Well, it's spring break and I have a ton of kids today. When I have more than seven or eight kids here, or when we go places I am always afraid that I will loose one or I won't notice that one of the little ones is getting into trouble or when there is a lot of little ones I forget who's been changed or who still needs to go potty so the partners help me remember. I always line the kids up littlest to biggest and assign partners. I take the first person and the last person in the line and send them off as partners and do this until I run out of kids. Today I sent the kids out to play in the yard so that I could do some laundry (actually the were driving me crazy so I kicked them out) I kept hearing Sarah screaming at Sierra. I was trying to ignore it but they're not allowed to scream at each other so as I was heading for the back yard I heard Sarah tell Sierra you have to do what I say I'm your boss remember. Apparently I'm not very good at explaining partnership to my children. When I said watch them and make sure they don't get into trouble Sarah took that as scream at them until they do what you want. Sarah and Sierra are best cousins (instead of best friends) and they are exactly the same size so no matter how many kids we have here they always seem to be in the middle of the line when I say line up and they are always partnered together so I wonder how long this has been going on without us noticing.

Dish Duty

I have complained about my dishwasher since we moved in. Every day I run the dishwasher about two or three times a day and still have dishes left in the sink at the end of the day. Sometimes I complain so much that my husband brings home paper dishes so I don't have to wash anymore. He said I can't buy a new dishwasher until the one we have breaks. Well, it broke. It's less than three months old and still under warranty so I have to call the repair man instead of chunkin it. The thing is the repair man can't come until Thursday of next week. I know how to fix it, it's an easy fix, but it requires a tool only a repair man has to remove a part that is in the way and if I do it myself it will void the warranty of the darn thing. So now I wait, and wash by hand. This is what I woke up to this morning.

This is just the dishes from dinner.

This is one days worth of dishes at my house.

They overflow the dish drainer on to the counter down to the dishwasher racks and then over to the other counter. I have to say I won't be complaining about the dishwasher anymore but I may complain about the company who makes a dishwasher that requires a repair man to make a 30 second repair. I am glad that it is spring break because I can wash dishes for at least an hour before any of the kids wake up.

Wii Fest

Today we took a bunch of kids and threw them in a room with a video game, four controllers, and and stack of games and left them to themselves. We were a little shocked that they all survived. Here they are at the end of the mayhem and madness lined up oldest to youngest. That tall one in the middle is eight. We discovered today that she is about the same size as Oscar, but he wouldn't stand still long enough for us to get a picture.
From left to right, Brendan-11, Carter-10, Sarah-10, Tanner-8, Hailey-8, Sierra-7, Zander-6, Jacob-5, Eamon-4, Cherilynn-3, and Levi-2.

Zanny Zanny Boo Boo & Matty Phatty Anny Panny

This is Zander and Maddison. They are best Buddies. Zander is older but Maddy has always been at least a head taller and has referred to him as her baby since she could talk. Maddy has always done everything before Zander. She rolled over first, sat up first, walked first, talked first, read a book first, rode a bike first, even lost a tooth first. They are almost seven and Zander has yet to loose a tooth (with the exception of one tooth pulled by the dentist because it was growing in wrong) but Maddy has lost six.



This is a picture of her loose tooth.



This is a picture of her pulling her seventh tooth.



This is Zander trying to wiggle out his two front teeth. He really wants to loose his baby teeth.


And here is the tooth.

There is hope for him though. He has two big boy teeth coming in behind his baby teeth and they're not pushing the baby teeth out so he'll be going to the dentist soon to have the baby teeth removed. He can finally say he lost some baby teeth.

Navy Ball

With his hat on and my shoes off he doesn't look so short.

Jimmy, Oscar, and Matt .

Matt and Jimmy trying to look small for Oscars sake.

We weren't actually going to go to the navy ball. It's Oscars drill weekend and he had to work late a lot this past week and even worked a double on Tuesday. We were pretty tired by the end of the week and decided not to go. Then on Saturday my brother informed him that it was highly frowned upon to miss the navy ball and he would get all the crap jobs for a long time if he didn't go so we went. It was a bit of a stressful day because I don't even own a dress. He didn't call to tell me that we were going until after lunch so I had two hours to find a dress, shoes, and jewelry. It is impossible to find a modest dress and comfortable shoes in two hours or less. My dress was held together with double sided tape and safety pins and I still think I was popping out the top. I also had to buy a shrug (which was twice as much as the dress) because every dress I found in my size was either strapless, backless, or so short that my butt would be hanging out. And my shoes were terrible. Why is it that women are expected to wear hills in the first place. After the ball I had to take Sarah out to the car for her sleepover and refused to put the shoes back on so I slipped my husbands shoes on to take her out. They were so comfortable. He always complains when he has to wear his dress shoes but he's never had to spend five hours in hills, I don't know what he's complaining about.

His shoes...

and mine, they're really cute though.

All in all it was a lot of fun and in the end we were glad we went.

Oh, the picture at the top was taken at the end of the night and we were exhausted, so if it looks like we're holding each other up it's because were.

Dads TV

Oscar bought this massively large TV when we moved into the new house but he's always working and hardly ever gets to watch it.(sorry Honey) Me and the kids however get a lot of use out of it. On Dads drill weekends we spend the whole Saturday like this,

watching movies. We love you Dad!

Tanners Hat

All of my kids have something they drag around with them for security. For Zander and Sarah it's a blanket, for Brendan it's usually something that fits in his pocket or a picture of his dad. For Tanner it's an old ratty Spiderman pillow that has been sewn up several times. He thinks he's too old to carry around a snugly things or to sleep with snugly things so on Saturday mornings this is how I find him.

It isn't his pillow anymore, it's his hat.