Copper wanted to paint too

Today Bela and Danijela were doing a paint craft on the floor in the kitchen.  Gabby made the mistake of letting the dogs in.  Copper ran right through the paint.

Disorganized

I get the comments from people all the time, "Oh you must be so organized, I admire you so much, homeschooling, and running a household with five kids"  Yes it would be admirable to be organized, but I say to you, how much more admirable is it to do it my way...disorganized.  Takes a special person to be able to do that!

Hahahahahaha!

This weekend

David and I had a wonderful weekend.  The kids went to his parents for the weekend, so we went out to dinner on Friday night, then we went shopping for work clothes for him Saturday, along with an hour at the shooting range and the movie "Good Luck Chuck', which was hilarious.  There was a woman in the theater who kept making loud comments that kept us laughing even when it wasn't a funny part.  On our way home we stopped at a local walk up ice cream shop.  They have picnic tables with umbrellas and soft serve ice cream.  It is sooo yummy.

When we got home we discovered our house had been used as a hotel for a some slugs.  There were two pairs side by side.  If you are curious as to what they were doing click here, but beware of what you will see :)

Today we got new tires for the van and Bridget made us a wonderful dinner.  The kids are all sick with colds, but otherwise a really nice weekend.

Sleepy boy

Tonight I was looking for Copper cause we hadn't heard from him in a little while.  I was searching all through the house and David called me back to the living room.

He pointed underneath the chair he was sitting in.  It's a good thing David didn't try to roll back in the chair.  ( I thought Copper was dead when I saw him)

If it looks like a duck?

Yesterday sitting outside at homeschool group, which is at a house out in the country.  We heard a rooster.  Dani says, "That rooster sounds like he is getting closer."

"Are you scared of the rooster?"  I asked her.

"No," she replied.

"Because you know that roosters can't hurt you, right?"

She didn't skip a beat when she said, "Yeah because they are ducks!"

SOOO cute!

Copper can get into the bathroom on his own.  He still hasn't figured out how to turn the water on, but the girls do it for him.

Pretty new scar

I burned myself on the iron last night.  I knocked it over didn't notice and then accidentally set my arm right on top of it.  That's gonna be my biggest burn scar yet, there are quite a few of them.  Who knew I would spend my life branding myself.

The girls have youth group every Wednesday night.  It's nice for them not so wonderful for me because I have to drive them all the way into town and either find something to do for 1 1/2 hours, or drive home sit for an hour and drive back in. 

Last night as we were getting into the car to leave for youth group, Brittany looks at me and says, "Oh no I forgot it's our night for snack!" (don't you just love when they wait till the last second to tell you something?)

Knowing that if we DIDN'T have to stop at the store we actually would have been on time for once, and knowing that now we DID have to stop at the store, just made me a bit crankyish.  Oh well,  we stop at the grocery store run through in a hurry and grab snacks and juice. 

I was almost out of gas in the car, but I decided I could make it to youth group and then go to the store again to grab the things I NEEDED to get before I found out I had to go to the store for snacks, and THEN stop and get gas on the way home.  So I dropped the girls at youth group, run to the store, and begin to drive to the gas station. 

Thunk, thunk, thunk.  What in the world is that noise?  Oh, my gosh, it's a flat tire.  I pulled into the nearest gas station, went ahead and filled the tank and then debating what I should do, figured I would fill the tire with fix a flat and air just to get me somewhere where I could either buy a tire or at least have a little light to put on the spare, since for some reason the lights in the parking lot at the station I was at weren't going on.  I called David in tears, but told him I didn't need him to come help me (I said it in a very cranky way).

I went in to the station where they lady, who spoke very little english told me that they didn't sell fix-a-flat (I'm pretty sure she hadn't a clue what it was).

"Well do you at least have air?"

"Oh yeah over dere." She pointed in the general direction of the parking lot.

I drove the van over to the air, where I noticed a small handwritten sign that said Air 75 cents (wow the price of AIR has really gone up). Then another sign that said "This air no work" (yes it really said that)

I started to change the tire, got the old one off, and luckily my knight in shining armor showed up to finish so I could run and grab the girls from youth group on time.

Brittany came home and told me that nobody was hungry for the snack and none of it was touched, but this morning I looked at her and plain out asked her if it was really our snack night last night?    "No we were mistaken, the youth leader told us we don't have to bring a snack."

SIGH

Little Man

I couldn't get through the day without putting up this cute picture of Copper!

 

Using up the apples

Today we are making applesauce and apple butter. 

First we peeled

and peeled

AND PEELED

Then we cut them into pieces

and we cooked and cooked and cooked

This will eventually be apple butter

We have made 9 pints so far and probably about 12 or 15 more to go not counting the apple butter.

Cherry worked really hard too!

Awakening Fest 2

Awakening Fest was awesome!  This is our second year.  The performers were amazing and the kids had fun with the other activities too.

"Need to Breathe" was really good.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Perfect weather, and a bit breezy. 

In fact toward the evening everyone got a bit chilly!

And Barlow Girl RULES!!  We let the older girls go down front.  They had an amazing time!

Our biggest disappointment was that we didn't get to stay for Toby Mac, but the little girls were getting so cold and tired and it was down to like 45 degrees so we decided to head home.

It was a great day!

Picking Apples

Today was a beautiful day for picking apples.  We came home with two bushels and some honey.  Next week making applesauce and applebutter.

 

Sleeping babies

Dani fell asleep on Brittany's trundle watching "Dora the Explorer".  When we went in to see where she was, two dogs were in bed with her.

Silly girl

Today Bela and Dani turned Dani's little Dora chair and Dani was riding on it while Bela was pushing.  I told them to stop it and they disappeared for a bit, then here comes Dani sliding around on it again rearranged a bit so she is inside the legs of the chair.

"Is this...OWWWWWWWWWW! Is this safer Mommy???" ( she got stuck!) I wonder if it was safer???

The cutest puppy ever

Panic in the bathroom

It's been a long and busy week in school for the girls and I.  It was their first week in the voice lesson class in the homeschool coop group.  The days we have to go are going to be sooo packed.  We have to be there at 9:30 for the first class, which lasts 40 minutes then we have to sit there till 12:10 when the older girls have class.  I have decided to teach the preschoolers while I am there, because I have to teach Danijela anyway and they were all very interested in what we were learning and they all really wanted to do the crafts. 

So every Thursday will be that busy and then when we get home we also have to work on the chores that we didn't do during the day that we usually do, not to mention dinner.

Today was fun, we took the kids to see the Simpson's movie finally.  They loved it.  Tonight we went to the Mexican restaurant.  It is always yummy eating there but tonight was a little different than usual.  The restaurant was super noisy.  There was one table of drunk people and one lady at that table who was talking above the rest, we could hear every word she was saying over all the noise.  Bela leaned over to me and said she was going to the bathroom, but I didnt hear her.  A bit later David leans over to me and says "It is really noisy in here tonight"

I said, "Yes and somebody's kid is REALLY screaming." Somewhat over the din you could hear the voice of a child screaming, "Mommy Mommy!!!" Then another lady sitting near the bathrooms hops up and runs over there.  I am still oblivious.

Brittany says, "Is that Bela???",  All of a sudden it just clicked in my head and panic set in (you never know why your child is screaming bloody murder in the bathroom, but it can't be a good thing), Brittany and I both jumped up from the table and ran over in time to hear this other Mom saying, "It's okay honey, we'll get you out." (my brain says, "THANK GOD she is only locked in!")

I calm her down through the door and tell her to try and turn the lock again it opens immediately.  She comes out clings to me and the whole restaurant is quiet and staring at us by then.  I asked her why she thought it wouldn't unlock, "I pushed the button to unlock it, like I pushed it to lock it, and it wouldn't unlock."

She didn't know that she could just turn the knob.  She was so embarrassed.  I reminded her that, that is the reason that I always make her take a sister with her.

Been a normal homeschool and housecleaning week.  Cherry and Copper love each other so much and she is so patient with him!

Brittany and Gabby are taking their first civics test, Danijela is writing the letter j and finishing up her road runner, Kassie is reading about the Magna Charta and Bela is doing spelling now after making a fun model of the solar system with all the planets.

 

Old photos

I have been organizing my old photos getting them in the right folders so I can make a DVD.  I just wanted to share some cute old pictures.

Bela She was only 2.

Brittany

Gabby

Kassie