Why do I have a feeling this would've been me?

There's so much I've been wanting to put on our blog, but life has passed, Facebook has stolen my attention for pictures and updates, and I just seem to always have some deadline... and I'm not even working! LOL... All is well in the Neil household and we're looking forward to the holidays. Going home to AZ for a Neil family reunion. For Christmas, we're still undecided if we'll go back. It may well be our first Christmas ever away from family... =( Hope all is well with those of you who still see these updates! =) I'm so grateful for great people in my life and feel spoiled.

April adventures!

Life in the Neil household has been interesting the last month! Doug deployed to Guam for four months at the beginning of April. It was a 4am goodbye and he was gone... strange. Life as a single mom continues and we're very lucky that these deployments are what they are. He's in a safe place, only 4 months, and we get to talk to him everyday on Skype (for the most part). It's been a lot of fun hearing about his adventures thus far, though he's anxious for more to come... especially when we get to venture out to go visit him!!! That's right, one of the biggest perks (to me) of this deployment is that we are allowed to visit. So Emmalynn and I will be joining our dear friend Crystal Middents and her two kids to go out to visit Doug and Mike (Crystal's husband and a friend from my homeward I grew up with!). It will be quite the trek as we'll be taking military flights out of Travis AFB (near Sacramento), but looking forward to the adventure along the way, especially since we'll be able to visit the Smedleys and then most likely spend a couple of days on my old stomping grounds of Hawaii! It's amazing how everything is falling into place and we just hope all goes well. Though I'm not the best at keeping up on the blog (you all were supposed to be encouraging me since it was my goal!) =), I'll give updates as to how it all went down. We will be living there in Guam for about a month (as long as everything goes well)!!

Since Doug's been gone, Emmalynn and I have been trucking along, but having some fun adventures as well... We drove with our friend Jessica over to Dallas to join our youth for doing baptisms in the temple. It was a fun adventure and everytime I'm with our youth, I'm reminded how lucky I am to be so involved with them! I sure love our young women especially! Along our way back home to Shreveport/Bossier City, we always cross the Texas/Louisiana state line, so we finally got some pictures at the fun sign:

Speaking of our youth, we had a fundraiser for money to go to Scout and Young Women's camps in our ward. It was the most successful fundraiser I've been a part of, raising $3,500! It's a free spaghetti dinner for anyone who wants to come and right after is an auction consisting of donated items and services. I was excited to have bid and won a car wash and then especially a fun 2 1/2 hour country ride with the Judkins family on their gorgeous bikes... if Doug and I end up owning some of these, don't be surprised!

One of the biggest blessings in my life right now are such good friends out here. So many people have jumped in to help me and always offer assistance. Meredith Miller, one of my dear friends, has been a champ at helping me get better at working out and so we joined a 5K this weekend! It was a lot of fun, especially since Emmalynn was the 1st place baby (can't say so much for me!)!

Then of course was fun Easter yesterday. We enjoyed a nice dinner at the Miller's and whatever time we could soak up talking with family on the phone or Skype. This last week we took some Easter pictures of Emmalynn, especially since she turned 6 months on the 16th! I can't believe how fast the time has flown. She sits up on her own so well now, is starting to eat solid foods, and that personality... well, let's just say she's a riot and we will definitely have our hands full. We're sad that Doug will miss a lot of her growth since it's happening so fast, but feel lucky he'll get to be with her for a month in the middle of the deployment!

Of course in between December and now, we've had some good times that I've been wanting to blog about, but know that we've been well and happy. Hope all is well with all of you!

Sweet sleeping baby=Merry Christmas Mamma!

There's an angel on my lap, slowly stirring. Nothing like quiet reflections with the background noise of a newborn's deep breaths in the wee hours of the morning... wee hours being 7:30 a.m.

She did it!! She officially slept through the ENTIRE night! She ate last at 10 a.m., fell asleep immediately afterwards, and is STILL going (it's 8 a.m. and she'll be waking up soon). I know what a lot of you will want to say, "You're so lucky you have a baby that does that," or altogether you don't believe it's possible. The truth is, it's been work, but it's possible! Thanks to Cecilia and Tawnya (who I get to go to lunch with today), I followed the suggestions in "On Becoming Baby Wise" and it really worked! It takes a lot of conditioning. Emmalynn slept between 7-7.5 hours two nights before (and had been building it up before that), so it looks like she's really doing it (where's some wood to knock on????)! I'm thinking she's also doing it because she's had a rough week and a half with MAJOR gas issues and has been crying a LOT, especially in the evenings. Unfortunately, that's when most of the extended family spends time with her for the first time. It seems my baby has become colic-y and I've been doing some experiments and find that it's probably dairy. Dang. I sure love my bowls of cereal at night, but I may have to put all my dairy-loved foods away for a while. I always knew there would be sacrifices in motherhood, but I never thought that would be one!

Although I still haven't posted her "story" nor much of anything else going on lately, I just had to get my excitement out to the world (or to the few who actually will read this!). Merry Christmas to me!! =)

Our Emmalynn has arrived!!

On Saturday, October 16 at 2:51pm, our Emmalynn Ruth Neil was born! 5 pounds, 15 ounces and 18 3/4 inches long!

If you can't tell how tiny she is, just look at the boots she has to fill! =)

A Halloween photo shoot...

And here she is one month later...

Natural vs. medicated childbirth?????

Okay, so I know I'm the lamest blogger you possibly know. I've had a whole bunch of pictures and things I've wanted to post for I don't know how long, but I keep postponing it. It's been a crazy couple of months as we have been non-stop been looking for a home to purchase. Then I went back home to AZ for two and a half weeks. It was such a great visit and the baby showers were fantastic (thanks Mom and Cheryl for the great evening and Tawnya and Sora for the Riverview brunch!!!!!). Seriously, I was so spoiled that I would rather first send thank-you cards before posting everything else about the trip. Thank you to all the awesome gifts and baby funds!!

Since I've been back for two weeks, we've FINALLY found a home!! The offer was accepted this weekend and now we're prepping to move in a few weeks (as soon as we close). Whether or not this is an intelligent thing to do a month before I'm due, oh well! We're so excited!! Especially now that we can focus on baby stuff. Seriously there are waaaaaay too many things that I haven't even thought through yet because we were so focused on getting into a home.

Saturday, Doug and I took a childbirth preparation course that was four and a half hours long... holy moly! There's sooooo much to think about!! Now the biggest debate I'm STILL having is whether or not to go natural or medicated. I definitely believe in the beautiful technology that has brought us medicated birth today, but it just seems there's so many pros to going natural using a relaxation method (Lamaze, Bradley, etc). I would LOVE feedback from anyone willing to give it. I know everyone feels partial to their way, but I'd like to hear your stories as I'm still trying to think it all through for what would be best for me.

More updates to come soon....

Doug's first flight!

Doug did his first flight in the B-52 today!! I was so excited to able to go to the park right by the base where I had a good view of and film it! Without further ado, here it is (excuse the dirty lens... how embarrassing!) :

Doug's experience in his words (yes I got him to type on the blog!!!):

Flying in the B-52 can be summed up in three words. Hot, cold, and awesome. Even in the early morning hours here in Louisiana I was drenched in sweat after 15 minutes of being inside the jet. When our instructor advised us to bring an extra shirt I thought he was exaggerating. I figured that being from AZ I could just "tough out the heat." And I did...but when you're wearing a sweat-drenched uniform at 30,000 feet it gets a bit chilly to say the least.

Of the many things we did during my first flight, we did air-t0-air refueling. That was an interesting experience with a student pilot flying the plane. The other student navigator that sits next to me just decided to turn of our "tv screen" (easiest way to explain it) instead of having to endure watching our near death experiences every couple minutes ;) O.k. it wasn't that bad, but it was.....sporty.

At the end of our flight we went back to Barksdale to give the pilots a little experience landing. "A little" meaning 3 hours of flying in circles around the airport and crashing into the runway every 10 minutes or so. I haven't measured myself since I got home from the flight, but I'm pretty sure I'm in the 5' 4" range now. Seriously though...my tailbone hurts.

Even though there were some rough times it is so cool to be able to fly in the B-52. It's an old airplane, but it's still reverenced by every other country in the world for a reason. I love being the one to "push the button";)

(Jacque talking again) For those who don't understand what air-to-air refueling is, it's when the big tanker (like my vocabulary? I sound like a 5 year old!) puts a hose up to the plane it's refueling as both are going approximately 400 mph! I found a picture on the internet... it's a view from the tanker looking onto the B-52 as it's doing this process (the pictures above I took of the B-52 taking off):

Boy or Girl?

So, today was the day! We found out the gender!! Just FYI, Doug has 6 siblings, 5 of which have kids. Every one of them had a girl for their first child. The question is, do we follow the Neil children's tradition of having a girl first or are we daring enough to be "different"? Here's the beautiful baby..Girl or boy?? It was hard to tell during the ultrasound because the legs were crossed for a while. As soon as we found out, there was no surprise. We were already convinced that we'd welcome a... Well, are you listening to the song being played? That will tell you!

I'm officially 16 weeks and 3 days along! More updating to come soon! Love you all!!! We're sooooo excited!!! Enjoy the rest of the playlist... classic "baby" songs! =)