I know he exists because my time keeps disappearing. Actually I have a lot of time bandits in my house, but I guess they don't count if you are actually giving your time to them.
So here I am on a Saturday morning trying to get a blog entry done amid the chaos of older kids trying to do chores, the middle ones supposedly cleaning their rooms, and the littlest ones trying to undo the work everyone else has done. I am situated where I can hear pretty much everything that is going on. We'll see how long it takes for me to actually finish this. I'm starting now, because attempting this at the end of the day is a lesson in futility. I'm either totally exhausted or out of my mind and look like this:
Okay, well, it was a nice idea to get the blog post done early. It is now 10:17pm. In this time between writings, I have: served 27 plates of food (obviously James is not home or it'd be 30); done 2 loads of laundry; changed umpteen diapers; given 5 showers; brushed 5 sets of teeth twice (once for nap, once for bed); refereed many disputes; run one load of dishes in the dishwasher; ran a few errands while the furious five were napping; and...well, you get the picture. This is actually an easy day because we don't have school (we don't have school on Sundays either, but I am often teaching anyway).
I guess the best way for me to proceed is to just hit the highpoints of this last month and answer a few commonly asked questions. Here it goes:
Christmas was a little crazy. Having arrived home on December 6 and getting sick right after, I was not super keen on getting out Christmas decorations when we were still unpacking. I did compromise, and we did have a Christmas tree of sorts:
Oh yes I did. I wrapped lights around the tree in our house and called it good.
One tradition I absolutely could not forgo was the gingerbread houses. Making 10 gingerbread houses was clearly time consuming, but well worth it. The little girls managed to put maybe three candies on their houses before it was time to sample.
I think they quite enjoyed this tradition. Here's pictures of the other six hard at work (wow, did I just say "the other six?"):
Just looking at those pictures, I have to say I have cute kids. Since four of them are not genetically related to me, I can say it with abandon and am not sorry for it. But I digress...
Christmas day was spent at my parents' house where Lydia discovered the 8th wonder of the world... chocolate!
The girls also were privileged to experience their Ji-chan's (my dad) famous smoothies. It was the first time we did not have to pull teeth to get Naomi to consume fruit.
Taking the picture for our Christmas card proved to be challenging to say the least. I am ever so grateful for the person(s) who developed the digital camera. It took 63 tries to get the "perfect" shot. I've already posted the one we used on Facebook, so here are a few of the outtakes I promised to Mrs. Shu...
We've celebrated three birthdays since Christmas:
My oldest turned 14!!!!
Poor Bob was sick on his birthday so I didn't get a picture of him with his cake (we didn't dare have him hold it).
Lydia turned two and I was a very bad no good mama (again) and forgot about her birthday until my mom called to wish her a happy birthday. Her big bro Bob made her a cake and decorated it too. By the way, "Citizen" is that big monkey that our monkey boy loves. Lydia has kidnapped Citizen for her own.
I'm often asked how the little girls are settling in and I say, "Settling? They are very much settled." Their transition has been amazingly smooth and I attribute most of that to their siblings. They adore their sibs and their sibs adore them. It's a regular love fest around here (that is, when someone isn't crying about someone doing something to them...they are all siblings after all).
That picture of all of them in the kitchen cracks me up, because with 4,000 square feet of house, all 10 of us were in about 45 square feet of it. James and I were cleaning the kitchen, and the kids started coming in one by one just to hang out.
Malachi is doing much better with them, we have been teaching him how to be a big brother which includes how not to be scared of them. He's still in process. Kara loves being a big sister, and Micah, well that kid even does diapers. One day he announced that "one of them is stinky" ( a phrase I am looking forward to not hearing anymore). I was in the middle of getting breakfast ready, so I told him I would take care of the offending party shortly. When I came out of the kitchen I started the search for the offender. This is what I came across:
Sorry about the dirty diaper in that last shot. I was paying more attention to Lydia laughing. Micah actually did a good job, I had to do very little adjusting. He has changed a few more since, but I like to be there when he does in case the job requires a higher degree of involvement, such as the time he said that it looked like "a volcano exploded" in Lydia's diaper.
Another morning Micah came walking up to me holding the girls' hands. He announced that he had gotten them out of their beds. I am not sure how he did it, and I'm also not sure I want to know how, or want to witness how.
Well, I have more to share but it's 11:52pm and my day is not over yet. I have a few more things to do before I can head to bed. You see, the blog may be titled "The Road Goes Ever On and On," but my life can be titled, "My day goes ever on and on..."
Hope to post again before another month passes!
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