So much to say!

Oh, my.  We have had Daniel home for two weeks now and it has been wonderful, but it has been busy!  We've had so much to do, taking care of details for our impending move (that will have to happen almost immediately upon Daniel returning home next time), doing our pre-move purge a bit early, and generally taking care of things that were, ahem, not priorities when I was doing my short stint of single parenting.

I don't have as much time as I'd like to write (and you probably don't have as much patience as it would take to read everything that I could say), so I'll do a quick run down and post a few newer pictures, as well.

For starters, the kids all had check ups last week.  Lucas and Caroline both got "perfect!" responses from the nurse practitioner we saw.  Lucas has just had a growth spurt and is back up at the 90% for his height (about 75% for weight) and I can barely believe he turns FIVE YEARS OLD two weeks from today.  Insanity.  Caroline is growing and developing beautifully, 9 months old now.  She is around 19.5 pounds and is about 28 inches long/tall now.  Levi is growing beautifully, as well, but his speech continues to be a concern to us without really any improvement since he started saying a few words many months ago.  We got a referral for speech for him and I'll be interested to see where that takes us.  Aside from the speech issue, he is developing right on track, as well, and is about 25 pounds.   At 18 months, he can wear 18 month clothes for the length, but he can still easily fit into the waist size of 12 months, so we'll see how that works this winter when pants are either too short or falling off.  (Note to self:  I'll need to see if any of Lucas' old pants have those adjustable waist bands inside...)

Even with black beans all over her face, I still think she's a beautiful baby.  (And, yes, I know I'm biased.)

Silly boy!

Big brother indulges Mama for a picture.

Daniel is now a Warrant Officer!  He competed his course at Ft. Rucker, and was actually chosen (based on grades, leadership, and physical fitness scores) to be the Distinguished Honor Graduate of his class.  I'm so proud of him!  We continue to be so thankful that God's hand is clearly in this and that, despite the wait and heartbreaks we went through to get to this point, it is clear that this is where God wants us, as the doors continue to fly open.  

Daniel's dad was able to be at his graduation and had the honor of pinning on Daniel's new rank.

In other news, I am now officially a college student!  I could say a lot about this, and I'm sure I will as the weeks and months go by.  For now, though, I'm accepted, have financial aid, am registered for my first classes, and start soon to figure out how to "do" school while I'm "doing" parenthood.  I have a great plan set in place, and I'm praying for endurance and strength as we grab hold of this opportunity and take advantage of it.

Lastly, for now, I've finally gotten to the point that I'm getting back into the swing of things with tracking calories and exercise.  It's been 18 months since Levi came home and it's been basically that long (thanks to my pregnancy with Caroline coinciding with that) that I've taken a hiatus from really being particularly disciplined.  I've been mostly eating healthfully, and I've only got about two or three pounds left away from where I was when I got pregnant (which is my healthiest weight of my adult life), so I'm really looking at this point more to getting myself back into a consistent lifestyle and maintenance than much more losing.  

I have so much more to say, but I really need to move on with my day.  Hopefully, I will be back soon with more pictures and stories - tomorrow is Lucas' first day of PreK!