September

 

There is a lot of "hold the baby?" asking and they are so sweet with John but he seems to sense when in danger :)

 

This was a delicious meringue (think baked marshmallow but much better) with whipped cream and strawberries. Never had anything like it before and loved it.

 

Dental hygiene chaos.

 

Sweet, sweet boy.

 

Jim went to Arizona to spend time with his family after the difficult loss of their newborn boy. Jim was able to attend the temple with his brother during his short stay. I feel grateful that Jim was able to take the time off work and be there with his family. It's been sweet to hear the kids continue to pray for peace for their uncle, aunt, cousins and "that baby Logan can have a great time in heaven."

 

I remember when we were married at this temple and came out (we were 4th in a long long line of "just been marrieds" waiting to take pictures) and feeling so incredibly happy in an eternal kind of way. It was sweet to see Jim there. We are so grateful for eternal families.

 

John had his 2 month appointment. He goes 3 hours at a time between eating and sleeps from 9:30-4 so I have graduated to a light fog instead of a dense one. I still get stress headaches about once a week but that will get better. Funny how the headache is usually the day after Sunday. haha. John is a big boy (at least for us) weighing 12lb (73rd%) and is 24in tall (84th%). He has figured out smiles and even said "hi" trying to copy me the other day.

 

Pokémon battles before bedtime. You should hear the sound effects and battle moves going on (accurate to the pokemon they are using I might add). Michael made some paper "gym badges" and trains Jacob so he can earn them with his pokemon.

 

Nicole's room is always clean and she locks it every time she goes out :) She likes to collect feathers and is taping them up on her shelf.

 

Diana doesn't look very sleepy does she? It's a miracle she ever goes to bed, but she has gotten so much better. Interestingly enough, putting Katy in her room helps her feel like she is setting the example. She also is happy to point out when Katy has gotten out of bed and needs a consequence :)

 

Katy is like a cute sneaky little Pikachu. She squeaks and smiles and gets into things like toothpaste and is adorable the entire time.

 

Diana's soccer has been kind of pointless. They wait in a long line to practice kicking a goal. Dribble back and forth a few times. Play a scrimmage where the only kids getting the ball are seriously elbowing and shoving the other kids out of the way. So grateful Diana has shown that she won't do that to get the ball! She might be crazy but she is still kind thank goodness. My brother mentioned a different skills-learning soccer thing that might be a better outlet for energy at this age than this.

 

My exuberant little soul Diana. Yesterday she covered Katy with an entire stick of deodorant and left trails of crumbles throughout the hall carpet, took every last hair elastic we own and had a confetti party in three rooms, pulled everything from the boys closet Tasmanian devil style, had an apparent pillow/clean laundry/sheets fight on my bed, dismantled hundreds of tiny legos throughout several rooms, emptied baby wipe containers with abandon and with ferret-like precision left gifts of half eaten apples, sippy cups and playroom toys in every room she visited on her Tour de Destructo. I'm pretty sure she (and her sidekick Katy who is learning from the champ) had the time of their life! All while I was doing the books for Jim downstairs thinking to myself that the sweet sounds of happiness upstairs were so pleasant. Jim and I ended up cleaning this mess for an hour and a half after bedtime!

Music and the Spoken Word on a Sunday evening

 

Cake made with ground almonds instead of flour and with a nice glossy frosting. Yum.

 

John with a sticker mustache

 

Michael is just hilarious. They were having a team huddle and Michael has his arm around his teammate and his coach and is practically tipping his coach over by completely leaning on him. Very patient coach!

 

Jake found a frog at a plant nursery where we got a crepe myrtle for our front yard and he did not want to leave the frog so Jim could get the tree.

 

Katy enjoyed her spaghetti dinner, and then fell asleep with face and arms covered with mess.

 

Birthday dinner for friends at a Brazilian steakhouse. Delicious fun dinner, but I think we were detoxing from sodium overload for a whole day after!

 

A friend snapped this picture of Jim with Katy's chalk handprint on it. Sundays are days of patience and perseverance!

 

On Monday it rained for the first time in several weeks and I had a sweet little afternoon snuggle with John.

 

When he woke up later he was so smiley and cute.

 

Jacob drew a self portrait and accurately wrote that he is good at "dancing." If you haven't seen Jacob dance, you haven't lived!

End of summer

 

This double orange cake tasted so good! Fruit flavor in a cake was unexpectedly really good.

 

Swiss and gruyere biscuits

 

Raspberry chocolate log

 

Almond tarts. I got distracted while making this and after taking a pan out with one hot pad I decided to use the back of my hand to push back in the 425 degree rack. I am still healing from those blisters. Not sure if my brain cells are coming back though.

 

Michael had his 8th birthday and it feels like we've been celebrating for two weeks! Here was the family cake I made. He has been really into Pokémon.

 

I loved coming up with the way to make this cake, the pokeball perfectly centered through the entire cake.

 

Pin the ear on the Pikachu

 

Katy sounds like Pikachu when she talks. Not kidding.

 

Cholla loaf. Also super tasty.

 

Jim took Mike with him to go home teaching and I was reminded of how my brothers learned about priesthood responsibilities at a young age from my dad.

 

For meet the teacher, we got to the school and I realized that there was no way we could get all of the supplies inside while I was carrying John. So we had Diana push Katy in one stroller, while Nicole pushed the supplies in a double stroller. We visited the three different classrooms and got it all accomplished although there was not much conversation with the teachers. I figured it was chaos enough and Mike's teacher had sand on a tarp for the kids to take off shoes and relax in. Considering Diana was not buckled into a stroller, I decided against lingering in that room!

 

For two different weeks this summer while it was super hot outside and I was still very sleep deprived, the four oldest went to a gymnastics camp a couple miles away. It was so close, they did a 9-12 constant workout, and came home ready for a low key afternoon.

 

We had a party on Saturday with some of Michael's friends from church. We actually just invited the whole family of four friends and there were a lot of kids there. I made two double layer devils food cake as well as 48 cupcakes and they were ALL eaten! Along with 5 containers of ice cream.

 

I grabbed a pic of some of the kids, they were scattered everywhere. They played outside for an hour with cheap waterguns and the fun sprinkler my brothers made last summer. Then they did cake, presents and Pokémon until it was done. Very simple, but Michael sure felt on top of the world!

 

Jim has signed up the family for the ward talent show. I think we should clarify that we are putting on "entertainment" not necessarily talent :)

 

I finally took a picture of my six kids. Wow. Something about John just makes everything whole and complete. Hard to explain, but it just seems so right to have him and every single other child.

 

Nicole made a centerpiece for our birthday dinner with Michael. Starfruit looks awesome, but the taste is not great.

 

Millionaires Shortbread can be summed up in one word: rich.

 

I love how the baby bath, carseat, and other random baby things can make the funnest toys. You can also see our cubby system all ready for the new school year.  Diana has since added her preschool bag with great joy :)

 

First day of school!

 

I used little Pokémon figures as an incentive this summer to encourage the kids to help out. I went through two boxes of 114 pieces. The kids have willingly cleaned way more than their normal check off charts and helped so much this summer. The incentive worked...a little too well, as this paper Michael brought home from church demonstrates.

 

Toasted almond meringue with raspberry whipped filling. Almost caught the oven on fire with this one.

 

I love chocolate.

 

Sent this in to one of Jim's referral sources. It was pretty hard to let this leave the door. I just wanted one slice. Just a few bites of chocolate and caramel... And when Jim delivered it, they offered a slice to him, and he told me how good it tasted. Agony! :)

 

Michael was baptized on Saturday. We had many family and friends present and appreciated so much their love and support. The Koffords, Josh and Jen from Philly, Sheri and Nick from the coast, Robbie and Alexandra with their little boy Kai, our dear friends Robin and Mike, Mike's primary teachers, Jim's half sister Kristen and her husband, the bishop and primary president. Watching Michael was like watching the sun glowing. He was SO happy you could see he felt so loved and so excited. When he came up out of the water in the baptismal font, he was smiling so big and his eyes were shining with happiness. He was so fun to watch as he listened to the talks. I loved seeing the cousins sing the "rainbow" song "When I Am Baptized" for a musical number. Diana and I practiced the song every night and she knew most of the words. I loved getting to bear my testimony. And seeing the men stand in a circle as Michael was given the Holy Ghost by the power of the priesthood...it was so wonderful to feel the support of Heavenly Father on Michael's eternal path and to see all of the family and friends there to support him.

 

After the baptism almost everyone went to our house for lunch. Earlier that week I had been making plans for the simplest/easiest lunch I could think of and while I was making shopping lists and scrambling for ideas, Jim was a very insightful and practical husband. No matter how well planned you are, serving 14 adults and 21 children would put stress and burden on me. We wanted to spend time with the many people who had traveled far and knew that would include a meal and were glad to show some appreciation for their love. So Jim in his wisdom volunteered the idea of a catering company that he uses for his marketing and since he does a lot of marketing knows the owner and got it taken care of so easily. We had delicious cordon bleu, carrot soufflé, rolls, cornbread, lemonades and pie. All I did was clean the house and get out tables and it was taken care of. So nice to be able to focus on the baptism and not have any nagging worries in the back of my head about food. I am grateful to Jim realizing ahead of time how to make that day more spiritually focused for me. I didn't take any pictures because we were just enjoying the day. 21 kids is a LOT of fun haha. They played outside in the 80 degree weather and the adults had fun watching their antics through the windows and spending time together.

 

After a short break for naptime, during which Diana and Katy slept like logs, we met up with Josh's fam and the Koffords at a park. The kids hopped the baseball field fence, but since we weren't all about to hop over, we lured them back to the park. You can see them coming back over. I was amazed that Diana could hop the 6 ft fence so fast.

 

Between my sister Marian, my brother Josh and I we have 15 kids. Basically took over the playground.

 

I had a wonderful time catching up with Josh and Jenica and watching the kids play a girls vs boys game of soccer. The kids were darling as they got in huddles and made game plans.

 

There are four gray Toyota Siennas in this picture. All different years. And all belonging to our family. Kind of funny how, without planning, we have a matching entourage.

 

Sunday was John's baby blessing. Between fasting, and lots of family and friends visiting, the unexpected passing of a close friend in Jim's Elders Quorum that week, Nicole's talk, Jim's EQ lesson and who knows what else...we again didn't take a single picture. I remembered that night as we skyped my parents right before going to sleep. Here is our exhausted selves. :) The baby blessing was so sweet and a confirmation of how right it has been to welcome John to our family. One of the main things I remember from the blessing is that John will have a focus on eternal things that will be a drive in him to make good choices throughout his life. He is a blessing to all of us.

 

My parents have been gone for over 2 years now. Sometimes it seems like I was just giving my Dad a hug goodbye at the airport, wanting to bawl like a baby but being so happy for their adventures ahead serving the Lord. We've already started looking forward to seeing them come home next summer. I love skyping with them and seeing how they are doing!

 

 

For Labor Day we had a bunch of family adventures. Jim took the kids out to breakfast where they went crazy at a play place, then we all went to an artificial turf soccer field and played tag, kicked goals and the kids wrestled with Jim while I rescued him by tickling the kids. Flat Stanley from the Brinsons in Texas joined us :)

 

John has started to smile. There is nothing on earth like the first smiles from a baby. After months of blood, sweat and tears that you've given this little one, to see them look at your exhausted face and light up with a smile is beyond precious to me. My heart just sings when he gives me a little smile and squirms around as if trying to get up and run around with joy.

 

Some more park action on our adventures.

 

I went shopping with Nicole at Target on a mommy daughter date for another adventure in the day. As you can imagine, the kids were going nuts when they saw the Pokeball.

 

 

While Jake went fishing and tree shopping with Jim, Mike and D played a Pokémon matching game. A good family day!