I am headed out of town with a friend for two night! Two KID-LESS nights! Yahoo!! I already know I am going to be sad and miss them, oh and my hubby. :)

I know K is completely capable of watching them, he has many many MANY times, for up to a week at a time! But I was cracking up this morning. I met a good friend early and was getting home just in time to drive the kids to school. They came pouring out of the house and into the car and A walks out. Coat-check! Book bag-check! Shoes-check! and then I noticed, tights and shirt!??!?! no skirt or dress to cover her up! I was CRACKING up! K said 'she dressed herself!' and I said 'but did you even look at here!!??!?!'

I needed a laugh to start the morning!!

Have a great weekend all!

I love being a mom.

I really have no special reason for saying that today, but I just felt I needed to document it.

It is such a privilege to be called to raise 5 kids. It is awesome to think of all the great things I can teach them and completely overwhelming to think of all the awful sinful things they can learn by watching me everyday.

I am proud of the people they are becoming, like when they choose to serve one another, not because I told them, but because they just want to. Or when I hear their sweet prayers, not just for themselves, but for people around the world. Or when I think of B coming home and not having a single expression. I am not exaggerating-and to now, hear his laughter float across the house. Or to think of T and H, being born as little preemie babies, so small and so early that some people would not even consider them babies. And to see the love that they have to give. And to watch J's mind. I tell y'all, that kid is brilliant. And for some reason, I have been given the privilege of being his mother.

Just so things floating around my mind as I think of them all sleeping soundly upstairs.

Life is good.

How is November half way over?!?

We have hit our busy season-company this weekend and the next two, holiday things starting up and just busyness!!

I feel like I have had so many things this past week that I have wanted to blog about, thought about how I need to write down and now that I have some free time, they have all left my brain!

We have decided to keep our kids at there current school for next year. It feels very good to have that decision made. They have all loved being there and learned so much. All of these decisions that I never thought about before I was a mom! They can be SO hard!

A had a tough week at school last week, just not wanting to talk. I know, sounds silly, but you can't force a stubborn 4 year old to do much of anything! It has been great to watch her learn and grow. It has been good for me to have to watch her fail before she succeeds, praying for her and encouraging her. I cannot wait to see what God has planned for her.

Oh I remembered what I had to post!

The below picture. Poor kid, ran into another kid on the playground. Luckily not stitches time. Oh and my fun cake. Didn't taste great ( I haven't made a boxed cake in forever!) but was way fun!

Yes that is B peeing in the back....

From the back of the car on the way to school: Hey I know who discovered America!
Me: Who?
J: Christopher Columbus!
Me: You are right, He discovered America, BUT actually, there were people living here, the Indians.
T: Yeah they lived here, they just didn't know they lived in America.

We had these for lunch today.

I have been looking for a 'healthy' pancake recipe and besides substituting white flour for wheat, I had not found one.

I will look no longer.

I doubled this and served the food, went to clean up a mess and when I got back, there were two left.

We didn't even use butter or syrup (I tried the syrup and now, as of 2 hours later, it still has not thickened.....I have a feeling I counted something wrong!)

SO I had to share!!! ENJOY!!

Last night we took our kids to their first wedding. Well, T and H were in my sisters wedding when they were under 2 and J went to one a few months back, but this was our first wedding as a family.

It made for a day of conversations about weddings and marriage, with some kids claiming they would marry their siblings (we cleared that up quickly!), some claiming they would NEVER get married and one who watch the whole ceremony contently and keeps asking when we can go to another wedding (and NO it is not A!)

And this was the first time in seven years that I felt okay with taking 5 kids to a pubic event, that included times of complete silence, sitting a table for over almost 2 hours till dinner, waiting to be the almost last table to eat, etc.

And by golly, they were fabulous. I do not give them enough credit. And for all of you mothers out their with young rambunctious boys, I promise you the day will come when you can be an adult again. Don't give up on being disciplined and consistent!!! I never thought this day would come. I thought I would forever be hiring sitters, hiding in cry rooms and lecturing in bathrooms.

yeah for a family outing! And congrats Ben and Jessica!

I loved this post I read today about how people can participate in adoption. I agree with everything he says and hope that more families will find ways that they can support adoptive families. I once heard that each adoptive family needs 4-5 other adoptive families around them. I agree with this 100%! Support is SO important!

So go and read Randy's post. CLICK HERE

Yes we went trick or treating!

T was a fire fighter
H was super H
J said he didn't want to go trick or treating because "it just didn't matter and we already have candy" :)
B went as an Indian
A was a peacock (though H asked if she was a moth-that cracked me up!)

Nothing fancy, we didn't event talk about it until about 2pm on Saturday!

It was great to be out and meet a lot of our neighbors that we have not met yet and seeing all the families out and about!

This is the best picture I got. Oh well.....

And the second picture is B. hehehe...it was FREEZING and I did not bundle him up. Doesn't he look pathetic!?

My two favorite reads this week:

I was skimming through blogs last night and came across the World Race. Oh if I did not have a stellar husband and 5 amazing kids, I would be packing my bags to do this! They travel to 11 countries in 11 months, sharing the gospel and learning. Amazing. SO I was watching some video on the site and recognized a face, from years ago when I was a Young Life leader. I finally found the girls names, filed in the back of my brain and spent the next hour reading about the amazing things that God is doing through her. HERE was one of the best. Simple incredible.

My other favorite was from the Livesay blog, which I have mentioned before. They are a family living in Haiti from the US and are doing great things for the Lord. THIS post was about taking a sweet little boy back to his home. Stirred a lot of thoughts in me, about how I am judgemental in the same way and about how I have NO IDEA what most of this world goes through on a daily basis.

Take a few minutes to read them-both are good!

Happy Halloween! The kids and I still need to create some costumes for tonight. J keeps telling us he doesn't want to go because "we already have candy!"