September 19, 2017

(click here for today's pictures)

• I guess I had hit snooze just one too many times this morning. When my alarm rang again, Robby grabbed my head. I had been kind of awake for a while so I quickly started saying "hey! hey!" at him. He woke up enough to realize what he was doing and said that he thought my head was the alarm. I think I am sleeping in the bonus room tonight.
• After that, I went ahead and got out of the bed as fast as I could. The kids were mostly already awake because today was homeschool day. Everyone was very excited about the day. I helped Whitman get himself ready while making toast and eggs for breakfast.
• Everyone ate breakfast and then Robby took Whitman off to school. While he was gone, the rest of us worked together, did chores and then the kids had some time to do a bit of school work. The morning flew by and before I was even ready, it was time to go and pick up Whitman.
• I did run to the library before picking him up and then grabbed him early from class. He was so excited about doing his report and wanted to rush home. By the time that we made it home, most everyone else was already at our house. We had said 11-11:30 and even though I was back by 11:15ish most everyone else had already arrived.
• The kids (all 22 of them) ate their lunches and then they all played better than they have in a long time and we just let them play. Happy kids=happy moms. Probably later than we should have we started the activities. Today each kiddo read a book and then put a few items in the box to represent the books. I had printed out a page where the kids could then match the book titles to the box number. 
• After the guessing was over, it was time for the reports. The picked youngest to oldest so Whitman went first. Bless, he started off so well but then he realized he had not shown his moose so he started over and did it all again. If he wasn't so cute, he could have been a big scene. His book was If You Give a Moose a Muffin.
• Keaton had her report on Biscuit and she read it all by herself. Campbell and then Graham went and they both did really well. Campbell's report was on The Princess in Black and Graham's was The Invisible Coin.
• By the time we made it to the big kids, I was already trying to figure out what we could do next time to shorten the reports. We will probably have to have the littles do reports and then later have the bigs do reports later in the day or on another month. Anderson did his report about Inspector Flytrap and Reagan did A Wrinkle in Time.
• After the reports were over, we kicked the kids out to play and even sang Happy Birthday to Eden. Once everyone left, the kids worked on picking up. I am so thankful that they were willing to work hard once everyone leaves-if they didn't help so well, then we couldn't have everyone over. It can be pretty overwhelming but probably by the time that most people were home, the house was straight again.
• This afternoon seemed to fly by and soon we were meeting Robby at Sams. We picked out Keaton's cupcakes and then went to McDonalds to eat. Afterwards, I ran into the Dollar Store with Graham, Campbell and Reagan. They were all buying things for Keaton and even bought a few things for themselves. 
• Afterwards, we used our weekly Dairy Queen blizzards and then Reagan and I headed off to Target to buy a birthday present. Everyone else headed home to start on showers. We were home shortly afterwards and Reagan quickly had her shower before it was bedtime.
• I just had to go upstairs because Whitman was busy naming off the list of his favorites. I think that his brothers were egging him. When I made it upstairs, I told him that everybody were his favorites because we are family. Before I could even get the rest out of my mouth, he interjected "but we are not a team."