Our Easter in Pictures

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

For the Boy Moms Out There

Today was one of those days where I had planned on mostly staying home all day. Doing not much but relaxing while waiting for the rest of the snow on the driveway to melt away because a 15 passenger van vs snow and ice on a gravel driveway is just not always fun.  But I quickly discovered we were completely out of chicken food and the birds must be fed so my plans changed. As I was walking out the door, I was informed of a few more items that we were also completely out of that just could not wait until payday in another 10 days. This does make me wonder why no one else can write down on the fridge when we are low on items but I digress.

So after the feed store, I headed off to the grocery store. Alone without any children, the grocery store suddenly becomes a lot more interesting than it would be otherwise and I find myself wandering aisles, wasting some time, and enjoying the relative quiet.

While wandering, I overheard a few parents having one of those discussions. The oh my gosh, it is so hard having x number of kids. One Mom piped up with "And I have all boys so that just makes it worse." As a mom to 8 boys, this is what I wanted to say:

I get it. Being a mom to a bunch of boys is hard. Oh so hard when they are little. They are a huge ball of energy and often never stop moving. Jumping off stairs and bouncing on the couch.  Climbing trees and finding every single mud puddle in a 10 mile radius. They are loud. Oh so loud that it can drive you to distraction. The nerf guns that have darts flying by your head with uncanny accuracy followed by a chorus of "But I was aiming for my brother, not you." And the smell. When you have more than one boy sharing a room, it has a way of developing what we lovingly call the boy funk around here. And those appetites. Where do they put all that food? And the growth spurts and holes in the knees of every single pair of pants they own and so many holes in their sneakers from using their feet as brakes on their bikes. Holes you are likely to not notice until the day they can't find their dress shoes and thus wear their sneakers to church.

I get it. It's hard. Wonderful but sometimes oh so hard. But then one day it changes. It changes because we aren't just raising boys. We are raising men.

Men who can help and take care of things on their own. I now have 4 boys who are much older. 2 are actually adults now. How the heck did that happen? I can't remember the last time I had to clear the snow off the van. In the winter, I almost never have to pump gas. I never shovel the driveway or mow the lawn. They can change the oil and change tires. They can pull a car out of a ditch or rescue me when the van is stuck in the driveway AGAIN. (Not like this happened this morning when I put the van into a snow bank at the end of the driveway or anything.)

One of them has a gift with building things and has made his own tool bench without plans using only scrap lumber. He's building shelves in the garage to help keep everything off the ground.  He still manages to leave tools all over the yard but he's starting to get a little better now that he has his own set.

Raising a handful of boys is not easy. Society certainly does not help us in this challenge anymore. There is very little real guidance provided for these young men as they try to navigate what being a man truly means.

They still eat a ton. They still grow like weeds. They still love to get messy and obsess over things that have no meaning to me. But they have become such a tremendous blessing now that they are older. So just hang in there. And remember that they don't stay this little forever.

Busy Weekend

Have you tried out the Home Depot Kids Workshops yet? If not, you are missing out on a wonderful FREE resource to share with your kids. Particularly if you have any crafty kids or kids who want to always be the one helping out with any projects at home.

This month I took 7 of the kids with me. Liam still loves to get a hammer in his hands any chance he can and Katie likes to come along to help with Seamus (because she is too big to do a project on her own she says). We made butterfly nesting boxes and as soon as the snow melts, we'll search for 6 places in the yard to hang them up. Maybe plant a few extra butterfly attracting plants.

The rules may vary by store but at our store you just show up. No signing up needed. This is great because we can go when it works with our schedule and not go when we are too busy. But check your local store because some do have sign up requirements.

We also finally got around to making our Pascal Candle. We took a super easy route this year because last year I ordered the pascal candle making kit from Illuminated Ink. Then I got to feeling rather sick and the project never got done. In fact, the 2015 pascal candle making kit is still somewhere in the house. So this year I lowered my standards and we finished the project. I call that a win.

Plain white tall candle (available at Aldi's or the Dollar Store), pascal candle print out from a creative person online. Project complete. We even managed to remember to take it with us on Sunday to get it blessed by Fr.

The Empty Jar

You see that empty canning jar? Yes, the picture is awful but it's not the point. That jar. My favorite Christmas gift this year.

Why? It was simple and a reminder. A reminder I needed.

You see the paper taped to the jar? That paper has a note from one of the children. The note says:

To Mom and Dad: A jar of nothing for the people who have it all.

Ok, it is quite possible the child behind this gift was just looking for something simple, easy, and free. But I see something else.

I see a reminder that even with all of the chaos, the medical bills, the car repairs, the kids who are behind in school, the laundry that won't stop, the appliances that keep breaking, the darn freeloading chickens who won't lay eggs right now. In the midst of all of that chaos, when I've been oh so sick for weeks, going on months. When the baby isn't quite gaining enough weight to keep everyone happy, when we are still struggling to find a parish where the entire family feels at home and we are struggling with our faith. In the midst of all of that. We do have it all. And that is just what I needed to hear.

Summer in the Backyard

Family Rosary Time

Attempts at the family rosary usually don't last long around here. I just don't think the yelling and fighting and craziness that ensues is at all inspiring. A near occasion of sin would be more like it. But I am going to attempt it again for Lent. I'm trying to work the younger ones up to a full rosary. What have I learned tonight? I need to work on basic prayers with the younger ones. The Hail Mary according to the younger ones is as follows:

    ~Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with me.~

Gotta love it. And check out these awesome roses made by Grandma to help the kids pray. They were so cool looking that even Gabe wanted to participate.

Advent Candles

The favorite Advent activity has finally been completed. Just a few days late but that seems to be the way things work around here lately. The candles have been made.

I love this kit by Illuminated Ink. It comes with easy to follow instructions, prayer sheets, and everything you need to make 4 beeswax candles.  They can be a little hard to make if you are working in a cold room but thankfully things have stayed a warmer so far this year so the dining room had not yet reached it's normal frozen winter state.

We had some candles left from last year so we only made one new set this year.

They look great and we will hopefully remember to light them every day this year. Yup, some years work out better than others on that score.

Been Busy

I've been gone for the past few weeks just busy keeping up with life. Halloween came and went with Seamus spending time in the hospital. So while the two of us were hanging out doing not much of anything, the kids dressed up at home and watched movies at home with Dad.

On Veteran's Day, we attended a flag pole dedication ceremony for a Boy Scout Eagle project.

Robert started karate lessons recently. He's in the Pee Wee level classes so he only attends class once a week and they focus mostly games and such. He's loving it.

Seamus is growing a bit and is loved by everyone. Poor kid really does not like formula at all but with all the medical intervention my milk supply has plummeted. It's quite annoying honestly since he loves breastmilk but I can't keep up with his needs. Hoping to find a way to improve this situation soon. Seamus not only does not care for the formula too much, it is making him miserable. Quite annoying all around.

Baptism

Seamus was welcomed into the Church on Sunday.  We were blessed to have his baptism done by the priest who baptized our last three at what is one of the most beautiful church's in our area.

Tired

I'm tired. Very tired still. Pumping full time and nursing full time are tiring (and no, this is not an invitation to tell me to use formula).  Hopefully this will be a short lived thing. And the little guy will hopefully figure out that night is for sleeping soon. But we are all enjoying him immensely.

Our Week

I've been rather quiet because we've been busy.  On Saturday, 2 sheep were slaughtered, skinned, gutted, and hung.  Yes, most of the kids helped with it. They seem to like that sort of thing.  Even Ellie seems ok with it given her constant banter later that night regarding the dead sheep and how it no longer had a head and we would be eating it.

On Sunday, said sheep were butchered.  One is now in our freezer and the second one was picked up by a friend on Monday.

On Monday the boys' bedroom was painted in preparation for a construction project. On Tuesday a set of triple bunk beds went up in their room.  Between using paint from the oops section at the hardware store and doing all of the building ourselves, the project was very inexpensive.  The paint was about $13 for 2 gallons and the wood and hardware for the beds was around $160.  We also had to buy a new stud finder and a few extra things that day so we spent a bit more than that but it was still a rather inexpensive trip.  Now we just need to buy another mattress for the beds and are planning to put a similar set of beds up in the girls' room in a few weeks.

Tuesday also left us with our 4th trip to urgent care this year as Ellie fell backwards out of a chair and cut her head open.  We tried medical super glue on her head but she wouldn't stay still and it just didn't work so she ended up with 2 staples in her head.

Several kids are now/still sick so I'm hoping we can just enjoy a couple of quiet days at home now and let everyone rest up.

Christmas Eve Pictures

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  I don't think we have a single picture from Christmas Day but we did take some on Christmas Eve.  Can't say we did anything fancy this year. Most of the cookies and such are still waiting to be made.  Very few cards went out. Even fewer were received.  Dinner was finger foods and fending for yourself.  The kids enjoyed the yearly tradition of little boxes of sugar filled artificially colored hard to call it food cereal that they get every year for Christmas. The can of spray cheese made it's yearly appearance and much rejoicing was heard from the children. Several kids got new sleds. One got new cross country skis. All in all, I'd say we had a good time.  Hoping the same could be said for your homes.

Happy Birthday, Kieran!

Kieran turned 12 today.  Seems rather hard to believe. I mean 12 is just so serious.

He planned out his birthday several weeks in advance. Orders were put in for breakfast pizza, pizza pockets for lunch, Applebees for dinner, and banana cream pie instead of cake. I hesitate to admit that I bought frozen pies rather than make them because our day was just a wee bit busy.

We went ice skating and everyone had the day off from school.

Happy birthday Kieran. You are a blessing to our family.

Stokoe Farms 5K

Alan and the older 5 children participated in the Stokoe Farms 5K fund raiser run this past weekend. The run raises funds to send live Christmas trees to troops overseas.

This was the second year running for the older two boys and the first for the rest of the kids.  Everyone had an awesome time. Sean came in 11th place or so and everyone finished the race strong.  There are already plans in place for running next year.  No pictures of Sean running because he finished before the folks with the camera but he was there to cheer everyone else on while they finished.

Pictures from our World

Just a few recent pictures from our life lately. Here's  the helicopter Gabe built by himself using the directions in his LEGOClubJr magazine.  If you have LEGO fans in your house, LEGO offers both a regular and a Jr. version of their magazine for free. You have to request a new subscription every two years or so but it's free and all my kid have loved it.

Some of the peaches off our trees this year. This was an awesome year for the peach crop. Sadly the week the kids picked most of the peaches, I got super sick, Alan was out of town, and we were unable to can them.  Truly heart breaking sad to have wasted them.  Seriously. I guess next time I'll try to call a friend to help can them so they don't go to waste.

A special Reese's Pieces snack to go with movie night. You can find the recipe here.

Because we were watching this movie.  I'm liking the idea of themed snacks for movie night. Just might have to try to continue it when possible.

And our version of vanschooling. Or what happens when Mom really needs a break so Dad takes all the kids to karate.