....just a few more pics....

Left to right...Emily, Abigail, Suzanne behind them next to Riley, Aaron, Benjamin, Paul, Samuel, Adrian with baby Wulf...back to front left...Evelyn behind Camille (Lyd in front), Cam, Charlotte Claire, Sonja peeking behind Char...Me, the lovely Grace, Marge behind her, Mirielle, Mali behind her with husband Josh, then Jonathan...14 of our kids, four spouses, two grandchildren)(not sure where little Grant was!) (Kathryn + Darius didn't come, nor did Joseph + Bethany, nor did Ben's wife Ashley (and their two little girls)


Sam during the ceremony...and Benjamin and Jonathan as the Best Man and groomsman. :)

Today, Anne is not here, but little Lydia is here. She's playing with the Little Tikes waffle blocks. Grandma (me, ha) got down on the floor and helped her set things up, now she's in her own little world.

I haven't done much today, just sweeping and mopping, a little bit of laundry, some dishes, made bacon and eggs and French toast. It's rainy and cozy and I am sort of glad I don't have a library book today. I've been helping girls with school work, going over their essays, and moving them along to get things done. Cam needs to practice her clarinet.

Saturday is Charlotte Claire's birthday, she's turning 13, if you can believe that. Sonja turned 17 last Friday, didn't do much for her, because we were in Virginia, and she traveled down on Friday, with Ben and Paul...Paul got her some Krispy Creme donuts, and an Amazon gift card. Then her brother Aaron and Riley took her out shopping and spoiled her rotten, stuff from Sephora.

Anyway. I'm not even sure what's for dinner...blah.:)

wedding pics and springtime!

Grace was the loveliest bride. The best part is how genuinely happy they were to take those vows. The added their own vows during the ceremony, and Grace listed the ways that Sam shows he loves her, like letting her sleep in on his day to sleep in, how he always knows where her keys and phone are, ect. Just so many smiles.:)

Aaron, Evelyn, Lydia...

Evelyn made the bridal bouquet, and also the bridesmaids bouquets, with help from Margaret, and Riley too. (I was there for emotional support, until I left to go get coffee with Emily, Benjamin, Aaron, Margaret and Adrian and Wulf, and Suzanne and Sonja...)




I'm not sure if that song will work and play for you or not, but it was very nice. Margaret on the guitar, Evelyn, Sonja, Charlotte Claire, Camille, and Suzanne.

Yesterday was Drive Home Day. It's a long-ish, 7+ hours. It was rainy and dreary, but also so beautiful, the mountains of Pennsylvania, the rolling hills of New York, painted in those fresh new spring colors...it's not fun to drive in the rain, but at least you're not spending a beautiful sunny day in the car.

This fine morning, I decided to go for a walk. I walked 4.2 miles on Friday, going in to Washington D.C., and a little bit on Saturday, and felt I should keep it going...because for all the "bad" things I ate this weekend, I didn't gain an ounce. So movement is vital.


(I know, it's just a walk down the road, but with my knees, and my laziness, it's a great victory for me!)

In D.C., we went to the Air and Space museum, and the National Botanical Gardens. We've been there before, but it was nice because it was 85 degrees and sunny.

Ahh. So home again after three nights away...(our Airbnb was fantastically phenomenal! Three floors, three and a half bathrooms, big and roomy and a nice clean kitchen with all we could need. It was a comfy place to hang out, and the master bedroom had a massive bathroom with a huge-0 tub...and yes, as soon as we got settled in, ahh, I had a bath. It was such a nice get-away.

But, while we were gone, the doggies...well, ONE doggy, Miss Suri Mae, was a bad girl. She peed in the hallway, not once, not twice, but a million times. At least that's what it smells like. We've scrubbed and powdered, and it's still stinky, but we're ripping the carpet out and putting in vinyl plank flooring (fake wood) soon anyway, and ha, this is speeding up that process. (Joseph didn't go to the wedding because Bethany just had knee surgery, he was our dog-sitter...he came over multiple times (he lives in town), but Suri probably was lonely and rebelling, not sure, but anyway.).

So, we're home, and our projects still await us, and life is still busy. Anne is coming over soon, and the homeschoolers are still sleeping...

I've got more to say, but it's time to greet the small child...)

Washington DC, here we come!!!

We took the metro to D.C. yesterday from our Airbnb in Fairfax. It's just joy for me to be with the kids!!!

This afternoon, the wedding!!!!

one misty moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather....

The dark rainy mornings, when the school girls have gotten on the bus, Paul has left for work, and the other kids are still sleeping...my favorite time of my favorite kind of day. Super cozy, and coffee...

In years past, if I had a chunk of time like this in the morning, I would surely be cleaning up or putting in laundry. I did wipe down counters, wash silverware and the crockpot, and straighten some things up this morning before planting in my chair for a little while. Anne will be here in a few minutes, the homeschooled kids will be getting up, and the day will roar into gear. We are planning to go to the library today, and I have to mail a stroller out that I just sold. :)

Tomorrow morning, road trip!!!! Mirielle, me, Jonathan, Charlotte Claire, and Camille will be hitting the road bright and early, heading south. We're staying in Fairfax, in a nice Airbnb....3 and a half bathrooms! A hot tub! Friday night, we're having a rehearsal dinner there for Grace's family to join us...Marge and Adrian and Wulf will be there, along with Evelyn...the rest of the family will be getting there later in the evening, some are staying at two different Airbnb's.

We had hoped to tour D.C. on Friday, but now I'm probably shopping and food prepping for the dinner, which I don't mind. Hopefully Marge and Adrian and the kids will still go sightseeing.

The wedding is on Saturday, and I still haven't gotten my dress fixed...the sleeves flair out very obnoxiously, so I thought to just tuck them and take a few stitches...I'll probably do it on Saturday right before we leave. I have so many things to remember, but I do have a notebook page here filled with reminders and ideas, for the dinner, and our wedding clothes, our stay, the road trip, ect.

Yeah, so we have a library trip today, overdue books again, ugh. I renew them online, but somehow I was late doing that, and they charge 25 cents a day per book, and we get tons of books. At least I can pay by credit card online, so it spares me the embarrassment of the librarian announcing in a very non-librarian voice that I owe FIVE DOLLLARS in overdue fees...it's all whispers and quietness until the overdue fees announcement, I tell ya.

Yesterday afternoon, I accompanied my sister Cheryl to the hospital to have a biopsy of a mass on her thyroid. It was obviously not fun for her, but she's taken a strong stance against complaining, and is fighting that spirit of anxiety, she knows that God knows and plans all things. It's still not fun, be we still managed to have fun, of course. Afterward we went to a few stores, and we dawdled and giggled and had a grand old time, despite that she wasn't feeling the greatest. If you're a praying person, please remember her in your prayers! She is just the best sister...

Okay, time to greet little Anne...

a little story....

Today, Jonathan Robert is 15 years old. He has been a joy and a blessing since the day he was born. If you've been reading here for any length of time, you know that Jon was born a mere 10 months and two weeks after baby Robert was "born", stillborn. Now, if you've ever had a stillborn baby, you know that feeling of bottomless grief. A baby should be warm and breathe, move, snuggle...not just lie there all floppy with the eyes closed. It's torture, it's heart wrenching, and you would give your very soul to have that baby take a breath and just be alive. But instead, you have to say goodbye. You have to wrap that baby tenderly in his little hospital blanket, the very same kind of blanket that all his siblings were swaddled in, while they cried and nursed and were marveled at in. Then you have to say goodbye.

Maybe I should have had more time to grieve, but when I found out we were expecting another baby, I didn't let the joy bubble up. I was too afraid to. I was the very definition of "cautiously optimistic". But when Jonathan was born, and he cried, and he was warm and alive and needed to be nursed, I was beside myself with joy, feet off the ground, floating, ridiculously happy. He was darling and perfect and healing, and we all loved him immensely.

Maybe it's not fair to Jon that our joy in him is tied to our deep sadness at the loss of his brother, but that's the way it is. And Jon himself can take the credit for being such a good kid. He has chosen to be kind, to be forgiving, to be gentle. He isn't perfect, he is very witty and nothing is funnier than mocking your mama, and he can talk back, but he's pretty quick to knock it off, and if necessary, apologize. I realize that when you're a teenager, your mom is old and silly. That's just how it is, too.

But anyway, today is his birthday. And I'm very thankful for him. For all of them.

The day after tomorrow, some of us are heading down to Fairfax, Virginia, bright and early in the morning, with our wedding clothes packed. Most of the kids will be making it to the wedding, and that in itself is exciting.

a birthday celebration, some home work, and and and...

Jonathan turns 15 tomorrow, so we celebrated yesterday. Corned beef, carrots, and potatoes in the crock pot, then three pizzas, (and a Keto pizza for me!). Margaret came over early and made the ice cream cakes with Charlotte Claire. (crushed Oreos mixed with melted butter crusts, then one carton of slightly softened mint chocolate chip ice cream with hot fudge on top, mint cookies crumbled on top, and some melted marshmallow fluff...the peanut butter one same but with a cup of melted peanut butter mixed with a broken up chocolate bunny, all mixed together and poured on top, along with hot fudge and some crunched up peanut butter cookies, put back in the freezer until party time...). (I did not consume any, except for licking the spoon after serving the mint...oh yummers)

On Saturday, we worked on the foyer and downstairs hallway. It's now spackled and sanded and ready for painting. The trim got a few coats of white, no more wood trim there.


But we haven't worked on it all since Saturday. I won't be very popular if I suggest we get moving on it tonight, but I don't care much about being popular, now do I?

Today has been so busy. Miss Lydia Eleanor and Miss Anne Beatrice have kept me hopping. When I take Lydia to the bathroom now, Anne wants to go too, which is a good thing...I brought them outside to play for a while, and played matching game a few times. Playdough, coloring, dollies, shopping carts...and lunch, and snacks, and and and. But, lots of hugs and silly songs too, it's a happy kind of busy.

I talked to Samuel on the phone today, he's so excited! This weekend, he's getting married! So on Thursday morning, we're heading south! The wedding is on a military base at the officers' club:). I'm excited too because most of the kids will be there! "kids", I say. They're growing up!

Anyway. It's cold and dreary here, the dreariness is cozy, but honestly, it's kind of....oppressive. It doesn't depress me, but so many days here are overcast and rainy.

It was nice in the middle of the day, Char and Cam and Dani did school work out on the trampoline. Off the damp ground, and the weak filtered cloud covered sun that managed to get through warms up the black trampoline...

Suzanne made peanut butter cookies with the little girls after school, and now is making ramen noodles with Camille, homemade ones.

I'm not sure what's for dinner, but there was boxed Mac and cheese eaten recently, and Jon had leftover pizza and a bowl of leftover corned beef and potatoes about an hour ago.

snowy spring morning...

We've had some adventures though! Just Thursday, it was too nice out to get groceries, so we we dropped off our thrift store bags, went to Lowe's for paint, and...home to enjoy the sunshine! So that meant yesterday was a grocery store day. Lydia was here, she had spent the night. And I want to get that foyer painted, it's like having money in your pocket and wanting to spend it. So I started spackling, bright and early. Then Anne's daddy texted and asked if she could come here for the day. Okay. It would work. Grocery store with a two year old and a three year old, AND, we had decided to get the passports for the girls too! So I put away my spackle, and greeted Miss Anne.

I had to pick Miss Suzanne up from school early, as she was going to the prom with a group of friends. She was voted to Prom Court, and shh, I knew but couldn't tell her. I was invited to go and take pictures, but it didn't work out, and I thought she wouldn't love it, :).
That's Suzanne in the lavender...


Char, Cam, Jon...and the paint color we chose. Don't think for one minute that those kids just stood there and let me pick, either.

The foyer has wood trim around the door, a wood railing, and a wood board with shiny brass hooks, and a brass colored switch plate. So, we'll take those hooks off, spray paint them black, paint the wood white, paint the switch plate white, maybe spray paint the door handle black...and the walls will be Azure Snow. The brass chandelier is coming down, that'll be spray painted black, maybe new globes. I'll try to take some before pics.

Remember how I painted and re-did the bathroom in the fall? I FINAllY put on new drawer/cabinet handle/pulls. I found some clearanced at Target, $4.48 for a six pack, but they were a chrome finish. Hmm. The black spray paint was on clearance too, $2.38. So I got some spray primer, and on Thursday when it was nice out, I did some spray painting. I also re-did a Little Tikes plastic table that I painted last summer, it chipped a bit through the winter.


Jonathan and Sonja K. got a little muddy on the four-wheel. Sonja took this pic of me with Lydia. Lydia loves cuddles.


Camille, me, Charlotte Claire. It was quite an adventure to get passports done with the two small girls. They were really good, and the ladies who work at the county clerk's office are super nice. They gave us a room with a table and chairs to fill out the papers in, and paper and pens to the little girls to keep busy. They even took a pic of Lyd and Anne when the girls got their photos taken! It feels nice to have this accomplished. Paul had to meet me there, as both parents have to sign for a child's passport.

We went to Aldi with the girls too, and when I pulled into the parking lot, Anne said, "No, I don't wanna go to this place!" The whole time we were driving, she chattered about going to the library, because that's where I usually bring her. She was actually not bad in there at all, once I opened a box of vanilla wafers. Don't worry, I bought them.

Today, it's snowing. Seriously. It's cold and dark and snowy. harrumph. Margaret is coming over with little Wulf, and we might go to the big mall in the big city...