Gotta Love 'Em

So tonight we discussed whether the wearing of t-shirts under a short sleeved polo (uniform) shirt makes one "cool" or merely makes one...

Hot.

And those socks some kids are wearing just don't come up past the ankle hips and are just too short. (Faith)


All the noise at supper was enough for 12 kids, poor Joe can't wait until all 3 of his sisters gang up on him..the youngest missed the point of the conversation, but she will catch on.

Long division and the learning of nouns, verbs, and adjectives have Faith in despair.

And since I won't go on a field trip where I've been voted as the "meanest mom"  ( I just don't feel like dealing with it) I will go to Indian Echo Caverns with the 3rd graders, they don't hold public elections yet.

Today I got my birthday gift...a land line with a blue tooth head set...Shekinah did wonder why anyone would have a tooth in their ear.

But, running beneath the surface is a build up of grief, we are praying that a young man can walk across the stage for his diploma in 24 days.

End of April

    Bought my first item off an online yard sale. Easy as pie...except when a policeman rolls in just as you are about to complete your "deal". Sort of relived that he seemed to be responding to an alarm at the bank next door.  Parker thinks grandma's house has suddenly become more interesting.

        Then suddenly she is a year older! She took me shopping on Saturday so she could pick out the various and sundry items that a PRE-teen girl likes, oh and we ate at McD's for lunch...cause we had a coupon.  Faith is busy planning her birthday outing.

    This time of the year we seem to have spring training in the back yard. I was sneaky and took some shots of the very serious business of who can jump the further-est.  If I would order them to jump into a sand pit and fall on their faces, they would gaze at me in SHOCK...especially the boy with the legs that hurt too bad to move swiftly at setting the table, and the girl whose feet hurt so bad and who went to bed early cause she was "very tired".

    At least they had fresh air and only a portion of the sand pit followed them into the house.
    I did have to ask that one would take off his legs and shake the sand out of his feet....they hold an
      amazing amount of sand in there!

Yard Sales

                              Did something I haven't done in a long time....went to a couple of yard sales.
                          I was very pleased with my finds...a Leap Pad for Shekinah's birthday and two bikes
                    the bikes were bought for the fine sum of two for $15. Both were bought at a local bike shop
                   known for their fine bikes. With minor repairs both are road worthy. The girls are very pleased.

   I'm hoping it warms up for sunrise services in the morning...first time for our family. Hope has an earache
  and Shekinah has been a grouch lately.  She has become a screamer! I despair that we will ever hear her
normal voice without the gruffness that she has acquired from screaming.  We even tried the "everyone else gets candy so we can handle the screams" she just screamed louder. So she had to stand on the porch (right outside the door)  then big brother rescued me and took her looking for flowers.  I'm wondering if she feels lost in the hubbub of everyone at home and needs to be noticed....

All Dressed Up

                              Guess these will be their Easter dresses as well as Spring Program dresses

                           Well maybe Miss Shekinah will get a dress that does not feature elephants

                                    we'll see how much time mom has this week.

You can tell who really wanted her picture taken and who didn't.

And yes the sweaters are from Pinterest here  and they really are

as easy as her directions look.  Just don't skimp on the pinning.

Working Under Pressure

There is nothing quite like realizing the Spring Program is scheduled
for Friday night and the 2 dresses that the girls "need" are still
yardage, to get you moving
Of course I can't just make 2 dresses these days anymore...little miss
needs a new one too! So the green elephant fabric will be hers.
And just to add some excitement, why not let the three-year-old handle
the "gas" while I guide the fabric past the needle, oh yes! that should
spice things up.

They Say the Craziest Things

I wish I had Dorcas Smucker's ability to turn the everyday comments of my family into an essay. I don't, so I'll just have to do a few "quote of the day" memories.

Last night they decided to show Joseph how marshmallows expand in the microwave.  They neglected to remember that you need to butter your dish or at least have chocolate and graham cracker beneath the marshmallow.  I put my marshmallow on top of a chocolate cookie and illustrated the principle. So as Ezekiel was scraping the last bits of marshmallow from his dish he was heard to mutter "So there are more than three ways to skin a flamingo."

At lunch time Shekinah and I usually share a glass of water (fewer dirty dishes) and according to one web site I'm improving her immunity.  The other day though she observed me taking a drink after she drank out of the cup, "Ha ha mama!" she chortled "You will grow up to be a Shekinah!"
I informed her that she will grow up to be a mama because I drank from the glass before she did.


At the supper table tonight, the boys were trying to come up with a more efficient way to do laundry. Plans involved chutes from the bathroom to the washer in the garage and another tube that employed suction to bring the wet laundry from the garage to the basement where the laundry usually dries in front of the wood stove. Joseph noted "someone really should make something to hang up the laundry."
I advised him, "they did already make something, they come as tiny little beings with arms and legs, you have to feed them for awhile and let them grow. AND SOMETIMES, they come as 10 year old boys..." I had to stop from the force of the rolling eyeballs.

My Happy Quilt

This quilt just makes me happy! Probably because I like red, oh and the
little girl in the picture makes me happy too.