Month One

In four days, Asa will have been gone for a month. And I can honestly say that this month went by much more quickly than I thought it would. I had been warned that it would be the hardest, and it would take forever. But I think I have been busy enough to let it go by without really thinking about it. In some ways, I feel like this month doesn't even count. He left in the advanced party, so the rest of his company only left their families a week ago. But then I think back on everything that has happened in the past month and I definitely feel like it counts.

Marley and I have moved out of house, traveled to Texas, seen friends and family, played outside, gotten a puppy, worked out, gone to doctor's appointments, and taken really good care of each other. And Asa has been busy most of the time also. He has traveled many places, taken classes, built things for their barracks, gone on his first mission, and whatever the heck else they are doing every day. Will we survive 11ish more months of this? Oh, I know we will. But I really feel like this last month was easy compared to what's ahead of us.

We have gotten to send him two packages already. Marley and I love picking things out for him and finding his favorite snacks at the grocery store. I love that it gives us something to get excited about. He knows most of what will be coming in his packages, but we also have a blast throwing some surprises in. Emily V. helped us make his some homemade cookies, and then we vacuum sealed them to hopefully keep them fresh. We made a lot of cookies, and when I talked to Asa last I mentioned that he might want to share them. His response? Heck no, he is not sharing! It is crazy to me that we are putting things in his box that we made or we picked out just for him, and in a few weeks, half a world away, he will open that box and pull out each thing. He will know how much we love him from each thing we put in the box, and he will get to see the pictures that Marley made just for him. It makes me so happy to think about how special it will be for him to get all those things.

Marley has been doing great so far with everything. She misses him so much, and she tells me that all the time. She will say that she loves him, she misses him, she wants to play with him, and she wants to hug him. It breaks my heart to hear her and try to figure out exactly what to say back to her. But it also shows me that she loves him tremendously, and it makes me so happy that she still thinks about him so often even though he is not here. We talk about him constantly. We look at pictures of him and talk about silly things he says or does.

She gets a present from Daddy every week, and it makes her day. It's usually something small like some new crayons or some Dora snack plates, but she lights up when she sees a note from him and gets to show off her presents to everyone she sees. Her gifts are always sitting somewhere in the house waiting for her to wake up in the mornings. (Just to clarify, I have been getting to gifts and writing the notes, but she doesn't know all that of course.) He outdid himself this past week though and ordered her a tricycle online and had it shipped here! I was even surprised by that one!

She also has three Daddy books that she loves to read at night. We bought two recordable books from Hallmark and he recorded his voice reading them to her. She knows exactly what's going to happen when I open the book, but as soon as she hears his voice she turns to me and smiles. She loves to hear her Daddy read them to her. And we also get the added benefit of the baby hearing his voice every night also. The third book is a book Called "A Paper Hug" that she got from her Grandma and Pappy two Christmases ago. She loves that book also and I think it really helps her understand everything better.

She is so proud of her Daddy, and he is so proud of her. I never have to worry that she will forget that he loves her. She knows 100% and that makes me the happiest Mommy. We can definitely handle this, even though we all miss each other terribly.