Daddy Coming Home!!!

Daddy is coming home!

Dad is home!

He's back!

These boys love their Daddy!

decorating for Daddy coming home

My Daddy is my hero!

trying to drink out of a jar

I'm driving Daddy's new truck!

more boy time

Gideon is crawling and getting bumps!

Our new "monster" van (12-passenger)

Malachi loves his Gideon

My cute little Malachi

My beautiful Betsy!

My fun Austin

My sweet Caleb!

Swimming at the pool

Caleb sliding down the slide 

Betsy helping Malachi slide down the slide

Austin trying to get across the lily pads

Daddy swimming with his boys

sliding down the kiddie slide

The girls playing with Gideon

Testing out the new hammock

Bowling with Betsy

Where did my hair go?

The boys all match their Daddy! 

More of the bald boys!

Daddy made it home the 4th of July!  We worked super hard trying to get everything clean.  We didn't get everything, but we got a lot.  Travis' welcome home ceremony was scheduled for 5:30 in the morning on the 4th of July!  I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and tried to get everyone out the door by 5am, but we were about 10 minutes late leaving, and ended up missing the welcome home ceremony.  But we still found him in the building where they all arrived, and happily gave him lots of hugs and kisses.  In order to drive home, Joseph had to lay on the floor in the van, because we didn't have enough room for everyone in our 8-seat minivan, with now 9 people.  Gideon was really happy to see his Daddy!!!  We went to the 4th of July parade, and had fun getting candy, and seeing all the fun parade things.  Travis fell asleep by the afternoon, and slept through all of the fireworks.  Malachi and Caleb kept cuddling with Travis and giving him hugs, kisses and blankets while he slept, it was really sweet.  The fireworks were super loud!!!  The fireworks are crazy here in Kansas.  Neighbors on all sides of us, were shooting off huge fireworks, constantly for hours, it was like having huge firework shows all around you.  Still, Travis slept through it all.  The kids played with sparklers, and lit off a few fireworks too.  We kept really busy, buying new vehicles, and getting all of Travis' stuff put away, and getting ready for our camping adventure vacation.  We bought Travis a red chevy silverado truck from another soldier on post.  He really likes it!  I like driving it too, it's fun.  Our search for a new van to hold our whole family was a different story.  We tried every used car, dealorship, classified, and web site to search for something that would hold 9 passengers, and there was absolutely nothing in a 1 hour radius surrounding our city.  If we happened to find something that looked even slightly promising, when we would call on it, it would have just sold.  So we expanded our search to a 2 hour radius, and finally found a 12 passenger ford transit van in Hutchinson, KS (about an hour and 45 minutes away)  We piled the whole family, minus Joseph into the mini van, and drove there to test drive the vehicle.  I didn't really enjoy driving it, it felt like driving a bus or a moving van, (I don't enjoy driving big vehicles) but it was a great deal, and something we really needed to have, so we went ahead and bought it.  The kids were super excited, and loved it!  The salesmen got to drive our kids around the lot in a golf cart while Travis and I worked on the paperwork and purchase stuff.  We went to a little kids museum and got lunch afterwards, then drove back home with our new "monster" (that's what I named it).  Travis has been on leave since July 20th, so he was a big help getting ready for our camping trip.  We also went to a water park in Salina, KS.  We all had a blast, it was so much fun, plus only cost $3 a person.  We love having Travis home again.  Every day, I thank Heavenly Father that he is home again.  It is still challenging every day, wrangling these kids and house, but with Travis help, it is much more manageable.  I love watching him playing with his children, and they love having him around.  I can take better care of myself, with another person to help with all of the kids many needs.  I've been able to shower more often, cook better meals, and can go places with his help too.  I love my husband, and love that he is home!!!  So four days before we were to leave on our vacation, Austin discovered little tiny bugs in Malachi's hair at church.  It turned out to be lice, and after checking the other kids, most of them had it too, so after church, I got out the hair clippers, and shaved all the boys hair off.  It was the fastest, easiest way to get ride of lice.  Obviously I wasn't going to do that to the girls, so we bought some lice shampoo and Travis and I spent several hours, shampooing and combing through the girl's hair.  Austin had a ton of lice in her hair, so we think she must have picked it up somewhere, and passed it on to her siblings.  Lucky enough, Travis never found anything in my hair, so I was good.  We then spent the next several days, washing bedding, clothes, towels and other things in hot water to try and de-louse the house.  Not a fun job, but we got it done finally!  So glad, I had Travis here to help!