What were we up to today?

Daniel's fun thing for today was listening to a CD, while in bed.



Emily is all about her hair. She enjoys looking good for any occasion. Today she worked hard on straightening her hair so that she could go....swimming in the lake!



Lauren and Amy's newest passion is making pot holders!!! They are very creative and quiet when they are doing these!! If anyone out there has extra pieces for a loom sitting around, my family would love them. Even Daniel has gotten into making these things. In fact we now have SO many pot holders in our house that many of you will be getting one for Christmas!!





Joel loves to have a HAMMER (or hanger in Joel language) in his hand at all times. I won't tattle on him and tell you some of the more creative places he has hammered. I will tell you though that he has gotten the hammer taken away more than once.

The night at the beach

Here are some pictures of the beach tonight. I tried to get some pictures this afternoon, but we were not there very long at all. Within a half hour of being there, we were put under another tornado warning. We fled from the beach and went into one of the basements. Yippee!!
Since we were not at the beach very long today, I felt obligated to take the children tonight. We went while Jeff was playing soccer with all the dads. It ended up that I was not alone at the beach. There were lots of moms and kids there. It was quite a blast!!



No, I did not forget to type the part from that book. I was just to lazy to do it!! I will really try to get to it tomorrow.

end of the SCHOOL YEAR party!!!

I am one HAPPY mommy!!! NO SCHOOL for TWO WHOLE MONTHS!!! This may sound awful, but I live for summer break! It means that I can relax for two months, I hardly see the children, and I don't have to stay in my house for hours/days on end!! YIPPEE!!!!
Today was our celebration of the beginning of our break. The party was enjoyed by all. Here are some random shots taken during the time together.




We had 35 people in all....8 adults and 27 children. All those children belonged to only 8 families and not all the children from those 8 families were even there! It was such a wonderful day!! I wish that we could do it again tomorrow!!!

The joys of chores

We have consistently been doing chores for a long time now. Each of the four older children have specific chores that are assigned to them.

• Lauren- dishes
• Emily- vacuuming/ folding laundry
• Daniel- trash/ folding laundry
• Amy- shake out rugs/ clean bathroom sinks and counters/ put away dishes

Things have gotten pretty messy around the house. The children have not been doing their chores diligently. I love to have my house clean, but I am not a drill Sergent. I will let the kids go out and play before certain chores are done and then.......they never get done. I have prayed for a a new way to do chores so that they would have fun and get the work done! Last week I found a great idea in a magazine. Today was our first day to implement the new plan.......and I am loving it!!!

Here is the plan: Write each chore on a craft stick/ or a piece of paper. Put them in a cup. Put a blank or two in there also!! Make sure that there is an even number for all people involved. The children get to "draw"out what chores they are going to do that day!! At our house I put chores in for me to do too! The children were SO excited that I was "doing chores" with them. I just put some of my normal daily things on the list of chores and now I get some variety too. It was very fun for all involved and they got their chores done in record time!!

Do you have any other ideas to share with us? Please leave a comment!! I will post about the ideas, if......you give me enough good ones!!

Cookie Fun

We made cookies the other day. Our old stove did not have a window for the children to look into, but our new stove does! I think that the children had just as much fun watching the cookies bake as they did putting frosting on them.

We did not frost them alone. We had some friends over for dinner and the children decorated our dessert. We did this down at the lodge, because there just was not enough room in my house for everybody! There were a total of 11 children decorating at one time. It was so much fun.

A new blog

The children have started their own blog. I will STRESS in this post and probably lots of times in the future.....the opinions posted in the children's blog does not necessarily reflect the opinion's of their parents!! With that stated you may now go read what Lauren wrote today. Please leave her a comment! She would be thrilled.

Random pictures from this week

Two of my favorite girls doing dishes together. They were working SO nicely with each other that I just had to take a picture. Now I will add that these dishes were Lauren's responsibility, so she HAD to be nice in order for Amy to want to help her!! This momma will take working together how ever and when ever she can get it!!

Joel actually eating something. This has not been a good eating week for him. He is eating applesauce in this picture. If you notice, he is not eating in his high chair. I must not have been home when this picture was taken, because walking around eating applesauce is very messy. I know this because I found the mess after the fact. Whomever took this picture conveniently did not take a picture of the mess all over the couch!














Daniel has been such a delight this week. I just needed to take this picture, so that I could remember this stage.......just in case it doesn't last!!















Emily playing a computer game with her favorite companion glued to her lap. These two have a VERY special bond. Emily is an excellent little mommy. One thing is for sure, if I die Joel will be very well taken care of!

My special time away

Today was a Tea Time for the ladies at our church. It was such a special time. Not only did I get to sit next to one of my favorite people.....Lisa Smith, but I was not interrupted, tattled too, or asked, "Mommy, what can I eat?" for almost THREE HOURS!!! It was wonderful!!



The food was so elegant looking. I say looking, because I couldn't eat a thing!! I was very good. I took my two point granola bar and my water.



Here is a picture of Jeff's favorite friend at church. She makes it a point to come and talk to us EVERYTIME she sees us. Jeff really enjoys seeing her. He asks her about her week and she tells him all about it. We all just love Miss Dorthy.


While I was having fun with my friends, the rest of the family was busy doing their own things.

• Lauren spent the afternoon playing with three young children, so that their very sick, pregnant mom could rest!! She was a huge blessing to this family. The mom was able to take a much needed two hour nap. I am so proud of Lauren's willingness to do this without ANY expectation of being paid!! I love to see my children serving others. (By the way she is getting paid, we just didn't know it at the time!)
• Jeff was cooking ALL day at the lodge. He never made it home once today until 7:30 tonight.
• Emily was home "in charge" of the rest of the clan. She did a great job as usual.
• Daniel and Amy spent most of the time outside playing in the snow.
• Joel took a long nap and watched "Stines" (Little Einsteins) the rest of the afternoon.

Dress up

Today, they dressed up as basketball players. Lauren and Joel are still wearing their outfits. I did put socks and jeans on Joel, because he just had to be freezing in this house dressed like that! I am freezing, even though I am dressed up like an Eskimo compared to them.



Amy dressed up as a waitress. She was having so much fun serving her family. Joel really enjoys pretending to eat whatever Amy gives him. Apparently it gets him in the mood to eat his real lunch, because he devoured everything put on his tray!!

Today has been an interesting day. The children got right to school and had a lot done early in the morning. It would have been a wonderful thing, if all of them would have had a great attitude though. This dress up time really took place because I was SO busy correcting a bad attitude. The girls went up stairs to "hide"/ keep busy while I was unavoidably attained! They have learned that I can correct/ discipline much better, if they are not making a lot of noise right in the next room!! Thank you girls for understanding your mommy's needs.
School is just about done and they are going OUTSIDE to play....like it or not! I will enjoy the peace and quiet while I clean something....anything just as long as it stays clean for longer than five minutes!!!
I started this post a few hours ago. It is now 2:45. I have had some peace and quiet. I am in the midst of cleaning six different things. I am a happy woman again!!! Sorry for the "venting"! Have a wonderful rest of the day.

Family fun!!

Jeff worked 20 hours this weekend, so today was his day off! We decided to have some family fun. This morning we did school and then after lunch we ALL went out to play in the snow.




This is basically what Joel did the entire time he was outside.....ate snow!!







This is the hill right out our front door. Not nearly as fun as the tubing hill though!!




Emily wasn't much into playing today. She laid in the snow A LOT!




Daniel just enjoyed being outside and NOT doing school! Which reminds me....he never did finish his school work for the day. His motto is....Do everything you can to avoid getting school done!

Lauren and I were out there, I promise! I never take pictures of myself and the picture of Lauren did not come out too well. I may not have a picture of me, but I do have an exact quote of mine while playing in the snow. I was being hit with snow balls and I yelled out for ALL to hear......Stop snowing throw balls!! We all had a great laugh and from then on snow balls were called throw balls! What a special day of making memories!

The "eyes" have it!

I took a whole bunch of pictures of the kids yesterday for my new blog header. I was messing around with the pictures and trimmed a picture of each child to show just their eyes. I thought that it would be fun to see if you can figure out who they are. Don't go ahead to the next one, until you have figured out the one you are on. It makes it much more fun that way!!! For those of you who do not know the names of each child, here they are......Emily, Amy, Daniel, Lauren and Joel. The answers are at the bottom of this post!


1.








2.









3.









4.










5.

We had fun with this at our house. Joel knew who everyone was. It was SO sweet!!!

Answers are....1. Daniel/ 2. Lauren/ 3. Amy/ 4. Joel/ 5. Emily

Please comment when you are done and tell me how many you got right.