Oh hi internet. Once we made it to Homecoming I sort of forgot I had a blog. But I caught my husband checking the page to see if I had posted anything, so I think even he might appreciate a life update all in one place.

First thing everyone wants to know: Yes, it is super great to have E home. We all missed him a lot, for a bunch of reasons, and now that he’s back things are much better. He had two whole weeks completely off of work and now he’s on sort of half-work for a few more days, so I’m able to schedule doctor’s visits, parent-teacher conferences and hair appointments without having to bring 4 kids.

Speaking of hair, I made some drastic changes. I haven’t had hair this short in a decade, and I haven’t been this blonde since I was a child. It’s been a week and I am still LOVING it. (This is a HUGE photo of my face, but it’s my face so deal with it.)

Once E got his bags unpacked, he immediately tackled the to-do list I’ve been keeping. He fixed a ton of stuff, did a bunch of tech support, finished our taxes, and let the kids climb all over him as much as they want. We’ve been having a great time doing some 5- or 10-year life planning as well as some RIGHT NOW updates, like finally replacing our horrible stove and ancient mattress. Buying a new stove and mattress feels very grown up.

Finnegan has quit sleeping at night, which is fun for no one. He’s also nursing as much as a newborn, which I am not enjoying in the least. I had no intention of weaning him until he was ready on his own, but right now getting 8 hours sleep seems worth a little effort. He’s such a happy, pleasant baby during the day and so easy to put down for a nap, I do not understand why he is trying to kill me every night. This isn’t our first rodeo so I know all the things we can do to sleep train/gentle sleep train/not sleep train/cry it out/not cry it out/etc etc etc. I just need to decide if I’m at the point where I have to do something or if I can just keep hoping he grows out of it any minute.

Caroline had her first cheer competition last Saturday. Her team came in second, so she’s really proud of herself. We aren’t pointing out that there were only two teams in her division. Honestly though, she did REALLY great for her first even public cheer performance – the stage was huge, there were a lot of people and lights and the music is super loud, plus it was a long day for a bunch of small humans. Tons of waiting around for a 3-minute routine. She has two more this year – one this weekend and one in April – and I suspect she’s going to start begging to join a full year cheer team as soon as she can. I’m not sure how I feel about being a full-time competitive cheer mom, but I also don’t want to take away something she’s so in love with. She has already volunteered to quit most of her other activities if she can keep cheer.

Lincoln has an acute case of the Terrible Threes. He’s mad he’s not old enough for all the stuff the big kids do, so he takes it out on everyone in the family by being a jerk, hitting people or screaming. It’s not my favorite age. I did manage to potty train him (yay!) and he’s doing great at school (also yay!) and his speech is really improving (thank god) but he’s living in a glass case of emotion and spends SO MUCH of his time crying. It must be exhausting, but I don’t know how to help him.

Evan is such a mystery to me. He’s a really chill kid until something sets him off, and then he loses his mind. He was doing great at school until suddenly he can’t remember basic math facts. He is very helpful and responsible until he gets a screen in front of him and then it’s like he’s gone deaf and blind. He will be super kind to Finnegan and then do something to intentionally make him cry. He has started lying about small stuff to test us, so I’m trying to both assure him that I will always appreciate the truth and also sort of scare him so he knows he gets in big trouble if he’s caught lying. You guys, I don’t know what I’m doing. He’s going to be NINE next month and that’s so old. I remember being nine. There’s so much going on inside you. This isn’t like having a fourth baby that won’t sleep, this is brand new.

I’ve started planning out our summer already (it keeps me sane while I stare at the two feet of snow in my yard), and the kids are excited for various camps and activities that are on our calendar. We don’t actually need to keep quite AS busy as we did during deployment, but if the snow days have taught us anything it’s that being all together in our house is THE WORST, so between lakes, beaches, camps and trips, I’m hoping to avoid the level of togetherness that makes everyone want to strangle each other.

It’s supposed to snow again next week. I am not ok with this.

Evan and Caroline have started asking about maybe not sharing a room anymore, so we’re going to have to figure that out.

I have mini sessions coming up in a few weeks. If you’re local to Connecticut (or local-ish enough), I would love to take your picture! You can see the link here on my Facebook.

A few months ago, I started to follow the keto diet (aka bacon all day) and I really like it but at the moment my sugar cravings are winning. I need to commit again because I’m in search of a ball gown for a ball in a few weeks and nothing makes me more depressed than trying on clothes.

I think that’s everything even remotely interesting about my current life. I’ll try to get up our Homecoming photos taken by our amazing photographer (not me) soon, because who doesn’t love military homecoming photos?! There are just so many it’s going to take me a minute to cull them down.

We’ve had a lot of snow days this year. It’s not terrible. I like getting out of our responsibilities for a day. The worst part is that I have to do the shoveling but I just tell myself it’s a really good workout. Another thing that’s a really good workout is sledding. The third workout I got was getting everyone in and out of their winter gear. I’m exhausted.

The list of things that have gone wrong in the first two weeks of January is laughably long. I broke a filling, the kids shatter my laptop, my power charger fried my battery, we had several snow days/delays, I forgot to take the kids to swim (and karate and cheer), and Linc finally potty trained but not without peeing on every pair of underpants he owned. We now own more underpants AND as of this morning he’s officially done with diapers. I also got my computer fixed, ordered a new battery, made it to all our activities, and scheduled a dentist appointment.

I’m feeling very accomplished despite the setbacks, especially since on top of regular momming and housekeeping and cooking I’m also taking a photography class online. I’ve taken a few classes from Clickin Moms before and they’re always great, so when an ad for the class called The Documentary Approach crossed my Facebook feed, I saved the post. I kept going back to it and finally decided it would be a great way to keep me inspired during January.

So far we’ve focused on light (which is terrible in January) and this week is composition (which is something I thought I was good at but now I’m not so sure). It hasn’t been good for my confidence, but it has been good for my creativity. I am really, really looking forward to warmer weather so we can go outside and I can take pictures somewhere besides my house though. As much as I love documenting our life, I really like taking aesthetically beautiful photos in between so much reality.

We had to get out of the house on Saturday so we went to the Velvet Mill, where Stonington has their farmer’s market in the winter. I had to wear the baby on my back to keep him from a) running away and b) freezing to death between the car and the door (also the mill is huge and drafty and most people didn’t even take off their hats and scarves inside). When I have a baby on my back my photography really suffers – he’s wiggly and throws himself back if he can’t see what I’m looking at, it’s hard to carry my camera strap on my shoulder when the carrier strap is in the way, and crouching down/bending over is hard when your balance is being thrown off by 28 lbs. But I still managed to take a few pictures at the mill (plus a few after).

All that delicious farmer’s market food and my kids begged for cheeseburgers for lunch.

I am really enjoying using our stay-at-home down-time to work on my documentary photography skills. I actually signed up for a photography class specifically on that topic that starts on Monday. I’m nervous – the last time I paid for a workshop I quit after 2 weeks because I couldn’t keep up with the assignments (also I was 39 weeks pregnant), but this one was more expensive so hopefully my guilt keeps me motivated. Today we are going to leave the house even if we all freeze to death though, because these children are driving me bananas.