These are some pics of the kids coloring their eggs. Sorry about the sideways one, but I haven't figured out how to turn them.

I have more pics but my computer is slow and I don't feel like working on this.

Hello!

I was posting some pictures on Facebook and decided I should update my blog since it has been over a month since I put anything on. HA! It's been almost 3 months. If you are my friend on Facebook you already know I am going to FL in about a week...8 days to be exact. I am sooo excited. I have to do newspapers for a week and then I will be flying to FL. Scott bought me the ticket for my birthday.

Here are some pics Scott took of the kids at Easter. He has some cute kids :)

Okay...we are taking these pictures...why?

I like this one except for the tree growing out of his head :)

Update on Charity

Sorry it has taken me so long to get this on here. We saw the cardiologist and the nuerologist on the 12th. The cardiologist said her heart is fine. He really liked Charity and offered to babysit her if we ever needed him too. I told him she came with 3 others and he said he'd keep one, but not all 4....oh well!!! The neurologist still thinks she is having breath holding spells. He said what most likely happened is the she slipped in the water and it caused her to go into a prologed breath holding session. If it happens again we will have to put her on medicine. He is pretty sure it will happen again.
Well, supper is here so I'm gonna go.

Getting Wood

Hauling the wood after Daddy cut it

Loading up the van

We saw two of these. Thankfully they were both dead although one smelled like it hadn't been dead very long. Still smelt like a skunk :(.

Garrett helping Daddy split wood. Looks like he was having fun.

Homeschool Party

Charity enjoyed showing off her new shoes.

These two pictures pretty much summed up how the party started. The men visited with each other, the women sat at another table, and kids tried to entertain themselves. It was nice getting to visit with people, but you could tell the kids weren't totally enjoying themselves. It was too cold to play outside and there wasn't much going on inside.

Scott started a game of "Swat." We had a lot of fun and it was good for me b'c I learned the names of some of the kids that were there. It seemed like the kids enjoyed it too. This Friday we are going to Sioux Falls as a group and going to the Washing Pavillion.

And that's all folks.....C-ya some other time!!!

Some Fun Pictures

Through Scott's job as a mechanic, he met a guy who invited him to his house to play pool. He and Donald have gone a couple times. The last time he went, he took the boys. Garrett decided to practice playing pool with the oranges and my broom handle.

Our Little Mama

The boys and their headless friend. Charity wanted in on the picture too.

We got a wood furnace last year. We told the boys to bring in some of the wood Scott had gotten. They enlisted the help of some of their friends. We ended up with 8 kids taking care of the wood. They had a pretty efficient plan going. We only had one minor injury.

No, you are not seeing things. It was warm enough Antonia was out in her bare feet and there was snow on the ground. The weather was kinda warm though. I can hear Mimi telling me she should have shoes on.

Praising the Lord!!!!

I want to thank the Lord for sparing Charity's life. Most of you already know this, but Thursday evening, Charity took what we have been assuming is a febrile seizure. She has taken these before, but what made it worse this time was she was in the bathtub. As soon as Antonia noticed what was going on, she pulled her out of the water and yelled for me. As soon as I saw her I knew she was having another "siezure". I put seizure in quotes b'c we don't know for sure that that is what it is. The neurologist and cardiologist both thought they could be breath holding spells, but that was ruled out this time. I've never seen her when she starts them and there are a few things that don't line up with seizures. We have an appt. with the neurologist and cardiologists again on March 12. The ER doctor feels it is cardiac related but we don't really know anything. She did have a fever and most of the times she took these "seizures," she has a temp. but it is not very high. (Another reason they don't think they are febrile seizures.) If you think of it, pray for us. The neurologist wants to talk to us about putting her on seizure meds. If they don't know for sure that they are seizures, I don't want to go that route. It's been over 6 months since it happened the last time. If it is only going to happen once or twice a year, I don't really want to do the meds. Pray that we will make the right decisions and that they will find out what is wrong.

While we were waiting for Scott to call and let us know what was going on, I told Antonia that she helped save Charity's life. The kids kept talking amongst themselves about that. After Scott called and said Charity was okay, we thanked the Lord and got ready to go to the hospital. As Antonia got out of the car she told me, "I'm thanking God." I assured her that I was too. Then she said, "I'm thanking myself too." I had to laugh at that.

There are a couple things that had they gone differently we would be planning a funeral. It helps you really realize how short your time is with your kids!!!!

Sunset in Lake Andes, SD

I was getting ready to take some pictures the other day and I found a bunch of pictures on the camera. I had forgotten I had taken them and was going to blog them. Well, here they are. The one evening I looked out into the front of our house and the room had an orange hue to it. The sunset was beautiful and coming through the glass in the front door make the front room look nice too. These pictures are what I could catch of it. I'm not good with pictures like that, but I thought these looked nice.

(I just realized I ha never published this)

Antonia and her blankets

Antonia took all the blankets that were in these crates and dumped them on the floor. After the girls were done playing, I told Antonia to put the blanket away. I didn't keep up with her and make sure she kept busy and she played as much as she could. It ended up being three days or so before they were all cleaned up. These pics are a few weeks old. When we were looking at the pictures today, Antonia remarked that it had taken her days to clean up these blankets. These pics are a few weeks old now. When we were looking at the pics today, she told me, "Those blankets took days to clean up." I said "Yeah, that b'c you kept playing around." She informed me, "It's b'c it was BORING!!"

Marshmallow Guns

Eating the ammo

Scott decided to have the boys help him make marshmallow guns. They had a lot of fun putting them together. About halfway through making them, everyone grabbed pieces of PVC and started shooting each other with the marshmallows. I even got in on that part of it. After a while they got back to making the guns. I don't have pictures of the finished products yet, but they are interesting looking :)

Charity

I can't believe my baby is two years old already. This is as far as we got with Christmas pictures for the kids. Scott wanted to get Charity's pictures while she was in a good mood. She has a goofy look she gets when she knows she is supposed to smile so he had to try to get her to laugh before she realized he was taking the picture. He had lots of fun :)

Happy New Year

Hello! I hope you all had a happy New Year!! We had Donald and Rachel over New Year's Eve. We played games until about 3:30 or so. The kids stayed up late so I got to sleep in some. Then we had our traditional lunch of sauerkraut and pork :). Thankfully, most of the kids are starting to like it so I haven't had much trouble getting them to eat the leftovers. I didn't think to use the camera once during those two days so I don't have any pictures...again....sorry!!!.
Yesterday, we had to make a hospital visit in Sioux City, Iowa. Thankfully, Esther was back and we didn't have to take the kids with us. The waiting room in the ICU was not very kid friendly and we had to wait almost an hour before any one got there and we were allowed to visit. The kids enjoyed visiting with Esther and they also enjoyed waiting another day to start school. Today we are slowly getting back into school.