Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!

Just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you all had a great day with your families and friends! We had a very nice day! We went up to Michigan to hang out with our extended family! It was a nice time of fellowship, and it's always good to reconnect with the family members we don't see as often! We had an amazing meal and it was really relaxing!

Last night we had our 2009 Family Fall Fest, which was actually a surprise party for AJ and Ross! We decorated the front porch really nicely for a sit down dessert with candles and Christmas lights. We had an obstacle course, chili and fritos, played mafia, hillarium, and praise and worship time. We had changed out all our picture frames with pictures of AJ and Ross together! They didn't even notice at first. Then we had ordered a cake for them with a picture of them on it that said "Welcome Home Abrahoss!" haha...and we had Abrahoss trivia. The night was a success and everyone seemed to have a good time! It was a lot of work cleaning up after, but totally worth it! I can't wait to plan our next party! :) Emily and I had planned it together since September! We got together Sunday to set up the house for the party and then she came over early yesterday to finish up and AJ and Ross took the boys to the Bremen Bounce so we didn't have to watch them! It was nice! We made them shirts and everything! It was fun to plan!

I'm very thankful for all that the Lord has done for us this year. He has blessed us so much and I definitely do not deserve it!! So Happy Thanksgiving and have fun decorating for Christmas now!! :) I love this time of year!!!!!!!

Explanation Point Overload!!!!

wow...every sentence except for one in my last post ended with an explanation point. come on, vikki...seriously? everything can't be THAT exciting! :) haha...i'm gonna try to branch out and use some periods once in a while...that might be a nice change of pace. :)

Mmm...I love the Holidays!

Well, I haven't blogged on here for a while. I feel like I never have that much to talk about, but I miss blogging, so I'm going to try to start it up again! I'm so thankful that it's a three day week of school this week! I'm so ready for a little break. School has been going pretty well, but I am really looking forward to the end of the semester! I think most of the reason is that AJ is home now and I feel like I can't get enough time with him!

It has been so amazing having my husband home! It was a little bit of an adjustment at first just because we hadn't lived in the same house for a year! But once we remembered each other's little annoying habits, it has been great! It's so fun to talk to him every night before we go to sleep and to not even hear the little sounds in our house that I always heard when he was gone! I feel safe and loved and happy! :)

Elijah has been the happiest kid you've ever seen lately! He loves having his daddy home! They play and do crazy things all the time! He loves having both of us around and is always randomly saying "grandma hug!" which actually means group hug, he just forgets the word is group and not grandma!

This week is going to be very busy! I have two tests tomorrow, then I'm done with school for 4 days! Then Emily and I are going to finish getting ready for our Family Fall Fest at our house which is tomorrow night! Then Thursday we are going up to Michigan with my family, and finally on Friday we are going to go get our annual Christmas ornaments, decorate our house for Christmas, and then have another Thanksgiving dinner at my mom and dad's house!

I have to just say that I'm so thankful that God kept AJ safe all year and brought him home safely! I'm also so thankful that somehow He made the year go really fast for me! I had no idea that it would go that fast, and I could never imagine it being over and AJ being home for good, but now he is and we are about to enjoy the holidays together! God is SO GOOD!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! :)

I'm walkin' on sunshine!!!

I can hardly believe it is Spring! I am so happy because by the time Winter is here this year, so will AJ be! I think I can definitely handle the rest of the seasons without him! Winter is the hardest! Here are some things I'm looking forward to this summer:

~I am almost done with school! This is my last week and I really only have 2 tests this week. One on Tuesday and one on Thursday and then I'm done! I am really looking forward to summer break! I am really happy I was in school this semester, but I am excited to just focus on being Elijah's mommy this summer and on losing weight!

~Elijah will be 2 on the 18th! I can't believe it! He's growing so fast! He is saying all sorts of things now and putting sentences together! I am so amazed by the new things he says every single day! He's a smart little guy!

~I am going to California in June! I can't wait! Elijah is coming, too. We're going to visit my friend Kristin! We'll be staying there for 5 days!!!! It's going to be so fun!!

~AJ will be home in less than 2 months for his 2 week R and R!!! I am so excited! I can't wait to hug him and kiss him and stare at him! Ahhh!!! I miss him so much and it'll be so nice to be a family again! And then after he leaves he will only have 3 and a half months left til he's home for good! The time really has been going so fast! Everyone said it would and apparently they were right! I'm so thankful!

~My brother comes home in about a month and a half for his R and R! He will be able to see his daughter Sophia for the first time! I am really excited for him to see her. She's so beautiful and he is so excited to have a daughter!

~We ordered a bike trailer from Walmart! It should be here this week and I'm really looking forward to getting groceries with it and riding everywhere with it! My goal is to walk and ride my bike as much as possible and to drive the car as little as possible this summer!

~My friend Kristin and I start training for a walking marathon tomorrow! We are going to do the marathon in Las Vegas in December! We are really excited about it and our husbands are coming with us! We're going to try to leave our kids with other people and just hang out with our husbands and each other all weekend! It'll be so great and by walking so much I'm sure I'll lose some of this weight!

That's about all I can think of to write right now. It's so hard to come up with blogging ideas! I need to get creative! I'm gonna think of a way to make this a fun blog! :) Hope you're all enjoying the beautiful weather!

being a single mom is hard!

This was a stressful week. The thing is that I don't even know why it WAS so stressful. It was the week before Spring Break, so my classes were very easy this week. But on Wednesday night I had a little bit of a breakdown! All night I was just so tired and Elijah was being normal Elijah...he wasn't more grumpy than usual, he wasn't more needy than usual...just normal Lij, but I was so frustrated with him the whole night. It's not like I was mean to him or anything, but you know that feeling when you're frustrated and you can feel it building up inside like you're going to explode or something? That's how I felt. I called Stephanie after I had put Elijah to bed and just started crying. I felt stupid but I am really glad I called her. I guess I just needed to vent. She prayed with me and it encouraged me so much. Then the next day when I brought Elijah to my sister-in-law Christi's I asked if she would want to watch him for a few more hours or over night so I could get the house cleaned without worrying about Elijah. She was so nice and said yes! So I had a whole night to myself. I cleaned the house and right when I was done I felt better. I feel like I'm not doing a good job at keeping up with the housework at all. But when I get home from school I usually just want to play with Elijah, work out, and then relax. But I need to clean more.

I think I just started feeling overwhelmed this week because AJ isn't here. He helps out so much when he's home. And it's not like he really helps clean the house...I normally do that (although sometimes he will clean for me which I think is so sweet), but when I'm cleaning he will play with Elijah and keep him occupied so I can totally focus on cleaning and get the house cleaned quickly and move on to fun stuff. It's the little things that AJ used to help me with that I really miss the most. I just COMPLETELY understand why God wants us to wait to have sex before we're married because sex can lead to getting pregnant and being a parent is a two person job! Even though we just have Elijah, it is so much better with the two of us!

I can see a lot of positive things about this deployment. I see that God is really working in our marriage and showing us just how much we love each other. I have grown to respect AJ so much and I have really started to understand and accept that HE is the head of the household, and I want him to be that! But this week I have really started to see how much AJ helps me with parenting. I knew he did, but I didn't realize how much because he was always here. He is the best partner I could have parenting Elijah. I used to get frustrated a little bit because I felt like he was the fun parent...he didn't really have to discipline Elijah too much...but now that he's gone I can see how important it is for Elijah to have that "fun" parent. I can see how important it is for ME for Elijah to have AJ as the fun parent, too!

Anyway, after my night away from Elijah I feel totally refreshed and ready to be his mom again! :) I was really excited to see him the next morning! And I really do love him and feel so blessed that he's my son. What a great son!

I will leave you with Elijah's newest "trick"..haha...Whenever he bumps into something or falls or something...I always say "Are you okay?" and kiss his boo boo. Well now when he bumps into something or falls, HE says "you kay?" and then come over and has me kiss his boo boos himself! I love it! He is learning so many new things! He's so cute! :)

good job elijah!

I'm very proud of my little stinks! He can now say every color in the "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" book!! He can even tell me the colors out of order! :) He's getting so big!! He is all about reading now. I was getting pretty sick of having to read Brown Bear to him over and over, but turns out it was worth it! He was really paying attention and learning the colors! Anyway, just wanted to brag a little about my little man. He makes my day so much brighter! He's a happy little guy and I can't help but be really happy whenever he's around! :) I'm a lucky Mommy!

From Mommy to Student in one day!

Well, I figured it was about time to write a blog about how school is going. It's going great! :) I am really enjoying my classes. I think it was the perfect fit for me to go to school when I was older. All the things I'm learning in my classes apply to my life somehow. When I went to Bethel right after high school, I didn't really take it seriously at all. I think now that I'm a wife and a mom I realize how important it is to find my passion...and to find a job that I can go to where I will be happy every day. I know I'm not always going to have a great day, but I should always like my job. So, I'm excited about becoming a teacher now. I am ready to take school seriously. It's been really fun to be at IUSB because a lot of the students and even some of the professors have the same story as I do. They went to college, didn't take it seriously, worked for a while, then decided it was time to go back. It makes me feel so normal. Before I thought maybe something was wrong with me because I didn't want to go to school right away...but now I realize that it was just better for me to wait!

I have really been missing AJ. It is hard not to have him here. It's hard to be a "single mom." And it's hard to have something new and exciting in my life and not be able to share the excitement with AJ in person. On the other hand, AJ is so good at communicating with me. He has made me feel so important. He still manages to be romantic even though he's thousands of miles away. I haven't stopped feeling close to him...which is something I was nervous about before he left. I feel like he is still part of every single day because I talk to him every single day and fill him in on all that happened...and he fills me in on everything that happened with him. God has been so good to us this year in keeping us connected. I feel like He's really blessing our marriage despite the distance.

Elijah is growing so much!!! He's huge now! I don't have a baby anymore...I now have a little boy. It's kinda sad, but I am so impressed with how much he learns every day. He is saying all kinds of words now...he says a bunch of phrases...and he knows some of his colors! He loves to see himself on the webcam so it's nice for AJ because Elijah will sit there and do funny things and AJ can see him! I am so happy to have Elijah with me this year. He is such a joy and every day when I pick him up after school he makes me feel so special. He gets REALLY excited to see me...and that's nice for me. It's good to actually SEE how much he loves me. :) I love him so much, too! And I love AJ so much!

Well, that's the update. How are you all doing?

Sophia Louise Otis

my sister in law Emily had her baby this weekend! ross is in iraq, but he was able to call right after and he found out he had a daughter almost right away, so that was nice! emily said that when the doctor told her it was a girl, her and her mom just started crying because ross and emily both really wanted a girl! and i have to say she's so beautiful! i love her!

i picked up my brother rick and his son alex today and we went to the hospital to meet out little niece. she's so sweet! i held her for a while and then afterwards i went to get elijah out of his stroller and he looked HUGE!! his face even looked huge compared to sophia's! haha...but i still think he's very adorable of course.

i guess that rick thought it would be fun to play cards with Sophia today...i don't know...my brother is strange. i am glad he went to the hospital to see the baby today, though, because he's the next best thing to ross being there. they look alike. it's sad to me that ross is in iraq, but i'm happy he was able to call so much and he has gotten on facebook and looked at pictures. he is a very proud daddy! and i'm sure since he couldn't be there, he is really happy that rick got to go and hold his baby. that little girl is gonna be one spoiled little girl! so many people love her so much already! :)

so anyway...we have a new member of our family and i just wanted to share the exciting news! :) i hope you all had a great weekend, too! :)

it's been a while...

wow...i can't believe how long it's been since i last posted. i feel like nothing exciting happens now that aj is in iraq! after aj left after his 4 day leave in december, my mom stayed with elijah and i for almost 2 weeks and that was really nice! it definitely helped with the transition of having aj in iraq. then for christmas i went to my sister-in-law emily's house for a few days, and that was really fun! elijah had a lot of fun with his cousin hunter. then for new years i went with nikki and her friends melissa to the indianapolis indoor water park hotel with our kids. that was really fun, too! so the holidays were good! and it's nice to know that they are out of the way and next time christmas comes around, aj will be home!

i am going back to school this semester! i'm really excited about it! i sign up for classes on tuesday! i am looking forward to having something to do during the day and even to getting some time away from elijah. i love the little stinker, but it's sometimes overwhelming being with him every second of every day! i know i should cherish that time, but i think going to school will help me cherish it even more! it'll be nice to be with adults for a while every day and to also go home and be excited to see elijah! plus, it'll be nice to feel really loved when he gets excited to see me every night!

i had a rough week this last week because i realized that aj hasn't even been in iraq for one month yet. it's so wierd to me that i won't see him for 7 more months and even after that he'll have to go back for a few more months. it seems like i won't make it to july...like it's just too hard! but at least i get to talk to him every day! that really helps. it has also made me feel so special because he has to wait in lines to talk to me every day, and sometimes he has to wait for an hour, and he'll do it more than once a day! it makes me feel like i really am so important to him. i knew i was, but this has made me really see how important i am to him...and how much of a priority i am! elijah loves talking to his daddy on the webcam. they play peek a boo and do funny faces back and forth, blow each other kisses, and wave hi and bye! it's fun to watch elijah get so excited about seeing his daddy!

anyway...that's about all that's happening right now. life seems a little boring...but i think it'll get more exciting when i start going to school. i think it'll really help the winter to go by pretty fast! and for some reason, i feel like if i can just get through this winter, it'll be downhill from there! doesn't winter seem to be the worst time of the year after christmas? i think so...you can do so much more when the weather is nicer, and it seems like the days just fly by then! i can't wait til aj's home!!! it'll be amazing! so...now starts the countdown! 7 months! woo!