Hazel's Halloween Highlights

Helping to carve the pumpkins. She loved how the pumpkin pulp felt under her bare feet!
Dancing to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" with Daddy. He knows all the moves! (And he would have been mortified if I'd whipped out the camera during that priceless moment - but I wanted to video it so bad!)

Trick-or-treating. Aunt Kaye was super thoughtful and had a special bag of little apples for Hazel - her favorite treat!

Hazel's a ladybug, I'm a butterfly, and Todd's a bug catcher.

Playing with the cousins who came over to have pumpkin soup for dinner. (Todd decided to make a dinner party instead of a jack-o-lantern.) Hazel adores these girls (as well as her long-lost cousins in Cedar City!).

Aleah, Kayla, and Shaylee

It was a delightful Halloween. Todd and I are excited to be entering the "holidays with kids" stage. It makes the traditions a lot more fun and meaningful.

Morning Lovey

This morning Hazel fell in love with a tube of toothpaste and a pen. When Todd put her in the high chair for breakfast, she had one in each hand. There was food on the tray in front of her. Todd says she looked at the toothpaste tube, looked at the pen, then leaned forward and started licking the food off of the tray like a cat. Not even food could make her let go!

You Guys Deserve an Update

I just never want to be away from my man for even a second, so it's like I've dropped off the face of the planet. But I am here! And we are doing GREAT!

Two and a half weeks ago, Todd and I had our romantic rendezvous in Tacoma, Washington. He had to do debriefing work on Saturday and didn't know what time he would get done, so we planned to meet at the hotel. I got there several hours before he did. After calling friends, playing Sudoku, reading my book, and trying unsuccessfully to take a nap, I decided to wander through the hotel. The place we stayed at was full of glass art, and there was a different artist's work on display on each of the 25 or so floors. Anyway, I was ten floors down when Todd called me on my cell phone to tell me he was there. People, I RAN up ten flights of stairs (I even fell and scraped my shin) and when I got to our room, I was completely out of breath as I flung myself into Todd's arms. We cried and hugged and kissed and stared at each other's faces and kissed a lot more. It would have made a great movie scene (well, not the falling part, but the rest was very romantic).

I flew home on Tuesday, did laundry in a frenzy, and repacked. Wednesday Hazel and I flew out to Sacramento, and Thursday morning Todd and his unit came in. Most of Todd's family came up to Sacramento, too, so we spent the next few days hanging out with all of them. But the best part for me was seeing Todd and Hazel together. Hazel was a little shy for the first day or two, but we had Todd feed her all her bottles and they became best buddies in no time. Todd calls himself "the money man" when she comes at him for food. Less than 48 hours later, she was already treating him like her dad, hugging his knees, snuggling him, and going to him for comfort and especially for roughhousing! They are doing great together.
Afterward, we drove to Mountain View and stayed with a friend while we did apartment shopping. Nobody was interested when we said we were looking for something available after Thanksgiving. Everyone is selling NOW. So, we canned the project, and will house-hunt again when we move out for reals. Something about the $1600+ a month rent made paying for an extra six weeks seem less than appealing.

Now we're back in Utah and we've started packing up the place. Next week Todd and I are going on a trip to Washington D.C. and several "mystery destinations" that Todd is keeping secret from me. Hazel's going to stay with my parents while we're gone. When we get back, we'll have a few more weeks here, and then we're planning to move back to the Bay Area just after Thanksgiving.

Yesterday, Todd was laying on the couch while Hazel played with some toys. I came over and snuggled up with him. Hazel looked over at us and immediately abandoned what she was doing, walked over to the couch, and crawled up to snuggle with us. A family snuggle! It was the cutest thing of all time. She never snuggled with just me on the couch, but now that she sees me and Todd doing that, she wants to do it, too. I loved that. I love that we're a trio. I'm so grateful Todd's home safe and that we've got this beautiful child and it's just so nice to be all together finally.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

Aah. We're all together again. Todd's back safe from Afghanistan and playing like a madman with Hazel. We've been busy the last couple of weeks, with lots of traveling and apartment hunting. I just wanted to send out a quick note while I had a minute to let everyone know our family is happily, thankfully, reunited at last.

Big News

Todd sent me an email 12 hours ago saying he'd be flying out of Afghanistan sometime in the next 12 hours. Hooray! He'll be in transit for a while, but should be back in the States in a few days.

I am so relieved.

I'll see him Saturday night. We're rendezvousing for the weekend at his post-mobilization site. We found out he'd have a couple days leave and suddenly couldn't stand the thought of waiting five more days to see each other. (Hazel will see him in a week and a half, when he returns to California.) I'm ecstatic. There's no point in even trying to express myself in words.

My heart feels like it's going to blow up with happiness.

The only part that makes me sad is that Hazel is already doing this:

We had both really hoped Todd would be able to teach her how to walk. He's already missed so much. I didn't encourage it, didn't practice with her or anything, tried to hold her off, but it was no use. The kid is a mover. (Guess who that comes from?)

But hey, maybe she'll run into her daddy's aching arms, huh?