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.

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.