Helping Decorate Ft. Bragg for Christmas

The girls and I have been making friends with several of the staff members here at Moon Hall in Ft. Bragg. The girls are the only kids around, so the staff is enjoying spoiling them. This morning the girls wanted to wear their pajamas and slippers down to the continental breakfast. After breakfast we headed back up to the 6th floor and found that the housekeeping staff was decorating our floor for Christmas. The girls joined right in to help.

They put red bows on the reindeer.

(Jocelyn tried to put one on his bottom, which cracked everyone up.)

They even decorated the plants with red bows.

Jocelyn helped hang the balls on the Christmas tree.

She was so proud of her work.

Ready to hang more balls.

The girls with the finished Christmas Tree.

The housekeeping staff was so thankful for the girls help that they gave them each a dollar bill.

Madison's Medium Haircut

Madison has been asking to get her hair "trimmed" for awhile now. We went to the PX and she saw the Beauty Shop and asked if we could go get her hair trimmed. We went in to see if they had time to give her a trim and they did. The hair dresser cut off one inch and then told us that if we cut off all of her baby hair it would make her hair look thicker and she wouldn't get as many knots because the baby hair is the really fine hair that gets tangled easily. I asked the hair dresser to show me how much she would need to cut off. She recommended cutting off at least 6 inches. I wasn't sure that Madison would go for it, since she only wanted a "trim." We showed her how much we needed to cut off and explained why and she decided that she wasn't a baby anymore so she didn't need her baby hair. :) Here is a video of Madison explaining and showing off her new "medium" haircut.

Rockin' Jocelyn

Jocelyn decided to rock Daddy's hat in her "Little Sisters ROCK!" shirt.

Leaving Nana and Pop's House

Sunday afternoon we left Nana and Pop's house and drove back to Fort Bragg with Clay. I wanted to break up the drive for the girls. It only took us 2 and 1/2 hours to get to Fort Bragg from Nana and Pop's house.

It has been a long time since everyone was together, so I wanted to get a picture of Clay with his parents and brother.

(John, Clay, Lynn, Guy)

The kids wanted to get into the picture too.
(Back row: Shotzie, John, Clay, Lynn, Guy)
(Front row: Madison, Blayke, Mia)
Jocelyn was still sick and ended up falling asleep.

Making Cookies with Pop

Since Jocelyn had been up sick most of the night, we just had a home day on Saturday.

Madison helped Pop make cookies while Jocelyn was napping.

Way to line them up.

High five!

Time to go in the oven.

Madison helped Pop read how long to cook the cookies.

Uncle Guy, Aunt Nelda, Mia and Blayke came over for dinner. We had a nice family dinner with everyone and then enjoyed Madison and Pop's cookies and apple pie for dessert. After dessert we drove to Uncle Guy and Aunt Nelda's neighborhood to look at Christmas lights and see their house.

Unexpected Trip to North Carolina

Clay called us on Thursday night and said that he had the weekend off. He asked if we would drive to his parents' house to meet up with him for the weekend. Needless to say the girls wanted to go see Daddy. I packed our stuff and loaded the van Thursday night and we were on the rode at 9:00 am Friday morning. The six hour drive wasn't bad except for the fact that the girls asked "Are we there yet?" or "How much longer?" every 10-15 minutes.

Once we got there the girls had tons of fun playing with their cousins Mia and Blayke.

All of the cousins piled on Pop's chair.
Pop made meatloaf for dinner because he knows it is Madison's favorite.

Pop also surprised the kids with Santa hat cupcakes for dessert.

Nana got the girls cute little reindeer from CVS.

Jocelyn with her bright red lips.

Blayke looked like he had lipstick on. :)

After dessert, Mia and Jocelyn snuggled on Pop's chair and looked at books.

Tickle Bug Pop got his M&M girls, Mia and Madison!

Clay finally arrived around 7:30pm. It was so nice to see him. For the first time ever Madison wanted to sleep with Daddy instead of Mommy. Unfortunately, Mommy and Jocelyn didn't get much sleep because Jocelyn was up sick most of the night.

Deployment Day!

Nine years ago today Clay asked me to marry him. I would have never thought that nine years later the girls and I would be saying goodbye to him as he leaves for his deployment.

His bags are packed and ready to go. We woke up very early this morning to drive him on base to pick up his weapon. The government car met us there to drive his luggage and weapon to the airport. We met the government car at the airport and proceeded to get Clay checked in. Everyone was very nice and understood how difficult this day was on us. As Clay stood at the counter, Madison just held onto his leg crying. It broke my heart.

Madison is going to miss her Daddy very much. She LOVES her Daddy Doll though. It was very helpful this morning. She just held him tight and kept playing the special message from Daddy.

Daddy got some good snuggles with the girls while we waited for his plane. The goodbyes were very difficult. They both cried the entire way to the car. Jocelyn seemed okay once we got to the car, but Madison cried the entire 40 minute drive home from the airport. Jocelyn doesn't exactly understand because when we pulled up to the house she yelled, "look Daddy beat us home." She saw his car parked at the house and assumed he was home. I had to remind her that Daddy was on the plane and his car will be sitting there for the next 7 months.