Seventeen Months, one week, and one day

Today Veronica is 17 months, one week, and one day old.  Why is that significant?  Well, that is the exact same age that Charlotte and Lydia were the day that Derrick was born.  

For the past several weeks I've been staring at Veronica and thinking, "I had TWO of you when I had a newborn!?!"  I honestly don't know how I survived that time in my life.  

 I'm so glad that I did survive it.  I'm also glad that I don't have to worry about a newborn again.  I like the ages that my kids are at right now.  I'm glad that two of them are completely potty trained.  I'm glad that they all sleep through the night.  I'm glad that they all get along really well.  I wanted to take a picture of all the kids together today, but this is the best I got.  They are all watching Pooh's Hephalump movie.  (Derrick thinks it's hilarious.)

 Even though I don't have a new baby coming anytime soon I am in the middle of waiting for some news.  9 months ago Brandon found out that he was accepted to Flight School.  He's supposed to begin training this month. Except he doesn't have his orders yet.  We are seriously down to the wire here.  If he doesn't get his orders in the next few days he'll have to wait another 5 months to start training.  I don't want that to happen.  So I'm waiting on pins and needles here. It's like waiting to go into labor. I decided to do a big catch all blog post to take my mind off of everything.

Derrick still sleeps in his crib- he hasn't even tried to climb out of it yet, but I think he might be getting ready for a bigger bed.  Sometimes he likes to go lay down in my bed when he gets sleepy.

 A few weeks ago we were able to have a free 10 minute photo session through a program with the USO.  Our photagrapher wasn't that great, and it was the longest 10 minutes of my life as we tried to figure out poses and keep the kids happy.  But we did get a few good pictures.  This one is my favorite.

 This is one of the not so great ones.

 And here is another good one.  They took a lot more, but for some reason only three were uploaded to the place where we went through them.  Oh well- can't complain for free.

I saw a thing on pinterest of how to make a toilet paper tube into a raindeer.  So Charlotte and Lydia and I made two.

 They turned out really cute.

 The girls found a box and had me hook up the raindeer to the sleigh.  Now every time we have another empty toilet paper tube the girls ask me to make it into a raindeer.

 We heard about a free fishing day in Copperas Cove and Brandon decided to take the girls.  He took them out behind our house to show them how to use the fishing pole.

 On the day of the event Brandon was able to catch a fish.  This was pretty significant since he has never caught a fish since before he met me.  The girls were so proud of their daddy.  They came home and Brandon gutted the fish.  The girls learned a few new things about the world.  As Brandon was cutting the head off Lydia was asking, "What are we going to do with Mr Fish?"  I was trying not to laugh.

 After that we went to a park for a little birthday party for our friend's daughter Harmony.  We were babysitting Rose, another friend's little girl, for the weekend so this is a picture with all five of "our" kids playing on the slide.

 Charlotte and Lydia liked sliding together (I don't know why they look unhappy in this picture.)

 Our friends brought cupcakes.  Veronica loved hers.

 When it was time to go we had a good laugh about how our car looked like a bus with 5 kids in it.

 Rose was with us all weekend while her mom was in the hospital for some health issues.  We had a lot of fun with her.  She is an only child so I think she liked having pseudo- siblings for the weekend.

 Here they all are for lunch one day.  Derrick was doing really well about sharing his high chair but then he got really possessive about it.

 And here they all are before church.  Rose was the perfect size to fit in a lot of the clothes that I've been saving for Veronica.

 Everyone wanted their own pictures so here is Charlotte.

 And Lydia.

 And Derrick.

 And Veronica.  (She's blurry because she kept running toward the camera.)

 And Rose.

 The weather has been really wintery the past few weeks.  It's been really depressing, but our cardinals came back so that's been nice.

 I've tried really hard to keep Frozen from taking over my children's minds.  So far I've been pretty successful.  But a few things have filtered in.  Charlotte likes to wear her green dress and pretend she is Elsa.  She'll put socks on her hands and pretend they are gloves.

 Derrick has learned how to get out the markers and paper when he wants to draw.  He's getting really good at scribbling.

This is supposed to be a picture of the ice that formed on the bottom of the jeep, but it was too cold for me to actually go out to the car and take a picture.

 This icicle forming on our downspout was a lot easier to get a picture of.

 Lydia wanted me to take this picture of her crown.

 You can't tell in this picture, but it was actually snowing outside.

 I hurried to find the kids' coats and shoes so we could go for a walk in the snow.  By the time I found everything it had stopped snowing.  But we went for a walk anyway.

 You can kind of see the snow on the grass.

 Veronica looked so cute in her coat.  I was glad we actually had a reason for her to wear it.

 Derrick's started saying, "cheese" when we take his picture.  That's what he's doing here.

 The girls liked eating snow off of the slide.

 Veronica didn't understand why I didn't want to push her in the swing.

 Our walk lasted about 10 minutes.  We came back in and had hot chocolate.

 That afternoon the sun came out and it was a beautiful spring day again.

 Charlotte and Lydia set up this picnic on the piano bench.

 See what I mean about a spring day.

 Charlotte and Veronica like to hold hands and run around the house.

 Here's Lydia all dressed up again.  She loves to wear dresses every day of the week.

 And here is Charlotte sporting her signature skirt-under-a-dress look.

 I was hoping that springlike weather was permanantly here, but things got all cold and yucky again.  Roads were icy and everyone was freaking out about it.  Last Saturday we were facing the prospect of spending all day inside.  I decided that we needed to celebrate Easter since Brandon is probably going to miss it.  Brandon took Derrick and Veronica grocery shopping with him and Charlotte and Lydia helped me decorate.

 We put up a lot my wedding stuff since that's a thing that happens in the spring too.

 I love these flowers right here. I don't know whey I didn't do that sooner.

 And flowers on the piano look nice too.

We had a little Easter Party with Rose and her mom Tori.  Ashley, Seth, and Oakley came too. 

 We dyed Easter Eggs and frosted cookies.

 We all had dinner together and played Apples to Apples. It was a great way to spend a wintery day.

Charlotte loves building things.  This is something she made with blocks.  I wish I could remember what she called it.

 This was from another day. She came in with a stick and said, "I'm a rhino."

 Oh and here is another Charlotte picture.  I've been reading Charlotte's Web to her and Lydia.  They loved that book. We'd watched the live action movie several times so they already knew the story. Now we are reading Black Beauty.  I'm not sure how much they understand, but I say everyone can benefit from hearing good prose.

Anyway, that's basically us for the past few week.

I'm hoping that in the very new future I'll be able to announce that flight school is really happening this month.  I'm ready for this next life changing"baby."