I am still here!

Wow! It has been a long time since I have posted a regular post here. The summer brought about a great deal of activity and kept us pretty busy.

The activity started in May. The Children's Pastor from our church was co-writer/ co-director of a movie that will probably come out next year. It was filmed in Kentucky and my kids had a chance to participate.

First, our six youngest and I were extras in a wedding scene. We had to wake up really early and drive about an hour away to get to the filming location. It was an incredibly long day. Being an extra calls for sitting around  for a lot of hours and having a great deal of patience. Our son Josh was an intern on the set, so it gave him wonderful experience for his future. Josh is going to school studying Media Communications and plans to make movies. Josh's fiance, Jillian, joined us that day and sure made they day a whole lot more fun!

The following week we spent three days at a school so the kids could be extras in scenes there.They were long days, but the kids enjoyed having their chance of being in a movie. I think it can be more tiring just sitting around not doing much than actually spending you time doing something.

This is a Christian Movie and I really believe that it is really going to be awesome! I cannot wait until it comes out. My children will probably been seen a little bit. Micah was in a classroom scene and I think that there will be a shot of him sitting at a desk.  He and the rest of the kids also participated in hallway scenes and on the playground. It will be fun to see if we will see them.

June rolled around and that started Musical rehearsals at our Church. This was the sixth Summer our kids spent a great deal of their summer doing a  musical. Our Children's pastor was responsible for this as well. He wrote the script with his sister. Each year the musical is about a character from the Bible.

Micah is a tourist in this scene. He is the one with the blue visor.

Here is Micah in the basic costume, singing and dancing.

This is the only picture I have of Anna right now. She took this with her ipod. I hope that someone else has pictures of here that they can share with me.

Each year the musicals have grown and grown and so many kids have become involved that they had to make two musicals. One for the older kids (7th -12th grade) and one for the younger kids ( K-6th grade). This year was Ruth for the younger kids and Rahab for the older kids. This year brought on a new adventure because so many kids were participating. They divided the older kids into two different casts! It turned out well because it allowed so many more kids to get parts.

Since I had 2 kids in Ruth and 3 in Rahab, this required a lot of back and forth to our church which happens to be about a 45 minute drive. Yes, it was crazy, but it was worth it in the long run.  The performances started about mid August. Ruth gave two performances and each Rahab cast gave 2 performances. We had to be at every performance since Tori had to sing in both casts and Matthew helped with the Lights during the other cast's performances.

Matthew and Samuel are in the Roman Guard Costumes. They are characters named Diamedes and Ulysses.

Matthew by his "drum". This year they did a really cool stomp routine using buckets, trash cans and some other things! It was really cool! They did an amazing job!

Tori's character was a set builder. She's too pretty to be a guy, don't you think?

Here is Tori with some of her good friends.

Samuel with our Children's Pastor.

I must share that these are not just any ole church plays. There is tremendous quality associated with them. From the writing, acting, to the singing, to the choreography, to set design. Everything is truly amazing!.

On a somewhat sad note, our Children's Pastor has since resigned to take a job to make more Christian movies full time! He is such a talented man and I pray that God will use him mightily for His Kingdom! We are going to miss him terribly but at the same time, we are excited to see what God is going to do through him.

In July, we did mange to sneak in a visit to visit my mom and extended family in Virginia. It was so great to spend time with family and I wish we could visit there more often.

The public schools in our area started in mid August. We did not end up starting until the day after labor day. We had spent so many evenings at church for dress rehearsals and performances that it just made more sense to wait. We are finally falling back into  the groove of things. It kind of feels good to be back into a regular routine, but Summer is always welcome back any time!


Well, that is all for now. I hope to be back real soon with more!

Have an Awesome Monday!

 

Show Us Your Life: Mom Of Boys

Mother Karen has seven sons, seven sons has Mother Karen...

Welcome to you who are visiting from Kelly's Korner!  I am Karen and I am mom to 10 living children total! Seven which happen to be boys!

Today Kelly is having a link up on Mom's of Boys. I think I qualify since I have seven! I just happen to have three girls as well!

Let me introduce you to my sons.

Jeremy is our oldest at 25

Jeremy recently visiting with my Mom

Tim is second at 23. He has been married to Naomi since January 2010.

Tim and Naomi

Josh comes in 3rd at 20. He just recently got engaged to Jillian. A June 2013 Wedding is planned.

Josh and Jillian on Easter 2012

So you can see, my three oldest are boys! Next came two girls. Rebekah and Victoria.

Matthew is next in line at 14.

Matthew on Easter 2012

Up next is Samuel at 12.

Samuel on Easter 2012

After Samuel we had a little break from boys and had another girl, Anna.

Then came Luke who is now 8.

Luke on Easter 2012

And Coming in last, but most definitely not least is Micah at age 6!

Micah on Easter 2012

Being a mom to boys can be challenging, but it is also a joy! It is fun to see life from their perspective. It is also so sweet how much they love their Mom! I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world!

 

Our Trip to the Creation Museum ~ October 2011

I have missed blogging through the past several months. I had pictures ready and waiting to be posted to a blog post, so now I am trying to catch up. So here is the first post playing catch up!

In October I took several of the children to the Creation Museum. It was a beautiful, warm, Fall day.

We tried to make the most out of our trip and see as much as we could.We walked through the whole museum and saw most of the movies and visited the planetarium. We enjoyed walking through the beautiful gardens and the petting zoo. We were quite tired when we were finished.

This first picture is of Samuel, standing in front of Adam in the Garden, with some animals.

Samuel

 

I believe that the dinosaur display was a favorite of most of the boys.

These silly boys decided they had to have a break while walking through the museum.

Samuel, Matthew and Luke

We stopped for a lunch break at the Noah's Cafe.

Micah, Matthew, Luke, Anna, Rebekah, and Samuel

I love the beautiful Fall Colors. We walked around for quite a long time.

We saw this pretty little guy on our walk to the petting zoo.

The four youngest enjoyed the petting zoo quite a bit. This guy was very eager to be fed!

I thought this guy was quite pretty.

Micah was trying to feed this guy but he was a little intimidated by him!

Micah

This is a Zedonk.

This is a Zorse.

Meet Gomer. The kids enjoyed having a ride on him!.

Anna and Gomer

Luke and Gomer

Micah and Gomer

Samuel and Gomer

While walking through the Gardens we encountered this bridge. The kids had a lot of fun going back and forth. I personally was glad to get off!

Luke and Anna

Micah, Luke and Matthew

Luke, Micah and Samuel

After walking around for quite some time in the warm weather, we found this gazebo and enjoyed the shade as well as the fish we were able to feed.

Micah and Luke

Micah

I pretty much had to pry Luke and Micah away from the Fish!

And this is as we were leaving and were pretty worn out!

Samuel, Micah, Rebekah, Luke, Matthew and Anna

We had a wonderful day at the Creation Museum! Now I would love to see the Spring foliage.I know it must be beautiful!

 

Birthdays, Birthdays, And More Birthdays!

I am so far behind on posting about the Birthdays around here. So, I decided to put them all together in one big post.

We could pretty much have a birthday a month around here except for, four of my boys were all born in November. Faith's actual due date was in November also.

 I still have a cake for each birthday, but it is getting to be a bit much.  I have usually let each child pick out their own cake from a bakery like Walmart, but the older they get, the more they want me to bake something special.

I will start with Jeremy. His birthday is in August, but we did not get to celebrate then.  We were actually traveling to Virginia for my sister-in-law's funeral on his birthday. I told him we would make up for it sometime. Well, it took longer than expected because, between his schedule and mine, it was hard to coordinate. I finally said let's do this! I found an evening he did not have to work and planned to have his Birthday dinner and a cake. It just happened to be early November!

Jeremy requested Lasagna for dinner and a Blueberry Pound cake for his cake. I haven't made homemade lasagna for many years until we were visiting my Mom in September. My two oldest son's were not there, so they wanted me to make it again.

So, the day arrived and I worked on making the cake and making lasagna. I had the children help me clean up so we could celebrate that evening. Well, when Jeremy came home from work , he was feeling pretty sick, so he went straight to bed. When it was time for dinner, he came up and laid on the couch. He was shivering and he had a fever. He could not eat anything, he felt so bad.  So we had Jeremy's dinner and cake without him. It was a few more days before he could eat, so we saved some cake for him. I felt so bad for him!



Jeremy's Blueberry Pound cake

 Here is a picture of Jeremy from his Birthday last year. I believe this is the most recent picture I have of him.

  September:

Anna's 9th Birthday




 October:



Luke's 7th Birthday






Here are our November Birthdays:



Matthew's 13th Birthday

Timothy's 22nd Birthday (Banana Cake)

Sammy's 11th Birthday (Chocolate Mint Layer Cake)

Josh's 19th Birthday (Better Than Anything Cake)

We are done with all the Birthdays for the year except the most important one, Jesus!

JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

 

Birthday Season

Life is definitely starting to get a bit more busy around here. With the Holidays approaching and a Wedding in early January, I am starting to feel a bit stressed. Also while trying to prepare for all of that, we have several birthdays to celebrate. I need to start making a list of all the things I need to accomplish, so that  I can keep track of what I am doing. I would like to do all of this with great joy, but right now I am feeling stressed!  I really need to get better organized.

Birthday Season is in full swing here at our house!  November is a big month here! Four of my boys have November Birthdays and Faith also had a November due date.

We probably should just have one great big birthday party in November, but it is so hard to do, since all of the other children have their own Birthday Month. They all get their own cake. I have usually let each child pick out a cake from Walmart or Sam's Club. As they get older many of them have decided that they would rather have me bake the cake.

Matthew starts off the birthdays for November. Matthew is now 12! Wow! That is really hard for me to believe.One more year and we will have another teenager around here!

Matthew is one our Artsy children. He has always enjoyed drawing and also making crafts. He is the kind of kid that you need to save paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls for his many creations. He has recently become interested in making Videos.  He uses his younger brothers and sisters as his actors. They are so cute and imaginative! He has also made neat videos featuring each of the children. He picks out some great pictures of the kids and adds music to them,  He also adds credits at the end. It is really cute!

Next up is Timothy. Tim is now 21!  Tim is the one who I have shared before, was healed from Leukemia. God has truly touched his life and I look forward to all that is in store for Tim.

Tim is getting married at the beginning of January. He is the first of my children to get married! Naomi is his Fiance, and we are thrilled to be adding her to our family!

Tim is in his second year at Eastern Kentucky University. He also works a full time schedule at DQ. He is a really busy person right now. Naomi is graduating from Eastern in December. She is hoping to get a job after that and help Tim get through school.

This is Banana Cake that Tim requested. Not very pretty, but very Yummy!  Don't they make a beautiful couple?

Did you notice that we used the same candles for Matthew and Tim? We just reversed them! That doesn't happen very often.

Please pray that I can prioritize and get organized. I really want to enjoy these next several weeks. I do not want to be stressed, but be filled with Joy!

The LORD is my strength and my shield; 

my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. 

My heart leaps for joy

and I will give thanks to him in song.

                                         Psalm 28:7