Where does the time go?

Boy, it has been awhile since I posted last. So sorry! I just do not know where the days go. I think that as we get older time just seems to fly by. Don't you remember as a child how very slowly time seemed to pass, especially if you were waiting for your birthday or Christmas? Well now when I read a sign as I pass through town that says there are only 50 days till Christmas it causes me to shudder. Of course now it isn't even 50. Oh well, we should just be thankful for each and every day that the Good Lord gives us with our families. Anyway, I digress. I wanted to post a few pictures on here for you of things we have been up to lately.


B#2 got her braces off on the 4th of November. FINALLY!!! She also had an email from our local high school asking if she would be interested in teaching Spinning(fiber spinning that is) to the after school program. We are still waiting to hear about the particulars of it before we commit to it.

Dearest Daddy had a birthday on the same day that B#2 got her braces off. What a busy day that was. Instead of being able to relax with us for the day he had to be working on burying the pipe that carries us our water. Pretty important work there! We are so blessed with a fun and faithful daddy who gets up super early, while we all still snooze, to go to work to provide for us. We are so thankful for him!

B#5 had a birthday on the 31st of October. It is so nice having a child's birthday on that day. It gives us a really great reason to not have to celebrate the secular day of Halloween. He got a huge KNEX set, a headlamp and some much needed rain boots.

For B#5's birthday, we went to a Children's Museum. Here are the girls on "The Big Chair". B#6 wasn't too happy about being up there but once she got to playing at the museum all was fine. She convinced me to go down the huge, swirly slide. Boy was it dark in there.

B#1 generously offered to backpack the baby for me while we were at the Children's Museum. The baby loves the backpack enough to fall asleep while he is in there. Thank goodness for big strong guys in the family(oh and B#3 too) who can pack that little chub around.

Here is Dad inside a bubble.

Isn't he just a cutey? Baby(B#8) has grown so much in the last couple of weeks. He is crawling everywhere, getting in to everything and has started pulling up on furniture already. He is starting to creep along the furniture a little too. I am hoping that he does not follow in Biggest Brother's footsteps and be walking by 10 months but it wouldn't surprise me.

And then there is B#7 who is the ham of all of them. Not a day goes by without him doing something hilarious. As B#2 often says "Having a two year old is such fun".

The Marriage Conference

Dear Hubby and I had a nice treat from an anonymous donor....a weekend away at a marriage conference. Now don't go getting all worried that we are having marital difficulties:) It was actually offered to all of our church's deacons and wives and our two pastors and their wives. The first day got off to a rough start as we hit downtown rush hour traffic. It took us about two hours to go what should have taken about 30 minutes. The Lord is so good though, the baby slept or played quietly in his car seat the whole time. Once we got there and got settled in to our room we were able to join the conference which was already going on. We missed alot the first day but some friends of ours that went got us caught up that night. The next day we were able to be in there the whole time except for little bits out with baby. It was a really good conference and I would love to go to it again to get the whole thing in. It was put on by Noble Call Ministries. Maybe you would like to go to one to strengthen you marriage. Check them out at www.noblecall.org. May the Lord bless each one of your marriages.

Look Who's Two

B#7 turned two a few days ago. He is just getting too big. We are so sad about that. He is talking up a storm all of the sudden. Oh, why can't they stay little???

Fishin' for Chicken

B#7 found his brother's fish net and decided to go catch some chickens with it. Life would be kinda boring without him around:)

First Day of School

Well, Friday was our first day of school. Already I can see that changes need to be made to the daily schedule that I made for us. We started way too late to get it all in so tomorrow we will start earlier. We are trying a different curriculum this year and so far the kids seem to be liking it, at least B#3. She was wanting more geography and history. To end up the day we made "bugs on a log". I thought this version was much yummier than the usual celery, raisin, and peanutbutter. We used pretzel rods, m&ms and peanut butter. B#2 broke out the Nutella and that was even better than peanut butter. If you aren't familiar with Nutella you really should try it. You can find it near the peanut butter at the grocery store.

What is it and what should I do with it?

Yesterday for B#3's birthday we girls had a girls day out, along with baby of course. While we were at one of the fabric stores in town I spotted this brown thing. I have no idea what it is but I liked it so I decided to ask one of the ladies who works there what they were going to do with it. She told me I could take it if I wanted it and even had some guys load it into my van for me. Good thing I have this huge van:) Of course B#1 thinks that most of the things that I like should be food for our wood stove but I like it. So now my quandry is..."what should I do with it?" The shelves are slanted so it wouldn't work as a book case unless I lay books down on it so you can see the fronts. I thought I could pound out the small wooden pieces that split up the shelves but again...what is my goal? So I thought I would ask for suggestions from my readers and see what we can come up with. Leave me a comment or just plain email me if you have my address. I can't wait to hear some great suggestions.