Claire turned 5

Our little Claire-bear turned 5 years old this weekend. I'm not sure what it is about the age of 5, but my brain categorizes '5' with school-aged KIDS and not with little kids. She seems so grown up. It doesn't help that she acts like a big girl too. One of her favorite phrases is, "This is going to take for, like, ever!!!" (she saves that gem for times when we ask her to wait just a minute or to be patient). She's incredibly sweet to her baby brother and is best friends with her little sister. She can be a bit sassy (and I imagine we're just seeing the tip of that iceberg!) but she has yet to experience much in life that can't be fixed with some snuggles from her beloved companion, Yellow Blankie. We're looking forward to seeing what the age of five is all about!

Her party (held a little early so Grandma and Paw-paw could be there):

Click the picture above to see more from her party!

Dance Showcase

The girls recently had their dance "showcase" - they dance a few numbers on the big stage, but don't have the fancy costumes that they wear for their recital in May. Anyway, Maddie was really excited about her chance to get up on the stage after watching Claire at her recital last year. They both did great on their routines and Maddie even saved up enough energy to get on the stage at the end and dance with all of the kids. Claire, on the other hand, was tuckered out by that point. Here are a couple of shots (click the pictures below if you'd like to see more!):

Grandparental visit

Books were read ad nauseum, dishes were done, baby was held and cuddled and spoiled... Yep! The grandparents were here!

My poor mother is probably hoarse from reading so many books. I'm certain my dad's arms are tired from carrying the baby around. They graciously attended horse lessons and swim lessons. They took the girls to and from school. They attended Claire's birthday party and the girls' dance showcase. Mom sewed the girls their Christmas dresses and Christmas pj's and a Christmas skirt. Dad and Phil golfed in a golf tournament and brought home turkeys as a souvenir (don't ask me, I don't play golf). In other words, we had a GREAT visit and sure do miss them now that they've headed back home!

Obligatory highlight reel:

A New View

The base housing office was privatized (a civilian company bought the houses from the Air Force to rent to us) shortly before we moved here. Since taking over, they have made many efforts to improve the housing situation for military families. Most of those "improvements" have been misguided, at best.

They have done ONE thing, though that we really appreciate.

They tore down the houses directly across the street from us, which gave us a beautiful view of the cotton fields and mountains to the North.

The girls had a great time watching the big machines devour the houses and turn that side of our block into a field. We've already watched them pick cotton and we're really excited to be able to see some excellent storms form up this spring.

It's cotton pickin' time

Yep, it's that time again here in Southwest Oklahoma:

Ready to pick

Picking the cotton

Big bale of cotton, ready to go to the gin

Halloween 2009

Phil was out of town for a conference so I had all three kiddos by myself. I figured it would be a good weekend for it, though, with Halloween festivities keeping us all quite busy. Here was our schedule:

Friday:
9am Claire's field trip to the fire dept for school
4:30pm Trick-or-treat at Phil's squadron

Saturday:
Take photos at the local pumpkin patch place
5pm Halloween pre-party at the neighbors' house
6-8pm Trick-or-treat on base/hand out candy

Sunday:
9am Mass
5pmish Phil returns

Not bad, right? Well...

Friday
Fire house: I had all three of the kids with me for Claire's field trip because they didn't get a bus for the field trip; they needed parent drivers. I successfully got all three of my children into the fire house, kept them from falling off the steel staircase, kept them from falling down the pole, and even took some photos. I'm feeling awesome.



Squadron trick-or-treat: Got the girls dressed and out the door in their costumes. The boy was in a presentable outfit and riding in a front pack for which I made a cute Halloween cover. We successfully trick-or-treated and got the girls fed without ruining their costumes for the festivities tomorrow. Left before they could get dirty on the playground and/or the boy could have a meltdown. I definitely missed the help of having a husband around and was feeling a bit frazzled. But all three kids were accounted for and the older two were candied up so I still chalked it up as a successful excursion.


Saturday
(Answered questions of ,"Is it time to trick-or-treat yet?" all day long without completely losing it.)
Pumpkin Patch: Got all three children into cute Halloween-festive clothes. Made sure they were fed and happy. Arrived to pumpkin patch to find out that you can't take photos on Saturdays because a professional photographer is there. Turned around and left because I wanted to take the darned photos myself.



Neighbors house: Got children fed and supervised their play with lots of other children. Everything went quite well except for one minor stranger-anxiety incident when I tried to hand off the boy so I could eat. Came home and got the girls dressed for trick-or-treat. Claire changed her costume at the last minute from "Ariel" to "angel" but we got that figured out. Tried to take their picture in front of the house in their costumes and the camera wouldn't work. Had a little panic attack. Borrowed a friend's camera for the Halloween picture and quickly grabbed the movie camera so we would have some sort of documentation of the event for Daddy.



Trick-or-treat: Set out our bowl of candy with a threatening note attached to ONLY TAKE TWO PIECES and hoped for the best. Took the kids to two houses and then dashed back to retrieve Claire's digital camera. Fielded questions from Claire about why I was using her camera. With the camera situation resolved, we got as far away from our house as is physically possible and Claire announced that she's cold. Hurried back (while trick-or-treating) and grabbed coats. Sent the girls to finish trick-or-treating with a neighbor because Colin was announcing to the world that he was DONE. I got the girls into bed after a few pieces of candy for each of them. Two hours late, but it's a holiday, right? Was feeling a bit tired of doing everything by myself.

Sunday

Woke up and HURRIED to get everyone somewhat presentable and out the door for Mass, bribing with candy. Didn't need to and arrived an hour early. Spent the next hour back at home getting myself MORE presentable and lamenting the fact that Colin was now going to be screwed up on his nap.

Mass: Colin was crazy and a complete stranger offered to watch the girls for me while I took Colin into the back of the church. And I took him up on it (he was a dad and there's glass so I could still see them...). Wondered how pathetic I must look for complete strangers to offer help. Began to plan a Mom Conference (Momference?) in my mind for next weekend. Lots of spa activities involved. Then remembered that I'm still breastfeeding and can't go anywhere. Came back to reality and rescued Mr. Stranger from my children.

Received two phone calls from friends to meet up and have the kids play in the afternoon. Wahoo! Walked to the park with the girls to meet them all and saw a C-17 come in for a landing. They're home early. House is a mess and dinner isn't even started so Phil won't have any idea how completely together I had everything. Oh well. Let the kiddos play and borrowed a friend's phone to tell Phil where we are because I forgot mine. (Maybe I don't have it so "together" after all). Came home to Phil cooking dinner. Yayyyyy!

New Jersey

We recently found out that our next assignment will be to... McGuire/Ft Dix in New Jersey! (Here's a map, in case you're wondering which of the little East Coast states that is). We're not moving yet - we'll get there in May of next year. It will be a short assignment; Phil will attend school with the Air Force there for a year and then we'll be off to yet another location.

Our days in lovely Oklahoma are numbered. Looking forward to some really good Philly cheesesteaks next year!

Jack o'Lanterns

Here's what we (OK, OK, what Phil and the girls) did last night:

Colin and I just watched and occasionally acted as creative consultants. Here are their final products - they were so proud:

He talks! Well, sort of...

Colin is talking, but we can't really understand what he's saying. Maybe you can?

Grandparents! Lots of 'em!

Phil's parents came for a visit -- AND they brought Phil's two grandmothers with them! As I'm sure you can imagine, there was a lot of spoiling going on in our house. We had a great visit with them and were so grateful for the opportunity to introduce Colin to two of his great-grandmothers. Claire had a great time playing card games with her grandparents and we all had a nice time visiting the wild animals at the wildlife refuge. Maddie had fun getting lots of stories read to her, and Colin enjoyed being held by everyone. Well... OK, after the first day he really enjoyed it. He surprised us with a little bit of stranger anxiety at first! He quickly warmed up to all of the attention, though, and was charming everyone with his smiles in no time.

And on to the gratuitous slide show:


Their visit here was wonderful, but the return trip has had some issues. Grandma Millie has been in the hospital with some health issues since returning to South Dakota, so please keep her in your prayers. Phil's parents hit a deer while driving to the hospital (in their beautiful new car!). Their car definitely didn't fare well, but fortunately they were not hurt.

baby update

Colin is really generous with his smiles; he always has one available for his big sisters or anyone else who looks him in the eye and says, "Do you have any smiles for me?" His whole little face just lights up with the most precious, pure smile. His sisters don't seem to ever get tired of making him smile and they love to play with him. Baby smiles really are very cute, aren't they?


Click on the photo to see more pics of the boy!

We're still here

So sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. We've all been battling some yucky illnesses. No one has grown a curly tail yet, but this was likely the dreaded Swine flu. Or H1N1. Or what I like to call The Worst Sickness EVER! Phil got it first but Claire was the obvious front-runner for "Most Sick". She had a very high fever for a week, accompanied by a lovely cough. I spent most of my day trying to get her to cover her coughs with her elbow while I shielded her brother and sister from any potential germies that were flying through the air. We are finally all feeling better (knock on wood) and Maddie and Colin may have avoided this flu!

Phil's parents and his grandmothers were just here for a visit, so we'll post some pictures soon!