Brian's Home From Iraq

It has been a while since I last wrote in my blog, so I guess I better do a quick catch-up...

Brian flew home from a 15-month tour in Iraq on December 30th. He brought Heidi some chocolate from his stop in Germany on his way back to the states and a little, yellow teddy bear with a smiley face on its t-shirt. The smiley face had an army hat on its head with an American flag and "Taji" written on it. Taji is where Brian was stationed most of the time that he was there. Brian was even interviewed by a local news station while holding Heidi and was on the news that evening! I took lots of pictures of Heidi with her Daddy. She just kept staring at him and even got a little teary-eyed. Before he arrived at the parade field (where we were picking him up), Heidi was all over the place running around and talking to people. I could hardly keep up with her... But when she saw her Daddy, she got excited and yelled "Daddy!!!" He picked her up and she just stared at him for the longest time, like she could hardly believe he was finally home. She was able to recognize him because in the 15 months that he was deployed, we looked at pictures of him and videos (of him either reading, singing, or doing This Little Piggy with her). We even had a 4x6 magnet with a picture of Brian that we kept on the fridge the whole time he was gone. Heidi used to carry that picture around with her a lot while she played. It has had quite a few things spilled on it and it has even been thrown up on a couple of times by Heidi in the 15 months Brian was gone. We were both happy to see him come back home.

We celebrated Christmas on New Year's Eve. This was probably one of the biggest Christmases we have ever had! We had lots of presents from grandparents and other friends & family members. Santa brought Heidi a Snow White, Belle, Cinderella, and a prince doll that she was pretty happy with. She had been wanting a Snow White doll for a while. Before Christmas, she kept telling me to "Go to store Mommy... Buy it, buy it... I want Snow White... Go to store Mommy... Buy it!" Brian had also ordered a bunch of camping gear and sleeping bags from online and had them sent to the house for Christmas presents, so we each got a new sleeping bag and some other neat things to take camping, which we will plan on doing sometime this spring before it gets too hot here in Texas.

Things are getting back to normal now. Heidi was pretty attached to her Daddy when he first came home, but now she is reattached to her Mommy again.

Heidi won't let Brian put her to bed at nap time or bed time. She also will not let him get her out of bed either. I went to the store one day about a week ago to get a few things and when I came home, Heidi had woken up from her nap, but she would not let Brian pick her up out of her crib. Instead, she just kept telling him "No, I want my Mommy. I need my Mommy." That's what she usually says if he goes in to get her out of bed. I guess on this day that I ran to the store, Brian said that she sat in her crib for about 20 minutes waiting for me to come get her (refusing to let him get her out of her bed).