A LampPost Flickering

I took one. A long one. But I'm back. I hope ya'll didn't give up on me. These autumn days are all running into one another. Only 27 more days until I fly out to be with Rob for his graduation from the chaplaincy school. Only 30 until we're all together as a family! Woohoo! The boys do have a trick-or-treat date set up with a friend of ours who works for a local nursing home. Caleb and Lily's costumes are finished. Gabe's is going to be the most work, but I should be done soon. And Seth...well, he said that wants to be a "blue cat with blue stripes who's a "NINJA MASTAH!" Um...Can we say redirection? If not, we'll figure something out! I do have some blue face paint and I know we have ninja costumes from the boys' dress up box. I may be able to make this work... We carved our pumpkins two days ago. The experience was a study of the effects of sibling birth order in action. Does anyone else find that as interesting a topic as me? We hav...

The kids and I just returned from a 2100 mile round-trip road trip. We journeyed out from Michigan to Rhode Island to witness their dad graduate as a Naval officer. The trip there was full of excitement and anticipation, and the kids behaved so well. My mom and Rob's mom came out with us--I doubt I would have been able to do this without them--and we drove Rob's jeep to him so that he would have transportation during the next section of his training. So we divided the kids between the two vehicles to ward off conflicts. It worked. On the way home, all seven of us were crammed in the van, and there wasn't a lot of fighting, but OH, THE NOISE. It was quite the challenge to drive through NY City and then down the New Jersey Turnpike with squeally Lily and yelling Seth and giggly Gabe. Caleb was the quietest one...unless he was sitting by Lily, who engaged him in her loud and physical play. But other than the noise, the kids did great. Oh, the joy of that very first glimpse of ...