The Marathon...

I feel like I am running a race with no finish line in sight. Last week was another one of those weeks where I ran a particularly arduous part of the journey. Wednesday, AWANA started and after we got home at 9 p.m. Jordan and I got to work cutting up tomatoes for making soup the next day, making up the meat mixture for enchiladas and planning lunch and supper for the next day. Jordan taught lessons all day the next day. When we got home the real race began. About 9:30 p.m. we unloaded groceries and started work. We were going camping the next day so had to prepare that food, load the camper, and can up the food stuff I had started. 14 quarts of tomato soup, 7 quarts of stewed tomatoes, 7 pints of raspberry jelly, crock pot enchiladas, frog-eye salad, cookie salad, zucchini cake, tuna sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, grapes, one-cup cookies and the hundred other little details later we were able to pull out of our place Friday by 1 p.m. I ended up in bed at 3 a.m. after taking the last jars out of the canner. Tomatoes are too precious to waste for us (thanks again Jan for the bountiful gift, we cherish them). We didn't get enough in our garden to mention so we are still in need of tomatoes for anyone out there who knows someone who is tired of tomatoes :) We could also use a lot of apples!

We had a great time again fellow shipping with other home schoolers and brothers and sisters in Christ (this time in South Dakota). The boys found some other boys that like sword and gun play and that's pretty much all they did for the 3 days we were gone. Several dads shared their insight into a couple chapters in Ephesians. Another dad share his knowledge of "digging for treasure" in the Bible. There were 2 hayrides, food, campfires, apple dunking and caramel, candle dipping, children's story time, and late night card games. We have been going to this particular weekend for 9 years only missing once when Rebekah at 8 months old had the chicken pox. Today, we are washing up the clothes since everything else is put away!!!! The kids did the job of emptying the camper and getting the stuff put away last night. We plan to do a bit of school today but no pressure since we are all a bit tired. Hope you have a good week. About Wednesday the marathon gets strenuous again but thank the Lord for strength and joy to keep going on.

New room...

Here is the three boys' room after Kevin got the false ceiling removed, sheet rocked it, taped and mudded and then textured the walls and ceiling. He took the carpet out one night and it is ready here to be washed.

Here it is painted Curry Green, with Brownstone floor paint sprinkled with speckles, and Lambswool for the ceiling which is also on the window trim. The paint is almost an exact match to some of the green in the boy's camouflage clothes.

Here it is last night after the boys moved in their beds and other stuff. I found rugs at Wal-mart that have all the colors of their room in them! :) They will like them if the floor is cold this winter. At the end of the bunkbeds is an old "popcorn" table. I used it when I taught preschool as a sensory table. I filled it with popcorn and had all kinds of sand toys in it thus the reason it is called the "popcorn" table. We have filled it with legos this time. It is perfect! The boys had maybe 5-8 different containers with legos and now they are in one place. If they build some great creation they can set it on the top of the legos or under the table and maybe we won't have legos all over the floor. Maybe!

Here is a set of lockers Kevin and I picked up this summer outside the high school where we both went. They got new lockers and were throwing them out so we snagged 6 of them for free. The green doesn't show well with the glare but they really add a nice touch with the red color against the brown and green. Perfect for guns and jackets and backpacks and all their treasures so again they aren't all over the floor.
Here is another corner of the room. Another rug and dresser and then the closet. We wondered if we should make the closet bigger for three boys sharing but decided that would take a little too long and decided dressers and buckets would have to do. This year I bought 5 of the kids a set of 20 hangers in each a different color. So all of Gideon's clothes are on green hangers, Caleb's on blue, Isaac on black. This is so wonderful; I wish I would have done it sooner. One great thing about moving them again is we cleaned out all the clothes that don't fit and decluttered some. The excitement last night over moving in erupted into noisy boys who kept annoyed sisters awake for some time with their chatter.

Happy Birthday...

Kevin! It was Kev's birthday yesterday. I took 4 pictures of him and it kept glaring and I gave up so here is my very shiny husband! Kev wanted to eat at Paradiso so that's what we did. Kids under 8 eat free on Sunday (4 of them) and Kev ate free because it was his birthday! I ate too much! : ) It was a very pleasant time.

The girls are busy with symphony starting last week. Jordan has practice and then Em so it is a long day. Jordan tried out for the Chamber players and got into a piece with two others; a violin and a viola. She is excited and nervous because she got 1st violin in the piece and it is a little challenging. Em is a little nervous because their conductor asked them to memorize a part in one song! He said he'd give away a Dairy Queen Blizzard if they can do it. It's a pretty big orchestra so I'm not sure he means it!?! He is quite the joker; making fun of kid's shoes, if they are home schooled, if they missed a note, all kinds of disparaging comments but it seems to be all in fun.

Last week was busy trying to get school in each day, painting the boy's newly finished room, sewage backing up on one end of the house, plumber coming to work on basement bathroom and clear the blocked sewer system, lessons, symphony, and canning raspberry jelly (mmmm, love it). Kev and I stayed up til 3 a.m. painting the room one night and cleaning up sewage. It poured down in my canning room so Kevin washed down about 100 jars of food and threw shelves that were soaked through and a few other things. It was disheartening at the time. Now that there are new shelves to replace the bad ones, the jars and everything are washed, and the floor repainted it doesn't seem such a big thing. Our basement bathroom has a fully functioning shower (although we won't use it until the bathroom is completely finished). Kevin has a lot of work down there! :( It may be quite awhile before it's sheet rocked and mudded since he does it in his free time.

Cheese...

Mozzarella Cheese made from goat milk. I tried this the other night and the kids really like it. It tastes like mozzarella cheese !!!!! How neat it was that it turned out. You soak it in salt water for the final step and it really needs it. I tasted a middle part and it tasted goaty to me without that salt on it. I took one gallon of milk and it made this small Corelle bowl of cheese. I have a gallon of whey left over. I could have taken the whey and immediately made ricotta cheese from it (book says that's the best time) but I'd been on my feet all day and it was late so next time I make cheese I hope to try it. Unfortunately, Snowball is going to the butcher tomorrow. We cannot control this goat and catch it to milk it therefore, we will have a bit less milk.
Couponing!!! I love it when I get a great deal on a shopping trip and I love to share it with others. One of the things with couponing is I don't use many products that have "junk" in them like dyes, perfumes, disodium EDTA, parabens, etc. Yesterday, I was able to coupon and choose products called free and clear or for sensitive skin. They can still contain some unfavorable substances but I consider them a better choice. Right now, we really need the savings. I paid $21.56 for these items. Without coupons and Target gift cards they would have been $62.13. It doesn't seem that so few products could be that much but I had $10 in gift cards and $32 in coupons. I had 2 coupons for each product (one Target and one manufacturer). I had $4 off the razors (making them $2.50 a piece), I had $1.75 off the shaving creams (making them $0.58 each) and I got a $5 gift card for buying two Playtex boxes plus I had a $2 off coupon for each box making each box $2.50 a piece when they were originally $6.99 each. I had $2.50 off each bottle of Downy or Tide. I tried to buy the cheapest bottle making each one half price but I got home and noticed I messed up. I bought a bigger bottle for one spending $2 more than I would have had to. I always buy the smaller getting the cheapest price because these deals will keep coming around and I do stock up on these things. I don't use the women's shave cream but found they make a great graduation gift when combined with the razors. It isn't any fun to coupon unless you can give them away so I was able to give away 7 coupons yesterday saving them a total of $10.25! :)

We had to come home...

During Sunday night's chapel. Gideon was out first and Riah laid on him and he never noticed! :)
Jordan and Chrissy (who comes from quite a drive from Montana to attend these things).

Caleb and his friend Levin having fun. They went from paddleboat to canoe and back again.

Moriah on the slide.

Rebekah going down the big slide!

This was written Monday night:

Today, we were packing up to leave Family Bible Camp where we had been since Friday noon. We had so much fun I said today that I could just live there. The food which all provided was so very good, the fellowship was wonderful, the activities each day were pleasantly tiring. The family that put on the June camping trip at their farm put this on at a Bible Camp. They provided the food and the boating and jet ski with tubing. They also invited a man to speak who was inspiring. He has had 600 boys come through his ranch he runs as a boy's home with his wife. He didn't speak about the experience of those boys as much as how everything that happened to him was by accident. He was saved by accident, he was only going to the church to be with a girl when God got a hold of him. I just wish someone had videotaped all the sessions or taped them on cassette. He was an amazing speaker. Isaac got the front row seat all four times he spoke and he even coerced someone out of that seat so he could have it. Mr. McNabb didn't speak just one little hour either :)

Well, it is Tuesday and we've gotten up to 7 loads of laundry washed and maybe 7 left. We are picking tomatoes, okra, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, beans and raspberries. Have a good week!

Pressure is good...

Sometimes in your life when you are under pressure life is good or even better. At various times in my life I have been invigorated under pressure and other times (depending on the pressure) I've collapsed (so to speak). This week I am invigorated (I may crash later :) ) We have had the opportunity to have five extra kids 14 down to 4 stay with us and we eat meals on time, have the laundry caught up, kids all showered, school nearly done and I am sane!!! I am sitting here at noon in my pajamas wearing an apron helping Caleb with Grammar, listening to Moriah decide if it is really true that pink and purple are only girl colors (some kids believe they are), watching kids play with pattern blocks. I've hung out one load of laundry, washed 2 more, picked zucchini, moved our chicken tractor (with help), and helped 3 children get all their school done and am working on 3 more to be done by the time I have to run to town to drop some extra kids off, change oil, do banking, pick up a part for Kev, pick up my coupons, get a few groceries, get home to pick beans, freeze some zucchini, pack clothes and bedding for kids for family camp we are going to Friday to Monday, make up some food for Kev (who is staying home here to milk goats and work on projects around the house). Will I get it done? Probably. Could I do this every day? No! It feels good to feel like I accomplished something though. I tend to feel down when I don't accomplish all that's on my list. With 5 extra kids the house seems cleaner, the meals are nicer and on time, and I have read more books and done more activities with the kids than usual. Isaac just sat down to do his Grammar now. I hope you are all having a good week.