Busy Days

The weather here has been so sunny that we have been in spring cleaning mode in our house. Dear Husband decided he better go back to work so he could get some rest:).

It was time to prune the fruit trees.

Time to play outside!
Where we live, rain boots are not optional. So when our local farm store has them on sale, we know it is time to get in there and replace all of the cracked ones that we have. This year we only had to buy 6 pairs, which was nice.

Here is an interesting contraption that my dad made for us while he was here a while back helping us with our pasture fence. I think it is time for a new one with more posts on it. This time we may have to build it with the posts side by side so we can fit more on it. Daddy, it's time to come for a visit!

We didn't have to buy boots for the little boys, but I didn't want to leave them out so here is a pic of their cute little boots.

Another reason we were so busy this week...DH and I were out for our date night and decided to stop at Lowes to look at fencing. We did look at fencing but on our way out we passed by the appliances and saw this wonderfully BIG refrigerator on clearance for half price. Granted we had a pretty new refrigerator but DH knew that we had struggled with it being to small for a family our size, so he decided we would buy it. Upon looking at the space where it was to go, he realized that he would have to do some kitchen modifications to make it fit. I must admit that I didn't think it would work and was sad to give up my new fridge. But he made it work and here it is all installed, which was no small feat in and of itself. I love it! So much space! I do still have to keep an extra fridge in the laundry room since we buy 8 gallons of milk and 120 eggs each grocery day but having this one in the kitchen will be so nice!

Also, my sister sent my a wonderful under the cabinet cd player so I can listen to music or sermons while working in the kitchen. I didn't think it would fit under the cabinets much less actually get installed, but DH got that all set up for me too. And all of this while trying to get our desktop computer back up and running and going to pick up several loads of wood for our woodstove that were given to us. You can see why he was ready to go back to work for a break!

All in all it was a good weekend and now the rain is back so the girls and I are busy making strawberry jam with some strawberries that we picked and froze this summer. We will have to convince B#3 to make us some of her yummy biscuits to go with it for an afternoon snack:)

Just in case you didn't know the facts...like me

Serving Time for Serving Others


In the last 18 days, the impression given by news reports out of Haiti , has turned a group of well-intentioned Baptists into the villains of an elaborate plot to kidnap Haitian children for money. This couldn't be more wrong. As more facts surface about the incident, it is becoming clear that this team of missionaries wasn't operating outside the law at all. Instead, this group was the victim of a local government in complete and utter shambles. Thanks to our friends at the Liberty Institute, which is representing one of the men on the trip, the team did apply to take the children to the Dominican Republic and even passed through the appropriate checkpoints.

Unfortunately for the missionaries, their paperwork was never processed-mainly because the government was operating in a state of total disarray. When they finally did get to the border, officials told them they needed more documentation, so the group made a trip back to Port-au-Prince to "sort things out." They were arrested on the spot, despite statements from the children's parents that they consented to the team's care. As of today, these 10 members of the Central Valley and East Side Baptist Churches will have been in jail for more than two and a half weeks-without a peep from the U.S. State Department. Just to be clear, these are some of the worst prisons in the entire hemisphere. In fact, U.S. officials have called the Haitian cells the "sewers of hell" with conditions so deplorable that they violate the country's human rights obligations. Making matters worse, two of the team's members are just teenagers who joined the mission because they felt compelled to help.

Although a local judge granted a release to eight of the missionaries this afternoon, one is in the hospital and the other is still waiting for help from the American government. The fallout from this misunderstanding has been devastating for the children of Haiti, many of whom are in critical medical condition. International pilots and missionary organizations have suspended their airlifts for fear that they too will be arrested for kidnapping. With only a few kids a day reaching the U.S. for care, hundreds of others are dying--all because this group was wrongly accused. You can help! Contact your congressmen and ask them to intervene with the State Department and Haitian government--not only for the remaining Christians but for the sake of every hurting child.

Courtsey of Family Research Council

Daddy's new toy

My dear husband has been infatuated with the Hammered Dulcimer for about 20 years now. I can remember going to Bush Gardens in Virginia when we were in the military and sitting for a long time watching someone there playing the Hammered Dulcimer. I guess with the children getting instruments and trying to learn how, that encouraged him that he could do that too. So he sold some of his photography equipment and saved up to buy himself a dulcimer. It just came yesterday so he hasn't gotten to play it too much but I think he will pick it up rather quickly and the children just love it.

Happy Valentine's Day

B#2 loves to make things nice for holidays and she was definitely busy for this holiday. I think she knew that mom wasn't quite up to all the planning so she did it for me.


She made these nice hearts with verses on them for everyone in the family(except baby) and bought candy and seeds to go with them.


DH bought me these beautiful peach roses.

And just to show you how different we are....I bought him this funny balloon. Normally he would be the funny one, of course maybe that is why I thought of him when I saw the balloon. The little ones sure love it.

For lunch after church, she planned heart shaped pancakes. They turned out very cute, but with a family of 10 dad thought that might be quite alot of cutting so she made a plateful for us and then we had regular pancakes. I knew the guys in the family would need some protein so we also had sausage and bacon, along with some muffins that dad brought home last night from Costco. Needless to say, we are all stuffed and ready for napping.

If You Give a Mom a Muffin

If You Give A Mom A Muffin
(Based on "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" by Laura Numeroff)


If you give a Mom a muffin,
She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
She'll pour herself some.
The coffee will get spilled by her three year old.
She'll wipe it up.

Wiping the floor, she will find some dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do some laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,She'll trip over some snow boots and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan dinner for tonight.

She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She will look for her cookbook (101 Things to Make With a Pound of Hamburger).
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill which is due tomorrow.
She will look for her checkbook.

The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two year old.
She'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two year old.While she is changing the two year old the phone will ring.
Her four year old will answer it and hang up.

She remembers that she wants to phone a friend to come for coffee on Friday.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some.

And chances are......
If she has a cup of coffee......
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it
Author: Kathy Fictorie

Children are so much fun!

Someone at church accused me of buying these two shirts...would I do something like that?

B#8 takes after his oldest brother and decides to walk at 10 months.

Feet

I love feet...well, not everyones feet. But I love my children's feet. DH has taken several pictures for me of the children's feet all lined up but before we make the big canvas print that we want to hang we realize that the picture is already obsolete, missing the next baby's feet. I have one from when we had four children and this one from when we had 6 children. I am not sure when we will take a new one.

These are B#8's little feet when he was just a few months old. What little block feet he had!

These are B#7's feet. Aren't they sweet? Or is that something that only a mother thinks?

B#7 decided to be silly during school last week and we couldn't resist stopping what we were doing to take a picture.

Boy, this one was taken such a long time ago that I can't even tell whose feet are whose.

Well now you know a strange fact about me....I love feet.

Changes

Although Sundays are generally a day of rest after church at our house, today was a rather busy day. We learned a few days ago that due to a recall of about 1 million baby cribs, we were going to have to make some changes to our little ones cribs. So today dad and I decided that would cement the decision to move B#7 into a toddler bed. So dad got busy turning his crib into a toddler bed. Tonight should be interesting, seeing how he will do in it. He is very much a creature of habit and doesn't like anything in his room to be different or he has trouble falling asleep so tonight will be a challenge for him. He seems excited about it though, so we shall see.

Also, we have been talking for a little while about getting a second oven but were unsure as to where we would install one or even whether we could install one so off we went to Lowes to see what all our choices would be when we were ready. We found these neat ones that have two ovens on the front which took care of the need to figure out where to install a second oven. Unfortunately, the price tag was quite prohibitive. That just tells me two things....pray about it and then start checking Craigslist. We get most big ticket things from there so that we do not have to pay full price for something that is still in good shape. After checking for a bit I found this stove within an hours driving distance from home and since I needed to go that way anyway to get tires put on the big van, DH said I should go take a look and use my own judgement about it. It is in great shape and was 1/3 of the cost of a new one. It should serve our big family well. So today after putting the bed together, DH and the kids brought the "new" stove in and DH helped me to start cleaning up the "old" stove(which is the same age as the "new" stove) so that we can try to sell ours on craigslist.

Despite the bad picture, it is a white stove, not a harvest gold one:)

Anyway, all in all it was a busy day for our family. We hope your family had a great Lord's Day today.

A Day at the Museum

One of our local museums had a teacher day yesterday and that included homeschool teachers and their families so we decided it was worth the drive to go. We had a pretty good time. Most of the children went on the submarine with dad, watched a planetarium show and went to see an IMAX movie about Lewis and Clark. While doing those things B#2 and I enjoyed some time in the Science Playground with the two little ones, who were thrilled to finally get out of their strollers and move about some.

Before we went to the museum we went to eat at a restaraunt, a rare treat, with another family. It did take them a while to get a table ready for 19 of us but the food was good and they were very gracious. If I were a better photographer you would be able to see more of the party than just the dads.

B#6 in some sort of space thing where you sit upside down. Aren't I just real space knowledgeable? I leave that part to dad.

B#5's favorite thing seemed to be the water rockets.

B#7's favorite thing was the sand play area.

B#8 had a great time crawling around, playing with stuff, putting all manner of toys in his mouth(UGH), and seeing these big fish.

B#3 usually tries to escape the camera but I got her here.

Dad and some of the children got on this spinny thing that simulates g-forces on your body like astronauts experience. We were all just praying that he kept his lunch down.

B#2 somehow manages to knit while walking so she helped push strollers. B#1 had to go to school so he wasn't able to go and B#4 somehow managed to dodge the camera. All in all a good time was had by everyone and I can't imagine how much it would have cost a family our size to go to this museum and do the extra things that were made available to us for this visit. It was a blessing from the Lord to be able to go.