Monday, June 28, 2010

The Magnificent Seven!

The first picture of all 7 kiddos! What a good look'n, sweet bunch of kids! :)
I came from a family of 7 kids. I remember always feeling like 7 just was not enough kids in our family. Maybe it was because I was toward the end of the family and my siblings were mostly all older...but probably it was just because I loved my family so much and felt like there weren't enough of them!

7 kids has always been the number I knew would be at least our minimum (if not our maximum) number of kids we would have. I have always wanted a lot of kids. When I was a little girl, I would tell people I wanted 23 kids...by the time I met and fell in love with Dave, that number was down to a more realistic 13. Kids are just amazing and fun and wonderful and bring so much joy to the planet!
Other people look at our family and sort of freak a bit at the amount of children we have, but looking at them all and knowing them all....7 feels like a very small number. They each bring such a unique light and love to our family....which light could we have done without? Which sweet smile and which bright laugh would we not miss? Wow, makes me depressed just thinking about living my life and trying to learn all I need to learn without every single one of my children. I am so blessed and my life has been made so much richer from having the extreme privilege and honor of being the mother to each of my 7 children!! Is it more work, more noise, more mess, more busyness than if we just had a few? Of course it is....but it's all worth it...and then some!

Friday, June 25, 2010

Spring finally starting springing, Duncan started giving us lots of smiles and Dave went to China!

After a VERY long winter that began way back at the first of October and lasted until the middle of May, Spring finally arrived!
Our two apple trees (from which we never get any edible apples thanks to the bugs and birds) burst into full bloom all in one glorious weekend!
Apple blossoms are so cheery; so bright; so happy; so SPRING!


Duncan has always responded to our happy faces by giving us a little smile here and there...even from the day he was born. But around the middle of May, he started smiling even more!

We started being able to count on him smiling pretty much every time we smiled at him (and he was not crying...)

Suddenly, he became much more interactive and sociable!

At 4 1/2 weeks old, he was giving his Daddy regular smiles....just in time for his Daddy to leave us for 5 weeks to go to China!
The day before Dave left, we met him so we could release a few "pets" that really belonged in the wild. While we waited for him to arrive, the kids enjoyed climbing a big tree...

.....playing with some big sticks....

....walking around, enjoying the nice weather and sunshine....

....looking for bugs....playing with more big sticks....

.....delighting at the discovery of "wishing flowers".....

.....climbing very high in the big tree.....

.....nursing the baby (well, I did that, not the kids)........

......being silly........

......hanging out in the car............

......wrangling REALLY big sticks.....
....and then Daddy arrived and took the kids down to the creek to release the critters.

Yes, we use our food storage containers for critters sometimes.....What? It's safe...we're not dead yet....
There goes Charmander, the tiger salamander off to enjoy his new life of freedom! The kids also released a garter snake, whom I'm sure was also very glad to be free....so glad, in fact, that he slithered off too fast to get a picture of!

The next day, early in the morning, Dave left a very emotional post-partum wife and their 7 children to spend 5 weeks in China.

Very happily, my generous and kind Mother came to stay with us for the majority of the time Dave was gone. As you can tell by Duncan's very happy face, we were all over-joyed she came! :)