Just saying hi

My laptop recently took a swan dive (see previous post "Kids. Ruin. Everything." so I am unable to post until it's back. I've been enjoying reading blog posts using a painfully slow computer that is incapable of down- or up-loading anything. So until I have more to share, I just wanted to make note of tonight's breathtaking moments:

1. Seeing Noelle (2) say to Theresa (5) "best friends!" and throw her little arms around Theresa's neck.

2. Forgetting tuck Clare & Theresa into bed, then peeking into their room to see them tucked into the same bed next to each other, with Clare reading Hop on Pop out loud to Theresa. Clare has only been reading independently for a couple of months. It was the sweetest thing.

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When Life Gives You Choices....Choose Carrots

One of my favorite sayings is:
When life gives you a multiple-choice situation, and one of the choices is sleep,
CHOOSE SLEEP!

We were overcome by cold & flu season this month.





















When Theresa was done with her nap on the couch, she blearily stumbled upstairs and crawled into the babies' bed for her next nap.



















Even Noelle, who is usually sleep-retardant, fell prey.




















Not even Scott was able to withstand it.





















And finally, a video.
I must apologize for the video quality -
we love this house, but it has the
poorest. lighting. ever.

It's on our to-do list.

Anyway, about this video.

"No, girls, we can't afford any toys this year.

Just go play with your carrots."

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Breathtaking: Watching Wall-E with my oldest daughter, hearing her say "Awwww, they're holding hands!" at the end.
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Photostory: Noelle

Mom: Hmmm...she's sitting pretty, cuddling a baby doll,
with her FIRST french braid EVER.

What an opportunity!

Noelle: What's that? Did I just hear the camera turn on?
Oh, no no no no....

Shun the camera! Shunnnnnnn!

Oh, no, you do NOT!

I'm outta here!

I'll just cut through here...

Oh, snap.

You're pretty fast for an old lady, Mom.


Hey Andy, I guess I should have told you about the puppy...

hmmm...I think my husband ought to leave me a comment now and then, seeings as I do this for him when he's away @ work...

And finally, I got my first award today! It's a Great Attitude / Gratitude Award and it's in the sidebar - a lemonade stand. Is that for when life gives you lemons? Could be... Anyway, I am very pleased and want to thank C for her consideration. She is also an optimistic woman with a great attitude.

A Very Appropriate Cartoon

Just had to add this, since it's the story of my life lately. Add a couple more screaming kids and another baby, and it's perfect.










reprinted without permission, of course

January Randomness

We're starting off the new year sick again...at least five kids have succumbed and my throat is scratchy. So far it's only been moderate fever and lethargy, sore throat, maybe a bit of coughing... nothing compared to the nightmarish stomach flu that struck last month. Right, Kim?

I have no idea what's up with Natalie here... she slept for 14 hours straight, she's feverish and her eyes look all bruised, poor baby. We can't tell if it's from being sick, or maybe from an unobserved face-plant, or possibly an insect bite. You would think that after 8 kids we might have seen it all by now, but they always manage to come up with something new...















ps - two days later, the redness is subsiding, and it looks like she does have a bug bite under her eye. In January. Go figure. She's still feeling a little tender, though, as evidenced by the following pictures. Conor has been laid out by the fever for two days. He literally spent every "waking" moment on the couch today, dozing for most of them. At one point Natalie crawled up and snuggled down next to him:





















Her thing is to suck her middle fingers on her right hand, while holding her ear with her left. But sometimes, someone else's ear is just the ticket:















Conor was asleep during the whole thing.

















Sometimes it's just the sweetest thing to catch them loving each other.

Theresa is a total pain in the drain when it comes time for portraits. I have many examples of her hiding her face, grumping at the camera, or smiling weakly with a tear-streaked face. She just doesn't do well when you want everybody to say "cheese!" But when she gets a picture concept in her mind, she's ready and willing. To illustrate, I give you her latest composition:



That's Mousie in her clutches. Mousie's been her constant companion since she was 4 months old. Poor Mousie's seen better days, and her head is about to come off. She's been sewn back together so many times, and there's nothing left to sew onto. In fact, today we caught Theresa pulling out some of Mousie's brains. But Mousie is irreplaceable - we know, because we've tried. Sarah affectionately (not) refers to Mousie as The Green Disease.

Tonight Theresa spontaneously came downstairs in fuschia velvet dress and princess mules, with hair groomed. Being that she usually resembles a ragg mopp, I could not pass up the photo op:

not too dignified for whipped cream, though

I have a real lech for baklava and our grocery store almost never has it. Out of desperation, I bought some phyllo dough - I figured, dough, walnuts, honey - how hard can it be? So I watched a couple baklava-making videos on line (no kidding. I love the information age.) and picked a recipe at random. And it turned out that it wasn't too hard, just a little time-consuming. But it turned out beautifully (beginner's luck) and Oh. My. Gosh. is it yummy.


















Here's a shot of the two oldest doing what they do best. When they're not breaking my heart, they're pretty neat to have around. I stole this picture from her Facebook photo album, since though they take two-and-a-half-billion pictures of themselves, they're almost never around for me to capture.






















These are some ornaments I found last Christmas at a mall kiosk. With 8 kids, 10 total in our family, it's hard to find personalized ornaments that can accommodate all of us, so you can imagine how delighted I was to find these! I can't remember where I got them, but I found the same line of ornaments online here.

















Although I have to admit, when you enlarge the picture of the santa hats ornament, the faces look downright creepy...

















we're zombie peas..... join us... joooooiiiiiinnnnn uuuuusssss

that's weird...in person, they're really cute
















OH - and I could not resist putting this one up. If you want to know what it is, I recommend watching The Pirates That Don't Do Anything, the latest from VeggieTales.