Caching

Recent caching pictures. A beautiful spot to hide a cache.













A little paradise, so close to the highway.

Winter!

First real snow of this winter, very late in December. Not a big storm, but at least some more significant accumulation than the earlier ones.

First thing in the morning, two little ones, ready go out:



Cees was thrilled to find out he could help shovel before going off to his McDonalds job.



Kate and Sylvia had fun playing in the snow.



When Erik got up, he decided to first spend time on the heater vent before finally heading out too. There is something nice about the heater vent when it's a cold and dreary day.



Tara went sledding



But one time, the sled went faster than she did ^^



I loved the colors of the evergreen trees in the afternoon sunlight





Winter is here to stay!

Love is ...

Having lots of fun with your friends:









Happy Love Thurday for friends love.

Quote of the Day

Kate:

'Dah dah dahdah!
There comes the bride, all dressed in purple.'

I guess you have to adjust the music if you don't have a white gown for your playmobil princess ^^

Quote of the Day

Sylvia: 'Mama! Pull up my pants for me!'

Quote of the Day

Kate: 'Pretend, that he was thrown in the dungeon for breaking down the drawbridge. But they let him live. '
She is so merciful.



Erik 'Get me the cannon balls!'
'We don't have a cannon ball person. '

Yes, the kids are having fun playing with their christmas presents.

Note of the Day

We live in a small neighborhood with a church nearby. Last week, we got a letter from the church, telling us that they wanted to do something neighborly, and were going to bring hot chocolate to the houses in the neighborhood. Very nice of them, and very exciting for my kids. The letter mentioned 'We will have enough for your children, if you have any'. Some of my kids, being the worriers they are, started wondering what would happen if they found out that we had seven kids. Would they still have enough? I told them it was fine, the neighborhood kids population just averages out, some have no kids, some have seven.

Before they showed up, still found this note on my front door:



Some close ups:







Jane wanted to make sure that there would be enough hot chocholate for everyone ^^. That night, they showed up, and everything worked out just fine. I wasn't home (aikido) but hubby and the kids all got a nice cup of chocolate milk AND marshmallows.

Lovely initiative from the church.

Solstice Pictures

We have always enjoyed celebrating the solstice. The days are so short right now, that it comes as a relief that they finally will start getting longer again.



Our celebration always include a fire, and of course, lots of fun food.





No solstice would be complete without marshmallows and s'mores.





We baked potatoes in the fire, but will skip pictures of that, they are not terribly exciting.





A good time was had by all, and from now on every single day will be a few minutes longer.







Sparklers are such fun!

Basement Bliss

See what showed up in our basement!







Since we can't use our outdoors hammock in the winter, figured some indoor ones would be nice ^^

Isn't It a Beauty????

Showing off my new stove. When we moved into our house, eight years ago, the old one was old already. It was still mostly working fine though, so no reason to replace it with something more modern. Over the years, more and more things stopped working. First the clock, then the timer. Later burner after burner bit the dust. But the final blow was the oven. I mean, I could live with two working burners. But not without an oven.

So I got myself (and seven kids) to Sears and got this beauty:



I love the flat top. So much easier to clean. One ofthe first things we made on it, were pancakes:



Here the kids are enjoying the pancakes and you can see freshly baked bread. It is soooooooooooo nice to be able to bake again. Supermarket bread just isn't the same.



It even has a working oven light AND a window that's not totally clogged up with grease yet. Amazing.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Too late to write a long post, so just sharing some pictures.

















So how are YOUR christmas preparations coming along?

Are You Enjoying Your McDonalds Experience?

Last weekend, we decided to visit Cees at his place of employment.



Everyone was uber excited to see him.



We took delight in eating the wonderful food.







It was a pleasure to have someone there to check on us and make sure we were enjoying our McDonalds experience.



We sure were!