Another Christmas And Birthday Have Come And Gone...

Hard to believe it's already New Years Eve! Where has time gone? While James didn't take off work for the holiday season, his schedule has been EXTREMELY light -- allowing for us to pretty much have 2 weeks of uninterrupted time together. It sure has been nice -- two scrooges alone together...

Yeah...a couple of regular scrooges is probably how you could best describe us this year...We weren't exactly the happy cheery couple when it came to Christmas. In fact, we didn't decorate or buy gifts (minus our parents) at all. We just weren't in the mood -- much like last year. There were a few times when I would hear a Christmas song and slightly get in the holiday spirit, but each time that something like that would happen, it would quickly pass on by. It's not that we're walking around in complete rage or depression, but we both agreed that without Liv, it's just not worth it right now -- perhaps next year will be different. Either way, we enjoyed the time off and spent quality time together.

Thanks to some super sweet family members, even though we didn't do anything for Christmas, Oba still received his fair share. He can thank 4 of my nephews (Ben, Judah, Alex, and Josh) and our parents for all the plentiful gifts he received in the mail. Talk about h-e-a-v-e-n. That pup was spoiled rotten! While I took lots of pictures and videos of Obadiah unwrapping his gifts -- mainly so the nephews could watch (they love that pup!) -- here are just a couple...

Yes, our pup gets super excited when he gets a gift and rips the wrapping paper apart so that he can get to his prize...good ahead and laugh. ;)

Once the prince was done with his gifts, we pretty much just vegged out for the rest of the afternoon. There were several times where we would chuckle, as we noticed Oba kept going to the front door and staring out the front window -- as if he was waiting for visitors. Apparently we weren't good enough company, haha.

He kept giving us looks like he was bored and wanted more out of his day, ha.

With little going on down here in GA, we made plans to hit up the theater later that night to see True Grit -- poor Oba...even on Christmas, he gets ditched. It was a great movie, for those that might be interested in checking it out! Of course, it wasn't friendly to my weak stomach during a few different scenes, but almost anything is like that these days...

I'm definitely thankful that while my morning sickness was a nightmare on Christmas Eve, it held off a lot more on Christmas day and on my Birthday (27th). Even though we didn't do much for any of those days, it was still a great feeling to be able to get up and not feel like I'm going to get sick constantly! Definitely no complaints with that!

When I sit and think about it, it's hard to believe that another year has passed by already. That I'm now 28. That Liv's been gone for a little over a year now. That in just a couple of hours, it will be 2011...

Time feels like it has crawled by for so much of the last year. So much has happened. Just after the start of the new year, James and I said goodbye *again* and he finished the second half of his deployment. I welcomed several family members and some of our best friends for week-long visits for a couple months in a row out to our home in WA. I spent a month with my sister and her family in PA. We traveled around and saw what we could throughout Western WA , OR, and Northern CA while still living in WA. We toured the beautiful state of AK. We made a huge move and saw what felt like half the country while doing so. We've been making the attempt at settling down in the South -- although that hasn't been much of a success...we miss WA like CRAZY. We received the news of baby #4 aka "Spud," etc...

Looking back, there were a lot of joys over the last year, but it was overshadowed by so much grief and sadness -- it still is. Even now, those occasional nights full of sadness and tears overcome us both at unexpected moments -- I think having to suppress it all during the deployment is starting to catch up with the hub. It's just not easy. I really don't think moments like that will ever pass, but lessen in their intensity with time. I'm really hoping that the further along we get with Spud, we find more and more joy to help battle the sadness that constantly surrounds us. We're in no rush, though. We'll take each day as it comes...

Here's to a new year. May 2011 be a year of happiness and joy. A year of new friendships, quality time spent with old friends, visits to several new cities, and hopefully a healthy child!!!