We have been on the road for weeks and weeks of 2012.  We are home again and getting ready to move to upstate NY where I grew up.  I’m excited!  I can’t wait to be near family and to have grass and watch my children run and roll in  it.  As silly as it sounds I can’t wait to be closer to my husband.  It’s a whole 2000 miles closer and though we’re far apart that’s gotta count from something.  I’m nervous!  Nervous about my ability to get us all there.  Nervous about starting again and doing it all knowing that we have an 18 month window on our New York experience.  I’m happy to be able to show my kiddos where I grew up and introduce them to new things.  They have had a lot of their formative years in the deserts of the world and I think a green place will really grow on them.

Here are a few photos.   They’ve all grown so much over the past months since I posted last.  Time really does slip away if one is not careful to guard the moments and treasure them up for reflection at a later date.

14 now and lovin’ life (most of the time.)

This little guy is 9 months old now and crawling & cruising all over the place.

4 years old and still as opinionated as ever & so much fun!

10 and finding her way in this house full of boys and managing to do it with grace most days.

Mmmm, sock foot tastes good…

Victoria has decided that she’s going to start teaching Aidan to play violin.  For now he’s really excited to learn and has been careful with the violin.  He stores it in his bedroom and doesn’t want anyone else to touch it but him.  I love it when they’re young and excited about learning something new.

Chullain got to go around with some of his friends who were also all dressed.  It’s great to see these man sized teenage boys get into the spirit of things and have some good clean fun.  I loved his costume!

Victoria worked on her costume longer than anyone else.  She decorated the yard for Halloween and did some decorating inside the house too.  She’s really great about motivating everyone to get up and do things that are good for us.

Aidan was all excited to be swap thing and then we went to shop for Chullain’s costume and he decided he wanted to be a pirate.  I wasn’t down with buying another costume so we talked and talked about how cool swap thing is.  In the end he was happy to dress as swamp thing and had a great time.

Little Connor is getting big and was almost busting out of his 6 month sized monkey costume.  I figured it was for just a few hours and would do.  We dressed him up and he was so snuggly that he fell asleep in Daddy’s arms at the fair so they went and sat in the car for his nap which suited Bo just fine because it was mobbed with people.

The gangs all here in this one and I love it!  I love having four children and I love that they’re all spread out and love being with one another. Happy Halloween everyone!!

The stand out thing this past month as been that he’s teething.  He got his first tooth just a few days ago and is working on the second bottom tooth as I type this.  He’s very interactive lately and reaches out for Mom and kicks and reaches for attention from others.  He loves to jump in his jump up likes to jump when we’re holding him on our laps as well.  He started eating baby food and doesn’t really like it much so far.  We’ve given him plain rice cereal and then rice cereal with pears.  When we gave him the cereal with pears last night he made the most terrible faces!  The thing that he seems to hate the  most is riding in the car at night.  The thing that he seems to like the best is being tickled and bounced up into the air.  We love, love, love our little Connor!!

One of Victoria’s favorite friends Michaela came over for the evening and they played dress up for a good part of the night.  They had a little photo shoot in Halloween costumes at one point.  Too fun!

A few weeks ago when Michaela was having another visit we dug up our sweet potatoes.  The girls thought it would be fun to name the potatoes as they pulled them out based on characteristics each of them had.  The potato filling this pot was named “monster.”  He was huge and pretty darn tasty.  He turned into bread and a few more bags of him are filling the freezer for later use.  It’s great eating things we’ve grown ourselves.

This is mystique.  She showed up at our house one morning.  I was hoping she’d leave but she was back later that evening.  I was pleased to find her gone the next morning but she showed up this morning again and climbed the tree in our front yard.  I don’t’ know where she comes from or why see keeps visiting but Victoria absolutely loves that she does.  If it was up to Victoria we’d probably have 100 cats running all over the house and yard.  I’m grateful that I’m in charge and not Victoria!

This is the cow at the Farm and Ranch museum who we were able to watch being milked.  It was a fun field trip for Aidan and his little preschool pals.  Aidan started talking to the volunteer leading the demonstration and he was going off on a tangent about zombies.  I couldn’t get him to hush and the volunteer couldn’t redirect him either so she finally say, “We’re not going to talk about dreams anymore we’re going to talk about cows.”  Aidan stopped talking and his friend sitting next to him says, “I had a dream about cows!”  It was too cute.

Here are some of the preschool kiddos on the wagon ride.  They were able to ride around and see cows of all different breeds and ages, including some long horns.

Hard at work on the side roof.

Front roof in progress.

The front roof turned out to be a bigger project than we’d initially envisioned because the rafters were rotted out once we got the roof board off.  Also once we got started it was decided that instead of just replacing the original roof the new roof would be a bit of an expansion.

Side roof all finished.  It looks fantastic!  I know everyone will appreciate staying dry when they go in an out of the kitchen or have outdoor cooking to do.

Front roof all finished!  I still want to go up sometime and paint the under side of the rafters but for now it’s done because winter is setting in that high up.  What a rewarding and worthwhile project for Chullain!!

They tore off the front roof of the front porch. Burnt the old trusses.  Dug huge holes for the support beams of the side roof.  Built 90% of the trusses for the new roof.  Put up the poles for the side roof using concrete.

Going to the pool!  So this wasn’t really from our day in photos but I found it on the camera and it’s pretty dang cute.  He’s getting more and more social every day.

He’s picked a passie and it seems to be the only one that he’ll suck for more than a minute.  The funny thing is that it’s a different kind than any of our others have liked.  What else is funny is that he’s the only one that will swing in the swing.  He doesn’t tolerate it he loves it!  He swings in there just about every day to nap.

Asian pears are yummo!  Our tree produced tons of pears this year and Aidan really likes them.  I have to say that I really like them as well.  I don’t know what to do with them besides eat them and give them away but for this year that’ll do.  Next year I’ll investigate other things to do with them.

It was violin lesson day during our day in photos this time.  Victoria is still improving and now is taking violin and piano lessons.  She enjoys her lessons and playing so for now I think that she’ll keep on with the lessons.  Her instructor is Delores and she’s wonderful.

I’m not a fashion plate and I can’t wait to get some more contacts but I’m going to share a picture anyhow as I have a new hair color.  I love, love, love red hair and I’m so glad that’s the color mine is again!!

The look says it all…

He’s making a monster face just like the monster on his Daddies favorite onsie.

What’s missing?  CHULLAIN and BO!  I have to ask for pictures as gifts at this point as they feel that the camera is some sort of mortal enemy to be avoided at all costs.  Maybe next day in photos I’ll make sure it’s on a Saturday and I can take pictures of them in their beds.

He’s growing so fast!  He stays up a lot of the day now and likes to “play” with everyone.  He’ll smile, babble and blow spit bubbles.  He enjoys looking around at the world and being talked to.  He even likes having a song sung to him once and awhile.  He lights right up when one of his siblings comes close for a cuddle or chat.  We’re all enjoying our little guy.  Two months of age brings a miserable doctors appt. with it and he received a dose of live virus along with 3 injections.  Pain now for protection later so it’s worth it but still hard for him as it’s the worst thing that’s happened to him besides being born in his whole little life.  He weighed in at 14 lbs and 6 oz (90%) and was 22.5 inches long (50%).  We’re all looking forward to another month passing to see how much he changes!

One of my goals for his visit was to get an updated photo with him with all of my children.  I love this one!