Birthday Celebration, American Girl Style

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Abbie

I’ll say, at least, this one of the most memorable birthdays for Zoe. Back in August, we talked about going to the American Girl store for her birthday. She loved the idea and quickly agreed to save up her money to help in purchasing a doll. She worked hard too. She watched every penny she spent and made sure she had enough to help with the doll purchase. So, December was the month. Ge, Grandmere, Aunt Yaya and cousin J all traveled from the ends of the earth (okay, from a few hours away), to converge on The American Girl Store and eat brunch at the Bistro. Let me just say, that this place is every little girl’s (and big girl’s) dream! We were all in doll heaven and couldn’t get over looking at all the sweet things. Ceili Rain’s eyes were as big as saucers when we walked in. Aunt Yaya asked her if she wanted to look at something and she slowly shook her head yes. When she asked her what she just shrugged her shoulders…there was so much to see.

Cinnamon mini muffins…yummy. Ceili Rain enjoyed eating the butter too.

Cousin J and Zoe modeling their “hats!”

Zoe with Marie-Grace her new doll.

Marie-Grace with her best friend Cecile on display. I loved Cecile’s curly hair and her beautiful dresses!

They shrunk!

The mall also had a carasoul which was spotted pretty quickly from the parking lot.

Of course, the girls had to ride.

Aren’t these the prettiest girls!

After a trip to the American Girl store we celebrated with the boys with cake at Ge’s house. Zoe also had a fun filled day on her actual birthday too!

Her request for cake this year was a chocolate-vanilla swirl cheesecake. I also made chocolate whipped topping for it too! It was super yummy which is why I didn’t take a picture of it.

Let’s Try this Again

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Abbie

My book list for 2011 was a great idea, but I admit that I got side tracked and did not read hardly anything on it. I did read but not that much from my list. 2012 should prove a good year for reading as I will be nursing a wee one and I prefer to do that sitting down and to keep from going to sleep, I usually read.

So, here goes…I present my reading list for 2012.

January: Large Family Logistics by Kim Brenneman. I’ve been oogling over this book since it came out this year and my dear sweet husband purchased it for me for Christmas! Isn’t he amazing!
February: Deeper Waters by Robert Whitlow. Mark’s mom introduced me to this writer and I downloaded the sample for his book and loved it. It’s suspense, mystery and set in the south, Can a book get any better than that?
March: Love Your Husband, Love Yourself by Jennifer Flanders. My sister-in-law got this for me and I’ve read tidbits but nausea and pregnancy have kept me put off from actually digging in to it. I can’t wait to get started though. It does prove to be some good insightful reading.
April: Though Waters Roar by Lynn Austin. I saw this book in a Christian book circular and thought it looked interesting. With an author who has a last name Austin, it’s got to be good. Okay, so it’s spelled different than Jane Austen but it’s still pronounced the same.
May: The Gentle Ways of the Beautiful Woman by Anne Ortlund. This is a three in one volume so I will probably just read one book. It’s an oldie, but supposed to be a goodie. Oh, and I got it used for pennies. Actually paid more for the shipping than the book.
June: Ten P’s in a Pod by Arnold Pent III. I do believe this has been on my list to read. I think it will be a fun easy read.
July: Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit by Teri Maxwell. Okay, I’ll admit, I may need to read this every month.
August: Duncan’s War by Douglas Bond. A good fiction book to get back into the swing of things with school. I’m reading it to see if it’s appropriate for the kids to read. No, really, I am. Okay, it’s set in Scotland. I couldn’t resist.
September: The Resolution for Women by Priscilla Shirer. My sister got this book for me for Christmas.
October: No Longer a Slumdog by K.P. Yohannan. I’m scared to read this book. I know it will break my heart and turn it even more towards caring for children but I must read it.
November: Well, that leads me to a book that I purchased that I can’t remember the name of nor can I remember where I put it. Really. No wait, I found out the name. It’s 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp. I’ll be grateful when I can find it again. Let me know if you see it. Well, I’ve got eleven months to locate it. Updated to say that I found it. I mentioned to Mark that I had lost it and he produced it, announced he had read two pages and it was too depressing and had put it down. Yay for me to read.
December: Given that I didn’t do so well getting through my list last year, I might just leave this month open to catch up.

I will say I had one small accomplishment, I read through the Bible this year. Chronologically. Which is pretty interesting. I didn’t read it alone. Zoe and Mark read through too. My eight year old daughter read through the Bible in one year ya’ll! That’ll keep ya accountable if nothing else will! And honestly, I think just reading the Bible is the more important that all these other books I have listed. Well, Large Family Logistics runs a close second though.

Energy Burner

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Abbie

A sure fire way to get my kids to burn off excess energy is to go to gymnastics. There is a local gym that offers homeschool classes twice a month. The kids love it and usually rush to finish school on gymnastics days. This month, they had a “Snowflake Show-off” which meant we got to sit down front and center and watch the kids do their thing!

Ceili Rain, Bryant, and Josiah enjoyed the show. Josiah’s old enough to participate but gymnastics is not his thing.

They all received medals at the end.

Okay, so the Olympics is not in our future, but it sure is fun for them and they definitely sleep well after gymnastics.

Piano Man…and Woman

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Abbie

In between travels, Zoe and Ace had their first official piano recital with their teacher Mrs. T. They’ve been taking for the past two years and have done really well. We just recently figured out that Ace can play a bit by ear. Zoe was teaching herself “The First Noel” and Ace heard her playing it and picked up on several different measures too. That thrills this non-musically talented mama to no end. This coming year we’ll add Liam to the lessons and Mark will start teaching Ace percussion as well. He’s wanted to learn to play drums for quite some time and we have a live-in instructor so my house will be full of endless musical noise!

Excuse the spots. I have no idea what was on our new camera lens.

Ge & Granddaddy made the trek up to hear them play (and deliver the wood for the boys’ beds…don’t worry, I’m getting there).

On to December

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Abbie

The first part of December we were able to gather at Grandmere and Papa’s house with Mark’s brother and his family. That’s right, six adults (two of whom were pregnant), and thirteen children together again. Thanks to a lot of organizing on Grandmere’s part, the chaos was kept to a minimum. It was a great, if not short, visit too! We celebrated Grandmere’s birthday and had a piano recital all packed into three days.

The zipline was a big hit.

Zoe and Cousin O enjoyed decorating Grandmere’s cake. Liam requested that we put butterflies on it.

Bryant loved hugging on Cousin K’s neck.

Ceili Rain and Cousin TJ were best buds most of the weekend. They shared a common interest in the baby doll!

We ventured out to eat after our piano recital. The buffet was a hit. But the dessert bar, well, the kids loved it!

Ice cream with all the fixings…yep, that’s good.

Awaiting her marshmallow because we always roast marshmallows at Papa’s house!

Yes! Marshmallows!

Again with the cousin lovin’ for Ceili Rain. This time it’s Cousin G.

Everyone enjoyed our visit from Uncle D, Grandmere’s brother.

Thanksgiving

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Abbie

Thanksgiving weekend, we traveled to Granddaddy and Ge’s house. Along with staying out all night with Ge and Aunt Yaya, we stuffed my face silly, laughed at the kids having a blast and celebrated Christmas with my aunt and my cousins and their children. We had a wonderful, relaxing trip! Let the eye candy begin! My kids are too adorable not to post a ton of pictures from this trip.

The cafe was a success…I believe this was turkey made by my lovely niece and Zoe. At one point, they had to fire Liam.

Aunt Yaya got in prime tickling time with all the kids.

It’s safe to say that Ceili Rain was snuggled and loved by everyone including her big cousin!

Definitely enjoyed being a princess.

Toenails and fingernails were primed and painted. I love seeing my children and their cousins having such a good time!

Bryant enjoyed all the dogs including the ones that were not real.

Granddaddy got a big box that quickly turned into a hiding place, a house, and other things.

How many cousins can fit into a box?

Present time. Always a treat!

One of my cousin’s kids. He’s just like his dad!

Did I mention the Aisans?

Posted on December 26, 2011 by Abbie

Nothing truly exciting happened in D.C. Well, that isn’t totally true. If I had charged, I could have made a little extra money for snapshots of my kids. On our first day in DC, I decided to make everyone wear the same colored shirt so I could spot us all easily if we had to spread out on the metro and as we got on and off, etc. We went to the Postal Museum first (which is a very good hands on museum even if the security guard did follow us everywhere). After lunch, we had just enough time to hop on the metro, go to the Air & Space Museum and then hop back on the metro before rush hour.

When we walked into the Air & Space Museum there were a bunch of foreign tourists. This I know by the fact that they did not speak English and each one of them had a camera. They saw all my children and quickly motioned for us all to get together so they could ~~exploit~~ take a picture of us. The dear child that stayed with us while her daddy was in training during the day was thoroughly confused but happily obliged. Then, I explained to her that there are not a lot of large families in Aisan countries (nor ours for that matter) and seeing a bunch of little children all dressed alike was pretty exciting for them.

The next day, we headed back to the Air & Space Museum in an attempt to see all we had not seen in the 30 minutes we were there the day before. And, as we were taking a potty break, the same thing happened again. Except this time, each of the tourists wanted to get their picture made with our group. One at a time. As you can imagine, my children were quite tired of it by the time they let us go and they made sure to voice their opinions. They recovered quickly though and we made it through the whole museum without another invasion of picture taking. Mark told me I should charge should it happen again!

Birthday Celebrations

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Abbie

Busy, busy! But, here we are. To my birthday. For our celebration, I decided to go to the Yankee Candle Company Flagship Store in Williamsburg. We were were on our way to Alexandria, VA so it seemed like the best stop. And it was!

This is an awesome store. Animatronic “show,” indoor “snow” and all the candles that Yankee Candle Company has ever made.

They also have a place where kids (for a price) can make their own candles and such. Which we did. Which was probably after we left our camera sitting out in the atrium. Which is where it stayed until I realized it the next day and called and Yankee Candle graciously shipped the camera back to our house. Which is why there will be no pictures from our trip to Alexandria, Washington D.C. and the like. At least not now. There are a few on my camera and could possibly be a few on a camera that I bought for too cheap but I haven’t gotten to those yet.

Watching it snow indoors!

Another customer came by when we were walking around and told me all about the snow and how adorable our children were and that she had asked an employee to make it snow again so the kids could see it again before we moved to another area of the store. And they did! What an amazing store!

They were in awe of the talking mice in the clock.

After the store visit, we headed out to eat and found a great restaurant where I had the best barbecue of my life! No joke. It’s Pierce’s BBQ and if you ever go to Williamsburg you have to eat there! It’s a-maz-ing! Of course, no pictures because my camera was sitting lonely at the Yankee Candle store.

Let the travels begin

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Abbie

As stated previously, we went to Williamsburg in November. This was my first trip (and the kids too) and we were all so excited. We spent two days there and walked and walked and saw just about everything. It definitely was a good trip for us and a great learning experience for the kids. They only wore their costumes the first day. Which was good because the second day it was cloudy and rather cool.

The princess in her chariot.

To the stocks with ye!

Sad lot!

Might I say, we went at a great time and were able to see some beautiful fall trees! Bryant loved the leaves.

Lunch anyone! This was the only way I could get him to allow me to take his picture.

The hits for the girls: The Millinery and the Weaver. The boys: the Gunsmith and the Battery.

We didn’t stay in Colonial Williamsburg but opted for a very affordable resort, The Historic Powhatan (not paid to say that…we paid them) about ten minutes away (and a beautiful drive too). I would recommend searching the travel discount sites for reservations here. We got a great deal on a two bedroom, two bath condo. It was a wonderful resort recommended by a friend. They had an indoor pool and the rooms had a ton of space which was awesome for our size crew. The first morning we were there, we drove out and saw the swan above just a swimming in the pond. And then the geese. Oh my, they took their sweet time crossing the road but it was so neat to be close to such lovely birds!

The Whole Truth: What’s a Large Family?

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Abbie

“Uncle” Scott asked:
Ok, I’m game.
“…nor do I feel we have a large family. But, apparently, by today’s standards we do.”
In your opinion what is a “large” family? Do you hope to eventually have one?

I’m starting with an easy one! First questions first…I have no clue what a large family is! If I stop and look at us or any family with more than two or three children, I guess, I’d have to consider them a large family. I don’t consider us to have a large family because we know people who have more than us (and probably always will).

If you talk to any family with more than two or three children they’ll tell you the same thing, I don’t see numbers, I see Zoe, Ace, Liam, Josiah, Ceili Rain and Bryant. While that’s a mouth full, I just see individuals. They are all so different and unique.

I honestly look at pictures like this:

and think, hmm, is that all we have. It just doesn’t seem like a lot of kids. Maybe we’re used to it, maybe we’re a tad bit crazy or maybe, just maybe we love each of them as little individuals and not as a massive group of six children.

My sister-in-law (pregnant with #8) is the same way. This past weekend, we had pictures with Grandmere and Papa. After arranging all thirteen kids with the grandparents, we all looked and said, “Is that all? Seems like we’re missing someone.”

As far as hoping to attain to a number. Well, we tried that. We thought we wanted four children and to adopt maybe two (giving us six). God closed the door on adoption for now and neither Mark nor I had a peace about getting him “fixed (although nothing is broken…obviously).” I’ve said a few times that ten is a nice round even number but we’re not fixed on it or any other number. We don’t have a goal we’re trying to reach nor are we trying to “beat” some other large family…and please don’t compare us to the Duggars. That just drives us crazy! We’re happy with the seven we have but if God chooses for us to have more we say “Woohoo!” and “Thank You, Lord!” If he chooses for us to just have our little brood of seven, then we’ll be happy with that (but we still feel called to adopt…just waiting for Him to open that door again).

I can see where that is hard for people to understand in today’s society. We’re (meaning American society) used to getting fast and firm answers. We want to know numbers. We (me included) can have our days planned out to the millisecond. So, saying that our bunch is leaving our actual family size up to God is a bit wacko sounding. But, it’s what we feel called to do. We don’t walk according to our will but to Him who is in us. We want to live our lives to honor and please God and this is where we feel He has called our family to surrender obedience to Him. I’m not saying He won’t tell us to stop at some point, but for now, we feel His hand on our family size leading and guiding.

For now, we’ll keep counting and recounting the kids in our pictures to make sure we have them all!

Got any more questions for our Bunch? We’d love to answer them! Ask away!

*The two lovely pictures in this post were from Tracy Carr! Isn’t she awesome. I’m waiting on the others (including some maternity ones) before I post them all! Hint! Hint!

Just a Bunch of Characters

Musings of everyday life in a house full of Characters.