Afternoon Activities

My goal is to have a tea party with my girls twice a month. It provides a special opportunity to talk, laugh, and let them practice being ladies. They often take the opportunity to make something special, dress up, or creatively decorate the table.These are pictures of what my girls call a "first class" tea party complete with written invitations, handcrafted place mats, and freshly picked flowers. This particular party was planned and prepared by Amber.

Often our tea party will consist of nothing more than making tea, using some pretty dishes, and having cheese, crackers and fruit for lunch. We don't always dress up, but we always sit down together, without the boys, and take a little extra time over lunch.

We usually pack the boys a sack lunch and they head outdoors to do battle. On this day it was raining, so they had their sack lunch in the family room and worked on their own project.
I couldn't resist this picture of Savannah with one of the flowers that are currently blooming in our backyard. Does anyone know what these are?
The food may sometimes be simple, but the company is always unsurpassed!

While the girls were busy with their tea party and the boys were exiled to the family room, they entertained themselves by creating a diorama. Using one of my cookie sheets, organic materials from the back yard, and some other odds and ends, they created this:

Of course Nicholas had to help.

Sewing Help

I know you see it coming.

I told you my children love helping. Look how proud he is!


I'm in the process of making my pre-fold diapers into fitted diapers. (I know you were wondering.) I'm using this free pattern.

Daily Bible Reading

Since the most important part of homeschooling, in our home is training our children in the discipline and instruction of the LORD, one of their daily assignments, once they are able to read, is reading the Bible. The first year they read through the New Testament and each subsequent year they read through the whole Bible.

We have been asked why we make Bible reading an assignment. After all, the argument goes, we want our children to read the Bible because they want to know God, not merely because we require it. True, just as we wish for our children to brush their teeth in the morning because they desire to be clean and have good grooming habits. However, in our house we do not give our children the option of brushing their teeth, we require it and we trust that through the habit of brushing their teeth every single morning they will appreciate the benefits and acquire the habit.

So how do enable all of our children read the Bible daily?

• We have time set aside first thing each morning for Bible reading.
  
• We give each independent reader their own dated Bible reading schedule.
  
• Mark and I also read from this schedule, so that all of us are reading the same passages. This works for us because we are able to ask our younger children questions about their reading, in order to see how much they are comprehending. We are also able to better field questions from the older children . All of us reading the same passages each day also encourages discussions between the children about topics or stories that they have read.
  
• We like to pick schedules that have New and Old Testament readings each day. Our early readers just read the New Testament assignments, which are generally about 20-30 verses long and the older readers read the whole assignment.

Reading through the Bible each year has given our children more biblical fluency than I had hoped. It has equipped them to think more biblically because they know more of what the Bible says and has helped them to realize that the Bible speaks to all areas of life. It has also lead to several interesting conversations. After all the Bible is not exactly G rated.

There are many Bible reading schedules available online. I like this one. Another one that is already dated and goes through the Bible chronologically is here.

To see my other How We Do It posts click here or check out my other categories listed in the sidebar.

You Know You Are a Large Family When...

there are too many children to play Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs.

This post has moved to our new site. Click here if you want to read this post and here is a post titled Reasons We Have a Large Family.

Before the Beginning

I was home schooled as a child. That was back when people asked if homeschooling was legal, when mom didn't allow us to go outside until after the schools let out, and when our neighbors called CPS because they noticed that we weren't getting on the school bus. That was also back when many curriculum publishers did not sell books to homeschoolers and there certainly was not any curricula written or designed for homeschoolers. I was home schooled back in the dark ages of homeschooling.

God used the amazing experience of my mother being diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months to live at the age of 35, to push our family into homeschooling. My mom was thirty-five years old and pregnant with her fifth child. I was the oldest at eleven.

This post has moved to our new blog. Read the rest of Before the Beginning: Our journey to homeschool or go to the homepage of the new Raising Olives.

Homemade Hamburger Buns

I had tried, on several occasions, to make whole wheat hamburger buns. My results were generally, flat and crumbly. Mark and the children gallantly ate them, but I have a kind family.


That was before this recipe. This was sent to me by a good friend from Florida and produces wonderful, company worthy hamburger buns every time, even when my easily distracted, second daughter makes them. They are super easy to make, look lovely, and taste amazing. You will never want to go back to those preservative filled store bought buns again. Unless of course you are going to be feeding several hundred people.

This recipe has moved to our new blog. Visit Homemade Hamburger Buns at our new site or visit our homepage for more money saving tips, recipes and ideas about raising a large family.

Wordless Wednesday - Jedi edition

When we put Colby to bed he did not have that light saber. It wasn't even in his room. I wonder what went on last night.

This is my contribution toWordless Wednesday.

How We Do It- Cloth Napkins

We use cloth napkins in our house or more accurately we use washcloths. This not only saves money, but is terrific for the many spills that occur during mealtimes with children. The wash cloths are fabulous for spills, major or minor, as well as for grimy faces and hands. One washcloth will clean the baby even after he has played in eaten his spaghetti. To avoid washing hundreds of napkins washcloths every day, each person has their own unique napkin ring. We made ours, but it would be fun to shop for a special napkin ring for each member of the family. When we finish a meal each person looks over their napkin and if it is clean they put it back in the napkin ring. Then they all go into a drawer until the next meal. After dinner each day all washcloths are put in the laundry keeping the amount of washcloths washed in a given day to a minimum.

Click here to view my other "How We Do It" posts.

This is part of Works For Me Wednesday. To see the other WFMW ideas for the week, just click the link.

Jonathan Park-Vol 1- Free!

Yes, the full Volume 1 of Jonathan Park , that is 12 full episodes from Behemoth.com. Quick this will only last through Friday .

Jonathan Park Volumes are collections of fast paced, high action, old time radio adventures which include loads of creation facts. When I first heard about these I was a bit dubious, but our children love these stories. They are one of our children's favorite products from Vision Forum.

Each Jonathan Park Volume includes 4 Cd's and costs about $25 from Vision Forum, the download from Behemoth is usually $17.95, but just for the rest of the week it's FREE. Are you still here? Oh, you want to know how to get this amazing deal?

Go to Behemoth.com and create an account or sign into your already existing account. If you are creating a new account you will need to enter a credit card number, just like creating an iTunes account, but you won't be charged anything unless you make a purchase.

Once you have logged in follow these instructions:

• Click on the cart link on the top right of the page.
• On the cart page you will see a field labeled "Redeem a Coupon"
• In this field type "jonathanpark" without the quotes
• Enjoy the FREE downloads that will appear in your cart

My husband and I have learned a lot of creation vs. evolution arguments by listening to these programs, so even if you don't have kids... I mean it IS free!

Be sure to check the Behemoth.com homepage for their daily freebies.

Nick Can Clap

You may well ask, "What's the big deal, most 10 month olds can clap?" Well, Nicholas was injured when he was born. His upper right arm was broken, but more significantly his left arm sustained a brachial plexus injury or Erb's Palsy, it was paralyzed. He had some movement in his wrist and hand, but none in his shoulder or elbow.

Brachial plexus injuries are complex. When this injury occurs at birth it is complicated by the fact that the newborn's muscles grow and strengthen drastically in the first few months. So even if a baby regains all nerve function, they could still deal with muscle imbalances and bone problems.

That's your science lesson for the day. Now on to the amazing and wonderful blessing that God has given to us. NICHOLAS CAN CLAP! This is a huge deal for BPI kids. I won't bore you with more science, but this is a big step.

Yeah Nicholas! He also no longer needs therapy. So hopefully we can wave bye-bye to thinking about BPI for the time being. Wave bye-bye Nick, good job.

Just for the record, I believe that if my husband and I had had more information before Nicholas was born, his injury could have been avoided. If you have ever experienced a shoulder dystocia during delivery, please do some research on BPI before you have another baby and check with your OB or midwife about their experience with this complication.

Not Me Monday-The Sick Addition

Since the four youngest children have been sick this week, I have decided to do a themed version of "Not me!" Monday.

When one of the children gets ill in the middle of the night I do not gather all the soiled linens, clothes, and animals and throw them into the bathtub to deal with in the morning. That would be gross. I diligently rinse everything and start a load of laundry, so that I won't be behind in the morning.

This week when the rug fell victim to the illness in the middle of the night. I most certainly did not take it out to the rail of the deck, pour a couple of pitchers of hot water over the affected area and leave it to deal with later. It did not stay out on the deck for three days until my husband asked if it was part of our new deck decor, finally prompting me to clean it thoroughly. It is most certainly not STILL out there half covered with snow waiting for the temperatures to rise above freezing so that it will thaw out and then dry.

During the night that our two youngest boys (Colby-2 and Nicholas-10 months) were most actively sick, I did not let them share a puke bowl. They most certainly did not decide to use said bowl at the exact same time. When finished, Nicholas did not try to splash his hand in the contents. If he had tried, I, being much faster than a mere baby, would have stopped him before he was successful.

Our sick children have not been consuming ginger ale, blue Powerade, Jello, and Popsicles. What kind of mother would allow a sick child to ingest that much sugar and artificial junk? If that were happening my health conscience children would NOT be enjoying it. They would be asking for something with a little more nutritive value.

I have not been secretly relieved that for the past week I have only had to cook for 7-9 people rather than the usual 12. I would not rejoice even slightly at my own offspring's misfortune.

Head over to MckMama's site to join in the Not Me Monday fun!

Pray for Gracie Jean

Gracie was born on March 20, 2008 with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). She just underwent a heart transplant and they are having some trouble with her new heart. Please pray that her new heart will begin to function fully and for peace for her family. You can read her story and check for updates here.

In the Not-So-Still of the Night

Two year old Colby is sitting up in bed where he just got sick. He looks up from the mess as mom enters and says, "Mommy, Colby spilled."



Colby and Nicholas have succumbed. Want to read about the beginning of our recent illness? Click here.

Home Management Part 2 - Daily Chores

Twelve people living, eating, and sleeping in one house necessitates a lot of time spent maintaining order and cleanliness. Homeschooling means that we are home making messes all day rather than heading off to school and work. It also entails a higher level of mess and clutter in the form of books and educational materials. So how do we keep order in our home? Everyone has their own responsibilities to help with our household chores.

Train your children to work.

1. Start young. Young children love to help mommy. Let them help you as you go about your work. If you have them with you while you are working think of ways that they can help. If you give them the opportunity, you will be surprised to see how helpful they will become and how much they will learn. Watching is learning at this stage.

As they become more capable, give them their own chores. This gives them a sense of pride in their accomplishment and allows them to feel that they are really helping mommy.

We use kid friendly cleaning products. White vinegar for disinfecting, baking soda for scouring, etc.

A 2 year old can:

• Help load the washer and dryer.
• Empty small trash cans.
• Run simple errands like fetching the diapers and wipes.
• Help add ingredients while you cook.
• Sweep the floor using a small dust pan and brush.
• Help dust.
• Move things while you vacuum.
• Put their own toys away.

A 3 year old can:

• Empty the silverware from the dishwasher.
• Wipe down the babies high chair.
• Make their own bed.
• Help fold laundry.
• Use a damp cloth to clean the bathroom counter and sinks, or the baseboards. A 3 year old LOVES to use a damp cloth.
• Run errands.
• Pick up a room.

A 4 year old can:

• Fold and put away their own laundry.
• Clear and wipe the table.
• Empty a rack of the dishwasher depending on where your dishes are stored.
• Sweep the floor.
• Wash some dishes and load a dishwasher.
• Dust.

2. Give them real responsibilities.

At 4 years our children get "real chores". I view this as the real beginning of chore training. They are assigned an area of the house that they are responsible to tidy and clean. This allows them to take more responsibility and gives us the opportunity to train them to be diligent as they move through several different tasks. The area that we assign is well suited for training and includes tidying, wiping, dusting and sweeping for more practice. I list exactly what they need to do each day and then check when they are done.

Daddy gets more involved at this stage as he will frequently ask who is responsible for an area of the home and then will tell them how wonderful it is looking. Our children are so excited when daddy notices their area. There is certainly a sense of pride in a job well done and an area that is clean and tidy.

3. Set high standards.

Consider what constitutes a job well done for each child and write it out as concretely as you can. Then consistently check to make sure your child is meeting your standard. If not ask them to return to the area and correct what still needs work.

I like for our daily chores to take no longer than 30 minutes and we frequently use a timer to see who can make it within the time limit.

Assign chores.

1. Determine how you want to organize your chores. Do you want to organize your chores by task (i.e. child A vacuum and child B dusts)? We did this exclusively when we had all small children. Do you want to give each child an area of responsibility (i.e. child A cleans the living room and child B cleans the bathroom)? We use this system currently and love it!

2. Decide how much time you want to devote to chores each day. Decide if you want to have more than one assigned time. We have two different times during the day that we have chores assigned. See a simple version of our schedule.

3. List what needs to be done each day. Decide how much time each task should take.

4. Assign tasks to each child. I assign a chore to whomever is the youngest child that can safely complete it. This stretches those little ones and doesn't overburden the older ones.

• This does mean more supervision and oversight on your part, as you train your children to work hard.
• A benefit to this practice, that I am seeing now, is that it frees the older ones up to serve in areas that they are gifted or that they have a particular interest.

5. Clearly communicate each child's responsibilities to them. I like to have it written down, that way if when I forget I can just look at the list.

6. Check every chore, everyday. Well, only do this if you actually want the chores done well.

Have fun and work along side your children.

1. Change it up. When your children are generally diligent in their work, have fun with chore time.

• Try team chores. Divide your home into two fairly equal (as far as chores) parts and then divide you and your children into two teams and let them race to get all the chores done. Let the little ones or the big ones be team captains.
• Give them a day off of cleaning chores. We do this every weekend and occasionally during the week. Everything needs to be picked up, but nothing needs to be dusted, swept, wiped, etc.

2. Enjoy working with your children. Pick a day to work with each of your children on their task. In our house I have deep cleaning tasks in each of my children's areas, so on the day that I am working in their area, we enjoy special time working together.

All of my children enjoy helping me in the kitchen or doing outside tasks. I use this time to enjoy and talk with my children. Try to include your children in your life as much as possible, they love being with you, take advantage of that to learn their heart and their thoughts.

3. Have contests with prizes, or not. One of my favorite contests is the bedroom contest. We have two bedrooms for the children, the girls are in one and the boys in the other. Every morning I check the bedrooms to see who did a better job. I am picky, checking under the beds, in the closets, etc. The prize? During Christmas time the winning room got to display the table tree in their bedroom for the day. Currently they just get bragging rites. If both bedrooms are amazingly clean and they tie for at least 3 days during the week, we pick something extra special to do or eat on Family Fun Night (Friday). This happens more often than you suppose. Our children are very motivated by this game.

We have also had penny jars. Each child has a jar with their name on it and each day that they finish their chore on time and meet the standards we have set, they get a penny to put in their jar. When they get to a certain number of pennies they get a prize. We use a lot of special time rather than special things for prizes.

Chores do not have to be drudgery. A lot of it is in our attitude. This is one of the ways that we can serve Christ by serving our families.

If you would be interested in seeing our current chore list, please leave a comment to that effect.

To see How We Do It Part 1 - The Schedule click here.

Seed Beaded Bobby Pins - tutorial

With seven girls in the house we fix a lot of hair and the newest rage in our home are these decorated bobby pins. They work great for all the girls big and little alike and are quite versatile. Amber is our resident artist and has come up with some lovely creations.

To decorate one basic bobby pin you will need:

• A small (standard size) bobby pin


• 25-28 seed beads


• 18-20 inches of 28 gauge wire


• fingernail clippers

1. Hold the bobby pin with the straight side up, opening toward your body. Place the center of the wire on top of the bobby pin near the bend and hold there with your thumb.

2. Grasp the wire to the right of the bobby pin and slide it through the rubber tips and up to the bend in the bobby pin. Continue to wrap up and over the bobby pin so that it ends up back on the right again.

3. Now repeat with the wire on the left side, pulling it through the rubber tips and tight up to the bend in the bobby pin up and over the top of the bobby pin so that it ends up back on the left.

4. Clip the ends of your wire so that they are even. (They should be 9-10" each.)

5. Thread a bead onto both wires and pull it up tightly to the bend in the bobby pin. Pull one wire to the right of the bobby pin and through the rubber tips. Pull the other wire to the left of the bobby pin and through the rubber tips. Be sure to pull the wire tightly against the bead to secure it. (You will be wrapping around the flat side only.)

6. Continue threading beads and wraping until you get to the rubber tip of the flat side of the bobby pin.

7. Wrap each wire around the bobby pin tightly several times to secure. Poke the ends of the wires back into the hole in the last bead to hide them. If your bead is too small to poke the wire ends through again, wrap the wire around the bobby pin between the last and next to last bead instead of at the end. It will keep the ends of the wire from poking you.

The varieties are endless. My favorites remain the dragonflies.

This is part of Show and Tell Friday .

Knoxville is Sick, Very Sick

Wednesday Sadie and Savannah were up all night with a stomach bug and Thursday they continued to be unable to keep anything down. Wondering about their hydration, I called our doctor around 3 that afternoon and he asked me to take them directly to Children's ER.

The waiting room at Children's was packed with coughing, sniffling, vomiting, sleeping, and screaming children. Evidently it was better than yesterday and the day before. Knoxville has been sick! Wait times to see the doctors have been running around 2-5 hours. The flu took out nearly our entire church a few weeks ago, with only a representative or two from some of the families making it to services. Of course, I don't know that first hand, our family was out sick.


After 6 hours in the ER, anti-vomiting medication, some Popsicles and Powerade, we were sent home and our girls are on their way to recovering. Yes, both were seriously dehydrated, but it is amazing how quickly the body can get back into balance if it is not continuing to loose nutrients.

There were a couple occurrences during our stay in the ER that made our time well worth it. Of course most importantly, I got to spend 6 hours snuggling and talking with just the two little girls; a rare event. Savannah can talk and it was fun to listen to her jabber about the current cartoon that was playing in the waiting room. The second was that when we got back to our private room, Cinderella was playing. Our two little girls are princess crazy remember? Yet, since we watch very little TV, they had never seen Cinderella. It was so much fun to watch them get excited about seeing the "real Cinderella" although they did wonder why she didn't wear a princess dress for the whole movie.

The doctor prophesied that our whole family will share this and, if we are anything like the rest of Knoxville, it will last every bit of 10 days. We are praying that the girls will be selfish with this one and keep it to themselves.

The Other Olive

I have been remiss. I have been scolded. I am trying to make amends.

We are a family of 11 biologically, but currently we are a family of 12. We have a sweet, wonderful, brilliant, magnificent college student living with us. She just read the blog and casually mentioned that I had not mentioned her AT ALL on my WHOLE blog.

So this post is dedicated to Suzanne our resident college student. Suzanne just started her own blog so go visit her at The Other Olive and say hi, and then come back for many, many, many more comments, references and mentions of Suzanne.

Red Envelope Campaign: Abortion Awareness

This post has moved to our new site. Visit Red Envelope Campaign or our new homepage for more information.

The Tennessee Aquarium

On Monday, the children and I packed a lunch and headed down to the Tennessee Aquarium with another mom and her children. We had a great day with the children rapidly running from one exhibit to the other, pointing out interesting facts to whomever would listen, petting the stingrays and sturgeons, and building deeper friendships. Tisha and I enjoyed visiting and learned even more things that we have in common. We even have the same favorite fish. Uncanny. We did not lose any children, even temporarily and our nursing babies were happily content snuggled close to their moms all day.
Always a big hit is the butterfly garden. Holding butterflies and having them land in your hair or on your clothes is high adventure and the butterflies always seem to oblige.

The smaller children also discovered some type of ground birds hiding in the shrubs.
When we came to the petting tanks, Colby (2) mustered enough courage to try to touch a one of the sting rays, so as the largest ray in the tank swam over, he had his hand in the water. The ray did not content itself with a nice calm swim under Colby's hand but came right up the side of the tank as if to jump into Colby's arms, spraying and flapping water as he came. Mr. calm, cool, and very grown up Colby merely stepped back from the still flopping, splashing ray with his face and clothes dripping. He however, no longer had any desire to touch a stingray. Who knew that rays were such social creatures? While some of the children were fairly wet after petting the rays, technically no one fell all the way into the water.

We have an annual pass to the Tennessee Aquarium and it has been so much fun to visit. It is a great value for large families as the pass is about the same as general admission for a family of six. There are two buildings of exhibits. River Journey has fresh water fish from around the globe and Ocean Journey boasts penguins, and the butterfly garden in addition to their varied selection of salt water creatures.

Princess Cake

Savannah loves princesses, really loves princesses. For her birthday she has asked for a princess umbrella, princess binoculars, a princess CD player, well you get the idea. So for her birthday we decided to tackle a princess castle cake.

This post has moved to our new site. View princess cake or our new homepage.

Valentine's is for Families

Our family is a bit atypical in many ways and thus our celebration of Valentines. Our children LOVE traditions. If we did it that way last year, they will remind us and want to do it again. That is fine with me. It helps my brain to not have to think of new things all the time.

Every Valentines Day we have a big family dinner, well we do that most everyday, but the twist is that the boys in our family have fun together fixing a very special meal for the girls. The traditional meal is an appetizer of M &M's, main course of salad, potatoes with all the toppings, and steak. We usually have something special, like soda, to drink.

When dinner is ready the boys come escort the girls one by one into the dinning room, sometimes presenting them with a flower or treat, and seat them at the table. The boys also serve the meal and clean the dishes. Hopefully our sons are learning to be sweet, romantic husbands just like their dad.

This is a Valentines tradition that our whole family enjoys, boys and girls alike. We love having special times together as a family.

Home Management Part 1 - The Schedule

One of the most frequent questions or comments that we get when folks find out that we have 9 children is, "How do you do it?" My intent is to write about some of the methods and systems that we use to keep our large family organized and running smoothly.

I must say that for us, our schedule is invaluable. About 8 1/2 years ago our fourth child was born. I was at home with 4 children ages 3, 2, 14 months, and newborn and I was barely surviving. Then someone introduced me to the book Managers of Their Homes and my life changed. I went from wondering if I would be able to take a shower, to having time each day to sit and work on a fun project. The idea is to pray about what you want each person in your family to accomplish and then to schedule that into their day. Each person has a schedule, no matter how young.

We often don't stick strictly to our schedule, but we usually stick with same basic flow for our day. For example, we may not eat lunch at 12:00 per the schedule, but we will eat lunch after we finish our school and then play outside after lunchtime.


We have had the same basic schedule for over 8 years now. Generally our day looks like this:

• Get up and read the Bible (for readers) or work on the catechism with daddy (for non-readers)
• Get dressed, clean rooms, and before breakfast chores (empty the dishwasher, make breakfast, care for the animals, etc.)
• Eat Breakfast
• Family worship
• Chores (the whole house gets cleaned during this time)
• School
• Lunch
• Play
• Nap for little kids / Music and reading time for bigger kids
• Free time (sometimes I assign projects, sewing, art, cooking, carving, etc.)
• Prepare for Dad to get home
• Eat dinner
• Family worship
• Bedtime

With that skeleton in place, we simply add specifics in and figure out times for each child and mom to accomplish what needs to be done.

So how can you come up with a schedule that will work for your family? Before you start, pray that God will guide you through the process and that you will make wise decisions about how to spend your time. Think of the priorities and goals you have for your family, does the way you spend time reflect these? Then:

1. Start a list of everything that you need to do each day and the amount of time that the activity should take. One of the main purposes of this step is to make sure that you are spending time on the activities that are most important to you and your husband. Make a list for each member of your family. (I don't schedule my husband.) My husband and I usually take several days to a week for this step and pray about everything that we add or eliminate.


2. After you have your lists for each person, start putting the activities into the time slots in your day. Are there some activities that obviously will work well if they are done simultaneously? i.e. I always schedule a young child to read to me during one of the time periods that I'm nursing the baby. Do you like to clean your house in the morning or afternoon? What time will you get up in the morning? What should your small children be doing while you are busy with other things?


3. As you are fitting the puzzle together think about things that you don't need to accomplish everyday and customize your days a bit. For example, we have had music lessons at various times during the last 8 years. Sometimes I have gotten rid of the afternoon free time and other times we have changed to a four-day school week.


4. Try it out, slowly and then adjust and re-adjust. When we first started, we were doing excellent to stay on schedule until lunch time. Give yourself and your children a week or two before you start changing things too much. Then figure out what works and what doesn't and change things around.

Don't get discouraged. I think that going through the process of making a schedule is helpful even if you never stick with it. It gives you the opportunity to think about how you should spend your time and encourages you to prioritize and spend time on things that are most important.

I hope to post some hints that we have learned to come up with a workable schedule. If you have any questions that you would like to have answered, please feel free to use the comments section.

To see How We Do It Part 2- Daily Chores click here.

We are a homeschooling family of eleven who are in awe of God's abundant grace and enjoy each day of the life to which He has called us. A life full of late nights and early mornings, hugs and snuggles, and laughing around the table. A life full of more love than we ever could have imagined.

Here is a peek into our crazy, happy, blessed world.