November 8-14

Monday/Tuesday
Poor Dode, he had the day off, but he (and Isaac and Joel for part of the time) spent the entire day and evening Monday working on the mini van.  There was lots of time spent trouble shooting and finally an answer to what was wrong, an out of time timing belt.  Our car has a nice oil leak so everything is absolutely covered in oil.  Dode looks like he's wearing a pair of black leather gloves each time he comes in.  There isn't a speck of skin on his hands that's clean.  I watched Seth and Ellie for Sheri so she could get some painting done without the assistance of two little helpers.   I'm getting pretty accustomed to having eight kids running around.  Maybe having more wouldn't be so hard...

Tuesday was a repeat of Monday.  I watched Seth and Ellie and Dode worked on the van after work.

Wednesday
Hooray!  The car is done.  Dode spent yet another evening out in the cold under the car and it's now done.  And as a bonus, I now have power steering again.  (The power steering pump gave up years ago but it's down so far inside the hood that it's really hard to get to.  The timing belt was right beside it.)  Now I'll have to find a new way to tone my arms since I won't be manhandling my van around anymore.

William lost his first tooth today!  Following in the tradition of his siblings, he swallowed it before he realized what had happened!  What a fun milestone.  Miriam is really mad and is tugging at her teeth like crazy to get one to fall out.  I told her it would happen eventually.  William informed her that he lost his tooth because he's grown up and she is not.

(Yes, there's a gap for two teeth.  He knocked one out when he was a baby.  This was the first one to volunteer to come out.)

Thursday 
Another day of Dickson day care.  It was Veteran's Day so Randy and Lisa came down to work on Sharon and Lynn's house and I took care of the children.  Seth and Ellie came to join in the fun.  The cousins had lots of fun playing together, baking, watching Toy Story 3, hot tubbing, and trashing the house.  In my spare moments, I worked on the produce order and turned a case of apples into apple sauce.  Ginger Gold apples make THE BEST applesauce.  I don't know if you can associate the word "rich" with applesauce but those apples made a rich tasty sauce.

Seth pouting over being told, "No, you cannot rip up Miriam's drawing"

He probably stayed under that table for 30 minutes

(surrounded by the evidence)

Jenna and Elizabeth worked together to bake a cake

A photo of Seth smiling?  Priceless!

Savannah loves bouncing around on Miriam's horse

Since it was Veteran's Day and Dode works for a government, he got the day off.  Hooray!  While I was inside doing my best to keep up on the dirty diapers (6 total) and keep everyone fed and happy, Dode was out in the rain working on projects.  He doesn't help with the front line work of the co-op, but he's a great behind the scenes worker.  After seeing the ladies struggling in the dark last time,  he decided that they needed  more light.  We now have two bright lights shining down on the staging area.  He's going to add one more light on the barn.  He also fixed, reassembled and secured the portable garage to the ground.  Hopefully it will stand up to the wind better.

Not fancy, but we can't believe how light it is outside with two of these on

Friday

It's a small world after all...

Friday, Elizabeth had a speech therapy evaluation.  (She qualifies.)  16 years ago when I was going to college up in Bellingham (an hour away), I had speech therapy to correct some mis-articulations.  At the age of 22, I was finally able to say my name correctly.  (I used to say "th" for "s")  I used the speech pathology department which used student interns to give the therapy.  Well, the very same student who taught me speak correctly was the one who evaluated Elizabeth.  Once we realized our connection, I sure becamee conscious of how I was speaking.  I couldn't say anything without thinking it through first and felt my jam go all tight!  What are the odds?

"Not tired at the right time"
The other night, Miriam was still going strong at 10:00 pm and I told her she needed to get to sleep because she had school the next day.  She told me, "I try but I'm just not tired at the right time.  I try to keep my eyes closed but they just won't stay that way"  Was she ever correct!  She's up late but has no interest in getting up for school.   And, she's not our only child with that problem.   That same night, my sleep was disturbed by Isaac rambling around the house.  He'd been reading late into the night and was getting a drink.  (It's hard to believe this was a child I despaired of ever learning to read.)  Jacob is another nocturnal child who happily stays up until 3:00 am and thinks he'll be able to get up for seminary at 5:30 am.  He can't.

Never Enough!

When I think back to how much experience I had with children when I became a mother (not much), I'm amazed at how much I enjoy having a house full of children.  Saturday we had the following friends over:   Isaac Colson, Douglas Colburn, Nathan Colburn, Colleen Colburn.  10 kids total!  Then, Jacob's friend Shamois came over as well.  He's the only one left at home after his two brothers grew up.  He was a bit goggle eyed at all the energy in the house.  There were kids everywhere and I thought to myself, "I need to get Seth and Ellie over here too."  I absolutely love having kids around and over.  That's one reason I keep Dode busy adding fun things to our house.  I want our house to be THE place to play. 

William is making progress in school!!!
William's parent/teacher conference was last week and his teacher was so excited that she's found something that helps with his learning.  You might have heard about the different types of intelligences (visual, spatial, etc).  Well, William has finally been able to learn a few of his colors, a few letters of the alphabet, and some numbers by learning modified sign language.  When the teacher makes the sign for orange (it looks like squeezing an orange in your hand) and points at something orange, William can say, "orange".  She's working to do as much as instruction as possible in her room using visual cues.  He's in a small classroom of eight students with two para-educators and a certified teacher so they're really able to tailor the instruction to the students.  His siblings are excited about his progress and enjoy drilling him at home.  Three years of specialized one on one instruction from highly educated professionals and he now knows a couple of letters and colors.  It does not sound like much progress but everyone is celebrating ... parents, siblings (even the teenagers are impressed), all of his teachers all the way up to the Principal.  We could not walk into the school without one of the employees asking if we had heard the good news that William had learned two colors.  The Principal said it gave her goose bumps.  Having William in our lives helps us all remember that what may seem like a little thing can actually be a huge accomplishment.