Lieutenant Commander Morrow

Tommy was promoted to Lieutenant Commander on December 30th!! We are all so proud of him! His parents came to Jacksonville for the ceremony. Tommy's birthday was the next day on New Year's Eve, so they stayed and celebrated his b-day and let us go out for New Year's Eve. Thank you Papa and Nana.

Commander Garber, Tommy's Skipper administered the oath. Tommy's mom and I pinned on his new rank.

Lyla was at the ceremony and did great! She had a blast seeing where her Daddy works.
Lyla checking out Daddy's new pins.

Lyla took a few spins in Daddy's desk chair.

Inside the helicopter.

Tommy showed Lyla all the helicopters from inside the hangar.

This is my new favorite picture of Tommy and Lyla. They were inside the hangar and Tommy's dad went outside and took a picture of them. Lyla looks so happy.

After the ceremony we had lunch at Mojo's, our favorite barbeque restaurant in Jacksonville. Maybe that's because the owner is from NC and knows how to cook real barbeque!! They even have Sundrop and Cheerwine.

Our Christmas Card

We had Sarah Eddy, one of my friends sister-in-laws, take Lyla's Christmas pictures. We used three of the pics for our Christmas card. I loved all of the pictures and hope we can get her to take more in the future.

Our Christmas Celebrations

Our Christmas celebration lasted an entire week this year. Tommy, Lyla and I celebrated our family Christmas the Saturday before Christmas. We didn't want to take all of our presents to NC and it's important to me to celebrate at our house, so we treated that Saturday as if it was really Christmas. Santa brought Lyla's gifts the night before, we got up and opened presents and stockings and had a special pancake breakfast. Then we played most of the day. It was great. I'm not sure how many years we can do this without Lyla asking questions, but I guess we will come up with something to help her understand.

Here is Lyla with all of her gifts from Santa. She got a Fisher Price kitchen. There is another level to the kitchen that we will add when she gets taller. So far she loves it and she plays with it while I cook in my kitchen. She also got a backpack with her name on it, stickers, books, DVD's, bubbles, tree ornaments, markers, crayons and coloring books. She played with the stickers most of the morning. Tommy also received and ornament, so here they are putting their ornaments on our tree. We usually have a full size Christmas tree, but Tommy was gone most of December and I wasn't sure how Lyla would do with the tree. I didn't want to fight that battle by myself all month, so we just put up the top of our tree. Lyla did pretty good with the trees at other people's houses, so we will put up the big tree next year for sure.

Here are Tommy and Lyla's new ornaments. Hers is the block with the L on it and Tommy's is the one that says "Daddy, the first man I ever loved. ~ Lyla." Isn't she the sweetest! Here I am with my presents. I mostly got workout gear for Christmas this year. Tommy and Lyla got me Lulu Lemon workout pants, jacket and water bottle. If any of you have any Lulu Lemon gear, you know it is sooooo comfy and wonderful. I wish I could afford more of it. I also got snowflake earrings, bath gels and some treats such as Peterbrooke's Chocolate Covered Popcorn. Good thing I plan to workout!! Tommy got new speakers for our entertainment center, a sweater, dress shirt, Croakies, and candy. He will be thrilled that I put this picture on my blog, but I had to show what we all got for Christmas, right?We left for NC Tuesday, the 22nd. Our first stop was Tommy's parents house in Kings Mountain. On the 23rd we celebrated Christmas with Tommy' parents, sister, her husband and kids. Unfortunately Lyla barely slept the first night we were there, so she was not herself. She did enjoy opening her presents and playing, but she was sleepy and and a bit grumpy that day too. She had fun with her cousins Lexi and Max.
Nana and Papa Morrow gave Lyla these bunny slippers. They are so cute on her.

They also gave her Wonder Pets mega blocks. Lyla loves the Wonder Pets and will actually sing a little of the Wonder Pets song.
Here is our 2009 Family picture. Lyla, Lexi (our niece), Max (our nephew), Keith (Tommy's dad), Tommy, me, Kathryn (Tommy's sister), Jeff (Kat's husband) and Avis (Tommy's mom). I think it's one of our best pictures yet. The secret was that we remembered to take it before we started opening presents, so the kids weren't tired yet.
We went to Tommy's parents church for a Christmas Eve service, then we headed to the Morrow's (Tommy's grandparents) to eat and open presents. They have an organ that Lyla enjoyed playing with her Nana.Lyla had a blast that night. She let most people hold her and played really hard. Here she is with her Great Grandpa Morrow.

Lyla is watching her Great Grandma Morrow open a present from her. We spent Christmas morning at Tommy's parents house. We took one present from Santa for Lyla to open that morning, a Fisher Price CD player. On Christmas day, we traveled in the pouring rain to Durham to visit my family. Our first stop was Grandma and Grandpa Watson's house. Lyla and cousin Logan enjoyed playing Grandma's piano. We played the Chinese Christmas game and had so much fun playing with the kids.

The next morning we got up and went to Uncle Tommy and Aunt Judy's for breakfast. Here is a picture of my mom, my sister-in-law Kelli with her baby Skylar, my Grandma, me, and Lyla. It's our four generation picture. This is my favorite picture of the day. Me with my niece Skylar. Isn't her hat the cutest?

Next stop, my brothers house in Raleigh to open presents with them and my parents.

Lyla got so tired, but didn't want to lay down in the pack n play. She did manage to get herself into Skylar's bouncy seat so she could rest. I think it's funny that her feet touch the ground. It's amazing how big she's gotten.

Papa had to hold his two granddaughters a lot. Lyla was jealous whenever he held Skylar so she would climb in his lap too.Our last celebration was at my Grandma George's house where we opened presents with my Dad's side of the family. There are six kids on this side of the family so we always have a great time.We finished it off with a family picture.

Grayson's 1st Birthday Party - 12/13/09

Our neighbors little boy turned one on December 13th. His parents had his party at "My Gym" which is a gym for babies and toddlers. Lyla was a little cautious at first, but as you can see in the pictures, once she warmed up to it she had a blast.

Lyla loved climbing onto the trampoline, but she hasn't yet accomplished jumping into the air. I hear most kids do that when they turn 2. When they brought out Thomas the train, Lyla was the first to ride. I think she thought she should be the only to ride. She kept running up to it to get on. Maybe we should get one of these at home.This was so cool. It's a little airplane on a zipline so the kids could fly across the room. The first few times across Lyla had a concerned look on her face, but her last time across she finally started to smile and didn't want to get out.Lyla on the swing.Grayson came out in style while "Bad to the Bone" was playing. Grayson had his very own Monkey cake and all the other kids had cupcakes. Grayson knew exactly what to do with his cake. Everyone enjoyed the cake, and the monkey theme was a hit!

Thanks for inviting Lyla. She had a blast! We are so fortunate to have such wonderful neighbors who have a baby so close to Lyla's age. Nothing like a spur of the moment playdate.

Squadron Christmas Party 12/12/09

Tommy's helicopter squadron hosted a Children's Christmas party before Christmas. Tommy was out of town so he missed all the fun. My parents were in Jacksonville visiting us so they came with us and helped me watch Lyla.

Here are some pictures in front of the helicopter.

As simple as is sounds, they taped long pieces of bubble wrap on the floor and the kids love walking on it and hearing the bubbles pop. Lyla spent most of the party doing this. Crazy huh?There were crafts and cookie decorating tables. Lyla did part of a sticker nativity scene. She mostly enjoyed eating the cookies that me, Papa and Nana decorated for her.Santa arrived on a firetruck. The kids went crazy and ran up to give him hugs. Not Lyla. She took a year off from sitting on Santa's lap. We ran into Santa at the mall one day and he asked her to give him five and she screamed "No, no no!" So I didn't force her to talk to him anymore after that. Lyla spent about 15 minutes throwing bean bags into the Snowman. Papa patiently retrieved them every time. He started placing them further away from the snowman so Lyla had to run farther to throw them in.

We had fun and can't wait until next year when Lyla can do even more of the activities.

Lazy 5 Ranch

As promised, here is my post about our visit to Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville, NC. We went there with Tommy's parents the day after Thanksgiving. We met one of Tommy's high school buddies and his family, including their little boy Harper who is about 3 months older than Lyla. Lazy 5 is an exotic animal drive through park. Yes, you can drive your car through the ranch and let the animal stick their heads in your window or anywhere else they choose. You can also ride through on a horse drawn wagon which is the option we chose. Do you really think I would drive my new Traverse through a Ranch where animals could scratch it with their horns? Parking at Wal-Mart is bad enough. Lazy 5 has over 750 animals including rhinos, giraffes, llamas, horses, zebras, pigs, and on and on. Harper's Grandma Mary Lou found this wagon and took Harper and Lyla on a ride. I think they could've ridden a long time, but our carriage was waiting. It looked like they were on a little date.Tommy and the rhino. This is one animal that they didn't let run loose. He was down in a pit. Apparently he is fast and dangerous. Lyla didn't feel too great the day we went to the Ranch. She fell asleep on the carriage ride in my lap. Lyla never falls asleep in my lap, so I knew she was getting sick. Boo!This one was after our carriage. We had lots of food for the animals on our carriage, so they quickly made their way towards us when we stopped.After the carriage ride, Lyla was rested from her nap and enjoyed seeing the animals at the petting zoo.Lyla with her Nana and Papa.My family thought it would be funny to feed him right behind my head. I could feel his breath on my neck.

We had a good time and I would suggest it to anyone in the NC area.