On my own again

Caleb doing his "daddy dog" dance

Joseph climbing a tree

Joseph's "stern" face

Samuel being, well Samuel

One of the rides at IT'Z, Austin and Betsy are "flying"

Our family picture

Daddy and Caleb

Betsy and Caleb going down the slide

Joseph climbing the rock wall at the park

Austin climbing on the slide

 

Betsy taking Caleb down the slide

I'm helping the girls clean their room

Caleb hugging his "daddy dog"

I've been working all week on making Betsy this cape for her little red riding hood costume.  I bought really soft warm fleece for the inside of the cape, so she can wear it all winter.

So Travis left this week for NTC (National Training Center) in California.  He will only be gone for a month this time, but I don't feel very ready.  We haven't been here long enough to have a support system in place, and I don't have anyone nearby that I feel comfortable calling if I need help.  So, nothing is allowed to go wrong...that's going to work...right?  Anyway, so far things are going just fine.  Before Travis left, we took all the kids to the Build-A-Bear workshop at the mall, and got them all new voice messages from Travis put into their bears we got them from the last deployment.  Caleb got to pick one out, he picked a dog, and we put the voice box message from Travis in the tail, so Caleb carries around his "daddy dog" and squeezes the tail to hear his message from Travis.  Caleb has gone from asking where daddy is to demanding to see daddy, he tells me "daddy, now" in his firmest little voice.  He loves to talk to Daddy on the phone, and plays with his "daddy dog".  Samuel has been a bit "mopey", but seems to be doing fine.  Both Samuel and Betsy love cuddling with our "daddy blanket".  Betsy always beats Sam to it though, anytime she is home, you will find her cuddled up in it.  Caleb has taken a liking to the blanket as well.  Last night, while Samuel was sitting on the "daddy blanket" while watching T.V., Caleb came over to him and pushed him off the blanket and said "mine", and Samuel started crying, so I had to cuddle him.  Last night, Betsy was really missing daddy, and after putting the kids to bed, Austin came down after a while and told me Betsy was crying, and wouldn't stop pushing the button on her "daddy bear", so she couldn't sleep.  I finished what I was doing, and came up to comfort Betsy, and found her asleep, with tears still on her cheeks while clutching her "daddy bear".  Austin and Joseph seemed to have adjusted the best, they have both been trying to be a bit more responsible and helpful, although sometimes it just seems more bossy.  Before Travis left we also went to a family fun center called IT'Z, that has a buffet for dinner, and lots of games to play, we all had a really good time together.    Friday night, we went to a potluck dinner with some of the other wives in Travis' squadron and their kids, and had a really good time.  I brought some pumpkin chocolate bread shaped like bugs (butterflies, ladybugs, dragonflies, not the gross kind of bugs), and the kids really liked them.  The kids had a great time jumping on their trampoline, and playing with the other kids.  Yesterday we went to pick up our Bountiful Basket (a produce basket I order every week) and it was going to be an hour late, so we drove to a park, and played for a while, we had a good time.  Parks are the best free activity!  Today we had stake conference, and everybody was good for the first hour, but then Samuel kept running away and hiding, so we ended up needing to leave early.