getting ready to move

Caleb followed me around all Monday morning with a big bag of sugar, saying "pretty please, make me chocolate cookies".  I almost did it, but he is still sick, so I just kept telling him we would make cookies another time, and would try to get him something healthy to eat.  We have been getting ready to close on our house, we are closing today!!I was sick Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, but have been feeling better the last two days, and we have all been working hard getting ready to move.

Malachi figured out how to plug his own ear while trying to nap, because his older siblings were being too loud

Samuel finding his dinosaurs

Samuel bringing his dinosaurs out of the cold

Samuel's new remote control car

Samuel's dinosaurs coming "alive" while he was gone at school and tore apart his baseball and put it on their heads

Samuel's dinosaurs once again coming alive and playing on his bed while Samuel was at school

The girls putting Malachi in their dollhouse

Caleb loves climbing to the top of our growing stack of boxes

Deep Freeze

Such a sweet, happy baby

Travis found this hat on our front lawn, and has been having fun with it. 

Caleb taking over Malachi's seat, and enjoying helping me bake. 

Travis shoveling snow ( I love that man)

Caleb, sleeping off all the sugar

Samuel got some dinosaurs for his birthday from Grandma Kathy

Bringing his dinosaurs in out of the cold

Samuel got this remote control car, after earning 1000 pts, for good behavior

Okay this week has been super cold, the weather people are calling it a deep freeze, it has been below 0 degrees ever since Tuesday.  It is supposed to start warming up tomorrow to 21 degrees, yeah, finally.  On Saturday I boiled a ham bone with some carrots and celery to make some delicious stock for soup. I look forward to this soup every thanksgiving or Christmas with leftover ham. I turned off the stove and got ready for bed while it cooled down. I asked Travis to go downstairs and stick it in the refrigerator for me, and he went downstairs so I had assumed he had put it away. When I came downstairs this morning, it was still on the stove. I was so disappointed. Travis said he had gone downstairs and checked to make sure the doors were locked, and forgot about the stock. He said sorry, and said we could take out the ham bone and re boil it while we are at church, and that would kill the bacteria. So we went to church and left the pot of stock on low. When we got home, there was smoke in our house and it smelled horrible. I put the blackened stock pot and put it outside and opened all the Windows and doors. Apparently all the stock had evaporated. That should not have happened with the pot on low and being full of stock, so the only explanation is God didn't want us to die from eating the stock, so he made it evaporate faster. I feel grateful Heavenly Father was watching out for us.  We got a ton of snow, and the roads have been bad all week, so I have not driven anywhere.  So, little bit of a boring week.  But, still not too boring around our house.  On Monday,Caleb wanted to make hot chocolate while I was feeding the baby. He went into the kitchen and got out two containers of rice milk and a container of coconut water and dumped them on the floor. Next he threw six packets of hot chocolate mix on the mess. He came upstairs and told me he made a big mess. When he showed me his mess he said " I tried to make you hot chocolate". We cleaned up the mess, and Caleb said "yeah we get to mop!"  As you can see by the pictures above, that I've been baking with Caleb, he loves helping me bake, and eating and licking lots of bowls and beaters.  We are still on track to buying our house by Christmas, but the repairs have been delayed due to the weather, but we are still working on it. Travis had Wednesday off from work, due to the weather, and the kids had Thursday off of school due to the weather.  Tuesday morning before the storm hit, I did go to a friends house to exercise, and had a tire low on air on the way there, so I had to stop and get it filled up, then after the workout, the car wouldn't start at first, so when I finally got it started, I drove to an auto shop, and found out the battery needed replacing, so we waiting for them to replace it.  Caleb really liked watching the monster trucks driving through the mud on the t.v. while we were waiting.  He kept saying how the trucks needed a bath, he was cute.  Joseph went Christmas caroling at an old folks home with the youth, and said he felt the spirit really strong.  We had the missionaires over for dinner on Thursday night, and the kids were good during dinner, but after dinner they were being stinkers, so I sent them to bed as soon as the missionaries left. Caleb has been sick with a bad cold, the past couple of days, and I have not been getting much sleep.   Friday night, I got a ride with a friend to our Relief Society Christmas dinner, it was so nice to get away for a little bit, and have a nice relaxing dinner.  Yesterday we spent the day cleaning and packing.  Austin is a superstar for getting all her chores done.  Today My poor sweet Caleb, is home sick, so I was letting him watch Mickey's Christmas on t.v., and he was watching the part where Mickey loses his dog Pluto, and is sad, because he can't find him. Caleb turns to me, so sad, and says "I need you" and buries his head into me and starts sobbing and crying huge crocodile tears, and says "Mickey needs to find his dog, can you help him?" I told him it would be okay, and cuddled him, and when Mickey and Pluto were reunited in the movie, Caleb jumped for joy, and said "thanks Mom, I knew you would help" I love my little boy

Our Offer was accepted!

Last friday we got a lot of snow, and Samuel and Travis went and shoveled the driveway of our friends house a few street over, whose husband is deployed and is 7-8 months pregnant, but he got the wrong house, so they ended up shoveling another ladies driveway too.  That lady was so grateful, she somehow found out who they were (well Travis was wearing his uniform, so it had his name and rank on it).  She found me on facebook and told me how much it meant to her, and then brought us some homemade spaghetti for dinner.  Caleb loved playing in the snow this week, loved licking and eating it, and playing in it, but got cold so fast, and would come in and say "I'm sick"

We bought Travis a new car, a silver Chevy Malibou 2010, from the Colorado springs mission home.  He loves it.  We also made an offer on a house, and it was accepted!  Yeah!!  This in an older home, and needs some TLC, but has lots of space for us with 5 bedrooms, 2 other rooms, 4 full bathrooms, 3 levels, and 3300 square feet.    We are hoping to move in by Christmas.  The home was inspected on Monday, and we've got our list of repairs to make, but nothing too big.  Wednesday I spent from 5am to 12:30 in my "office"(bedroom) reading and e-signing 70 page documents, finding and uploading 19 documents, reading and signing 26 different documents, and uploading those, and calling and getting estimates for the repairs that will need to be done.  Plus, I took care of six kids (okay they mostly watched t.v. and the older ones helped with the younger ones).  Then after I finally got all that done, I took a break and took the kids to the park.  Then Travis got home, I planned Thanksgiving dinner, and sent him to the store for a few items, and got to baking.  I crashed about 6pm, and ordered pizza for dinner.  Thanksgiving day the kids and I spent the day, baking, and cleaning.  We had our friends the Snells over for dinner, and had a wonderfully delicious feast.  Joseph went on a temple trip with the youth on Tuesday and today (Friday).  The kids have been home this whole week with no school, so they all came with my to the new home for the inspection on Monday.  While I was sitting on the floor feeding Malachi, with Betsy sitting right next to me, Samuel came and jumped through us and accidentally hit the baby in the head.  He cried for a long time, and I had a hard time calming him down.  Luckily we left from there to go to Betsy's Chiropractic appointment, and the chiropractor checked Malachi out for free, and found a small bone in his neck out of place and fixed it.  Malachi was asleep when he was checking him out and fixing it, and he smiled in him sleep right as the chiropractor was fixing his neck.  Pretty cool.  Tuesday the kids all had dentist appointments, and hooray!! no cavities.  Joseph also had another neurofeedback appointment that afternoon.  The kids and I made pumpkin cookies, and Travis and Joseph took them home teaching that night, and also made dinner for one of his families.

Samuel's Birthday and new family pics

box baby

Caleb and Austin playing at chuck-e-cheese

Samuel earning tickets at chuck-e-cheese

Joseph's "tintin" hair-do

Attack of the tumbleweeds

sweet little Malachi

Family picture, it was really cold and windy, so the two littlest ones wouldn't smile

I love Samuel's expression in this one

I love Travis, so glad he is back home

Happy baby

What's in the box?

Here he comes

He's a "Caleb" in the box 

Samuel getting a Kindle for his birthday

Samuel got some hexbugs

Daddy and Malachi

Getting ready to blow out the candles

This was a busy week.  Monday we spent all day getting free meals for Veterans Day, it was delicious.  We all ate way too much food.  We are still working on getting another car, so Travis had the car most of the week, so I didn't go anywhere, and had to cancel an appointment and reschedule another one.  Wednesday and Thursday Travis helped some neighbors/friends move, and they couldn't fit a lot of stuff in their truck, so Travis filled up our garage will tons of stuff, it took him several days, of reorganizing to finally be able to fit the car back in, and even then it is a very narrow opening, so you can barely get out of the car, and I have to lift the baby over my head (he is in his infant car seat) to get him into the house.  I am still not getting enough sleep, and two nights ago, I even dreamed about sleeping.  Thursday night we went out to our friends house for dinner, and they live on five acres, and have goats, chickens, and bunnies.  The kids had a great time playing there.  Friday after school, we took Samuel to chuck-e-cheese to celebrate his birthday, everyone gave their tickets they earned to Samuel, so he could get one big prize.  They all had fun, and Samuel got 1000 tickets and turned them in for a big nerf gun for his prize, then we picked up free pizza on the way home, and watched "tintin" the movie.  Saturday was a very busy day.  We went to the golden corral for breakfast.  (Samuel's choice), then we picked up our bountiful basket, and spent the next several hours, taking 6 kids through 8 different houses.  Yes, we are house hunting.  I had no thoughts of moving, but all the sudden felt prompted by the spirit, that moving into a house would be good for us, so we have been looking.  Everyone loved the 7th house we looked at, and kept saying since Samuel is turning 7 it is a sign.  The house needs some work, mostly being cleaned, painting, and having the kitchen remodeled.  But, has lots of space and a huge backyard, and it is 12 minutes from where Travis works.  We made an offer on the house last night, so we'll see what happens.  As soon as we were done looking at houses, we drove home and got ready to take some family pictures.  Unfortunately, it ended up being a very cold and windy day, but managed to get a few good pictures in, but couldn't get the two littlest ones to smile, because they didn't like the wind.   Then after pictures we went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner.  We had four free kids coupons, but they only ended up letting us use one, so it was more expensive than we thought.  As we were driving home, the wind was pretty crazy, and tumbleweeds were flying everywhere.  When we pulled into our street, every house on the West side of the street was covered in tumbleweeds, it was "attack of the tumbleweeds", the next street over from ours was tons worse than ours, one house had tumbleweeds completely covering their house, they were 25 feet deep!  The kids thought it was awesome, and spent the rest of the evening with rakes, removing tumbleweeds from in front of people's houses in the dark.  Sunday we went to stake conference, and the kids were great.  We had them taking notes to earn treats, and they said it all went by so quickly, and they couldn't believe it when it was over.  Austin took 8 full pages of notes!  After we got home from church, we gave Samuel his presents.  He got a sensory swing from Grandma and Grandpa Hardy that he is excited to use, and a Kindle and some hexbug toys.  He is one lucky little boy.  We had friends over for dinner, and I forgot to take the bread out of the oven, so it burned, but everything else was delicious.  Yesterday we went and looked at the house again, and turned in our offer for it.  We also went to a Hail and Farewell, and Malachi was smiling and cooing and gooing at everyone there, he was so cute.

Daddy's Home!!!

Caleb after his bath

Daddy and Malachi

Daddy and Malachi

Travis, Caleb (his feet hanging down barely between Travis'), Joseph, and Samuel on the sky ride

Austin (far left), Me, Betsy, and the back of Malchi's head on the sky ride

Caleb on the train with daddy

Austin on the train

Samuel on the train

Joseph taking a picture of me, as I am taking a picture of him

Travis and Caleb ready to ride the Himalayan ride

Caleb riding the rocket ride

Daddy and Caleb on the carousel 

Daddy and Caleb sliding down the slide

Caleb asleep in the swing daddy put up

Malachi happy to have a daddy

Caleb happy to have his daddy back home

So in the wee hours of the morning on Monday.  I woke up at 1am, fed the baby, and woke up all the other kids and we drove to the Special Events Center on fort carson, to welcome home Travis.  I really wish the army would time these things better.  Anyway we got there about 1:30 in the morning.  Caleb was not too happy, since he was still not feeling very good.  When we got there the bleachers were already full of waiting families, so we stood off to the side, and waited for Travis.  A news crew, came and asked me if they could film our families reunion and interview us.  I said "yes", so they put a mic on me, and asked everyone's names and about our family, the deployment, and Malachi being born without his Daddy there.  All the soldiers arrived right at 2am, and marched in, there was a quick ceremony, and they released the soldiers to find their families.  No one could see Travis.  So we walked from one side of the gym to the other side, then back to the middle, to wait for him to find us.  We still couldn't see him, and the gym was starting to thin out.  Several soldiers were also looking for Travis for him, and Joseph and Samuel walked outside to where the baggage was to look for him, as well as several other soldiers.  They finally told us, that he did indeed come in, but nobody could find him.  The camera crew gave up, following us around, and went and interviewed someone else.  Finally someone said they saw him walking home, so we got in the car and drove home, looking for him the whole way home.  A few minutes after we got home, Travis arrived on our doorstep, having walked through the park to get home, carrying all his bags, thinking we had decided to sleep instead of coming to get him.  We were sure excited to see each other, and took a while to get everyone back to sleep.  Caleb kept saying how "daddy was somewhere, but we couldn't find him, but now he is home".  Malachi looked at Travis as if trying to figure out how he got out of the screen he was used to seeing him on, then smiled and was quite happy with him.  This week has been filled with being together as a family, and as a couple.  Travis has been holding Malachi a lot, and changing some diapers.  Wednesday night, Travis and I went on a date, with just Malachi and had a nice couple of hours together.  Travis cleaned out the car, put a swing up in the garage, got all his stuff put away, and helped organize our bathroom.  Travis had to go back to work for a couple of hours on thursday, but then had the rest of the day off, and no work friday or today, due to the veterans day holiday.  Caleb has been sick with diarrhea, and stomach pains, so I finally took him to see the doctor on friday.  The doctor wanted to get some stool samples, so I got the fun job of scraping poop off caleb's diaper and into 4 different vials to be tested, and taking them back to the lab.  We haven't gotten any results yet, but Caleb is doing much better now.   On Saturday we went to the "north pole, santa's workshop" amusement park, and had a great time.  The kids loved riding the rides, and Caleb and Daddy rode all the rides together.  Travis and Joseph went to a Veteran's fireside together last night, and are officially home teaching companions.  Caleb has been making lots of messes, like a good two year old.  Last night, we found that he had taken everything out of one of the cupboards, and two of the drawers in our bathroom (the one we had spent hours cleaning and organizing) and thrown them on the floor, including over 200 q-tips.  This was right before Travis left for the fireside, so he told Caleb to clean it up, and Caleb spent the next hour picking all the q-tips up and putting them on my computer desk, and picking everything up off the bathroom floor and throwing it onto the floor in my bedroom.  He was so proud of himself , he came and told me "mom, I did it! I cleaned for you".  It was so cute, I didn't have the heart to tell him, that now my bedroom needed to be cleaned, I just told him great job, and thank you. We are so happy to have Travis home, it makes everything better!!