottle. I was trying to get her to keep the water only on the windows but I wasn't very successful.

She put these on and clomped around the house. Daddy's shoes are a lot harder to walk in than Mommy's!

Her new thing has been to wear the cookie cutters on her arms like bracelets. She thought she'd see how they look on Blake's arms and legs too. He was pretty cooperative for awhile.

Our cute little guy. He's such a good baby... happy all the time and a pretty good sleeper already!

Brian wanted to see if Blake could fit in the high chair too. He can! :)

I figured out how to give them a bath at the same time. Anything to make life a little easier.

Helping Daddy study for the Department of the Army Competition. Although I'm sure he gets a lot more done when they're in bed! Brian leaves on Thursday to compete next week for "Warrior of the Year" at the highest level possible in the Army. Among other things he will do a PT test, day and night land navigation, qualification on the M4, a board appearance, a written test, and a day of warrior tasks and drills. It's an intense week-long competition but he has trained and studied so hard. I'm so proud of him. The Army should post pictures of the different events so I'll give you the link when we know it.

Can you believe I'm almost two months already??

Guess that's enough for now. Right now Natalie has marker all over her arms and legs--still learning about coloring only on paper. Oh well... it's washable. :)

Our First Post!

We decided to finally join the world of blogging. My parents just returned home and already miss their grandkids. Since we live so far away and the kids are growing so fast, we'll try to keep you all updated with pictures regularly. For those of you that we haven't talked to recently, we now live in Hawaii and have two children, Natalie (almost 2) and Blake (almost 2 months). We hope you enjoy this and it helps us to keep in touch.