A Plane ticket!

So, I bought Marvin's plane ticket home yesterday! That makes it official, you know! He is really truly coming home in one week and 2 days! He is flying in to Fayetteville on Thursday, October 9th at 6:43pm. Yes, I am SO excited! It has been such a long 7 months. Marvin is a bit nervous about coming home. He's not sure the girls and Josh will know him and that the boys won't respond well to him. Please pray for the upcoming transition. It is gonna be a rough time, but I have complete faith that our wonderful God will carry us through it all. The girls have been watching Abba vision non stop for weeks. They may not have actual memories, but they will know him when he gets here. If nothing else, they will think it really neat to meet a real movie star!!!! Josh remembers him, all the boys tell me their favorite Abba memories almost nightly! I have no fear with that part. I know the boys will test him to make sure he is still in charge and the move away from Granny and Grandpop is gonna be very difficult for them and me! But, it doesn't compare to the excitement of being together as a family again! Please pray for our family in the coming weeks!

Our camping trip

What a very busy week here! We took the camper to a local campground to test it out this past Thursday and Friday night. My hope was to prove to my dad that all would be well to go to Charleston for one last visit on saturday. So, Thursday was yucky cloudy and cold all day, but we went out when my dad got off of work so he could watch me get things set up. It started pouring down rain as we pulled into the campground. I was tempted to turn around and forget it, but I looked back at those little faces who were so excited to be going camping. We found a site, got the van off the dolly, and took that the dolly off the camper so I could back into the slot and get hooked up. So, we got settled and had dinner. That is when my parents' left. I got the kiddos all showered and set up beds for the night(took a while to get those logistics correct!) while my children went crazy! We found a pretty good system, but it took forever for them to settle down enough to sleep. I was up most of the night listening to the storm rage and branches fall on the roof(small ones, although it sparked terrible visions of whole trees!). Friday went much more smoothly for us. We were actually having fun. The storm was over and we all slept better after a long hike. Poor Sarah got eatten alive by misquitos, but she was not complaining! We had a few issues with outlets and dvd players. I had the realization that I am not brave enough to take my camper, 5 kids, the dog and the van on any journey on my own! It was very overwhelming to even think about it. It will be much better to wait until Marvin is home!

My 6 year old!!!!!!!!

I cannot believe that I have a 6 year old! Michael had a wonderful birthday today! I had to wake him up early to go get the camper. When I did, I asked him how it felt to be 6 years old. His answer to me was," Six feels really sleepy." Silly guy! It did get better once he was awake! He thinks it is great that he got a camper for his birthday, but is very happy to share it with his family! Michael got a camera for his birthday and I will start adding pictures from him periodically so that you can see life through Michael's eyes. It should be really interesting! He is actually pretty talented. I was just upstairs checking on my sleeping babies and am truly amazed at how blessed I am. As I watched Michael sleep, I am in awe of this little man. I pray that God will continue to mold him and that one day, all too soon, he will be a man after God's own heart! Happy birthday, my Michaelman!

I'm back again!

So, I've been told I'm slacking, but I have good reason this time! The kids and I have been visiting with my brother and his family in Virginia! Sean made Chief this year and I was so excited to be able to share in it with him at his pinning ceremony! My parents came up with me on Friday and Saturday night and we got to visit with Uncle Sean, Aunt Susan and Jarod and Ty as well as my Grandma. It was so fun to get to see and visit with them! We stayed in a nearby hotel in adjoining rooms. My parents had to leave Sunday, after a great time visiting friends in the church Marvin and I met in! So, the kids and I spent the next 2 days staying in Jarod's bedroom! The kids had a blast with their cousins and they did really well being completely off schedule. I'll post some pictures soon, but I have to get them off my camera first! I caught a cold there which knocked me for quite a loop for a few days, not a fun ride home for Mama! However, the 4 video players pointing to the back of the van DEFINATELY helped the kids' ride. If you aren't sure what crazy is, drug yourself with cold meds and spend 3 hours in the car with 2 different movies playing in stereo and 5 tired, cranky babies! Lets just say I've never been so glad to see Aunt Nancy's driveway! The next day, I took Abby in for her preop for her ear tubes. She is scheduled for surgery on Monday morning! I am so glad that they are moving her through so quickly, I bet she'll be walking and talking before we know it! Today we went to see an RV. We've been on the hunt for quite a while now but could never find something we liked and could afford. So, we went to a show where a very nice dealer brought one specially so we could take a look at it. I knew it was meant to be as soon as I walked in the door. God is so wonderful at working out all the details! It has been sold twice, but fell through both times. The RV is located 3 hours away, which I couldn't drive to just look at something. It just so happened that the dealership was bringing several RVs down to a show about 45 minutes from us. They brought the one I was interested in as a favor since they were already coming. We saw it in the parking lot and it passed my standards and my dad checked all the important stuff out and gave it 2 thumbs up. So, we are taking him a check and bringing our new RV home tomorrow morning! How great is that? God is so good, He reminds me once again that all things are His and in His hands! Marvin is coming home in just 20 days! He will be flying in here on the 9th of October! I am beyond excited, I cannot wait for him to be home and for us to be a real family once again. Well, I need to get in bed. I will post pictures of our trip and our new "home" tomorrow night. Also of Michael's birthday pictures! I can't believe my baby boy is 6 years old already! It is crazy to think that 6 years ago I was getting ready to be a first time mommy, and now I have 5 kids and a dog. Who would've guessed!?! Only God, I wonder if he chuckled that night knowing what was to come. I'm glad he didn't let me in on the secret at that time, talk about feeling overwhelmed!

Two of the Cutest cheerleaders ever!

Here are pictures of my cheerleaders during yesterdays football game. I'll get some of the guys in their great big jerseys next week! They love having the same shirts as the players, they were tackling each other all day long!

YES, that is Sarah WALKING!!! For a minute at least! She's been walking all day, but as soon as she sees the camera in my hand, she is on her little tush as fast as she possibly can!

Rolls of paper towels!

So, I was laying in bed last night drifting off to sleep and thinking(as this is really the only quiet time I have to think!) and was trying to figure out how long it has been since I talked to Marvin. The last time he called, we were in the middle of a trip to the grocery store to get paper towels. So, I thought, it has been 2.5 rolls of paper towels since our last talk. What has my life come to?! I no longer measure time by minutes, days, or weeks, but in the amount of paper towels used! I had to giggle, I must be a mom!!!!! Today was football day at our house! We all watched the Michigan game together in our Michigan attire yelling GO BLUE!!!!!! Even Sarah says it and claps and Abby says YEAH! So fun! The start of a great tradition I think! The boys were getting tired of football by bedtime though, it might be a really long year for them! I took pictures of my little cheerleaders and fans, but my camera battery has died! I'll try to get them up in the next couple of days!

PICTURES, PICTURES, and more PICTURES!!!!!!

I realize I have not sent out any new pictures of the kids since we moved from Charleston. I have tons, I've just been a bit lazy in getting them out. So, here are some of my favorites of swimming in the pool and getting into trouble and just being cute!

Birthday Girls!!!!!

Abby

My sweet, sweet baby girl. Abby is so laid back and full of sweetness! She does everything at least a month after Sarah tackles it. Not because she can't, just because she is fully content not to. It took her forever to crawl, because she was perfectly happy to watch the toy from across the room and play with the carpet fuzz in front of her. She is always smiling...or hungry, one or the other! Her eyes seem to smile, even when her mouth isn't! She has been fighting an unending ear infection for months. We have run the gamut of antibiotics, none of them working and a few causing more harm than good. After the last one caused a bad breakout of hives, I decided to hold off anymore until we get seen by an ENT and hopefully get tubes ASAP to fix her up. Even in constant pain, she is incredibly happy! Her name means "Father's Joy", which just seems fitting for her!

Sarah

My energizer bunny! I joke that Sarah has more "boy" in her than any of my boys, maybe even all of them combined!!!! She is a firecracker that goes about 1000 miles a minute from morning until night, when she drops and drops hard! She is constantly finding trouble(although I think she'd argue that it finds her!) and already at 14 months LOVES making people laugh! She is NEVER still. At the same time, she loves her baby dolls, she holds them just right and just sways while she pats their backs. She is the first one to console whoever may be crying at any given time(which is an opportunity which presents itself quite often throughout a day!). She gets especially upset if Abby is crying, she is painfully aware of her other half! She loves to have "conversations" with anyone who will listen. It is amazing to me all the different aspects to this little bitty person there are. We are finally bottle free and are LOVING the big kid life!

Joshua

Well, Josh is 2(and a half, but he doesn't care as much!) now. He has gone from being a baby to growing into one of the big boys. He is perched somewhere in the middle, liking to be apart of both groups(unless he is tired or hungry, at which time he doesn't really like anything!). He has come such a long way in this last 6 months. He went from not walking at all 6 months ago to running now! He is a bit behind in his speech, but is making strides everyday. He has perfected the whine, which gets way more persistent when we are all stuck in the car! He has stared using his words more often, but sometimes the answer is still no, which is NOT something he is ready to come to terms with yet. Eventually he will get it. He is really interested in the potty these days. He asks to "go potty" about a hundred times a day! You'd think just by the odds, he'd go at least once or twice, but alas, NO! I'm excited he is even sitting there, baby steps! He still has a killer smile, he can melt anyone, anywhere, anytime. He spends a lot of time deep in thought. I cannot wait until he is able to tell me what it is that is going on in that brain of his, I can tell in his eyes that it is spectacular!

Sam

Sam is 4 and a half(that half is ALWAYS added when you ask him!). He is a bundle of energy, constantly running, jumping, or climbing something. Even the walls are not safe if nothing else is available! Today when looking at motorhomes, he was so proud of himself that he refrained from jumping on the bed and climbing the sofa. How that becomes the highlight of the tour. Only for my Sam! He mastered a two wheel bike right before Marvin left in February. He is now a pro who loves more than anything else to leave "stop marks" as he calls them! He has got the biggest, helping heart I have ever seen in a little boy. He wears his Bee(what he calls his blankie) around his neck all day everyday and calls himself my "superhero hepler". He is that and loves his little sisters more than anything else. I bought a little baby boy outfit for a friend of mine and it was hanging on my bedroom door before I wrapped it. He came running to me while I was getting ready one morning, his eyes all lit up, holding the little outfit. He was so excited, he said, "Mama, do you have another baby boy inside your tummy?!!!!!!" I about fell over and tried not to laugh as I explained that there will be no more babies in my tummy. He just loves being the big brother! He stared preschool this year in home school as well. He is so excited to be in school like Michael. He also just started his second year in Cubbies. He is sad that it is not at our old church, he was really looking forward to being in "Mama's" class in the big kid room. He was not so upset after the fun he had in his new classroom with his new teacher and friends though.

The Q kids!

MICHAEL

Michael is just about to turn 6 and reminds me of that often! He started first grade in home school this year. He is a year ahead of himself and is staying right on target. He is a smarty pants. He is conquering reading, which has been much easier for him to catch on to than for me to teach! I never realized before that so many words don't follow the rules! He loves being read to, so I'm not surprised that he has picked it up so well! He has gone through a crazy time of adustment with all the change we have faced, but he has evened out. He started Sparks this week. He absolutely loves that he is a sparky now, it means he is a big kid! His imagination is endless as he keeps himself and Sam occupied for hours and hours. He is getting a lot better about making friends outside the house as well!

Trying to catch up!

So, I have not been the greatest at keeping you all up to date. I'll try to give a quick update and then I'll keep up from there! As most of you all know, Marvin left for Seattle, Washington on February 26th of this year to join his new shipmates on the USS Abraham Lincoln(is that ever a run on sentence!). He was there a whopping 13 days before his ship deployed to the Persian Gulf. We decided it would be best if the kids and I stayed at our home in Charleston, close to our church home and only 3 hours from my parents. The first 3 months went pretty well, of course with our ups and downs. I hired a wonderful woman to help me a few evenings a week, so I could clean the toilets without help and go grocery shopping. If you have ever tried to go shopping with a 5year old, a 4 year old, a 2 year old, AND 2 infants, you can understand the pain of that task!!!! If you have not, I'll leave that incredibly crazy scenario to your imagination! Adelle came to be a member of our family during those few months. We were managing greatly UNTIL on memorial day weekend there was a notice that said we had 90 days to get out of our base house because they were renovating it. Yes, another SHOCK, as the housing people assured Marvin that our house was not scheduled for demolition until January. So, the housing company offered us a house almost half the size of ours. It was a very hard decision, as leaving Charleston and such close friends, where the kids had spent their entire lives was a hard decision to make. Here were the options we were given. 1) Move into the smaller house in Charleston, getting settled for 3 months and then finding a place to store the stuff that wouldn't fit in that house. 2) Move in with my parents and share 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms between 3 adults and 5 VERY loud, very FAST children. But let the Navy take our belongings to wait for us in Washington. 3) Move into my mom's cousin's(from here on out to be called Aunt Nancy because it is just much easier!) house which has 4 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs that no one uses. So, we opted for Aunt Nancy's house so that the kids can spend as much time with Granny and Grandpop as possible before we move a whole country away from them. And, because I just can't move everything twice in 3 months, just wasn't in me. It has been so hard to leave the wonderful friends we made while in Charleston. Sam was in a class full of kids that he had known since birth. It took quite a few weeks for him to understand that we would not see his bestest friend Gray at church this week. Michael still talks about "the Maddie that I love" as though there are no miles between them. Every time they hear a name that is familiar they say, I have a friend named Hannah(as that is the one they are hearing a lot of being it is the hurricane headed our way right now!). And every time we watch Kai Lan on Nick Jr., they say, "that is where MoLi is from, she says Ni how"(sorry, I'm not sure how to spell it, but you get the picture!). I hope those friends will stay with them forever in their memories and that we will meet again very soon, you just never know what the future holds, maybe sooner than later!

I'm very excited to start this! I've been thinking about it since we began our crazy adventure, but for some reason(or rather 5 really cute ones!), it has been put off. No longer! I am excited to share our journey with all of you! I will have to play a bit and try to figure this out! Be patient, I'm not too brilliant with the computer and I am lacking in sleep and extra time! I can't wait to share with you all the wonderful things God is doing in our lives(and the not so wonderful ones too!).