Sydney finished up swimming lessons this week. She did so much better than I thought she would do. Her teacher said that she is ready for level 2, but I think we are done with swimming lessons for the year. I think it's funny that Sydney's teacher looks totally ticked off in this picture. The kids want to go play at the pool so much, but I just can't handle all three on my own. Especially when I'm just finally getting up and going again and trying not to damage myself any further during this pregnancy.

This is my fantastic shot of the damage to the couch. I could only get some of the masterpiece in the frame and it still doesn't do it justice. Tansy was in big trouble for this one. She was asleep when I discovered what she had done, so I had managed to quell the wrath and discipline more effectively. It still smells like hair spray when you sit or lay on the couch. That will fade with time, right?

And I wanted to share some of Zack's mad dancing skills. The head shake seems to be his favorite dance move. Sorry you can't hear the music.

Not a great week for pictures apparently. Sydney started swimming lessons. No pictures. Tansy learned to undress herself. No pictures. Zack learned to wave at people. No pictures. So what the heck is this one and only picture of? Good question.

The toilet paper holder in Sydney's bathroom is on the wall opposite the toilet. This means that it is completely impossible, by any stretch of the imagination or five-year-old arms, for Sydney to reach it. Since it is not being used for toilet paper, and Sydney didn't like her wet hands dripping on the roll sitting on the counter while she reached to dry her hands, she came up with this little idea. She was so proud. So was I. She actually asked me on Friday if she could invent something before she went to bed. She was disappointed that she couldn't actually think of an invention. But those little wheels were turning.

Zack tore the binding off of a library book this week. Seriously, is this my kid? How can he not be born with a reverence for books? I found a replacement on Amazon that was really cheap, since the book was in used condition to begin with. I wasn't going to buy a brand new one. Tansy also made me question her parentage when she colored a hymn book yesterday. It's a book! I get upset if I crease the binding on a paperback! Deep breath. Okay.

I took all three kids to the church for a baptism yesterday. Four different people were baptized. It was so amazing, and the Spirit was just what this weary mommy needed. I hadn't actually met anyone that was being baptized before, but it opened up some great conversation with Sydney and really reenergized my soul. One of those tender mercies from the Lord.

Today I got to teach the 11-year-old girls about the Saints being expelled from Jackson County, Missouri. It was amazing to talk about events that happened in a place that is only about an hour's drive away from us. Of course, it was also a challenge to keep the conversation off of the "awesome mall" in Independence. These girls are so smart and ask good questions. It was such a great opportunity to spend a couple of weeks with them. I get to teach Sydney's class next week. Give me strength.

It started out as a slow week for us. I had a sub-uteran hemorrage on Tuesday and have been resting ever since. No need to worry. The same thing happened when I was pregnant with Tansy and Zack. It is isolated from the baby, but it still needs to heal since my health is obviously important to the baby's. Go figure.

Ben got permission to come home for the four-day weekend. However, he didn't get to leave until class got out at 4:30 Thursday afternoon, so between dinner, the gas station, and stopping to sleep a little bit, he didn't get home until 4:30 Friday morning. He slept until almost noon. It was all I could do to keep Sydney from going in to check if he was waking up.

This picture shows how the girls believe they should be taken to bed every night. Dad is such a good sport.

After a neighborhood potluck Saturday afternoon, we all came home for naps before heading out to the base lake. The kids got to play on the playgrounds for a while. Then we broke out some snacks while waiting for things to get dark.

While we were sitting there, it started to get really dark, but not from sunset. Some really dark clouds were moving in fast. I sent Ben back to the van for umbrellas. It started raining right before he got back to us. It was really mild compared to what I was expecting. Everything had blown over before fireworks started.

Zack did really well after he got used to the noise. Tansy and Sydney were tense but excited throughout the show. But isn't that all part of the entertainment? The squeals of delight mixed with shrieks of terror?

It was really nice to be on base with very little traffic. What a change to get home from watching fireworks in 10 minutes instead of 45. Of course, this still meant dragging my sleeping children out of bed at 7:30 this morning to get them bathed and ready for church. Overall, it was a great weekend. Hope everyone else's was safe and happy as well.

Due to popular demand (yes, Rachel, you are popular--and talented and pretty. . .) I have bigger pictures.























This is Sydney demonstrating her expert juggling skills. Thus, the look of serious concentration.


Zack is currently spending a lot of time on his tummy to--we hope--encourage him to crawl. Since he will be one next month, it seems to be about time. He can do tiny scoots on his bum and pushes himself backwards on his tummy. On this particular morning, I was working on getting all of the boxes and paper out of the house. He was crying, but his cruel mother decided he could just deal with it. When he stopped crying, I was patting myself on the back, figuring he had found something to play with. The poor baby had backed up into and tangled himself up in the library bag. When no one came to save him, he opted to take his morning nap early.


This is what my girls were doing this morning (yes, Sydney does wear something other than those green and white pajamas all the time, and I do comb her hair). Tansy was bringing Sydney book after book, and Sydney was making up stories to the pictures. So funny.

Sydney finished up her last week of summer school on Friday. She is sad that it is over because she had a lot of fun and loved her teacher. She got to know the school so I think that will really help when school starts in August.

If you didn't notice in the above picture, I buzzed Zack's hair again. It's funny to watch him rub it. It's also funny how many other people rub it.

Tansy is continuing her unnatural fear of bugs. She sat in some tiny, black ants a couple of weeks ago, and they crawled up her arms and legs. Sydney started freaking out so I started freaking out (I stepped in a red ant hill once and thought that's what they were at first) so Tansy started freaking out. I brushed the ants off and told her that they were just little and all gone. She still talks about it though. "Buggies on my legs. Buggies on my arms." "Tansy, are the buggies on you now?" "No, buggies all gone." She saw a flying bug the other day and started shrieking. Silly girl.

Ben has been gone for a week. He tells us the funniest stories about the enlisted guys reacting to the officers with something close to terror. He can't figure out what they do to these guys in Basic Training, but they are always smacking themselves against walls to get to attention as fast as they can when they see him coming.

And for those of you who haven't heard, I am exhausted, nauseous, and all of my food tastes weird. Yep, I'm pregnant. We should have our fourth baby in early February. We are really excited. Okay, I'm less excited right now, but I'm sure I will perk up again in the second trimester.

As a result of my diligent search, I found the cable! Here are the long awaited pictures!

The girls and their aunt Kari at the Lincoln Children's Museum. These are the only pictures I have from our trip out here because I kept forgetting the camera. I'll get more from Kari.


















Our lovely sleeping arrangements in TLF (Temporary Lodging Facility). Can you spot Zack in the Pack n Play in the corner?










The following are pictures from one night when the kids were so grumpy from being crammed into a hotel for weeks. We just started snapping pictures. Everyone was happy for a little while. Tansy eventually broke down again.

We went to the Wings over Whiteman air show on June 6. Unfortunately, there was a crash landing that morning (no injuries) on the runway that morning, so no government planes were allowed to use the runway, even after the plane had been moved. We were bummed since that's what we went to see. The aerobatics were cool though.













I had a bit of a mishap with the roller brush while painting the girls' room. Sydney kindly snapped this picture for me.

Sydney, the ninja.

Sydney with healing scabs across her forehead from her ninja, packing-tape headband.

Celebrating Father's Day on Saturday.

Okay, so I have plenty of pictures, but I cannot find the cable to transfer them to the computer. I know. Excuses, excuses.

Ben left this morning. He decided that he would just drive today so that he could be around to help with a few more things around the house before he left. Mostly things that involve working at heights more accessible to people like him than they are to people like me. He left just after 6:00 this morning since he had to be at Sheppard AFB no later than 4:00. We dragged the kids out of bed at 6:00 (except for Zack, who was playing with his face when I went to get him, and what the heck is up with Tansy sleeping in?) so they could say goodbye. The babies allowed Ben a quick hug then demanded cereal. Sydney broke down and just sat with Ben on the couch crying. We tried to talk to her about it, but she eventually just ran to her room saying that she wanted to go back to bed. When Ben walked out the door, she came back out and waved to him as he drove away.

She broke down again and we went and hugged in her room while she kept repeating, "I want Daddy!" in her nearly hysterical voice. I just held her until she calmed down. She stayed in bed by herself for a little while before coming out to play with us and get something to eat. She has been so helpful with the kids.

When it was time to go to church, Tansy finally took notice of the fact that Ben was gone. I kept trying to get her out the door, but she kept walking around saying, "Where Daddy? Where Daddy?" I reminded her that he was gone for a long time. She finally said, "Daddy gone," and went out to the van.

The Primary kids sang "I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home" in Sacrament Meeting today. Sydney got through the first two lines before her face just fell. She put her head down on her arms and just sang along with no actions for the rest of the song. I kept smiling at her, trying to keep her from crying. When she got back to me, she climbed in my lap and said she wanted to go home and lay in bed. After a few minutes, she decided to draw a picture for Ben instead. Poor little girl.

We had Father's Day last night complete with quiche, ice cream, and presents. In the pictures, Ben has on his awesome tie that Sydney made for him last week in Primary. They gave the kids these hideous old ties and all sorts of buttons, beads, ribbon, sequins, etc. to decorate them. They also sent home a note saying that the kids had made these especially for Father's Day and to please wear them the next Sunday. I was proud to see a lot of the dads did. I wondered what a dad would do who had multiple children in Primary. One dad showed up wearing two ties. What a guy.

I look forward to talking to my dad and husband today. Thanks for being great dads!

Sorry, folks. No pictures again. I have some, but most of them are before pictures of the house, and I am saving those for when I get things put together enough to take some after pictures.

We finally emerged from TLF (Temporary Lodging Facility) a week ago. We actually had our house last Wednesday and had hoped to have our stuff the same day. However, when Tuesday afternoon arrived and the computer system we make our moving requests through still didn't show that we were scheduled for delivery, I made all of the same phone calls we made in Logan, and, sure enough, it wasn't scheduled. AGAIN! We have had to schedule things ourselves on both ends. And I haven't found anyone else who has been forced to use this stupid system. They also seem to get their stuff when they want it. Hmmm.

Anyway, we couldn't get our thing delivered until Friday, so Tuesday afternoon, we decided to paint. Usually not a last-minute kind of decision, I know. We had talked about it a bit as something to do sometime while we were here. It was my way to make lemonade out of this big, annoying lemon. We ran to Lowe's that night for paint and spent Wednesday painting. The kids were so good and spent most of the time in the living room watching movies on the laptop. We only painted three bedrooms, so it wasn't a huge undertaking, but it was still a long, tiring day.

Friday morning, the moving guys showed up early! What the heck? When he called asking for an escort on to base, I was still half an hour away from beginning to expect them. Everything was in and the beds and tables were reassembled before noon. Somewhere along the way, my favorite bookcase had the bottom smashed out of it, so I'm not terribly thrilled about that. And one of the drawers in the dresser is broken off of its track. We think they might have tried to force it out, but our drawers don't come out. We'll be sure to remember to mention this in the future.

I have a full basement that is only partly finished, but we were able to lay some carpet for a playroom for the girls and have TONS of space for storage. We are actually planning on making a small family room down there too. So much fun. I love being out of apartment life. I can ignore my kids when they throw tantrums, run the dishwasher whenever I want, and start the laundry at 6:00 a.m. No more quiet hours or paper-thin walls. I'm still trying to adjust to all of the space. I know. Poor me.

I'm so tired of shopping. There are a lot of things when needed and more that we wanted to get the house together. We used our dislocation allowance (money from the military they give us just because we moved) to get this place together. It's been fun, but stressful, since we've been on such a time crunch. Ben leaves tomorrow for tech school in Texas and won't be back until the end of September. Wish me luck!