Getting Ready for Christmas!

Christmas candy at the Harley Davidson.

Earl's home!

We finally have Earl back home. Boy are we all glad to be together again! We spent the day today just enjoying time together. Joey is showing Earl all his 'new' things that he's learned this past month. We are looking forward to church tomorrow morning and Earl is ready to jump on the Harley and take it for a ride.

Earl's b-day present.

Saturday--Earl sharing his late b-day cake (b/c of my eye surgery recovery, I didn't get to do it before he left, his b-day was Oct 25th) with Joey.

Earl , happy to be home!

^ This is how he was when we first got the base. He had went to bed at 8pm, then at 9 I had to wake him up to go get Earl, so he wasn't a happy camper until he got all the way awake and got to play around in the car while we waited for Earl's company to get done.

While we were waiting for Earl to get finished up to leave the base and come home, Joey learned how to get the windows up and down.

Helping Joey get his jacket off.

Getting home in the middle of the night.

I accidently put the pictures on in the wrong order. This is Earl first getting his stuff loaded into our car at like 8:30pm. We actually didn't get to leave with him until midnight. He had to wait until the entire company got all the gear turned in. We got home about 12:30 a m and let Joey stay up a little longer to spend time with his Daddy before we went to sleep.

At home and at the park

We're getting very close to Earl coming home....we're anxious and excited. I can't believe he had to go for a whole month. It felt more like 2. Me and Joey are finally feeling better, we just have a lingering cough and runny nose. Oh, and I had an eye check up on Tuesday and it turns out my left eye is 20/20 now and my right eye is slightly weaker at 20/25. That's awesome!!!

This is very tame for Joey when he sees the cats.^ You can't tell, but he's fighting the urge to crawl all over them. He's doing very well. As soon as Kiwi (the black one) opened her eyes and saw and heard Joey, she took off running.

We went to the park today with friends and enjoyed getting some fresh air. It was a nice warm day. Joey loved the swings.

Forecasting the future of these kids? (behind bars)

My precious boy.

he couldn't make up his mind which riding toy he liked best, he jumped from one to the other, over and over again.


Allie: "Allie me big girl"

Joey actually went down the slide a few times by himself!

Sweet baby Adam with his mommy.^

Mandy helping Joey figure out what he wants to play with next.

Earl should be home by Saturday morning, we can't wait!!! I will have lots of pictures of he and Joey's reunion, I'm sure.

Angie in Iraq is a little under the weather, so please keep her in your prayers.

And me and Angie sent Mom and inflatable mattress so she doesn't have to sleep on the floor anymore. With her injured back, it really wasn't a good thing. So now she sleeps comfortably on air. Take a picture for us, Mom!

Night Night time for me. :-)

Angie and Joey

I thought of a couple more Joey stories to pass on that I forgot last update. Joey likes to get into the dog food and grab a handful (or two) of it and feed it to the dogs, one piece at a time. He will make them follow him around the house sniffing his hands. He giggles and walks, and looks back to make sure they are following him. It's very cute. The other day he was doing that right before we left to go to the post office to mail Angie a package. I didn't notice until we were waiting in line that he had his 2 handfuls of dogfood still, clutched tightly in each fist. He was so tired when we left the house, he totally forgot he had them. He never opened his hand once to look at them or anything. Eventually, I got him to empty one hand for me, but he didn't really want to, and seemed surprised to find them still in his hand.
Also the other day, when we were at Jennifer's house, playing with Deja and Kiara, Joey walked across the room to me, popping his lips the entire way, until he got to me and leaned up for a kiss. He's never done that before!!! He's given me those cute baby open-mouthed kisses, but not popped his lips trying to pucker. It was so precious! Then he smiled at me and went back to playing, and a few minutes later, he did it again! I was so happy! He did that about 4 times. He hadn't done it since, until tonight, he did it once again. He seems so proud of himself and happy when he gets me to kiss him. But he won't do it if I ask him to.

We woke up today a little more sick than we had been. I thought we were getting better, but now we're coughing even more. Above is a picture of Joey mid-cough. I didn't intend to catch him that way, but I did.

Angie emailed me the next two pictures from Iraq. She got to leave her base briefly for the first time a few days ago. The base she went to was named Camp Koch! (my maiden name, her last name). Very cool!

Our Busy Visit to Asheville

The past 2 weeks we spent in Asheville, visiting family and friends, and boy, were we busy. We enjoyed every minute of it! We really wish Earl could have been with us, but we still had fun. I have so many pictures!!!


Josiah cut 4 new teeth this past week. He now has 6! Yay! We are very excited about these teeth, they've been a long time coming!

We got to visit my family in Greenville, SC while we were there too:

Joey and his Great Granny Norris.^


Joey and his 2nd cousin, Jennifer in SC.

Joey and his 2nd cousin Allen. Joey and his great-grandfather, PawPaw Bill in Greenville, SC.

Playing in the leaves at my dad's house.

My dad and Joey watching home videos in SC.

Allen and Joey.

Grandpa Roberts and Joey. Joey kept taking everything out of the baskets next to Grandpa's chair, and handing them to Grandpa to hold, until Grandpa was loaded down and couldn't hold anymore. At one point, when Grandpa told Joey no, when Joey offered him a toy, Joey took his hand and opened it and put the toy in it, then walked away! Then he went through my purse, found my wallet, and took it to Grandpa. Grandpa gave it back to me, and when Joey came back looking for it, he was upset that Grandpa didn't have it anymore, so he came and got it out of my purse again and took it back to him.

Aunt Sandrina and Joey.
Joey and his cousins, Paige and Macy.

One of Joey's favorite things to do: go up and down the stairs at Pawpaw's house.

As long as he was outside, he was happy. That's probably why we're so sick now! haha

The view from my dad's yard. I miss those Asheville colors in the fall. You won't find that here on the coast! You might have to click on this picture to see the big version, in order to really see the beautiful colors. But the pics just doesn't do it justice.

Joey and Mamaw Roberts: He's scoping out her trinket collection. He learned to say 'pig,' 'cow,' and 'rabbit' from those ceramics.

Grandpa Roberts and his grandboys: Lars, Joey, and Thor.

Joey loved playing on PawPaw's tractor. He learned to say PawPaw while we were there too!

We had a mini 10 yr. high school reunion. Just went to the high school football game and to a mexican restaurant afterwards. Although these pictures are of Jenny^ and Amanda & Seth (below), who we are still close with, so it wasn't really a reunion for us, just another chance to get together while I was in town.

Me and Joey ^
Joey and Kiara playing in her princess castle.

Pawpaw Ingle with a pacifier in his mouth. Ain't he so cute? It's really something when your grandfather can still get down on the floor and play with his great-grandchildren!

Today he played in and out of the cats' carrier.

In fact, he is in there again right now, as I am typing this.

Joey's favorite spot at Mamaw and Grandpa Roberts': in front of the church that lights up. He would put his eye all the way to the door and windows trying to see inside. He squeezed himself in between the couch arm and the end table and made his own seat on the step stool. (you can see his Daddy's picture in the background. He sometimes held it and smiled at it and pointed to it saying 'da da')

Joey loved spending time with his Grandma Teri (he can't say Grandma, he says "Bo Bo" right now). He discovered her Pepsi and learned where his belly button is. The new haircut looks great, Mom!

Joey played peek-a-boo at the Roberts' with their chair covers.


He also sprayed himself in the eyes with Mamaw Roberts' perfume. The same day he fell down and busted his chin, and his new teeth cut his mouth over at Grandma Teri's house.

We both got really sick the last couple days we were there. Joey still has a pretty bad cough and runny nose, and I think my problem is a sinus infection. They recalled all the cold medicines for babies under 2, so its just Tylenol for him, poor fellow.

Earl got to call finally last night and hear about Joey's new teeth and words. He's a proud papa and can't wait to be back home with his son. He's doing well. Is doing a 10 day field exercise and then will get to come home! Probably around the 17th or 18th. His company has a website you can check out for updates and such, now and even during the Iraq deployment next year. http://www.iimefpublic.usmc.mil/public/iimefpublic.nsf//sites/1stBat_9thMar_Aco

This page is his company, Alpha Company. The links on the side will take you to the 1/9 homepage if you want to see the entire unit website.

Okay, thanks for looking! Now I've got to get caught up on some work before the results of Dancing With The Stars comes on!