Christmas Joy (& Deployment Blues) 2015

Ahhh… we’re hoooooome! As in home, I mean Kansas. 🙂 My dad drove back with Hadley and me yesterday, and we were on the road by 5 a.m. to try and beat the 5-8″ of expected snow and ice that was supposed to fall last night.

This morning we woke up to this. So much for our first winter wonderland of the season! I’ll definitely take it though. I’m the crazy southerner who loves snow! 🙂

We really had the very best holiday season at home in Alabama (which will always be home to me), seeing family in Florida and Texas, and friends in Georgia and other parts of Alabama. Being away from our normal routine in Kansas was a very welcomed distraction and helped knock out another month of this deployment. Having helping hands constantly around gave me the rest that I mentally and physically needed.

I’m typically pretty good at giving myself pep talks to keep my perspective optimistic and to block out the deployment blues, but the days around Christmas had me in a funk that was nearly impossible to snap out of. I expected to be so distracted by the joy of celebrating Christmas with Hadley that I wouldn’t feel the sting of Jamie’s absence as much, but I sorely missed him. I hate that he’s missing nine months of Hadley’s life, and to be honest, we’re both a little emotionally worn out from three deployments  in 4.5 years.

I know in six-ish months this will all be over and everything will go back to normal like it always does, so for now I’m just trying my best to keep focused on what’s important and remember that this too will end. I couldn’t ask for a better support system of family and friends, and that truly lightens the load for me. Thank you to those who loved us so well throughout the last few weeks and made our holiday season so much more merry!

January and February are going to be really quiet for Hadley and me, and we are pumped about it. We’re starting serious potty training on Wednesday (pray for us!) and just have a ton of organizing-type stuff to do around the house as we begin getting ready for our baby girl to get here. I can’t believe we’re less than four months from my due date! Time is flying, and it’s rattling my nerves a bit (in a good way!).

I’d love to recap our Christmas a little bit, if you’re interested. 🙂

On the 23rd we celebrated Jamie’s birthday! His favorite cake is red velvet, so we baked some red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing. Baking with Hadley is always such a mess, but she really loves it and I love spending the time with her doing it.

Later on the 23rd, my brother David made it into town! He and Hadley are big buds and she warmed up to him quickly. I love watching her relationship with our family members grow.

On Christmas Eve morning we decided to take advantage of the 75 degree weather and drove over to a local playground/ball park to let Hadley run around.

Mom had the brilliant idea to let Hadley splash around in the puddles, and I agreed as long as Mom promised to be the one to scrub her down in the tub when we got home. 😉

Talk about a redneck Christmas Eve. 😉 She ran the baseball bases and had a blast throwing around Alabama red clay.

You can’t really tell in this picture below, but she was SUCH a mess. She loved every minute of it though!

Later that afternoon, we all got dressed up and headed to my parent’s church for a Christmas Eve  service. Hadley’s Christmas dress had a cute little long-sleeved jacket to go with it, but she definitely didn’t need it considering how warm it was!

After church we came home to eat dinner and whipped together some M&M sugar cookies for Santa! I think this is going to be a new Mommy/Hadley Christmas Eve tradition. We had fun doing this together!

Since she got a bath around lunchtime, we skipped her evening bath, threw her in her Christmas jammies, and got ready to open gifts. Our family always opens gifts for adults on Christmas Eve, so we let Hadley open one gift to keep her preoccupied while we all opened the rest of our gifts.

We sent Jamie tons and tons of pictures and snaps through Christmas Eve and Christmas, which I know helped him feel a bit more connected to us during the fun.

He was texting me by 6 a.m. my time (3 p.m. his time) asking if Hadley was awake yet because he was dying to watch her own gifts. He was so cute about all of it!

Later that afternoon all of my dad’s local relatives came over to my parent’s house for a big Christmas dinner and to exchange gifts. We always enjoy our time with them during the holidays!

My cousins and I have the best memories of sitting at the kids table when we were younger, but now there’s a new generation at the kids table! I can’t wait to watch this table of cuties grow in the next few years with more babies! Family is everything.

My contributions to the meal consisted of a pizza dip from Sally’s Baking Addiction and then a peppermint brownie layered cake that I threw together after combining a few different recipe ideas I’d seen online. My desserts usually aren’t pinterest worthy, but this one sure was a hit with everybody! So good. 🙂 Calories don’t count on Christmas, right?

The odds of us getting out of our pajamas today are sitting around 1%. 🙂 I think we’re going to take advantage of the snowy weather and brutal wind chills to unpack, work around the house, and just relax. I’m excited about what’s to come on the blog this week. Year-end wrap ups are always my favorite to create! See ya soon!