Getting excited for Christmas!

These pictures are out of order because I'm posting this from my phone, but here are our Pre-holiday Highlights!

- Disney Princesses on Ice!
(when Rapunzel came out, Avery raised her arms up in the air in disbelief and kept them up the entire time. So funny.)
- Christmas tree!
- Hot chocolate!
- Decorating Christmas cookies!
- Live Nativity and caroling at church!
- Santa!
- Greatest part: Daddy is home this year to do it all with us!!! We feel very blessed this Christmas!

Hawaii!!

Hawaii Bound!!!!

We hugged and kissed the girls goodbye this morning. I cried, of course. But here we are in 21A and B. As I key this entry we are flying over the Pacific. Destination: Oahu!!! The nine hour flight isn't that bad so far. We only have a couple hours left! It's a lot easier when you don't have to worry about keeping your kids quiet. :) We've been watching movies, reading, playing checkers on the iPhone... And having uninterrupted conversations! I forgot what that's like!!! They're having a contest of who can guess the exact midway point of the flight down to the second. So naturally Mike got to work calculating wind speed and altitude. I hope we win and that the prize is a million dollars. :)

We are looking forward to some long overdue quality time together. I know we'll come back refreshed and itching to get our arms around our baby girls.

Picture Update!!

We've missed Daddy so much over the past three months that he's been gone off and on. We were really happy to welcome him home last Friday! We went to base and surprised him by being there when he landed. The girls wore their Halloween costumes since Mike has missed Halloween for the past three years.

Here are a bunch of pics from the last few months including fall festivals, Halloween, Mike's homecoming and the USMC Birthday Ball.

Mike and I leave for Hawaii (!!!!) next week for 10 days and we can't wait!! The girls will be staying in KY with Mimi and Pawpaw. We are attending Mike's brother's wedding in Hawaii and decided to make a second honeymoon out of it. Last time we were there was our first honeymoon. Ten years ago. So excited to go back!

September

Late August brought a hurricane our way, just as Mike was returning from Yuma and just as I was returning from Kentucky.  We arrived to find that Irene left us with no electricity, a refrigerator and deep freeze full of spoiled food and two large trees laying across our back and side yard.  They fell perfectly perpendicular to our house! Thankfully we had no damage, just a huge mess to clean up.  Mike bought a chainsaw and we got to work cutting up the trees and hauling them to the curb. We went without electricity for a couple more days, but it wasn't too bad.

We enjoyed the last week of summer break after that and then Abby Kate started another year of preschool on Sept. 5.  She loves her new class and has been doing very well.  She has always loved school and anything to do with learning. Next year she will start Kindergarten! She'll turn 5 later this month - that is so hard to believe! Daddy will miss it as he is out in CA training for all of October.  Sadly, we cannot make another trip to go see him, but we plan to hold off on the birthday party until he gets back.

August Travels

Forgive me.  This may have been the longest hiatus from blogging I've ever taken.  The summer was such fun!

Mike was gone for the whole month of August.  Our baby girl turned 2 during that time, so we decided to travel west to share Avery's birthday fun with Daddy. He was in Yuma for training, which happens to be the home of our dear friends, the Newbolds.  We were so excited to see them.  Sarah's husband flies the Harrier also and was deployed at the time.  We enjoyed every minute of our visit and of course the very few minutes we had with Daddy each day when he could get away from work. It went by way too fast.  The girls played and played, and Sarah and I had the best time catching up, laughing and just enjoying each others' company. Our friend Lindsey and her son Grant joined us a couple of the days. They invited us to their house as well, which was so much fun! We went swimming and had the best appetizers and margaritas thanks to Lindsey who is a master at creating all things delicious! I'm sad we didn't get a picture with them. :(  Mike's brother, Bill, and his wife, Holly, also live in Yuma. We loved being able to spend time with them at their beautiful house and were happy they could come to Avery's birthday party. Sarah, a million thank yous for having us!!! Miss you!

Not quite complete without Colin. :(

Painting rocks!

Pledge of Allegiance.We'll worry about which side your heart is on later. ;)

Something they all can't get enough of... Daddy time!

Wii Dance Team :) We see you back there, Sarah!

Dress-ups all day!!

Uncle Bill and Aunt Holly live in Yuma so they were able to come for Avery's party too!