Happy Thanksgiving

Almost Done

Well folks as I write this we have done almost 340 some days in country with only 20 some left to do. My team is mission complete in Basrah and have handed over the advising of the 26th Iraqi Brigade to a United States Marine Corps team and we have moved on to Tallil Airbase/FOB Adder near Nasirayah (sp?).

I know many of you are holding out hope that I will make it home before Thanksgiving. Don't hold your breath. The US Army wants to get it's full 365 days out of me. We are busy here at Tallil putting our vehicles/weapons/equipment into maintenance, something they really haven't had since before we deployed to Basrah. Once our stuff comes out of maintenance we will turn it over to an inbound US Army MiTT team and then we will head our way to Kuwait to catch that freedom bird home. With all of that said turning over gear should be easy right, one thing I've learned in almost 15 years in the Army is that nothing is ever easy, so I'm not expecting to get home until the second week of December.

Some of the things I'm looking forward to when I get home are; to get a first hand look at how non-stop Macen is. Shantel keeps telling me all he does is go go go; spending time with Shantel; going to the last regular season football game at Texas Stadium; and then spending time with our families for the holidays; I also want to get out with Maggie and chase some quail or pheasant, even if Dad says they aren't very many this year, I don't think I'll have time to do any bowhunting but I may try to squeeze some of that in as well.

I've got one or two more posts on Iraq with pictures but they may have to wait until I get home. My internet access isn't the best these days.

I want to thank everyone for their support for the last year and I hope I've managed to keep you informed/entertained.

18 months old

Macen now weighs 21.2 lbs (5th percentile) and is 31.5 inches tall (25th percentile). He is staying in the 5th percentile so they aren't as worried about his weight anymore. If he has a big drop in the future then they will do some blood work. He has lived on Pringles for the last month or so and you would think he would have gained more than he did.

Macen thinks he is too big for his high chair now. So I bought him a booster seat and it seems to be working better. He still thinks he can eat standing on a chair alot but I'm winning the battle most of the time.

He is still repeating alot of words I say to him. I got him to say alligator the other day. He hasn't been focusing on signing as much in the last month. He is more interested in counting books where he can take my finger and point to the numbers in the corners. He will try counting on his own too by pointing to a numer and jabbering (ie counting).

And he battled another cold. I really hope this isn't a monthly occurance during the winter. Since his September cold he has went back to 2 naps a day.

Another fun month!

Happy Halloween

Macen had a blast Halloween night. He helped me hand out candy. He started off putting candy in the kids bags and then he started taking candy out of their bags, lol. He would also walk people back out to the driveway and wave bye to most of the trick or treaters.
Mo got a ton of compliments as he usually does on Halloween. Everyone loves him when they see how fluffy he is. Maggie helped greet each trick or treater and Myles got scared and hid for awhile.