Enjoying time with family

We made it Saturday night to Illinois and are having a wonderful time with family. Here are some pictures to prove it! I'm also going to have the extra weight to prove the great eating that goes on here. Tonight we had a fish fry with a great aunt and uncle. Wow... it was SO yummy! Maybe all the fresh fruits and veggies I'm eating from their gardens is counter acting the fried foods and homemade desserts but I highly doubt it!

St. Louis

Last night we went to the Arch and everyone enjoyed it. Even though our oldest child one of our children was extremely nervous. The rest didn't know any better ; ) Micah did say to Clayton on the way up "Man Dian, Man Dian" which means slow in Mandarin.

Yesterday we got to St. Louis and after checking out our campground in Urban St. Louis with no grass to speak of we decided to go ahead and do some sightseeing. After today, Friday, at Forest Park I am very glad we did. We wanted to see the Turtle Park, Zoo, and Science Center but due to the fact that we bring along 6 kids and it was 97 degrees we only made it to the first 2 things. We did, however, have a very fun afternoon and evening swimming and eating dinner at the pool. Since there is no room to eat outside at the campground. ;) I guess they figure people are out and about all day and don't need much space at the campground. It should be noted that we are the only people with kids staying here.

Tomorrow we go to my Aunt's house after stopping by the Lincoln museum in Springfield so wide open spaces are in our near future kids!

Here are pictures of the Turtle Park and Zoo.

 This was the craziest thing. We had just had icees so the sugar was high on Josh's face. We all turn around and this butterfly had landed on his lip. He was just standing there perfectly still grinning. It stayed there for quite some time and after it had it's fill of red dye sugar it left.

Miscellaneous pictures

Due to the extreme chaos at our house the ol' blog has suffered from neglect the past few months. Here are some pictures that help get me caught up. Yes, this is the sanity maker. The beloved play pen! Had to take a picture with someone in there with him to curb the guilt ;) BUT I will tell ya it has worked like a charm. The dude is starting to actually play with HIS toys... not mine, or daddy's, or anything else he can meddle with but HIS!!

 The kittens with Isaac... they are well loved.

 Our good friends are adopting 2 little girls so we had a shower for them. It was SO fun to see the girls with their new family!

Great, great news!

Our friend, Yi, that lives with us became a Christian on Sunday. To say that we are beyond excited is an understatement. It's been so fun thus far to see how God is working in her life. Can't wait to watch her grow as a sister in Christ and study the Bible together. We already found a great site and ordered some studies in Chinese and English.

We are out of town for a week and Yi is going to help some new Chinese students get settled at UGA.

We are headed to Illinois to visit my aunt, cousins, and grandma this week. Only 6 more hours to go till we get to St. Louis! We spent one night in Chattanooga and went to the Lost Sea Cave. The kids enjoyed it!

We'll spend a day and 2 nights in St. Louis. We are camping along the way. Then we'll stay 4 days in Illinois visiting with family.

Joshua got a good report from the dr. this week with his ear. Everything looked good that the dr. could see. The section he was concerned about still had packing over it so we are putting more drops in his ear until we go back in a month to check it under the microscope. SO happy he is able to run, jump, play rough, and swim now though. Makes for a new child!!

If I can remember to take pictures I'll post some of our trip soon!

Finally...

My sanity has arrived.

The play yard for Micah came in the mail on Thursday and it's working. Not only is it offering me some much needed sanity it is helping him to learn to play with toys. He now will play with the toys that he has inside the playpen outside of the playpen and not meddle into everything.

I have set up 5 containers of different types of toys for him to play with and just switch them out periodically.

So in light of some sanity returning to me I stayed up really late with the help of my awesome hubby and started setting up the kids' history and science notebooks. We are using My Father's World Year 4 this year and everyone will be doing history together. Grace will do a seperate science. My Father's World offers lesson plans for Saxon and Singapore math so that helps a ton too!

Finally starting to get the knot out of my stomach when I think about school next year. With God all things are possible right?!!

Happy 4th of July

Some pictures of the kids swimming and Joshua shooting them from the side lines. He's not allowed to get his ear wet for a month either...

Here are our new little kittens sleeping on Isaac's lap yesterday.

Since we needed to lay low for the 4th for Joshua my parents bought some fireworks and we had a great time. As you can see we are one kid short. Little M was tired from swimming and we wanted to focus on the other kids so he went to bed. Next year he'll have to get in on the festivities (or maybe tonight with the extras we have!) We'll wait and see.

It turned out to be a fun night! Thanks mom and dad!