Mundane Monday?

Not a chance! Today was sale day at Extra foods... I was awoken by Kiersten's smiling face and bear hugging snuggles. She promptly informed me that she was a gram-daughter, not a gram-boy. I'm quite sure that she was thinking of our friends, the Grahams when she said it too, cause the kids call them the Graham boys and Graham babies:). We headed out by 7:30 and had one of the best trips ever:). Elyssia pushed Adelaide in the stoller and she was smiley and talkative all through the store. Scott had a job today, which threw us right into the thick of "normalcy" Nothing like going from 7 adults keeping the kids busy to 1 mama. I have to say that I think it went amazingly well. It really seems like Spring is here and after the younger ones had a nap and Elyssia finished her school work, they headed out to play. The washer and dryer have been my busy little helpers today and we've gotten most of the house back in order. We had leftover enchiladas, so I decided to tackle another item on my 30x30 list---Pavlova. Scott came home in time to let me know if it looked like it should. We just finished eating it and I have to say that it was definitely worth the time it took to make it:). Scott has been reading "Homer Price" to us tonight and he's over halfway through the book. The kids really like it and keep asking for more! I have to say that I'm enjoying hearing it for the first time too. After hearing of Homer's adventures while working at his parents "Motel", we started discussing what it would be like if we opened up something like that. I half jokingly suggested that we have Preston build a bunch of Yurts, have Grandad secure them to cement pads, have a different decor inside of each of them and rent them out to people passing through. We thought it would help once we have our U-Pick up and running and we could also sell pasties, jams, syrups, etc... The kids jumped right in with their suggestions. It's really just talk, but it's kind of fun to think about. Maybe when the kids are older... They could have their own little businesses on the property;). Here are Before and After Pictures of the Pavlova, but don't blame me if they're in the wrong order. Blogger likes to mess with things...

Mass Exodus

By Sunday we were down to 3 visitors. We'd gone to A&W after the photo session on Saturday, so Preston helped me assemble enchiladas to take to church for lunch. We had quite a bit of rain on Sunday, which I think ended up keeping people away. It was kind of quiet, but a good Sunday, overall. Darlene offered to teach the kids their Sunday School story and let me have another week upstairs:) Adelaide was sleeping, which made for an ideal situation. The kids LOVED it and I think they were ready to replace me after she got done. Darlene said that they kept begging her to read more of the Bible stories and they ended up reading 3:) That's okay with me. I LOVE that our kids LOVE Bible stories! You won't catch me complaining:). Kiersten fell asleep while sitting with Uncle Preston for lunch and slept through the whole thing. She woke up just a little bit before it was time for them to leave. There was much sadness at their departure, but also much thankfulness for such a nice visit. The rest of our day was pretty quiet and low key. The kids slept really well that night too, which made for happy parents.

Family Pictures

Originally we were hoping to have Darlene take our family pictures on Friday. The windy weather helped us to change our plans. It made things a bit more tiresome on Saturday, but I'm really thankful that we were able to do it in the afternoon. Scott and Preston left early Sat morning to take out the old church windows and install the new ones. They got home around 2, got cleaned up and then headed back to town with the rest of us. I posted quite a few of the good ones on Facebook, but I'll put a couple on here that are a bit goofier;). Darlene took around 600 pics, so that gives a bit of an idea about how challenging it is to get good pictures when there are 7 people involved, 5 of them being little kids. HUGE thanks go to Darlene for her patience and to Kirk and Preston for being so entertaining and getting the kids to smile!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150624305810976.388929.653210975&type=1&l=dcbd1e6d52 So, after waiting about 10 minutes to upload two pictures, I've decided to just put the link for the rest of the pictures:). Sometime I'll try to add more or do a smilebox of them...