Getting ready for Daddy to come home!

That's what we've been doing the past few weeks, well, pretty much since the day he left out to sea. haha :) We miss Jake alot when he's not home, but we definitely don't like his snoring when he's here! He left the 1st of December and finally will get to come home on Friday! :) They're keeping him busy on the ship, that's for sure! Because of his exemplary attitude with certain things and the attention to detail that he has, he's been assigned to a certain group of sailor's laundry duties, cleaning/assembling/preparing the ice cream machine in the galley, and another thing that I can't remember at the top of my head, dangit. I'll have to add it tomorrow if I can remember what it was... So yes, he's staying very busy! We can't wait to have him back home!

Beckham is having a rough time with all the random boxes that are stashed all over the house, he doesn't understand that he can't see what's in them. (Just a little side note: Beckham is always the first one at the door when the door bell rings, and when we get a package, he goes straight to the kitchen to grab a knife to help me open it.) So the fact that he can't open the few that we've gotten (from my grandparents and a huge one from Jake's mom and dad) is confusing the heck outta him! :p

In case you haven't noticed, we are running a bit late on Christmas cards this year, but don't worry, they're headed into the mail soon. Those of you that have sent us cards already, thanks so much, it's so nice being able to see how much families have grown and all the cute little faces.

We're still loving it here in the cute, quaint little housing community. It's very cold and there hasn't been much snow yet, but it's nice and rainy! I went to go to my car a few nights ago and was greeted by 3 huge racoons, sitting right on my front porch! They jumped a little, I screamed and almost peed my pants, and then we spent the next 10 minutes or so scrambling to find my camera and keep the dog from barking at them and scaring them away. I was SO tempted to open the door to get a better picture of their beady little eyes that were staring at me, but the images of my face marred by their razor-sharp claws and their garbage-saturated faces coming at me and eating my nose off quickly made that thought leave my head. Why did I not know that they can open my trash cans and get into them, leaving the door shut behind them?! When I went to take some garbage out the next day, the bag that was already in there had been ripped open and pilfered through!

Hope that everybody is doing well in Utah and the other places that we have family. We miss you all terribly! The holidays are creeping up on us, only a few more days. Although, if you were relying on Beckham's chocolate advent calendar to tell you how many days are left until Christmas, tonight would be Christmas Eve, because he only has ONE left. Out of 24 pieces of chocolate, he ate 23 of them. Yesterday. No wonder his stomach hurts.