House

The Mystery Breakfast Adventure

October 23, 2012 by LoraLynn

This morning we told the kids to skip breakfast and just get dressed and ready to leave. That process still took an hour, but eventually we headed out on a “Mystery Breakfast Adventure.”

We didn’t tell them where we were going, just that breakfast would be served. We swung by Starbucks for some coffee for us and then picked up a few dozen doughnuts for the kids. And then we started driving.

A chorus of “Where are we going? What are we doing? When can we eat?” helped us down the road.

And as we pulled into a special driveway we announced (and by “we” I mean Andrew, because I was all choked up), “We thought you’d like to have breakfast on our new front porch.”

And they did.

(Our new house is already vacant and I cleared this little adventure with the realtor.) We wandered our four acres and enjoyed the morning sunlight from the almost-ours front porch.

We tried to explain why we couldn’t move in today. Phrases like “pending home inspection” and “we don’t own it yet but they’ve promised to sell it to us” didn’t really compute. And since we don’t know our moving date, we weren’t exactly helpful in sorting it all out.

The kids ran wild while the sugar coursed through their veins. And I could let them be wild in this space. Which is pretty much the point of our purchase.

I discovered the perfect little Garden Piglet and I knew this yard was meant for us.

There’s still a few hurdles before we call this place home, but it was a great way to celebrate the end of one season with the kids (seriously, they’ve been such troopers with all the house showings) and to sit and dream of the beginning of another.

Well, some of us dreamed. Others were simply concerned with the immediate future of their breakfast…

Praising God for miracles and houses beyond our wildest dreams today. What are you praising Him for???

Filed Under: Family Stories, Home Projects
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This Is Me, Savoring…

August 29, 2012 by LoraLynn

Is everybody okay if I just make this a brain dump while I finish my coffee? It’s all I’ve got time for and I’m afraid this week will be lost forever if I don’t type something out.

We’re about halfway through the first part of our great adventure. With the exception of the master suite, the rest of the house has been purged, organized, and stored away. It feels like very tidy people moved in.

I don’t know who they are.

The kids are handling this really well. I’ve been careful not to take EVERYTHING off the walls until the very last minute, just so it doesn’t get totally depressing. They each got a box to pack up whatever they wanted to keep and I made myself not even look in the boxes before I sealed them. They got a small number of toys and books to keep out and the rest is stored away.

They’re playing better already. Isn’t that always the case?

We’ve almost filled up an entire 10 x 14 storage unit and I don’t know whether to be proud or really embarrassed. I console myself with the fact that we’ve sold or given away almost as much stuff as we’ve stored. Last night, Andrew went through the whole neighborhood adding a bag of trash to each neighbor’s can who wasn’t already full.

Desperate times…

We’re hiring a painter to come in and cover up some of the more obvious kid marks. Gran and Pops are on their way with a truck and trailer in tow. We’ll do a bunch of landscaping this weekend and we should be ready to go on the market next week. I can’t even think that far ahead.

Andrew and I are hard at work from 8 am until we call a halt at 10 pm. And then we break for ice cream. Finn eats again after that, so it’s midnight before we hit the hay. And then it’s back at it all over again the next day. And we’re still laughing.

I wouldn’t do this with anybody but him.

We wouldn’t be eating if it weren’t for the crockpot. I toss a bunch of ingredients in first thing in the morning so that by 5 pm, when I’m already WRUNG OUT, there’s something to consume. I have every intention of feeding the kids ice cream for lunch today. Just because I can.

Today I’m going to take a slightly slower pace, just to give the kids a break. They’re running through the house with swords, singing songs from Newsies at the top of their lungs. I couldn’t be more proud.

Something in me wants to savor every moment even as the rest of me says, “Keep moving or FALL OVER.”

Nice to know I can always count on being deeply conflicted. One last sip of coffee and then it’s up and at ‘em for me. But first I’m gonna hug this golden-haired girl who curled up next to me…

Filed Under: Family Stories, Home Projects, Mothering Thoughts
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Color-Coded Kids

February 5, 2012 by LoraLynn

A long time ago, I wrote about our kids’ water bottles. They were each assigned a color (their favorite, of course) and they kept up with their own bottle. We’ve continued to use this trick to help keep everyone hydrated.

We’ve also expanded it a bit to make our family more functional. My downstairs linen closet has been a disaster for years. It simply wasn’t designed to hold the volume of linens required for 8 people. Furthermore, since the kids couldn’t reach all the shelves, they tended to jam the towels onto the bottom two shelves or toss them on the floor of the closet and hope I didn’t notice.

I finally decided the kids needed to have a bit more ownership in this process. We purchased towels and wash rags in their assigned color. Now, each child is responsible for his or her own towel and rag.

This means that on laundry day, the boys know to take their towels upstairs to their bathroom and to leave the girls’ towels downstairs (since the girls bathe in our master bath). Just this one change cleared out an entire shelf in my closet because now the boys can store their towels in their own linen closet upstairs.

This also means that if we find a towel on the floor in the bathroom, WE KNOW WHO DID IT. Mwah-ha-ha! No more mysterious mildewy towels that everyone denies having ever seen!

Even better, we also got each child a sheet set for their bed according to their color. I hope to purchase second sets soon. In the meantime, they have one set they know is theirs. This again helps with the laundry because the boys can each be responsible for their own set of sheets. They also know exactly where to put the girls’ sheets. This means the sheets don’t end up on the floor picking up dust or in the bottom of my linen closet, lost forever.

The kids love having something that is all their very own and unique to them. Even if it is just a set of towels and sheets. And as the kids get older and acquire more stuff, I suspect this color thing will come in even more handy. Finn has already received his color assignment (red). Now we just need him to come out and learn to drink from his own color-coded cup!

*Lest I give the impression I’ve been rearranging closets while on bed rest, you should know that a friend came over to do laundry and, very gently, without judgey eyes, asked me if I wanted help organizing my linen closet. I told her my plan for color-coded towels and she made it happen for me. The Body of Christ in action is beautiful, even when it comes to closets!

Filed Under: This Is How We Do It
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A Ramble And A Road Trip

June 26, 2011 by LoraLynn

I’m not gonna lie…

Andrew and I weren’t exactly thrilled to take a long road trip. We wanted to see our friends, but mercy, that’s a heckuva drive. However, the kids did great and the Beast made the trip much easier. It didn’t make the drive any shorter, but it helped the sanity. Plus, we had our white trash DVD player rigged up if needed:

The point of the trip was to return to Virginia where we used to live and meet up with our old friends. We also slipped in some “field trip” days. We even drove by our old house and discovered that it had been painted like I’d always wanted to do. But I’m pretty glad somebody else had to pay for it.

We mostly filled our days with People We Love. We had play dates and dinner dates with our friends and marveled at how well we had all managed to multiply.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip because these are my friends from days gone by loving on the babies I had after I moved away. It makes me cry every single time. Because it’s nice to have the sort of friends that still love the babies they’ve never met.

Speaking of friends, two very brave ones opened their home to us for the week and very kindly put all of our kids combined (which makes for 9 kids under 8) to bed all by themselves on Friday night. That is some serious LUVVVV, y’all.

Meanwhile, Andrew and I slipped away to reunion-ize with a very special small group we were a part of many years ago, before there were kids. We came from all over the country to meet up with our mentors, a decade after our first meeting.

(This is a shot of all the ladies and, characteristically, all you can see is my hair.)

We mingled and ate together and then we sat and stripped away the small talk. We shared the joys and the sorrows and, as one of the men put it, it was hard to tell where the sorrow stopped and the joy started because they all seem jumbled up together. We laughed. We cried. I won the prize for first tears of the night. Yay, me!

And then as we listened to Dr. E and his wife share wisdom with us, I so badly wanted to lay in the floor and just close my eyes so I could soak it all in.

And not because it was 1 am.

Because for awhile, I guess I’d been living life like I was underwater, breathing as best I could through a snorkel mask and then suddenly, in this sacred moment, here I was, up for air, taking in 100% oxygen, filling my lungs and feeling refreshed by the mere presence of Others Who Know.

And the One who brought us all together so many days ago.

Maybe that analogy is ridiculous, but it’s the truth. I had no idea I’d been underwater, really. Didn’t know how badly I needed this night with these people. Andrew and I were both surprised by the bittersweetness of what the last decade has brought and yet how sweet it was just to be with each other. To remember someone else’s history. To remember what we were like before we all became parental units and quit finishing our sentences.

If I were a better blogger, I’d end the post right there and leave you all to wonder what the heck I’m talking about… but I can’t. Because our little trip didn’t end with this night. There was another picnic, followed by lots of driving, and then another pitstop. Where we got to experience one of the prettier sides of the internet, which is blog-stalkers-turned-friends who make cupcakes. And who love my babies enough to feed them pb & j’s at 9 pm and let us rest our road weary eyes for an hour or two in their space.

And then there’s just the sense of togetherness we had on the road together as a family. I’m not saying there wasn’t screaming and angst for hours on end sometimes, but we honestly didn’t come home liking each other any less. Or taking ourselves any more seriously.

My point is (and I do have one) that we took this trip expecting to return exhausted. Which wasn’t wrong. We are, indeed, exhausted.

But we are also overwhelmed by the people who made the effort to hug our necks, refreshed by the blessing of Friends with History, and we’re honestly rejuvenated by all the family togetherness, no matter how exhausting it was.

And I think that’s about the best thing one could ever hope to gain from a road trip.

Besides cupcakes.

And we scored some of those, too…

Filed Under: Family Pictures, Family Stories, The Family Van, Vitafam On Vacation
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Supersized

May 30, 2011 by LoraLynn

Replacing our van wasn’t the only necessity when we became a family of 8. (By the way, your suggestions are so. much. fun. Keep ‘em comin’.) Fortunately, we didn’t have to do anything drastic like MOVE, but we have had to make a few changes.

Besides just the increase in number, four of the kids hit a growth spurt while we were in Africa, so I came home to a completely different set of gastronomical needs. With the new-baby, etc. fog and me just not having my act together yet, I still do dumb stuff like buy only one pack of hot dogs (which you all know only happens once a year in hippie-land) and then am completely flummoxed when everyone wants to know where the other hot dogs are.

What others?

Who are you people?

And why do you keep asking me for food?

It’s a whole new ballgame. No more leftovers, EVER. We go through a box of cereal at breakfast and a loaf of bread at lunch. I’m adjusting, albeit slowly. But I’ll get the hang of it.

And then the boys will hit another growth spurt and the rest of us will have to subsist on what my man-locusts leave behind.

Once I actually pull together a semblance of a meal, there was the issue of where to eat. This is what our table looked like after we arrived home with Mira.

Oh, so beautifully full.

We are beyond blessed. But Andrew was sitting in a folding chair and poor Mira didn’t even have a spot to look forward to owning some day. We’ve managed to live with it because there were bigger fish to fry (of the 2 ton, diesel-engine variety), but I did occasionally check Craig’s List to see if there was a viable option out there.

And one day last week, there was. Behold, the new table of Vitafam.

See all 8 feet of those pretty, shiny, hefty boards? They used to be the stage at an old vaudeville theater downtown. The likes of Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, and Mae West performed on those boards. The history geek in me gets all tingly at the thought of it. And the secret theater buff side of me? Well, she’d get up on the table and tap dance if she could.

We had two benches made from boards out of a dressing room. With a bit of tweaking from Andrew, they slide right under the table.

I can even get five of my kids on one bench with room to spare.

And lest you worry, Mira still has the seat of honor, but there’s plenty of room for her when she’s ready.

By the way, those prints above her head are new and I love them. I got them from CollageORama off Etsy. They are printed on old pages from a dictionary.

I love how the food prints on book pages mirror the books and and food in the room. It’s all very tidy for me in my head now. And I think the dining room may become my new favorite room in the house…

Especially once I find my tap shoes.

Filed Under: Family Stories, Food
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The Problem With Homeschooling

May 3, 2011 by LoraLynn

The problem with homeschooling is that sometimes the kids mistake the HOUSE for the SCHOOL. They assume that any surface is theirs to learn on…

When I asked Ellen why she wrote her name on the toilet she replied:

Well, how else would I know which potty was mine?

Filed Under: Family Pictures, Homeschooling
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How To Sweep

November 2, 2010 by LoraLynn

My neighbors, who walk into my house regularly, know that my house is never neat and tidy. They seem to think I’m laid back because I appear oblivious to the piles, the dust bunnies, and the litter that fills my house. I’m not oblivious. But it just can’t always be first and foremost. So the bunnies and I have achieved a sort of detente.

But it does bother me. And there are times when I get in such a fury to just get the dad-burn floor swept that my eyes glaze over and I rage and fume at any stray body or sock in my way. Last night, the children were supposed to be cleaning up and, because we’ve been having some issues with motivation, I’d put some upbeat music on and told them they had exactly FOUR songs to finish picking up. While they picked up, I furiously swept around them, determined to have the house tidy by whatever time I’d decided in my head was THE time.

So the kids wandered in and out of rooms, scratching themselves and occasionally pawing at the clutter while I wielded my broom, sometimes like a witch and sometimes like it was supposed to be wielded. And Willa cried. I haven’t the faintest idea why. She just did. She stood at my feet and wailed. ”Up! Up!”

I’ll be honest and say that, as pitiful as she was, my first instinct was to scoot around her and keep sweeping. I wanted to set her aside with a firm “no” and teach her some patience. My eyes glanced around for the pack ‘n play to put her in, but then I remembered that I’d put it up just a few days before, certain we no longer needed it. She continued her wailing, Kenny Loggins was singing “Footloose” in the background, the boys were wrestling in the laundry and I’m surprised I heard anything in my head at that point, but I did. It was a tiny little voice. ”Relationship matters more than the floors.”

The broom clattered to the floor where I dropped it as I scooped my baby up and cuddled her close. She pinched my arm and sucked her fingers, resting her face against my chest. I sat on the couch and pointed out toys to the kids as they cleaned, but I kept my tone low and quiet. Willa patted me for awhile and then sat up and decided she’d like to chat. Once we’d chatted a bit, she scooted off my lap and I was free to resume my previous activities.

I reached for my broom.

The kids had just finished purging the floors of toys and I was prepared for a whirlwind sweep around the downstairs before the oven preheated for dinner. I rounded the corner and saw this at my front door.

Sam had dragged a blanket and pillow downstairs for Ellen and made her pallet right where I still needed to sweep. I looked down at the broom in my hands and then at the kid on my floor. I set aside my weapon and walked over to my girl. I bent down and administered kisses and a good tuck-in. Once I’d determined she was just possuming for sympathy from her brother, I got in one more cuddle and left her to her wily ways. When I rounded the corner into the dining room a few minutes later, broom in action, this is what I saw:

I never did get the front of the house swept last night. My floor never knew the difference. But I like to think my kids did.

Filed Under: Family Stories, This Is How We Do It
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Crafting Carnage

October 3, 2010 by LoraLynn

Last Friday, the kids were begging me to “do some painting.” I had something I needed to do in the kitchen, but I knew their crafting needs could not be denied. There were freshly mixed bags of HopeSuds on the kitchen table, so I could not supervise them inside. I grabbed some poster paint (you know, the kind with a sponge tip that they can just squeeze to get the paint out of) and some paper and sent them outside. This held their attention for awhile but, oddly enough, it was Willa who enjoyed it the most. Ask me how I know.

She’s only frowning because I was making her pose. She just wanted to be left alone with her masterpiece. The thing was, she kept coming in the kitchen to show me her work. And then she’d put her piece of paper on the floor (please note, there was wet paint on both sides of paper) and begin squirting more paint. I’d pick her up and move out of the kitchen and onto the porch. And she’d come right back in after a few more minutes of painting herself.

At some point she must have taken a lick of the paint because she was sporting a nice blue splotch on her face. And many other splotches on her clothes.

I let this go on as long as I could possibly stand it. (Also, I had my hands in a big batch of peanut butter balls and couldn’t properly deal with the situation until I was finished making a mess of my own.) By the time I got ready to clean her up (and by “clean up” I mean “wash her off in the fountain outside”), she’d smeared the blue paint all over her face.

Later in the weekend, I got to see several different friends who all had varying opinions about my attitude toward paint and crafting in general. Because, let’s be honest, the crafting gets out of control here. Sam takes it into his head to make something and the next thing I know, there’s 20 trees worth of paper strung out across two rooms and somebody has stuck packing tape to their body and/or the floor. There’s colored pencils in every chair in my living room, just waiting for an unsuspecting sitter. I find scissors and sticks and toilet paper in random places.

All of this used to freak me out. And I guess it still does. But I just haven’t got it in me to alleviate the mess every five minutes. And that’s how long it takes them to utterly destroy the downstairs. We usually pick up before nap time and then before bed time. That’s what I feel like I can reasonably supervise without developing a twitch.

One friend suggested only allowing them to cut paper over a plastic box designated to catch the trimmings. Or maybe to confine the crafting to just one rug. This is a possibility. Another suggestion was to just not allow them to move on to the next thing until they’ve picked up the current thing. I do think we need some training in this area. And, of course, Aubrey insisted I should just never allow them to paint. Ever.

So, give me some ideas, people. How do you deal with the crafting mess in your house? How do you control the flow of art supplies? How do you train kids to end one activity before starting another? (What I find is that the crafting inspiration usually leads to another inspiration which is how they start taping something in the playroom and an hour later they’ve oozed into the living room with colored pencils, glue, and scissors. Don’t want to stifle creativity. Don’t want to be picking glue out of my rugs for the next ten years.)

Tell me: How do YOU avoid Crafting Carnage?

Filed Under: Family Stories
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This Will Teach Me Not To Bother Organizing Stuff

September 12, 2010 by LoraLynn

So the first thing you need to know is that we organized the closets. Well, we re-organized them. The kids are responsible for putting away their own clothes in bins that we keep downstairs where they are easily accessible and easily supervised. Toward the end of every season, they get lazy in putting stuff in the right bin. I find Ellen’s underwear in Adam’s pants box and other randomness. So I went to Costco for some of my favorite shelves (on sale until the end of the month!) and put them to work.

Up until now, I haven’t been too concerned if the boys get their clothes mixed up. They’ve been pretty close to the same size, but the twins had a growth spurt and Adam, um, didn’t. So I assigned them each a box and divvied up everybody’s clothes, including the twins’. I knew that would get confusing for them, so I sold a kidney and ordered some pricey Mabel’s Labels to put on their tags. Until my order comes in, Ian has a gold safety pin in all of his clothes, Adam has a silver safety pin, and Sam has none.

On the morning of Ian’s MRI, he was cranky about the no food/no drink thing and he wasn’t looking forward to the IV. They gave him a patch to numb his arm, but it didn’t work because he screamed and cried when they poked him. The nurses were surprised, so I guess kids don’t normally react that way. Then I held him in my lap and his feet almost touched the floor. I threatened to still hold him that way even when he was 18. At that particular moment, I don’t think he minded too much.

The nurses came to get him and Andrew and I made ourselves comfortable in the waiting room. According to the nurse, they got him all set up on the table and he announced his decision not to go to sleep. He didn’t want to. They told him he didn’t have to but they were just going to put this little thing in his IV…

About twenty minutes after we sent Ian off for his test, the nurse came in with a puzzled look on her face. “He’s doing fine. He’s asleep. But, um, we had to stop and start over…”

She held out her hand.

“Everybody panicked a little when the pictures showed half his brain was black and fuzzy,” she reported.

Somebody thought to check his shirt where they located Ian’s gold safety pin. The entire medical team puzzled over that one for awhile until someone remembered, “He’s a twin!!”

Mystery solved.

The results of the MRI came back normal. Except for a massive sinus infection. That’s a pretty pricey diagnosis technique for a sinus infection, but in the grand scheme of things, we can handle that. EEG and appointment with the neurologist are tomorrow. There aren’t any magnets involved in this test, but you’d better believe I’ll be removing all safety pins from his clothing!

Filed Under: Family Stories
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Mysteries You’ve Never Wondered About

March 28, 2010 by LoraLynn

Interrupting our “serious” discussion of parenting resources to handle some more lighthearted questions from Elle.

Morning routine? Bedtime routines? – I admit, we’re not usually early risers around here. We taught the kids to stay in their rooms until we get them, so that gives us time to shower and get ready for the day. Because once we let them out of their cages beds, we hit the ground sprinting. Andrew works from home most days, so he gets to stick around for breakfast. We try to get a few chapters in of our Bible reading and then he heads to work and the kids run off to do their chores. I clutch my coffee and try to keep a rein on the chaos.

Bedtime is pretty low-key. The boys dress themselves (can I get an Halleujah!) so we each take a girl, pj her (uh-huh, it’s a verb), and head upstairs. Usually, I put the girls to bed with prayers and songs while Andrew reads to the boys and prays with them. Then I collapse in my chair with chocolate and laptop.

How do you pack for such a crew when traveling? -I’m pretty sure I stress people out when they ask me if I’m packed for trips. Because the answer is always NO. I don’t believe in early packing. It’s pointless. I only pack something if it’s a must-have item in our lives, but if it’s a must-have item, I’m probably using it up until the day we leave. I do make a list if we’re taking a big trip (i.e. 24 hours or more) so that I don’t forget any must-haves. All the kids have their own bag, so when we’re done, there’s at least seven bags.

My least favorite part? Packing up vitamins and any medicines we might want in case someone gets sick. This involves trying to predict what disease or plague we will succumb to while on the road and then how many vials or pills we need to treat said illness. This makes me crazy.

What possesses you ever, ever, ever to do any crafts at all? - Guilt. Plain and simple. And now would be a good time to admit how behind I am on celebrating the holidays. My kids wanted to know why the neighbor had plastic eggs in her tree and I had to confess that Easter is in one week and there’s nary an egg or bunny in sight. In my defense, I really, really hate crafts.

What is your dream family vacation? - Right now, our dream would be to take the three older boys with us when we go to Africa to get our new baby. (The girls are too young to remember such a trip.) Finances won’t allow, but we fully expect and plan to scrimp and save to take the whole family to Uganda some day. Probably means we won’t get to go to Disney World, which would also be fun, but I think Africa carries much more importance for our family. We LOVED traveling with the twins last year, so we hope to one day be able to do that more with all of the kids once they don’t require us for all their toilet needs.

How do you keep up with clothes organization, the growing in, growing out stuff? - This question makes me hyperventilate. There’s a very loose system of plastic boxes in place right now. I can’t talk about it or I’d break out into hives. But thanks to consignment sales, neighbor hand-me-downs, and stuff I’ve saved, we’re covered for the next season. Glory Be!

Now, I need you people to tell me things. Dream vacation? A perfect clothes organization system? Or maybe you’d like to explain why exactly a person WOULD do crafts? Talk to me…

Filed Under: Adoption, Family Stories, This Is How We Do It
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The Mystery Breakfast Adventure

This Is Me, Savoring…

Color-Coded Kids

A Ramble And A Road Trip

Supersized

The Problem With Homeschooling

How To Sweep

Crafting Carnage

This Will Teach Me Not To Bother Organizing Stuff

Mysteries You’ve Never Wondered About

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