D is for Day

D is for so many things, actually. D is for Dentist, where two of my kids had appointments today.

D is for Deciding to walk next door to the grocery store with the other kids and pick up a picnic lunch so we could go to the park and hang out with friends.



It was a lovely sunny Day, and it was so nice to sit and chat with other moms, since we'd been cooped up for so long with the Chicken Pox. My kids needed time with their friends, too.



D is for Dashing home so Annaliese could change for softball practice (first time since quarantine!) and Dashing to the school to Drop her off. And then Dashing back home for a very quick nap before leaving to pick her up again.

D is for Diane Mott Davidson, author of the book Crunch Time, which I took with me to sit and read while waiting for Annaliese after practice was over.

D is for Delicious, the Orange Chicken I picked up at Panda Express when Ese and her friend Mandy wanted to be dropped off at Subway after practice.

D is for Disappointing, the kids' CAT test scores have arrived in the mail, and, well, they're not brilliant test takers, that's for certain. I know they are each amazing in their own ways, but it would be nice to have that external validation once in a while that says, Hey, you're doing a great job homeschooling! Look at how much they've learned! I guess not.



D is for 'Do, Hannah's crazy, after-bath hairdo, that is.



D is for Duma, tonight's Netflix movie for the kids.

And D is for DONE! This mama is looking forward to bedtime!

C is for China

Someday, when this little girl is ready for a heritage visit...



I'm going to go back.



Although we saw some pretty amazing things while we were there, I want to see this next time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army



China was the most amazing trip I've ever taken.



And while I brought home a pretty great "souveneir," I left a piece of my heart behind.



I long to go back.

B is for Birthday!

My precious baby boy is 8 today.



Eight! I still see him like this.



(It's hard to take someone seriously when you have a picture of them sitting in your toilet.)

Today's birthday plans included a trip to the mall for pictures for the youngest 3 kids. After our photo shoot and stopping at the candy store for their bribery payoffs, if was off to the Lego store!



"Mama, can we go in thisa one?"



Yes, baby girl. We go in thisa one.



Furby picked out his birthday present Lego set. Then one of the teens suggested lunch here:



Ummm! Yes, please! I had the Tostada Pizza with steak, and it was very yummy. (Actually, I had 2 pieces, Eli had one, as well as his own whole kids meal, and I brought the other half home for later.)



During the wait for our food, I brought out the mystery mini figures and passed them out.



We ended up with 2 doctors, a skater, a fan dancer, an astronaut, and a bandit.


And a special dessert for the birthday boy (while I passed out another round of bribery candy from Sweet Factory to the rest of the gang).

When we got home, Brianna and I finished decorating the cake that she baked last night. I frosted and we both added Peeps and Peanut Butter M&Ms. Furby LOVES peanut butter.




While us girls did that, the boys were upstairs assembling the new set. Here it is!



I'm going to miss my 7 year old boy.

But I look forward to seeing what the coming year will bring for my big, eight year old boy. Love you, baby.

A is for AtoZ Challenge

A is an Amazing letter. So many things came to mind to blog about today.

A is for Annaliese, my Awesome first daughter.

A is for April, a month rapidly filling with Appointments.

And of course, A is for Adoption.

And Adorable.

But instead of any of these, I'll start by explaining that A is for the A to Z Challenge that I'm participating in this month. It's a blog roll. Every day in April, with the exception of Sundays after today, almost 2,000 bloggers will all be blogging about the topic they choose by the same letter. Tomorrow is B, Tuesday is C, etc. It will be a challenge for me to post almost every day. I'm up for a challenge, though. After all, I live with these guys:

You ever try to get 7 kids to snuggle up, look at the camera, and SMILE at the same time?? Talk about a challenge!

So if you're curious, click on the button in the sidebar and check out some of the other blogs participating in the A to Z Challenge this month. And come back tomorrow where B is for BIRTHDAY!

They're so cute when they're sleeping.

Brianna fell asleep knitting the other night. I pulled the needles and yarn out of her hands after taking the picture.

And since I just happened to have a sleeping picture of Hannah in the same folder, I thought I'd share that one, too.

Another picture project

Here are my supplies for my latest picture project.

I'm starting to wonder if this will go down as Year of the Pictures. 2011 was Year of the Surgeries, with 3 different kids having 3 different surgeries, and the accompanying dozens of medical appointments that went with them. 2010 was the Year of the Adoption, which the kids will remember as the "not this year" year. I have at least one more big picture project planned, and I'm kicking around another idea after that.



This chaos shows my pile of envelopes of pictures. This is what happens when you have over 100 picture appointments/school picture days in a span of 2 decades. You can also see in the background that I'm multi-tasking. I have YouVersion going on the iPad. I made it through Numbers 14 today.



These envelopes are full of leftover portraits. They used to live in a bookcase in the old house, but they moved to the scrapbooking drawers in the move.



One hanging file for each child, and one marked "family." All the 8x10" photos go in the hanging file, and all the smaller photos go inside the purple file folder inside the hanging file.



Old family pictures. Where did the time go? Look at those cute little kids!

From sibling pictures to sports pictures.



Pictures from Ballet and Girl Scout Camp.



The pictures I sorted represented the progression from generic babyhood, through the formative preschool years, as you start to see the varied personalities emerge. Nostalgia and pride welled within me as strolled down memory lane.

Now that I have all these sorted, I could put the 8x10s into the kids' baby albums. And I might get to that at some point. But I'm pretty darn happy just to have them all sorted. Now the next time one of the kids needs a baby picture for something, I'll know right where to find one.



And when it was all over I had a whole trash can full of envelopes! It's Hannah's job to empty the wastebaskets into the main kitchen trash every day after naps, and I was expecting her to go "drama queen" on me and complain about how full it was this time, but she's quite a trooper, and did just fine with it.

Fro-yo, yes; orange, NO!

A little decorating in The Great Room.

We have a great house. In this great house, we have a Great Room. A big, open, play space that also serves as our dining room. It even has built in shelves next to the fireplace.

Currently, the shelves are full of playthings and random stuff that was packed in boxes marked "living room" when we moved. All the games are here. The playsilks, the ribbon sticks & tamborines, etc. The top shelves contain our family albums and the kids' baby books, albums, and first year calendars. (Okay, 2 or 3 first year calendars. Kid 5 and kid 7 have calendars in their baby books, and the rest of them, well... I hope they understand.) See the giant photo album in the middle/right of the center shelf? That's the first 3 years of Zach's life. Poor Furby didn't need a single extension pack in his album.



Here is the great room from standing in the kitchen. The long line of photos on the back wall is the kids' "current" pictures. School pictures, birthday portraits from JCPenney, etc. Zach's military photo is the oldest, taken 2 years ago.



And here is the view of the kitchen from the middle of the great room.



Next to the shelves is the fireplace. The purple bucket is full of dress ups. All the wheeled toys live on the tile in front of the fireplace. Then there's the Duplo table.



Next comes Hannah's kitchen set. The kids have already broken the blue chair, and she just got it for Christmas. :( Josiah and I glued it, but it's ugly.

Then the Playmobil, train set, and Little People buckets, next to the train table.



This is the dining area. Sorry it's so dark. The other shot I took from the end of the table flashed off of the napkin basket and was really washed out.

The kids and I did something exciting this morning! I'm so thrilled with it. Paul asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I told him, "Ten matching picture frames!" "Ten?" he asked. Hey, he asked what I wanted. I have high hopes. So, he got me these frames for my birthday. (The other two are in my hope chest for now.) The wall sign was a Groupon-type deal where I ended up getting 2 signs (the other will be going up in my room) for $17. They arrived last week, and I asked Josiah to help me put them up.

Please excuse the Hello Kitty nightgown that I made 10+ years ago and the Saturday morning hair.


I'm delighted with how it turned out! Baby pictures of all the kids, in order.

Once we were done, and stepped back to admire our handiwork, I noticed that there's the perfect space under Samuel, should we need to move Brianna up into that empty area and scoot the youngest 3 over to the left a space to make room for another frame someday. Just in case.