18 years

We celebrated 18 years of wedded bliss on Monday. It was a wonderful day. We arranged a babysitter for some of the kids and Gennifer watched the rest of them so that David and I could have the whole day to ourselves.

He took me out to breakfast and then we went and bought a new comforter set for our bed, which I have been wanting for a while now.

Then we went to the mall for a few hours. It was funny. I stopped. Yea. That is a big deal. I stopped in the mall and no one ran into me. It isn't often that I get to go places and not have an entourage of people run in to me if I suddenly stop. I know I'm weird. We also went up and down the escalator without any major ordeals. I have heard of this phenomenon of entering and exiting an escalator with ease but never have experienced it. We spend time sitting in the food court "people watching". That is a vary fun way to pass the time while waiting on a movie to start. David notices details about people that I never would have noticed.

Then we went to the movies and watched 7 pounds. Of course had to make a top at the snack counter to get a Ginormous bucket of popcorn with so much butter you can hear your arteries clogging. And when we left, we had to get the free refill to bring home to the kids. Seven Pounds was a weird movie that was a little too heavy for a date movie. Still I enjoyed the time.

After that we went to Lowes and bought a few household necessities.

Then we decided to go to downtown historic ft. worth to the Sundance Square. It was all still beautifully decorated for Christmas. We went to Razzoos Cajun Cafe for supper. That was an interesting experience. I love the tchoupitoulas that I ordered. David insisted that I try the crawfish etouffee. In my humble opinion, it was nasty. After eating, we walked around looking at downtown Ft. Worth. Then we went to Barnes and Noble and browsed. Then we headed home.

The Holidays

We have had a wonderful, busy holiday season.

Aside from the fact that I spent Christmas eve night in a rare and emotional fight with my husband whom I don't see often enough, and the fact that I spent half the night holding a puking 15moth old baby boy over a puke bowl, and then Christmas night in the ER with a sick 5 month baby girl, after spending most of the last several weeks with very little sleep, due to said little girl coughing so badly at night that she vomits, it was a good Christmas.

And here is some good news. My wonderful husband is off work for 9 whole days for Christmas. Monday is our 18th wedding anniversary and he and I will be spending the whole day together, just the 2 of us, with no interruptions, doing whatever we want, going where ever we want to go, for as long as we want without giving any consideration to diapers, bottles, formula, diapers, naps, crankiness, diaper bags, car seats, sippy cups, diapers, swings, cribs, cradles, diapers, baby blankets, burp rags, bibs, high chairs, baby wipes, or diapers for the whole day. Did I mention diapers? Yes, I think I did.

I need this so bad. I will post details afterwards, unless of course, I decide that I like it so much I never return. No, I am just kidding, I would never do that. probably.

a puppy

Because I can....

Early Christmas Presents

Sometimes, I am such a S U C K E R.

Like today.

Sonja got an early Christmas present. Can you guess what it is? you may have to click on the image to see it clearly.



DJ also got an early Christmas Present and for this one, I am truly a sucker!

And while we were out and about today, I found some great stockings at a thrift store for cheap so I am happy about that. I found 2 matching teddy bear stockings that will be great for the boys this year. Pictures are forth coming (when we get around to actually hanging our stockings).

Buddies...

Because I'm on a roll, I thought I would post pics of Liam and his BuddyBoy.


Checking each other out the first day BuddyBoy was here.


If you look closely you can see there is chalk on BuddyBoy's face and in Liam's hand. hmmm wonder how that happend?


It's great to have someone that will push!


And someone to share with!




Ahh. Best Buddies.

Praise

This beautiful baby girl is sleeping through the night often and slept from midnight last night until almost 10 o'clock this morning. Yay baby girl! I am so proud of you and only partly because I love my sleep.

We also made a ginger bread house

See Gennifer's blog for the post because I am just too lazy to hunt down the pics.

Decorating for Christmas

I thought I would decorate my blog for Christmas.

We began decorating our haouse the week before thanksgiving. Since David is working out of town and is only home on the weekends, he has a limited time to see the decorations so we wanted to start early.

A treat for you

A real post. It has been a long time since I have posted a real post.

So I thought I would share my favorite photo from thanksgiving day. Gennifer's daddy teaching her how to shoot.

A vary important message

This is a serious, important message that everyone needs to see!!! It is only a minute long. Well worth your time. You will be glad you did! especially if you care at all about the future of this country!

My life...

...has been turned upside down. We currently have 3 new children living with us.

They are a 5 year old boy, a 13 month old boy, and a 2 month old girl. Adding them to my 7 kids, makes it a zoo around here.

Very little time to post. Suffice it to say. I have discovered new levels of stress and ability to deal.

Waaaaaa!

I'm a little emmotionally overwhelmed right now and don't even have time or wherewithall to post why.

Settling in

Well, we are almost through our second week back home. We started school this week which, with all the other things and getting unpacked and organized was quite a challenge and little bit of a rough week. We have not brought everything from Balmorhea home yet. Just the most vital stuff, the stuff that would fit. David is bringing the rest home little by little with each weekend trip home.

I had gotten the school schedule and lessons all planned out and written down and ready to go. It took many hours. When we started school on Monday, I discovered that my very important-organizing-my-thoughts-notebook was left in Balmorhea; the school schedule along with it. The dilemma, redo all of the planning, while not remembering exactly what I had planned and get started on school Tuesday or delay school yet another week as we prepare to enter October already. Needless to say, this was a rough school week. I didn't want to wait.

My mother is in the hospital. Gennifer yesterday and all night with her. Gennifer is sleeping now; trying to recover. My mother should be able to come home tomorrow.

The invisible Woman

Every mom needs to see this.

More pics

Yes I am pic obsessed. I guess I am better at taking pics than I am at spell'n out them words. :-)

Photoshop

Just showing off how great phtoshop is. Sorry this is very pic heavy especially if you're on dial-up.

Phone Booth Phun.

What a novelty my kids discovered in the wilderness of the national park. They had never seen one in the wild before. (Or in captivity either).

 

We weren't willing to cause physical harm to the kids in order to get them all in the phone booth. Well, the kids weren't willing anyway.

 

And Liam loved playing with the phone.

 

And this is what Liam looked like when we took the phone away from him.

 

Poor Liam.

A Big Bend Morning

Clouds rolling over the mountain the morning we woke up in the midst of the awe inspiring view in the Chisos Mountains of the Big Bend National park.

It was an absolutely beautiful morning.

 

Picturesque Big Bend

 

 

 

 

Tent camping In Big Bend

I really had a hard time narrowing down the pics to post. I had so many great pics.

We went to big bend National park on Saturday. It had been raining so much lately, we didn't think we were going to get to go camping. We drove and drove and drove. The official website describes Big Bend National Park as "vast". They're not kidding.

There are many campgrounds in Big Bend. We chose the campground down on the river so we could go fishing.

We finally find the spot we want to camp (near the bathroom-I can only "rough it" so much) and start unloading our stuff. Then we find out the bathrooms we chose to camp near are out of order so we pack all of our stuff back in the van and find another spot.

 

 

 

We got our tents all set up and eat lunch. David and Gennifer head off to find the best fishing spot. Instead what they found was a park ranger coming to tell us that the camp ground we were in was expected to be flooded by midnight. So we take down our tents and load all of the stuff back in the van. We drove 30 miles to the mountain basin campground. The camp sites weren't as nice but the view was breathtaking.

 

Big Bend

 

 

 

 

Poor Sonja

Look how she is miserable at the pool. Pure torture.

 

This is some serious business

These rocks.

 

Liam has an eye for rocks. He loves them. He can spot the tiniest pebble in the oddest places. He can find rocks I never knew were there. He loves rocks. Every time he is outside, he comes up with rocks. And he is always proud of his rocks.

Extra More rock climbing pics

Just for your viewing pleasure because today is your lucky day and because the kids had so stinking much fun.