A Weekend with SEVEN Boys

I think that title just sums it all up.

Our great nephews - yes, they are GREAT and they are great - came to stay with us over Easter so their parents could get away for their 10th Anniversary.

Honestly, the weekend went amazingly well.  We didn't even use an entire thing of Neosporin!  It may be the exhaustion talking but really, it was a ton of fun.

I spent most the time in the kitchen - shocker.  I had stocked up on food.  And An, being a foodie (really, she is the top dessert chef and baker at a well known restaurant) packed food.  I mean, the boys arrived with a COOLER.

We found use for the cooler so I am really glad she sent it.

Coolers make great chairs, did you know?

I spent a great amount time in the kitchen.  And most of the time the kitchen looked like this....

Notice the basket? An sent that too, filled with grown up goodies. She's lovely like that.

Do you notice how the sunshine streams into the kitchen, filling it with a cheery glow?  The cheery glow forgot to clean my kitchen.

Our floors looked like this...

The dart bullet is further proof of an all boy household. Well, except me. 

In fact, the youngest at five, J informed me our floors were made of dirt.  "No, honey," I explained sweetly, "I have only swept them twice today so they are only a little dirty.  Not made of dirt."  The photos shows you how much dirt one room had it in it.  

Of course, if two of my boys weren't thinking it was cool to wear cleats outside and then back inside and three (yes, husband, calling you out) of my boys didn't wear big bulky boots in and out, they would have been cleaner.

But what's the sense in not wearing those?

We watched a lot of A Team.  The show?  It is AWESOME to them.  And I kept falling asleep when it was on and my husband wondered why I was so tired.

For real.

Meal times were the best.

Here are some dinner highlights....

J had to have lemon on his glass every. single. meal.  And because he is J, he had lemon on his cup for every. single. meal.

One meal we spent a great deal of time guessing what J's favorite foods were.  Thankfully it was mac and cheese, which we were having for lunch then.

A big debate at one meal time was what exactly should they do when they caught Big Foot.  What cracked me up was that it wasn't even a question IF they would catch Big Foot, it was just what they would do when they did.  

At dinner one night they suddenly began singing Convoy.  I don't know why.  Then they began talking about how they used to think that the song was talking about flying black bears and grizzly bears in sky.

They weighed out the best way to have a food fight at school and not get caught.  Not getting caught seemed to be trickier than they thought it would be, and I was relieved to hear that.

The Sunday they were with us, it was Easter sunday.  We did not make it to sunrise service, although Jake and S1 and S2 made it to church at 5:30 to make breakfast.  And I was up at five to get dinner done.  We were only about ten minutes late to church breakfast - woohoo!

At the service, I looked down and saw this....

It made my heart melt.

And wish for a good coffee with an extra shot of espresso.  Okay, more than an extra shot.

But this?  This photo I love ever so much....

We "hillbilly-ified" the boys while they were with us.

We used a couch to say "only go this far in the driveway".  Yes, a couch.

And then, as all hillbillies do, we burned the couch at night.

The boys never ever wanted to leave our house then.

We didn't have an Easter egg hunt - I can do only so much - but we did make dirt cake.  I did not think to have gummy worms (how ever could I forget?) so J suggested we catch real worms.  Fortunately, the ground is still frozen otherwise I really believe he would have.

A has severe food allergies and I am pretty sure he was sick and tired of hearing me say, "Are you sure you can eat this?"  If you have a child with food allergies...God bless you.  What extra patience and creativity and wisdom you must be granted!

At night the boys giggled and laughed and wrestled and yelled until they fell exhausted asleep.  I made beds for them, they mostly slept on the floor.

During the day the door slammed about five hundred million times.  They quickly learned our front screen door requires kicking to open (seriously, it does) and that was all kinds of fun.

An sent a cooler and two bags of food.  I loaded up at the grocery store before they arrived.  I only needed two more runs to the store while they were here.  

They arrived on Friday morning, they left on Monday night.  These boys had never stayed more than a few hours at our home before, and always with their mom or both their parents.  They left in a flurry and silence fell over the house.

I waved goodbye to my extra boys and they didn't see me.

I shuffled back to the kitchen to finish cleaning up.  My husband didn't miss a beat.  "You miss them already, don't you?'

I sniffed.  And nodded.

It was a great weekend.  One I drank a lot of coffee over but a great weekend. 

S4, Whiskers Gray and J.  

So sorry, An, pretty sure J is going to need a bunny now.

And you all can thank me for telling you no bathroom or stinky stories.  But let's just say that having one bathroom is no fun.  And S may have gone home to tell his mother dear, "I have heard it said and it's probably true...Too much bathing, it will weaken you."  Hey, we did what we had to!

Making Easter Breakfast for Our Church

This post is going to be picture heavy.

S4 was given the camera.

He took nearly NINETY photos.

These are just the highlights.

You have been warned.

A request went out in our Sunday School class (before we started teaching our 3rd ad 4th grade class) to have volunteers to make Easter breakfast.  For some reason we volunteered.

So, at some time around four in the morning, my husband got up on Easter morning and woke up his two oldest boys to get ready to go to church and make breakfast.

Jake checking to make sure we were working as he ate bacon.

 I know this may be hard to believe, but he was uber annoying this morning.  He flipped on the lights in the bedroom, blinding me at the early hour that it was.  He poked me the ribs, hauled the blankets off of me, asked me a million questions but mostly it was, "You gonna get up? Huh? Huh? Huh? You gonna get up? You're lovin me right now, aren't you?"

S1 and Brock on eggs or bacon duty.

 I was glad when he left.  I need coffee before dealing with him like that.  Because I was making pancakes and I would be bringing the little ones, we made a decision I would show up a little later.

Fruit kabobs.

 When I showed up, I was wearing jeans and my favorite slip on shoes because I was working in the kitchen.  My hair was piled up in a wet bun on the top of my head.  This was tough for me, and I am just going to admit that.  I like to super dress up for Easter.  It's been my "thing" for forever.

Morg's blueberry and chocolate chip scones.

 But the fun we had in the kitchen this morning, WAY more fun and WAY more worth it!

AMAZING cinnamon rolls.

 We were joking and laughing and flipping pancakes, spearing fruit, frying bacon, mixing coffee.  Did I mention the joking and laughing?

A pretty flower arrangement.

 Curt mentioned it was like the New Covenant church...to which I asked, "Where is that at?" and he rolled his eyes as Emily nearly died laughing.  "In Acts?" he answered me, sarcastically.  Oh, I get it now...like when the church first started.  Those first Christians musta had a lot of fun then because we sure did!

Morgan

 We could not have pulled it off without Link and Kate Pape who just stepped in and stepped up to make sure we had all the sausage links, bacon, cinnamon rolls, pans, pots and probably a zillion other things I didn't even know they did.

S2 and Curt working on pancakes.

I was on pancake duty and Curt, I found out, is the pancake master.  He was keeping a close eye on us to make sure that we made the pancakes properly.

Curt who is apparently a pancake professional.

I wasn't worried we would mess them up.  I mean, I've been making pancakes for YEARS.

Moma and S2 making pancakes.

And I was right.  S2 and I did a great job making the pancakes that Curt mixed up and plopped on griddles for us.  We were a good team, I think even Curt agreed.

Kate and Link Pape. They totally rock and MADE this morning!

All the time we were in the kitchen cooking up a storm. S4 kept walking around taking photos.  Like I told you, there were over ninety that he took.

S1 and Brock making eggs.

It was fun to see the boys helping so much.  Not so much the little ones, of course, but S1 and S2 cooked the entire time we were there.

My handsome man and Link (who would like to add he's pretty good lookin too, I am sure!)

And as crowded as we were in that kitchen, as sleep deprived as we were, we all just kept laughing.

Em, who is a hoot and I love to pieces, and me.

It helped that my husband was dispensing advice on how to be romantic and how weeding the garden is really a date and how he is so romantic that we don't need dates.  (Um, hon, we do!)

Super blurry me and Morg.

I am really blessed to have this group in my life, in my family's life. We were all part of the Sunday School Bill had started and we have grown so close.

S1 and S4, awwwwww!

We made such a great team and made such yummy food that I am rather certain this is going to become an annual thing for us.

You should have heard all he had to say, Hubs NEEDED the spatula to the head!

Which I knew as soon as I walked into that kitchen and caught the look in my husband's eyes.  He was having way too much fun doing this.

The cappuccino maker kept us caffeinated, including the kiddos like S3.

We all pitched in to clean up and in no time flat all the dishes were washed and dried and we began the process of reloading all the things we had hauled into the kitchen to make the food.

Brock loading up on caffeine.

I had grabbed a black skirt to wear that I had just picked up at Goodwill.  The black skirt is all flirty twisty poofy.

S4 would like you to know this is a good picture, it shows the whole table.

It was super windy out and when we went to get our annual family photo taken I was quite sure it was going to give someone a good show.  I should have just kept the jeans on.

I'm hungry again just looking at these photos!

But after my husband suggested us getting our photo taken against the white polebarn siding of our church and Morg and I nearly shouting "NO!" we stood behind some green bushes and had some phtotos taken.

Tables laden with breakfast food.

In that moment, with the wind whipping around us as we laughed and tried to snap some good photos, it hit me.

Yup, that is my handsome man adding the eggs to the table.

This is probably my most favorite Easter ever.

And we were now ready to eat!

When Sunday school started, I won the snack contest because I had actually brought a snack for the class while Curt had not - haha!

The food...

After Sunday school the sleepiness was hitting us.  Our group was found in the kitchen chugging orange juice and coffee to stay awake.

All our kids were the first ones in line to get food!

At church we watched our kids choir of nearly all boys sing.  I was thankful the hole in S4's knee didn't show too much.

Kate and I loading up on coffee in our new church mugs. I drank a LOT of coffee!

When we returned home that afternoon, we crashed.  Hubs and I fell into our bed and fell asleep.

The people who came to eat our amazing breakfast.

The boys zoned in front of the tv and folded socks.

The coffee table, I loved this. A joker (ahem, KEVIN!) had to show off his food though. Guess he thought it was THAT good...and it was! :) 

Later when Jake grilled cheeseburgers for our non traditional Easter meal, when we bowed our heads to pray, we thanked God for the gift of Easter.  

The coffee table. Sigh of love for the beauty of it. Oh, and who drinks decaf coffee in the morning? Curt and I agree they must be losers!

We also thanked God for the gift of Friendship.

New coffee mugs with Easter eggs.

And the blessing of making breakfast.

So grateful for this man, Bill.  Here he was helping S1 tie his tie.

Morg came over tonight to have a cheeseburger we had saved for her.

S1 picked out this whole outfit at Goodwill and he is as proud as can be to have a suit and tie!

And she agreed too, this was a great day.

Lilacs and other flowers that decorated the tables everyone ate at.

 We have been laughing at the 90 plus photos taken today.  Sheesh! S4 with a camera is a scary thing!  But how fun to record our special Easter day!

Family Photo

Because these are the memories I do believe they will treasure for a long time to come.

Kids Choir, there are a LOT of boys at our church!

Happy Easter, everyone!

Easter!

Easter is my most favoritest holiday's. Yes, yes, I love Christmas but Easter...well, I love it on so many levels.

I love it because of what it represents, my Savior who died for me, risen to conquer sin and death.

How can I not love that?

I love it because it's spring. And you all should know by now that I love spring.

But when we headed out to church and the doors opened to let all the dressed up people out, I did not expect this sight to greet us.

Why, yes, that IS a snake in S2's hands.

What you don't see, is that they are RIGHT next to the door. You see a bit of my coat on the left, I am literally going to get hit by the door if it opens.

And half the boys in the this photo disappeared when the camera came out. As if they knew they were so busted by their parents if they were caught on my camera.

I love S4's expression.

(And I apologize to all the girls that they shoved this snake near so that they would squeal and scream and not leave church.)

When we came home we had our neighbor come over and snap photos of us while we were actually dressed nicely. Never mind that we had to haul two off bikes and two out of the sandbox to get this photo taken.

I like a family photo every Easter. Hubs has gotten used to it...sorta. :)

My friend, Tara Miller, posted this video last night on facebook and I loved it so I had to post it for you all. I think I probably listened to it five times this morning as we skipped Easter sunrise service at church to have a huge breakfast at home (three pounds of bacon, four pounds of hash browns, one and a half dozen scrambled eggs, a tower of buttered toast) and just enjoy the morning together.

I love to see Carrie sing. Every emotion is played on her face. She feels a song and I just can't watch her sing live enough.

And I love this hymn.

I had been singing it all week thinking about Easter. When I was a little girl, there was another family that was like a second family to us - the Nichols. We did EVERYTHING together and swapped kids on weekends. Nanc, my other mother as I call her, made on large poster board, the words to this song. She had cut out large pictures of lightening and waves and mountains. I loved when she would teach all the kids at Awana this song. For a long time it sat on her piano in the living room and I cannot hear this song without thinking of her and the cardboard words and pictures she made so we could memorize that song.

Never estimate how the smallest thing can make the biggest impression on a child.

I love her for the time she spent to make that song meaningful to me and lots of other little kids too.

But here it is, the song as it should be song, but Carrie and Vince.

Happy Easter!!!!