Daddy!!!

No, he's not home yet. But back in November, we were soooo blessed to be able to have him home for about 10 days. Jason's sweet Grandma past away and he was able to come home to speak at the funeral. I know that Grandma was thrilled to be a part of our short little reunion.

Don't worry, Jason is not on chemo, he just shaved his head while in Afghanistan. He knew the funeral may be coming soon, but continued to keep the new do. It was a little shocking at first (I had seen it on skype, but it was still a surprise), but I was surprised at how quickly I got used to it.

Jason flew in late on Friday night. He didn't get to the house until midnight. Lucy and I were able to greet him. Graham fell asleep on the couch around 10:30. It was absolutely amazing being able to hold him and see him face to face. He was hungry, so the three of us had a Digiorno pizza before bed.

We left the next morning around noon for Utah to attend the funeral. We stopped in St. George for the night and made our way to Salt Lake for the viewing that evening.

Raegan, Lucy, and Lori at the viewing.

Graham, Daniel, and Benny

The kids were all being super crazy after being at the viewing for a while. It was held at a mortuary, so the employees there were getting a little impatient with their volume. We gave Graham Jason's IPad and Ben my IPhone and they were quiet the rest of the time. We decided we'd worry about technology detox at a later date (they had spent the whole drive from Cali with their faces glued to one Apple device or another).

Crazy, crazy girls.

We only stayed in Utah for 3 days and then made our way back to Oxnard for some family time. It. Was. Amazing.

J took the kids swimming a couple different times. The pool is so much more fun with Dad. He does tricks and actually gets in the big pool instead of staying in the hot tub :) .

On the following Saturday, we got a babysitter for a while and had a wonderful date. We attended the temple. Oh yeah.....Jason shaved his head, did I mention that?

We met the Jarvis' for dinner in Santa Monica. I miss Laurie so much! They moved in November to Huntington Beach. After dinner, Jason and I went to see a movie.

Friday night is our family movie night. The kids were excited to have Daddy home for it. We started this tradition a month or so after he left. We took a chance and watched the first Harry Potter. We were worried they'd be too scared, but it was great!

And of course, there was lots and lots of trampoline time.

We were sooooo very sad to see Jason go after the 10 days were gone. The time went too quickly. Jason and I were both worried about how the kids and I would be when he went back. We had a little bit of a setback in behavior and I had a hard, emotional week, but we got through it and it was totally and completely worth it.

The time for his homecoming is getting closer, but it still seems so far away. I try not to think about it too much because the days seem to crawl by if I focus too much on it. It has been a long six months. I haven't blogged about it as much as I wanted to for a couple reasons. First, because I just haven't had the time or the energy. Once the kids are in bed I need to just sit and do nothing for a while before I crash. The main reason, though, is that it just makes me too sad to sit on the computer and think about it all. I miss him so much and I worry about the kids all the time. For other trials or periods in my life, journaling helped me through, but with this deployment, I have had a hard time putting it into words. I find myself getting really depressed when I try to sit down and focus on how I'm feeling. Especially at night when it's quiet and I'm lonely.

Even now......don't want to do it. We are less than 50 days away and I cannot wait. It is hard being without my other half. No matter how happy a moment is, there's always a part of me that's sad that Jason isn't here with me. Sometimes the feeling is overwhelming and feels too hard to bear, but on most routine days, it's just this little prick in my heart that always, always misses him and is ready for him to be home to stay.

Grandpa!

We love, love, love it when Grandpa comes to town. He flew in the weekend before Halloween and stayed a few days. We were sooooo glad to have him.

We hit the beach a couple different times.

Lucy and I were able to get our boogie board on while Grandpa watched Benny. It was so fun! Graham always joins in the fun to. He puts on his life jacket and jumps and rides the big waves with us.

Crazy Benn-O

Thanks for coming, Grandpa! We were so sad to see you go!

Halloween 2011

Better late than never, I say. We had a great Halloween this year. My little people were so excited to dress up and enjoy the festivities.

Our scary vampire. Lots of people thought he was Dracula. He was quick to correct them. Then, if someone said something about drinking blood, he usually gave them a confused look. He didn't really get into character too much.

Dr. Benn-O

He was supposed to be a bumble bee, but I didn't try on the old costume until Halloween morning and it was too small. Oops. So, we went through our dress-up bin and found this.

Lucy was a cowgirl. My talented friend made her this adorable dress.

I decided to get in on the fun, too.

My kiddos and I before the ward party.

Here's Benny gettin' his groove on at the party.

I love this picture! We were lucky to have Grandpa here for the celebration. He was here last year, too!

Grant and Graham before their preschool party.

Graham brought home a pumpkin cookies recipe that he really wanted to make at home. He said mine weren't as good, but they were okay. Awesome.

We had a Halloween dinner the Sunday before the big day. Lucy made these carrot sticks that look like fingers.

Isn't she the cutest thing? Love this girl. She helped me make the mummy-dogs.

Party with the Perrys

The Perry family came to visit (back in October)!! We counted down the days to their arrival and we had a blast when they got here! We spent most of our time at the beach and at our neighborhood pool. It was soooo nice have great friends to talk to and kids for my munchkins to play with. For me, visiting in the evenings with Trent and Lichelle was the highlight of their stay.

On one of the days, we tried a new beach that the Ray fam had never been to before. We wanted to check out some tide pools and this beach delivered. Trent searched out starfish and crabs with all the kiddos. Then we found a nice spot on the beach to hang out for the afternoon.

Lucy and Zander doing some rock climbing.

Sweet Lindee Lou. I have a picture in my old scrapbook of me holding baby Lindee when we were partying at Bear Lake. I am so glad that we are all still friends and my little girl gets to play with Lichelle's sweet girl.

More rock climbing.

Funny Myra. She became one with the sand that day.

All the kiddos after having dinner at Yolanda's.

Lichelle and I have been close friends since 10th grade (we were friends before, but she was oober popular in Jr. high and I still wore my hair in braids and only liked boys from a major distance, so we weren't "close" friends until sophomore year). That's 16 years! I met Trent the same time that Lichelle did, so he and I go way back, too. I love that we have shared so many milestones in our lives together.

We love the Perry family! Come back soon!

Benny's Big Birthday Bash

Okay, so it wasn't much of a bash, but it sounded good for the title.

Isn't this the most adorable 2 year old you've ever seen? His birthday was actually back in October, but who's counting, right?

Benny's big day landed on "church day", so we put on his little outfit and pinned on his birthday pin so everyone at church would know it was his big day.

Sweet brothers......most of the time. Graham informed me just today that he had "great news". He said, "I love Ben now!" About two weeks ago he informed me that he had "great news", too. "I like Benny now!" It only took a little over 2 years, but oh well.

Here's my sweet boy with his birthday cake. I LOVE this picture. He always smiles so big for me. He was so happy about his cake.

Enjoying his cake and ice cream.

Not sure what he was saying here, but the kids always laugh their heads off when they see this picture on the screensaver.

Benny loves his Pillow Pet. He calls it "Piyo Pet". He has added it to his list of things he has to sleep with.

He was super excited about his new pirate ship. As soon as he unwrapped it, my friend, Laurie said, "Oh man! We just sold that exact same thing at our garage sale yesterday!" Bummer! We could have paid 2 bucks instead of $25!

I was so glad the Jarvis' family came to celebrate with us. We sure love their little family. Here's Benny with his best buddy, Caylee. They are so fun together.

This little man makes my life so much sweeter. There are moments when I don't think I can do another bedtime or mealtime on my own without Jason, but then Benny will say something hilarious or start dancing and I realize that life is good and his absence is only a teeny tiny moment compared to the eternity our family has together. It's rough, but it's okay. I can do hard things.

Conference Weekend

Conference weekend was different this time around without Jason. I was sad to not have church to break up my Sunday, so I invited some friends over for a little potluck.

This was the zoo we had as we watched. It was nice to have friends to spend the day with. My friend, Carrie, came over with her kids (her hubby is deployed, too). She also brought her dog, Velma, so that she could get to know my family because we were going to be dog-sitting her the week after (whole other post for that). Laurie came with Grant and Caylee and Cheyenne came with her son, too.

It was crazy, but fun to have the house filled with people. I get sooo lonesome and extra sad on the weekends when there isn't as much structure and places to be.

After the last session, the Jarvis' family joined us on a drive up to "The Cross" (that's what we call it). It's a little monument on the top of a hill in Ventura. There's a beautiful view and my kids love to run around.

Here's Benny with Lucy Goose.

I love living here.

Here's Graham with his best buddy, Grant. They moved to Huntington Beach last month. We are still in mourning.

Cute Benn-O