And just when life slows down...

I don't think life in this household ever stops. If you fall off, you just have run and try to jump back on. Summer is over, and the first term of school has been wrapped up. Soccer season ended this weekend at least until Spring. Cross Country is over (Jana did that). Life is starting to take a manageable pace or as manageable as it can with 8 kiddos and their activities as well as mine and Clint's.

Clint's activities are going to change a bit. At church he will now be serving as the Stake Young Men's President. It looks like stake youth dances are going to be re-added to our cheap date nights. Clint says that he and I do the same job now -- Nursery Leader. Hahahaha!

I still work in the nursery at church. I enjoy it, and the kids are really set to the routine. I can leave the door open and not have any escapees or distraught children if a parent walks by. That is the biggest accomplishment. I am still the PTO President at the elementary school too. I get to add one more hat though come Spring. I will also be a college student. I am going to the community college here for an Associate in Arts & Science to transfer to a 4-year college. I then will pursue an Early Childhood Education Degree.

It is something I have always wanted to be. It will be done at a pace so not to add any real hardship to my family. I am hoping that by the time that the kids start becoming college students and missionaries that I will have my degree. Eric will be in school too. I can then substitute teach at the kids' school (or area schools) to get my foot in the door. If needs be, I can get a job at the kids' school when the position opens up. That way I can be near my kids and on the same schedule. It always pays to be prepared at least.

I ought to get our pictures posted from our summer and other trips. I guess life hasn't slowed down that much.

SURPRISE!

Our family will be growing. No, not that way ... sort of. We are hosting an exchange student for the 20099-2010 school year. Our information packet arrived this week. I guess there was no criminal records found and our references were nice. Gotta remember to mail them the check.


Her name is Jana. She will be 17 this month and currently lives in Germany. She shares a lot of common interests with us like love of reading, music and nature. That is good because other things like family size are different than with what she is aquainted. She has just one brother and lives in apartments so even the large house in the country will be different.

We have already exchanged a couple of e-mails as we try to get to know her more, answer questions and let her get to know us. I think it will be a good experience for all of us. We are impressed with what we know so far about Jana. And what is one mouth mouth and body around here?

Life Happens

Geez, it has been a while since I posted anything. There has been plenty going on though, mundane along with the not so mundane. Where to begin?

The weather can't decide if it wants to be Spring or Winter. I am just glad for our new sump what with the rain and thawing we have been having. It has most likely saved us a few wet floors in the basement. Thank goodness for tax refunds that can pay for it too.

Thank goodness for tax refunds that can cover the loss of income from a temporary lay-off too. All those kids and deductions can come in handy. It seems that Clint gets to take a week off of work and not be paid for it. It most likely will be two, but at least it won't be back-to-back ... sort of. The first one is at the end of March. We had just bought a trip to Branson for a 15th anniversary get-away. We were going to take it when the kids had Spring Break. We are going to go when Clint doesn't have to work now. We found a sitter and made our reservations. Something good besides the enormous amount of yard clean-up has to happen that week.

We also bought a porch swing. We have only been here 6 years. We finally found the right one. We ordered it, and it will be ready in time for Mother's Day. You know where to find me (with my nose in a book) this summer.

Eric is quite the chatterbox now. He has plenty of examples around here. He can say school (when he sees the bus come and the kids get on). There is thank you, welcome, bye-bye, night, and what's that? as well. Oh, I am "mom" now unless Eric is showing his imp-ish sense of humor. Then he goes around the house calling every dad and just laughing about it. I get "What!?" when I call his name. That is also due to the plenty of examples around here. I heard him say stuck the other day as well. He can also say Charissa's and Kaly's names or at least an understandable variation.

I am surprised I don't hear stuck more often as Eric is a climber. I am always have to rescue him. He loves water too. Toilet seats have to stay down and bath tubs emptied. I found out the hard way about the tubs when I found towels, blankets, clothes, toys, and a couple of pillows thrown in the water.

Scholastic Bowl season is wrapping up. Charissa did well as JV captain. Kalynne has her last meet this coming week. both girls love it and earn their team plenty of points.

Oren didn't make it to state for his National Geographic Geography Bee. The poor kid was so heartbroken. He studied really hard too. We are all smarter now, because he shared all his information with us.

Joanna busted her chin open in PE a couple of weeks ago. It is to match the back of her head, I guess. She also was out this past week for three days with a bug that just made you feel yucky and lethargic with a low grade fever.

Jonathan had Pinewood Derby last month but didn't win any races. He was so bummed, and then broke his trophy since he won a specialty category. It was just not his night. He is looking forward to summer camp so I better get him signed-up!

Cara has stayed free of injury, illness and disappointment unless you count having been made to practice piano. She is struggling with that right now. I get to teach her as her dad is about as exasperated as she is.

I am staying busy with PTO (finished one project last week and moving on to the next, a fundraiser next week). Church keeps me going too. What with my responisibilities, the activities and everyone else's responsibilities and activities ... ugh! Okay, it is not bad just busy. I also pamper myself by working out three times a week. I started attending Curves. So far the effort has paid off with 11.5 pounds and 14 total inches lost. The photo from Thanksgiving was motivation and a shocker about how I let the weight creep back on again. I actually enjoy exercise or maybe it is the me time. A friend watches Eric 2 hours twice a week so I can workout and run errands during the week. I also go Saturday mornings. I try to squeeze in walks the other days. hopefully the weather will decide on sunny spring days so it is possible.

Now I better get to bed. I just realized I had typed this entire rambling news bit in my cooking blog. Thank goodness for copy and paste!

The Exciting Life

According to a recent letter from family, your life is mundane, dull and quite normal if not plagued with flood, pestilence and famine. Well, I thought my life was dull, but I guess not. We have had floods (in our basement), pestilence (mouse took up residence in my car) and famine (my kids always think they are starving).

The flooding was taken care of with a new sump pump. It was a tricky endeavor for the contractor. It seems our basement flooring is three times as thick as normal. The guess was it chipped and cracked at first laying so a second layer was added. The poor contractor worked the entire day just breaking through the concrete.

The stupid mouse in my car ruined a coat, outfit of Eric's, bottle nipple and my stash of McDonald's napkins and ketchup. It ate a hole in my backpack I use for a diaper bag too. I was not a happy camper. I discovered the nest (see photo) in my glove box as we were driving. I had asked Oren to get me a tissue. He opened it, and I was hollering at him to close it fast. The last thing I needed was a terrified mouse and screaming boys as I do 70 down the interstate.

The mouse is gone though. Oren set a trap slathered with peanut butter. It caught the mouse and sprayed peanut butter all over the driver side when it went off. What it even grosser (skip to next paragraph if you don't want to read) is it was freezing outside. Okay, that isn't the gross part, but the mouse frozen to the trap is. Clint was trying to get it out of the trap to feed to the cat. I think Clint was quickly becoming sick judging by his facial expression. He finally threw the whole kit and kaboodle at the cat who gnawed the mouse off and had a nice breakfast. The kids were grossed out but couldn't keep their eyes away too long.

You, that is the excitement around here. We are back to the dull, mundane life. Our yard is a bog with the warmer temps melting the snow but not quite the frozen ground. The rain yesterday and today is not helping to dry out things. Just don't wear slip on shoes. You will become shoeless as the mud sucks them off your feet. At least our basement is staying dry. I just need to figure out how to stop the supposed famine as the plague of locusts descend on my food each day.

Deja Vu

I think I need to copy and paste the post from when the kids went back to school after their Christmas break. It feels like it all over again. Due to thing beyond our control (which soon would include the children), the kiddos had a 6 day weekend. Yeah.

We had snow Wednesday that closed the schools. Then we were all frozen with sub-zero temperatures and nasty windchills. I think the high on Thursday was only -13. The windchill had gotten down to -36. Ick! Due to the extreme cold school was cancelled Thursday and Friday since the temperatures stayed low. Then you have the weekend, and my kids had yesterday off from school for MLK day.

The worst part about being home for so long was that it was so cold, you can't go outside. At temperatures like we had Thursday, frostbite can happen in minutes. At least we are having a heat wave now. It is supposed to be up to 32 tomorrow.

That ice storm we had earlier really helped as we had firewood from downed trees and also from the dead ones we cut down since we were already outside cutting up fallen trees and limbs. The fires have kept us toasty warm as long as I remember to add wood to it.

Oh yeah, we didn't have any frozen pipes since ours are mostly inside due to our full basement. The water main in town isn't though. It decided to burst after Clint's shower Sunday and before mine. So we are scrambling (Clint actually had left already for meetings so was blissfully ignorant until I called to complain) to get water to take care of the animals and sponge bathe. On the way to church I grabbed our 5 gallon container and a couple of gallon ones to fil at the church. I also borrowed 2 five- and a three-gallon containers from our scout troop supplies so I could have water on hand. The water was back on by the time we got home, but we are on boil order.

Yeah, I almost could enjoy that we have water to do laundry except that I ran out of laundry soap. I am definitely enjoying the quiet. I think that deserves a nap.

Extreme Home Makeover

I always find it cool to read a book or see a show and know exactly what or where it is. I was able to see the EHM show about the Grys family in Pekin (finally). As the show opens I knew where all of those landmarks are located. I pass by the new house often. I know one of the workers at Sears that helped shop for the family. She was able to pick out clothes for Jake. I know someone whose son was in Jake's kindergarten class and know the family. It is so neat to see and adds a bit of reality to the show for me because I can relate. Yeah, I saw the excavators cleaning up after demolition. I even went to see the house as it was being built. Some of the flooring trucks arrived while I was there. It was so cool to watch and there was a party at our area civic center for the show.

The only thing I didn't like was not seeing anyone I know personally caught on camera-- not that I wasn't looking!

Guess what! Guess, guess, guess!

What is that sound? No, not Eric crying or the sound of Cheerios being thrown ... bbrb ... Oh, sorry. That took longer than I thought. It seems my dear son has learned all about the spirit of giving these past few weeks. He gave me a blow-out and coated my arm with ... you don't really want to know, do you?

What was I saying? What is that sound? It is the is the sound of silence. Eh, quiet is more like it. I don't think my house will ever be silent with washing machines, dishwashers, dryers and various other appliances running. The kids went back to school today. I was a bit more excited than they were.

Don't get me wrong. I like my kids. I even love them. It isn't having them home that is the problem. Well, when they won't share our new Wii, it is. Besides that, I like having them around. It is what happens to my schedule. I do not handle being off schedule over an extended period very well. What with hubby and the kids home for two weeks that constitutes an extended period. I am just going to enjoy getting back on my schedule. So what do I do? Why, I sit here on the computer telling you all about it. Hey, do you know how hard it is to get computer time with 9 people in the house? Like I said ... Back to the regularly scheduled program.

He's Walking!

Okay, I know I need a video but since mine stink posting without one is about the same. Eric tried his hand or rather feet at walking this week. He still prefers crawling as his mode of transportation, but he is getting more confident on his feet. He has a Frankenstein or zombie walk which is funny. Each step he takes, his legs get further and further apart which poses a problem, but he hasn't done the splits yet.

Eric loves to climb. If he can climb it, he will. Stairs are a snap. He often gets stuck on a stool or in the pantry trying to get to the goodies. My time is coming when he is going to be everywhere at once and unable to be contained. Eric has already started cutting his naps short.

At his doctor appointment the 30th, Eric weighed in at 21 lbs 6 ounces and 30 inches. He is as healthy as can be. He is so mellow and calm too. The doctor asked if that was normal for Eric. When I said it was, the pediatrician said he would take a full day of little boys like Eric. The only fuss Eric made wa his shot, but that lasted less than 20 seconds. He was back to his chattering self quick.

I have noticed Eric is a bit obsessive when it comes to food. He eats one food completely before moving the next type. He picks apart soups that way. I made him a cheese-less pizza tonight. He ate all the meat off before licking the sauce and eating the crust. LOL! He ate two slices, the porker!

After having a houseful for the holiday, I am so glad one of my children is mild-mannered. I would say quiet, but Eric has discovered the shriek.