Supersize family fun

Sure the fun was supersize...but so was the family! When we were in Tulsa, we happened to be in town on the Saturday when The Duggars were doing a book signing at Barnes and Noble. Who are the Duggars? They are the family from TLC's and Discovery Health's 18 Kids and Counting. Yep, this family has 18 kiddos!...and all the kids' names start with J.

A few years ago I just happened upon a show called "14 kids and Pregnant Again" and I decided to watch it. I think large families are awesome, but not always portrayed well on TV. Well, I LOVED watching the show and so did the boys. Here was a family filled with sweet, well mannered, homeschool kids who did lots of things the boys did...Managers of Their Home schedules, homeschooling, shopping at Aldi, eating tater tot casserole,having "J" names, loving their brothers and sisters and mom and dad and having fun doing it. We were hooked! Since then, there have been more kids, more shows, even a wedding and we love watching it more and more. The values that are unapologetically portrayed are for family, modesty and purity, God-centered, debt-free living and all that kind of great stuff. In fact, "18 kids and Counting" is one of the few shows we consistently watch. So we were so thrilled to find that the Duggars were going to be in person and signing their new book. Jonathan and Jeremy were still travelling back from the tournament so they weren't able to be there, but Julie with her girls and Jeffrey and Josiah and I were able to make it to Barnes and Noble. There were lots of people there and we had to wait a while for our turn in line, but it was worth it! We all loved the chance to meet people we see on TV and loved having the chance to thank Jim Bob and Michelle (the mom and dad) for their consistent high standards that they portray and hold for their family. TLC was there taping for a show and the lady behind us in line was asked if she minded being filmed for the show, so we're all waiting for the episode to see if we can see our backs! :-)
Here's 9 of the kids listening to Jim Bob speak.

More kiddos. Jeffrey snaked his way to the front of the crowd to take some of these pictures. Good job, Jeffrey.

Michelle, answering questions from the crowd.

When we found out we were going to go to the booksigning Josiah said, "I would love to take my picture with Josiah Duggar!". Here are the two Josiahs.

Here are Josiah Duggar, me, Josiah, Jim Bob, Jeffrey, Michelle, Katie, Julie and Lauren.

It was a very special treat! BTW, their book is great, too!

A few of our favorite things...fieldtrippin' at Dagerath Academy

First, let me start this post by correcting the previous post...after consulting a field guide (thanks, Gina for this great gift!!) we found that the lizard from yesterday morning was NOT a horned toad, but in fact was a "Desert Spiked Lizard". Ok, that's done. Now on to more fun, less reptilian things...

I saw on Money Saving Mom, my favorite website, that yesterday was $1 scoop day at Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. If you brought in an item for the food bank, you got a scoop for $1. Wow! Cheap Ice Cream. AND there's a B&Js on the river near where Michael works. So, we made a plan for some fun. Lunch w/ daddy at work followed by a walk down the river to cheap ice cream. The boys LOVE the taco salad at the cafeteria at Michael's work, but unfortunately it was Eggplant parmesean on the menu. Gulp! That sounded pretty gross to all involved, but cheeseburgers did the job just fine. Josiah got a tuna and turkey sandwich. It's really funny. Every time we go to lunch w/ Michael at the cafeteria, Josiah gets a sandwich. These sandwiches aren't anything special. Just meat and stuff on regular bread. But I guess the thrill of eating at dad's work trumps the ordinary-ness of a tuna sandwich!

So after lunch at Michael's we went with a bagful of non-perishables in hand and headed down to the river to find Ben and Jerry's. Problem was I didn't know for sure where it was. I could see it in my head, just didn't know where to place it on the river. "It's upstairs on the river near a road" I think was my directions to Michael. The only thing is those ever so vague descriptions match about 100 places on the river! So I hunted in the recesses of my memory for better directions. "It's right by the 'Life is Good' store." Nothing. Then it clicked" Oh, and near a Starbucks!" I figured my mocha-loving man would know exactly THAT location. But I was wrong. See, since we've lived in SA, Michael decided he was wasting too much cash and calories on that addiction, so he quit. (How do you do that? Just make up your mind and QUIT?? Man, if I could do that I would be a much healthier, happier, skinnier mama! Still working on that one!) So, needless to say, he didn't know where we were going either. And the bag of food kept getting heavier and heavier and passed around from boy to boy. Jeremy finally ended up the designated food courier. He and I both kept saying "I think it's right around this turn". And finally, we were right. I made a joke when we were getting close "Wouldn't it be funny if they weren't even doing the promotion?" but my heart sank when we got to B&Js and there was no sign announcing it and no people in line. Thankfully, though, when we asked the guy working he said they were doing it, just didn't have many people who knew about it since it was a "touristy" B&Js. I was also very shocked to see that ice cream there costs $4.55/scoop!! Who pays that?? So I was really feeling like a MoneySaving Mom when we walked out after getting 6 scoops for just over $6!

Here's the guys at B&Js!

And as life goes, there's always something that goes differently than the way it was scripted. Since it took us so long to get there, we didn't have time to eat our ice cream at B&Js, so we decided to walk back while we were eating ice cream. Michael joked "Can you guys eat ice cream AND walk?" The boys answered back "Sure, dad, no problem", a little insulted that he had even asked. The joke turned not-so-funny as we were walking back down the river. You have to pretty much walk single file down parts of the river so that you don't fall in or push someone else in. We were walking at a steady pace when all of a sudden I hear Josiah wail and look back and he's IN the river! There was a little cut out place where there was a pond-type area, so it wasn't as far in as in other parts of the river. But he was knee deep in water with one shoe (thankfully a croc!) floating around. We rescued the croc (and I even rescued his ice cream, which had fallen, but was in a cup and DIDN'T land face down!) and tried to console a balling Josiah. Poor guy! I asked him if I could take his picture for the blog. He looked at me and said "No". Well, actually it was more like "Noooohoooohoooo" because he was still sobbing at the time. But it did get a little smile out of him, which REALLY was my motivation. (However, truth be told, if he had said "yes" you'd be looking at a picture of his wet self right now!) So after Michael went and got some napkins from a restaurant, we dried Josiah off, as much as we could and headed toward the car. And just, like Josiah, a few minutes later he's dancing and spinning around and laughing, just like nothing happened. Man, I love that boy!!

Thankfully, the "go bag" was in the car. A couple of years ago I read on a website that it's prudent to keep a bag with a change of clothes for everyone in the car in the event that you need to evacuate your home in an emergency. Thankfully, we've never had to make an emergency evacuation, but many many times the "go bag" has gotten us out of jams when clothes have gotten messy for one reason or another. Today, it kept us from having to get the "wet jeans from river water on sweaty boy" scent on the seats of our car. Let me tell you, THAT smell will never be a cologne!! So, my mommy tip for the day....well, of course, get cheap ice cream when you can, but also, get a "go bag"!

It was another fun field trip for the students at Dagerath Academy! Maybe I should pull the jeans out of the wash and scrape them for microscope slides! Nah, I don't want to know what's in that river water!!

CAN you eat ice cream and walk at the same time????

Michael and the boys at Michael's office. Again, my photographic prowess (and lack thereof) rears its ugly head! The point of the pic is to notice how nice the area around Michael's office is.

I know we SHOULD be doing school, but....

This morning, Jeffrey and Jonathan were out shooting rocks from a water balloon launcher that Josiah got for Christmas (Thanks, Julie, this has been great fun already...even without the water balloons!) when Jonathan ran in and said, "Hey guys come out to the back porch and I'll show you something cool!" Josiah, Jeremy and I came out and saw this hiding in Jeffrey shirt...

In answer to my unasked question, that I'm sure he could read on my face (you know the "Why aren't you in doing school?? Why are you out here playing? and WHAT is that in your shirt??!!)Jeffrey, in classic Jeffrey style, said "I'm sorry mom, but it's not everyday that you get to see and hold a 'horny toad'!" True. Gross. But true. This one had already dropped its tail twice trying to elude capture, according to Jonathan, but the boys still held on! Even while I was out trying to get some photos, it jumped out of the boys hands, and I jumped around really quickly!!, but they recovered it. And then after they were done looking at it, they set it free back where they found it. Some horned toad has a big story to tell to his cronies today!

The "reptile hunters"

Josiah was thrilled about catching Mr. HT after the 2nd get away attempt.

The Amazing Race...mom style

The four oldest cousins were playing "The Amazing Race" late this afternoon. Jeffrey came up with the clues, which sounded fun to everyone until HIS team won the race. Then cries of injustice were heard and the moms were quickly called in to officiate. Julie and I agreed to come up with some new clues to host another "Amazing Race" after dinner. Little did they know what moms can come up with while planning a race (insert diabolical laugh)! First, we did away with the teams and put everyone on the same team to race against the clock. Problem #1 solved. Next we came up with clues, including a "Roadblock" and "Detour". If you don't watch the show, I realize that means nothing to you. A Roadblock is an activity that only one person of the group can perform and you have to decide who it will be before reading the clue. A Detour gives a choice of two activities to perform. The things we had the kids do were fun, but of course, not without a purpose.

The first thing we had them do was a relay on the scooter in the driveway, two laps each person. Then it was on to the Detour. They had to choose "Paste Down" or "Upload". Either make a collage out of magazine photos of families having fun together or upload a picture of their team onto a blog. Here's the picture that got posted on Jeffrey's blog. We KNEW they would choose the "Upload" option, and they didn't disappoint.

The next step was to head to Daniel's room where each member of the team had a pile of Daniel's clothes to unpack (from a suitcase) or put away from clean piles. See, I told you...no task without a purpose. When else would you see four kids racing happily to put away a bunch of clothes???!!!

The next activity was the Roadblock. One member of the team had to earn 10 Kinscash on Webkinz.com. Ok, not so much purpose on this one, but we had to keep it fun!

Purpose returns with the next job. Everyone had to race downstairs, find a broom and sweep up the floor under and around the table! Sneaky, huh! Again, no complaints AND a clean floor! The thing was to earn their next clue the "attendant" (me) had to say they had cleaned everything off of the floor. It took a couple of tries, but they got it done. BTW, I had no idea how much stuff Jackson must eat off of our floor! It really shows up when there's no dog around to eat it all!!!

After they finished here, they had to run around the outside of the house, come through the front door and arrive at the "Pitstop" right outside the kitchen.

Breathlessly, they made it with 1:00 to spare. The prize...apple crisp with vanilla ice cream.

Believe it or not...they've asked to do it again tomorrow!!! Julie and I already have things running through our head....drink green smoothies or green lemonade, sort and start a load of clothes, pack up a suitcase, hmmmmm what other tedious household jobs...I mean Race Activities can we come up with.

Snow White was right....whistling (or racing) DOES help you work!

Baking Day

Tuesday morning Julie and I donned our aprons and set off on a baking day. Julie had a list made and we were ready for action. Never understimate two moms on a mission!!

Here's some of the supplies...meat and more meat. You can't see all the fruits and veggies that got turned into baby food.

David and Julie grinding some wheatberries to make flour for the muffins made later in the day.

TWELVE(!!) hours later, the kitchen looked like this...

Our "To do" list looked like this...

And we looked like this...

But in the freezer was a lasagna, two meat loaves, two ham loaves, three pounds of taco meat, 20 brownbag burritos, one bag of burrito filling, spinach and rice casserole, one tray each of prunes, carrots, squash, rice, peas and carrots, pears, apples, and sweet potatoes for baby food, a dozen blueberry crumb muffins, a dozen banana crumb muffins, orange and spice rice, two bags full of homemade refried beans, and sliced ham. AND we did 7 loads of laundry!

It was so great to get so much done. The last two hours we worked during the commercials of The Biggest Loser, getting our own workout as we ran up and down the stairs to get as much done before we heard the call of the kiddos "Show's back on!!". Man, I love having a sis around. Now we just need to schedule a time for her to come and fill MY freezer!

Wednesday we were both pretty wiped out and were planning on doing not much of anything (or as much of that as can be done with 6 kiddos around!) but we ended up cleaning out a closet and listing a bunch of stuff on Craigslist and researching homeschool curriculum. We both figured we could do "nothing" next week when we're not with each other!

Springfield update

So far the tournament process in Springfield has been disappointing. Two games played, two games lost. Bummer! They are in the process of playing one right now as we speak. I'm really hoping for a win.

Aside from the disappointment of the losses, I think everyone is having a good time. They've had chances to spend time hangin' out with some boys from the team and their families. They've seen a couple of families that we know from Memphis who have players at the tournament.

They've had time to hang at the hotel and go do things around the city.

Here's J&J at Bass Pro Shop waiting for a game to start.

Looks like they'll have a game tomorrow and Saturday and then we'll head back to Texas. I'll keep you posted on the progress!

Oklahoma is OK!!

While Michael, J&J are headed off to Springfield,MO for the Homeschool National Basketball Tournament, Jeffrey and Josiah and I decided to stay in Oklahoma with my sister and spend the week. It was a tough choice to stay. I really LOVE watching J&J play basketball, but the reality is that they will probably only be playing a total of 4 or 5 hours all week long. The rest of the time we would have to be hanging out at the gym or the hotel with thousands of other people. There are 35 different courts all around Springfield where the games will be played, so that would mean LOTS more time just hangin' at gyms than we had at the state tournament. So, we decided to stay here and play.

Today, we cashed in big on Chick-Fil-A coupons and other freebies. The CFA here in OK has a "Repeat Reciept Day" where if you keep your receipt from a certain day in Feb. you can come back any day in March and get the exact thing for free! What a deal!! So combine that with 3 other coupons for free food that Julie and I had and you get all this food and drinks....(this pic was taken with my camera phone, which accounts for the wierd margins)

for $10. We also traded one of the kid's meal prizes (which was a Reader Rabbit CD) for an ice cream that all the kids shared. Then we went and picked up two free movies and Blockbuster and Redbox which we're going to employ tomorrow when my sister and I have a big "baking day". Gotta love freebies! I'm getting Julie hooked on cheapness...um I mean frugality! We scored several 25 cent Colgate toothpastes and $1.19 Tom's natural toothpastes and free Garnier Nutrisse shampoo and hair products last weekend. Her comment was "Yeah, I can see how this can be addictive!" No joke!!