Sunday, December 20, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Holiday Leave
Richard's holiday leave was granted. We have a full schedule planned while in Michigan, which includes tons of travel. We will be leaving VA after R works on Tuesday the 22nd and drive back to VA on Monday January 4th. While there, we will be traveling with R's family to upper Michigan to a hotel for three days and to a suburb of Chicago with my family to a hotel for three days. We're excited. And kind of tired.
(Orders are supposedly closer and closer to being fully approved.)
(Orders are supposedly closer and closer to being fully approved.)
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Christmas Stuff
Although we don't know yet if Richard will get orders to the deployable Ike, we're thinking he will. And if he does, we're thinking he will still be here next Christmas. But being sea duty, there is the possibility that he will be gone for the next three Christmases. So, we're kind of doing it up big this year. Which is kind of hard to do for a toddler who probably won't remember any of this. But at least we're taking pictures of most things.
We got Christmas photos taken of Lillian, both in her fancy red dress and in a Christmas sweater with lights.
Lillian helped me wrap Christmas presents and LOVED it. Wanted to be wrapped up herself.
She helped us in putting the ornaments on the tree. Richard was sitting at the box of ornaments and I was standing at the tree and she would grab each ornament from Richard and hand it to me.
Her ornament this year was a puppy, as she is obsessed with puppies right now. Our family ornament is one from Disney World.
She helped me make fudge and chocolate covered pretzels.
My good friend from high school, Kerstin, hand made us a huge felt Christmas Tree advent calendar. Each day Lillian gets to pick a small toy, piece of candy or a sticker.
Richard has picked out and purchased his special gift for Lillian, now he's just waiting for it to arrive and him to wrap it.
We're going outdoor ice skating on Friday night at MacArthur Mall. Lillian gets to have her own pair of double runner skates.
Next weekend we are going with friends to Busch Gardens' new Christmas Town. And then on Sunday, we're having our Sunday School party, the theme is "tacky Christmas". We all have outfits and I can't wait.
We've been teaching Lillian to say Merry Christmas. Right now it sounds like "Merry its". We're also teaching her to say "ho ho ho" in response to "what does Santa say?" She picked up on this, perfectly, right away, until she realized we wanted her to do it, now she's just refusing.
We're studying colors right now, so I printed off little photos of baby Jesus in the manger, and colored it in, two of each color. She is playing a matching color game with them. I also printed off four colors of a stable and there is a Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and star that color coordinates with each stable and she places them in the correct color.
We watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade and saw Santa come to town. We also bought the Radio City Rockettes DVD and Lillian is just mystified by it.
We have a bag that I made that holds all of our Christmas music, DVDs and books, and it hangs on our front door. Each day we read a book or two and sometimes watch a DVD.
We're always working on various Christmas coloring pages and crafts.
We all got new pajamas that we will open on Christmas eve.
We are hoping to head to Michigan early Christmas week. While there we will be spending a couple nights in a hotel in northern Michigan with Richard's family and a couple nights in a hotel near Chicago with my family.
We got Christmas photos taken of Lillian, both in her fancy red dress and in a Christmas sweater with lights.
Lillian helped me wrap Christmas presents and LOVED it. Wanted to be wrapped up herself.
She helped us in putting the ornaments on the tree. Richard was sitting at the box of ornaments and I was standing at the tree and she would grab each ornament from Richard and hand it to me.
Her ornament this year was a puppy, as she is obsessed with puppies right now. Our family ornament is one from Disney World.
She helped me make fudge and chocolate covered pretzels.
My good friend from high school, Kerstin, hand made us a huge felt Christmas Tree advent calendar. Each day Lillian gets to pick a small toy, piece of candy or a sticker.
Richard has picked out and purchased his special gift for Lillian, now he's just waiting for it to arrive and him to wrap it.
We're going outdoor ice skating on Friday night at MacArthur Mall. Lillian gets to have her own pair of double runner skates.
Next weekend we are going with friends to Busch Gardens' new Christmas Town. And then on Sunday, we're having our Sunday School party, the theme is "tacky Christmas". We all have outfits and I can't wait.
We've been teaching Lillian to say Merry Christmas. Right now it sounds like "Merry its". We're also teaching her to say "ho ho ho" in response to "what does Santa say?" She picked up on this, perfectly, right away, until she realized we wanted her to do it, now she's just refusing.
We're studying colors right now, so I printed off little photos of baby Jesus in the manger, and colored it in, two of each color. She is playing a matching color game with them. I also printed off four colors of a stable and there is a Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and star that color coordinates with each stable and she places them in the correct color.
We watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade and saw Santa come to town. We also bought the Radio City Rockettes DVD and Lillian is just mystified by it.
We have a bag that I made that holds all of our Christmas music, DVDs and books, and it hangs on our front door. Each day we read a book or two and sometimes watch a DVD.
We're always working on various Christmas coloring pages and crafts.
We all got new pajamas that we will open on Christmas eve.
We are hoping to head to Michigan early Christmas week. While there we will be spending a couple nights in a hotel in northern Michigan with Richard's family and a couple nights in a hotel near Chicago with my family.
Pray about....
This morning is Richard's neurologist appointment. It seems that whether he gets the orders to the Ike or not, all boils down to this appointment and whether the neurologist will write a letter of recommendation for deployment. We'll see. Pray about that please.
Also, Richard has been having to work extremely long hours lately, and its stressing him out and making me completely exhausted. Pray that it ends soon, at least a few days before we try to drive to Michigan.
Which brings me to another thing, we STILL don't know about holiday leave. Yup, its less than three weeks away. No, they care nothing about us. But it would really help in planning things if we could get approval from them to take leave. Pray about that please.
There are several practical and legal things we need to get done before Richard leaves for deployment (if he does). With the holidays, Lillian's birthday and his transfer leave being between now and then, its coming up super fast. Pray that we find out for sure soon and are able to get moving on all the details. We are very near to the 2 month window from the day he will leave.
Seems to me after reviewing this post that the Navy being dumb is doing a pretty good job of keeping the prayer lines to God strong. Gooooooo Navy!
Also, Richard has been having to work extremely long hours lately, and its stressing him out and making me completely exhausted. Pray that it ends soon, at least a few days before we try to drive to Michigan.
Which brings me to another thing, we STILL don't know about holiday leave. Yup, its less than three weeks away. No, they care nothing about us. But it would really help in planning things if we could get approval from them to take leave. Pray about that please.
There are several practical and legal things we need to get done before Richard leaves for deployment (if he does). With the holidays, Lillian's birthday and his transfer leave being between now and then, its coming up super fast. Pray that we find out for sure soon and are able to get moving on all the details. We are very near to the 2 month window from the day he will leave.
Seems to me after reviewing this post that the Navy being dumb is doing a pretty good job of keeping the prayer lines to God strong. Gooooooo Navy!