November 22, 2017

(click here for today's pictures)

• We hadn't been downstairs too long when there was quite a commotion upstairs in the girls' room. Robby went upstairs to check it all out. I heard the word "bat" and waited very quietly for Robby to call me upstairs. Thankfully, I soon heard him coming down the steps. I had heard wrong, it was not a bat but a bug. 
• This must have been a bit traumatic for the girls because when I went up the stairs after 8 this morning to wake them up, I found all 3 of them in Reagan's bed. They were all sleeping soundly, and I bet that they are in the same bed again tonight.
• The boys were all up early this morning. The big boys were upstairs on the xbox and Whitman was working hard on his drawings. He was also playing with his pie. He has a toy pie that he received at least 2 Christmas' ago. I guess that I would say that it is his favorite toy since he plays with it every single day. 
• We had our breakfast and did our reading this morning. I do believe that the kids could get used to our light school. After I read as many books as I could, I had a few pages of "pumpkin math" for the kids to do. This delighted everyone and they worked on it for a while.
• Then it was chore time. By this time, Robby was already cleaning the bathrooms. The kids helped out and quickly checked off their lists. As soon as Robby was finished with the kitchen bathroom, we locked that door and not a soul has been in there. There are way too many kids in this house to keep a clean bathroom for over 24 hours.
• After we ate a bit of lunch, everyone was shooed outside for some yard work. Robby is able to mow most of the leaves with his mower (which I now believe was worth every single penny), but there are still pockets of leaves that must be raked. We all worked for about 5 hours. Before we went outside, Robby said that if we could get an hours work from the kids then we would be doing good. We had no idea that they would work for 5 hours.
• They raked and they hauled tarp full after tarp full of leaves down the hill to the woods. The pile that the kids raked yesterday to jump in took at least 12 tarp loads to finish that one pile. We did have one good break and ate over a package of cookies, but other than that the kids worked the entire time. Now, they did their share of complaining and sitting around waiting on me to tell them what to do. But for the most part, they did great.
• They all actually worked so well that at one point Robby told them that he would pay them 10 dollars apiece and if they worked for a bit longer they would earn 15. This led to lots of people running around with rakes raking every leave in sight. The most we have ever paid anyone is maybe 5 dollars but I don't even remember doing that. 15 for 5 kids is crazy. (Whitman hung outside with us for most of the afternoon but then did end up in the house sitting in a box watching his ipad.)
• Once we had been given the "all done" the kids went down to play with the neighbors and I went in for a shower. I was filthy but after Robby mows, he is just disgusting. His grey coat turns brown along with every part of him. There was just dust everywhere so much so that Robby made Anderson wear a mask while pushing the lawnmower. 
• By 6:30, I had called everyone in (Anderson's throat hurt so he came in earlier and Keaton was cold so she was already inside.) They showered and then we ate frozen pizza for supper. Afterwards, we worked on a snickerdoodle bar for tomorrow and then made rice krispy treat turkeys. 
• It was a day full of hard work and I think that everyone was pretty tired. At least Robby and I were. We debated not mopping the floors and vacuuming after the kids went to bed but we did. And I think that I am glad that we did...I'll feel better after I have some of apple cider.