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Well, as some may know and others may not, Bruce is gone... only to Texas and only for 4-6 months... It sounds really bad I know, but he has the chance to make some really good money and it will let us get a house almost paid for by this next summer, so we decided it was worth it... Anyway, with him gone, the kids have all been pitching in and being really great... and doing some really funny things...

This is Shyla doing the dishes... Nate and I went to Lowe' Saturday morning to get a couple things, and they had a workshop for kids letting them build pirate ships... well needless to say, we just had to participate... anyway, Nate came home with a little Lowe's work apron, these little goggles, and a pretty cool little boat. So, later in the day, Shy is doing dishes, and I look over and she has these goggles on... I started laughing and asked her what she was doing.. trying to protect her eyes from any stray soap bubbles?!! and she starts laughing and says, well ya that and I think these make me look really cool and these are what all the smart people are wearing! Of course at that we all started laughing!! I think I am slightly demented because I have so many kids, but they definitely are good for a laugh.. more often than not... !

This is Sarah, with her indian feather... In our house, we have a big open attic-bedroom upstairs, and then on the main floor of the house are two regular size bedrooms... well, for as long as we have been here, Austin, Jess, and Shy have been upstairs in the big room, and then Nate and Raych have been in one room and Bruce, Sarah, and I have been in the other. Well, we where starting to have problems with the big three being up their together and stuff getting mixed up and with Austin being 11 now, we decided that he was probably too old to be sharing a room with his 14 and 15 year-old sisters.... so we decided to shake things up a bit... we moved Jess and Shy in with Raychelle in the one room on the main floor, and moved Nate and Austin in with Sarah in the other bedroom. This left the upstairs for Bruce and I... I lovingly named it a honeymoon suite, but with Bruce leaving town.. it became a honey-less suite... so I had to rename it.. I decided it would be the perfect place to put my craft and sewing stuff, so that I could get it out and do it and leave it out in between... so now my room has been nicknamed a craft and sewing retreat. The funny part is that this picture resulted from the kids watching me move all my craft stuff upstairs and declaring "wow mom! you have really fun toys!" and of course when this little package of feathers dropped on the floor, they each just had to have one! Sarah loved having the feather behind her ear and tilting her head back and forth while she watched herself in the mirror. I was also declared "super strong" when the kids saw me moving this big chair up the stairs to my new pad.... of course when Jess got home and saw my layout up there, with a comfy chair and everything, she declared it a cool fort and thinks I should hang a sign on the door "No Boys Allowed!" of course after Nate and Raychelle went up there this afternoon while I was on the phone, I think I am going to put a sign up saying "Nobody Under 10 Allowed! "

This is Raychelle licking her new found candy... actually there where alot of fun new treasures for the 3 little one's to find..., When we where trading rooms, I moved all my stuff out of my room and into the living room so that my old room would be clear to move stuff into and then when the upstairs was empty, I figured I would move my stuff up there... well, the day wore on and it got later and later, and then it was 8:45 and the kids still didn't have all their junk out of the room... they would go up and pick through the stuff on the floor or pick up a couple things and take them to their new room and put it away or go through it... it was just not happening fast enough. So at 8:45, I warned them that the room became mine at 9 o'clock and whatever was not out of my room was going down the stairs... by itself! I'm not sure if they believed me initially or not, but at 9, I went down and got a broom and started sweeping, from one end of the room towards the stairs. The floor up there is all wood flooring, so I just started shoving it all to the other end with the broom.... it was hilarious, and the kids got alot more energetic about getting their stuff out of the way... especially the things they didn't want tossed down the stairs! By the time it was all done and said, there was a pretty good size pile at the bottom of the stairs, but my room was clean! Of course my next demand was to clean up the pile of junk at the bottom of the stairs or I was gonna start walking on it in my attempts to get my stuff up the stairs... for some reason, they actually believed me and got right on it... hee hee hee... Anyway, while the big 3 where trying to pick all their stuff up off the floor, the little 3 where going through it too... and this candy is one of the things Raychelle found first!
As interesting and difficult as it will be without Bruce here, we will get to go see him, and I think in the long run, it will all be worth it. I'm really lucky to have such good kids and especially bigger kids that are so willing to help. I'm not sure if I could make it through all this without them!