Visitors are great

My dear friend Jessica and her fantastic daughter Kiera came into town last week and stayed with me for 6 nights. Then while Jess and Kiera were here our friend Sara (another friend from Germany) and her daughter, Ellie came into town for the night. We had a great "girls only" slumber party. It was so wonderful to be reunited with Germany military friends. It was great to talk with them and to just be in the presence of great women who know what a deployment feels like. They know what to say and when to say it and what not to say and when to say nothing.

The last day Jess was here we realized we had no pictures of the 4 of us and made a mental note to take some. Yeah, then we forgot. I wish I had fun pictures to show everyone of the great time we had in Tampa, but no such luck, folks. You will have to use your imagination. Just picture two hot mom's pushing around 2 adorable little girls around Tampa while laughing, eating crepes, exploring Ybor, Anthropologie, downtown Tampa and eating brownies...lots and lots of brownies.

Thanks, girls for visiting me, it was a GREAT time and I really appreciated the pick me up. You guys are fantastic.

What fun!

While Ricky was in town, under the watchful eye of Corky, he put together a little exercise saucer for Lena to use when she got big enough (it's amazing what a pain in the butt children's toys can be to assemble).Well, now Lena is big enough to use her saucer! Here you can see her enjoying the fun toy that her daddy built for her :)

Lena is 3 months old!

Lena turned 3 months old yesterday! She is 11.8 pounds and 22 1/2 inches long, and her head is 16 inches in diameter. Today she did a monumental act...she rolled over for the first time! So far she has rolled over 3 times today. Yay for Lena!

Here are some fun pictures of her from this month...

She was able to finally grab a hold of her "daddy" and chew on his head! Too funny!

She smiles a lot more now! It's so cute!

Lena and Corky have bonded even more this month. Corky has become very protective of her, as was evident when my friend Sara came to visit Jess and I and wanted to hold Lena, Corky went NUTS! (Corky also needs a haircut, I see that now...note to self).

We have had a lot of fun together and the next few months will be fun too as she starts to reach more of those monumental moments.

Lena met a new friend today!

Lena met someone very special to me and Ricky today, Chaplain Woodbery! CH Woodbery was my pastor and boss in Germany (I was his secretary for over a year) and he and his wife Carol are so dear to Ricky and me. CH Woodbery was in Tampa on TDY (Temporary Duty) at MacDill and it coincided perfectly with Jessica's visit too, so the 5 of us (me, Lena, Jessica, Kiera, CH Woodbery) got to go out to dinner.

We had a wonderful time catching up and CH Woodbery had a great time holding babies! Thanks CH Woodbery, it was so good to see you. We'll be visiting you guys soon!

I miss my Ricky

I haven't talked to Ricky in over a week because the phone lines are down there due to a sand storm that Ricky says "kicked our butts." He sent me an email this week, but that's about it. Hopefully the phones will be up and running soon and I'll hear from my hubbie.

I have been keeping busy, though. Between papers, reading, school projects AND guests in town. My dear friend, Jessica and her daughter Kiera got here this past Thursday and our dear friend Sara is coming for an overnight visit with her daughter tomorrow! It is going to be a house packed full of ladies! ha! We are having tons of fun and I'll be sure to post photos of the estrogen extravaganza!

Happy Birthday to me!

Today is my 27th birthday! Here is a picture of me at 27. Lena would have been in the picture, but she was already asleep, so Corky and I took a self pic!

Here are the birthday presents! I got 3 pairs of shoes "from" Ricky (I picked them out), and the brown shoes to the left are from my mom! I refuse to buy clothes since I'm still not at my pre-prego weight yet, so until then, I will continue to beef up my shoe collection.

And here are the beautiful flowers Ricky sent me for my birthday. He's the sweetest. I normally love birthdays, but without Ricky who is my husband and my best friend, it's just not as much fun. I look forward to when we can celebrate together again. I did have a good day, though, but I especially miss Ricky on special days like today.

Look who we have here...

I got an email from Ricky today that had a picture in it, so I thought I would share :) Ricky said "I attached a picture of SGM Shoker and myself, he is one of the most professional Iraqis that I have met and worked with."

Ricky said he is doing good and that it is about 120 degrees there every day. Yikes! He lives and works in little tents, but those tents do have air conditioning, thank goodness!

We are over 5 months into the deployment now. If it were a regular 12 month deployment, we would be almost half way there, but since Ricky was one of the lucky ones and got a 15 month deployment (note the sarcasm), we still have 10 to go. Ricky will be changing jobs again in a few months, so that helps to give him a change of scenery and break things up a bit. But, all in all, Ricky is doing well and is enjoying showing off pictures of Lena to anyone who will pay attention. He's so cute! I am so proud of him!