Wonderful privelage Special Meeting Visits!

9 workers with my children

plus Em!

Visiting

Instruments

I love this picture, see how tight Noah is squeezing Randy? :)

I wonder if that is a painful smile because of the jab from Noah's elbow???No, he didn't really jab him!

Enjoying Randy

Lunch at Dad's

Silly Zach

Very Brave Dan

Watching, so much better than receiving!!Little guys really enjoyed the show!

Tired out Noah with silly glasses.

We have been so blessed with special meeting rounds. We had 2 sisters on Thursday for supper and night, 1 brother and 4 sisters for lunch on Friday, with 4 more brothers coming in the afternoon, and 2 brothers for Friday supper and night. We enjoyed lunch @ Dad's with all 9 and my sisters and brother on Saturday. So very special, love the visits and the meetings! We trimmed Beauty, Peanut, and Snow on Friday with help from Lynae and  I also had a very unique experience in giving Dan a haircut on Saturday. I have cut my little boys hair since they have been old enough for haircuts, but have never attempted an adults hair. Dan was pretty confident I would do fine, and after my nerves finally calmed, I got my clippers and gave him a haircut. It didn't turn out bad, and Dan isn't bald! :) My children enjoyed the time the workers shared with them like playing and listening to the guitar with Dan, arrow hunting with Randy, bow shooting with Dan, flying an airplane with Carlton, and so on. Such wonderful memories made.

Fun new Sunday adventures

Since the weather has basically been beautiful for so many months, we started taking Sunday afternoon adventure walks in January. A couple of Sundays ago, Shawn said we should try flying the kites we got for the children. We did and we all had fun in Dad's field flying kites. The next Sunday, we had more wind so we got Diana and Angie in on the kite flying fun. Long walks and even mushroom hunting has been our focus as well, with only 8 mushrooms found so far. The woods are so dry, we are hoping to find a lot more in the next month.

Our family's first```

game of backyard football. If you call it that, I think it was more like chasing each other and the boys ganging up on the girls. Poor Hannah suffered injuries when tackled by biggest younger brother, you know who you are!! Poor Josh, too little to get into the tackling business and felt left out, which brought a few tears. And Noah, well, Noah was just fine being Noah dragging Rusty around the yard saying Rusty was playing too! Dad tackled Mom and was much too fast for Mom to keep up with while running, so Zach was really quick to change teams. Anyway, fun memories made and lots of good exercise.:0
Even requests to play again, but not by Hannah of course.

Aww, my honey!(and me)

And don't get dirty! But he did of course~~~

What I told the boys a few Sunday's ago when they went outside to play, in their meeting clothes(luckily Noah wanted his tractor shirt on and changed his shirt), while they were waiting on me to cook lunch. Next time, I will make sure meeting clothes are changed first, after Josh brought Noah in the house and told us Noah was playing in Daddy's burn pit. Believe it or not, the boy and the clothes came clean in the wash! :)

The old buckboard

Big Max

More than a handful, almost ready to fry, but we won't of course!

Some update pictures

Shawn finally finished painting the living room and kitchen, including the ceiling. I have the decorations hung, now the hallway and the stairwell is the last to be painted. Shawn got the second coat of mud on the hallway today, maybe he can paint by Tuesday. We also moved our refrigerator, and Dad built us a custom pantry in its place. Very spacious, and the little bit of lost floor space from the fridge is well worth it!

Evening with friends

We had a very nice time Friday night with a family my children and I met a few weeks ago. We grilled out hamburgers and hot dogs, and had homemade pasta salad, baked beans, deviled eggs, chips and homemade chocolate chip cookies. Yummy, summer BBQ's are so fun. All 8 children got along beautifully, and us adults enjoyed conversation, at least, Shawn and I did! This couple also home schools their children. Thanks Gabe and Janet for the visit!

An the organizer is

Noah gets the organizing award this week. At the library yesterday, he told me these shelves need straightened up, and proceeded to straighten the books shelves at his level.