Tuesday (and some photos from Monday)

Jared puts up the winter plates

Mike and the Children's caching expedition on Monday night....

YES, IT IS BESIDE THE FWY....leading me to think we must be the one family in America that really DOES send their children to play on the fwy.... ::snort::

This cache was in the midst of a huge cactus field....I MUST remember hiking boots and LONG pants for all caching outings in TX. LOL

Tuesday was Mike's last day off...though he went in for a bit for something or other. He came home when I was getting Stacia down for a nap and he found this incredibly funny. I fell asleep - but woke with the flash.

Josiah was back at work. I continued to work on little projects around here, and I went to Curves. I also had lots of co-op calls - Wed is order day.

We're starting to plan for our family birthday bash. This is not the big party we want to have. I'm still working on that...mainly choosing the right night and making sure all want to do it. LOL The outside party would be for friends to come enjoy - but no presents. This one is our family party....and so I need to go shopping. We had the boys give us their lists. I know that some think lists of Christmas or birthday wishes are "greedy" - but we grew up doing this. It's not a greed factor as much as allowing each child to dream. They know we may buy something that isn't on their list (like an ipod at Christmas) and they know they won't get all the things on their lists....but it makes shopping for and with this many people much easier. I have the lists from 3 of the boys....we have 5 boys, Mike and I to shop for. ::snort:: I tend to think the list doesn't make them greedy, it would be either over-buying or a hear attitude anyway and not much to do with numbers or dreams. LOL

This is not the big party we are planning to have. The Big Bash will be for 7 birthdays and a welcome home/introduce Mike party. That one will be for friends and I will rent out a place here called *The Rink*. We'll have the whole place for two hours, they'll do skating and golf....they are still getting back to me on the price if we have more show up than the 75 they plan. It's hard to say. It has to be a Monday or Tuesday night - not the night we wanted....we'd invite families so we COULD get that many people...but maybe not. We like to have big parties for families like this. In MT we use to rent out a pool and invite all our friends for those 2 hours....Here, we've rented a paint ball course a couple of times...just good family fun. There won't be presents at this one. We are considering a couple of local charities that we'll request folks bring donations for instead. We're all very excited about this. It allows us to have the big celebrations (like I'm used to from the Philippines) but totally removes the "gift thing" that is so different in the Philippines.

Easter/Passover has snuck (humph! The spell checker tells me that snuck is not a word - WHAT would you use sneaked, snucken....has arrived unexpectedly...::snort::) up on me this year. We did not take these camping...so we are doing two eggs a night. We used these years ago with the older children, but haven't used them for about 6 years. They are NEW to the littles. This is proving to be a fun family circle time. We love the Jotham Advent readings...and these are always fun....I need to find or create more like this.

Mike wanted a haircut. I do NOT give him haircuts but he has taken to giving HIMSELF military buzz's while overseas....I figured if he could do it on himself, I could probably figure it out. At one point, while "tapering", I got so dizzy I had to sit down...maybe I was stressing about it. Of course he made tons of wise cracks about my eyesight and needing my magnifying glasses to do close work. ::snort::