To tide you over...

Our packers are here today, packing up our house. I am not sure if I will be able to post pictures while we are travelling, so I thought I'd load ya up! Enjoy!
"Guido" did not want his picture taken!
Angel baby!
Where did she get that hair?!! "See, Mom, this is how it goes."
A friend gave Summer this cute ballet outfit. Matthew tried it on and had fun running around in it for a few seconds. Funny that we don't have a picture with Summer wearing it though, Huh?!!

Making gingerbread houses with a friend.
T Jay's house
Showing them off! Ready for her school program!
So pretty!

Ted E. Bear

T Jay got to bring "Ted" home from school on Wednesday! He was so excited to do all sorts of fun things with him. Here he is "helping" Jess with his car! I thought it was really cute!

Once There Was a Snowman!

Once There was a Snowman from Kelli Melin on Vimeo.
Our kids love to sing, "Once there was a snow man." For some reason, they think that once they have melted they disappear and can hold out a leg or arm that can be seen while they are holding it out, but once they tuck it back in, they are invisible again! Silly kids. I thought I'd share a weekly FHE occurrence here at our house.

Our little "Monkey Babe"

"Does anyone out here need some toilet paper? 'Cause I brought some, it's right here! No, Mommy and Daddy don't know that the bathroom door got left open. They don't know that I washed my hands in the toilet, either! I'm ALL clean!"
"I love it when I find a chair that isn't pushed in because then I can use it to climb on the table and steal Summer's lunch! Oh, and her drink, too. I like to pour out the drinks and then splash them!"
"Hmmm, now let's see, I've cleaned the bathroom, cleaned up Summer's lunch. Hmmm, my work here is done! Oh wait, I want to polish off that Mac & Cheese!"
"This Mac & Cheese is delicious! I am so glad Summer left some food for me!"

Peek-a-Boo!

peek-a-boo! from Kelli Melin on Vimeo.
Matthew is such a silly boy! He is really getting a great "cheese" face when he sees the camera. His new favorite game is to get in the closet and pull the doors shut and then throw them open and say, "Boo!" This time he is just giving us "cheese" because the camera is on!

Our New Life!!

It's official!! Jess gets his dream job working as a Project Manager developing wind projects! We are very excited to move to Florida. The FPL Energy headquarters is in Juno Beach, Florida! Wish us luck as we change climates with a temperature difference of 83 degrees! I think we are up to that challenge! All I can think of is that I won't have to begin bundling children 20 minutes before I have to leave to go somewhere! Here we go on our newest adventure!!!!

Week in Review

I have been a slacker blogger this past week, so to catch you up a little, here are some pictures and posts.
My friend, Jamie, made this yummy (& pretty) birthday cake for me. It was very nice of her and I really appreciated it!
Summer watching a princess movie in a nee dress that Grammy sent her. She loves dresses. In fact, all she wants for Christmas is every type of dress-up she can think of. We'll see how she makes out!
Climb-y climber-ton likes to get up to the table and try and draw like the big kids!
Dancing Summer in one of her many dress-ups!
Summer got to bring her classroom's traveling "pet" home over the weekend. It's a Teddy Roosevelt bear. She had fun playing with him.

Jess' "Fini Flight"

Waiting for the bus to take us to the runway to see Daddy land his last Flight in the Air Force! Look how bundled they are! Matthew could hardly move!
Jess shaking hands with his friends that came out to meet him.
Jess is finished flying for the Air Force.
The Fam.
The Plane.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! from Kelli Melin on Vimeo.

Birthday Serenade

Untitled from Kelli Melin on Vimeo.
Thursday the 29th was my 31st birthday! We celebrated by ordering pizza and staying in our cozy home. Jess was gone on an interview, so it was up to T Jay to do the singing. Jess surprised me with pearls before he left on his trip!

TJ-ism

The kids are on a roll lately!
TJay wanted Jess to set up the Play Station this morning so he could play. I let him watch a movie yesterday morning and he ended up missing the bus to school. This morning I told him that we weren't going to play Play Station or watch TV before school. Jess went downstairs to get the kids to play with him for a bit since he is off to Houston today for another follow up interview trip. (Exxon Mobil) We just got the kids a Little People Nativity and Jess suggested that they play with this. T Jay still being angry that he can't play Play Station or watch Kim Possible said (very angrily),"I don't want to play that, it's way to Jesus-y." I have never heard that term, I think he made it up!
Of course we had a talk about having to be nice to people if you want people to listen to or play with you. The kids are keeping me on my toes for sure!!

"So the Drama"

T Jay and Summer like to wake up early. Today was no different. 6 am and they were both flopping around on our bed, waiting for me to give them permission to get up. The more they wiggle, the earlier it is! I sent them both downstairs to play. I could hear them playing "Kim Possible" when Summer started crying due to some sort of injury. Bodily or emotional, I'm not sure. She stomps up stairs and goes into her room. My eyes are still closed, but I bet she flung herself on her bed!

This is her song of sorrow, (she's singing this) "I can't do anything cool, I'm not pretty I just like to dance." Jess and I are laying in bed listening to her and we just burst out laughing and called her in to talk to her. She came skipping into our room, saw that Jess was home and gave him a huge hug! She said that T Jay was being mean to her and that's why she was, "a little bit sad." I tell you this story not only because it's hilarious, but to pose a question. If this is what raising a three year old girl is like, what should I be doing to steel myself for puberty? I am a little bit scared!!

School pictures

T Jay age 5 Kindergarten.
I took Summer and Matthew to T Jay's school to get their pictures taken so they would all look the same. I think that they all look really cute!
Matthew Age 1 Summer age 3

T Jay's thoughts on Santa

A week has passed and a lot has happened! We decided to go to Montana for Thanksgiving at the last minute! Jess was able to get his ranch fix, we got to meet our newest niece (Hannah Gray), swim at Bozeman hot springs and the kids got to be spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa! They were beginning to go through withdrawals, so it was good for them to get a fix.
We decided that we are going to go to Montana for Christmas this year. We asked the kids if they thought that was a good idea. They were excited, but T Jay paused after a bit and asked how Santa would know that we were going to be in Montana and not at home this year. I told him that we could tell him in the letter that he wrote telling Santa what he wanted for Christmas. At the moment this seemed fine to him and he went on his way. During the drive home, T Jay pipes up, "Mom, we don't need to write Santa a letter to tell him we'll be in Montana for Christmas. I'll say a prayer and Heavenly Father will tell him." I told him that he should still write a letter telling Santa what he wanted. When I asked him what he wanted, he told me that it was a secret. That Santa would know. Hmmmm...how's this going to work?!! He did pray that Santa would get him some kind of Transformer airplane toy. I think he might be a little confused as to where Santa fits into things!
Today, we put our tree up and a few of the decorations around the house. At one point T Jay tells me," Since Santa Clause is so fat, we could put a treat out for him called vegetables so he can get healthy."

Today after church

Here's my little "Dapper Dan!"
He's happy to be here! You'd never know that he's only had a half hour shoulder nap all day!
ROAR!!
Summer had a new dress on today, but she wouldn't be still long enough to get a picture of it!
Twirling! T Jay was already stripped down to his digs by the time we were taking these, so there aren't any pics of him from church.

The difference between Monday and Saturday!

Matthew enjoying the slide at Oak Park. Jess and the kids were off on Monday for Veterans day, so we headed into town to the park.
Summer loves the fast slide!
T Jay is quick on the bridge!
Snow for Saturday! The kids were ecstatic about this!
T Jay rolling around in the snow!

Student of the Week

T Jay was student of the week last week in his class! He was so excited about this! He woke up on Monday and kept asking me to congratulate him for being the student of the week. He also would say,"Here's the student of the week!" The parents of the student of the week get to come in and talk for about 10 minutes about their job. Here, Jess is telling the kids about the B-52.
Jess and his helmet. The kids loved this.
T Jay got to model the helmet. The kids got a kick out of T.Jay saying, "Luke, I'm not your father!" No, I didn't misquote him, that is how he says it!

Matthew's First Haircut

Before: You can sort of see the scraggly hair in the back.
The clippers didn't scare him a bit! I think he is thrilled to look like a big boy!
My sweet Angel Boy!

Trick or Treating

We were so busy getting ready for our trip that I forgot to post a picture from trick or treating! They all loved it! Matthew had it backwards though. He kept trying to put his treat from one house into the treat bowl of the next house. For some reason he didn't get much candy. T Jay and Summer also fell victim to candy theft! I put a good portion of their candy into our bowl to re-give away! I know it's terrible, but they (and me) are such candy fiends that it's best if it's not around too long! I wonder how many more Halloweens I will get away with this?

T Jay & Summer-isms

I was sitting at the computer yesterday morning and overheard this conversation between TJay and Summer:
Summer: "I need to ask Santa if I can have a tiny baby girl."
T Jay: " You mean a baby doll?"
Summer: "no a tiny baby like this one." (I assume that she pointed to Matthew because he was right there.)
T Jay: "Oh, baby's come out of Mommy's tummies, and she doesn't have a baby in her tummy. After we move and get settled, then she can have a baby in her tummy.
Summer: "This baby is out." (Matthew) "and when it comes out, it will cry."
*As I was telling Jess this story, T Jay was standing there listening and clarified, "No, when the baby girl comes out you'll cry Mom, cause it's gonna hurt."

*What are they going to do if there isn't another girl in our cards?!! I love my little peeks into their thoughts, although, I am not sure where they get all of their information!!!

We're back!

We are back from Austin! What a trip! A couple of people joked that we should eat and go to the bathroom before we come, and boy were they right!!! When we arrived, Jess was given a packet of info that was about 9 inches thick and directions to read it. Saturday began at 7am and we spent the day in orientation and company information meetings learning what each company is all about. We finished at 8 pm and headed for our room for some additional studying. Saturday was more of the same. We worked from 7am until about 8:30, followed by more study and interview prep. Monday was the first interviewing day. Jess was scheduled for nine 45 minute interviews. I helped keep him organized and where he was supposed to be. Tuesday he had six interviews and they went well, too. He had a results meeting and 12 of the 15 companies wanted to further pursue him (fly him out to the company and interview again). Five companies that really interest Jess are: FPL Energy in Juno beach, FL, CCS Fundraising in NYC, Shell Oil Co in San Fransisco, ExxonMobil in Houston and General Mills in Minneapolis. He will spend the next few weeks following up with these companies and hopefully we will have job offers and be able to choose what we are going to do by the end of the month.

We're off!

Jess and I are off to Austin, TX for his career conference in the morning! We have two days of workshops and more training, and then Monday and Tuesday Jess has 11 interviews ! It will be exciting to narrow the possibilities for our post military life! Wish us luck! When we get back (Wednesday) I'll tell you all about it!!

Pumpkin Carving

Summer thought the seeds were sticky. She loved drawing the face on it to show where we would carve.
T Jay was not a fan of touching the seeds. He kept calling the stringy part webs.
Matthew "got" to watch from his highchair! He wanted to carve the pumpkins so badly!
The finished product and a scary face from my monsters! They were so excited about them. We took them into the bathroom and lit a candle in them so we could see the faces. They thought it was so cool. When Jess got home, T Jay grabbed his pumpkin and headed to the bathroom to show daddy. He dropped the pumpkin in the hall and the face broke out and it cracked around the bottom. Jess' solution, duck tape! (to which T Jay asked if it smelled like ducks) Jess taped the broken side up and they carved a new face on the other side!!!
T Jay's new jack-o-lantern! You can kind of see the duct tape through the eyes! That solved the problem and T Jay was all smiles with his new pumpkin!