Just had to post this picture!

This was taken last Sunday morning! Elizabeth is wearing an adorable dress I found at my favorite consignment store. She just look cute enough to kiss!



She's enjoying her favorite snack - pretzels!

Guess what she's doing!

Take a look at this photo and guess what Elizabeth is doing!



Scroll down for the answer once you have guessed!

Did you guess playing hide and seek?

Did you guess peek a boo?

Did you guess praying?

Well if you did you're wrong - it you guessed sleeping, then you are right!

I knew she was tired when she came in for lunch, but wanted her to eat before she laid down for her nap. She did eat some cheese and then fell sound asleep! Too cute!

How do you make kids feel special in a large family?

You give them things that are their own - we did this last Christmas. We gave each of the kids their own nice set of towels - each having a different color. We also ordered hand painted and decorated ceramic tiles from Holly at Name Tiles - I found her doing the Great Cloth Diaper Hunt last November. So finally, last week I got this all looking the way I wanted it.

Each child has a 3 prong hook (1 for each towel, washcloth, handtowel, and bath towel), and their name tile mounted on the wall above the hook, with half a travel toothbrush holder mounted to the wall under the name tile for holding their tooth brush (and keeping them out of the reach of toddlers!).

The kids love it, and miracle of miracles, it has stayed nice and everyone is finding it easier to brush their teeth because they know exactly where their toothbrush is (Ok, sometime they forget to put them away, but at least it's not in a drawer with everyone's current toothbrush and all the ones from the last 3 years! LOL!).

Here's picture of all this:



I must give credit for the inspiration to my dear friend Heidi, who is at this moment on her way to Iowa - not for a vacation, but to live - we'll miss her! She had towels made up for her children a couple of years ago - each one had their names embroidered on it with a little stick person that looked like them (matching hair color and holding something that that child liked!).

And if you are the observant type, yes, there are only 8 sets - of course our oldest is not living at home, but is actually in Korea right now, and our oldest son living at home doesn't like to use the "kids" bathroom - but that's OK because the hook racks came with 4 hooks each, so it worked out better that way!

Anyway - thought you might like to see my work of love!

Ever Wonder About My Laundry Days?

Well, they are not always this bad, but many times I end up getting behind in my laundry. I did this just last week and spent countless hours folding and putting away laundry so it wouldn't be out when we had that birthday party!

A while ago, I was doing this very same thing and staying up until after midnight folding clothes and when I got done, I was so impressed with my mountain of laundry, I decided it was time to take a picture or two of it.

This is our 8 foot office table that serves as our diningroom table. Mind you, that this is only the clothes of the youngest 7 of our children, our oldest two living at home are responsible for their laundry!

Hope you think of these photos next time you think you have a lot of laundry to do!



Now imagine getting it all put away and starting over again!

OK, enough putting my laundry out - at least it was clean laundry!

I am a Survivor

I am still alive and things are looking up. I have been almost constantly sick (the flu, a cold, a stomach virus, and now another cold) since the second week of January. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, so I went to my naturopath and lo and behold, my immune system is not what is should be! I am so surprised! She said I was under too much stress....duh!

Anyway - I was referring to our new linoleum when saying I was a survivor. The new linoleum, stage one anyways, is complete. During this really bad cold I was having to deal with moving our entire dining room and kitchen appliances out of the kitchen and dining room - all into the livingroom, hallway and some things went into already crowded bedrooms! Talk about a nightmare! Especially Monday - my cold was at it worst and we all had to stay in just the livingroom (now reduced to 3 couches, with appliance behind them, and a 4 foot walkway) - that's 1 adult, 7 kids and 2 toddlers squished and trying to do schoolwork...NOT!

On top of all that, our TV just quit - black screen. I'm not that sorry - I think we need a complete break from it for a while. It is under warrantee, but that is always a hassle - hopefully it will go smoothly and when we have gotten used to it's absence it will be repaired and ignored most of the time! Meantwhile, the kids are re-learning to play together, indoors as we have had constant rain since I-can't-remember-when!!
Anyway, I thought I'd post this so you would know why I haven't been stocking much lately - that and there just wasn't any huge deficiencies in the diapers (we got way overstocked there for a while!).

As of today, nearly everything is back in it's new spots (great time to re-arrange the dining room!) and it's so much brighter (we had dark wood floor before) and seems bigger in the new arrangement! I actually enjoyed getting the diningroom and kitchen all nice and clean today - it's been a long time since clean meant nice looking and that is discouraging to say the least!
Jessica sold her last puppy and it is at this moment on an airplane to Alaska! What a great learning experince for both Jessica and I! Bianca is going to a nice family and I'm sure she will be well loved!
So we are now down by ones animal, but Miss T (Jessica's cat and the only cat we have that isn't fixed) is about due to have her kittens, so the repreave will be short lived. Two of the kids that work for us are already working on their parents to let them have one of the new kittens, so we might not have too much trouble finding homes!

Well, I'd better get back to stocking!

Have a great weekend!

Hi Everyone!

Well, this is my latest adventure - I've never blogged before!

My dear bossum friend, Renee has inspired me! She has 10 children, two adopted, and 3 more coming through foreign adoption, and yet she blogs! I l
ove her blog - I'll add a link to her if she gives me permission - I'm sure you'll find her blog a fun place - she has excellent photo skill! She's also one of the few local cloth diaper users, and of course she only uses Snap-EZ!~ LOL!

Here's a snapshot of my life at the moment:

One House:

Our Family:

2 parents, 10 children (9 living at home, one in Okinawa serving in the Marines)

3 Miniature Schnauzer Puppies:



2 dogs, and 4 cats (one pregnant):




I am trying to regain some semblance of former normalcy - attempting to do Fly Lady and doing pretty good, better and better anyway (but that's what Fly Lady is all about - baby steps of improvement).

We are getting our homeschooling back into a better routine and we are seeing great improvements with all the kids.

I'm trying to work less, and schedule my work hours for afternoons only, unless something really important/pressing needs to be done. This is going well so far and I'm pleased with my progress!

I am going to start "moving" more - as in "get some exercise"! The weather is improving and I have an itch to get out on my recumbent bike again - now that it's day light longer there is hope!

And on a final note, we are in the first stage of planning to build a new home on our land - we have outgrown our mobile home in a big way! We are currently starting over as our wonderful county health department has decided that we can not build anything larger than a 3 bedroom home. So we are starting over with new house plans - this time with the idea of building a nice home that will sell easily so we can build out dream home somewhere else - probably closer to Daryl's work and our church!

Have a Blessed Day!

Ruth