keep on the sunny side of life....with pictures...:)

Sunny. Little Miss Sunshine. She lights up my life, but roses come with thorns, and puppies come with poop...and pee. And whining in the night, and chewing things up. I KNOW it will pass. I have had puppies before. It takes a while for them to learn, and then before you know it, they're just part of your life.




Suri tolerates puppy...


Paul and I in San Francisco...

The lovely bridge on the bay...
With Aaron in California...


Our Lake George trip with six of my kids, my sister-in-law Kim with three of her 12...


My eleven daughters with granddaughter Lydia, and new puppy Sunny.



And Abigail, Samuel, and me on last week's trip to Washington, D.C.

Abigail and I at the Marine Memorial.

Six daughters at the library yesterday...

Miss Charlotte Claire and Miss Camille Anaya, getting ready for homeschool!

Today has been productive. I swept and mopped and cleaned off the top of the stove. I helped the little girls with their room...they are really into "making things nice", and spent their hard earned money on "cubes", those storage things that cute fabric bins fit into. They bought cubes with 9 openings, to fit lots of really good stuff. They also got a new lamp, and a few wipeboards to hand on their wall. But first, Paul had to take down a huge ugly black shelving unit they had in there...think garage storage...and with that, get rid of lots of perfectly good toys. Being the fifteenth and sixteenth children, they inherited the things that survived countless cleaning parties through the years. The Little Tikes piano, the Fisher-Price toddler toys, the Playskool Busy Beads. These things sat on their shelves collecting dust while I procrastinated. Now I have a small pile of toys with no home, ha. I couldn't ditch them all! I know it's silly to hang on to things, which allowed me to let lots of it go, but there are a few things that are still special...they don't make toys like they used to.

So Camille and Charlotte Claire have been busy little girls, getting their room all nice.

In the midst of all this fun, Paul decided to preserve garden produce. Zucchini and yellow squash, sliced and diced and dipped in boiling water, then bagged up and froze. Tomatoes blanched in the boiling water, quartered and peeled, bagged up and froze. Then it was time for a late lunch/early dinner...taco salad. We chopped up 13 green peppers and some tomatoes from the garden, then chopped onions, browned up some ground beef (Jonathan actually did that part)...

After dinner, three of the kids started re-staining the deck. It was a Getting Things Done day.

Some of the kids left to work at the football game, some of them are leaving in a little while to stay in the camper for a youth conference. Paul and I will be here with just the little girls, the two big dogs, the puppy, the two cats, and the three kittens. Ha, there was an old woman who lived in a ZOO.

The day passes quickly, cleaning up puddles and messes and solving problems. I also did a major homeschooling paperwork project today, phew. The year's plans are all done!

I am excited about the new school year, with the youngest three. I am trying to keep my schedule as free as possible so I can concentrate on teaching them, and on really fun field trips.

This is Paul's computer, btw. I hope he doesn't mind I downloaded pics on his work computer, ha. He's at the store getting chocolate bars and graham crackers for tonight's campfire on the deck with just the two of us, and the two little girls...and the zoo, of course.

It's chilly here, feeling like autumn. I have to go get some jeans on, and maybe a long sleeved shirt.

And...bye for now...a certain cute little puppy is chewing on the nice Ikea chair.