a big surprise this morning!

 I didn't say it was a good one...no, this morning, the bad puppies got into the garbage.  It was really yummy EASTER GARBAGE!  I'll leave you with that, in case you are sipping that second cup of coffee right now, because, what a mess.

Labradors are hilarious, they are smart, and they KNOW when they've done something bad bad bad.  They wag hopefully, yet, turn away their gaze, they hope you understand that it wasn't their fault, it just smelled SO GOOD.   

I shooed them outside before tackling the mess, shooed them right out the door with nary a pat on their contrite little heads.

(Suri wouldn't look at me, I think she was the perpetrator.)

  Coffee grounds mixed in with it all makes the cleaning up more challenging, but it's definitely not the worst mess I've had to clean up, nah, with all these kids, I've probably seen it all.  Sometime when you're not eating, I'll tell you about the time we had the worst throw up bug ever, when all the kids still lived here....(I'll give you a hint, it was like someone took a cauldron of beef stew and dumped it here and there, bathtub, toilet, sink, floor, from the top bunk...). I was pregnant at the time, and there were so many kids sick, and when I walked around and surveyed the damage, I was crying and sobbing....because someone had to clean it up.  Once when I only had three kids, one of them threw up in their highchair, choked on a Cheerio and barfed...I was pregnant, and queasy, so I turned around and did the same thing, right on the floor, than I sat down and cried my eyes out, because someone had to clean it up.  And that someone was me.

Anyway, on to better things.  There were only 17 of us here for Easter dinner yesterday.  Molly had to work, so they were only here for a little while, they took dinner to go.  So 14 for dinner.   Paul is feeling much better, but he gets exhausted so easily.  He gets out of breath, and it's sad.  It's like he suddenly got old, but never tell him I said that.  He is actually an extremely healthy person, and pre-Covid, he worked out every single day.  It gave us a glimpse of how awful this virus really is, we can only imagine how horrible it would be if Paul was older and more out of shape.  He has been out in the sunshine on the deck this morning, doing some push ups, trying to get his lung capacity back.

The grass is green, but the trees haven't blossomed their frothy leaves yet.  I keep watching for it to happen, but it always happens when I'm not looking, boom, tiny newborn leaves.

Our Easter dinner was quite yummy:  a brown sugar cured ham, mashed potatoes, roasted veggies (asparagus, Brussel sprouts, cubed squashed (I cheated and bought a bag of frozen), and chopped apple), baked applesauce (a jar of unsweetened applesauce, with four or five apples peeled and chopped and added to the top, with a sprinkling of brown sugar. ( I serve the cinnamon/sugar shaker on the side, as Wulf has a sensitivity to cinnamon, and he loves applesauce), and brown and serve rolls.  For dessert, there was candy galore.  Cam and I made molasses cookies from Paul's grandma's recipe, on Saturday, and Margaret brought carrot cake cookies with cream cheese frosting.  I don't eat any of those things, so I made a sugar free pie, this time with a layer of sugar free black cherry jello.  It wasn't GREAT, but it had raspberries on top, and it's nice to have dessert.

We had an egg hunt in the yard, mostly for Wulf, as Ophelia didn't stay long, Lydia was with her dad, and Ben and Ashley couldn't make it.  Here's a pic of their family dinner, aren't those girls adorable?  And Benjamin is Mr. Handsome!

We didn't get any fancy Easter pics, and everyone was so happy to be together, so relaxed, it felt intrusive to take even these pics.  (Isn't baby Tennyson so cute, with his Auntie Abigail?). And Wulf is upside down with his mama in the last pic, he has energy to spare!  In the first pic, I love the four sisters sitting on the couch (Sonja, Mariel, Evelyn, Camille, with Emily in front on the floor).  

The girls are doing online school today, but this week they'e easing  back to five days a week!   It'll be more challenging, but back to some degree of normal, which is good.  I like having them home, too...but it's not always all about me, I guess.  Jonathan is in California, Sonja is at college, Paul is working from his office here at home, the dogs are snoring, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do.  

I'm at a strange place in life.  I've spent my years raising kids, and always thought that when the youngest went off to kindergarten, I'd go to nursing school, but oh my goodness, just because the kids are in school, when you have 16 of them, doesn't mean you aren't busy!  The orthodontist, dentist, pediatrician appointments, the driving them here and there and and and.  One or another of them home sick with something...I had one year of no kids here, when Cam was in kindergarten, the next year Jonathan started homeschooling...one year there were five of them homeschooling, then Kathryn graduated and Suzanne went back to real school.  

So I've kept busy.  Last year, the girls went back to public school after five years of homeschool, but that ended abruptly in March, as did most everything else in this whole wide world.

This year it's been fantabulous to be home as they navigated hybrid school, and Jon is still homeschooling too.  (I was discussing, recently, my desire to find something to do, and he said, "Don't forget about me, mom, I'm still home...).  It's still good to be here for the kids, I love being here when they get home, and I love being able to be available to help if the older kids need something.

But, they're growing up, and although I do keep busy, I'd like to be a little tiny bit busier...I want a job that pays really well with little or no effort, doing something I absolutely love, paying in cash preferably...ha.  I would like to write children's books, or write a column, or get paid for blogging.  I have to have flexible hours, so I never have to turn down a trip.  I'm planning to go to Oregon in June when Kathryn and Darius have their baby girl, and I like to go to California now and then, and and and.  I need money to fund these trips, but also flexible hours so I can actually go.  I know, I sound like a huge spoiled brat.  :)

Oh well.  Time to talk to Miss Camille, she's on break between classes...