WOW can u tell Summers been busy??

Lets see all the kids did complete the school year and did VERY well! I think we got the biggest kick out of Cani Bear (our goofy, push the buttons, always putting on a show, making us laugh kid) got the Citizenship Award basicly the most well behaved kid in class!! Squeaks had a fabulous graduation from 5th grade! Which moves her out of elementary now!! We went and registered her yesterday...I pray her year goes smoothly. She is still much more reserved and a bit more of a follower so we have to use different parenting approaches with her. But 6th grade is a perfect year to find out a little more about who you are and what your strengths are. She is very coordinated and could be a very strong athelete! Hope her coaches also point this out to her! The older 2 completed the year with a bang too moving to the 8th and 10th grade

Easter pics!!

Downhill Stretch!!

21 More Days Of School!!! Yes I am probably looking more forward to Summer than even the kids I LOVE our Summers!!! I say this like we are going to just sit around and relax or something HAHAHA!!! I just looked at the month of June OMG its going to be CRAZY!! But a fun no homework, no projects, no school routine kind of busy!! The last day of school is June 2nd. Red leaves for her school trip to New York 4 days later! She arrives home at probably midnite or later and we get up a few hours later to go camping. Sadly it is the only way we could squeeze a trip in in June!! Then we are back from camping for 3 days and Big C leaves for his national Engineering competition. He is gone for at least a week (haven't even gotten the dates)he gets hm and the following day the 2 older girls go to different camps for a week! There you have it June is already gone!! Poof just like that one month of our break will be history!! July isn't quite as crazy but will be filled with another family camping trip, Red will have cheerleading camp, and Big C plans to volunteer at the hosp for the summer!! Aug purposely was left a little less hectic so everyone will be in town. I know this too will fill up quickly but at least all my kids will stay within 10 miles of us and be home all together!! I might just have to oh I don't know prepare for A BABY that will quickly follow the start of school!

To back track and update Big C went to Eng Comp last month and got 1st place which gave his group the invite to nationals. With this they could own patent rights to their creation. As mentioned Red will have cheerleading camp! This would be because she tried out and made cheerleader!! How in the world did I of all people become a "Cheer Mom"? Soccer mom Swim mom Baseball mom all I would have seen myself as but CHEER MOM!! I will NOT be wearing any big bows and walking around w/ a video camera capturing my childs every move I can promise you that!!! She's excited and that's all that matters!! She is finding out quickly that her lifestyle though causes her to have to work and save a lot of $$$ to partake in all these activities. Most people just assume that with 7 kids the grandparents support and pay for these things (I guess they assume this cause most people w/ just 2 or 3 kids do things that way now days!!) NOPE we're old school our kids each have x amount of $$$ set aside from us to pay for their "extras" each year. Once that is gone they have to save the rest themselves! So Red is pinching every penny right now as she has to pay for half of cheerleading, earn spending $$ for NY and pay for camp (hence one reason she is going to a different camp this year)She may not like that she isn't given everything like some of her friends but in the long run she will grow up with respect to the mighty dollar or so I hope OR she'll just follow what I've told her all her life "Marry RICH!!"

As for the others....
Squeaks celebrated her 11th birthday last month!! She is going today to tour her new school for next year! Hard to believe she will be finishing Elm school! She is as excited as Squeaks gets about anything!! Just goes with the flow and takes it all in stride!

Cani Bear- is still his typical self!! Silly as ever but when it comes to school and school work this boy kicks bootie!! I'm anxious to see how he'll do next year when he starts getting real number grades. His last report card they didn't test him in reading once I read the comments to why it said they don't test past level 20 in 2nd grade (he passed that the first half of the year) For him being such a little toot at home I always worry he might get bored and get in trouble at school but luckily he behaves himself too!! Pray this continues!!

Sue Bee- Is SO EXCITED about starting Kinder!! She talks about it daily! She may end up being the little trouble maker. This girl does NOT ever stop talking!! Wonder where she gets it from??? I have no idea how she will sit #1 all day and #2 sit without opening her mouth!! She has 2 very loose teeth right now so (thank you Dr Al who told her she'd loose them this summer) she asks a couple times a day if they are ready to fall out! May I remind you I HATE teeth I can't stand to even see a tooth get wiggled. So I'm ready for them to be gone so I don't have to look at em anymore!! :) She is my mini me her preferred shoe to wear is her rollar skates! and she can skate too! She is just a ball of energy all day long!!

K Baby- Well to start with she no longer wants to be called K baby or her K name at all she will correct us and tell us her name is Capricia her way of saying Patricia!! We'll see if this sticks or if its a phase I guess whatever she decides will be her "name". She is a strong willed hard headed little girl but at the same time so gentle and sweet. She is probably our easiest child of all! Always replies w yes mam and takes very little correction to get her to mind! A little sneaky but good! She is going to be a great helper next year!!

C Cakes- Well he is a wild and crazy boy!! He will be our first broken bone or stitches. This kid will just jump. No care in the world what will or won't catch him! Might even be sillier than C Bear. And a smile and big blue eyes that just melts your heart!! He's a fun little boy that is really starting to bloosom into a little person. Still not talking much but I've learned not to worry about that they will talk when they have something to say!!

Ocho- is growing well! Kicking moving growing and behaving thats all I can ask! We are about 16 1/2 weeks we'll have another sono at our next appt but we WILL NOT find out the sex so don't bother asking or trying to change our minds cause it just won't work! The kids of course want to know but P and I both have no desire to find out we really liked not knowing until the BIRTHday so considering it is our child we kind of get the deciding vote!! :) But of course always excited to see the sono and watch our little miracle move and react inside!

I will try to load some pics from Easter soon! They are still on my camera! P was on call so we just have pics from hanging out here hunting confetti eggs! But it was fun!!

Life in Numbers....

52- The number of school days left in the year!!! We are on Spring Break right now and though I LOVE the break it sure makes the rest of the school year hard to cope with. The time has changed so we will be trying to get everyone inside fed, showered and to bed while still light outside and we ALL just want to stay and play outside all night. BUT within those 52 days we still have State Eng comp, cheerleader tryouts, 5th grade graduation, and I'm sure a zillion other events so I'm sure it will fly by!!

35- This would be how old I turned on my birthday last month....AND I woke up sick @ 3:30 AM on my birthday and sadly have been sick with one thing or another ever since. I'm not sure that is a good sign! Not to mention most of the kids and hubs have been sick at some point in there too!! Always seems to happen either the 2wks before or after my birthday EVERY year!! No matter what anyone says that to me is NOT middle age all my grandparents have lived to be over 80 so I'm holding on to that!! I will finally admit I am in my mid 30's!!! :)

20- This is evidently the going rate for History projects these days!! I found this out with a lil phone call from the principal a couple weeks ago. He starts the conversation with "It appears your son is quite the little entrepreneur. As he says it a mothers pride starts to bubble inside a little. He had just returned from Engineering comp so I thought he was going to be asked to present his idea @ a program or a group. That pride quickly took a hike as he continues. "It appears your son is charging $20 to do other kids projects" "He did his own project but then also did a second one for profit." As a parent I wasn't real sure how to react I figured busting out laughing may not be appropriate. Luckily he continued on to tell me his punishment so I just listened. He then asked if I'd like to speak with my son...Ummm Yea I think so!! So in my very Stern mommy voice I proceeded to remind the son that one of our rules is a call from the principal = 10 times worse punishment at home!! P had the day off that day (we were actually out to celebrate my b-day) so we had all day to discuss the situation and punishment. I think my biggest disappointment was the fact that here he is a GT student but he couldn't think far enough ahead to not turn in the same thing.... which it was later discovered he DID indeed do a totally different project and only got caught because kids narked on them!! For some reason that made me feel much better about the situation. So through the day we replayed the convo with the principal with different ways I could have reacted... "why yes sir we are aware. Times are tough and we have 7 mouths to feed we all have to find ways to make a little extra cash." OR maybe this one would have been better "I am so sorry sir. My step dad is dying of cancer and his treatment costs thousands of dollars every little bit helps" or "Do you know how much college costs now days sir" and of course the #1 question What happened to the $$$ ?? Well the principal actually never asked for it back we made our son return it to the principal to return to the idiot that had to run his big mouth!! :) Though we laugh about it behind the sons back he paid dearly for his actions the following weekend and I'm pretty certain he will think twice about doing it again!! As parents we were thankful it was the sale of a history paper not of drugs. I wish I could think this would be the worst thing in parenting we'd have to deal with....

19- This would be the number of days my poor husband has to work without a day off. Any other time it probably would be no big deal but that is every single day of Spring Break. The week before the week after and everything in the middle!! So needless to say we are hanging out close to home for Spring Break this year. All part of being the "new boy" :)

8- This may be our new favorite number or as we are saying "Ocho" We found out last month that Ocho will be joining our family the end of Sept beginning of Oct!!! All are very excited and there is a clear battle over boy or girl!!! Some want to stick with a pattern others want to even things out!!

38 days til SPRING!!!

Just sayin!!! :)

SNOW DAY!!

So yesterday the kids got a "snow day"! As we went to bed the forcast was calling for us to get 1-3" of snow! That would have been great....but as luck would have it that forcast quickly went down the drain. By 11 that night roads were a total mess ICE all over them! By 1am school for the kids in MY HOUSE had been called off :) Wasn't sure about the rest of the district BUT this momma doesn't do ice!!! At 3 I got up and still NOTTA! I felt like I was sitting in a bubble as everyone all around was getting SNOW!!! By the time we got up @ 6 it had indeed Snowed sticking mainly to the driveway and sidewalk due to the ice skating rink under it. I had visons of blood in the snow, cracked tail bones, and 7 kids falling all over the place!! BUT we did bundle up and venture out in it all! It was pretty and was enjoyable I won't go as far to say "FUN". But a great memory to say the least!! Here are some pictures from the 2011 Texas Snow/Ice!!

1/1/11

Well here it is another year... Some years you enter with a little more hesitation than others. This is one of those years!!

2010 was for us a pretty good year. If we could take the last 2 months of it away it would have been clasified as pretty awesome!! :) But I guess we have to count all 12!I know our year will be filled with more joy and blessings than sorrows but when you know there is inevitable sorrow on the horizon it is easier to be pessimistic instead of optimistic!!! But I know that things which do not kill you make you stronger. So I will make it a point to see the silver lining in all things. To count every blessing no matter how small it may seem. And know that He Is the same yesterday~today~and FOREVER!!! I will praise him in the good and in the bad and know that the "why's" are not for us to understand!

As we enter 2011 I am blessed with a wonderful husband with a job he enjoys, kids that are healthy and awesome, a business that I can do when I want and be my own boss, and more finacial stability than we have ever had!! (ALL on our own with 7 kids if I may add) :) So though life with our extended family may offer challenges and sorrow. The blessings and joy within our immediate family just couldn't get much better and for that I am beyond grateful!!!

May you find many blessings in your life in 2011!!