Merry Christmas!

Praise the Lord for sending little Jesus to this earth, what an amazing sacrifice He gave for us all!

We are thanking God for bringing us back together for the holidays! Merry Christmas to you and your family, we hope you are enjoying your day together :)

Here we are on Christmas eve!

Norah in her Christmas day apparel (thanks Ter!)!

Mom and Dad on Christmas morning opening stockings with the Moselle family.

Norah "met" Santa last night! She slept through the meeting but it was cute anyway.

Visiting Cali

Last weekend we had the chance to visit some of our good AF friends! They are stationed at Vandenberg AFB and live in Santa Maria, CA. The base is beautiful and is located on 40 miles of coastline. Here's a sneak peak of our trip!

Here is David and Norah after our late flight. We were back in Denver a little after midnight and then drove back to the Springs.

This is David after we had a day visiting some vineyards, sleepy David!

The whole group at the first vineyard, it was beautiful!

Kelly, David (and Norah), Shay (wine tasting expert), Brandon, Mary & Stacey (who drove us around!)

Kelly & Mary

Visiting the beach... it was cold!

The JAGs

Our family (sans Wrigley)

Norah was a GREAT traveler and was very relaxed. We had some loooong days in the car seat.

And, David is back! He loves to take the camera and play with it :)

R&R in Vail

We went to Vail for about a week when David arrived home. We relaxed and got reacquainted. We are so grateful to the condo owners and David's parents for opening up the condo to us again! We loved every day we were there :) Here are a few snap shots from the week together.

Both kiddos playing with Daddy

Norah looking mighty cute!

She's really starting to get her smile on :)

LOTS of snuggles with Daddy in Vail

We tried to cook a few dinners... it was fun to be back in the kitchen together (not that we've experienced a lot of kitchen time together before but we're working on it).

Snuggled up for a walk!

Home, Sweet Home

Thank you all for your prayers, care packages, thoughts and emails while I was in Iraq. I really appreciate it. I know that your prayers paid off and that God was watching over my colleagues and me during my time there. Please continue to pray for those that are over there still. It was an incredible feeling to walk off that plane and greet my beautiful wife and meet my precious daughter. However, it pains me to know that many servicemen and women did not have the opportunity to walk off a plane to their loved ones. While I was deployed, 298 US military personnel were killed in action (55 in Iraq, 243 in Afghanistan), and many more were injured. Please keep those families in your thoughts and prayers during this Christmas season. Thanks again for your support (to both Kelly and me) during these last 6 months....it's great to be back!

Wrigley Greets Daddy!

We Are SO Better 3gether :)

Welcome home my Love. We all missed you. We are all so grateful for your service and we appreciate your sacrifices. SO GLAD YOU'RE HOME!

First hug with a few tears

Norah meets her Daddy!!

Getting aquatinted in the first few minutes

LOVE!!

Norah's first feeding from her father :)

Since David left I have...

*Been waiting 4,296 hours for his return

*Paid six water bills and six electric bills

*Been to the airport 16 times

*Cried countless times and laughed a lot too

*Had a baby :)

*Made some new friends and really cherished the old ones

*Taken out the trash about 23 times. What can I say, I miss a few weeks!

*Learned how to use the weed waker (see this post!)

*Had a lot of company both out of towners and locals - thank you everyone!

*Tried to "cook" for one - it's really not easy

*Gotten really close with my mom!

*Joined a new small group for mothers and I love it!

*Took trips to MN, IL, Vail & Denver

*Learned that I am not in control (it's funny it took me this long to get that. I'm not saying I won't struggle with this later on)

*And gotten really attached to both Wrigley and Norah as my housemates and companions!

Okay David... I'm really ready for you now! Can't wait... only 12 hours and 10 minutes until his airplane arrives!!!!