Costume Parade

This afternoon the kids' school had a costume parade. Peter and I bundled up and walked to the school to see it, and then we got to bring them home early. It made for a fun afternoon.

David and his good friend, Landon. These two are peas in a pod, and they have so much fun together. Of course they were walking next to each other in the parade. Well, less walking, more goofing.

We got home and I got dinner finished. It was a vegetable, chicken, tortellini soup. Of course the kids hated it. I thought it was perfect for such a cold day. Oh well. Can't win them all. After dinner my visiting teacher came over. It was good to spend some time with another adult. I really needed it this week. :)

Trunk-or-Treat

The kids and I went to the church's Trunk-or-Treat last night. It was fun, the kids were admired. I threw together a Professor Sprout costume the night before and slapped a label on an IKEA plan. It worked. The label read: "Caution! Devil's Snare - DO NOT TOUCH!"

The event was also a chili cook-off. There was a lot of chili, but my favorites were a bacon chili and a seafood chili. SO yummy. The kids had hot dogs and were satisfied. They came home with even more candy, and now the big jar I have all of their candy in won't fit the lid on top. They are pretty possessive about that candy...

After the awards were handed out for costumes and chili they announced the start of the trick-or-treating. The two big kids disappeared. I just kinda figured they'd come and find me when all of the candy ran out or they got too cold. I was right, they did. I took Peter around once, then took him to the movie room to enjoy Charlie Brown while I helped clean up (I was on the planning committee for the night, so clean up was one of my duties). David and Andi wandered into the movie room after all of the candy was gone and all three devoured as much as they could. Made for a fantastic sugar crash at bedtime. Weeee! They also reported that they were totally warm. Good. Two layers of fleece had better have kept them warm! I got gloves for them for Saturday, it is supposed to be pretty chilly during trick-or-treat hours on Saturday. Oh, but next week we warm right back up to low 60's for our high. Definitely different from last year! A good kind of different, too. :)

Jonathan called tonight! He had exactly seven minutes to talk. It was so good to hear his voice. He has only been able to write one letter, which we received last week, but it isn't for lack of trying. Every evening he's supposed to get 45 minutes of personal time. Unfortunately others in his bay don't know how to pick up after themselves and get the whole gang in trouble at inspection. He and many others spend the 45 minutes of personal time trying to get things ready for that inspection. They are often "smoked" for their efforts anyway. He passed the practice test of the field test he's taking this Saturday, so he thinks he'll get it done on Saturday with flying colors (crossing fingers!!!!). If he does he'll be able to call us on Sunday for more than 7 minutes. That will be nice because Andrea was devastated that she couldn't talk to him longer. Boy are the kids going to be glad when he gets home. One month, nineteen days. We can do this.

But I could really use some prayers, guys. Tensions are high, there's been too much sugar and too little sleep.... Short tempers and sadness make miserable people, and even grumpier miniature people. We could use some good vibes here in our little corner of the world.

Farmer Pete

With the big kids in school, Peter and I have a lot of time to spend together. Today was gorgeous, and after a pitstop at Walmart I was itching to spend some time outside. We took a detour home and stopped at the farm center at Kensington. That is always a big hit. So me and my shadow spent a while pretending to be farmers and looking at all of the fun animals.

 That's my favorite shadow.... :)

 Peter told me all about what the chickens were doing while we were there. There was one laying an egg, that was fun.

Letter home

We got a letter from Jonathan today! He is very busy, and he's working hard. He told us to look up Victory Tower on youtube. He also said it is much taller in person than it appears in the video. We found him a few days ago on his battalion's Facebook page.

It was a nice thing to see him, we are really missing him. At least the kids haven't been asking that he come home tomorrow. We're all settling in to a good routine, and at least this last week we haven't had meltdowns from the kids (specifically Andi, who is very good at throwing them).

David was invited to a friend's home for a Halloween party. I worked way too hard yesterday to get his costume finished. Fortunately I figured out a good system and was able to whip through the littles' robes and have them finished for tonights Halloween event in the town.

The kids came home with so much candy. Halloween isn't here yet, and already we have more candy than the kids should consume for the rest of the year. I wonder if I can find any dentists in the area that do the candy-buy things. That always seemed to be a big hit with the kids in the past.

We have the trunk-or-treat at Church and then Halloween night. So much candy.

I have long had a dream of seeing my kids embrace Harry Potter and become big fans. I knew it was a special story that I wanted to share with them. So imagine my delight when, this summer, David started reading the books. And when you give a kid a Harry Potter book, they might ask you for a pet rat. And when they name their pet rat Scabbers, they might ask to be Ron Weasley for Halloween. And when they want to be Ron Weasley for Halloween, their little sister might determine she wants to know more about this Harry Potter thing, and then she will want to be Hermione because Hermione is an amazing role model. ;) Yeah, I'm really kinda happy my kids are loving Harry and his story and adventure as much as I did as a kid. It is like introducing them to a life-changing friend, and then watching that friend change their lives, too. It makes me happy.

That and David hates Umbridge too.

My baby turns 3!

Peter had his first ever family birthday party! While we were all in Texas for Kirsten's wedding we went ahead and had a big bash for him. It was also a great excuse to get together in a no-pressure, no-stress zone after the wedding. It was great to visit with everyone for a few hours and just relax. And Peter had a great birthday!

 And of course he had a Poopy Hat cake (Poopy Hat = Darth Vader. Hoarsly whisper "pooooo-peeeee" a few times and you'll see why Peter calls him Poopy Hat.).

 He was so excited about those candles he blew them out before we'd finished singing to him.

 I had promised Jonathan I would get as many pictures of myself and other people as possible. That was a HUGE promise, I HATE pictures of myself. But I did it. See! I do exist!

 Emma was our unofficial designated photographer. She took some AMAZING pictures of the night. Hopefully she'll share a bunch of them on her blog so I can steal them and post them here. Or maybe she'll just send them my way? *hint*hint*

 At the very last second I told the kids to hop on the couch for a cousin picture. That's all of them on the May side! Look how big they are getting. I can't handle how fast they are growing. Nor can I handle the cuteness. Could there be a more cutely crowded couch??

 These girls were best buds all weekend. At the reception the night before they found each other, grabbed plates of food, and sat at a table together and had giggly girly conversation all night. It was just adorable.

And the aftermath:

 Emma's going to kill me for that photo, but it accurately describes how tired we all were after the evening was over. Haha!

 I can hardly believe that my baby is such a big boy. Three is HUGE!! We've been through a lot over the last few years with him. I am so glad to have him in our family. He is such a happy, jolly little character. He makes me happy all the time, and makes me laugh just as much. He flashes his dimpled grin and I have a hard time saying no to him. I'm so incredibly grateful he is healthy and that we aren't spending so much time in hospitals and with doctors. He scared me so badly last summer. It was a terrifying time, and there are some moments and feelings I never want to repeat. I am so glad he is well! I am so glad he is growing, even if it is so fast! I am so glad he's climbing, and jumping from jungle gyms, and swinging so high, and showing me how strong he is all the time! I am so grateful he is here, my happy, dapper little dude.

Happy birthday, Peter Pumpkin! I love you!

Orchard

It is that time of year: picture time! I like to get good pictures of the kids once a year, and it is always fun to see how they've grown. I think I blinked a few more times this year than in years past because my babies are most definitely NOT babies. 

Just for kicks, I had to throw this one into the mix because there is a picture of me at this age making this exact face and we look practically identical:

Well.... They grew up fast... I love these munchkins of mine!

PS - HUGE shout out to my friend, Tina, for letting me borrow her awesome camera. These are the best pictures I've ever been able to take, I KNOW a lot of it was the camera! Thank you!!!

Documentation

At the end of July Jonathan came and told me about his co-worker that was also a member of the National Guard. The man talked it up nicely, and it piqued Jonathan's interest. Jonathan came home, mentioned it briefly, and then said he'd call the recruiter and see what the guy said. I said, "Sure, sounds good." I didn't think too much of it as we had considered military service in the past and had dismissed it as not being for us after a moment's consideration.

Nothing else was said of the National Guard and I thought it was a passing fancy that would not go anywhere. Jonathan had a good job, he had a game plan, and he had the bar to study for.

September 2nd, a Wednesday night, Jonathan came into the living room after having been on the phone for well over an hour. Turns out it was the recruiter, and it turns out the two had been playing phone-tag for a month. Jonathan talked about the different tracks, the possibilities, the benefits.... There was just one catch: Jonathan aged out on the 14th, if we wanted to make this happen we'd have to have everything done by the end of the next week. But it felt undeniably right. I felt like this was a really good opportunity for Jonathan, and a great opportunity for our family.

The next day Jonathan mentioned it as a possibility to his boss. We decided to meet with him as a couple Friday before committing to one plan or the other. As we met with the boss I felt even more that, while the plan Jonathan's boss had is a really, really good plan, the other fork in our road was the way to go. Jonathan called the recruiter that night: "We want to make this happen."

Jonathan was given a list of documentation that he needed to bring to start getting his paperwork together. We realized Saturday morning, the 5th, that we did not have the Andrea's birth certificate or ANY of the kids' social security cards. Somehow, in the move, they all got lost. (HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN???? It isn't like I take those out and play with them!!!) That night we put in an order for a replacement birth certificate, but I felt we might be lucky if we got it in by the following Friday.

Monday, Labor Day, Jonathan spent the day with the recruiter (who graciously took his day off to help) and got the paperwork rolling. We needed those documents!! I got online and filled out all of the paperwork to be able to get the kids' replacement cards Monday, and then we spent the evening filling out paperwork. Miraculously people were on Facebook and next to their phones when we needed them to be, and we got all of the information we needed x 10! We were up far too late, and worked far too long, but we got it done.

Tuesday I hustled David off to his first day of school and started in on my busy day. I called the county clerk office in Texas to see if we could get a verification of birth form faxed to the recruiter (we couldn't, and orders processed on Friday would be shipped out that day, arriving Wednesday, so we were looking at getting Andi's birth certificate on Thursday, grrrr). Then I drove down to the SSA office only to discover that the documentation the website says to bring is NOT the documentation you need to take to get your replacement cards. By that time I needed to get home and get Andi ready for her half-day first day of school and drop Peter off at a friend's house. I was a wreck. I had a deadline of noon Wednesday and I was about to spend the rest of the business day at the school with Andrea. I called Jonathan, ranted for two seconds, then shrugged it off because there was really nothing to be done but wait until the next day. I managed to enjoy the afternoon at school getting Andi acquainted with her teacher and classmates. Tomorrow would have to wait. 

In the meantime my sisters had texted saying they were praying, my parents were praying and asking for information, and Jonathan's family was praying for us. Jonathan was praying, I was praying, I'm pretty sure his recruiter was praying. So much had to go together seamlessly, and it seemed we just kept hitting snags. The plan was to have Jonathan spend Wednesday afternoon and Thursday in Lansing taking the tests he needed for entrance into the NG. They would be putting him up in a hotel, and they'd just pack everything into two days, but it really wasn't going to mean anything if we didn't have all of the documentation they required.

That evening I got a shipping notification: Andrea's birth certificate was headed our way. At 10:45 I saw that it was at the DFW airport - with an estimated delivery date of Wednesday. Yay! Something going right! I requested a shipping change and opted to go pick it up at a local shipping office. I just knew that I'd miss the delivery the next morning and have to wait until the evening to go pick it up. Best to just schedule a pickup. Thank you UPS for having that option!!

Wednesday morning I had my checklist: Hospital for records, birth certificate, SSA, pick up Jonathan from work, drop off Jonathan with his recruiter, go home and crash.

I got David off to school and drove straight to the hospital. Fortunately (if you can call an emergency fortunate) each of my kids had some sort of emergency this last year that required an ER visit, so the records I needed were 15 minutes away instead of an hour. The nice information ladies pointed me in the right direction and I got to the records department with relative ease. Once their I started filling out the request forms. The night before I'd filled them out online, but I wasn't able to print them. I came, once again, to the "Reason for the records request" line and, rather than say "personal use", I felt I should just be completely honest: I'd somehow lost my kids' social security cards and needed proof of identity for replacements. The gal working the desk looked at the first form and jumped right to that question. "What exactly do you need for proof of identity?" I told her, and we chit-chatted about how this kind of thing happened all the time. She said she'd lost her son's for a year before finding it after her move. I mentioned that I didn't have a year, my husband needed it for his military application that day. She worked faster and got everything I needed. When I asked how much I owed them (there is a $1/page fee for records) she said, "Nothing. You're in a hurry, get out of here." I almost cried. I was out of the hospital 15 minutes after I'd walked in, and already my day was brighter.

Next up: birth certificate. Thank heaven's for GPS because I had no problems getting there and getting that package. The guy who got me the package brought it to the counter saying "Ah! A birth certificate! We get these all the time." Ha! I'm not the only parent that loses important documents, then! Hahaha!

I walked out the UPS place at 10:00. I was making really great time! I might even be able to grab something for the littles to eat at the store before getting Jonathan. I was almost to the SSA office when Jonathan called.

"Do you have Andi's birth certificate?"

"Yes, I just picked it up."

"Where are you now?"

"About five minutes from the SSA office. Why?"

"We need a dependent waiver. The recruiter needs Andrea's birth certificate and our marriage license, front and back, within the hour or I'm not going to be able to get my paperwork signed."

"............ Seriously?!?"

So I turned around and raced up to FedEx. Only one employee was there. There was a line of people needing help, and a crotchety old lady who kept interrupting her because she couldn't get connected to the wi-fi. With 15 minutes left to go, and several panicked texts from Jonathan later, the man ahead of me told the employee to help me, he'd watched her working the big scanner enough to know how to scan his blueprints until it scanned correctly, and then he turned and helped the cranky lady get connected to a free wi-fi in the area. I think the man was an angel in disguise. I explained what I needed to the sweet, tired employee, that I had ten minutes to get it emailed to my husband's sergeant (the recruiter), and she had the best quality PDFs on my flash drive in less than a minute. She didn't charge me for the job, just told me to hurry and get logged into the computers to email the documents off. With five minutes left on the clock I hit send on the email. I sent a back-up email with the attachments to Jonathan incase the recruiter didn't get them, then scurried out the door to get off to the SSA office. Everything all went through and ten minutes later I got the text from Jonathan saying the paperwork had all been signed.

It was now 11:00, and I had one hour to get to the SSA office, get the replacement cards rolling, and then get Jonathan picked up. Fortunately there was no line to speak of, and the young man who had helped me the day before was assigned to me again. He got me all the paperwork I needed, and we were ready to go. (By the way, the new cards arrived Monday the 14th, less than a week after I'd requested them. They told me it would be three weeks before we got them!)

I checked the time as I buckled the kids into the car: 11:32. GPS told me it would take 28 minutes to get to Jonathan's work. It was dead right. Jonathan was in the car at noon, and we were meeting up with the recruiter and saying good-bye to Jonathan at 12:30.

Somehow, by one miracle after another, and I'm sure in answer to every prayer being uttered on our behalf that morning, I got everything done just in time. I do not doubt that my way was being cleared by prayer. I kid you not, everything just went too smoothly that morning.

Jonathan aced his ASVAB Wednesday, and then had a perfect day Thursday with all the testing there. At 4:30 that afternoon I got the call that Jonathan had just been sworn into the military. Four days later he turned 35, and if there had been any hiccups at all this wouldn't have happened. Miraculous. It is the only word I've got for last week.

Jonathan has drill this weekend, and then ships out to basic training for 10 weeks. We think he will get home the week before Christmas. The kids gave him a phone card and stationary as his birthday gifts Monday. They are really going to have a tough time with this. That's not to say that I won't, either, but I grew up thinking it was normal for mom to run the house and for dad to be gone for days at a shot. At a certain level I understand that this is just a short time, and we can definitely make it work. But Andrea had a horrible night the night he was in Lansing doing all of the testing, she missed Jonathan so badly. I was grateful she had her first full day of school the next day as it kept her distracted, however this will be 10 weeks of dad being gone and I know that will be tough. But I know we'll be okay. We'll work it out, we'll work through it, and we'll come out a better, stronger family on the other side.

So for posterity's sake, I had to record this story. It is a jumble of my thoughts, and about as rushed and hurried as I felt Wednesday of last week, but I had to get my thoughts and my gratitude down before I forgot it. There is no doubt in my mind that the prayers of so many had an impact on my day. I felt guided and protected, helped and cared for, loved and supported all day. I couldn't feel overwhelmed because, especially after the hospital, I just knew that everything was going to be okay and that I'd get everything we needed in time for this plan to work. I do not think ANYTHING has ever worked so smoothly for us before. And I'm so grateful. I'm pretty sure God looks out for us mere mortals sometimes. ;)