Color me a slacker

I just realized I haven't updated my post since November! Ooops!!! Faithful followers are you still out there?

A ton has happened since November. I spent Thanksgiving here in J'ville with my friends. A few days before Thanksgiving I had an unfortunate run in with a steak knife while doing the dishes. This made it very difficult for me to cook my portion of Thanksgiving dinner. Luckily, I have amazing friends and Holly helped me cook everything the night before so that we still had all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes for dinner. I had a great time eating good food, watching football, and playing board games with friends.

Christmas was CRAZY, but what else is to be expected? I drove the 14ish hours from J'ville to Louisiana with the two pups in tow so that I could celebrate with my family. I arrived in LA early enough to see my awesome mother graduate from UNO with her Master's degree and I got to celebrate my nephew's 5th birthday. After that celebrating was over I moved onto celebrating Christmas and New Years with my family. Then I headed home to J'ville to prepare for something even more exciting!

ANDREW IS FINALLY HOME!!!!!!! Yup, that's right, Andrew arrived home January 9th. We were two days shy of a 365 day deployment. I'm ecstatic to have him home and safe. I love having him walk through the door in the afternoon/evening when he gets home from work. I'm happy to have help with the crazy pups and house work again. Now that's he's home we're gearing up for post-deployment leave and then trying to return to a normal life.

I'm not making any promises, but hopefully once post-deployment leave is over I can get back to blogging at least semi-regularly.

Christmas Under the Oaks

Rob, Missy, Andrew, and I went to Christmas under the oaks in city park last night and it was great fun. Lucky for us it wasn't as could as it haas been in the past. We had a great time walking around dining hot chocolate and seeing all the lights.

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10 on Tuesday

1. I survived Jane Wayne day (or at least that's what my t-shirt says). Andrew's unit hosted a day where the wives got to come and do the O Course (obstacle course), ride in MRATS ( I think that's what they're called), fire weapons in the weapon simulator, and eat MREs. The up side to all of this was Andrew got off early for his Thanksgiving leave because I went and played with big toys for a day!!
2. I finished my Clapotis. It's a knit wrap with drop stitch detail. I'm in LOVE with it. I need to wash it with vinegar to set the color and block it so it won't be all curled up like it is in the picture. I'll post another picture once I've finished all of that.

3. We put up the Christmas decorations!! I am excited for Christmas finally. I love Christmas and I definitely love decorating it so much so that I have more decorations then my house can handle. This year is the first year that we've had a yard though, so you better bet that after Christmas I will be buying lawn decorations on sale!!

4.I love our inside decorations. We have our stockings hung from our entertainment center (or as mom puts by the Wii with care) since we don't have a fire place, but I think it's fun.

5. Sushi helped as she does every year by taking up residence in the tree box and smacking anyone who walked past.
6. This is proof that Munchkin loves us. If you know our pets you know that Munchkin doesn't like to be touched or cuddled. She willingly came to snuggle with Andrew. She never snuggles with me, always Andrew.

6. I knitted this hat for Jill and I think that I'm in love with it. It's knit with super bulky yarn so it knits up really quickly and I just love it, it's so simple but it looks great.
7. Andrew and I are going home for Christmas and I'm so excited. We're also going to be able to make it home for Peyton's birthday party this year which makes me even more excited because we had to miss it last year since we couldn't go home for an extended period of time due to Andrew's class schedule.

8. Now that I have finished all the other knitting projects that I had going, I think it may be time to start my Christmas knitting. Nothing like waiting until the last second to make Christmas presents.

9. I need to sit down and make our Christmas cards in photoshop now that I think about it. I spent like 2 days making my sister's card, but I haven't even thought about ours.

10. I've been watching this series on Netflix called Whale Wars. I think these people are crazy. It follows an organization called the Sea Shepards on the quest to stop whaling. They're definitely extremists and I could never do it, but what they do makes for good television.

Stream of Consciousness

So, I have been up since 3:45am yesterday so that's about 22 hours and I've consumed so much caffeine that my brain is racing and I can't sleep. I thought instead of sleeping that I would share my most recent train of thought with you, just bear with me because sometimes the inside of my head is an "interesting" place.

I was listening to the radio and I heard a line in a song that was something like," I'm the son of a 3rd generation farmer" then like the next line is "I've been married 10 years to the farmer's daughter" which makes you wonder, "Did he marry his sister?" I mean this is Jacksonville, but I would like to think we're classier than Arkansas or West Virginia (lol).

Speaking of West Virginia I heard a really funny joke about them the other day (from a Chaplain believe it or not). Why did West Virginia cancel the nativity? Because they couldn't find 3 wise men and a virgin. lol. (bad joke I know).

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I went to Andrea's house where we had a TON of food and lots of people. It really was a blast. After I brought dinner to Andrew and Dink since they had duty today. I was bummed out that Andrew had stupid barracks duty today. I mean he's going to be deployed next year for Thanksgiving and he missed this one because of the MC too. I know I shouldn't complain because at least he's here and he'll be back in just a few hours which will seem like even less time if I can actually fall asleep!

Andrea, Holly, and I braved Wal-Marts midnight madness. They didn't have what I was looking for, but Holly got a kick ass Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I did get an artificial Christmas tree. I really am all for live trees, but since we're going to be home on pre-deployment leave for Christmas I figured it would be better to get a fake one this year, and hopefully I'll put it up again next year even though Andrew won't be home for Christmas.

If you know me you know how much I LOVE to decorate for Christmas and I just love Christmas in general. This year I'm dreading it. I almost don't want to put the tree up when Andrew gets home today nor do I want to put up our lights or even really decorate. I feel like if I just don't prepare for the holidays then they won't come and Andrew won't leave shortly after. I know that's stupid kid logic, but some days you take what you can get. I know that I'm going to bite the bullet and decorate and I'm sure once I start I'll get into the spirit and everything will be fine, but for now I'm going to sit here and pout while my food induced coma fights with my caffeine induced awakeness.

Christmas Down in the South

Andrew and I had a great time at home for Christmas. I really wish that we could have gotten to stay longer. Our time was definitely crazy. It just seems to get harder and harder to fit in all of our friends and family into one visit. We still try our best though to get to see everyone.

Hanging the lights at Dad's house and putting up the ornaments in the tree.

Doesn't Ginny look amused.

Andrew did actively participate (he hung ornaments on the tall branches)

We went Christmas lighting on Christmas Eve.

While we were home Andrew took 1st birthday pictures of Jaydah and Christmas Pictures of all three girls.
Ibby, I still can't get over how big she is.

Cami, She definitely had me wrapped around her little finger.

Merry Christmas! Aren't they cuties.

Peyton got a new bike for Christmas.

I love the look of sheer kid joy on his face. I mean seriously what adult do you know who gets so excited over a book.

Experiencing Christmas

Andrew and I had a small Christmas here in Syracuse on the 18th. Why so early you ask, because we headed home to surprise our families for Christmas!!!! They weren't expecting us and some (cough mom cough) made us stand outside and convince them to answer the door. Our Christmas here was fun though. Here are just a few pictures. Our Happy Christmas Tree

Tango with her bone on Christmas Day

Munchkin and Sue playing with their Christmas toys

Munchie loving the new toys

My new KitchenAid mixer!! I'm in love.

Andrew with his Marines Monopoly.

Andrew and his Harley shirt.

Oh Christmas Tree

Andrew and I went out to Critz Farm yesterday to pick out a live Christmas tree. We had such a good time. We brought Tango with us so that she could enjoy the great outdoors. Since it has been getting colder around here we haven't been venturing out as often. We're definitely southerners to the core. Yesterday was also Tango's 2nd birthday! Tango and I with the tree we picked out.

Andrew cutting down our tree

Once we got the tree home, off the car and into the house we started decorating! I love decorating the Christmas tree. I also baked some cookies and listened to Christmas Carols. We had a very eventful evening.

Our tree all decorated

Our second Christmas Tree

These went up the day after Thanksgiving. Our Christmas Village

Close up.

Our village has two ice skating rinks and a ton of houses.

Our stairs decorated. As I get our Christmas cards I'm hanging them from the garland.

Our stocking holders.

Once we were done with all of our decorating I sat down to work on a present I'm giving for the secret santa at work. It's going to be a throw sized blanket. I'm totally in love with it so far. It's knitting up fairly easily. Not a quickly as I was expecting, but it's still finishing up fairly fast for a blanket.

Ten on Tuesday (On Wednesday?!)

1. Yes my 10 on Tuesday is a day late. I'm not apologizing

2. On Tuesday we got our first snow fall that stuck to the ground!


3. Yes, I bought my dog a snuggie.

4. See she's smiling she really does like it.5. I am starting an insane knitting project. I'm going to knit OptArt by December 17th for a Secret Santa exchange at work. I will be knitting this only this month I bet.

6. I should be knitting, but instead am doing my 10 on Tuesday a day late

7. Andrew and I are going to get our Christmas tree this weekend! We're super excited since this will be our first live Christmas tree together. It's probably going to be a small one.

8. We have all of our decorations up minus our tree. Here's a peak I'll put up the rest after the tree.
9. My contract with work got extended until June! YaY for being employed until we leave Syracuse.

10. Andrew and I are still anxiously awaiting our next duty station. We will find out in January (hopefully!).