How to change a tire in our household

Things don't usually go the easy way around our house, so I am not sure why I was surprised by our latest adventure. Went out to get in the car to run to the store and then pick up Brenna and Rogan from my sister's house, get in the car and start it and see the low pressure tire warning light. Get out of the car and discover the back driver's side tire is definitely low, more like flat. Call Jason to tell him as I am not sure what the heck to do. (Something I should learn to do just in case) He leaves work a little early to come to my rescue, stopping to pick up the little kids on his way home.
He opens the trunk to get the jack out and discovers that we forget to buy a replacement jack after the last flat tire. ( The one where we jacked up the car and it rolled off the jack and bent it rendering it useless) Problem number 1. He gets the jack out of his truck and then goes to get the van's spare tire. Problem number 2, he has a lot of trouble getting the spare out. He claims design flaws making it very complicated. Gets the spare out, thinks we are good to go only to discover problem number 3. The lug nut wrench the goes to the truck doesn't fit on the van. We can't find the one that goes to the van so I wonder if it got pitched with the broken jack. Now he is off to the store to get a universal lug nut wrench. Then comes problem number 4, the big one. Even with the right lug nut wrench he still can't get the lug nuts off, he was practically jumping on the wrench and not one of them would budge. Our final option, he calls the tire store and they say have it towed in and they will get the tire off. Another phone call to the towing service and a few minutes wait a tow truck comes to take my van for new shoes.
Over $300 later my van is happily wearing two new shoes and is ready to roll again. It appears we picked up a stick in the tire when we were off roading to a parking space at the Freedom Festival on Saturday. Things rarely are done the easy way but they always seem to work out ok and for that we are thankful.

Really can it be true?

If you would have asked me 5 years ago what I thought my life would be like there is definitely no way I would have even begin to guess that we would have 4 more kids. While it is definitely been the hardest journey I don't think I would change it. 4 years ago today we packed up the car with 3 kids and headed downtown Indianapolis and officially became a family of 5. As we posed for pictures and walked out of the courthouse we thought our family was complete. Happy Adoption Day,Alexis and Landon.

The Amazing Rachel does it again

rachel vanoven photography: How much does a family change in a year?

Here are some amazing pictures that Rachel captured of the kids and us during our recent photoshoot. The pictures were taken at the Lily House at the Art Museum. They turned out amazing. One of the pictures I am using as our header on this page, as I just adore it. I can't wait to see what else she was able to capture of each of the kids. Hope you enjoy seeing them as much as we do.

A sign of the times or a techno walk

Jason has taken to walking up to the grocery store from our house a few times a week, weather and schedule permitted. He uses this walk, at times, to spend time with some of the kids so he takes a different kid or two with him. They often stop at the park on the way there or back to get in a little fun. It is definitely a good walk from them around 3 1/2 miles round trip so I am often surprised that the big kids manage to walk the whole trip. The little two love to get a free ride in the stroller for their part of the walk.
Recently they he decided to take Liam and Brenna with him on this walk, but I had to laugh at how techno this walk was going to be. Before heading out they each got their MP3 players so they could jam and walk. They looked so cute all ready for their walk that I made them stop for some pictures. It struck me as funny that all three of them were going on a walk together but they all had to have music to listen to. Heck you wouldn't want to talk to each other. I guess I should be glad at least they were not texting with each other as they walked.

Marshmallow Melting Madness

The summer fun activity I decided on for this week was Marshmallow Madness. It was ooey, gooey, sticky fun and they loved it. The supplies were simple enough




Marshmallows: we had big ones and little ones (both plain and fruity),
toothpicks,
kool aid paint,
microwave,
paint brushes.

We used the Kool Aid paint to make our project so it would still be edible. Basically it is on packet of unsweetened Kool Aid powder and a little bit of water until it was the desired consistency. If you prefer you could use markers and not eat them or use food coloring as another option. After assembling your supplies turn them loose to create their masterpieces.

The kids had a blast creating and painting. It was fun to see what they came up with. Brenna enjoyed sampling the marshmallows a little more than creating masterpieces but she eventually got in to the masterpiece creating and made something to microwave.

After your creation is complete it is time to watch the magic happen. Place your creation on a microwave safe plate and put in the microwave. We cooked ours for about 15 seconds for one big marshmallow and 20 seconds for the ones with more than one marshmallow. The stand back from the microwave and watch through the window as your creation grows and changes.








Then after the microwave fun comes the best part eating your ooey, gooey, creation of melted marshmallow madness. We also talked about why they marshmallows got bigger when they are microwaved. I explained to them when the air trapped in the marshmallow gets hotter it expands and pushes the marshmallow causing it to expand and get bigger. Then when the heat goes away and the marshmallow cools it shrinks back down. Now we got to learn a little and enjoy ooey, gooey, melty, marshmallow madness.

Wubba turns One

It doesn't seem possible that it was just a year ago they called to tell us he was born and we had to decide quickly if we were ready to take on a 5th child. Now I can't imagine my living room with out him in it pushing his little toy across the room while he tries to sneak something inedible in to his mouth that one of the others dropped on the floor.
While we weren't planning on him; until he arrived we didn't know we were missing him.

Here is our little miracle the day we brought him home

and here he is removing his cute birthday crown that he loathed. More birthday photos and fun to follow.

She wore an...

Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini for the First Time Today.

Mummy Fun on Monday

It's Monday and we needed something to keep us entertained for a little while. I remembered something we did a couple of years ago and the boys loved it then so we broke it out again. We made Mummies on Monday.
They had a blast making the mummies but they had even more fun playing in the toilet paper after they busted out of their mummyness. They made mountains that someone hid in and then busted out of. They made it snow. They had snow races where the "snow" was in a big pile in the middle of the room and they had races to see who could get more snow in the other person's corner they had a certain amount time and could take it from their corner to put in the others. Then we reversed it and see how much snow you could get in your corner and you could steal from others corners. Then to get the mess cleaned up we had a race to see who could gather the most toilet paper pieces the fastest. A great way to spend a couple of hours and it only cost us two rolls of toilet paper.