Week of 9-29-14

 Last Sunday: Playing "Don't Eat Pete" with the younger kids while the older ones went to a friend's house to do family history. Nathan was out of town and it was so relaxing to spend the Sunday night with these kiddos.

 Monday: Nathan was treat for FHE the night he came home from his med school reunion in Texas. He brought us gingersnap cookies from the airplane (he just asked for a few extra packages) and served them with ice cream. The last time he was treats he did almonds and dates. The kids loved this much better!

 Makenna into my mascara.

 Tuesday: Our first day of fall party where we eat candy corn and animal crackers and dance to "It's Fall That's All" by John McCutcheon. I don't think the kids will ever forget these parties.

 Friday: Having other homeschool friends over, playing dress up, and having a royal luncheon.

Later they did hair and nails. It was a great day! Eight girls and 3 boys yet it was the calmest, most peaceful day ever. Not one word of irritation or contempt.

 Saturday: Playing outside. Samuel loves the new bike I found in someone's trash. Meanwhile, the little girls will be riding it. :)

 Makenna on the plasma car. Enjoying these cooler days.

 Thomas playing cars with weed piles.

 Sunday: I had a very stressful Sabbath yesterday including backing the car into the ditch. I always park on the far left spot but Nathan switched the cars so when I backed out in a hurry to get to church for the primary program, I automatically turned as if I were in the left spot instead of the right. I was so embarrassed. Nathan was out giving rides to investigators and luckily my neighbors came to the rescue and towed me out. 

 Pictures at home after the primary presentation. 

The only 4 kids who were in it this year. They were enthusiastic singers and it was so enjoyable watching them delight in taking part. 

Week of 9-14 and 9-21

I've been in a quandary for a year or two about what to do with my weekly newsletters I send our families, my blog, my scrapbooking, the journals and baby books I keep for the kids, and the FHE journal. It's just too much and I want to combine a couple of those. I want to send pictures with my newsletters to show what I've been talking about, but I can only send 4-5 in an email. That's time consuming and then I go and put most of those same pictures on my blog. Then I go and scrapbook those same pictures plus more. I've thought of posting my newsletter on my blog with the pictures, but my newsletters are quite lengthy and a little more personal than I'd like on my blog. I could make it private, but then I like whoever is wanting to see what we've been up to to have access to it. So for now I'm going to post the pictures here that go with stories I've written in my newsletter. Feel free to ask questions if you don't get my newsletter and want to know more about the event. If you have any better ideas please let me know! I'd love a perfect solution.
So here are the pictures that would go with the newsletters of Sept 14 and 21.

 I have a recipe that makes 5 loaves of wheat bread. On the first cool day I decided to surprise Kylie (while she was out baby-sitting) by making one of them into cinnamon bread. She said it was perfect and was all gooey like Panera Bread.

 Opening ceremonies for the Ancient Greece Olympics. Makenna is holding the torch.

 The javelin throw

 The medals

 The winners

 Plasma car fun.

 Makenna showing us how much she loves broccoli. I think this was her third helping.

 Kylie's 14th birthday. It touches my heart to see how much her younger siblings love and respect her. She is an awesome big sister. She's everything I could ask for in an oldest child of a large family.

 She made cream cheese brownies and put homemade peanut butter cups on the top.

 Thomas shut his finger in the hinge of the back door. A week later the nail fell off.

Our stake president found us some free tickets to the big ECU vs UNC game. I took Spencer and Thomas and we had a great time!! We loved every minute of it. We won too, 70-41! I wish we could go again.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

 Samuel playing in the fireplace during school. We all laughed at him and he started hamming it up. We got a video of it, but not many good pictures.

 I'm not sure who took these of Thomas and Alexis playing in the double stroller in their pjs.

 Spencer holding Samuel while getting some ipod time.

 Spencer gets his braces off!

 Samuel being silly with the kids egging him on.

He should be a gymnast because he's always really tight.

 Samuel in his new $4.50 suit from Once Upon A Child. It looks even cuter when he's being held or crawling around. It was hard to get a picture after a long Sunday.

 Ten month photo

 Helping to unload the groceries. He kept sucking on the milk lid and was having a great time.

 Attempt at a family photo at a back yard breakfast event at our friend's house.