It's Over

Well it is officially over....Dear Hubby's sabbatical that is. It hasn't been too hard of a transition not having him home but the first day was definitely the hardest. He went back to work on my "grocery day", of all days. But I must admit that my bill was less:)

We had a good time while he was off, nothing huge and dramatic like a cruise or a trip to Europe like most people on sabbatical seem to do but we enjoyed lots of family time. My to-do list is still mostly undone but that is okay. It will still be there and waiting when the time comes to get to it.

Some of the things that we did were...hiking, skating, park days, went to Washington state for about 5 days, bowling, celebrated Easter, Mother's Day, and two birthdays, relaxed at home, went to friends homes for meals, dad and B#4 went kayaking, got new goats, tilled the garden several times, took dad to the huge library in Salem...I am sure there was more but that is all that comes to my tired brain right now.

Here is B#3, B#2 pushing B#7 in a stroller and a family friend(in the green shirt) having fun skating.

Dad, all the girls and Jacob went hiking up a big mountain with some other families. Here are the girls with some of their friends riding on a futon in the back of an old school bus. They actually bent the futon frame while going over rough roads. Good thing mom didn't know that they weren't buckled on the ride.

We went for a hike as a family on the way to the coast about 30 minutes or so from home. That was a difficult hike for a few of us!

All in all we are so thankful that DH job allows a two month break from work every seven years. I look forward to the next one but it makes me so sad to realize how old the children will be when that time comes:(

Don't you know what causes that?

Being parents of 8, going on 9 children, we get alot of unasked for comments. Recently I was in the grocery store with just B#8 when someone whom we have known for years commented on my pregnant state by asking me....Haven't you figured out what causes that? My answer to him was " Yes, the Lord". I guess I kind of expect those comments from strangers but coming from someone that we used to go to church with kind of threw me. So I thought I would do a post on why we do what we do...

First and foremost, we are followers of Jesus Christ and we believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and is still relevant for believers today. Having said that let me share with you some scriptures that sum up what we believe about children....

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord;
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one's youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127:3-5

How many of us would more than welcome gifts and blessings from the Lord if it came in the form of money? But we all know that money does not bring happiness. Many times we hear of people who won the lottery, that it ruined their life or their marriages. Yet the Lord, creator of us all, in whose image we are created, says that children are a gift, a reward! I expect that the Creator of the Universe knows much more than us which of the two(children or money) is truly a blessing and a reward. Now I am not saying that we believe that everyone must have as many children as we have. I am saying that for my husband and I, we have come to believe that we should welcome whatever number of blessings the Lord chooses to entrust us with. Do I have all the faith right this moment to be completely on board with it if the Lord give us 10 or even more??? No, I can't say that. I believe that He gives us the faith for each child as He brings them into our family. One of my favorite hymns is "Trust and Obey". It says...trust and obey, for there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey.

So that is what we are doing. We are trusting God to provide for each little one He brings us and we obey what we feel the Scriptures are telling us.

I like what King David said in Psalm 37:25-26 : I have been young and now I am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Or his descendants begging bread. All day long he is gracious and lends; And his descendants are a blessing.

Big Families...the new Green

I read this article on one of the blogs that I follow...written from a Catholic perspective, which we are not...but funny and interesting.

Got a big family? Then you already know that you’re crazy, a traitor to feminism, and a slave to the pope; you’re neglecting most of your kids and robbing the rest of their childhood; you’re a burden on the system in general, and you probably don’t own a television set.
But wait, there’s more! Don’t forget, you’re also destroying the earth.

Lately, it’s become fashionable for radical environmentalists to denounce large families as irresponsible, even selfish. Maybe you heard the remarks of the chairman of the U.K.’s Sustainable Development Commission, who said that, out of respect for the earth, couples should be legally limited to bearing two “replacement” children.

And yet, if we can get beyond the inflammatory rhetoric, do radical environmentalists have a point? Should we slow down a little? It almost seems like common sense, especially when you’re having one of those days when you do feel a little crowded by the swarms of ravening locusts — uh, I mean, treasured offspring who share your last name.

After all, aren’t Catholics supposed to be good stewards of the earth? Isn’t it true that we “lotsas” are using more than our share of natural resources, burning more than our share of carbon, and just plain taking up too much space?

Probably not. Moms of many already know that the work of caring for seven children is not the same as caring for one child times seven. In some ways, it’s easier. In the same way, many large families actually have a small-er carbon footprint than a typical family with one or two kids. A household of nine is not like a household of three times three. It just doesn’t work that way.

Moreover, when larger families do have an environmentally friendly profile, it often occurs naturally as a result of the family’s large size, not despite it. It’s not the num-bers that count; it’s the lifestyle.

HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES:

Cars Count

Let’s start with that enormous van we drive — could it be eco-friendly? Sure. It’s certainly not fuel efficient; it’s just that it’s usually parked in the driveway. With eight kids in tow, I leave the house as close to zero times as possible, bringing our weekly mileage to less than half the national average. My husband has a small, fuel-efficient car, which we use if only a few kids are on board.

And how often do we fly? Well, the stewardess is still in therapy from the last time our family boarded a plane together, about eight years ago.

Economy Size

How about electricity? Do nine people use more than three or four? Not necessarily. Six kids playing Dinosaur Wedding do it by the light of a single light bulb, just like one or two kids would. Two or three kids fit in a bathtub at a time. The oven stays on 350 degrees for 45 minutes, no matter how big the meatloaf.

Cozy Quarters

Most large families I know don’t live in energy-hogging gigantic mansions. They live in normal houses, they’re a little crowded, and they have lots of bunk beds. (They do, however, tend to go for big yards, lots of trees, and gardens. Natural wildlife preserves, you might say.)

Reduce and Re-use

Many large families also live with tight budgets. We happily trade a second income for another armful of babies. The quick and easy methods of saving the environment that make the news daily are hardly news to cash-strapped families: Turn down the heat, insulate, avoid anything disposable, buy in bulk, cook from scratch, breastfeed, don’t eat out, don’t waste this, don’t buy that. Turn out the light, close the door, unplug it, wash in cold water, make it do or do without. And if it does not get eaten for dinner, we serve it for lunch.
What a revelation! And so good for the earth.

Make Do

How about consumption of goods? I must admit that my family and many Catholic families I know are almost complete failures as consumers. Our house is mostly furnished, from the couch to the car to the pots and pans and coffee cups, with used goods. We are not, for the most part, consuming new pro-ducts, with all their attendant carbon costs in manufacture and transport. By taking in used things, we’re also preventing an entire houseful of stuff from clogging up the landfills.

Pass It On

Large families tend to buy used clothes, books, and toys, but we hang onto them, passing them down from child to child and even to family. The thermal onesie on my baby today? It started life keeping my nephew and niece warm, then went on to clothe every one of my eight kids so far.

Our family of 10 usually produces only three kitchen-sized bags of trash per week.
If you’re still feeling a little eco-guilt, go ahead and plug your own family’s stats into one of the many carbon calculators available online (try SafeClimate.net). You may be surprised at how “be fruitful and multiply” translates quite naturally into treading lightly on the earth.
According to the first three carbon calculators that Google turned up, my family of 10 consumes and emits less than the national average … the national average, that is, for a family of two. And we were just trying to get through the week.

What the Future Holds

This is all very well, some will say, as long as your many children all live with you in your shoe. You may be very thrifty today, but what about when they all grow up and move out? More people is more people, no matter how you slice it.

For this argument, I have two answers. First is that grown children of large families tend to be what you might call natural conservationists. Children who grow up one of many are likely to have learned that they’ll survive without buying stuff, that itokay to share, that material things come and go, and that, like it or not, we all depend on each other for survival.
So who will I be sending out into the world? A small crowd of perfect environmentalists.
Second, children of families that are open to life also know something much more important, something that rabidly utilitarian environmentalists still don’t seem to realize: A human soul is more than the sum of how many kilowatts he consumes.

Evangelize an Environmentalist

What can we say to people who do not realize that the human family is the very seat of love, and that procreation is the ultimate human imitation of the action of the Holy Trinity?
There is nothing you can say. Satisfy yourself that you’re not being wasteful, and then answer not the fool according to his folly. Love your children, and teach them to love each other; and if you and your brood feel like a sign of contradiction, then that’s a good sign.
The Catholic Church has been teaching this lifestyle for thousands of years. There is no contradiction between loving and caring for the earth and supplying it with inhabitants: We are commanded to do both.

Was it short-sighted when God the Father explained these things to Adam? Was it hyperbole when Christ asked, “What does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul?”
‘A Great Big Yes’

Our beloved Benedict XVI recently said of big families:

“Their Yes to one another in the patience of the journey and in the strength of the sacrament with which Christ had bound them together, had become a great Yes to themselves, their children, to God the Creator and to the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Thus, from the witness of these families a wave of joy reached us, not a superficial and scant gaiety that is all too soon dispelled, but a joy that developed also in suffering, a joy that reaches down to the depths and truly redeems man.”

Of course it’s Catholic to be an environmentalist. Of course it’s our job to care for the earth. But even more, it’s our job to remember, and to teach our children, that this world will not last, and to live accordingly.

“All flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass; the grass withered, and the flower has fallen — but the word of the Lord endures forever” (Isaiah 40:6).
How will it endure, if there is no one to hear it? Let us answer the No of child-fearing radicals with a joyful and ancient Yes. The world needs big families.

Simcha Fisher enjoys the “green” life with her husband and eight children in New Hampshire.

I recently had my 38th birthday. It was a good day. We had two families over to celebrate with. All together between the three families we had 29 people here for dinner. Believe it or not, my kitchen was clean within the hour of us eating:). Before they left someone had the bright idea that the three of us moms should try out the trampoline. Not really sure that is advisable during pregnancy so we opted for some pictures of us "jumping" on the trampoline.

Encouragement for our daily walk

What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and FAITH from which the obedience and the work flow.

Martin Luther

Big brother, little brother...

Easter

Yes, I know that Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, was awhile ago but I am a bit slow on the blogging of late so I am just now getting around to trying to catch up. What we have tried to do in the past is to give the children one large "basket" on the first day of spring and also to dye our eggs that day as well. We feel that most of those kinds of things pertain more to Spring than to Resurrection Sunday. But this year we were traveling on the first day of spring and then once we got home it was time to celebrate B#1's birthday so we did end up doing our "spring" things on Easter.

This year DH and I decided to get the children a trampoline which they have asked for for years now. It took alot of convincing for dad to go for it but we felt it would be something the whole family could use for a long time to come. We did a scavenger hunt for them to find certain letters which would lead them to the hall closet where each child had a Reeses Peanut butter egg along with a very personalized clue that would lead each of them to another letter. They had to put those letters together to spell the hiding place of the gift(trampoline) which ended up being across the road where our spring water comes from. I think they were all pleased with the gift.

The two teams trying to figure out their clues.

B#1 got to be one of the first ones on it.

B#5 & B#6 just love it and spend alot of their free time out there.

Here we are making Resurrection rolls the night before Easter. They are really simple to make and very tasty, just make sure you cook them long enough to get the full effect. You take marshmallows and roll them in melted butter(to illustrate the oil that annointed Jesus) and then in cinnamon and sugar(to illustrate the spices that they used to prepare Jesus for burial), then you wrap the marshmallow with a crescent roll being sure to pinch the edges closed as well as possible. The crescent rolls are supposed to be the tomb where they lay Jesus body. You cook them for about 10 minutes or so. Once they are cooked and cooled some you eat them and when you eat them you get a surprise....the marshmallow(Jesus) isn't there any more! He is risen! You can Google resurrection rolls is you are interested in trying these and would like more details than I have provided.

Hope you had a blessed Resurrectin Sunday...and remember it's not about bunnies at all:)