Days of Light and Life!

After a month of sickness, quiet, and arranging the essentials of housekeeping,
we've graduated to "recovered, busy, and nesting in with creative homemaking".

We're trying hard to gather our bearings in the department of routine;
figuring out what the chores in this new house are, who should do which ones,
how to schedule it into a flow that works with our lifestyle.
It's tricky, but we're catching on!

I have a foreboding feeling that we'll get it down just when baby 8 comes
and changes the dynamic once again.
Now that we're finally into "next year"... the advent of his/her arrival is not so far away.

We started swim lessons this week.
I really wanted to blog about our first swim outing.
in winter.
and swim suites.
with 7 kids...

but I was too doggone tired to lift a finger when we got home from that!
Fun it was :-D

Seriously, I sit here smiling to myself as I think about how nothing in our culture is
set up for the accommodation of oddities like us. By oddities I mean:
People with more than four children to fit on a registration sheet.
People who take up a whole side of the pool in deck chairs and space for towels.
People who won't fit in a booth at a restaurant.
People who can barely squeeze down a grocery isle - even if the kids are in perfect form.
People who come out of the bathroom stall in droves........

-Speaking of this, do you ever experience the anxiety that accompanies the phenomena
of the trailing train when you turn the corner in a grocery store and you
 just KNOW that the oncoming traffic won't be watching for 4 more people trickling
along behind the 4 that just passed?

Parking lots are the worst.  I'm pretty sure they take years off my life.-

Anyway swimming.

My children had a blast!  They did awesome and I had a lot of good laughs watching
them. That Bryce...
It really was fun, but boy.  What a workout.
And I didn't even get into the water!!!

They are plugging themselves back into school work with admirable effort.
I'm so thrilled to have some spaces they can read and work their math problems
without some pint-sized pipsqueak reaching over and drawing on their homework.

We have one room here which we hope to use for a music room eventually.
It has glass doors and a bookcase wall which lends itself to being a library
or study.
We painted the walls deep blue there.
And so it has been dubbed "The Blue Room".
I'm grateful for the Blue Room when I see my boys sprawled out in their with
their clipboards and pencils.
Or the girls perusing the bin of borrowed library books.

I try to keep the two smallest people out of that room and because of that
it's become a haven for thinking.

It needs a sign over the doors.
I was wondering...
If I don't call it The Blue Room, I'm not sure if I should call it The Thinking Place
or maybe the Quiet Room, or how about A Piece of Peace.
Probably not The Concentration Camp.

The monkey bars are getting used.
Tonight however, I thought I would have a heart attack when I heard screaming
which I was certain meant impending death.
It was only one (nameless) person who would not articulate in words:
"Somebody help!  I'm stuck!  Help help HELP PLEASE!"
from 10 inches off the floor.

It is hard on the 32 week pregnant body to get that much adrenaline pumping
in a mad dash to save a life!  Neither of us was a happy camper.
No one died - or came remotely close to suffering even.
I should be glad.
Once again - another year of my life wiped clean off the slate :-D

Coming soon, I must post pictures of the kids many beautiful creative
projects - especially for the Grandma's.
I always think I'll get to it after I tuck everyone into bed,
but by that time, MY creative juices are all used up and bed (or some other mindless pastime)
is looking more...mindless.

Tonight I started you with a picture of Aloria
who surprised me in her stick-to-it-ive-ness with that Lollipop.
 I didn't pay enough attention to her because I thought she'd be slow.

However, once she discovered how to crunch in to that sweet treat, I didn't
get to her again before she consumed almost the whole thing!

Finally I leave you with Bryce Endurance.
You may think he crunched through his too.
Actually, against my good advice and years of experience on many sweet subjects,
(and I told him - "you shouldn't use your Lollipop as a paddle/bat/sword..".)
he had whacked that Lollipop to bits before we unwrapped it.

He ate his in pieces.

Didn't faze him a bit.

So much for my know-it-all :-D