Christmas Parties.

December is always such a fun month- so many Christmas parties and events to attend. It made the month fly by and I just noticed on our baby registry that it says 24 days to go. Holy crap.

The squadron Christmas party is always a lot of fun and full of colorful characters. It is a 500+ person event held at a hotel downtown. A good time to catch up and enjoy the season!

My hubby was looking super cute and had a hard time picking out something to wear because all his clothes are too big! I, on the other hand, am not having that problem. Luckily I chose a festive color for our October baby shower and could wear the dress again.

In mid-December we attended the Moran's annual Ludachristmas party- a tradition that began when we were neighbors in Japan. There, we had the party on Christmas day night since many people stayed in Japan for the holidays since it was so expensive to fly home, but now it is held another weekend. I bought my sweater at Salvation Army for $2.09 and I made my  necklace (although I think my mom had one quite similar circa 1993).

On Christmas Eve, we had Glenn's family in town (his sister, BIL, mom and grandma) and we invited our close friends the Polsons and the Morans to join us. It is always fun to mix our real family and our Navy family and enjoy good food together. It was Glenn's best roast beast to date!

Glenn's sweater was ordered for the Ludachristmas party, but it didn't come on time so he wore it for Christmas eve instead. Perhaps it will make an appearance next year along with those festive red pants (although I think those can be worn all year long!) Side note, we also found out that the Morans are staying in Norfolk for the next 3 years (at least 1.5-2 of which we will be here as well)!

I hope your holiday season was filled with as much fun, family time and relaxing as ours has been. We are looking forward to a busy/crazy/exciting and baby-filled January!

Our Little Gentleman!

A few weeks ago, my wonderful Navy spouse girlfriends through Glenn and I a baby shower for our little gentleman. It was a bowtie and mustache theme and they did the cutest job putting it all together. It was a couples shower so the hubbies and a few kiddos joined in the fun as well. I loved that Glenn got to enjoy the party too - although the guys might have been enjoying it a little too much! ;)

The decorations were so cute. We played just a couple games. A baby bottle of beer-chugging contest for the guys and a bingo game during gift opening.

Gizelle, Angela and Marcy were the fabulous hostesses! Angela and I are due about a week apart!

Guess where the keg was?? We had a beautiful day and the guys enjoyed the beer, sunshine and bean bags/corn hole out in the back yard.

I love our Navy family down here in Virginia. It's so nice that many of our friends are back (or still) here as well as several new families. It's not quite the same as Japan since we aren't all neighbors too, but it's a great group of friends.

Our dear friends- the Morans. They get orders in the next couple months and we're REALLY hoping they stay in Norfolk!

Even our little guy got a mustache! Nancy made us a quilt that even has E-2 Hawkeyes on it. I don't know where she found the fabric!

Our friends were so generous. I can't wait to see him in all of the little outfits that were bought and made for him!

Janel, Sophia & JR, Sarah & Audrey, me & Dylan and Allie.

Can you tell that the squadron we are in is on shore duty? That means no deployments and lots of new babies!

Angelica, Russell and Charlotte made the trip down from Pax River. Thanks for coming friends!

Thanks for throwing us such a fun party!

Hi Gilbert Clan!

Our dear friends the Gilberts came to Virginia Beach to visit friends in the area since they lived here for 8+ years before Japan. It was wonderful to see them! We had a little Japan reunion on Friday before the HEGH ball. It was so nice to catch up with everyone.

We saw Rob & Christiana's baby for the first time as well. Aiden is such a little peanut still!

How cute are these little munchkins? Miss Cora, Miss Haley and Miss Addison were enjoying the watermelon. It was just too hot outside so we had to move the BBQ inside.

Thanks for coming friends. I love our Navy family!

Ella Ann's Baby Shower

Before I started working and had lots of free time to party plan, Marcy and I planned a pink & purple themed baby shower for our friends, Amy and Zach and their soon to be daughter, Ella. It was a couples shower except two weeks before the shower, our other couple halves got sent to Jacksonville a week later than planned. Boo. The extra 4 hands would have been wonderful, but I think we did a pretty good job! I also loved throwing a party in our new house! They layout worked perfectly just as we hoped when we saw it during househunting!

I had fun making lots of pennants with leftover scrapbook paper. We decided to decorate with those because they matched the inviations we ordered off of Etsy.

Zach and Amy got a ton of adorable gifts personalized for their little one to be. I can't wait to meet her in another 5 weeks!

It was fun to do a couples shower too because several people got gifts just for Zach like his "Daddy Diaper Duty" kit.

I got Amy and Zach an "E" from Restoration Hardware for the baby's room. For such a planner and organizer, I have been so impressed with Amy's restraint in decorating the baby's room. She hasn't decorated anything since they are moving ACROSS THE COUNTRY 3 weeks after the baby is born. Gotta love the Navy life!

I'm not gonna lie, I'm going to be a little devastated when they leave. At least we have another couple months and they have two houses that they have to come back East to check out occassionally.

We had about 25 people for the party and made tons of food to munch on. A few of Zach's favorite - chicken dip and cheeseburgers- and a few of Amy's- veggies, fruit and cherry limeade!

We had a short reunion with our little Kingsville foursome as well! The four of us all met while our hubbies were stationed in Kingsville, TX. We all lived in the same neighborhood. It was fun to catch up again.

We had a little table set up on the side where people could decorate onesies and diapers for Miss Ella. I was pretty impressed with people's creativity! They turned out so cute. I also made a small scrapbook where people could write a word of advice for Amy and Zach. I put it together with her ultrasound pictures and a few from the pregnancy. I used my Cricut cutter on the scrapbook as well and I think it turned out pretty darn cute.

I think Amy and Zach had a great time. Can't wait to see that little baby!