Welcome To Our Site! - Stories Page 2

Hunter is two years old...730 days old...17,520 hours old...1,051,200 minutes old...63,072,000 seconds old. Wow! I never thought about it like that. I cannot believe that he is now two. I am sad that he is growing so quickly but excited to watch him grow in to a little boy. He is the most amazing thing I have ever had any part of.

Now that the sad part is over...Hunter had a big day today. He woke up to a huge pile of presents which he ripped through quite happily! He had so much fun with his presents, after opening each one he said "more". It was too cute! Hunter and I had a play date with Maura and Jacob for Soft Play and Lunch. Hunter had lots of fun and kept Mooing at the Chik Fil A cow. Hunter has named his Best Friend Jacob "Dopper". I know, I know I have no clue where he got Dopper from. Not even remotely close to Jacob...but that is Jacob's new name at least that is what Hunter calls him now. Greg actually made the mistake of telling Hunter that he was going to play with "Dopper" today. You probably all think that is a harmless thing to say but have you ever tried to explain to a two year old the concept of "ina couple of hours". Trust me quite difficult ona good day. Hunter ran to the front door right after Greg told him banging on it yelling "Dopper! Dopper!". Greg in his innocence thought he could fix this by saying that he had to wait until I woke up to go and see him. Next thing I know I hear Hunter yelling "MaMa! MaMa!" at the bottom of the stairs. He decided it was time to wake me up. Thankfully we were able to get him busy enough to forget about it until just before we left to meet them. It was very funny! Maura and Jacob came over to pick up some cupcakes after our playdate and we had another playdate back at home with Hunter's new toys! Needless to say he was exhausted and finalyy went down for a much needed nap. After his nap we forced him out of the house again for a great time at Chuck E Cheese! He had lots of fun there until Chuck E himself made a visit to our table. Hunter has a big fear of Characters up close...from far away he will yell and laugh and cheer...but when they get too close he tends to lose it. Chuck E found the worse way possible to say hello, he snuck up behind him and grabbed his head to surprise him. Hunter had a look of pure terror on his face. Thankfully there were no tears but Chuck E quickly got the message and went off to visit (scare) more little kids. They gave him a cute little hat and a balloon. We made a quick pit stop at the grocery store on the way home for some milk. We finally got home in just enough time for Hunter to have his cupcake before bed. We sang Happy Birthday and watched in pure awww as we had to try and convince the kid that cake was good. We finally got him to taste it when we told him it was a cookie....it is kind of like a cookie. Needless to say once he tasted it he was hooked! He even wanted more when he finished but he needed to go to bed and I was a little afraid of the sugar from the first one. He was exhausted though and went to bed with out any problem. And that is what we did today for Hunter's 2nd Birthday. On a sidenote, this was my favorite Birthday so far. If you haven't figured out why yet...This was Greg's first Birthday with Hunter. It was wonderful to see Greg and Hunter together...I will never forget it.

I don't even know where to start....These last few weeks have been a roller coaster. A great one but a roller coaster none the less. Greg went to his WLC course a few weeks ago and one week later my parents came in town. We got lucky and were able to change our plans for Orlando to the following weekend so that Greg could come with us. When my parents got in we went on a whirl wind exploration of Savannah. We took Hunter on a carriage tour and even on a Dolphin tour. He was very interested in all the boats in the river but really had no clue that we were even on one for the dolphin cruise. He kept pointing out all of the boats around us saying "Big Boat" and looked at us like we were crazy when we told him he was on a big boat. Greg graduated from WLC the Wed after they got in (the 21st) we all went down to watch the ceremony. It was very neat to see them all marching around but my goodness was it hot. We were all dripping wet by the time it was over. We went out to dinner that night to Greg's favorite restaurant (down here) Logan's and had lots of fun celebrating his course being over. The next morning we left for Orlando. It took us about 4 and a half hours to get there. Hunter watched movies and did pretty good on the trip. YaYa and PaPa may have been a little crowded in the back but with Hunter next to them we heard no complaining. Speaking of YaYa and PaPa, Hunter just loved them! Every time one or both of them were out of his sight he would very cutely say "YaYa?" or "PaPa?". It was too cute and I tell you my parents just melted as soon as he said their names. It was a lot of fun to see. I just wish we lived closer to everyone so that everyone could be a part of the learning to talk and not hearing there names for the first time over the phone. Anyways, back to my story...We got to Orlando and checked into our Hotel and then headed out to Greg and Jennifer's house to have dinner. We had soo much fun over there! Hunter and Cameron got along great but I think he liked the boys best! He is just so in to big kids! Dinner was great and we had a great time in the pool after dinner. It was the first time this year that Hunter has absolutely loved being in a swimming pool. I think he liked seeing the other kids in it having a great time. I am glad that I finally got to meet the Florida Algorri's it was lots of fun. Greg was so great and gave us park hopper passes for Disney world (Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!). It was definitely a nice relaxing night before a crazy weekend! We woke up bright and early the next morning and went to Animal Kingdom. We went to Dinosaur land there and Hunter just loved it. He is very in to dinosaurs or "Borasoars" as he calls them. We went on a fun Dinosaur ride which thank goodness Hunter loved insert sigh of relief here because I was a little concerned about how he would like rides and seeing as how we were going to giant theme parks him liking rides is a big plus! Well anyways he smiled and laughed the whole time which was only a sneak peak at the fun he was going to have! We saw lots of neat animals at Animal Kingdom and went to a petting zoo where he got to get up close and personal with a lot of goats. He loved them and was running around petting all of them. He even gave one special little goat a great big hug. We ran out of time there unfortunately so we didn't get a chance to go on the safari ride but hopefully we will go back again before we leave here. We left Animal Kingdom and road the bus to Disney World. I should also mention that this was the hottest day of the whole trip. We were all melting and we probably all had visions of heat strokes. We stopped to have lunch as soon as we got to Disney World were of course Hunter passed out from exhaustion before he even had a bite to eat. We went to Mickey's Toon Town area next where there was a neat water fun area called Donald Ducks Boat. Hunter was a little groggy because I (the mean Mommy that I am) woke him up so he wouldn't miss a thing and I was hoping to cool myself off in the water as well. He was a little grumpy though and wasn't to thrilled with the idea that water randomly shot through the air from the ground. He ran out of this area screaming. We found a dry play area next were he went down the slide and watched all the kids having fun. Then we went on a tour of Mickey's house. That is when we had our first "character" experience. I had been concerned about this the whole time. Mickey Mouse was waiting at the end of the tour for picture taking fun. I don't know if anyone remembers our experience with Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, if you do, you know what's coming. Actually Mickey Mouse was a breeze compared to the other characters. We approached him slowly and I kept him on the opposite side of Mickey. There was only a problem when Mickey tried to shake Hunter's hand. He wanted nothing to do with him at all! We made our way over to Pooh's play area where we found Winnie The Pooh and Tigger too! Having just had the first "character" experience I knew full well what to expect. But Hunter's first year was a Winnie The Pooh year so I needed to have a picture of Hunter with them. I started getting hopeful when Hunter started jumping up and down and pointing yelling "Pooh" "Pooh". That was a little short lived though because as soon as it was his turn for a picture he lost it! He clamped on to me so hard I could hardly breathe! The sad thing is that one of my favorite pictures from the trip is when Hunter is screaming and Pooh is sad. But I got my Pooh picture! Now on to Tigger! I thought he just had to be getting used to this. Not quite...he ran screaming from Tigger! And about had a fit when Tigger put his "Paw" on my shoulder. I think I made up for the torture next, well at least YaYa did. Hunter's favorite movie right now is Dumbo. So we just had to go to the Dumbo ride. YaYa had been patiently waiting in line for Dumbo the whole time we were trying to get pictures of Hunter with Pooh and Tigger. By the time we made it back to her it was just about her turn. We squeezed Hunter up there and they got on to the Dumbo ride. That was Hunter's favorite part of the day. We later passed by the Dumbo ride again where he just about lost it screaming "Dumbo!" "Dumbo!" It was very cute and needless to say we did purchase a very cute Dumbo for him to take home with him. I forgot a very big part of the day! While we were waiting for Hunter's turn to take his picture with Tigger Hunter's sandals broke! You know, you would think that it shouldn't be that hard to find another pair of shoes at Disney World...there is more shopping to do than playing there. We went to a billion stores! None of them had shoes in his size. When we almost lost hope we finally found Stitch shoes...$20 Stitch shoes but you try and tell a two year old the ground is too hot and that he has to stay in his stroller for the rest of the day. We got the Stitch shoes...was there ever a doubt? We went on the carousel and It's A Small World while we were there as well oh and a Pooh ride too. Hunter loved all of it but Dumbo was definitely the hit of the day. Us big kids managed to ride Space Mountain too some where in the day. This is only the end of day one Orlando. Sea World was the next day. We were all very concerned with how hot it would be but thankfully it was overcast and rainy most of the day. Some people may think this would ruin a trip to Sea World but we were thankful for the cooler weather after the insane heat pf the day before. The first thing we did was go and see Shamu! That was a HUGE hit with Hunter! He was yelling Shamu through the whole show. We ended up sitting in the splash zone where we learned that Shamu likes very cold water( Where was the splash zone yesterday?). We thankfully didn't get too wet, that was left to the rain later in the day. We got to see the Budweiser Clydesdales. Hunter likes Horsies and these were "Big Horsies!". We saw and fed the sharks which Hunter also loved. He thought they were great and probably would have swam with them if we had let him. We hung out at the shark pool for a while to avoid getting soaked by the rain but Hunter loved every minute fo it. We went and saw the Sea Lions too which I think he thought they where a little odd because they kept barking like dogs. It was a little hard to explain to him Sea Lions so we of course just told them they were seals. Us big kids snuck in another great ride. They have an awesome roller coaster there. I made Greg go on it with me, very unwillingly might I add. He loved it by the time it was over though. The rain became very unrelenting after that though so after finding Hunter a suitable Shamu stuffed animal we decided to call it a day. The next we woke up super early to take PaPa to the airport. It was a long sleepy ride. Hunter was sad to see his PaPa go. For the most part we spent the next week relaxing at home and slowly trying to catch up on some much needed rest. We went to Hilton Head and explored a little one day and we also went back down town for another boat ride on the Savannah River. Hunter didn't seem to realize he was ona boat for this one either. We went swimming a couple of times were Hunter discovered the wonderful world of floaties. He has turned back in to a water baby. He loves swimming now. Speaking of which we went to the beach too. Hunter loves the beach. He is obsessed with sitting in the surf and letting the waves hit him. He greets every wave with a great big "Weeeee". We took a tearful YaYa to the airport on Saturday. Hunter was sad when he realized that she was gone. I think I have managed to hit all of the big points from our big vacation. We had lots of fun and we were all sad to see my parents go. I just really wish we lived closer to our family. Hunter is doing sooo much now and we wish we could share it with everybody first hand instead of through a website. Hunter is talking so much now and we are out of the whining phase he is finally able to tell us exactly what he wants and when he wants it "Now". It is a cute age...a trying age but a cute age.

Wow! We have been go go going since we picked up YaYa and PaPa yesterday! I don't think I put on here that we were able to change our plans for Orlando to next weekend so that Greg will be able to go with us. Greg graduates from WLC on Wednsday and we are going to leave Thursday morning for Orlando. I am so glad that we were able to change the plans. We all wanted himt o come with us and it would not have been the same with out him. Hunter would have been very bummed to not have his Daddy with him at Disney World and Sea World. Hunter is so enamored with his YaYa and PaPa. He woke up to find them getting in the car yesterday at the airport and just wasn't too sure about them. He tried very hard to pretend that all he wanted to do was look out the window. But everyone saw him peering out of the corner of his eye. By the time we got to the house it was YaYa And PaPa this and YaYa and PaPa that. Everywhere we have gone if one of them is out of his sight he will look at m,e questioningly and say "YaYa?" "PaPa?". It is too cute. They got him a "bike" which he is figuring out pretty quickly. He just can't quite figure out how to push the pedals. He will be doing it in the next couple of days though I am sure. He has been wanting this tricycle for a very long time and is thrilled to have it! We went fishing this morning at a big pond but caught no fish. We also went down to River Street and then to Forsythe park. I think the park was Hunter's favorites. He was running everywhere! We were all a little more exhausted just watching him I think! He had lots of fun! We went to a Pirate place for dinner where Hunter discovered that Pirates are verys scary. He panicked when he saw this big fake pirate that talked, I had to pick him up and take him screaming by it to our table. It was like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all over again. Well we have tons of stuff planned for the next couple of weeks so we are going tobe really busy. But it is going ot be lots of fun! It is so much fun to have people visitng. I just cna't wait til Greg is done with school so he can have fun with us! Well I will add more soon!

My stories seem to get fewer and farther between! Well the hot weather has officially hit! We celebrated this week by meeting some friends at the beach. Hunter loved it! He is terrified of a swimming pool but the ocean is just awesome as far as he is concerned...must be that California blood in him! Well in case no one noticed we got a new puppy. He is on probation right now though because he has an affinity for chewing carpet....grrrrrr! He is a sweet little guy and Hunter adores him as long as he doesn't try to play to rough. I feel like I am separating two kids sometimes. He is doing better every day with housebreaking but like I said probation for destruction of carpet! He is a pure bred miniature American Eskimo and his name is Buster. Hunter calls him Bus-shoe. He misses him every time we have to leave him at home but he doesn't like sharing his toys. Greg is off at school for his E-5. He left EARLY Tuesday morning and will be done on the 21st of this month. Unfortunately we have been planning a trip down to Orlando for months now from the 15th to the 19th. We are trying to see what we can do and how much it will cost to change it but even if we do there is no gaurantees that he will be able to go then either. He had been told he wasn't going to the school this month but I guess they changed there minds. I feel so bad for him I know how much he was looking forward to doing this with Hunter and it was also going to be his first Father's day with him! Well I am off to rummage up some dinner for me and the little squirt I will add more soon!

The hot weather seems to come and go as it chooses. Such is life in the south I suppose! I had a wonderful relaxing Mother's Day! Hunter colored me a very pretty card all by himslef....well almost! Greg made us wonderful french toast for breakfast and we just had a fun day! We went swimming for a while in the afternoon. It was the first time that Hunter and Greg have ever gone swimming together. I just loved it. It is amazing that there are still such unbelievable firsts left for this little boy. I always think that I can't be anymore amazed, but everyday he learns or does something new that just makes me want to yell pause so I can figure out where the time went! I still can't believe how fast they grow and change. Sometimes it feels like only yesterday I couldn't wait until he was out of my stomach and now we are counting down to the big number two! Only two more months until he turns TWO! I still can't believe it. Maybe if I say it a few more times it will sink in? He is quite skillfull at getting what he wants these days and will say just about anything to do so. If it is the weekend and I am blissfully sleeping in while Hunter and his Daddy have some one on one time Hunter will start yelling MaMa jsut so Greg will take him upstairs and he can search out some toy that he miraculously doesn't have downstirs...did I mention MaMa was never part of the problem. Not only that, he will tell one of us he wants juice so that we will leave the room and he can get in to some drawer he isn't allowed in or climb up to the computer desk so that he can type on the keyboard. This kid is smart! He will quickly pretend that whatever he is doing wrong is not really wrong because did anyone ever tell him specifically why he couldn't do it. Or he will take the nannee nannee boo boo approach and run screaming to find a place to hide or more specifically cover his face because if he can't see us we obviously can't seee him, right? Well anyways Greg is leaving in the morning for school for two weeks so that he can get his E-5. He will only be just down the street (about 40 miles down the street) but he won't be able to come home, it is apparently going to be just like basic training all over again. I am going to get a tune up in taking care of Hunter by myself again. We will survive but I wonder how Hunter will fair. He has a fit on Monday mornings when Greg isn't there to get him out of bed. We will just have to have a lot of mother son bonding time and practice his talking on the phone skills so that he can tell his Daddy all about his day with Mommy. Well I added some pictures and I will add more soon!

The hot weather has officially hit Georgia and Hunter and I celebrated by going for our first swim of the summer! It was so cute. We got him this cute frog float and when he saw it after his nap he was so excited he drug it every where with him and even pulled it behind him all the way to the pool! If only the rest of the story went so well. As soon as we got to the pool Hunter saw it and started backing up and was whimpering almost to the point of tears. I guess I thought that somehow he was going to remember all of the fun he had swimming last summer. His first time in a pool was easier than today. He panicked! We sat at the edge of the pool with our feet in the water for atleast fifteen minutes while I tried to explain to a two year old no less how much fun he was going to have if he would only try to get in. Well I finally convinced him to grab ahold of me and go in the water and boy did he ever grab hold of me. I've seen wrestlers with a weaker hold than this kid. Once he figured out that splashing water in my face was fun he was all about the swimming. We spent most of the time at the steps where he was very excited to be able to stand on his own as well as use both hands to splash me! We had quite the water war there on those few steps. I haven't seen him giggle and laugh so hard at em in a while. He usually reserves that kind of craziness for his Daddy! But haha I got my baby boy back today with a wonderful bonding moment. I even had him going around the pool held out in front of me kicking in the water like he had never been afraid at all. It was great. It was also a little cold in the water. He was sitting on the top step shivering and saying "told" "told" (which is Hunter for cold). I kept asking him if he wanted to get out and he would voraciously shake his head side to side and say "no" very loudly. I finally said that there were cookies and a "bank" (Hunter for blanket/towel) in the bag by the chair. He jumped up and climbed out of the pool very quickly. I would like to say he was going for the "bank" but who am I kidding cookies where on his mind. So we went over to the chairs where I wrapped him in his spider man towel and we relaxed in the lounge chairs by the pool. He looked so proud of himself sitting there. I was very proud of him too for atleast trying something that he was terrified of. Maybe there is hope for vegetables after all? I will keep my fingers crossed! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention...the frog he was so excited about was a very terrifying prospect once he saw it in the pool. It didn't seem as safe as holding on to me apparently. Maybe next time....

I cannot believe that Hunter is 21 months old today! He is growing way too fast. He is just learning soo much. Today we drove by the park and he started yelling Park Park! It was so funny! I am going to have to invest in some Where is Waldo books because this kid sees everything. Anytime we are in the car he says he sees something and me and Greg have to look everywhere to make sure he isn't making it up. He has the eyes of an eagle. Well Hunter had a great time on Easter. He found sooo many eggs! We were worried he wouldn't be interested in it because he hadn't been feeling well but boy oh boy did he take to it in a hurry! We went down toValdosta to vist my good friend from high school and her family. They have two littel girls, Lindsay and Lauren. Lauren is Hunter's age almost exactly. They are the cutest little girls. They definitely bring out the flirt in Hunter. Unfortunately the first day we got there Hunter got a bad fever. He officially had his first Mommy scaring fever that night when it reached 103.8. Way too high for me. Luckily we gave him some Tylenol and it went down, not away but down. He steadily had a fever between 100 and 102 for the rest of the weekend. No other symptoms but he didn't seem to be too thirsty so when we got back I scheduled an appointment with his Dr and she seemed to think he just had something viral and too just make sure he drank lots of fluid. He is back to his old self again. Well like I said Easter was a big hit fever and all! Oh yeah! The week before Eater Hunter wnet to the Dr too. He had a runny nose and I was sure it was allergies. He is officially even more like his Daddy. Now if I could only convince Greg to got o the Dr for some allergy medicine. Well I hope that everyone had a great Easter! I will add more soon!

Well I just have not gotten any better at the story writing have I? Well Hunter is up to all kinds of stuff these days. He is talking all the time but not necessarily always in an understanded language. He is just all over the place, he loves to jump up and down and he still lvoes to dance. His favorite song int he world is the theme song for "That 70's Show" he just can't get enough of it. As soon as he hears it he drops everything and runs to the TV and boogies down. He is too cute. He has a baby now. He just replaced his old baby which was a stuffed animal leopard with a baby cabbage patch boy. Mutch to Greg's dismay. He was only happy with him having a bbay if it was the stuffed animal. But even he has to admit that is cute to see Hunter trying to get his Baby ready to go Bye Bye and ready for Night Night. He won't go to bed with out his baby. If you open the door slowly to get him out of bed you can some times sneak a peak of Hunter trying to share his juice or binky with his baby. This is one of the cutest stages so far. He knows what keys are and tries to unlock the baby locked cabinets with them and even the front door because this kid just can't get enough of outside. I started going to the YMCA last week and Hunter had his first experience with daycare. I was petrified and he didn't want to leave. He loves going to child watch and I literally have to chase him to catch him when it is time to go. He just loves all the different toys and the nice ladies in there. He apparently already has wrapped one of them around his finger during snack time. He makes one of ladies feed him his snack, when you and I know he is perfectly capable of doing it himself. He is sucha ham! He loves his golf clubs and has broken his "driver" whiule trying to rearrange our bakers rack. Luckily there wasn't anyhting on it at the time to rearrange. He is obsessed with airplanes right now. He sees them and hears them all the time and just goes nuts jumping upo and down yelling "airpane airpane" it is treally cute. He loves to help put away groceries and fold laundry. Granted it makes it take a little longer but he just loves to do it. He just thinks everything goes in the fridge. That has got to be thge only time it is easy to get him from outside to inside really fast. He just loves it. The laundry he doesn't so much fold as he tries to put it all on over his head and yes that includes underwear bras shirts shorts, pretty much anuything that has a hole big enough to put his head through. I can't wait until the pool opend for the summer he jsut loved swimming last year and I am sure he will like it just as much this year. As long as this afraid of the shower and bath tub phase he is going through ends soon. He screams and holds on tight the entire time. Which is a bit difficult to clean through. He still loves his potty and tells us when he has pee pee or poo poo but hasn't quite grasped that he is supposed to tell us before he has to go. The obsession with Elmo still lives on. Everyday we watch Elmo about 4 or 5 times. I tell you what that Elmo can get a little bit annoying. This coming weekend we are going to visit my friend Krystal and her family for Easter. It is going to be lots of fun. Well I think that sums up everythign that our little kiddo can do these days. I really will try to add stories more often! I promise!

My goodness! I keep saying that I am going to get better about these stories but boy it seems they get farther apart. Well we had a great time on our vacation to California and Texas. It was so nice to go and see everyone especially under such good circumstances. It was the best trip we have been on in over a year because Greg was with us. I just want to thank everybody for everything. The party in California was great as the one in Texas was too! I'm sure all enjoyed seeing Hunter and Greg together playing as much as I do. We got home and relaxed for a few days before Greg was back off to work! Hunter stayed with friends of ours so that we could celebrate our second anniversary. It was lots of fun! Even better because it was our first anniversary together. Now for the real reason all you people read these stories. Hunter is changing all the time and we can hardly keep up with him. All he wants to is dance with Elmo and jump up and down while counting to three. Elmo is now known as Melmo and he is still a favorite around here. He is talking all the time and even understands what most of the words mean. He even puts a couple of them together now and then in apparent tries at sentences. He has decided that he knows what is in his diaper and doesn't like it so we went and bought a potty so that he can get used to the idea. I have no misgivings that potty training is going to be a breeze but how on earth do you teach a child who doesn't hardly listen to the word no that he is supposed to sit on a potty and "go"? I have no clue how to get this idea across! Any pointers? He stills loves it outside and has learned how to throw a ball (or car =) ) quite acurately. He learned that kicking is best done while wearing shoes only after rubbing his foot for a few minutes and saying owwy after kicking a toy that wasn't working to his standards. He has learned if one parent won't do it he can just go and get the other one. He has learned that when a camera comes out it is time to stop doing what ever cute thing he may be doing. He has apparently gone on strike with camera poses! He has learned that if it doesn't work right the first time then go and get Mommy or Daddy to make it do the right thing or else it is time to kick things and bite things. What we have learned is the people who say they aren't terrible until they reach two obviously forgot what one year olds where like.

Wow! It has been absolutely wondeful having Greg home! It was soo cold the night we went to get him but it has been pretty nice since he has been here. It hasn't even rained that much and that is saying alot out here in Georgia! The best part about Greg being home is there is no more waiting. Since we got married it seems like we have been waiting for something. First we waited anxiously for Hunter to come and then we moved to Georgia and waited for news on when Greg would be leaving. When we found that out we had to wait, more like dread, for the day he was leaving. Then Hunter and I waited for him to come home for leave and then finally we had to wait for him to come home for good. Now we finally are just being a family again. No more waiting for anything. It is very nice. Hunter and Greg have become the best of friends all over again. Hunter runs around yelling Daddy and Greg just loves it. They have lots of fun playing together. We both missed Greg soo much! Greg will only be wroking half days until his leave is over so that is great. We all get to spend lots fo time together. I have even got to sleep in a few times since he has been home which has been great. Hunter went for his eighteen month check up the other day and he really hasn't grown that much at all. he only gained 4 oz. I thought he had gotten so much taller but no luck there still 31 in tall. I guess he just looked taller cause he has gotten so much leaner. He actually has elbows, knees and wrists. He is looking more and more like a little boy. I can't believe how much he has changed! He is talking, dancing, running and jumping! He is just all over the place. He has a new thing that he does now. He still hates having his diaper changed and whenever Greg does it Hunter tells him Bye Bye. Which we have come to discover means go away to him. He says it other times too when it seems he wants to be left alone but mainly at diaper changes. Well that is everything so far. Sorry for the delay in Greg home story. We have been having lots of fun. I will add more pictures soon.

I am at home patiently waiting while Hunter sleeps for the moment that I finally get to go and get Greg from the base! I am so excited! For those of you who don't know, Greg is supposed to be in by about 8:00 tonight! I have been literally counting the hours since he called yesterday mornign and told me. I have finally gotten everything unpacked, cleaned out, cleaned up and basically in some semblance of order (there is no perfect order with a seventeen month old apparently). I even got Greg's Christmas presents wrapped today after Hunter first went down for his nap. Last night was a very long night as well. I was looking forward to going to bed early as I knew today would be a long day but Hunter just did not like that idea whatsoever! I first attempted to put him to bed at nine. I rocked and rocked for two hours. Everytome he fell asleep I attempted to lay him down in his crib which was met with an immediate scream and jump out from under the covers. At about eleven I finally just let hi9m cry for awhile and was met with silence by about eleven fifteen. I was so exhausted and my back was killing me! I crawled into bed and fell to sleep almost instantly. If you know me at all this is a very unheard of idea. Hunter woke up in a great mood this morning and had fun playing all day and even enjoyed helping me unpack a couple of boxes that we got from El Paso. He was thrilled to see that some of his toys he got for Christmas were in there! Well I will be putting a wonderful stroy up soon of Greg's return! Sorry no new pictures but there will be plenty to add with in the next few days.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! The last week and a half has flown by! Hunter and I had a wonderful Christmas and if you noticed in the pictures that wondeful Christmas is all going to be shipped home in no less than SEVEN boxes! Wow! Even I was surprised at that. We are still waiting on our most wanted Christmas present to arrive though. In fact Greg was in Kuwait this morning and hopefully is getting closer and closer! He was hopefully supposed to be home tomorrow but he will not be here until atleast Wednsday but more than likely on Thursday! So everyone keep there fingers crossed for Wednsday please! Well we just got back from El Paso yesterday and boy oh boy was it a long day! I had Hunter stay awake until eleven the night before we left (New Years Eve) so that he would be extra tired on the planes and hopefully sleep the whole way. Well those of you with kids know that this strategy can go two ways number one (the one I was hoping for) is he will be tired and just fall right asleep in my arms on the planes and there will be no fussing at all, and number two he could possibly beyond tired and just a big cranky pants all day. Well I got a little of both just unfortunately in the wrong order. He fell right asleep on our first plane of the morning but on the second plane he was overtired and just would not lay down for a nap. So over stimulation plus two tiny seats on a crowded airplane equals a very long two hour and fifteen minute flight. To top it all off that second plane even left an hour late from Dallas so we had sat at the gate forever before even getting on the plane, giving him extra time to wakeup and get mad about being stuck in a stroller. Well we finally made it to Savannah at about 5:30 last night where come to find out all of the luggage except for the Car Seat is there. I had a very long day and just pretty much had a breakdown in the airport at this point. Yuo might think this is silly but once again you guys with kids know a one year old doesn't go anywhere with out a car seat. I called the taxi that was supposed to pick me up and told him I didn't have a car seat and that I would call him when I got it all figured out to come and get me. I made my way upstairs with two huge suitcases a diaper bag a back pack and a stroller down the hall and finally to the airline desk. There were alot of people that were missing luggage on my flight so I had to wait long enough to get indignant and had decided in my mind that I was going to demand instant money to go and buy a car seat and that was just too bad if that wasn't there policy. Well I finally made it up there and there was a very nice lady who immediately after hearing my predicament informed me that they had loaner car seats (Thank God!). I called the taxi guy and he made it back out to the airport to get me about an hour later and we were finally home at about 7:30. I bet you think our day was over there too don't you? Nope, not soo lucky! I did my walk around the airport and to my shock the only thing wrong was our table on the back patio is gone,stolen,missing whatever you want to call it. When you are gone for two months you expect things. All I have to say is atleast it was only that. After the walk through I put our loaner car seat into the car and headed off to Wal-Mart for groceries. Right when we were about to walk out the door of Wal-Mart it started to pour! By the time I got Hunter and the groceries into the car I was soaked to the bone. We finally got home were it apparently had stopped raining luckily so there was no need to get any more wet than I already was. I made us some dinner and we were finally both in bed by 10:30. I have decided yesterday is definitely in the top ten longest days of my life! That is a long enough story for tonight. I added forty new pictures to the site and I will keep everyone updated about Greg! I will add more soon!

I don't seem to be getting better at adding stories these days! Here it is almost Christmas and the last story I put on was about Thanksgiving! Well Hunter has been going nuts and getting spoiled rotten out here. It seems he is learning new words all the time but he still likes to jibber jabber a lot! He has officially discovered that he can do whatever he wants with his YaYa and PeePaw around. He just goes nuts whenever they get home. You mine as well consider me chopped liver once they are home! It is definitely fun to see though and very relaxing for me. Although I think my parents are just a "little" exhausted. They are definitely going to miss him when we leave on the first. Speaking of which! I don't know if everyone has heard but Greg is leaving Iraq on the first of January and will be home by the third (I will keep my fingers crossed). We are going to have our own mini Christmas when he gets home so that Greg can see him open presents too! Hunter is just going absolutely nuts about the Christmas tree in the room and I have a feeling it is going to get demolished on the 25th when he is finally aloud in there. He has only been in there once so that I could take a Christmas picture of him. He calls the tree "pretty" cause he is in love with the lights. He just stands there and stares at it through his gate. It is too cute! Well I better get started on adding pictures. I really will add more soon!

My goodness it has been a while since I added a new story hasn't it? Well we are in El Paso now visiting with all of our Texas family and hopefully we will get a chance to go out and visit family in California too! Greg is doing good...getting bored but that is just fine with me! Hunter is all over the place and looks less and less like a baby these days. I am really seeing Greg in him now all of the time. He is really turning into a little boy soo fast. I wish I had a slow motion or pause button. I guess that is why people have more kids, they miss the little babies. He is talking a lot more now. He says hello, Hi, Bye, Dog, MaMa, DaDa, YaYa, juice, no, ball and I think that is it. He talked on the phone for the first time the other night. I put the phone up to his ear and he talked to his Daddy. He said "Hi DaDa" and then jibber jabbered a bit. He actually did it a couple of times. I was so excited I was jumping all over the place. Greg finally got a first! Yay! He has been practicing with his play phones for weks but has never actually talked on thephone to someone until he talked to his Daddy. I guess he was practicing so that he would get it just right. I don't know if I have mentioned this before but Greg is supposed to be home the first or second week of Jan. It is finally getting close enoguh to the other end of the tunnel to see the light. I can't wait until he is home. I love to watch him and Hunter playing together it was absolutely my favorite thing to see when he was home in September. We are having lots of fun visiting with everybody out here. The countdown for the crazy holiday season is here. Hopefully that will make the time go faster. I never thought I would wish away the holidays. We are going to have a nother Christmas at home when Greg gets back. I thought it would be a great idea that way Greg gets to see Hunter open up presents and we can have a special Christmas celebration just the three of us! Well I added some pictures i will add more soon!

I feel like we have been celebrating Halloween for a month! We went to a carnival last Wednsday that was lots of fun and then we went to a Halloween party on Saturday and tonight, finally, I think we finished it off with a round of Trick or Treating. Hunter had a blast Trick or Treating tonight! We went over to a friends house and went Trick or Treating with her daughter Ava and Hunter's friend Jacob. They all looked sooo cute in there costumes! Hunter was soo good tonigth. He walked pretty much the whole way by himself (holding my hand of course). He only went in the wagon a few times but he was having too much fun walking and running from house to house. I didn't think he was ready for Trick or Treating yet but he had a blast and I am glad that we went. He got sooo much candy! He only had a few M&M's and a Butterfinger. The Butterfinger wasn'rt supposed to happen but I was letting him hold on to one so he could crinkle the paper and some how he managed to chew throught the wrapper and eat the Butterfinger. Smart little kiddo! Hunter saw a little Beagle that was dressed as a Pumpkin and he went nuts trying to runa dn play with him yelling Dog Dog Dog the whole time. He is starting to really talk a lot more. It is so neat to hear. Soon enough though I will wonder when the talking will ever stop I'm sure. After we got done Trick or Treating we went back to Chae's house and had some pizza then it was off back home to start winding down for bedtime. Oh yeah! I forgot all about the new cat Elvis or should I say dog? Last week our neighbors gave us Elvis. He is a sweet heart andhe lets Hunter jump all over him. We are just hoping that Greg's allergies aren't too bad when he gets home, otherwise we will have to find a new home for him. Hunter calls him Dog. it is so silly but I don't want to correct him because it is just too funny! So I call him Elvis and Hunter has nicknamed him Dog. I think Elvis is a word a little beyond his capabilities right now anyways. Greg is doing good. They are slowly transitioning so that he can hurry up and come home. I have never heard of a transition that took two months but hey it isn't up to me. We are all just soooo ready for him to be home. Hunter and I leave for El Paso next Tuesday and we will be there until the beginning of January. So hopefully that will make the time go a little faster until Greg comes home. We are going to try and make it out to California while we are on that side of the country. I really hope that works out. Well I am a little tired from the Trick or Treating tonight so I think I am off to bed. I added nine new pictures. I will add more soon!

Sorry it has been so long since I added a story. We have been slowly getting back in to the groove of things since Greg left. Last night we went to this really neat Halloween carnival at a church. Hunter had sooo much fun it was great! They had games set up for preschoolers and Hunter was able to do two of them. The first one he did was fishing. It was so funny they had these little sticks with a string and a clothes pin on the other end. He had to hold it up and the string went on the other side of this little wall and someone clipped a little treat to it. It was to cute! He was more interested in squeezing the little bag of teddy grahams that he got than the fishing but it was still very funny! The next game he played was his favorite. It was called the pumpkin walk and they had little pumpkins made out of construction paper taped to the floor in a big circle and all of them had numbers on them. It was kind of like musical chairs and you had to walk around the circle and stop on a pumpkin when the music stopped. He held my hand and walked around the circle with me and was cracking up the whole time and when the music stopped he jumped onto the number 9 pumpkin. And low and behold they called out the number nine and he got to pick a treat. He got a chocolate chip cookie. We walked around for a while after that and we found the hay rides. That was a lot of fun. I was worried he wouldn't want to sit in my lap put he did very good and just looked around and played with the hay a little bit. I think he was more interested in the tractor that was pulling the trailer than actualy being in the hay. He is so silly and soooo interested in everything that is going on around him. While we were on the hay ride we saw that they had miniature ponies pulling these little carts and even a pony for the kids to go and pet and take there pictures with. So needless to say that was our next stop. Hunter loved the little pony! I tell you this kid has no fear! He was very nice to the little pony and was very interested in how his fur felt. I went with Hunter and another little girl on the little cart ride and Hunter thought that was really neat he just smiled away and didn't want to get off. Afterwards we went back over to the little pony and the guy let Hunter get on the pony and Hunter was a little wary at first but after that wore off (two seconds later) he was bouncing around on the little pony. It started to get a littel cold so we decided it was time to head home and have some milk. The whole way home in the car Hunter was just laughing away. It was very contagious and I was laughing right along with him. I don't even know what we were laughing about. We got home read a couple of stories, had some milk and then it was off to dream land for my little monkey!