the last several days...in bullet points...because that's all I've got.

*Why are the bathing suits already out for display in Target??  It angers me.  Deeply.

*We had eight children under the age of 8 in our home for 2 1/2 days, 2 nights and 7 meals.

There was no time to go grocery shopping from the time we arranged the stay to the time it started so we literally combined our groceries on hand and creatively fed the brood (for a total of 12 of us) for three days.  That was actually kinda fun.

The noise level in the house was surprisingly, eerily, the SAME as usual.

I was surprisingly, eerily, ok with the large number of little feet tramping around....I was dreamy and excited about that all three days.

But, when you slam two families together that barely know each other, there are bound to be some 'unknowns' (discipline is different, food choices are different, schedules are different, activities are different, etc...)

I'm positive we are annoying to live with.  

It's one of the goals I wrote down in my journal this morning...

"Become easier to stay with."

Weird. 

Who has that goal!?

Who has to have that goal!?

me.

*Anyway, I didn't spend the whole time worried about that, we DID do a craft because in some other life, I think I should have been an art teacher.

Doing a craft with seven kids 8, 7, 6, 5, 5, 4 and 4 yrs old was an exciting idea to me.

Again, weird.

We did this craft and it was beautiful!

*we attempted a 1 mile walk to the park.

note to self. DO NOT WALK 1 MILE WITH 8 CHILDREN...even if there are two adults!

this picture does NOT tell the whole story ;-)

and because I'd rather not relive hearing kids complain for 45 min's straight, neither will I.

*What our table looked like for seven meals straight this week:

* I am addicted to another series of books originally written for 'young adults'.....read the first one in two days.  Borrowing book #2 and can't pick it up until Tues...I'm contemplating driving to her house in the middle of the night to steal it early...because I'm that addicted and it's THAT good!

Go get you some Hunger Games!

*Started my new Bible Study group of ladies last Tues AND I'M SO STINKIN' EXCITED!

I just called everyone I knew here in the area already, asked them if they'd want to meet in a random group of women once a week to pray over each other and seven of us are committed to the ride for the next several months.

We all, for the most part, go to different churches, we range from 20's to 40's, we work, we don't, we home school, we don't, we go to church, we don't, we have babies, we have big kids, we don't have kids, we've been married for over 10 years, we've been married for less than 3 years, we're military, we're not, and yet....

it's just gonna be good. 

it really is.

What God is for, who can be against!?

*I'm still running, but I'm in a slump.

I'm sure it has to do with this 5 lbs of Christmas cookies I'm carrying around my mid section.

*It's a New Year, so I bought two new journals.  I LOVE a new journal.

*I'm going back to tea, no coffee, again.  Because I like to torture myself.

*my girls are loving the Bullfrogs and Butterflies CD's.  I loved them as a kid too.  I still sing the songs to myself, now my girls are too.  I love it.

I love walking past one of them hearing them repeat little sections of their favorite songs under their breath "practice makes perfect, I guess if I practice then better I'll be, OH!", "Jesus was a little kid too, from a child to a man he grew", "bull frogs and butterflies, they've both been born again!"

*I have a running list of recipes I want to post on here, it's been accumulating since Thanksgiving.

it's long and now it's so long I'm annoyed at the amount that I want to post.

I'm just weird this morning.

*I have another blog idea that I'm working on. A separate blog.  I'm procrastinating getting it up and running, which I can do because only two other people know about it.

Until right now.

Now you know.

It's one of 'those' projects. One of those that God is asking me to do and that I am just rolling my eyes at like, 'really? THAT!?'

It seems little and unimportant.....but I can't shake it.

That's all I'm putting out there right now. ;-)

*Breakfast this morning:

*I double french-braided all six girls (only six had hair ;-) worth of hair when we had company.
Nora and Sophie's has been in for two entire days.
Someone in Target, right by the ridiculousness of the bathing suits (I was there for a while because it took me so long to scrap myself up off the floor after seeing the atrocity), said that my girls reminded her of the Sound of Music.
And if I looked like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music, maybe the bathing suits wouldn't have shocked me so.

now I'm just getting weirder....signing off.