Our Hero!

Whose our hero? This guy! We love him, miss him and 73 days till he's home.... Most of you wake up every morning and have your breakfast and coffee, go to work, and end each day with your spouse...get to see your loved ones when you feel like it. Michael wakes up everyday working for Sapper company in Iraq. He's had 30 days total with his son! We're excited when we get to see each other on the webcam. I'm not complaining...were blessed to have only a 12 mth tour (those who did 15 mths..wow) and a relatively calm one so far. Happy Veteran's day to all those who serve and have served. Especially to Michael's brother Brian...he did a 15 mth tour during the surge. He's in NTC right now for a month of training. And to Matthew, he'll be commissioned as an army officer this May. Here's some pics of my crazy hubby. He still makes us laugh from halfway around the world!

Fat or Fluffy?

See any resemblance? Poor little Winstyface. The dog is literally afraid of his own shadow. Eating out of his bowl is a feat of courage for this little guy every meal (the clinking of his collar on the bowl scares him). If a pan drops on the floor, forget it. Winsty's outta there like a flash! SO i was talking about Winsty to Michael the other day and accidentally let it slip that he's now 37 lbs. Which may be 6 lbs more than when Michael deployed. So lets just say the reaction was not so good. "What!! He was 31 lbs when i left!! It's bad enough he's scared of me..now he's fat!" So then the conversation proceeded to go where it always goes..."Laurie, we need new dogs. Real dogs!" Ah yes, a "real" dog in Nulkie's mind is a big beastly german shepard. Aka a manly dog. Anyways i tried to argue that Winsty just needs a haircut...i'm sure there are like 5 lbs of puff on this dog right now. I didn't get very far with that, but how can you not love this little guy! He's my very own Eeyore! PS were not getting german shepards...guess who walks them? And the bigger the dog, the bigger the dump. gross.

Are you PT?

And by PT, yes, I do indeed mean potty training. I've decided to go ahead and attempt at conditioning Gabe to the potty. Yes he is only 9 mths old. Yes he can't talk or stand on his own, but he can sit...so but i say the sooner the better! Unfortunately I cannot take credit for this genius idea... it came from The Baby Whisperer- only the most fabulous book of all time. So anyways the whisperer points out hisotical stats (yay) that babies in the 50s were usually all trained by 18mths...now the average is over 2 yrs! Are we as parents getting dumber? Are our children? I would like to argue no, i just think we put off the inevitable. Soooo i've decdied to test out whisperer's theory (she says to start at 9 mths, after each feeding and once in the morning and at night). So far Gabe is doing decent. We've had some fantastic days with lots of cheering and excitement, and days where he sits there and stares at me like why am I sitting on this thing again? Anyways i thought i'd share with everyone. I'll spare you the photo of him on the potty even though it's pretty much the best thing ever. I think I have to restrain myself since poor Gabe needs a little privacy! Now that I've shared my latest endeavour with Gabe you can all keep checking my blog for updates on his performance! Wooo Hoo!

Guess who's growing a mustache...

This guy! I'm pretty sure it's grosser in person. :)

Cowboy Gabe!

I didn't buy Gabe an Halloween costume..I'm not really that into this holiday and Gabe can't even walk yet to ask for candy! So anyways, I improvised to take a few pics. I had just bought the cute cowboy boots and Mike had sent his Cav Stetson home to me...so ta da, Gabe's a lil' cowboy! He didn't enjoy it as much as me and refused to smile! But enjoy anyways, he still looks pretty cute..all ready for Texas! :)

Long Island visit

My mom, Gabe and the dogs and I packed up to head down to long island for a week with my grandparents. We were only a few miles into the trip when the suburban lost all power and coasted to a stop on the side of the road. WE were all fine but perplexed- the suburban had just had a huge work up a few days earlier and seemed to be fine. So anyways we had to call triple A and get a tow and my dad came out too. We quickly transferred everything we could to the Subaru (amazingly everything fit minus the high chair). So my mom and i hit the road about an hour later and made it out there with not other issues. Turns out it was the auto shops fault, they left an alternator wire loose.
We had a great time in Long Island. We took nice walks, admiring the oaks and hickory trees which are just peaking in color down there. Gabe did pretty well minus meal times. The stinker is now starting to rebel at eating baby food..throws a fit every time someone tries to spoon feed him his fruit or veggies. BUT he'll be happy to eat cheerios or cereal or pieces of turkey...! Sooo we think someone wants to move on to table food. Were trying to play hardball and not give him any cheerios until he's eaten some of his regular food. He's starting to take little shuffle steps along the sofa. He moved from one end to the other in Long Island...it's pretty cute. He's very proud of himself!

Lake Placid

This Saturday we decided to take Alexis & Holley up to Lake Placid to see the fall color. To our delight, many of the mtns were snow capped! Whiteface already has some snow on the ski slopes...so Alexis was pretty excited to take pictures of Holley in snow :) We stopped at the cabin and then High Falls Gorge on our way to Lake Placid. Everything was fine at the cabin and Alexis got the 5 cent tour. Then we bundled up the babies and checked out the gorge. It was gorgeous weather and we had a great time, ending with dinner in Lake Placid overlooking mirror lake.

Apples & Pumpkins

More Michael pics

snazzy new suit with dark shirt

with light shirt....lookin' good!

Steel nameplates Michael designed and created

Capt. Shaw, 1SGT Lopez & Michael