The Stefo Crew: family

Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Sunflowers.

Regina and I planted sunflowers in May and she's so happy that they've gotten so tall... she wanted to show everyone how big they are.

I got it into my head that it might be a good opportunity for a group photo.

Alright, everybody! Out on the high porch!

If I had everybody home, they would stretch all the way across the porch. THAT would be cool! Hear that, kids? Next time we're all home, we're doing it.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

For some reason, we haven't been to the lakes around here for at least 10 years, probably 15. I can't even remember the last time, but I remember Brian being a baby, so that puts us over 15 years. Why did we stop going? I can't remember that, either.

We told the kids we were going to a place with a lake and a beach. Like the ocean? No, not that big. Are there waves? No. The sand is pebbly, not grainy. There are woods, no boardwalk. Oh, nevermind, just wait and see. Will we like it? I hope so...

They liked it.

It was a GREAT day. Philip was able to toddle in and out of the water at will. The beach area wasn't too wide so we could see from end to end, and see the kids at all times. The older kids could swim out to the ropes ,but even there it was only 5 feet deep. The sandy beach kept them occupied for hours. There was a shower house, and the water was WARM! I even got some quiet time to read. They all thought it was amazing and as I was typing these words and choosing pictures, they drifted through the room and asked when we can go to that place again!

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Bucket List.

At the end of June, the girls and I put together a Summer Bucket List, trying to find a bunch of free or low-cost activities that would make for a memorable summer. Some of the activities we placed on our list are:

- attend the free kids' shows at the mall
- participate in the summer program at the library
- finally use the free passes to Knoebel's pool we won at a Chinese auction three years ago
- attend a minor league baseball game (the kids get free tickets through their kids club)
- sew something with Noelle
- make a batch of homemade soap
- go mini-golfing
- visit each of the closest state parks
- see a drive-in movie

I took a blotter calendar and covered my bedroom door with our bucket list and activities. Little did I know that by putting this list on my bedroom door. Andy would take it as a personal challenge to check off as many of the boxes as possible.

I put "fix the leaky faucet" on there. Remember, I put the list on the door at the end of June. By July 6, after more than a year of dripping, he replaced the kitchen faucet. :) The baseball game was July 19, and it was a great day, but we didn't think to take a camera along. We've had quite a run of rainy days so far, but he kept an eye on the forecast, took a vacation day, and on the 17th we hit the beach at a state park. To be continued. . .

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Our Family Wall.

We keep framed (semi)current portraits of our 10 children on one wall in the living room. Until recently, the frames were a mismatched hodge podge of whatever frames I had available. I've been saying for years that I'd like to replace them all at once with 10 matching frames, plus another frame for an 8x10 of the whole family.

This year, somebody finally listened. :)

Jeremy, Sarah's beau, presented us with an even dozen of matching picture frames for Christmas! (I suspect the mismatched frames offended his perfectionist engineering sensibilities even more than they bothered me).

The week of Christmas was exhausting, and every day in the first week of January I wanted to tackle the frame replacement project, but I was too busy. Then I decided that today, Saturday, January 10, it was going to happen.

I set them up in three rows: the three youngest girls centered in the top row, all four boys centered in the middle row, and the three oldest girls centered in the bottom row. It SEEMS as though all I have to do is lay out the top three pictures, measure the distance from Regina's picture-hanger to Noelle's, then make a level line and hang all three pictures a few inches from the ceiling. Then do the same for the four boys and hang them, staggered below and between the top row's pictures. Finally hang the remaining three bottom pictures directly below the top three. It works on paper.

The first problem is that the wood stove was blazing, and there was all heat and no oxygen to breathe up by the ceiling. The second problem is that the ceiling is uneven - DRAMATICALLY uneven. Then there's those pieces of molding that cut the wall into uneven sections. No matter how perfectly I measured, the optical illusions of unevenness created by the ceiling and the wall made it look crooked.

As an added bonus, I dropped every tool I touched every time I touched it, and Philip was on the loose so he kept going after all the framed pictures and every tool I set down.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I also have a cold and my stuffy head and runny nose just exacerbated the misery.

In the end, I ended up just eyeballing the whole thing and moving nail after nail after nail until they satisfied my aesthetic sensibilities.

It only took an hour-and-a-half, but it was the longest hour-and-a-half of my life.

There you go, Jeremy and Sarah. I don't know whether to thank you or curse the days you were born!

Just kidding. It looks great. I love you both.

But if either of you comes here and points out something that's a little bit off, I'm probably going to snap.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

2014 Circle Picture

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

My Husband.

He's still got it!

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Recent Happenings.

The dogwood tree had a serious split from a very heavy, wet, late snow. We tried to repair it, but the branch kept cracking further and further down, so Andy had to take it off a few weeks ago.

Since Sarah has been home from college, the little ones want to hang out in her room as much as possible. This is what happens with they hang out with Sarah.

These pics were taken at the beginning of May on a trolley ride. We went to a free performance of an educational play about Ben Franklin, and the trolley ride was included. During the play, Philip ate 3 cups of peach yogurt.

On the trolley ride back, Philip threw up 3 cups of peach yogurt all over the trolley floor.

Regina and I cut out the sod and planted flowers the day Brian left. By now, much of the grass has retaken its territory, but we do have several seedlings coming up...sunflowers, cosmos, etc.

OK, these next pictures...........

Basically, Saturday night Regina climbed up someplace high and fell down. Initially there was swelling the size of a golf ball, and a small cut on the top of her cheekbone. After I assessed that her vision was undamaged and there was no concussion. we iced it to keep the swelling down.

Sunday morning, this is Regina WITH her ice pack.....

and here she was WITHOUT.

Her eye was able to open wider and wider as the day went on. At first, she wanted to hide her face from everybody so they wouldn't see her and ask what happened. By the afternoon, she had gotten over her self-consciousness and was back to her peppy self, and her face shape is much more normal now.

It's turning some pretty colors, though. Brian would be proud.

The surreal shot was taken with my crappy cell phone on the carousel. Regina, in the foreground, names all horses Buttercup. The twins, in the distance, have just become big enough to catch rings. I was hoping to catch their outstretched hands, too, but my camera just doesn't have the right stuff.