Our Little Angel

I'm a little behind in my posting. Jena was in the Christmas Program at church, she was an angel. I was worried she wouldn't want to go up front with out me, but she did great!

Happy Anniversary!

16 years ago two crazy kids ran off and got married. And now, here we are 16 years later a little older, a lot grayer, but still crazy. I mentioned to a friend the other day that today was our anniversary. She asked how long we had been married, I told her. Then she ask why we had gotten married so young (we were 19). I thought for a minute and then shrugged and said because we wanted to. No earth shattering reason other than we were two crazy kids in love who wanted to get married. And here we are 5 moves and 2 kids later. We have weathered the Army, College, Medical School and now the Army again. AND WE ARE STILL HERE! We don't know any great secrets to it all, just its a lot of hard work. But in the end its worth it because I get to spend everyday with the best friend I've ever had. So, Happy Anniversary, Honey! Here's to 60 more!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas for the Williams Fam! Hope Santa was nice to you!

A shout out...

We are getting ready to put out all the big stuff here. Santa will be here soon to fill the stockings and I am very grateful Roger is home this Christmas Eve to help me. Two years ago I stayed up it seems all night putting a play kitchen together, all by myself. Roger was on call and didn't get home until 9 am on Christmas Day. Try holding back an almost two year old from seeing what Santa left.

So, here is to all the military spouses doing this all alone this Christmas. Trying so hard to make up for what is missing. Trying to document everything so the parent who is not there will see what happened later. You are doing the hard stuff each and everyday, the things that go without a word of thanks. I salute you and your strength! Merry Christmas!

Disney tickets

I was very happy to receive this link today from Shades of Green:

http://www.shadesofgreen.org/4DAY.htm?utm_source=Dec09%2Bnewsletter&utm_medium=eblast&utm_campaign=12%2BMore%20Reasons

At least at Disney World they have extended their Salute to the Military deal on tickets. 4 days passed this time. Works great if we make it to Disney this spring as planned. I couldn't find anything about Disney Land, sorry West Coast, hopefully we will hear soon.

17 months

I'm a little behind because we are out of town visiting family. Lily turned 17 months on Sunday. As you can see she is very much on the move!

On Giving Back

There is a song from the 80s called The 12 pains of Christmas. I’ve put in on the playlist for the sight for those of you who want to hear it. It has to be one of my favorite Christmas songs, and some of the complaints are not relevant any more, but most are. I thought about the song this year because there is a kid in there that for the 8th day of Christmas says, “I WANNA TRANSFORMER FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!”; “DADDY, I WANT SOME CANDY!!!!”; “BUY ME SOMETHIN'!!!”; “DAD, I GOTTA GO TA BATHROOM!!”; “WAAAAAAAAAAH! WAAAAAAAAAAH!” This is sadly a lot like Jena this year, especially the “Buy me something.” In the context of the song, the 7th day is about all the charities at Christmas. In fact, one line goes:

The eighth thing at Christmas that such a pain to me:
I WANNA TRANSFORMER FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!
Charities….

Which gets me to the point of this post, giving back at Christmas and teaching me kids how to do it. This year during shopping, even before Christmas, Jena always says, “I want that!” When I tell her no she follows with, “But I REALLLLY Want it, PLEASE!” Keep in mind we have a room in our house JUST FOR THEIR TOYS! And then they have toys in their rooms.

So we have been working on teaching Jena that she is indeed a lucky little girl. How do you teach a 3 year old that? I’m open to suggestions. The girls really have it good, they have it better than Roger and I did growing up. And neither of us wants them to turn into those annoying kids we went to school with. You know who I’m talking about; the ones that had all the latest and greatest stuff and let you know it. Or the obnoxious kids whose parents gave them 100 bills to go shopping with when I was in college, working at the mall for minimum wage.

We have started early teaching them how to give back and saying no to their constant begging. Every year we get a child from the Angel Tree at church. We also made cookies for the soup kitchen this week and this year, I took the girls to Toys R Us and had Jena pick toys to give away. She was okay with that, until she asked for something for herself and I told her no. We managed okay for the rest of the trip and she even, Happily, put our purchases in the bin.

A woman got into line behind us at check out. She said, “I’ll be glad when Christmas is over.” I smile, recognizing a fellow mom and asked “How many kids do you have?” She told me she is a single mom with a son and he wanted a transformer and she got that one because it could be taken apart and the one at Wal-Mart couldn’t. I agreed that was important. She commented it was expensive and looked apprehensive. I told her I was sure her son would love it. So there you go, I was trying to teach my kids a lesson about life and got one myself.

Yo Ho, Sending Christmas Cards!

I love getting cards at Christmas. Every year since we have been married we have sent out cards to everyone. Each year the list gets longer. And it will continue to as we bum around the country with the Army. We sent out almost 100 this year and we love each and everyone we get. Some tell us it is old fashion in this day and age of email and Facebook, but I like it. Its a way to say hello and keep up with everyone, even those without a blog. And since the girls have come along I send the ones with pictures. I love those kind, each year seeing how people have changed. So thank you to everyone who sent us cards this year, we love them.

Happy Hanukkah

Hanukkah begins tonight at sundown. Have a great 8 crazy nights!

Offering Support

Today the USO Community Strong is supporting the Fort Hood Community in wake of the shootings last month. I want to add my thoughts and thank the hospital and emergency staff at Darnell Army Medical Center located on Fort Hood. They handled the aftermath of the shootings with speed and efficiency. When the ER Chief was interviewed he said each one of them was trained to deal with this event, but they never expected to deal with in here at home. I've seen and heard a lot of negative comments about the Military Medical System in the wake of all this. And I just wanted to thank them for the difficult jobs they did that day and everyday.

Putting up the tree

Jena brought home this ornament from school and asked when we were putting up the tree. Since we have a toddler we had delayed putting up the tree again. Since last night was Roger's last night before FPIT, he decided we should put it up last night.

Ready helpers!
The tree. We usually leave off the bottom set because the tree is so wide. This year because of Lily we left off the bottom two rows.

Jena was very excited about helping unpack everything.

They loved doing this for some reason.

Lights and Garland.
Daddy and Jena, a finished tree!
Complete with Angel on Top! We love putting up the tree and remembering where all the ornaments came from. After 16 years we have a lot, but the best have been the ones we got over the last few years from the girls.