Primarily written by Adrienne, a homeschooling mother of seven, ages 10 and under. She chronicles life, laughs, struggles, and lessons learned as she raises a larger-than-most sized family and tries to figure out what she's doing day by day.

With occasional posts, Alexandra, Adrienne's older sister, writes of her ranch life in Nevada and raising four sons, ages 5 and under. Life is never dull and her boys have given her some pretty awesome stories to tell.

Stick around awhile, and you're sure to laugh, nod, smile, be encouraged, and see what life is like with a big (little) family.

9.27.2009

Random non-news and... well, that's pretty much it.

Our shower whistles sometimes. Who knows? Eden was a bit concerned when it started it's shriek this morning. "Daddy! The alarm o'clock is beeping!" Ah, yes. We laughed.

Went for a drive tonight. We found a house for sale, with the info out front. Before I went to the info envelope, we both guessed on the home's selling price. I said $129,000. Blaine said $70,000 tops. Not so much. $169,900. Seriously, that house apparently had a whole lot more going on inside than it did outside. But, just for the record, I am by no means competitive and didn't make sure that Blaine knew I was closer in my estimation. Definitely not.We've had some fun weekends lately. We went to the zoo last weekend for a whopping $4 admission for all of us. Gotta love dollar days. Poor Ruby though... she's loved. Blaine shot the photo, and it just made me laugh. Poor Ruby.

Monday we went to Branson, and stopped at this dam along the way. Ruby thought she was hot stuff, holding hands and walking all the way up the path back to the car. She'll take about 6 steps, fall down, get back up and try again over and over again these days. All I can say is that it's a good thing that she wears diapers. She needs the padding.

9.21.2009

You told me to blow!

Ruby, birthday cake in front of her, in the front yard. Like my sprinkle work? I know, I'm so very talented, I can't even stand it.Told to blow, she blew! Oh, baby.
Mmm, cake. Decorated by Ruby, even. She blew her two cents in.


Yep, must be good.



Ruby got a baby doll for her birthday. I'm not sure which she liked better, the doll or the doll's bottle.Hmmm, what, the bottle's not for me? Now that's just mean.

Presenting...

We've been here three and a half weeks, so I'm going to consider this on time - mostly. The computer didn't crash when I uploaded the camera, but I've chosen not to check the memory usage. It's better that way, right?!

Without further ado... our house. I have a few more blogs coming asap, now that the camera's dumped. Ruby's birthday being one of them. That was only...2 1/2 weeks ago. That's not late either, by this standard!



Goodbye, Pennsylvania.My view for a thousand miles.Just in case you were wondering. We were very, very full.
Very.Hello, Missouri.My big kitchen. Love it!Dining room/other half of kitchen. The open door is through the living room to the front of the house, the closed door is to the non-garage. The laundry/back door is just to the right of the white wall you see on the right of the photo.Living room/front door, complete with the moving truck parked on the street.Laundry. Back door is to the right.

Master bedroom.
The girls' room. The door shown there is to the babies' room. You have to go through the girls' room to get to the babies' room.
The babies' room. Slightly bigger than it looks. Slightly. It works well for the two little beds though.
The bathroom. Eden looks like she was about to use it. Sorry folks, it was a long drive!
And, for the non-grand finale, the non-garage. Blessed room that it is, it makes for great storage. One day we'll get it organized. It's not looking like this these days, but it's getting there.

And that's the house - pre-move in. One of these days I'll get photos of it now. I figure I've got, say, another month.

9.08.2009

Nope, still no photos.

Sorry folks. I'm just not that good. Mostly, my computer is full and dumping a memory card full of photos is more than likely going to be the death of it. We'll get there though.

We've been in Springfield for a week and a half at this point. I've gotten lost half a dozen times, made my first successful trip to Walmart and back without having to turn around once, the lawnmower won't start, my kitchen is mostly unpacked but not completely, I love my dishwasher, and 950 square feet isn't quite big enough for this crew - or this amount of crap, one or the other. I thought I threw away a lot before we moved, but I've pared down even farther. Amazingly enough, I love that.

We've enjoyed our church so far, aren't sure where it's going, but are loving the people there. We've been to homes of people from church 3 times and are invited to another one tomorrow night - in a week and a half, I remind you. PA was so very unfriendly. I can think of 3 homes, total that we were invited to in PA. It's a world away at this point.

I was very nice to Liberty this afternoon. She asked to drink my cold coffee I hadn't finished, I agreed, and three hours past bedtime, she's still lying awake in there. Bad momma. Didn't think of that. She's a good sport though. If she starts talking to me, she doesn't even slow down to take a breath. It's comical.

Ruby turned one last week. We celebrated Monday - when I finally got her presents wrapped and cake made. First born gets a party, fourth gets a cake four days late - and a crazy cake at that. It was homemade though, give me that much. Really, what happened between kid one and kid four? Sleep wasn't it, that's for sure.

We started school (again) today. It went well, I guess. Liberty forgot how to write! She spent an hour doing the two pages of cursive I required of her. We worked through the summer to avoid this day, and here we are anyway. I got an awesome Bible curriculum though, and it sparked some great conversations. That was the highlight of my day - unless you count the part where I got all the laundry done for that brief moment in time. That one was pretty great too.

Bedtime for me. Liberty, want to lock up? I thought it would be a few more years before my kids were up later than me. Craziness.

9.03.2009

They spend WAY too much time around me.

We were at a meeting for the soon-to-be-no-longer-URC URC church last night. Afterward, the one and only elder was talking to Eden and he suggested we could meet for services in her room. She giggled, said there wasn't enough room, and he said maybe we could all fit under her bed. Her reply made me cringe.

"No, we won't fit. There's too much crap under there!"

Oh, baby. Thankfully, he went with it and laughed, said there is too much crap under his bed too, and that his eight year old son is constantly telling him not to say "crap". Somebody should have told that one to Eden's momma, I'm thinking.