The kinds of things that make my days un-dull...

The other day I took my little Ivy to the grocery store with me. Just Ivy. Our store has a shopping cart that looks like a race car. With multiple children, this ride is the source of many the grocery store disagreement. Little Ivy, all alone, giggled with her good fortune that day. In her happiness, she sang sweetly and unashamedly as she "steered" throughout the whole store, "I wuv Mommy; I wuv my mo-o-o-ommmmeeee....." while occasionally peeking back at me to smile proudly. I don't often do all my grocery shopping with a goofy sentimental grin spread across my face, but there it was that day, ear to ear.


Misha, mouth very full of banana managed to be aghast at Vitali's lack of manners, "VITALI! Do not talk food mouth!!!"

And--

After my shopping trip with Ivy where I had discovered yogurt on sale, Misha greeted me at the car to help me carry in bags. "OOOOOH! Yogurt! A LOT!" He exclaimed as I handed him a bag. When I followed him into the house, there he was, eagerly stacking it in the refrigerator with a song just bubbling out of him. "A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot...." The boys still get so excited to see the refrigerator and the fruit bowl full.
At our family reunion, Misha turned seven. Also, there was a gift shower for the new arrivals, including the three boys. Each gift was opened with huge enthusiasm! Once, Misha opened some clothing wrapped in a shirt box. Not realizing that the box held more, he cheered, "A BOX!!!!" and held it up for us all to admire. Vitali did the same thing. We thought it was a joke until they didn't open them. They just laid the precious treasures in their laps and admired them.

On Misha's birthday, he opened some flip-flop style shoes. I had tucked them together, end to end before wrapping them. When he opened them, he held up the little bundle, "ONE SHOE!!!" he cheered. We pointed out the second shoe tucked into the first and he was even more excited, "TWO SHOES!" Later, wearing his shoes on a car ride, he showed off his new shoes to a friend, "Look!" he said, proudly displaying his feet, "Shoes! Two!"

Family Reunion in Pigeon Forge Tennessee 2008

I think I'm first to get these pictures posted! Yay! We just got home on Monday and have finally awakened from our sleep-deprived fog so that I could post some pictures of our fabulous weekend together! Vitali loves Evan because Evan rough-houses with him a lot. Evan has been in Alabama for several weeks so we've missed him!

Man, this guy is handsome! I'm glad I'm related to him!

Here is my sister's new little guy. Steve held him a lot. He doesn't usually hold the babies so much but Jude is tiny and just feels cozy...or maybe he just misses holding little babies....?

Each family group wears a different color of shirt. Red was our color this year. Grandpa gets his own color. He chose to be bright yellow. He likes the contrast in the big group picture.

Unfortunately, the big group has a light flare throug all my shots! If any of you can decrease the exposure in just the middle, let me know. My software doesn't do that. Or, if you got this shot, I would like a copy. Grandpa likes to get it on his desktop for the year asap!

Here is the dignified pose of Grandpa and his children(except Michael, whose family was missing this year). But my favorite is the next one, despite the fact that the camera seems to have focussed on the tree instead of the faces.

See what I mean?

Sweet little Alexander made his first appearance at the reunion this year. Look at that hair. It is even softer than it looks. I couldn't resist petting it-- A LOT!

Alexander is Dan and Kari's newest. They are pictured below. Here with the ice-cream-cone cupcakes is little Owen. He's a big brother now! Isn't he a cutie?!

Okay, More later!

Father's Day '08

I took the kids shopping on Thursday. The boys had their gifts chosen within the first fifteen minutes but the girls took much longer. Two hours later, we left the store--each child proudly carrying The Perfect Gift! So far not a one of the boys has kept a gift secret until the moment of presentation but this time they made it!

On Father's Day morning, the kids all piled onto Steve in the bed waving their gift bags eagerly. "Open mine first!" they were all shouting cheerfully in unison.

While Steve opened his first gift which was from one of the girls, the boys could wait no longer and each whipped the gift from his bag, not bothering to let Steve do it himself, and waved it in Dad's face. This picture was taken just before the gift explosion!

After church we went to my mom and dad's house. My brother Nathan and his family were there and so were my sister Bethany and her family. Including Steve, my dad, my grandfather, my brother and my brother-in-law there were quite a few fathers there to honor!

My Dad

Misha and Steve.

Great Grandpa and Little Ivy Mae.

It was a good day. I will be posting more pictures on our adoption blog. You'll need to go over there to see my favorite gift, the one from Vitali!

A few random photos

Ivy and Vitali enjoying suckers from Aunt Mary.

My Hannah, age eight for a few more months.

Annette.
One of the last few pictures of her with both front teeth.
They are both wiggly and won't last long!


Swimming at the lake. Our heat wave has finally ended but we took several trips to a little beach that is only moments from our house to cool off. This was the first time we went. All the kids love the water as you can see but no one enjoys it as much as Max! He loves to play in water, be it the lake or a pool or even a little one-foot wading pool, he will play in it until I call him for bed!

Misha is crying because Steve is pushing him to walk out deeper and to trust him. Misha has some "sensory issues"and without going into it, pools and the lake caused hysterics at first. It isn't the same as the two-year-old who spends the first three trips to the pool hanging out on the steps; it's its own kind of hysterical. Anyway, now, only a few weeks since his first foray into a pool, he laughs and asks for more when Steve tosses the kids into the water! In fact, we are seeing less and less of the issues that have plagued him!


More water! Here are all of my children and two of their friends practicing synchronized jumping into the friends' subdivision pool. Kids, left to right: Ivy, Annette, Misha (see how well he is doing now?!), Vitali, our friend Neil, Hannah and her friend Rachel, and finally, Max. Max looks like he's sitting in the chair but it's an illusion; he's really in mid-air! Ivy is the only one still afraid to jump.

Good, clean excitement.

Yahooooo! My new washer is here!!
We ended up getting a front loader that has a huge capacity, a Whirlpool Duet. (although we only have a "solo" since we felt we shouldn't spring for the dryer just yet.) It will use far less water than our old one and that will be good for our septic and our well. It's also stackable which will be great at what time we do end up getting the matching dryer.

That picture of Ivy has nothing to do with this post; but it was funny and I am feeling a bit giddy! I guess that means I am old and responsible since household appliances thrill me so much. ;-)

Today Annette asked me:
"Mom, how can your eyes fall out in your mom's tummy?" Yeah, it didn't make any sense to me, either.
Turns out she was wondering about Uncle Josh's dog, who was born without eyes, or an eye, I don't' know which. So, I explained to her that they don't fall out, they just never grow. Like how some people are born without an arm. It doesn't fall off; it just never grows.
"But Mom!" she queried, alarmed, "What if they get married? How can they hold their bouquet?!!"

In other news:
The washer is broken. I don't think we'll fix it this time. We have been wanting to get out from under this mountain of laundry that is not just from six kids but six kids AND a couple of loads of window washing rags each day! I think we will get a large capacity that is like a front loader but is a top loader and holds even more. I'm not sure. We have a friend who works for whirlpool and he recommends this one called the Cabrio (I don't know if that is spelled right; I didn't look it up)

While putting the kids to bed last night we heard the sound of fireworks screaming outside. Hannah came running down the hall. "MOM!!!! DAD!!!! there are fireworks shooting off IN OUR BACKYARD!!!" Sure enough, there they were-15 ft from the back door!
Uncle Nathan's here. I deduced.
Yep. I was right. And Uncle Evan too. And Simon.

Laurie and Rick's Wedding

Memorial Day weekend, we piled into the Suburban and Ripped a hole in the ozone layer all the way to Washington D.C.! The event of the weekend was Steve's oldest sister Laurie's wedding to the incredibly handsome, lovable, and charming Rick T. (I expect to see Rick say hello here after that introduction!)

The wedding was beautiful. It was outdoors in the park and the weather could not have been more perfect! The reception was right there in the pavilion nearby and we stuffed ourselves with the delicious food!

It was great to see so much of Steve's extended family and all of his immediate family over the weekend. His sister Jenny was even here with her husband all the way from Niger, Africa!

All six kids were in the wedding as well as some of Rick's nieces and two more cousins on the Eimers' side of the family! The children looked so precious in their fancy clothes walking down the aisle. They all did such a great job. Even the baby, who cried for all the pictures afterwards (weddings are so hard on babies, aren't they?) was perfect all throughout the ceremony!
Laurie even bought all the dresses and suits for the girls and boys which made having all our six children being in the wedding no problem at all for us! Thank you, Laurie!

Hannah signed the best-wishes picture on her own. She is getting so independent and young lady-ish lately. It is fun to watch her finding her way in life. Even at eight years old, she is a deep thinker and an obsessive planner.

The girls all loved looking beautiful.

Our boys love to dress up and did their part well even though they probably wondered what was going on! Rick is a fireman and a bunch of his buddies came in firetrucks which, naturally, the boys enjoyed immensely!

I don't have THE picture but Steve took this one as everyone was lining up. The back row, left to right are Steve's three sisters: Jen, Mary and Laurie. Then is Steve's Dad followed by the groom, Rick.

For those of you who might be trying to figure out the identities of these family members:
The couple in the background is Steve's youngest brother Josh and his fiance, Britt.
L>R at the table are, Steve's Mom, Wendy, His oldest brother, Roger Jr. and Roger's wife Laurie is in black in front of him. Annette is there and then "Baby" or "little" Josh as we call Rog and Laurie's youngest ( their other child is Bekah, she is pictured above as the Jr. bridesmaid (white dress) that is the most towards the right.) Daniel's wife Bonita is the one not facing the camera. Their two daughters are also in the group shot above as the two flower girls (Burgundy dresses) that are foremost in the picture.

Here is my favorite flower girl, Ivy Mae with my favorite man, her daddy.

Jenny, all the way from Africa, visiting with Steve.

The three Jr. bridesmaids couldn't resist twirling on the stage that was a part of the pavilion.

Quick snapshot, paparazzi style, of the happy couple! See their aprons? They have childhood pictures on them. Two people thought that the picture on Laurie's apron was Annette. One of the two who were fooled? Annette!

Congratulations, Laurie and Rick!

12 years

I think I deserve....

...a formal, written apology. Maybe it should even be notarized and framed.

"Why?" you may ask.

Well, growing up, I was not allowed to:

• Wear too much makeup

• Go to the mall if I were going to wear pants rather than a skirt

• Listen to Christian contemporary music--including Sandi Patti, who was too flashy
  

• Wear jeans to church on Sunday nights--or Wednesday nights

• Dance

• Use playing cards

• Eat my sandwiches uncut, "like a truck driver"

• Watch "The Dukes of Hazard", "The A-Team", or "M*A*S*H"
  

I'm sure there are more things, but you get the picture. So I was surprised on Sunday afternoon when my brother Evan, who still lives at home --on account of the fact that he is only15, asked me to do something I was sure my parents would never allow.

Smirking, I challenged him, "Get Dad on the phone"! (Dad was in Nashville where my baby sister lives. She's not such a baby anymore. In fact, she just had her first little baby this past week!) So, Evan whips out his cell-phone (Yeah, I don't think I would have been allowed to have one of those, either) and puts Dad on speaker-phone: sure enough; Permission granted.

So I complied.

I cut his hair.

Like this:

Like it?

I also think it is worth mentioning that he went to school like this. And you know who helped him get his hair to stay up this morning?

My Mom!

( sound of me humming Twilight Zone music)

Oh, but Mom has a twinge of guilt. She drove Evan to the bus stop and picked him up today so that the neighbors wouldn't see...

Tim Hawkins - A Homeschool Family

I found this on another blog the other day.

I thought it was funny. It got me watching this guy's other videos.

To my brother Nathan: I recommend the Prairie Home Sausage video and the Cletus take the Reel videos. Oh, and the one called Corporate Worship Songs.

For those of you that know me, you will know that I like this sort of humor that rewrites words to existing songs. Maybe I am weird but I am glad to know that there is a guy making his living with my sense of humor. I take great comfort in knowing that I am not alone in my weirdness! *grin*

Some pictures

Four smiles, a non-smile and an almost frown. Still, it was a good use of the long grass in our front yard that will hopefully be gone after our mower gets out of the shop this (fingers crossed) Friday.

Aren't they a couple of cuties?

Another good use of a non-mowed lawn. Aren't they adorable? It only took me 40 pictures to get one where everyone was looking and smiling!


This one is from a couple of weeks ago. Mom stopped by in the evening as the kids were getting to bed. she read them one of our favorite books: Ira Sleeps Over. By the way, See how Ivy sucks her finger? Now look at Vitali. He is not itching his nose, that's his little comfort thing, he sticks his finger or all his fingers against his nostril and breathes past them. weird, isn't it?

Camping in the back yard!

Look at those sweaty, happy boys! No shirts, plenty of dirt smudges and excited over their first time to sleep in a tent! Let me tell you they were so excited when I pulled this out!

Last weekend began a streak of beautiful weather here and Monday and Tuesday nights, I slept in the backyard in the big tent with the kids. Steve slept in the house since he had to work the next days. The nights were pretty chilly and the boys confessed to being cold, but eagerly declared they wanted to sleep there every night!

We found that we needed a few more sleeping bags although since we were in the backyard it didn't matter so much. But this week at church a new friend brought us some things her son had outgrown and among those things was a Thomas the Tank engine sleeping bag! Isn't God good?! You can bet that the boys were pretty thrilled about that!

This week is beginning as winter and ending as spring again. That is the nature of spring, isn't it? They say we might get snow on Monday but Friday is near eighty again! Maybe we'll get to take that sleeping bag for a spin this next weekend. And maybe this time, Mommy will sleep in the comfy bed and Dad can rough it with the kiddos!

Spring here...

Here are a couple of quick pictures of spring here today:

(Violets in my side yard.)

I love our side yard; especially the hammock. Doesn't that look inviting?
It is! I like the excuse to lie there and supervise the kids' bike riding in the dead-end of our road! It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it!

I put this next picture in here to say that Misha was very afraid of the "worms"
on this, our paper tree!
You can bet the girls capitalized on that opportunity!

Hooray! Tulips are open!

...and for some pictures of the kids playing in our beautiful weather, click on over to our adoption blog to see this post!

Now...I really have to get some work done!

What's on your to-do list?
Anyone spring-cleaning?

Happy Spring!

Vitali is four, and More... (hey! that rhymes!)

Look at those cheeks! I just love kissing them! I can't believe he is already four! It seems like he's only been here for a month or two!! {Wink, Wink!}

This boy was soooo excited about his birthday; I can't possibly express it to you! He was singing and talking and springing non-stop all day long!
It took him quite a few tries to get those four fingers all standing up like that! See that smile? It was there all day! In fact, I took this picture right before I put him to bed. It only disappeared when he finally fell asleep! I have more pictures on our adoption blog.
For his birthday, Vitali got a huge Tonka dump truck from my mom and dad. I need to post a picture of him riding it down the driveway. He does it in such a funny way, sitting behind the raised bed of the truck! Anyway, today he left the driveway and tried the steeper hill beside it. This turned out to be a bad idea as this hill was bumpy and even my skinny little boy was top-heavy going down.

Here you can see what he looked like at the bottom of the hill! (Actually, here, he is back at the top again. At the bottom, he had too many tears for picture taking! Poor little guy!) I am wondering what this will look like in the morning?!
I love Ivy's long hair. At barely three years old, it was so long before I trimmed off three inches that It could easily get tucked into the waistband of her pants! It never seems to tangle much and is always so pretty and shiny. The last few days she has pretty steadily been a "bannerina" and has been asking me to put it in a "bundle" or, to us, simply a bun.

We were taking Steve to the dentist today so she had to put on "real" clothes and Vitali took his spill while I was freshening up her "bundle" so I got these pictures of her spinning and playing on this absolutely gorgeous spring day!
Can you see all the petals on the ground that have been picturesquely floating from the trees with every breeze? Mmmmm... I love spring!

And also, would you like to see what we had for dinner tonight? Mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and chicken nuggets....Look good? Keep reading!

• The mashed potatoes? Vanilla ice cream! The "gravy" is caramel sauce.
  

• Those nuggets are actually toasted coconut covered marshmallows snipped in half and pressed a bit to make them slightly less marshmallow-y

• And the green beans are not the peas and carrots candy I was hoping to find, but they are a sort of junk food since they are green bean chips. Meaning that they are crispy and salted and yet somehow still look exactly like normal green beans!
  

Hannah said she thinks that this was the least healthy dinner she had ever had!
I should hope so!

Happy April Fool's Day, everyone!