Strawberries

He clearly has a rough life.

She just sat still and ate.

We did our first round of strawberry picking today. I say first round because we often need a bit more strawberries than we got today to see us through the year but we've learned it is best to get them in batches so as not to become overwhelmed with processing them. I'm hoping to make several batches of strawberry jam and triple berry jam as well as some strawberry syrup.  And just put some in the freezer for later in the year.

I only took 6 of the kids with me since Alan took 3 of the boys to go work on the farm.  The ladies working at the strawberry fields already thought our crew was a large family until the children informed them that a bunch of kids had been left behind to do other work.  Call me crazy, but I love the incredulous looks on people's faces when they learn something of that sort. Followed by the sheer amazement in their voices as they say "And your kids are just so well behaved."  Because, of course, you must always be shocked by children behaving as they should I suppose.  Ah well. We had a good time and the kids are looking forward to going again.

These two were my big kid crew today.

The fruits of our labor.

The Weekend in Pictures

Building a new sheep pen.

Ellie wearing muck boots and carrying a golf club just totally sums up the way things work around here. Watching to make sure Liam does things properly.

This is just a pure Katie picture. 

The younger crews' version of being helpful.

Ellie

The sheep enjoying their new pen (now we hopefully won't find them in the cornfield across the street.)

Some of the chickens.

Guinness hanging out by the barn (or the Beer Dog as a friend has taken to calling him).

Donut Day

One of those small simple ways to add a little fun into our daily routine. Today is National Donut Day so we celebrated with donuts and coffee for breakfast. Yes, the kids had coffee. Heavy on the milk for most of them.

I do realize that today is a feast day as well. We'll hit that celebration with dessert tonight.

Abby's Dessert

I've been wanting to take a break from ice cream on Sunday nights for our Sundae's on Sunday tradition for a while.  Mostly because it seems I can't eat ice cream myself anymore without feeling sick which is truly quite a bummer. We wanted to start adding small simple traditions to our daily life but sometime the same old thing gets a bit boring for Mom and Dad.

This week Abby helped me make a banana split dessert. I seem to recall my Mom making something of this sort a time or two when we were growing up but I'm not sure if this was it.  I looked at a few recipes on-line and then tweaked them a bit to match what we had in the house at the time. We ended up with something simple, almost no-bake but decidedly not a healthy dessert. Alan claims it can be considered healthy because it has bananas and pineapple in it. I'm not sure if we really want to go down that road because I can see the absolute potential for truly abusing that kind of a rule.  Anyway, here's what we did just in case you want to try it yourself.

Mix about 2 cups of crushed graham crackers with 1 stick of melted butter. Spread in the bottom of a 9 by 13 pan and bake for 5 minutes or so.  Combine 16 oz of softened cream cheese with 2 cups of powdered sugar and layer on top of the crust.  Next cut up 3 bananas and layer those on.   Top with one can of drained crushed pineapple.  The next layer is a container of cool-whip type whipped cream stuff.  Then you can add marachino cherries or chocolate or nuts or whatever you might like or have around. Like I said, not healthy but sometimes it is nice to just not worry about such things.

The Day at the Waterpark

May I share a secret? I really don't enjoy water parks or swimming or things of the like.  Especially when it's just you and a crowd of smallish children you are trying to keep an eye on. But when we lived in Florida I came to appreciate how tired swimming can make small children.  I would take the older boys swimming almost every single day for a bit over an hour before naptime. This promised me the chance to lay down and nap myself because those boys would just crash. Which is a pregnant mom's dream and I was pretty much always pregnant or toting around a newbie and in need of a nap.

We typically avoid the larger scale waterparks for many reasons.  They are way too expensive for one.  You can't easily keep an eye on all the kids for another.  Way too many people who seemed to have left half their swimming attire at home for a third. But ever since Grandpa and Grandma treated the family to a trip to Great Wolf Lodge a few years ago, the kids have had a love affair with the places. My compromise is a small local indoor waterpark that caters to the 12 and under crowd.  When I say small, it is possible to pick the right seat and be able to see just about all the action without moving.  It is truly small enough that I would be comfortable taking all of the kids just by myself without another adult. If you plan properly, you can get tickets as cheaply as $8 a day for 4 1/2 hours of swimming.  We missed those tickets by a week and paid just a tad more but I can't complain. The kids had a blast and slept well. In fact the house is still quiet this morning because half of them are still asleep.

I promise that Sean was with us but I apparently failed to get a picture of him that was both in focus and did not cut his head off. I'll have to do better next time.

Happy Birthday Bryan

Today Bryan turns 16.  Such a huge milestone it seems.  We let him know last night that he will actually be allowed to get a permit this year. We weren't quite sure on that for this year because, well, we live in the wonderful nanny state of NY where everything is way more expensive and complicated than it needs to be. So Bryan was a bit thrilled with that news and has been studying the DMV guidebook today.

We have been incredibly blessed with our oldest son.  Even when we ask a lot of him, he always steps up and helps us all out.  His younger siblings look up to him quite a bit.  He's incredibly responsible, helpful, and usually even cheerful.  He's making parenting teens a delightful experience.  Love you Bryan. I hope your day has been a good one.

The Gap-Toothed Smile

Someone got kicked in the face which caused the first tooth to fall out. The second one was apparently just waiting for the first one to fall out before it left.  Now look at that grin.