winter

For the first time in about two years I have been on a crochet spree :-)  This is a good thing.  After not crocheting for over a year solid, I have been making things left and right.  I've made two scarves, about 4 hats, two small sweater/vests for Merida (LOVE this pattern...though you have to watch the video and take notes to get the actual pattern, or you could follow along.  It is a quick project), and a family of birds (which still need to be put together).  I have been trying to take pictures of the things that I have made, but I've had some issues with my camera, and then the memory card.  So for now, I just have a picture of one of the hats.  I made these things with the anticipation of it being **winter**, which we did have for about 3 days!!

A rainbow hat for Merida.

I tried to 'blend' the colors, and I'm not sure it turned out as I had envisioned it, but it is pretty non the less.

This was decidedly NOT a *winter* day, though this was taken last week.  And clearly we have some learning in the matching clothes department ahead of us :-)  But as you will see below, he's not the only one with this needed skill.

Aubrey was standing in the hole that they made.  I suppose we can use these holes as a security system...you know, a robber comes through, falls in one of the holes and breaks his leg.  Effective, I would say.

The baby swing is broken, so Merida likes to try out the big kid swing.

Aubrey and Merida checking things out in the woods.  The cat followed them everywhere they went.

The cat checking out Merida's finds.

Jonah was busy trying to throw a chain up in the tree.  We have a piece of chain that was used for the swings, and Jonah in particular is obsessed with it!  Which is dangerous as he likes to swing it around.  Oy.

This was Merida's choice of clothing on one particular chilly day.  Layers, and well...look at that combo :-)  Though when you are two, you can pretty much get away with such things.

Merida wearing her new hat.  It is a bit large on her, but it kept her warm (it was actually cold out, you know like 44*).

Look at those cheeks!

She had gotten an 'ouchie' and was trying to show it to me (it was one of those invisible ouchies).  It was time to come in as we were all getting chilled.

Out of the gates.....

...and we're off!  Or not.  The start of a new year, and I feel as if I am still in the starting gates, while everyone else is off like a shot.  Some of that feeling is due to some meds I am on.  Meds and I do not usually agree, which is why I like to steer clear of them.  I can't wait for them to be out of my system so I can think clearly.

So, it seems that our new years plans have been made.  Nothing like priorities that pop up and demand your attention.  Each of the things I want to talk about could have complete posts of their own, and will probably require one...you know, when I have the time.  Ah, time.  It looks like our time will be taken up with cleaning....deep, deep cleaning.  Let me share.

I believe I told you all about the roof leaking.  And how there was this very large splotch of mold that appeared on Bella's ceiling.  We knew that we also had mold on one of the rafters in the attic.  A friend told us how we should take care of it, though we had to wait for the wood to thoroughly dry out.  That is hard to do when it is raining almost every day.  Even though the leak was fixed, it was considerably humid out, which does not lend well to wood drying out.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and Jeremiah went to the attic for some computer speakers.  He finds that there are mold spots on everything up stairs, or at least nearly everything.  That pretty much sounds like a nightmare to me.  I don't think you want to hear how I totally broke down about it all, thinking it was the end of the world and such, so I will skip that part.

We had someone come out (a professional) to access the damage.  He gave us some quotes before coming out so we would know the possibilities.  The good news is we will not be spending thousands of dollars for the mold clean up!!!  Although we do indeed have mold, he thought we could handle it on our own.  He explained what we needed to do.

Let me just say, that if I DID have thousands of dollars I would hire them!  Because it's going to be a lot of work.  A lot. We have to thoroughly clean the mold spots upstairs, have the wood dry, then coat the wood with polyurethane.  We learned that dead or alive, mold is toxic.  So it's good that the chemicals we used on the mold in our master bathroom killed off that mold.  It's bad, that we didn't know we needed to paint over it.  All this time (two years now?)  it has been spreading it's spores.  Lovely, just lovely.

On top of the cleaning, we finally get to tackle the mess of junk in the attic...as in throw most of it out, unless it is bagged up.  Come to find out the hours and hours I spent sorting, bagging and labeling all the years and years of clothing will be tossed out since certain children spewed it ALL over the attic.  I seriously think I am going to cry.  The thought of loosing all that clothing that is meant to be pass down is almost too much.

Anyways, after all of that, we have to wash down every single surface on every single item that is exposed to air downstairs in the living areas.  This includes the walls/doors, but not the ceilings.  We are to get every nook and cranny on everything.  This includes the furniture, toys, books, etc.  And then we are to wash all walls/floor each and every month from here on out.  Somehow I feel like I am in the twilight zone.  

Come to find out that pulling up the carpet is highly recommended, and he congratulated us on doing so.  But also come to find out that it was a very, very, very (did I say, "very"?) bad idea that we were all in the house when the carpet was being pulled up.  Funny, that is the same thing the ER doc told me this week....yes a visit I had due to breathing difficulty....probably from the carpets being torn up.  We still have some more carpet to pull, and I can assure you, NO ONE will be in the house when that is being done.  I think we may want to spend the night away actually!

Phew!  So that is what we will be up to in the coming months.  Mold clean up.  But due to the mold, other issues need to be addressed as well.  I have no doubt that we will feel much better when we get all that cleaning done.  But, I also know that mold just doesn't up and leave your body when you get it out of your environment!  So I started doing some research.  Fancy that, we don't have the money for health clinics, 20,000 supplements and the like.  Insert crying.  Also insert...lots of prayer.

Prayer.  Hmmm.  And here I stand at a crossroads.  I have been praying and praying for relief from the issues we have been dealing with.  I truly want to have the faith to receive healing, directly from the hands of the Lord.  I know it can happen.  But I'm not 'there' yet.  In the meantime, I may have something else to help us.  Something that may get us over all of our health issues.  I would love for all of us to be able to get homeopathic treatment, but again, unless we want to sell our house and live  under a bridge, that is not an option.  And since I feel I still have a long road to growing closer to the Lord, I needed another option.  While praying I remembered something that happened about 12  years ago.  Which lead me to search for a device that I had come across at a doctors office 12 years ago.  I assure you that will definitely need a post all of it's own.  But suffice it to say, I believe that this may be our 'healing' according to 'my faith' at the moment.

I still can't shake the feeling like I am letting God down.  Funny that I don't feel that way when I rushed off to the ER, or when I gave Merida antibiotics, or Jonah some Motrin, etc.  All I know is that the past few years we've seen some big time health issues over here.  Daily life is being affected.  Schooling is not getting done.  Cleaning does not get done when it needs to.  I feel like I can never catch up.  I am always tired.  I know things have to change, because they can not continue like they have been.  So I will continue to dive into the word of God, but I will also accept this man made help for the time being.  I really need to focus on other areas in my life that really ONLY God can help with.

Possibly, one day I may 'arrive' at that place of total healing by the hand of God alone.  Once I get this device I mentioned I'll post all about it.  Should prove to be interesting if nothing else :-)

Some Christmas happenings

This year the boys have had a couple of chances at making some Christmas crafts.  I love doing crafts...but not when my house looks like a bomb went off!  So this year the house is in better shape, and the craft supplies came out.  After seeing how much fun the boys had, not to mention how serious they were in planning their creations, I felt bad that it has been so long that they had free reign to be creative!  

We went to a craft fair and the boys had a blast!  I only wish we were able to spend more time there since it was a short fair, and we got there late.  I planned on taking pictures, but after pulling out my camera to snap the first one of the day I got that lovely little message "no card" flashing on my screen.  Sigh.  

 This was Aubrey's craft gift to me.  I told him that he had glued two large stars and 8 smaller stars onto his 'wreath'...which is how many people are in our family.  He didn't plan it that way.

 Merida wanted in on the crafting as well.  She just likes to spend her time cutting things up!

 We had planned on making a new Jesse tree for our Jesse tree ornaments.  That hasn't happened.  So each night I pull out the ornaments that we have read stories to and place them on a couch cushion (the ornaments are made of felt so they kind of stick up there).

 Moira was in her second play, A Christmas Carol.  We saw it last night, and they did an amazing job.  Moira was Mrs. Fezziwig.  Here she is after I did her hair.  Thank goodness for youtube!

 The hairstyle she choose worked great for the time period, and was easy to do.  She said she's just happy that she doesn't live back then, and having to do her hair like that everyday!  Ha, ha.

 There is a family, over the river and through the woods, that puts on an amazing light display for Christmas.  They get dressed as Mr. and Mrs. Claus and hand out candy to the people who come by.  This year Isabella went over and asked if they would like a Christmas pony to accompany them on some nights.  They were delighted to have the pony over.  Isabella went all out decking Olaf out in Christmas attire.  She had put bells on all of his feet, except that he ATE the front ones off!!  He didn't actually swallow them, but apparently he wasn't fond of them.

 Since we don't have a way to transport the pony, Isabella needed to walk him over and Saoirse went with her so she wouldn't be walking alone.

 Isabella had Olaf doing some tricks.  Here she is getting him to smile (though I didn't catch the smile on camera).

 New to their display was this snowman shooting "snow".  The boys were thrilled, even if the 'snow' was just bubbles!  They spent a lot of time hanging out with that snowman.

 If they weren't with the snowman, then you could find them by the fire roasting marshmallows.  The couple who does this has a fire, sticks for marshmallows, bags of marshmallows, and...

 she made hot cocoa for all of my kids!  Here Isabella is telling her pony that the hot cocoa was NOT for him.

 Yeah, that didn't last long!  He got a first sip, which flew him for a loop, since it was hot.  I wish I had that on camera.  Bella thought that would dissuade him, but not a chance.  He drank every last drop!!

 A group shot.  Moira was at her play, and Flannery was home not feeling well.

The crew with Santa.

It has been unseasonably warm here, and yesterday for the Christmas parade it was a whopping 75* out!  The parade was fun.  The boy's whole reason for being there was to see how much candy they could walk away with.  The baby was in love with every dog that went by....please, NO, not *another* animal lover ;-P  We got home, hot and tired.

But there was some work to be done.  We have started pulling up carpet.  We seem to have a serious mold problem in our house.  The carpets are not the cause, but I can assure you they are only adding to the problem.  Since that is something we can actually work on, that is what we did.  I was quite surprised by the amount of work Jonah did!  That kid really and truly worked and worked and worked until the job was done!  He moved furniture in and out, he pulled up staples, threw carpeting out the window, vacuumed, etc.  The other boys helped as well, but here and there.  Jonah was like the Energizer Bunny!  One room done, as far as the carpet up.  I have a bunch of things I want to wash before putting it back in the room.  I need to find my diffuser, I had just seen it somewhere, so I can start diffusing Thieves oil.

Praying we will slowly start to see an improvement in how we are feeling.

My Table-scape

About three times a month my table is overrun with Dixie cups.  Lots of Dixie cups.  Some of you know we utilize homeopathy to help overcome illness.  But we have also utilized it to treat underlying issues in two children.  One child, Jedidiah, was not able to continue on homeopathy due to financial reasons many years ago, but thankfully we saw lasting results for many of his issues.  I have no doubt we would have seen his growth hormone issue resolved had we been able to stay with the treatment.

Currently we have Isabella in treatment for various ailments that I know she would not like for me to share.  But I can assure you that her ailments have been a huge burden for her to bear, and we are very pleased that we can utilize homeopathy at this time for her.

The only problem is that Isabella is very, very sensitive to the remedies.  This may make some people balk since the remedies are already diluted beyond there being any physical remnants of the original substance, just it's energy.  Most people think that homeopathy is bunk due to this, but it would only take someone to actually see homeopathy work to be convinced that it has the ability to heal the body.

It has taken us many months to find the right dosage for Isabella so that she is not left in an aggravated state (where she is experiencing more symptoms).  There is still healing going on, it just won't be evident!  With her recent batch of remedies sent to us we will be putting her on a new schedule that we are hoping will bring even more noticeable healing for her.

But between her sensitivities and the new schedule....well, things are pretty challenging.  I have to give myself pep talks before I tackle making up her remedies.  I have to wait for a time where the baby will be asleep or being taken care of by someone else, and that we have filtered water on hand.  Those two things seem like such a simple matter, but not so!

Because once I get started with making up her remedies having the baby come along can really undo a LOT of work!  This is what my table looks like as I am making the remedies:

 I couldn't fit them all in, but behold...168 Dixie cups.  But you can see that should a little wee lass come along and knock those over....well, let's just say there will be tears shed (by me!).

 I first have to figure out which level is next for her to take.  I make a label, put it on one of the little blue bottles.  Then I take the remedy pack (the small manila envelopes you see on top of the cups) and place them on top of each row of cups, along with the blue bottle that pertains to that remedy.

I put the remedy, which is the size of a grain of salt, onto a spoon, and drop it in the first cup.  Five of her remedies have 24 cups, one has 48 cups.  I then fill each of the cups with some water.  All 168 of them!  I give the first cup, with the remedy in it, a stir, then pour a bit of that water into cup two.  I dump the first cup of water into a container, and pick up cup number two to give it 3 to 5 swirls.  Then I pour a bit of water from cup two into cup three, and repeat the process until we get to cup 24 (or 48).  With cup number 24 I give it a few swirls and pour the water into the blue bottle for that remedy.  Then I repeat the process for the second remedy, and third, until I am all done.

 With the new schedule she will be taking half the remedies (3 of them) on one day, and the other 3 remedies the next day.  So this time around I used a marker to color the tops of the labels, three with green, and three with pink. That way she can look at each day to see which color remedies she needs to take.  She can't take them all at once, but needs to space them out over the day.

This is one of the bottles up close.  I have the remedy name, which is usually abbreviated.  This one is Belladonna at the 1Q potency.  I also write on the bottom when her last dose is to be taken.  Each remedy (for Isabella due to her sensitivity) will be taken 5 times over a 10 day period.  She *knows* when she went past the 'expiration' date because she will suddenly come down with symptoms!  I kid you not.  But it always works like this:
Bella:  Mom!  I don't know what is up, but  _______________ (insert symptom) is out of control!  I don't know what is going on.
Me:  What is the date on the remedy bottle?
Bella:  Oh, yeah.  Let me go check.

She comes back to tell me the last day for her remedy was two days ago....yup, time to make the new remedies.  Now I do put the date to make up her new batch on our family calendar.  However, our family calendar is dry erase.  Two words for you....little boys.  Enough said!  Ha, ha!

So that is my table-scape three times a month!

Alien Chickens

So does everyone else's kids play Alien Chickens or Zombie Apocalypse?  No?  How odd.

Well, mine do.  And they have been playing it often (along with playing out the book they are writing).  They have set up camp over in the herb garden.  A camp complete with shelter, fire, and sometimes food they have scrounged for (like yummy ham from the neighbor).  They have it bad.

I came out on the first night of camp to find Flannery trying to start a fire with her flint and steel.  She had gathered some pine shavings in an attempt to start a fire for her freezing comrades (you all know that when it gets to be 55* over here that calls for the winter gear!).  I asked if they wanted some dryer lint, as I am sure everyone will have that at hand come the apocalypse, but she declined.  After many more attempts at the fire, I went in to gather some lint (we have NO shortage of the stuff...we do now since they have been using it ever since that night), and lo and behold...FIRE.  Ooooh.  Aaaahhh.

Flannery tells me that they have resorted to using a lighter and candle to start their fires.  I am assuming that counts as cheating.  But it works to get a fire going.  Besides their knives at their sides they have added air soft guns, to keep the alien chickens at bay (that would be the roosters who actually attack).  Sad for their game, said attacking roosters have been re-homed.  This is good news for the boys who were terrified to go outside and have a rooster run after them.

In other non-alien news, Moira, Flannery and I went grocery shopping this week.  Before we started the shopping for food we needed to get Moira some new clothing for work.  She got her first job last week!!!  She is so excited.  It was a difficult adjustment as it is a demanding job, but she is getting used to it and everyone says she is doing an amazing job.  In a jam days before, we had to purchase a new outfit, which cost $35!  Ouch.  So on this particular day, with no time demands, we headed to the thrift store.  She was able to get two outfits for work.  On top of that Flannery found a shirt for herself, and I happened to find some stocking stuffers, and two full outfits, a sweater, plus some shoes for the baby...all for $28.  Now that is more like it.  I know people who can get a lot better deals at garage sales, but that isn't in the cards for me right now.  One day, one day.

 Moira did NOT get this skirt. Phew!  But she really liked it.

 Flannery, always moving!  She ended up with the darker shirt.

Two of the items for Merida.  I also got her some rainbow pants, with a cute long sleeve shirt with a cat and dog in winter gear on the front.  Last summer I got her some nice pink sandals, and found the same brand but different color (purple) for this coming summer.  They look brand new.

To end this week I finally got to the pottery place to take advantage of the gift certificates that Jeremiah gave me for mother's day!  It was daunting to say the least.  I had to find what I wanted to paint. Then figure out a design...then the colors.  This is truly overwhelming for me, so I took my time.  I had to bring the piece home with me to bring back at a later date to finish.  I had a vision of what I wanted the plate to look like, but the outer lip didn't go as planned.  I had decided to do these dots in half circles around the edges, with words in between them.  But the half circles ended up too close together to do the wording in between. So now I am not sure how I am going to put the words on there that I want.  On the lip I have, "a Family of".  I had decided to write words like, "artists, bookworms, creators, courage, hope, servants, worship, music, silly, etc".  Now I will have to find another way to put those on there.  I got a glimpse of the plate so you can see what I mean.

 See I have my plans and palette at hand.

 Too many colors to choose from, but these are the ones I chose for the dots around the edges.

The dots around the edges.  All the colors will be much darker after the piece is put through the fire and glazed.

Oh, almost forgot, we had a beautiful day before the cold front came in, and went to the park for a picnic.  My kids are goo over picnics.  I feel bad, because we have one maybe once every three years or so!  Needless to say, they were giddy.  Eating at the park, hooping, and playing.  All fun.

 Jonah takes his hooping seriously.

 Merida has found a way to swing that hoop around her three times!  Smart girly.

 Saoirse will be starting a hoop walking club.  Joking.

 Group hooping.

 Jed looks so big here!

Oh, look, one of my kids' shoes.  Fancy that.

 Look no further to see who they belong to.  It appears that Flannery will be starting the hoop jogging course.  I can barely hoop standing still, let alone walk OR run!

 There was a child there that was having a birthday, and my boys asked if they could join in the bubble fun.

 The baby being cute in the swing.

She is too cute for her own good!

A "new" book on the block

This is NOT new, I've just finally got around to reading it (or starting to read it)!  It really helps that the original book was revised, and it was in my library!  Yay!  Because to be honest, from all the reading I had been doing I was having a REAL hard time buying into the whole idea of seperating your 'fuels'.  Well, carrying around an extra 40 pounds will do something to a person :-)  And I decided it can't hurt to read and try it out.  Not to mention that one of my daughters needs help in this area as well and was having a very hard time trying to reconcile eating a very restrictive diet.  So we took the plunge.  I bought the Plan book, and found the Recipe book in the library (they have both books in the library, but I figured I would buy one at a time, to spread out the cost).  Well, after having tabbed *some* recipes that I wanted to try....it became very apparent that I really need to buy the book!  Ha, ha!

 The Plan book I'm still reading and my lunch.  I had to take this picture, and not for a reason you may think!  Look!  Look!  There is SUNLIGHT in this picture. We have been without the sun's rays for weeks!!!!  No matter where I went, this has been the subject of many people.  No joke.

The Recipe book.  I stopped putting in tabs when I realized I was going overboard with a book that I will only be able to keep for the next one and a half weeks!  Oy.  Both Moira and I have already seen changes.  It's only been three days.  No doubt about it, there is a learning curve.  Though, since I have been reading about it online for only the last year and a half, I've got some of this down (in my head at least).  The nice thing is that Moira is *actually* eXcItEd to be starting this way of eating since it is doable, and has some really yummy sounding recipes!  We shall see how it goes.  We signed up to do a 6 week challenge (to help keep on track through the holidays).  I'll let you know how it goes!

The Long Awaited.....

The First Egg!!!  Yay!!

The past week

I am hoping my new camera lens will be here soon.  We ordered one from a far off land :-)  I really wish I had it the other night with all the kids dressed up.  We never ended up going trick-or-treating as it got too late, but they did look cute.  We needed to get Moira to church so she could do make up for the last night of our church's alternative to a haunted house.  We heard that Chick fil A was giving out free kids meals to any child dressed up, and that Krispy Kreme (which is across the parking lot) was giving away a free doughnut to kiddos dressed up.  So we made our way for some free food.

I had not seen our church's 'play', so we drove there so I could see it, and the boys could see the kid version.  When we headed home to do some treating, it was 8 PM, and everything was 'shut down' for the night.  Oh well.  No biggie, we were going to give away the candy anyways!  We bought a bit of candy at the store, and the kids came home and watched a movie.

The week leading up to Halloween was eventful, in the illness way.  Sigh.  Four kids had the tummy bug.  Then Merida was showing her funky signs of a bladder infection.  My attempts, with natural remedies, failed and she ended up with a fever on Wednesday.  Knowing that by the time she has a fever things will go down hill fast, I took her to be seen by a doctor.

Due to insurance changes, we have a new doctor.  Let me just say....I WAS NOT pleased.  That would be an understatement.  I totally expected to be hounded about our choice not to vaccinate.  But I was NOT expecting some of the comments I got about breastfeeding and our family size....as if that has any bearing on my daughters health!  On top of it the doctor was incredulous that I wanted to take the 'least invasive' means first...you know, after all they really can't know what she has since she's not vaccinated.  ROLLING eyes.

Needless to say, he had to admit was I right after a quick urine test proved that she indeed had an infection, and a bad one at that.  Poor baby.  She is feeling better on the meds, but her tummy is taking a beating.  Only 5 more days!  I have to take her in today for them to do a retest to make sure the meds are working.  The doctor was not happy that they couldn't get a proper culture.  I don't think it is entirely necessary, but since it's noninvasive I will go with the flow. Don't want to be too contrary :-)

Off to get ready for the appointment!  Please pray that they have the proper equipment, and that Merida's body cooperates and she needs to pee in quick order :-)

One foot in front of the other

We find ourselves in that 'if it's not one thing, it's another' stage...again.  Weren't we here just weeks ago?  And that 'stage' lasted for a month solid, only to be 'broken' up by two or more months of this cough thing?  Thankfully most of us are over the cough thing.  Anyone else had it?  Lasts for 6 to 8 weeks?  But we are back to stuff coming up almost daily.

My camera lens decided it was broke.  My oven decided to poop out on me.  The new-to-us printer decided to have issues, right when I needed it.  Thankfully most of those are fixed or soon to be fixed.  Jeremiah was able to speak to someone about our heating issue, and they will be here this week to check our system out.

Although we are not in a good rythm yet, we are staying on top of the house and getting to the basics of schooling.  This week we will be adding in Jed's speech therapy, which I am very excited about.  I have made our schedule up with sticky notes so that things could be adjusted once we have all of our weekly going ons in place.

We have a very busy week ahead of us.  I am frustrated by all the things that keep coming up, but also thankful that we are still making progress.  One such area is Isabella's homepathic care.  Isabella is very, VERY sensitive to the remedies.  It is so difficult because we know healing is happening, evidenced when she went off her remedies for a few weeks.  She saw amazing, amazing health.  Things started to slide backwards, as expected.  She was excited and scared to start back on the remedies.  Excited because she knows it is working, but scared because the sensitivities make things worse in the meantime.  We are working hard to find the right dosage for her.  Finding the right dose will bring her to a state of experiencing health, a state of increasing improvements, all while her body is truly healing, and not just covering up her symptoms.  We have adjusted her treatment this week, but it will be a few days before we see if this dosage level will be the ticket.

Making up her remedies takes incredible mental energy on my part.  I am guessing it is overwhelming to me because I feel overloaded as it is, but really it's not a big deal, I just have to mentally prepare myself to do it!  Anyone not familiar with homeopathy, or this specific practitioner's ways may find it mind boggling.  All I know is that the window of healing I saw in Isabella is totally, totally worth any mental overload I feel when I go to make her remedies.  Seriously, she is a different child! Able to do things she has not been able to do in a year.  So, sooooo worth it!

I have a picture, from my phone of all her dosage cups made up, but I can't get it into blogger.  I'll have to try again later.

Swimming in the Chaos

I actually picked up my camera today!  It's been months.  It has been a very wet and great past 12 days.  Apparently we broke an 1880-something record, with 12 consecutive days of rain.  Thankfully we've had a couple of breaks of sun here and there, but I was beginning to have waking nightmares of a movie I saw as a preteen.  For some reason this movie seems like a nightmare to me.  Don't remember the name of it.  But the idea was that these people lived either on Earth, or some other planet that had rain 24/7, 364 days a year.  One day a year the rain stops and the sum comes out.  There was a school class that was making all these plans on how they were going to spend their sunny day.  But the day of the sun, one of the students get locked in a closet, missing the only sunny day of the year.  I was so depressed after that movie!  Anywas, day 12 of rain it is.

Here are just a couple of pictures.  Isabella was giving pony rides to the boys.  I didn't get out there in time to take pictures of them riding, but Flannery got everything on video.  Maybe I'll post a short video once Bella uploads it from her camera.

 Aubrey still sporting the riding helmet.  He fell off the pony a few times, but he's our fearless one.

 Merida looked so cute in this sweater with her hood up.  All my other girls hated hats and hoods, but she seems to like it.

 Jonah being a nice big brother helping her with her shoes.  Look how she is holding on to his shoulder.  Aaaww/

Jonah asked me if I would take some pictures of him.  I took three, and in all of them he has a very serious face.  But my golly, he looks so old here!  Where is my seven year old?