But, of course, no one will ......

I have nothing to report and too much to say at the same time. I know, I haven't been writing lately (really, I didn't forget that I have a blog). It's just .... well .... I don't feel like I have much that is worth saying as of late. I read these other blogs that have such inspirational things to say and witty stories to pass on. While I'm here, convinced that no one wants to read about our life.

* I get up, get everyone dressed and down stairs. I cook breakfast, clean up breakfast. Get school going while also getting the laundry going or chasing a toddler or changing a diaper or this, that and the other thing.

* Then lunch comes and repeat the "cooking" and "cleaning" part of breakfast. Then we sometimes are finishing up school or still doing the laundry or some cleaning or I'm attempting to get to some projects that's been neglected. All the while I'm still chasing toddlers, changing diapers, breaking up fights, searching for bottles/sippy cups, answering those pre-recorded telemarketers, and trying to keep some semblance of order in the house.

* Then comes 4:30 pm or so and it's time to start something for supper. This is the time of day that my mother refers to as "the arsnic hour". It never fails, there is always a screaming child that wants me to hold them while I need my two hands to finish supper. This is also the time that I get some time to do the dishes from earlier in the day. Then, about 6 o'clock, Adam comes home and I'm still trying to get supper done and on the table. We eat, followed by our family devotions, which can easily take an hour or so.

* Once that is finished, the children have their jobs for the night: Grace sweeps the kitchen and dining room floor, Isaac goes behind her with a wet rag to get the spots on the floor (trust me ya'll! This is the only way my floor stays "clean". I just don't get to it with hot water and mop as much as I should.), and Maacah washes the supper dishes/pots and pans. This is where I try and finish up all those jobs that didn't get done before supper (you know, like the laundry that hardly ever gets done in one day because my dryer takes 40 minutes to dry one pair of pants. Wanna guess how long it takes to do 7 peoples laundry?), but there still isn't enough time.

* 8 o'clock is bedtime (at least in theory) and I look forward to this time. Once the children's teeth are brushed, the boy's clothes laid out for the next day and they are in bed, Adam and I sit together in our bed and read a book together. It's about the only time we have to "connect" with one another. After about 30 to 45 minutes, it's lights out.....

* And I get up to do it all again the next day....

So you see, nothing really spectacular happens. Except if you count Grace getting her 4 bottom front baby teeth pulled at the same time as getting 4 fillings, which happend in the dentist office that is 1 1/2 hours south of us and I had to drive there in a snow storm with 5 children all by myself. Or if you count Adam and I getting food poisioning last weekend from eating something we knew better not to eat. Or if you count a little man's 1st birthday coming up this Sunday and his mother can't stop thanking God that he is still here and doing so well. Or if you count 4 children having 3 different doctor appointments in the same week (one here in town, two-in-one in Rhinelander and one in Wausau) because sometimes, "group" appointments just aren't possible. Or if you count having to rip up our living room floor to try and find a leak. Once the leak is found and is stopped, we realized that the previous ripping up of said living room floor really wasn't neccessary. And upon further investigation, one wall in said room is moldy and literally falling apart (only 3 feet up from the floor, though). So the ripping up of said floor is neccessary and so is the removing and replacing of instilation and drywall (which, of course, leads to the tapping, mudding, texturing, painting and stenciling of said wall sections). Or if you count part of the heating pipes in the downstairs deciding not to work (when we are in the middle of the living room project, no less) and they need to be attented to ASAP. Or if you count a part of the pipes that are under the dining room floor to freeze and poor Adam has to go into the crawl space (which barely has room to crawl in) and try and unfreeze that section of pipe.

Hmmm.... what does your life look like?

As my granmother is fond of saying, "Ah...so."

I have been busy. Very. Busy. I'll give you a synopsis later, but for right now I need to go to bed. We have to leave early tomorrow and travel down to Wausau (about 1 1/2 hours south) for the children to visit the dentist. I usually take them up here, but Grace needs to get in now and they don't have an opening up here until January 22. So we are going tomorrow. And my mother-in-law is going with us. That will be so nice!! Another one to chat with and another set of hands! Woohoo!

(Grace has her permanent teeth coming up right behind her baby teeth. They are about half way in and her baby teeth are not lose. Not even a little. So we will see what they say and what they will do.)

If you'd like to see and read more of what we did today, go to my side bar and click "The Company Porch". I have written about it there (although it won't be published until Tuesday, but really early Tuesday.) I do suppose that this running, running, running will pass someday. And I suppose that someday I will look back on these times with fondness and perhaps with a bit of longing. But for now, it's "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....." and "they're worth it, they're worth it, they're worth it...."

Early this morning.......

Rub-a-dub-dink! A baby in the sink.















What's the rush?















He's eating your tooth brush!















Yum!

Baby Mozart, anyone?

Well, I suppose I should post something, at the very least to let ya'll know that I'm still alive. Really, I am. I'm too tired to be otherwise.

This last weekend we had our annual Christmas play, so we were busy with practice for that all last week. It went fairly well. There is rumor that the play will be put on the
Mission site and if it does, I will link to it. Because I just know ya'll are dying to see me make a fool of myself on stage.

We are busy with school, of course. I'm finally getting my act together and we are doing school every day. Yeah, I know. That sounds like a real dumb thing to say. But it's a long story. And the short of it is, is that we were not doing school every day (meaning week day), but we are now. Does that ever feel good!

I realized earlier that I haven't updated about Nathaniel in a while, so I thought I'd fill in the space here to do so. He's doing real well. He's 11 months old now (can that really be true?!) and he has been crawling all over the place for about 2 months. He has been pulling himself up for about 1 month and he has just started walking along things. "Just", meaning TODAY! He's another tall boy, but not as stocky as his brothers. But he's not a stick, either. I think it's near impossible for my husband and I to have a "slender" child. These are some recent photos of a child who is too tall for his mother's own
good!