Episode 1 part 2!

So we did make it home and when we unloaded the drywall only one corner was bent and it wasn't much. Go us!
So after lunch my dear hubby needed more stuff, this time for the hot water heater...
So I suggest that he ride with me, with 8 kids there's not much alone time and I'll take what I can get..
Off to the hardware store we go. As we're sitting at a red light waiting and chatting I notice a police officer pulls out of a parking lot and behind me. I wasn't concerned because I wasn't doing anything illegal. We keep chatting and as the light turns green I go. As I'm getting into the turning lane I see lights. Red and blue lights.Mind you I've only gotten pulled over once in my life and it was not my most favorite thing ever. So I am nervous. As the officer walks up to the car my hubby says, "it's a women. You're getting the ticket for whatever she pulled you over for." I'm still thinking I didn't do anything, so although I'm nervous I'm not feeling guilty...
Our conversation goes something like this:
Officer-good afternoon, do you know why I pulled you over?
Me- no ma'am.
Officer- well I noticed your tags are expired. May I see your registration, insurance, and drivers license.
Me-sure, as I hand everything over.
Then she sees my husband who is mildly irritated at this point and says, "I need to see your ID as well sir"
So hubby hands his over as well.
So we sit and wait and wait and wait...27 minutes to be exact. At this point I'm just like seriously give me the ticket and let me go. We were laughing and having a nice little date on the side of the road while waiting but seriously we had work to get back to.
Officer comes back and hands us our papers and licenses and says, "both of your ID's are clean, no warrants on either of you. "
Me-um, shwew I was really worried about that!
Officer- ....
She obviously doesn't get my sense of humor.
Me-sorry I was just kidding.
Officer-I wrote you a citation for the tags. You must get those updated. It's the law.
Me-*snickering* yes ma'am.
And thank you
Husband-did you just thank her? You must be the only person to ever thank a cop for a ticket!
So we are finally able to go home. As we're pulling away my dear hubby says, "leave that ticket in here in case you get pulled over again before we get it paid on Monday."
Of coarse I think to myself there is no way that I'm getting pulled over again before Monday.
So later that evening we run out of drinking water at the house. I think I'll just run over to my moms and grab a gallon or two from her but hubby needs something else in town so the girls and I head into town. Again.
Remember that earlier my son removed all but the last row of seats so that we could get all of our drywall in the van? (See earlier post)
We didn't take the time to put them back in so daughter # 1 just sat on the floorboard near the front seats so she could hear the conversations.
 I know illegal...
On the way into town... no problem.
On our way home daughter # 2 gets to ride in the back. We bought a few cases of water so I told her to put a case of water between the two front seats and it would look like she was in a seat to any passing cars. Again I know not only illegal but deceptive.  So we're driving home and all of a sudden there are 2 police officers behind me with lights on!
 What?
 Are you kidding me?
 This is NOT happening...
So I pull over and they pass me!
Whew! As we're waiting at a stop light we can see that there was an accident down the street to the left. Daughter #2, whom is still sitting on a case of water, says we should drive down there to see what happened. I said nope, not driving into that mess. We can see at least 9 police cars plus an ambulance. So we continue home. I can see an officer driving towards us and I say to daughter #2 if he flips around behind us you have to go to the back and get buckled. Clearly I'm feeling extremely guilty at this point.  Sure enough he passes us and makes a u-turn. He's now 4 cars behind us and we can see him passing the cars as he gets the chance until he makes it behind us. Then he flips on his brights. Which is really annoying and makes it extremely hard to drive. So I slow down and he turns them off. Then he turns them back on so I nail my brakes and he turns his lovely red and blue lights on. So I pull over. At this point I'm thinking I really can't believe this is happening. Once in my whole life and now twice in one day!
Officer-good evening, the reason I pulled you over is there was a hit and run in town and the vehicle matches yours.
Me- well I didn't hit anyone but your more than welcome to look at my van.
Officer- can I please see your drivers license?
Me -yes sir.
He looks at the van and my ID. Then says by the way are you aware that your tags are expired?
Me- yes sir, I am. Actually I just received a ticket for that today.
Officer- do you happen to still have that citation with you?
Me- yes I do. (Thank you hubby for that advice!)
He looked over it and said OK, have a good evening.
We all had a good laugh when we got home and filled the boys in on our adventure..
Can you imagine if I'd gone down to look at what was going on when my daughter suggested that. Now that would have been an episode by itself!

I love "Luci"? Episode 1 part 1

Sometimes I feel like my day is an I Love Lucy episode.
I love to laugh and think it's good for the soul. Life's too short not to laugh. You know all those laughter sayings , yeah I like em... and I like to laugh.
My husband doesn't necessarily feel the same way and unfortunately he doesn't find the humor in my antics the way Ricky Ricardo did... but that doesn't stop me.
So this "episode" happened on black Friday. I didn't get to go fun black Friday shopping this year. My dear hubby is remodeling our home and so I decided to stay home and be supportive...
So first thing in the morning he asked  me to go to home depot to pick up some materials for the day. My response, "sure, this will be a breeze. It's black Friday nobody will be at home depot . We'll be in and out in no time!" After my older boys took the first 3 rows of seats out of our 15 passenger van to give us room for our stuff my accomplices I mean daughters and I head out. We had an uneventful drive into town. Some talking and laughing. So we get to the HD and our first "job" was to locate one of those carts that is divided into sections and you can stand drywall up in and you won't take up the whole isle. (Drywall was on my list) so we, being women, ask an associate where to locate these carts. All the way on the other side of the store... no worries we head over and get one. Ok. Now for our list  that went smoothly until we needed the drywall. We knew we were going to ask for help loading it but first we wanted to pick out which pieces we wanted because hubby is kinda picky about bent corners and such. So we get the pieces picked out and I "hunt" down 2 workers. Worker man #1 was not happy to be working on black Friday and complained about my choice of cart...worker man #2 was very happy and helpful. So they load our cart and we're off to check out. This would be a good time to say that lots of people do indeed shop at home depot on black Friday. So lanes 1 and 2 were marked home depot Pro, I assumed this meant contractors so we go to the long line in lane 3. We're standing there waiting our turn just chatting when my girls start whispering mom and motioning for me to turn around. So I do...and I see nothing...as I'm turning around to ask them what they're talking about I catch a glimpse of someone peeking over the drywall in my cart...and I SCREAM! Not some little shriek...no this was full out everyone stops what there doing and stares at you scream. Turns out it was worker #2 coming to tell me I could move to lane 1 if I didn't want to wait in line. He wasn't trying to peek he just happened to be a little on the short side. Needless to say my girls were as embarrassed as I was.
If that wasn't enough we decide to load these 5 heavy pieces of drywall into the van ourselves because we thought the workers wouldn't be as careful as we would. The loading itself really wasn't too bad. We worked together and had it loaded in about 20 minutes. I'm sure it was a sight but we were happy with the process.
Time to hit the road, one daughter sat in front of the drywall so that it wouldn't fall and the other one was riding shot gun. Well, we were doing great UNTIL I made a left hand turn. Now mind you I went slowly but apparently I don't give gravity enough consideration because before I finished that turn my youngest daughter was under the drywall. I tried not to laugh but sometimes you just can't help it.  So shotgun rider jumps back there to help her sister out and finished the drive sitting back there to help "protect" the drywall or the sister from my driving...
Stay tuned for part 2 of this crazy "episode"...

When God answers prayers

Today the boys and I were talking about the way God answers prayers. Sometimes it's right away and the way you want it, but sometimes we have to wait...and wait...and wait...still sometimes it's not answered the way we were hoping. I was telling them that it's important to always be ok with God's timing AND his answer. It's not something I think is easy by any means and I fail at it alot.
    That led to a discussion on answered prayers in our life...
Back in September Nehemiah was really hoping to see the total lunar eclipse. The moon was going to be red, and it won't happen again for another 40 years or so. We had a count down going on, planned to stay up super late, and take pictures for our astronomy binders. The night of the Eclipse "happened" to be very cloudy. I mean so cloudy it was black outside! We couldn't see any stars or the moon.
First check 8pm...nothing
Second check 8:20...nothing
Third check 8:50...nothing
This went on until 10:30..still nothing. At this point most of the kids gave up and went to bed. As we were walking inside I silently prayed that God would let the clouds part long enough for Nehemiah to see the moon while it was red. We went back out at 11:00...we stood out there talking for a few minutes, slapping mosquitos when all of a sudden the clouds parted and there it was! We were elated! We didn't have our camera so we didn't get a picture. It didn't matter, we saw it! As we were walking inside I told Nehemiah about my prayer. He stopped, looked up at me and said, "mom, I did too! I asked God if he could move the clouds so that I could see the moon while it was red." We both went to bed feeling very blessed!
I love sharing this life with my people!

Gah! It's been too long...again

It's been a few weeks again. I'm trying to balance and it's hard! I know I'm not the only one that needs to find balance and it looks different for everyone. The older my kids get the harder it seems to be getting. More events, more commitments, more school, more of almost everything but me! With each stage my kids have been in I've tried to enjoy it, knowing that someday I would look back and miss those times. The sleepless nights in the newborn stage, all the messes made during the toddler years, all of the questions in the 5-8 year old times, the seemingly endless homework and projects (before we homeschooled), then the looong days after we started homeschooling, sports practices and games, and so on... So I'm telling myself to step back, enjoy, don't stress...it won't last forever. But laundry still needs to be done, these kids don't feed themselves (although they'd love the chance to!), school has to be completed, church at least twice a week, add in there baseball for the boys and horses for the girls and I'm spent. So until I get it figured out I'll keep my eyes on Christ and keep on plugging on. That may mean not as many posts as I was initially planning. But I will still try. What we've been doing since I last posted: Packed lunches for the public school kids to take home over the weekend (we do that every other week) Cleaned out my closet!! Cleaned out the pantry Cleaned out the school room Hung pictures in the living room, dining room, and my room-finally! Wrote out my school plan for the next month Next on my agenda is: meal planning for next week Butchering 40 chickens Cleaning out the boys closet And cleaning out kitchen cabinets and drawers Last week's game for the youth was called "socks". Basically I split the kids up into boy and girl sides and they had to try to get eachothers socks off. The last person wearing a sock was the winner. Unfortunately I picked an area that had sand spurs in it... Yeah, I'll pick a different spot next time. But the kids did enjoy it and want to do it again! Now I have exactly an hour to figure out what we're doing for tonight's game.

What's happening over here

We've had quite a busy week here since I posted last. ~School...it's always busy... ~Church, had a few extra events going on at church this week that took up some extra time. One of which was our first ever FIELDS OF FAITH. Our local chapter of FCA (fellowship of Christian athletes) hosted a time of praise and worship. It was a very neat experience. Our church praise team led worship, several youth gave their testimonies, several coaches/teachers shared a word, and a group of talented girls did a dance/drama. Very moving service. I am so encouraged to see our youth stand up and say "I'm not ashamed of the gospel and what Christ has done for me!" ~home, Elijah is getting ready to have a birthday so we've been planning fun stuff for his birthday weekend. And then he had an unexpected offer to go with his best friend to north Carolina! He gets to fly on an airplane! And be in a new state! and be away from his siblings! He's pretty excited to say the least. This is the first time any of my kiddos have been away for their birthday, and I'm a little sad about it. But I couldn't say no to this opportunity for him. Birthday celebration is going to wait a week so I have a few more days to plan. I've also been cleaning out my closet. Let's just say it's been long overdue. I have a ton of stuff to consign though, so that's a plus. (This is me trying to find the positive in the situation, because it hasn't been fun) That's basically my week in a nutshell. How's yours been?

Spoons

Wednesday nights I'm in charge of the games for our youth group. Tonight we played the card game spoons. So the rules of the game are: put 1 less spoon than players that you have in the middle of the table. So if you have 6 players you need 5 spoons. Everyone gets 4 cards (we use regular playing cards) the remaining deck goes in front of player 1. That player picks up one card at a time trying to get 4 of the same numbers or jacks, queens, etc. He will pass one card that he doesn't want on to the next player. That player does the same thing. Each player should only have 4 cards in their hand at a time. When someone gets their 4 matching cards they grab a spoon. Everyone else then tries to grab a spoon. Whoever does not get a spoon loses that round and gets the first letter in spoon. Player 2 then shuffles, deals, and is the starting person for round 2. Keep moving down the line with each turn. The first person to spell s-p-o-o-n is out. Play continues until only one person is left. The kids have a blast with it and it's pretty fast paced. Next time I'm going to add a twist and put the spoons somewhere that they'll have to get up to get them! I'll try to start adding pictures of our group doing games so you can see how fun they are!

Wordless Wednesday