Dealing with Deployment

Levi has been gone for 12 days now, and while we haven't had a whole lot to do, we've stayed busy and are making the most of it! 

As soon as we dropped Levi off at the airport, we went to Hobby Lobby to get some supplies for some craft projects I wanted to do with the boys to help them understand about the deployment. The first thing we did was make a Kiss jar. I put the letters on the jar and the decorated the rest with stickers. And then we will filled each jar up with one kiss for each day Levi is gone (until his halfway homecoming for Christmas.)They are on the center of the kitchen table, and they get one each morning- who wouldn't love a chocolate kiss with their breakfast? They've enjoyed this alot!

We started putting our first package together for Levi and one of the things we did first was to trace their bodies so Levi can hang them up in his new house and Flat Grant and Flat Wyatt can live with him. Its been a work in progress getting them colored exactly how they wanted them. But they are ready to ship!!

I also ordered them these pillows! This is a wonderful service a couple in MO do for military families. All you do is submit the picture and they make the pillow, no fee at all! Although I'm going to submit a donation because they finished and shipped them here within a week! The boys love them so much and sleep with them at night!! Such a special treasure!

And we've been working on our Daddy Deployment wall and finally got it done too! It consists of maps, flag, countdown calendar, and lots of pictures! I also have two clocks, showing our time and Daddy's time. Grant has been reading clocks pretty well lately so hes able to kind of figure out the time difference. I put it on our garage door so we will see it each day we walk out the door!

And on top of the normal household duties I have, I have to make sure that I continue the things Levi used to do as well. Taking car of the yard, the cars, and fixing whatever is broken. He's also the official bike rider with the boys! It was so easy to ride bikes in OK, but not on our street. Too many cars driving by and no sidewalks. So I've taken on the job of bike-trailer driver!! We've gone to Heritage Park a few times to ride the trails, as well as driven up to the school playground. Its a heavy job to fulfill!

We miss Levi so very very much!! Life isn't the same without him being around. But we've got lots of things and family and friends to keep us busy!!!