Category: Real Life

Christmas cards. I love getting them. Even the annoying ones where the people list off all their awesome accomplishments for the year and gloss over the bad stuff.

I usually send Christmas cards (photos), but I haven’t for the past two years. Last year we had just moved into our house and I couldn’t find our silverware, let alone a family photo. And this year… well, you know.

The problem is that because we’ve moved and I haven’t sent cards we aren’t getting very many cards this year.

I never really realized how much I like getting cards until they stopped coming. (By the way- this isn’t a post to guilt all of you who know me to send me a card, seriously)

Then it got me thinking about how there are probably people like me who like getting cards, but now aren’t getting one from me.

If you are a Christmas card sender- it isn’t too late to send them out. Who cares if they arrive after Christmas? There are probably lots of people who would love to see a picture of your family, an update, or even just a simple Merry Christmas.

In other news we are out of tape to wrap gifts. My kids have started using packing tape to wrap presents because we have plenty of that….

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

It’s funny how the people who can bring you the most joy, can also bring you the most frustration.

My thirteen year old lost my camera (camera, lenses, the whole backpack) and this cutie trashed my bathroom better than Justin Bieber in a third world country.

It’s hard to walk into the bathroom at midnight and realize you have at least a half hour of cleaning to do before you can even brush your teeth.

It’s hard to buy a Christmas gift for the kid that just lost $2,000 worth of photo equipment.

These things aren’t hard because of deployment, but they seem harder to swallow these days.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Always winter but never Christmas. I finally “got” that quote from Narnia today.

That’s how it feels around here. Sure there’s a tree, lights, and presents, but it something’s just not right. We started decorating a few weeks ago, but after opening a box or two everyone just gave up.

These is so much good, but right now it feels like we are drowning in winter.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Today was one of those awful, deployment sucks sort of days. It started with me crying anytime someone asked how it was going at church and ended with me getting into a huge fight with him via Facebook chat.

I don’t have much else to say about today other than I’m glad it is over.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

We got a fun surprise in the mail today.

My friend Lynn sent an entire box of homemade candy. I’ve been off sugar for a while, but promptly put myself into a sugar coma with these delightful treats including homemade mounds and three musketeers!

Really there isn’t much else about the day that can compare to a box of homemade candy at Christmas. I think some of the recipes are on her website, so if you want to bless a family (or just yourself) head over to Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures for all her homemade candy recipes.

It’s crazy- but that’s pretty much all I can remember about the day.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Today I met one of my blog readers for the first time. She’s been a long time reader and recently moved to the area with her family. She offered to make us dinner a few weeks ago.

I’m typically one who declines these types of offers, but I’m learning to accept help, because we do need it.

I’m so glad I said yes to Amanda. She cooked my family a delicious meal that my children devoured.

I spent the evening wrapping presents with the “help” of my thirteen year old. He didn’t actually do a lot of helping, he really just wanted to see what his siblings were getting for Christmas.

We wrapped late into the night, and after we were done I could hear him and his brother downstairs.

I check on them before I went to bed, and found this.

It’s hard to see, but they are sleeping “under” the Christmas tree. This has been a tradition in our family for many years, but it is a dad tradition. It made me smile (and a little sad) to see them carrying on the tradition without him tonight.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Today started out terribly. I won’t got into details, but let’s just say we’ve all had better days around here.

I finally gave up around 4pm and decided we were headed to the library. A room full of free books makes everything better, right?

The library definitely turned things around for everyone. We had a great time and the kids checked out almost 100 books!

I can only hope this will make up for all the science lessons we haven’t been completing lately.

For the past two years I haven’t slept much every night. The good thing is that I don’t really need a lot of sleep, but lately I haven’t been able to fall asleep until after 2am. Since I like to get up before 6am, this is not a good thing. Waking up later puts me behind for the entire day.

My mind just doesn’t want to turn off at night. At some point I’ll probably reset due to exhaustion, and I’m hoping that time comes soon!

The girls had fun messaging their dad on Facebook today. They love all those silly smiley faces you can send via chat.

We decided to send some real life smiley faces over chat too.

All this randomness to say, if your day stinks- get out of the house. Sometimes you just need a change of scenery!

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Today we went Christmas shopping for dad. I’m trying to get a box sent to him for Christmas but of course it’s already late in the month and I doubt it will get there before Christmas because the mail is really slow.

My kids who usually love to pick out gifts and shop in general, were noticeably sad as we put items in the cart.

I think for them, it hit home that dad wouldn’t be there on Christmas morning. Honestly, things have been so busy around here that I haven’t thought much about it, but seeing their faces as we shopped made it very real.

My kids love Christmas. They love everything about it. Tonight at dinner my four year old prayed…

Dear Jesus,

Thank you for our food and for Santa, even though he won’t make it snow. Please don’t let dad get killed.

Amen

Deployment life is strange. I don’t want my kids to forget the sacrifice their dad is making, but I also want them to be kids and enjoy this time of year. I think they all struggle not wanting to be either too happy or too sad. Today was definitely a sad day, so I’ve planned some fun distractions for tomorrow.

I can’t figure out if routine or distractions are a better way to make it through the holidays. When I was younger- and thought I knew it all, I would have preached the benefits of routine, but today I’m just not sure. Routine can end up being reminders when a big part of it is missing.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Yep- this about sums it up for today.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.