Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

This Christmas was very different for us. We decided to have it be just the three of us at home. What a change from the past few years!! Unfortunately, Elijah got really sick on Christmas Eve, so we had to rearrange some plans, but he was up and back to his normal self on Christmas, so we got up, opened presents and later that day went over to the Ryan family's house for a yummy Christmas dinner with all of our friends. It was great!

We didn't do much for New Year's Eve, but since we're not big New Year's Eve party people, it wasn't a big deal! We had planned on going to the beach with a bunch of friends, but since I had to work (yes! I am now officially back in the working world!!) we decided to keep it fairly low-key. We had dinner at Outback and then watched a movie and saw the ball drop at midnight. Then we were in bed! Probably by 12:05!! It's a good thing too, since Elijah was up at 7:00.

2009 looks to be an interesting year. Chris is officially back in the 'fleet' so he will deploy sometime this year (since this is a public blog, I will not be posting anything other than this regarding his deployment. If you want updates, be sure to give me your email address as I'll be sending out emails as often as I can). We'll still be in North Carolina and I'm working again, so I plan on staying very busy this year! I do plan to travel some this year. I'll be heading to Charleson in February, and again in April for the Cooper River Bridge Run. Then we'll be heading back up to Ohio for Beth and Sean's wedding!! My cousin, Katy, is getting married out in wine country in March, and I'm really hoping to make that as well.

I'll try to keep the blog updated as often as I can! So keep checking back! I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe 2009!!!!

Christmas in Ohio!

Since we decided to spend the holidays at home, we wanted to visit with Chris' family before he deploys, so we flew up to Columbus the second weekend in December to celebrate Christmas. Elijah did pretty good on his first plane ride! He had a fit on the plane leaving Atlanta, but he was just tired. We got to Ohio early afternoon on Thursday and left on Sunday morning. We had a great time spending time with Dianne, John, Hope, Aubrey, Beth and Sean. We hated having to leave! Well, I have to admit, I was glad to get back to warmer weather! It snowed while we were there and it was 70 degrees in North Carolina!!!!

Everyone is doing great! Hope is due with baby number 2 within the next few weeks, so we look forward to that! And Sean and Beth are getting married in April! It's coming up so fast!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Ok, so it's been another long while since I've updated this blog! But it's been pretty busy around here, so I'll start with Thanksgiving! We have decided that this year we were spending our holidays at our home in Jacksonville, NC. We have friends here that decided they were going to do the same thing, so we all decided to celebrate together! So off to the Parrish's we went, along with the Ryans, the Burgess's and the Ulmer's. There was a good crowd and no shortage of food! Everything was great and we left stuffed. Chris had his traditional turkey leg (no shortage of those either, we had three turkey's!!) and of course, tons of deserts!!

The next day (yes, Black Friday!!!) Brittney and I got up at 3:30 in the morning to hit the after Thanksgiving deals. Destiny joined us around 5. We went everywhere and were back home by noon. We had such a good time and I can't wait for next year!!!

Happy Birthday United States Marine Corps!!!

This past Monday (November 10), the Marine Corps celebrated their 233rd birthday. As usual, this day is met with lots of celebration for the Marines. It's also filled with lots of tradition. Chris and I attended our first Ball at Camp Lejeune and I was pleasantly surprised! We had it at the gym on base and it was decorated very nicely. The food was very good, we even had a carving station!!! I lucked out on my dress, since I got in online and it was made in China, so I can't complain too much. I think I looked pretty good! And of course, Chris look fabulous in his dress blues! With the exception of Elijah getting cranky and a diaper rash from hell at our friend's house, the day was perfect!!

Halloween 2008!

The week of Halloween was a busy one for us. We had a little get together the week before Halloween to celebrate with some friends. It was a costume party, and we had a lot of great costumes! Chris was a whoopie cushion and I was a doctor. We decided that Elijah would be a pumpkin. And what a cute pumpkin he was!!! He even went trick-or-treating for the first time. He refused to walk, so Chris had to carry him, but he seemed to enjoy it. He racked up on the candy! Of course, me and Chris got to eat most of it :) Always a good thing.

We have a walker!!! Sort of...

It's official!! Elijah FINALLY took a few steps on his own today!!!!! Yeah!!!!! But of course, he'd rather crawl and I don't think he can figure it out on his own yet, but he did it!!! He took one step to me and four steps to Chris. Please. I'm the one that was working with him and he takes more steps to daddy?!?!?!? What's up with that!! Oh well. Begger's can't be choosers I guess!

Finally getting settled!

Well, it's been a while, but things are finally starting to settle down. A lot has happened since I posted last, so I'll try to give a little synopsis! The weekend of July 12, we had our much anticipated LeMieux/Hay family reunion. It was a long time coming and we had a blast! Elijah decided that he could pull himself up on furniture. He had only recently started crawling, so he was getting that hang of that fast!

On August 1 we celebrated Elijah's first birthday. I still can't believe he's one already! We actually celebrated with a few parties. We had one in Virginia with my family and some of our friends, then we drove up to Ohio to celebrate with Chris' family and to hit his family reunion up there.

Once we got back from Ohio, I had to pack everything up and head down to North Carolina for good. So that leads me to now. We picked up the keys to our house on my birthday (September 15--my 30th!!! Chris and our friends even through me a surprise party!) and we got all of our stuff on Tuesday. And in true Marine Corps fashion, Chris was gone. So needless-to-say, moving by yourself isn't fun! But thank God my mom came down to help out. Good thing, since Elijah decided to come down with a nice case of croup.

Elijah is doing really well. He's finally over his croup. He got his first haircut!!! How freakin' cute is that! He weighs 24 pounds 13 oz and is 30 1/2 inches long. He is still not walking, but he cruises along the furniture like a champ and when you hold both of his hand he'll walk. But as soon as you let go, he'll stand for about 15 seconds or so and then he's down and taking off. Yeah, he's lazy!

So now we're trying to get the house in order. Not looking forward to that. We've only been in here two weeks and I've already lost my motivation!!! That's pretty sad. Oh well. I've attached a slide show with some random pictures. It's a little long, so bear with it!