Always Wanted an Ipod Touch

If you have always wanted to join in the fun of playing and learning on the road you have a chance at winning your very own Ipod Touch from Living Locurto You can find all kinds of fun apps from games and puzzles, to news and information as well as about anything you can imagine. So go an visit Living Locurto for your chance at your very own Ipod Touch and learn and have fun on the run.

Halloween is coming

I love Halloween but for some reason this year I am having trouble get in the mood for Halloween. I am usually planning my pumpkins, making costumes for the kids, finding fun snacks to make for the preschools and so far I have done nothing and it is bumming me out. I wanted to come up with a fun costume theme for the kids but so far nothing has struck me as wonderful yet, that they would agree to. However, my stepdad called yesterday and suggested making them Snow White and 4 of the dwarves. I love this idea but not sure I can get Liam and go for it. Thought we might watch the movie and see if that might convince them. If anyone has a great suggestions for themed costumes please feel free to share.

In the past we have done. Pooh, Piglet, and Tigger



We did a Ghostbuster and a ghost. Along with a sheep and what was suppose to be Bo Peep, but Lexi outgrew Bo Peep before Halloween came around



Then my favorite was the characters from Mario. Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and Toadette


Last year brought us Pac Man fever with Pac Man, Inky,Blinky,Pinky and Clyde


For more costume fun visit Living Locurto and see what other fun costumes people have come up with.

I am back again

It has been a little hectic in the our family lately. I keep thinking I will get back to the blog when I get time to catch up but realize now catching up is never going to happen. Since we last spoke Rogan was officially adopted, Landon turned 5, MaMee turned 36, Liam turned 9, the kids went back to school, I joined the board for the preschool, I volunteered to be a Read Across America mentor at the kids school, Alexis started and ended cheerleading, Liam joined cub scouts and started the soccer season, Landon lost his two bottom teeth, Brenna and Rogan started Parents Day Out at the preschool, I got Cricut expression machine, we arranged some rooms in our house and repainted and organized our bedroom and that is just the highlights. Now here it is almost the middle of October and I know I will never catch up so I will give you some photos of the going ons around here and call it caught up. If I get inspired to write about some of the highlights you will find them in their own posts.
Our new family at Rogan's adoption hearing.
The crowd that came to see the adoption proceedings.
Liam ready to take on 3rd grade







Little Landon ready for Kindergarten. He good hardly stand the excitement of finally getting to ride that bus.



Ready to go be a big 1st grader.



Liam and his birthday drum set



Liam and Jason, the mii's, skydivng



Sir Rogan of Birthday Partyville







The Boys birthday cake. Their was a knight for each of them



The cousins from Ohio came to visit.


Landon and his big green machine he got for his birthday. (Don't know what was up with his headband though)



With our first travel bug find, while Geocaching

Landon minus his first loose tooth

In honor of the love of my life

Today marks 18 years since the day this picture was taken. In those 18 years Jason, you have made the happiest wife ever. I can't believe I am lucky enough to have been able to share these years with you. 18 years ago as we stood posing for this picture we never thought we would have be celebrating our 18th anniversary with 5 kids 9 and under. That we would have battled 9 years to get the oldest and suffer two miscarriages along the path. That we would sign up to be foster parents and sign adoption papers on a 1 year old 2 1/2 weeks before our 18th anniversary. Although we did speak of adopting one day I don't think we planned on adopting 4. While the journey hasn't been easy, I couldn't have asked for a better person to take it with. Thank you for always being there, to love me, to listen to me, to hold me and to care. I adore you my husband, and can't wait to see what the next years bring to us. You rock baby.

In 18 years we have went from



to this..












































all because two people fell in love.

Sometimes life's just too crazy

Things have been crazy around these parts lately. Let's see we have packed up the car and headed to Chicago for 2 nights with all 5 kids with 2 days of preparation. Then the day after we got back it was Landon's big 5th birthday which was cause for big celebration and a new set of wheels just for him. 5 days later was my 36th birthday which hubby did wonderful by me. Then 2 days after that the boys had their annual birthday bash. The most exciting news of the chaotic last few weeks is that we officially added a branch to our tree. Our official adoption date for Wubba. I have lots of intentions to blog the excitement that has been our live lately but some how time just slips by and I don't get it done. So be on the look out for future blog entries covering these exciting topics and more. A preview to get you started

The dress I wore to marry my amazing man

Kelly's Korner is having a Show Us Your Life McLinky blog share. This week is show us your wedding dress and I just had to participate because I loved my wedding, it was one of the happiest days of my life.
This is the dress I wore to become the wife of the amazing man I call my husband. It has been almost 18 years since I wore this dress but I can still remember the excitement I felt that day as I gave my heart and life to him. I thought I adored him then but I didn't realize how much more I would adore him 18 years later. I never dreamt I would be so lucky and I am truly blessed to be his wife. Thanks for having, keeping and loving me HoKnee. I love you.

Chicago Trip Day 1- the Medieval Times

We started the morning of our trip with a wrap up of swimming lessons for the kids. After lessons we headed out for Chicago. It took longer to get of town than we planned with a few stops to make but we finally got on the road. I have to admit I was a little nervous about doing the trip with all 5 of them but they did great in the car. The only thing that would have made it better is if I could have convince Brenna to actually nap in the car. By the time we got unstuck from traffic and to the hotel she was tired but we had tickets to Medieval Times and we soon headed out for our first grand adventure of the trip.


Medieval Times is a dinner and show with knights, horses, a king and princess. Upon arrival they assign you seats and your seats indicate which Knight you should cheer for. We were assigned to Red and Yellow Knight.
Doesn't he look so friendly, he looks as friendly as he acted too but more about that later. They offer lots of options of extra bonus things you can pay for most of them we decided were not cost effective for a family of 7. We did relent to letting the big boys be officially knighted by the King in honor of their upcoming birthdays. It was really neat and the boys got a big kick out of it.

First up was Sir Landon, he went with out hesitation to kneel before the king and seemed to take it all very seriously.

Then Sir Liam was up. He was much more hesitant and nervous, but soon was kneeling before the King to be officially knighted.


After the knighting ceremony, they opened the doors and we were able to go in and find out seats and get ready for the show and dinner. Dinner is served sans utensils, so now spoons, forks, or knives which made for some interesting eating. Brenna and Liam were not interested in eating at all but Lexi and Landon were all about it.
The dinner was vegetable soup, garlic bread, baby dragon (half a chicken), ribs, and potatoes. As you can see Landon was all about the eating with your hands and the baby dragon. At the end of the meal they were kind enough to bring each of us a warm baby wipe to hose down with but after that they brought this yummy, flaky, apple pie like desert. Brenna and Liam managed to make themselves eat the pie. :)
The show was fun but it was near impossible to get a good picture as it was dark and they were moving and the flash just made the pictures of the heads of the people in front of turn out great but the knights and horses still weren't great. Here is one picture that turned out OK at least you can see the knights and their horses. The show was cute. I missed most of the story of the show between trying to convince Brenna her food was so yummy, taking pictures and trying to hear all the comments Landon and Alexis wanted to share with me. It was still really neat to watch even if I didn't follow the story. The knights were amazing the horses were great. They had different challenges and if your not was the winner the princess would throw him a flower and he in turn would throw the flower to a lucky lady in the audience. Alexis was lucky to be chosen to receive a flower and then the next flower our knight won he gave to Brenna. They both looked so proud of their flowers.
















Wubba was not as thrilled with the whole experience and since it started after his bedtime he was cranky and unhappy and after a little fit went to sleep and missed the whole end of the show, which I am sure Jason was happy about as he was wrestling him in his lap. After the show all of the knights, the king and the princess came out to sign autographs with the fans. We had bought each of the kids a cloth flag and they got autographs on the flags. Our red and yellow knight seemed less than enthused with the autograph portion of his responsibilty and begrudingly obliged to sign for people. That is until little Brenna got up to him and put up her flag for him to sign and he just looked down at her and stared at him. He expected her to say "Could you sign this please" but she just stared back and him and refused to speak and our dear knight refused to sign her flag. So her not so happy Mommy who was shocked at his rudeness may have mumbled something not so nice under her breathe and walked Ms. Brenna over to very nice Princess and King to get her's signed by them.

After we got the autographs it was time to take our new knighted Knights and princesses back to the hotel and prepare for bedtime battle of trying to get them to sleep in a hotel in bed with a sibling. However thankfully the excitement wore off before we got back and they surprised us by quickly going to sleep excited about the next days adventure. Turn in next time to see day 2 of our adventures in Chicago.

McLinky Blog Hop 3 things you don't know about me

The theme for the blog hop this week is three things you don't know about me.

1. I have strange sleeping issues. It can't be completely quiet it or it takes me forever to get to sleep. I have to sleep on the side of the bed that is farthest from the door to our room. Since we moved our bed to facing the wall with the bathroom door I have to close the bathroom door so I don't wake up and look in the bathroom mirror. The biggest thing is, my husband says I have to have more pillows than a Sears store to sleep, but actually I only have to 3 most of the time.

2. I am trying to recover from my packrat/clutter filled ways. We have lived here for over 5 years and I have never put my car in the van because there is too much stuff in there. We spent all day Saturday going through the garage and basement storage area and I surprised myself by being able to let go of tons of stuff. Now if we can't get it in a garage sale in the next couple of weeks I agreed to let hubby take it to Goodwill.

3. I believe in love at first sight. I met my husband when I was 14 years old when he drove up in my driveway to pick up my friends boyfriend (who was his friend). As soon as I laid eyes on him I felt something change in me. Unfortunately he had a girlfriend and I had to settle for being his friend. Luckily for me he eventually (2 years) came around to my way of thinking and now I am blessed to have him as my wonderful hubby for almost 18 years.

Here we are a few months after we met. I wound up dating his friend and we double dated to his senior prom, me with his friend and him with his then girlfriend. I am on the far left and he is on the far right.

A Favorite Photo Blog Hop

After happening across some blogs participating in the McLinky Blog Hop I thought I would dive in and give it a try. This week's theme is favorite pictures. I have several favorite pictures but I chose this one. While it is not necessarily adorable it is the start of motherhood for me. It took us 9 years and several medical procedures to conceive this miracle. I remember lying there during the c-section and thinking this can't be real, I can't really be a mom now. Almost 9 years later and 4 additional adopted children I am very much a Mom. At times I still can't believe it happened and other times all that infertility seems lifetimes ago. Seeing this picture of my son entering the world is my dreams coming true and is one of my favorite pictures. What is one of your favorite photos? Join us in the Blog Hop

Build a house and then eat it.

In my quest to keep the kids entertained this summer I have been hunting up fun things for them to do. Back in the spring I had bought an Easter cookie house kit to make and for some reason we never got around to doing it with the kids before Easter. Well I happened across it and thought it would be fun to do with the kids. I built the house with the intentions of letting them decorate it, however my intentions were not realistic in the fact that 3 kids trying to decorate the same house was not possible. In order to keep the peace I improvised a house for each of the little kids and let Liam decorate the big house.
If you are interested they are pretty easy to do. First you need some supplies. Basically graham crackers, icing and decorations (Sprinkles, jelly beans, marshmallows, pretzels). For the icing it works better with a thick icing like the kind that comes in tubes for decorating a cake, not the kind that comes in a tub to cover a cake. You can use the tub kind but it doesn't stick as easily.
For the first piece I put frosting on the back of the cracker down each side and then across one end.
Then stood the cracker up on a paper plate with end with frosting on the plate. (this is where the thicker frosting pays off, in helping to keep the cracker wall standing)
On the next cracker, I frosted around 3 of the edges.
Viola, one corner of your new house. Repeat the first two steps to form the rest of your house.
Now you have a finished house bottom now add a roof. A simple roof such as
just adding full sheet of graham cracker to make a flat roof. Easier for young kids to decorate as their additions won't fall off. But if you live where there may be snow and you need a peaked roof to keep the snow off you can do that as well.
Add a bead of frosting down the top edge of two sides of your new house.
Add another line of icing to each edge of half a cracker and to your house, then repeat for the other half of the roof.
Then add in your finishing touches and decorate. ( You can also try and cut a cracker at a diagonal fit in the whole in the peak of the roof but we opted not to undertake this endeavor)
This one was Landon's creation. The top picture was Brenna's. The peaked roof house I made for Wubba and Lexi was hanging with her Aunt and missed out on the house making fun. Here are a couple of pictures of the bunny manor that inspired our creations. Liam and I decorated the big house.
We had lots of fun creating our masterpieces however we saved devouring them for tomorrow. On your next rainy day break out the graham crackers, icing, and sprinkles and see what your little architect can come up with.