handsful

I somehow missed posting this shot of her from Mother’s Day.  How can this innocent, sweet little girl be so….uh…spunky?  Yes, I’ll go with that.  ;)

Love you, Lainey Q!

Last month, we had professional photos taken of our crew of 8.  A gal who has an insanely popular blog and growing photography business came into town and met us at a local park in town.  I’m THRILLED with the two sneak peeks she posted on her blog today.  The rest, in the form of a CD, are in the mail as I type.  Can’t WAIT to see them all!

The tree picture was the kids idea.  MckMama (as she’s known on her blog) said cool, as long as we were okay with them climbing a crazy tall tree.  The littles had to stay grounded, per this mama.  I love it…the big kids are all posed and stuff, L and D are just goofing around, and mom and dad are…uh..a little distracted.  A nice visual of our own “family tree”.

I wasn’t so sure when she suggested this shot.  My first thought was “glad I painted my toe nails”.  Little did I know she’d widen the shot, and L and D would be grinning away.  Love it.

I’ll be sure and post more, once that CD is in my hands!

Me and my six, after church today…

Okay, quit goofing off and smile.

That’s it.

Us big girls.

Still sane after all these kids.  Most days.

Love from my family – cute new shoes – hoping for a frozen yogurt treat later.  Great day!

supplies:  hot ball, empty cup, cup of cold milk

hold hot ball in mouth until you can’t stand it anymore.  Drop ball in empty cup.

take a big gulp of milk.  Repeat.  :)

Our big kids are involved in a wonderful organization called Leadership Link.  The two homeschooling women who began this group desired to help build up the homeschoolers in our community by teaching them to be Godly leaders.  Part of that comes from the service projects that LL puts on each year.

Yesterday, was Guinness for Ghana – a day of games (centered around the Guinness Book of world records theme), a Ghanian market full of foods and crafts to purchase, a dance/drama presentation, and crafts for the little ones.  It was an awesome time, and all for an amazing ministry called The Fathers House – a home built by the Garrett family for 8 boys (so far!) who have been rescued from a life of slave labor in Ghana, Africa.  Read more about this at www.fathershouseghana.com

I didn’t take many pictures, I was too busy trying to chase after Dylan!  Lainey and Dylan were too young for the Guinness games, but they had fun crafts for the 5 and under group.  A local ice cream shop donated ice cream buckets and the kids turned them into African drums.

Both boys on the far right, doing a traditional drum routine….their leader is in the center, using an actual african drum.

the dancers behind them…Abbey is in the red shirt.

They did a great job…Abbey was smiling the whole time.

Dylan enjoying one of our purchases….ALL the proceeds from everything sold went directly to The Father’s House.  Members of Leadership Link made crafts, foods, etc to sell.  Even our local Chic-fil-a donated all of his profits!

Yes, all 6 kids are in the picture.  I can only find 5 of them though!

A closer shot of the one I couldn’t find!  Can’t wait to find out how much was raised for these boys in Ghana!  God calls us to serve and help those less fortunate, and Leadership Link is a wonderful way to get our kids OUT there doing God’s work.

The docs at Shriners told us to TRY and keep Dylan from putting much weight on the end of his short leg.

I just can’t call it a stump, I know it’s perfectly acceptable to call it that, I’m just not there yet….I guess we should come up with a cute  name for it.  Our friend’s daughter calls hers “Nemo”.  Get it?  He had a short fin.  Anyway…

Dylan isn’t exactly “walking” on it yet, other than when he walks up / down stairs.  When scooting on the floor, he kinda drags it behind him.  Truthfully, he acts like it’s not there…he’s just as fast as he was before the cast.

Today, I noticed that he camo print in one spot on the end looks like it’s fading.  I assume that’s because it’s getting rubbed off by the friction of it against carpet, etc.  So, we came up with a solution.

Tube sock to the rescue.  Wonder how many of those we’ll go through, trying to save the cast?