Well, after waiting for 10 months~ it finally rained! I awoke sometime in the middle of the night to the sound of large raindrops on the metal shed in our backyard. (yes- its still warm enough to sleep with our windows open!) The first thing the children wanted to do this morning was go and play outside.  So after gearing up with rain coats and boots off they went to explore the HUGE rain puddle or more like small pond in the field. There were even two ducks that thought they had just found a perfect new home- until the children showed up. The girls were quick to decide it was to cold, wet and dirty to stay around and Josh agreed.  They headed back to the house for hot apple cider.  But for Ben and Michael the fun was about to begin.  As they stomped and splashed and ran through the mud, having the time of their lives, the rest of us watched from the window. A new rain cloud was dumping more water on our parched land.  I’m not sure if they got hot or if their clothes were to restrictive for the fun they were having, but they were soon stripped down to just jeans and rain boots. It was so much fun for me to see them stomp and splash and be 100% boy this morning.  Thank you God for sending us the rain!!!

~sorry for the bad pic quality.  I dropped and broke my good camera so I grabbed an old one to try and capture the fun.  It didn’t really do justice- but at least I got it on film!

Ben and Michael in the mud pit! 

Lots of muddy fun!  

Baby Gabe- 6 weeks

All 6 of them…

Ben and Gabe

Maryann and baby Gabe

Joshua and Gabe

Michael and Gabe

Laura and Gabe

I was sitting on the couch a few days ago talking with Eric.  The children were all off playing and we were enjoying a few minutes of each other. All of a sudden, my “Mommy Radar” started beeping.  I hear Joshua, (3) saying to Maryann(2) ” Do you want more skunk stripes?”  I leap or more like fly off the couch since I can’t see what it is to be skunk stripped, and find Joshua with a set of paints “painting” or like he described it “Skunk Stripping” Maryann. She is happily standing there with her arms out in front of her as he adds some finishing touches on his masterpiece.  She is now covered with blue and green (last time I checked our skunks were still black and white, but I guess white probley did not show up very well, hence the need to change to a new color!) paint up both arms and half of her face.  I immediately ordered both of them to the kitchen, in which Joshua hung his head knowing he should not have painted his sister. I grabbed the camera and met them in the kitchen and by then both Eric and I were laughing so hard, we couldn’t even talk.  Joshua quickly realized that his art was being throughly enjoyed by all now that the whole family had gathered to see what was going on.  He was very proud to pose for some paparazzi with his Skunk Stripped Sister.

My little Artist

Me and my best friend!

Well, here is my first ever blog!! Today was our first day back to school after taking a few weeks off after our new little guy arrived. I have to admit, there are many things that I can think of to do rather than school. Like sit and love on my little baby or take the children to the park. We had collected leaves yesterday that were fallen from a maple and were beautiful colors. So today for an art project we stuck them between wax paper and now my windows are beautifully decorated with leaf art.  I never did finish the laundry today. But that’s ok~ it will still be waiting for me in the morning

The clouds have been promising for days that it might rain.  But as the sun started to shine again this afternoon, still no rain. It has been more months than I can remember since we have seen any water fall from the sky. The other day, Michael came running inside and said “Mom~ there are these BIG black clouds in the sky.  I don’t know but I think it might mean that it’s going to rain!”  He was pretty concerened. I guess that is what happens when you never see rain!! But no worries little Michael, it never did rain.