Finally- a post!

I've finally gotten my act together (enough to post anyway) and decided to begin posting.
I knew I wanted to post the 'B's Halloween pictures from this year and decided to look back on the past couple of years to see how he's grown. I say that like he's an old man. The kid is two. So here are his 1st, 2nd and now 3rd Halloween.
His first Halloween he was a leopard. He wore the costume all seven of my siblings and I wore, and 14 out of his 15 cousins wore. By the time we were lucky enough to call one my nieces our own, she was too big to wear the costume.
By the way, congratulations 'A' on finally being my brother's daughter legally. You've been ours since we met you- but are now lucky to have you wear our name as well!
As you can tell by the picture the 'B' was thrilled on his first Halloween. The night consisted of him wearing the costume, me taking a few pictures and then he fell asleep while I handed out candy. Baldy (aka Daddy) was in Iraq. The 'B' didn't even make an appearance in costume on web-cam that evening. He was just not into it.

Here's a picture of me in the same costume. I was almost a year old. The costume is now almost 50 years old.

The next year the 'B' was a dinosaur. They had a parade at the Child Development Center (daycare) on post. All of the infants were darling, but I cannot explain how cute he and the other walking infants were. That year I was the 'bad mommy'. He fell asleep on the way home from work and I woke him up to make him go trick-or-treating. Daddy was home from Iraq by this point and tried to convince me to let the poor kid sleep. Not a chance. We were living in Germany still and I had bought this costume online; it was going to be used! I love Halloween and I forced the 'B' to partake in the festivities. He walked (he had just learned to walk like two weeks prior, so it was more like; walk, trip, fall, recover, repeat...) up to two houses, ate a sucker, took a bath and then passed out.

This year was much more fun. We were back in the States, and the 'B' knows what candy is. I wanted him to be something cute again, but the boy, much like his mother, is very opinionated. We knew we had to let him pick out his own costume. We took him to the store and he picked Spiderman. He ran around the house for weeks before Halloween with this costume and mask on. Then, on the actual day, this was the only time he wore the mask. At least I got one picture. He played with friends, went trick-or-treating, had a great sugar high and then crashed at about 9:30 p.m. It was a good Halloween.

Today is Veteran's Day. It's a special day for Baldy and me.

Last year in July we came to the States to buy a home and visit family and friends. We bought our home, went back to Germany to pack up, and then finally moved back in November 2005. Between the purchase and the move, Baldy's parents installed a flag pole in front of our home. It was a welcome home gift. It was awesome to come back to the States to our new home with the flag flying in our yard. It was even more sweet since Baldy had just been home from Iraq for less than a year. We retired our flag in the last month or so since it had worn and frayed. We went out today with the intentions of buying a new flag to fly. We went to a particular store to buy a new one, and came home with everything but. Halfway home we looked at one another and went 'we meant to buy...uh...geez'. We really wanted to fly it today.

We have a bunch of people in our family who have served in the military. Both of our dads, his granddads, a few uncles and cousins, both of my brothers, my brother's wife, Baldy and I, we've all been in the military. For anyone who has served, and your families, thank you.