Pirates Ahoy!

For Shane's 7th birthday this year we threw a huge pirate party. Everyone dressed up and we handed out eye patches and fake mustaches to those who needed them. We dug for buried treasure, threw plastic balls off the balcony into our living room to hit the "sharks" (balloons) down below, and then launched water balloons off the back deck to hit the toy ships in the yard. We ate a pirate cake covered in sand (brown sugar) with Captain Jack Sparrow on top, too. Everyone declared it a great party!

Scrapbooking a HUGE EVENT

After our week long staycation I had an enormous stack of photos to scrapbook... times 7. I make an album for each of my kids and then another for Daniel and I together. If I did separate layouts about each event I'd be doing something like 15 layouts per album. I simply don't have time for that.

So, what I did was design one layout plan, incorporating a significant photo from each event, with a mix of group photos and close ups of the child whose album I'm working on. Then I simply duplicated it for each album. I attempted to add a little bit of uniqueness in the center of each layout with different stickers and accents, but otherwise they are identical. This way I was able to get away with only making seven layouts, each taking about 30 minutes to assemble. Total time to scrap a week long activity packed vacation for 8 people? 3 1/2 hours which is about a weeks worth of scrapbooking time for me if I make it a priority.

Number 5!

Kevin's 5th birthday turned out to be fun despite a few set backs. He wanted a Thomas the Tank Engine party at the splash park. The first problem we had was that it cost too much to rent a pavilion there, so we had to just set up an awning (like a tent with no sides) on the grass. And, of course, it rained that day. Luckily, it was mostly just sprinkling.

The cake was a disaster. We had planned to shape it like a train, but I didn't buy enough cake mix and we ran out of time. Then "Junie B." knocked a can of icing out of the cabinet and it fell right in the middle of the cake! We did our best to cover the huge hole with icing, but it still looked bad. Then we decided to buy a Thomas the Tank Engine toy and place it over the hole. It worked! So we set the cake on a little table under the tent while the kids played.

Then disaster struck AGAIN. Despite the rain, it was a hot day. The cake began to melt. The Thomas train (which was battery operated and made sounds and talked) fell over backwards getting completely dunked in icing! The cake, though it looked horrible, was actually pretty good. In spite of everything, Kevin declared the party to be a success.

Neat Freak?

Some people compliment me on my amazingly clean home considering how many children I have. I smile and thank them, secretly cringing at the thought of anyone ever looking into my closets or my bedroom. If they only knew...

Whenever company is coming, or a case worker, or the kids' attorney, or their CASA, or therapists or our certification worker or or or... okay, we get a LOT of people coming to check on our kids and our home every month.. but anyway, when someone's coming, we clean the house top to toe. We clear off surfaces to make it look like a show home. We scrub doors and walls and counters and floors. We shine the windows and mirrors and sinks until the whole house is magazine shoot ready.

Or, at least, we do that in the public areas. We do the living areas, kitchen, bathrooms, and the kids' bedrooms. But our dirty little secret is the master bedroom. We clean it so that it looks nice if you just open the door and glance in. But if you actually entered, you would see piles of stuff we grabbed out of the main areas of our home and piled haphazardly in corners of our room and hid in our walk-in closet. We throw the kids' toys into buckets and stack it in the game closet. We clear the bathroom counters by tossing hair accessories under the sink. It's all a mad dash to simulate an immaculately clean home. And it works rather well!

But then, every three months or so, I start to get annoyed with the hidden clutter. Then I tackle all those frightening little spots around the house and clean and organize them until I throw out my back from all the unaccustomed manual labor. This photo of our toy/game closet is exhibit A. Will it look like that a few weeks later? Definitely not. Will it look like this again in a few months? Yes it will. You'll know when you see me limping to church that a cleaning demon possessed me that week.

Thanks, Grandma!

Shane and Kevin both have July birthdays. This year they received a double birthday package in the mail from Grandma Nancy. She knows them so well! Shane got a Spiderman shirt and Kevin got Lightning McQueen. I keep thinking the boys will outgrow these favorites, but it's been three years now and they still love them.

4th of July Spectators

This year for Independence Day we didn't get to do our fire works. That was really tough on the kids since they look forward to it each year. (Thanks, Oklahoma, for banning them in one of the last legal states) Instead, we accepted an invitation to watch the Broomfield fireworks show with some homeschooling friends of ours. We met at their house for a cook out and then walked about a mile to the big grassy field. It was fun, and a novel experience, although the show wasn't as good as the Thornton one we could see going on behind it. The kids made instant friends with each other. They even came to Kevin's birthday party a week later!

The funniest part was this lady, a friend of the hosts' that we'd never met before, who took the kids around the block freeing rabbits from cages their HOA had put up everywhere. I guess it was Independence Day for the bunnies, too.

Park Posers

We went to the park for a picnic after church on the final day of our "staycation". Sarah and Shannon, our babysitters, met us there. They have a standing invitation to join us for lunch every Sunday. We used the opportunity to take some group photos of the kids on the playground equipment. They actually came out pretty good!

Staycation Day 3: Panda Express

During our staycation we added a few things to our "to do" list that the kids wanted to do but we normally say no to due to the cost. "Junie B." and Danya had been asking for months if we could eat Chinese food. The only Chinese food I really like is at Panda Express, but it costs about $7 per plate, so most of the time it would be way too expensive to feed a family of 10. This time we were able to say yes!

We divided into pairs and shared plates to keep the cost under $40. The kids loved the fried rice and the fortune cookies. Kevin tried to be bold and try some of the more unusual looking foods, but he didn't like them. Egg roll is apparently not something I should add to our home menu according to Kevin.

Staycation Day 3: Thornton Rec Center

The kids wanted to get wet as much as humanly possible during our staycation, so we went to the Thornton Rec Center pool on Saturday. The main features there are the wave pool, lazy river, big slide and giant crab slide. Shane was so excited to finally be tall enough to climb the crab slide by himself. He would go again and again, even though he got a face full of water every time. Some of the girls got Daniel to swing by a Dollar Tree store so they could use their allowance to buy water goggles. One pair broke right away, but the other girls had fun looking at the bottom of the pool.

The best part for me came at the very end when I got to float in a tube holding Katie while she slept as we went around and around the Lazy River. It was very peaceful floating and holding my sleeping angel baby.

Staycation Day 2: Mall Fountains

After Chuck E. Cheese we took the kids to the fountains at the mall in Westminster. It was early afternoon by then, and it wasn't as warm outside any more. So, the kids thought the water was a bit too cold. Still they were willing to run through and hop over the fountains. Shane managed to launch a plastic cup into the air. We walked over to the nearby ice cream shop and bought hot chocolate for everyone to help them warm up.

Kevin kept doing this funny little routine where he would sip his hot cocoa and then run around waving his arms yelling, "Hot, hot, HOT!" He got such a laugh the first time from everyone that he kept doing it just to make us laugh. He's such a ham!

Staycation Day 2: Chuck E. Cheese!

It had been about 6 months since we'd been to a Chuck E. Cheese. We love using their online coupons in combination with the free token coupons they send our kids for their birthdays. So for about $30 we had somewhere around 250 tokens. Brianna hit a jack pot on one game and won 100 tickets! There's a new feature on the little virtual roller coaster ride that allows everyone else to see the faces of the people on the ride. It was so funny seeing Kevin and Katie's expressions while they laid back in the little vibrating seat.

Icecream and Orcs

For all three nights of our staycation we had a Lord of the Rings marathon. We watched one movie each night, staying up way too late. The first night we also had a banana split party. The kids were so tired, though, from a long fun-filled day, that they were falling asleep over their bowls of ice cream. We also let them buy "movie theater candy" for the second night and had popcorn the third night. "Junie B." and "Boo" had never seen the Lord of the Rings, and the other kids got to see it with fresh eyes due to greater maturity this time. Daniel and I saw the very first LOTR movie in the movie theater with Danya when she was just six months old. She slept through the whole thing.

Staycation Day 1: Brighton Rec Center

Our plans to go to Oklahoma for the 4th of July got cancelled at the last minute because the county where Daniel's folks live decided to ban fire works the night before we were going to leave. So, instead, we took the money we would have spent on gas and fire works, about $700, and used it to have a massive staycation right here at home.

We sat the kids down and explained our decision. There were some tears because everyone wanted to see grandparents and cousins. Then we made a list of fun things we'd all like to do. Top on the list was going swimming. First stop, the Brighton Rec Center pool. It has a huge slide that kids over 7 can go down alone and younger kids can go down with a parent. It also has a little alligator slide and a shallow play area with fountains for the little kids. The part that Daniel and I like is that we can get the whole family in for about $30.

Like Father, Like Son

Video Game Junkies. There's no cure. Today (8/20/11) I overheard this from my boys who were playing LEGO Star Wars III.
Shane: "Oh yeah! Show me what you got!"
Kevin: "I just killed you, Dude. You should be sad."

Peter Pan Park

Some friends invited us to join them at this splash park one Wednesday morning. I don't know it's real name, but it's known locally as the Peter Pan Park because it has a large clock tower, a pirate ship, a rope bridge, etc that is reminiscent of Peter Pan. It also has fountains and a stream running through the middle that's just deep enough to cover the kids' feet. Katie Grace likes the hollow logs you can climb inside.

True Date Night

With a family as large as ours and a schedule that seems full no matter what we plan, the times when we have a babysitter are usually not so that we can have couple time. Often, we end up getting groceries, or things for someone's birthday, or attending foster parent training, or supplies for a project, or a host of other things.

But every once in a while we get a chance to go on an actual date. To see a movie, or eat at a place that doesn't have a dollar menu, or just do something fun together. It's fun, but we always feel guilty about the expense. If you add up a few hours of babysitting, plus a meal or movie tickets, it adds up fast. Sometimes we ask the babysitter if she'll just play with the kids at the nearby park, or downstairs, so Daniel and I can watch a DVD or play a video game in our room. Sometimes we park somewhere a few blocks away and then take a long walk around the neighborhood. I've tried planning special time when the kids are asleep, but someone always either wakes up or ends up being sick.

It's almost impossible to plan time in advance. We never know when someone involved in our foster kids' cases will call and tell us that they need to come see the kids in our home or we need to take them somewhere or we need to rush paper work over to them. During the school year it's even worse, because the school adds it's own list of things that we MUST do. Recently, "Junie B.'s" caseworker signed us up to participate in a study by Denver University psych students. After the interviews are over, if they choose "Junie B." to participate further, she'll have two nights a week that she has to be at workshops with other "at risk" kids. On top of parent visits and counseling, that will leave one day a week for her to do all her home work and will mean that she doesn't have a day left to participate in AWANA. And this is supposed to be beneficial to her?

I don't know how other foster families make it without a good list of babysitters to help them get an occasional hand with the insanity that is their weekly schedule.

New Babysitter

We're breaking in a new babysitter named Alexis. She's 14 years old, a home schooler, the oldest in her family, and very responsible. Best of all, she knows how to be fun, but firm with our kids. I told her to be prepared, because some of our kids might just be on their best behavior the first few times she watches them, and show their worst once they feel more confident that she's not going to hurt them.

It takes a special person, and a very special teen, to be able to handle 8 kids. We've had adults who have watched them once and politely declined to ever watch them again. Not because they were bad, but because it takes a lot of patience and energy. Alexis did really well and the kids have all said they'd love to have her back. We're trying to be prepared since our regular babysitter is starting her senior year this Fall and won't be as available any more. I'm looking forward to the day that Danya turns 14 and is old enough to occasionally watch her younger siblings. It would be nice not to have to hire a babysitter just to get groceries. Sometimes I take the kids when I go, but it's a lot bigger job with that many people to manage.

Yard Sale 2011

We had our first yard sale in our new home at the end of June. It went well. There was supposed to be a neighborhood wide yard sale, but we only saw one other one in our area. We let the oldest girls be in charge of the money. By the end of the second day we'd made over a hundred bucks. We possibly could have done better if we'd sold kids' clothes, but we had so many bags and boxes of it out in the garage, that I really didn't want to mess with it. So we loaded them all up and took them in two trips to the Goodwill. We even sold our old light fixtures. My garage seems much larger now. I also used the opportunity to clean the garage out.

We went through every single box, including ones that had never been opened from our last move, but had been transported to our new house. It was amazing how many bags of trash we took out. I even found two old pay checks that I had never cashed. One of them was from the 90's! Probably no good now, but it definitely showed me that not taking care of my paperwork is hurting me. It was a relief to be done with the garage almost 9 months after we moved in.

Sadly, I had set aside several books and things that I wanted to keep and put them on top of a plastic box near the big garage door. Then the kids left the garage door open after riding their bikes when the yard sale was over and we had a massive thunderstorm come through. Everything got soaked. Maybe it was God's way of telling me that I didn't need to save any of the junk we found out there if it wasn't worth taking immediately into the house.

Tooth Two

Shane is losing teeth fast now. He thinks it's great. It's not helping his speech any. But he sure looks cute.

VBS DRIVE!

This year, our church's vacation bible school theme was DRIVE!. It was about pushing on to win the race to receive the reward that God has for you if you live a life dedicated to Him. The kids had a fantastic week. On the last day Danya brought her friend Alecia. There were some seriously fun and funny moments. I enjoyed the one on one time with Katie. Since Daniel was working during VBS, I couldn't volunteer because I needed to be available if any of my kids had a problem.

During the day, before VBS, I was working on getting through school work with all the kids. We home school year round, and now with "Boo" and "Junie B." also doing math and reading with us, I've found myself rather busy. I run from one kid to the next trying to help everyone. I've learned that it's best if I tell the older kids to skip something they don't know and come back to it after I'm done working with the younger kids. Otherwise I can't focus on one task long enough to get anything accomplished. It's been slow but steady progress with "Boo", Kevin, and Shane's reading. With Shane especially it's been two steps forward, one step back. He has trouble retaining knowledge that he had a day or sometimes even hours before. "Boo" can read a word correctly three times at the top of a page, but by the time she gets to the bottom, she no longer recognizes the word and has to tackle it as if it were new to her.

Kevin doesn't really have any trouble with the actual reading, but he has a bad attitude and will often refuse to try. Shane gets overwhelmed at the slightest difficulty and breaks into tears and starts whispering his answers. Thank goodness the older girls have gotten to a point where they can work independently with just a little direction. Although, Brianna will often do an entire page of work even though she has no clue what she's reading. She seems to just write random answers and we end up having to erase it and do it all over again when I check her work.