Easter weekend

 Hiding out in Daddy's cabinets

 Taking a ride in the mower trailer

 Cute white-washed picture :)

 A's hat is an antique- a present from her fav. Miss Roni

 My little monkeys

Hunting for Easter bags

Nine, nine

Thus marks the beginning of the last year I will have all my kids in the single-digit age. Peter just had his 9th birthday and it was so fun celebrating with him! He made a mama-approved menu for the day: pancakes/milk for breakfast, hot dogs/water for lunch, and fajitas/soda and juice for dinner. He and Anne had done double school work the day before so they also had a school-free day. Uncle Mike came over and spent the day fixing the trampoline and playing flight simulator with Peter, so that was extra special. Then family and family-like friends came over for the evening festivities. Thanks to all who made it a special day/evening for Peter!

Kids and chicks

Our poor plants survived (we hope) it getting down to 1 degree the other night after a wet snow. Ah, Doney Park in the Spring. :)

Tentuplets? Decatuplets?

Here are our new babies! All happy and toasty warm. Tomorrow they'll get some real litter in there since they're eating fine. Such cuties! :) The kids are DYING to hold them, but I'm making them wait a couple days since they're still just so tiny. So they're contenting themselves with petting. Tirzah calls them ducklings. Very distinctly. :)

 You can tell Anne's just in love. :)

Catching Up?

I'm forever feeling as if I'm catching up with life...or generally failing to keep caught up. But maybe there's really no such thing as being "caught up". Maybe if I knew that I would never "catch" up, I would enjoy life's many "interruptions" more... 

Here are a few pictures of some recent "interruptions"...

Sleeping babies (or sometimes not so much sleeping, hence interrupting my sleep)...they haven't been falling out of bed anymore, so it's just waking up when they get cold or have bad dreams...I don't miss their newborn days.

 This is our favorite book these days- thanks Auntie Patricia!!!

 I guess this a picture symbolizing all things outdoors...gardening, helping Christian put in a new shed, playing, or not playing outside because of the dratted wind...

 Custom size leg weights slow things down a bit... :)

 "How do you spell...?"

 Isn't there some quote somewhere about how a woman's kitchen shows you what the woman is like? I think this picture about sums it up...wilted flowers, food left out, dishes undone, back massager not being used...(I will say, though, the back massager makes an EXCELLENT automatic tickler for the kids... :)

 The never-ending research and discussions to figure out how/when/if  we're going to jump in to this whole poultry raising endeavor. Probably next week we'll have some cute pictures to put up...

 A trip to the arboretum! That was a fun interruption from life. Kale'a's in the jogger. And I'm still kind of excited that I get to put two apostrophes in my niece's name... :)

 The amazing tree maze at the arboretum was a big hit- even for the twinsies- and especially us mamas who enjoyed the break from worrying about kids jumping into a pond or offending a tree-hugger or bird watcher.

It's great fun when you take it slow! :) I heard an illustration somewhere- Mark Driscoll, I think- that everybody has a different "plate" size of things they can handle in life. I have a very small plate. A very small plate that needs washing often. :)