Our Lonely Week

Well we made it through our week without Lily...she is coming home tomorrow - finally! We've been going a little crazy without her. The house is so quiet when she's not here! Brian even tried to call her down to dinner last night! Although we missed her terribly, it seems she did not miss us too much. She's been having so much fun, she's barely talked to us at all! Every time we call she says she's too busy & we barely get a few sentences out of her before she is running off again to do something more important. When I asked her if she was excited to come home she said she wishes she could just stay there "for six months or something". The last time I talked to Grammy, she sounded pretty exhausted, so I don't think she could do another 6 months with Lily - haha.

While Lily has been off having her fun, we've been having some extra fun time with Jake. He loves when we sing to him & he's developed this little belly laugh that's pretty cute when we can coax it out of him. (He doesn't give that one up too easily.) He's getting so big so fast & we're enjoying every minute of it. :o) I'm not sure if he's going through a growth spurt or what, but he's been waking up more in the middle of the night for the past few days - which he hasn't done since he was 6 weeks! Hopefully this won't last too long, because I don't know how much more sleep deprivation I can take. Especially since Lily is starting school next week and there will be no "sleeping in" options!

Here's my one & only picture of him from this week - I guess this week was more about quality than quantity - cause this is a pretty darn cute picture :o)

Isn't he just to die for?!

Summer Is Disappearing Fast!

It seems summer is suddenly dangerously close to being over! Lily left yesterday to go to Florida with my mom to visit Uncle Doug and by the time she gets back, she will only have 6 days before school starts! We've had a great summer, and it's sad to see it end. Now that Lily is starting 'real' school, it going to be an adjustment as far as planning trips and events around her school schedule... I'm going to have trouble finding things to occupy my time now that Lily is away. We already miss her like crazy - the house is sooo quiet! I am getting to spend extra time with Jake, but the house still seems empty without her here. I'm sure she's having a blast in Florida - last night when I called to talk to her, she was too busy to come to the phone! She said she would talk to me later..

Here's a couple pictures from what is left of our summer...

Lily's Swimming!

Lily has completed her swimming lessons and I'm happy to say, she is actually swimming all by herself! I can't believe how much she learned in such a short period of time. The first 2 weeks of lessons, she was in a level 1 class - learning all the basics (floating, holding her breath under the water, etc). She did extremely well in that class and learned so much. The last 2 weeks of class, they moved her into a level 2 class. They conducted this class in the deep end (in 10 ft of water) and she worked on her swimming technique. She learned how to do the crawl, the breaststroke (or "froggy legs & big arms" as her teacher taught her) and the backstroke. She knows how to do them, but most of the time, she is still doing the doggy paddle. She can float on her back and her tummy unassisted for short periods of time and she swam 3/4 of the way across the pool all by herself! She could have swam the whole length of the pool, but kept psyching herself out thinking she couldn't do it, so she wouldn't try. She liked the level one class better, but I think it was because it was more fun. The level 2 class was more geared toward actually learning to swim instead of getting the kids used to the water and teaching them to enjoy it. Also, the other kids in her level 2 class were 10 - 11 years old, so I think she was more intimidated rather than seeing kids her own age and trying to do what they were doing. Regardless, we are so proud of all the progress she's made this summer and we can't wait to see her practicing her skills in the near future!

This is a video of Lily swimming underwater after 1 1/2 weeks of swim lessons:

Still Trying...

I'm still trying to find a template that better suits us...I really like this one, but I will probably change it 50 more times before I find one that I stick with. As you can see, I've made several big changes to this one - added the photos and birthday tickers and the music playlist as well...hope y'all enjoy & don't go crazy with me changing this up so much :o)

Orders

Brian put a request in to have his orders moved up 60 days and the request was approved yesterday! So now our report date will be December 10th. We are all really excited for this move. We've been at Fort Lee for 4 years and even though we've had some great times and made some great friends, I think we are all ready for a change.

Once we arrive, Brian will be the mortuary affairs liaison for an infantry division. (There are no mortuary affairs units.) So basically he will work in an office and be the "go-to" guy for any mortuary affairs issues the unit has. When they deploy, he will deploying with them for the full year they are required to go, instead of the six months he would go if he were in a mortuary unit. Even though he deploys with the infantry unit, he will still doing mortuary affairs work there - he will not be an infantryman.

Right now our plans are to leave Fort Lee sometime in early-mid November and head to the Houston area for a visit before making our way to our final destination. We are still considering our living arrangements, because there is a waiting list for on-post housing and we cannot get on that list until we clear housing here in Fort Lee.

My Birthday

Sunday was my birthday and we tried to celebrate it in fine style....Brian and Lily made me a fantastic birthday breakfast, which was delicious :o) Then it was off for pedicures with Jamie. Of course being Sunday, the only place we could find that was open was the salon at the mall - where we received pedicures in record time. You would think these girls were training for the Olympics or something! Needless to say, they did not do a very good job...so much for that nice relaxing time - haha. Then it was home to put my freshly pedicured toes up & relax :o) - which was very nice. Brian watched Jake & Lily and even cleaned the house a bit - which is a great birthday present all on it's own! For dinner, Brian made plans to take me to one of my favorite restaurants - The Cheesecake Factory. However, Jake had other plans for my evening...he was great the whole ride there, but woke up almost as soon as we got there & cried & fussed through almost the entire meal...I ended up spending the majority of the meal in the truck with him and I took my entire dinner home in a doggy bag, which I planned to eat as soon as we got home. Unfortunately I started feeling sick on the way home and by the time we got home, I was feeling so bad all I could do was lay on the couch & cry because I felt so bad! I still don't know what was wrong, but I felt fine the next day. Anyway, here are some pics before all the drama began:

Lil & I before breakfast

The fam before our dinner debacle

Water Country USA

We finally made it out to Water Country USA in Williamsburg this weekend. We went with Jamie, Steve, Stevie, Noah and Andrew. We all had a great time and Lily LOVED all the waterslides. She said her favorite one was the one that was pitch black and you couldn't see where you were going or anything almost the whole ride! I was only able to get a few pics before we started going on the big waterslides, but here they are:

The Beginning of the End...

This year every single one of the families in our little Army family is moving on from Fort Lee. This week, the first of the families moved. Our good friends, the Bertrands, moved back to Texas this week. Madison is one of Lily's good friends and it was so sad to see them go. Saying good-bye to good friends is a part of Army life that is not easy, but us adults have come to accept. However, to watch your child have to say good-bye to one of her best friends is devastating and I don't think it will ever be something that I will get used to. Madison & Lily must have hugged 50 times and they kept telling each other they would write letters and draw pictures for each other every day. Lily has asked for Madison every day since they left and she keeps saying she misses her. We are all going to miss them and we wish the Bertrands best of luck in Texas!

We all got to have one last night to play together before they had to leave:

"The little kids"

Lily, Madison, Stevie & Noah

The girls had their last night out a couple days before.

"The big kids"Jammie, me, Kim & Jamie

Stony Point

We all headed back to Stony Point this week so all the kids could play together. They all had a blast & Lily has been begging to go back ever since.

The Playroom

A new Playroom was opened close to us recently, so we decided to check it out. The kids had a great time playing and dressing up.

Lily & Madison
Stevie, Lily & Madison

Jake's having fun too...