Brandon is home, and life is good

I love that Brandon is back home.  Everything feels complete again.  He is such a big help.  The house is super clean now.  And he's somehow worked magic and got the kids in bed by 8:00 pretty much every night.  They haven't been up past 9:00 since he's been home.  And they stay in their own beds all night long.  It's so nice.  

He's had to go to work every day this week, but he hasn't had to work long hours.  And when he has been home he's let me have lots of time to relax.  I've been able to live out my "taking a nap in the middle of the day while kids are still awake" fantasy -several times.

Here are the girls posing with their welcome home posters.  They loved making these posters.    

I outlined the letters and then they did everything else. 

 We've been doing "Little School" every week day for the past several weeks.  The girls (and sometimes Derrick) color a worksheet about one letter every day.  We finished up letters and now we are on numbers.  The girls like hanging up their worksheets on the kitchen walls.  It's a crazy hodgepodge, but I like it.

 Veronica is one of those bionic children that doesn't need a lot of sleep during the day.  She sleeps for maybe a total of two hours every day.  It would be really annoying if I didn't already have to entertain three other children who don't nap. When she does nap, it's usually in her crib, but the other day she fell asleep on the couch.

Brandon had to mail home some stuff that wouldn't fit in his bags.  That box showed up this week.  One of the things in it was a bedset.  I love it.

He also brought several fans.  Some were for the girls to play with, but others were for decorations.  

We put them up on the last blank wall left in the living room.  It's official, its time to move.  

But seriously, we did find out some info about flight school.  We still don't know when the kids and I will move to Alabama, but Brandon will start Warrant Officer Career College (WOCC) in the spring.  I filled in my calendar with the exact date and suddenly this whole flight school thing seems more real.  I keep saying, "you're going to be a pilot!"  And then Brandon says, "Hey, I already am one."  And then I say, "Yeah, but now you'll get paid!"  Its super exciting.  

Veronica has started walking a lot more since Brandon got home.  She has also learned how to climb up our little slide and slide back down.  Here is a little movie of her skills.  (She kind of slips in this movie, but usually her sliding is a lot more controlled.)

 She also loves to eat dirt.  This girl loves to be outside.  She'll be a complete pill inside the house until I open the back door and then she giggles and toddles outside.

 Derrick loves playing with water.  He likes to climb up to the sink and turn on the water and then fill up cups and empty them again.  He also loves to play with the hose outside.  I just say he's studying fluid dynamics.  (And I'm glad we don't have a water bill.)

 Charlotte and Lydia have spent most of the week pretending to be Lady and Tramp.  They love to take their clothes off and run around in just their underwear.  Consequently there aren't many pictures of them this week. Yesterday is was like 90 degrees outside so we got the pool out and the kids played out there for a long time.

 Here is a picture that warms my heart.  I've missed Brandon and all his little projects.  In this picture he's fixing his electric razor.

 I've had my own projects this week.  I've been working on Halloween costumes.  I bought the major parts of the kids costumes, but there were a few details I had to make.  Shoes for the girls were one of the things I had to do.  There were a few times I wasn't sure what I was doing, but I'm ridiculously pleased with the final results.  The shoes were loosely based on this tutorial.

 It was Brandon's idea to use the plastic material from a three ring binder as the bottom of the shoes. He was worried that the felt would wear out quickly.

Here are the final costumes.  Charlotte has wanted to be a pumpkin pretty much all year long.  My sister Emily crocheted the hat and I put the stem on it.  I also made the little leaf skirt, and the shoes of course.  Charlotte and I looked at a pictures of pumpkin costumes on Pinterest.  She liked the ones where people wore skirts and T-shirts that had pumpkin faces.  I was super happy to find both those things at the first thrift store that I visited.  I think she is the cutest pumpkin I've ever seen.  

Lydia wasn't in a mood to get her picture taken.  This was the best I could get.  She's wanted to be Tinkerbell for months.  She and I looked at different Tinkerbell costumes on Pinterest and she liked one that had leaf details on it.  I thought that I'd have to make that type of dress, but then I found this one at a thrift store.  Lydia was so happy to see the little leaves.  She said, "I'm going to be a little leaf girl." I found the wings at a yard sale for 25 cents.  And I made the shoes.  Lydia was so excited for the shoes.  (Even though they aren't in this picture.)

 I thought I'd have Veronica be a bumble bee or something like that.  I was planning on making her costume until I remembered that my Aunt Lori had given me my Cousin Elena's lady bug costume.  Elena wore this costume three years in a row so Veronica might be sporting this costume for a while.  I had to fix some rips on the wings, but other than that the costume was perfect. I'm glad Veronica started walking more because this costume would have driven her crazy if she'd tried to crawl in it.

 Here are all three girls together.  They had fun running around in costumes.

 Derrick was tricky.  He could really care less about Halloween.  He likes the candy, but he didn't have a clue about trick or treating.  I decided that the best thing to do would be to dress him as an engineer and then give him a little train to play with.  I bought him a hat at the thrift store and dressed him in Charlotte and Lydia's overalls.  He didn't like the hat, but he loved the train.

 After the kids were all dressed up we went to our ward's Trunk or Treat party.  Derrick did just what I expected him to, and played with his train all night.  He was so content.

My friend Ashley was there with her own little lady bug. 

 Here's the best family picture we got.  Surprisingly Derrick is wearing his hat in this picture.

 We had a chili dinner and then went outside to do the trunk or treat.  Earlier in the day Charlotte had reminded me that we needed to decorate our car. So we made a big spider web with yarn and a spider puppet. Derrick stayed with me and ate candy while I handed out candy.  Brandon took all the girls around.

 Brandon and the girls came back and then Brandon took Derrick around.  The girls got in the car and started eating their candy.  Every was very happy with the trunk or treat.

At home the kids took longer than usual to settle down.  They were pretty hopped up on sugar.  When the twins finally did go to bed, Lydia fell asleep holding hands with Charlotte.

 This morning we went to church and the girls were able to participate in their first Primary Program.  They had their parts memorized.  Charlotte's was "I know Thomas S Monson is our prophet today."  And Lydia's was, "My body is created in the image of God."  When it was Charlotte's turn she started out saying, "My body," but then realized that was Lydia's part so she finished with "I know Thomas S Monson is the prophet today."  Lydia got a little flustered when it was her turn and said something like, "My body, image of God, is created."  It was so cute to hear their little voices.

They spent most of the time waving to me and blowing kisses.  I was just glad that they didn't cry.  Last week Lydia had cried a lot during the practice.  My friend Julie later told me that Charlotte spent a lot of time comforting Lydia.  She'd stroke her hair and give her hugs.  Charlotte also let Lydia suck one of her thumbs while Charlotte sucked on the other one.  Gotta love twin love.  

After it was over they came down to my bench and burst into tears.  They sat there sobbing for several minutes.  I think they were done being good.  They didn't want to go to primary, but when they found out that it would be a fun day with a movie and eating a snack outside they went.  

This next week is going to be a little bittersweet for me.  It's the last week that I will have four kids under the age of four.  For the most part I love that my kids are getting older and therefore easier, but a tiny part of me realizes that this has been a special 13 1/2 months.  Not many people can brag that they have survived four kids under the age of four.  I'm proud to say that I am one of those lucky few who have gone through it.

But I wont have much time to dwell on the end of this era.  We have lots of Birth-o-ween celebrations this week.  And then we go on vacation.  Yes, my life is pretty great right now.