GROTON, Conn. -- With Christmas right around the corner and his birthday Tuesday, a Connecticut soldier said he had an extra special gift waiting for him when he got off his plane.

“We're really beyond excited,” Amanda Richardson said. “There are just no words even for it, at all. I actually cried my way up here, that's how overwhelmed I am right now.”

Spc. Robert Richardson walked down the steps of the plane at Bradley International Airport moments later, his twin children running to him.

Amanda handed him his baby, whom he had only seen in pictures before Friday.

“Gavin, that's your daddy,” Amanda said.

“It couldn't get here fast enough, couldn't get here fast enough,” Robert said. “It's amazing to see him, hold him. I'm just really overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed.”

“I was in the hospital for a month before I had (Gavin),” Amanda said. “It was a scary time, and to not have (Robert) here, it was probably much worse than it could have been if he'd been here.”

But being a military family, she said, they knew when Robert signed up that this is what life would be like.

“It was tough, but I had to do what I had to do, defend my country and do the best I can to provide for my family,” Robert said.

As he held Gavin, Robert said his baby boy has a lot of growing up to do.

“Hopefully, he'll be an all state linebacker somewhere,” he joked.

Robert had been overseas since May. He and Amanda said they plan to move to Texas in three weeks.