Catching Up (again)

OK, so we have this house with lots of room, and we like to share it whenever we can.  A couple weeks ago we hosted a used book sale and swap for local homeschoolers.  Jon counted 17 different people selling (tables were set up anywhere a spot was found), and no one counted those who came just to buy.  Our house was PACKED with people!  Kids were swimming.  Kids were playing.  Moms were chatting.  Moms were shopping and selling.  It was pretty cool!

We are now at the 1 month point of not having our van after my accident.  We keep getting told that they have found something else that they must fix.  Each time they find something else, they wait to get approval from our insurance company, then they order the parts--from Guam, I'm guessing--then they might get around to fixing it.  Only then do they realize that the piece underneath was damaged, too, and the process starts over.  I'm a little beyond my comfort level of being able to talk to them nicely on the phone.  I'm kind of done with all this.  I want my van.  Anyway, what all this useless ranting has to do with the picture above, you might ask.  We sure to have a lot of junk that is usually at home in our van that now is in our bedroom or on our porch or in our garage.  Did I say that I'm ready to have my van back?

We also hosted a bread baking class for homeschooling moms.  Luckily another mom was the master baker and teacher.  I think we had about 13 moms here, along with some of their children and teens.  It was great to have something geared toward mom education for once!  I, unfortunately, did not learn anything. My little ones decided to have extreme fear of strangers on that day and could not bear for me to stand up and get closer to the action because I might just run away and leave them to the bread baking crazies.  "Ita vita" is a Latin saying we use quite often.  "Such is life."  It was still great to chat with the moms after the baking was done, and we thoroughly enjoyed being left with the extra bread and the pizza dough.  Yum!!!  

We also hosted a board game night, which was so nice, but I didn't seem to take any pictures.  I love, love, loved having an adult table where the adults played a game that didn't include any children.  We will be doing it again soon for sure!

Jon and the kids built a house in our yard.  They still have to add the door and the picket fence, but it's already lots of fun for the kids.

This morning I got all six kiddos to sit for a picture before church.  It stinks that I can't share them because they are rather entertaining.  With that many little ones, there is no such thing as a moment in time when they are all sitting still, keeping their hands to themselves, and looking my direction.  Not a chance!  The pictures make me laugh, though, because they are very "real life"!