They All Call Me Mom

Family Selfie

As the kids get older it gets harder and harder to find the time to do a family Christmas photo. The 6 older kids have jobs, 2 live out of the house, and the younger ones are in sports with weeknight practices plus weekend games, and of course there’s always Rich and his unpredictable fire […]

we are trying something new….

Happy New Year! When a new year starts, it’s common to start new things and aspire to new goals. Well, this new year my family is starting something new: A YouTube channel. That’s right. We are going there. Now, I have no idea how often we will add a new video because it takes time to edit […]

a family that plays together…

Last night I played Monopoly with Alex and his two friends. Just the four of us. We were up well past midnight, because you know how long that game can be, and so today I am tired. But that’s okay. I can afford to lose a little sleep. What I cannot afford is to pass up the chance […]

an Uncommon tip for this holiday season

*This post has been sponsored by UncommonGoods.com.  The day after Halloween we woke up to Christmas decor on our street,  holiday music playing on the radio, and Santa Claus set up in our mall, already asking children if they’ve been naughty or nice. Is it just me, or is the Christmas season starting way early this year?? […]

We added on to our family…again!

Meet Maverick & Maisie Over the summer, we added on to our family! As if it’s not crazy enough here, right? Now add two puppies to the chaos.  I didn’t plan on getting two puppies. I went to the breeder knowing that I was coming home with a male puppy. I had it in my […]

Playing Catch-Up

Okay the next few days I will be playing catch-up on my blog, because it’s been a long time. Waaaaaay too long, I know. But what can I say? I’m a busy mama. So first I will start off by telling you all about my #8 Andrew and how over the summer he went from […]

the house that doesn’t sleep…and a survey

Okay, so lately I am getting very little sleep. I blame Aiden. Yes, my sweet three year old is being difficult. Oh, he’s not trying to be difficult. It’s not his fault, actually. I blame the older kids. They are the ones who won’t get into bed before 10:00pm, and they are the ones who […]

the pros & cons of cloth diapers…and a give-away!

Although Aiden has been potty trained for about a year now, it wasn’t until last night that I finally cleared out all of his cloth diapers from his drawers. That’s right, it took me this long to finally accept that my diaper-changing years are over. <insert heavy sigh here> As I sorted through all the cute diapers I had in my […]

Back to School and Keep’n Cool

The school year has started and we are getting into the routine once again.  Now that the mad rush of that first week is over, I have some time to share a few photos of our first day of school. Here they are, all bright eyed and bushy tailed on the morning of their first […]

backeth in timeth

The other day we treated our family to a night at The Medieval Times! This is a place near us that does a very fun and realistic rendition of the middle ages.  They do a tournament show with knights and horses, and they serve you dinner, too. The servers call you “m’lady” and “m’lord” which is kind of […]

a weekend away

A couple of weekends ago, we rented a cabin in our local mountains. Rich and I had decided that this family of ours deserved a break from all the sports and other social commitments that keeps us all so busy.  So we cleared our calendar and unplugged our devices and headed up to the mountains […]

BACKYARD POOL

This update has been long overdue.  You all remember my talk of the pool construction?  Well, the pool has been finished for a few months now and I’m finally getting around to posted about it.  We still are not quite done with our yard, but the pool itself is done.  We still need to install […]

JUST DIRT & RUBBLE

I know a lot of you are wondering about our pool construction. We should be swimming in our new pool right about now, right?  Well, our pool construction hasn’t even started yet due to the city permits. We are still waiting on the city permits. The “soils report” to be exact. Everything passed except the […]

JUNE 2014

June.  Such an exhausting month.  June is the wrap-up month of school for our district, and this makes the month very chaotic.  In these last few weeks all the major school projects are due; the science fair projects and the writing projects. This is also when they all take their class field trips. All of […]

SEVEN YEARS GONE

Tomorrow is the anniversary of my grandmother’s death.  It’s been seven years. I still miss her so much. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her, wishing she were here to enjoy her many great-grandchildren.  I found an old post that I did a few years ago about how I […]

PROGRESS

The boys’ bedroom project is underway. It has been a slow go due to Rich’s busy work schedule which keeps him away for days at a time. But on his days off he is in the boys’ room, building those bunk beds. Alex is always in there, too, watching and learning, and helping when he […]