Easter Prep

 Saturday was pretty busy around these parts. In the morning, while the kids were doing their chores, I made 3 pies, strawberry jello salad, a gallon of yogurt, and a large quiche. All of this is normal for our household, great food for our Easter feast , baskets for the kids, etc. Here's my bad mom confession. I don't usually dye eggs with my kids. It had been years (and a few kids) since I had attempted it. Five kids + egg dye + clothes = too much for me to handle.  But this year I was determined to be a good mom and dye eggs with the kids and even make cut-out sugar cookies as penance.

I'm happy to report that we all survived.

I used a boxed sugar cookie mix and my new (clearance) cookie cutters from  Williams -Sonoma. I divided the cookie dough in quarters and used my food colorings and colored each quarter a different color.

Turned out pretty great huh? I was pleased until I took them out of the oven when they were done. The cookies turned brown just like they should have, but the brown really didn't look so great with yellow chicks, blue eggs, orange carrots and pink bunnies. 

 He didn't mind.

Onward to the eggs. All 5 dozen of them.

Josh made fantastic yellow- orange- green hues.

Dabney made lots of purple, and David stuck with varying degrees of blues.

This guy just walked around eating warm cookies, handing things to people saying, "Here go", and randomly interjecting "Pur-ple!"

 That wound healing under his mouth is from Wednesday when he bit right through his lip. I'm so grateful his injury wasn't as bad as it could have been.

The aftermath.

 Clean up wasn't the catastrophe that I had imagined and I can't wait to do it again next year.

Mini Vacation

Last weekend, our little family went up north to have a little extra fun during the 3 day weekend. We stayed the night in an inexpensive hotel in a town we'd never been to, and it was loads of fun. We made sure the hotel had a pool so the kids could cool off and play around, then Tim drove us around and showed us a neighboring town where he lived almost 20 years ago.

I couldn't go swimming this time because I was much occupied with this fella...

Little Adam just loved the pool, but came to me shivering and uttered two words: "Cooold! Waaarm!"

4th of July pictures are up next!

A Good Reason for Being Absent

Yep, you guessed it~ another Grandma came to visit us! We were so glad to have Grandma Giedd come to stay with us for a while. We had a wonderful time with her and we also got to visit with more cousins and aunts and uncles while Grandma was in the state. Cousin M had a gymnastics birthday party and Dabney was so thrilled that she got to go and participate.

Long Time Gone

I know, I know~ I'm very delinquent. It's been more than 3 weeks since my last post. My apologies. Consider that my maternity leave. Since then, Tim had a wonderful week off and I got to sleep to ridiculous hours of the morning, my wonderful mother came to visit and we've been reorganizing our house and our school and our lives. I came up with a fabulous new schedule and wrote it out on a big white board. Adam was kind enough to erase it with his foot within 24 hours. (Good thing I had it copied elsewhere...)

I feel like I've been in a time warp! Aaron is growing by leaps and bounds, the big kids are finishing up their school year, and tomorrow our Adam will turn 2 years old.

Some days I feel like I'm just holding on to sanity by a thread. It turns out, having 5 kids (7 and under) is a bigger project than I thought. There's a lot to do, many little people are talking to me at the same time and at least 3 of them need something from me at the same moment.

However, there is so much joy around here! We all adore Aaron, I get hand-drawn cards and love letters everyday, and when Daddy comes home, there's a spontaneous party in the foyer.

I've begun exercising again. I've been doing it at naptime for the youngest 4. Dabney stays awake and "babysits" Aaron while I'm in the basement. That 45 minutes everyday gets me sweating and brainstorming and relaxing and I come upstairs afterwards a few hundred calories lighter and more prepared to face the remainder of the afternoon. It's a huge blessing.

I love my job more and more although the challenges abound. I love buying huge amounts of food and cooking it for my kids and husband and filling our freezers and pantry. There's something very satisfying about hauling out a huge cart-full of groceries from Costco and then having Tim bring up the rear with his huge cart-full of kids. (I've been trying harder to receive those 'helpful' comments from strangers with more grace.)

So, there we are. We're still alive and still adjusting and still learning and really enjoying Aaron's company. I'll be back again soon~ I promise! I wanted to share some things that have helped me be a better manager of this crazy household that might help you too.

Enjoy the somewhat random pictures (courtesy of my mom) below!

This picture here is for you all who say I never post pictures of myself.

Happy Due Date, Aaron!

I've taken this week off from blogging since my husband is home all week with the kids and me. It's been just a lovely vacation at home~ sleeping in (past 7am), breakfast with the whole crew, completing long overdue home projects, neighborhood walks, lengthy hot showers (my favorite) and plenty of baby-staring. See you all on Monday!

Overdue Pictures

We had a fabulous weekend last week when my Dad and his pastor from Hawaii came to visit us.
It was a gift to get to have Dad for the weekend and it was an instant family connection with Pastor Vander Meulen. Dad, Pastor VM, thank you so much for visiting us!

These pictures have been overdue since Monday morning~ sorry Mom~ and they still aren't in order. I might be able to re-arrange them tomorrow.

There's no significant reason for this picture~ I just thought Aunt Cait might like to see that her niece is following in her Marguerite Henry footsteps.

The guys and their "important meeting".

See who's nestled in and snoozing next to Pastor Vander Meulen?

PopPop's girl

Saying goodbye, David style