A Day of Many Kiddos

Today just kind of as a fluke, I ended up here with SEVEN kiddos!  That only lasted about thirty or so minutes though.  :)

Lisa dropped her girls off early so that she could go to the animal surgeon with Junior.  Poor guy tore his ACL and will be having surgery tomorrow.  Can you believe Lisa didn’t want to bring her sweet precious girls to a consultation with a brand new vet for a very scary and involved surgery for her big dog?

Yeah, me either.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Anna sure does love her some Jamsie boy.

Okay… a little back story here.  Anna has recently become obsessed with dolphins… one dolphin in particular named Winter, who has a prosthetic tail.  Anna and Emma have stuffed dolphins – one Winter, one who is at the same aquarium as Winter, and they brought them over today.  They also have a documentary video that the girls all love watching. 

One part of the video shows the rescue of Winter.  She is carried in a sling thing through the water… much like this:

The girls played and played and played and played with Winter and Panama (who you can see in a couple pictures below) today.  They rescued them a lot.  It was very very cute.

A little after Lisa dropped off the girls, Amy came by with Josie.  She had just dropped off Abby at school and had some time to kill in Kingwood before a meeting at the church.  As she was walking out the door for the meeting, I convinced her to leave Josie with me so she could nap.  (And she did, by the way… at the same time at James!) 

I set the big girls up with a video (to keep them quiet!) while the babies slept.  My house is a little small to keep the noise from the babies.  They were super happy to watch some Magic School Bus.  For as young as they are, I can’t believe how riveted they were to it!

Anyway, the babies had their naps, and Ray came over while they were sleeping.  Then everybody was up so we played in the playroom for a few minutes.

Then Lisa and Amy showed up pretty quickly so it was more like a playdate at that point.  :)

Lisa took this picture as proof I too live in my house.

(And if you’d had seven kids, even for just a little while, you’d still be in your PJs too!  Right?  Right?  Somebody say right.)

Later on, after lunch and the friends had left, we were playing in the playroom before rest time.  Natalie picked out (and put on most of) her own outfit.  She was feeling a bit needy so we called Daddy so she could talk to him.

This picture just speaks to me (except maybe for the hole in the wall from the door lock).  I want it framed big somewhere.  I love it.

This one too.  They make me happy.

And look who figured out how to get on to his FEET today?!?!

That’s not really great body posture, I guess, but he did it!  I called his name and called his name to get him to look over at me.  And he finally did… after I put away the camera.  James joined me in my Pajama day.  :)

It was a really full, fun, wonderful day!

Past few days, but not today

I few days ago I had the step stool in the kitchen so the girls could help make pancakes.  James discovered he could pull up to his knees!

He was quite excited about it.  He really wants to pull all the way up and stand and be big like everyone else.  But he’s just not there yet.  :) 

Just a cute one of my Natalie in the kitchen.  She wears this dress a lot.  She loves it and likes to pick it out to wear.  She usually ends up spilling something on it though.  (Oh, wait.  She does that to a lot of her clothes.)  :)

James needs a very large hairbrush for all of his hair.

Isn’t he just too handsome?!  I love this blue and white on him.  (Thank you, Rucker boys!)

I just can’t get over his cuteness.

Ah, on the leading edge of fashion, this one!

I have a deep deep love for this look.  The hat is James.’

The girl has a good face for drama.

And cuteness.

She put the hat on her brother.  He had to work a bit to get it off.  It was important though, so he did.  :)

Tuesday night was enchilada night!!!  James isn’t quite ready for enchiladas (my rule, not his), but Grandma scrambled him an egg.  He said thank you very much!

Natalie doesn’t take a but a few bites of enchilada before she’s ready for ice cream.  We wait until at least everyone has their plate before she can have her cone.  It’s her most favorite thing.

Wearing Uncle Mark’s hat!

These were all just random pictures, but so cute!  I am playing around with a “new” camera, so I’m taking more random pictures than usual.  My friend Kathy upgraded to a DSLR camera not too long ago, so she passed along her not quite as old and also much fancier than mine camera for me to play with!  It takes much better inside pictures than mine with a lot less trouble!  It’s much bigger though, so it will probably be a stay at home or special occasions camera.  I like my teeny one for the purse.

Thank you Kathy.  I’m enjoying it very much!

Even more playing!

My friend Kathy, her husband AJ, and their three boys are in town from South Carolina (pretty soon they will be from Washington, which is farther, but may as well not be since it’s not like I’ve ever jumped in the car headed to Kathy’s house and now I won’t be able to because it will take like four days instead of two).  So anyway, they’re staying with her sister Missy (who has two boys), and they invited us over to play and eat lunch today!

And if you’re keeping track, that means six boys and two girls.  Plus the grownups.  :)

Very tiny in the top left corner you can see Missy cutting up nine million quesadillas and four million peaches to feed the hungry beasts.

Wow those kids could eat.

Missy has a wonderful house with lots of space and lots of toys and wooden floors for James to glide across.  :)

I didn’t take many pictures (it’s the pockets I tell ya; I need to get a pouch or an apron or something), but I snapped a couple of girls riding this horse.  Natalie LOVED this.  LOVED it.

I think Joanna liked it just fine as well, though my guess is the main reason she wanted to ride it was because Natalie was riding it.  I don’t have proof though.

For me, it took me back.  When I was leetle bitty, we had one of these in our backyard.  My parents named him Lucky.  You know what happens when tiny children say “Lucky?”  It comes out like this: “Yucky.”  And that my friends, is why he got his name.

Mmmmmm… chocolate

So this story really begins a couple of weeks ago when for some strange reason I was at the grocery store with my mother.  (And all the kids; don’t get excited.)  Anyway, she was picking up some of that magic shell ice cream topping stuff.

You know, something like this:

Man we love that stuff on ice cream.  Except she wasn’t buying ice cream!  (I was, but that’s a whole ‘nother craving story.)  She puts it on frozen banana slices – brilliant and practically health food!

Except for all those ingredients in the shell topping…

Enter Pinterest (You have gotten addicted to Pinterest just like me, right?  No?  Check out this beginner’s guide.  And if you need an invite, I’d be happy to oblige.  Or you can just request one from Pinterest.  Whatever works for you. (: )

So anyway, I was browsing Pinterest (‘cause really what I need in my live are more time-sucking activities), and I came across a homemade version of the chocolate shell stuff!

Man, is this a long story long, or what?

So I made some today:

So that’s not the best picture, but I didn’t have time to really care.  :)  The “recipe” I found calls for 1 1/4 cups chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of coconut oil.  I halved it due to a bit of a chocolate chip shortage around here (I have no idea how that happens.).  I just dumped both ingredients into a glass container and nuked it for one minute.  They I stirred it around to finish melting the chocolate chips.

Then, I poured some on frozen sliced bananas…

And it’s kinda sorta almost as good as ice cream.  :)

Wanna know how it works?  You may already, but if not I’ll tell you.  It’s not really magic.  Coconut oil has a melting point of 76 degrees.  Above that, it’s a liquid.  Below, it’s a solid.  So when the mix hits the frozen bananas, it goes back to it’s solid state.  Isn’t that cool?  And there’s coconut oil in the store-bought stuff.  There’s just all of this as well:

SUGAR, SUNFLOWER OIL, COCONUT OIL, COCOA, CHOCOLATE, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: COCOA PROCESSED WITH ALKALI, SOY LECITHIN, SALT, VANILLA, MILK.

And depending on what kind of chocolate chips you use, it may not be so different!  I’m thinking it’s probably cheaper though.  At any rate, it was fun, and it made me happy.

This is not the part of the show where you wonder in astonished amazement at my jewelry collection.

I’ve been cleaning out, decluttering, and purging bit by bit around here, and I decided my accessories needed a new home.  I almost never wear jewelry, and that is due primarily to laziness.  I just don’t think about it.  I don’t want to dig out something from the little plastic bins under my sink behind the child locks.  Ya know?

I’ve seen around on the ol’ internet a couple of things similar to this that got me thinking.  I have these square wire things that when put together with their friends make cubes for storage.  I have like a million of them sitting in my garage.  I used them in my classroom, and a bunch of them were my pantry for many years.  Anyway…

I hung a couple up and added some S hooks to hang the necklaces and bracelets on:

Pretty fancy, huh?

There are a few things that simply don’t fit like stud earrings, rings, and some bracelets, but most things are out for me to see!  And it’s kind of like functional art for my closet door.

Sitting in Church

We’re bringing both girls to the 11:00 service these days.  It’s not exactly my first choice, but it’ll do.  For the record my first choice would be a place they could go right before the sermon starts up (at least some weeks) that wouldn’t involve me missing the first five minutes of the sermon.  This place would not have a video playing.  There would be toys maybe, a craft, some kind of lesson.  I don’t know.  As it is, their only option for during this hour is a classroom for all the two, three, and four year olds.  At the end of the hour (sermon time), they always watch a video.  I just don’t want my kids watching TV on Sunday mornings, you know?  And I’m only complaining a little because the way to fix things is to go do them yourself, and I’m not ready to do that.  I like sitting in church with my family.  :)

They both do really well for the first bit, then they get antsy.  :)

Natalie was “reading” the Bible for quite a long time – so cute!  Here she is praying:

I made Joanna a little book with some folded paper, and she went to town writing in it.  I love that prewriting stage – so cute!

I love Sunday mornings, but they sure do fly by!  (Okay maybe the last 25 minutes of the service doesn’t exactly fly, at least not for preschoolers.)  :)

Aloha! (Or really, “Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday!”)

James got decked out in some of his new Rucker duds for our day of birthday parties yesterday.  This right here is classic Jamsie boy – I could just squeeze him!

Doesn’t it totally look like he’s hula dancing?!

He wasn’t.  Natalie was waving to him from the window.  But it totally works with the shirt, I say.

The first party of the day was for James’ girlfriend Josie.  She’ll be one on Thursday!!

I missed the part about how the big kids needed to bring their swimsuits for backyard water play.  This is why you will see my girls in something other than their swim dresses.  Abby was so kind to loan out some suits to her friends!

Here Joanna is watering the slide before she goes down.

Did I mention it was about nine thousand degrees outside?  Actually, not quite, though it did get up to 109 they tell me.

Oh man, is he just the cutest?! 

James is pretty handsome too!

Josie sleeps with a classic Pooh doll, so that was the party theme!  Look at the cake – amazing, huh?  Amy has a cake lady she uses for the girls’ parties.  This frosting job just floors me.  It isn’t fondant; it’s regular ol’ icing, like tamped down or something.  It was really pretty.

James was a very large fan of the goldfish crackers.  :)

Josie with her cake after we all sang “Happy Birthday” to her.

Josie was a very big fan of the cake!

As were my girls.  Natalie is naked because I noticed right before she started eating that she was wearing Abby’s dress up clothes.  I don’t mind getting our own clothes messy, but I didn’t was to trash someone else’s!

Mmmmmm…  I just love how neat my four year old eats.  Sometimes when I’m kind of tired of cleaning up after James and Natalie, I remember that eventually they will eat a little more neatly.  :)

Abby helped her sister open presents.  I think one year olds don’t quite get it.  :)

Happy Birthday Josie – we love you bunches!!

After the party, we came home, had some naps, then headed back to Atascocita for Jacob and Bella’s birthday party!

Bella just tuned four, and Jacob is about to be seven.  They had a very fun party at their house, mostly in the backyard with lots of games and tons of yummy food!

Here Natalie is enjoying a hot dog.  Natalie is just so fair that I encouraged her to play inside as much as I could.  That, and 109 degrees is too hot for the momma.

It just did not phase the kids though!  They played and played and there was lots and lots to drink for them. 

Joanna taking a swing at the piñata.  I peeked out the window while she was doing this, and she did a pretty good job with that stick – watch out! 

Happy Birthday Jacob!  Happy Birthday Bella!  We sure do love you guys.  Thanks for letting us come play!