the adjustment continues

33 1/2 weeks pregnant

Bald spot where Caleb shaved his head

Caleb's new haircut

Samuel's new haircut

Malachi needs "daddy" bears when he is sad

"daddy" bears help him feel better

So life continues to move along.  Travis is settling in to Jordan well, and has been enjoying visiting holy sites like the baptismal site of Jesus, and Mt. Nebo.  He also is providing church services for the protestant and LDS soldiers that are on his base.  He also told me he has a bible study, and is going to be teaching a spanish class as well.  We have been able to talk daily via facetime on our phones, which has been a wonderful blessing.  Malachi runs around with everyone's "daddy" bears, and likes to look at pictures and read books about his Daddy too.  He occasionally asks where his daddy is at, but overall is doing well.  He is full of 2 year old independence and keeping me on my toes with all his shenanigans.  He loves to dump things onto the floor, play in the sinks, and pull all the books off the shelves.  He also loves to dip his food into his drink before he eats it.  He is very cute and I love to hear him talk, and he gives very sweet hugs.  His favorite things to do are taking a bath, go on a walk, play outside with balls or scooters, and build with his blocks or trains.  He also loves to take handfuls of cars everywhere with him, so I can usually find cars all over the place.  He has been sleeping better through the night this week, but still wakes up about 5am most mornings.  He wants to do everything himself, which can be a bit frustrating.  The whole him pouring his own milk into his cereal bowl from a gallon jug was a disaster.  He also ended up exploding a bag of cake mix all over himself and the carpet, and had great fun playing in it, until I could vacuum it all up.  Although it was kind of fun using the vacuum attachment to chase him down and suck all the cake mix powder off of him.  He is an expert at opening lids and dumping stuff out.  He has shown an interest in potty training, but I'm too far into my pregnancy to work on that with him.  So instead I get to deal with him taking his diaper off all the time.  He is fascinated with numbers and counting lately and loves to try and count things, (he skips a lot of numbers).  I thought it was funny when he insisted that my forehead (4head) was a onehead (1head).
Caleb is doing well.  He loves going to Joy school, and playing outside too.  He especially loves doing "preschool" with Betsy whenever she is home, in the shed in our backyard.  Caleb is working on being more helpful, and is my best helper when it comes to picking things up off the floor.  As shown in the pictures above Caleb is sporting a new hair cut, due to him shaving his head with my razor.
The other four kids are doing fine, they are gone a lot during the week at school, and after school is filled with homework, practicing, and playing with friends.  The weekends have been filled with cleaning (or trying to get them to clean) and going to church.  We haven't done many fun things, because I can't get them to do the chores, and help me clean the house so we can go do fun things. Hopefully we will get it figured out soon, so we can have a little more fun.  This past week has been a bit of emotional roller coaster for me.  I've been angry, cried, frustrated, sad, mad, happy, and felt blessed.  I'm sure part of it is the pregnancy, and part of it is the reality of Travis' being gone is sinking in more fully.  Even though it has been a rough week, I have felt strengthened, and blessed, and find much to be thankful for.  I've been posting on facebook daily for what I'm thankful for each day, and that has helped me look for the positive too.  I also started a conference group, that is meeting at my house each friday, and discusses a talk from general conference.  I love studying the words of the prophet and apostles.