More Rabbit

I had a request for more pictures of my Little Rabbit. As I am still completely infatuated with her, I am only too happy to oblige.

She really likes her bouncy chair lately, which is good because there's precious few things she really likes.

She likes her Daddy, but only in the mornings. (Her Daddy likes her all the time, of course.)

Mama's Special Chair

There's a whole lotta love in this rocking chair....

Garden Beginnings

We are employing both traditional and up-to-date methods in our garden.

Here is one of our "Square Foot Gardens."

We're into "Use-What-You-Have Gardening," so it's edged by old boards of Glenda's and extra concrete edging from my house, with twigs to mark the intersections of the squares. Hey, it works!

Here are some radish sprouts coming up in one of our Square Foot beds:

Here is the traditional part of the garden, where we have so far planted three rows of peas:

And they're coming up. See?

I love this prairie soil. It's real dirt! In Idaho I had clay and on the coast I had sand, so this stuff feels just lovely in between my fingers.

A Tree Just Right for Roo

We went over to Glenda's last night to work in the garden. The lovely maple tree in her backyard kept Roo occupied for a long time.

Pretty Pretty Princess

I LOVE dressing my daughters for church!

Best Friends

How often do you have two families where the husbands are best friends, the wives are best friends, and the kids all adore each other? We feel so lucky to have Rob and Eve in our lives.

Hey! No one's ever taken a picture of the Badger and Rob together! Stand over there by the tree, you two!

No, no, no! See how Eve and I do it? (Sheesh! Now I know why I had so much trouble lining up the boys!)

That's better. Very nice.

So then Bean wants his picture with their oldest, who has the same name (and same dynamic personality!) Isn't this a darling photo?

We are richly blessed when it comes to friends.

A Boisterous Bunch of Boys

Before our friends left for the next stage of their Epic Journey, we wanted to get a picture of all the boys together. But photographing seven young boys is no easy feat.

I could only manage to get six of the seven rounded up at a time, at most.

So we recruited the dads. "Okay, everybody, say 'Stinky feet!'"

"Now everybody show your muscles!"

"Okay, now raise your arms in the air and say 'Hurray!'"

Whew!

One Honkin' Big Van

Our friends drive a fifteen passenger Ford Clubwagon. It's a beast. There are FOUR rows of benches behind the driver's seat! Look at how much longer it is than my mid-size GMC Safari:

They have to have a van that big to haul this crew!

(This picture shows the whole family except the baby, who was asleep at the time.)

How to Keep Seven Boys Busy

All you need is lots of Legos....

Triple the Fun

My very dear friend Eve from Idaho is staying at my house this week while her husband attends a convention in a nearby city. It is so good to see her!

She has seven children. This means there are 11 children in my house. The oldest 7 are boys between the ages of 4 and 11. The youngest four are girls-- Eve has a twin to Roo and a baby just a couple months older than mine.

Eve drives a 15 passenger van. She and I went out and about yesterday with all 11 children in the back.

Count 'em:

There's 9 of the heads, and then the two babies are up front:

And as usual, my Little Rabbit is NOT happy about being in the car.

Everyone else is having a good time though!

More Baby Oak Leaves

Two Months Old

I don't know how I ever lived without my Little Rabbit.

She is intelligent,

pure and innocent,

thoughtful and curious,

and happiest when she's sucking on my little finger.

A Smart Way for a Girl to Shop

Take two cute boys along with you to help you carry your bags....

Basket of Fish

At last, I found the photo of Fish in the basket. I did a lot of his newborn photos in black and white-- I was feeling artsy.

Now you've seen pictures of all my kids posing in baskets as newborns. I hope this means you've reached a new level of personal fulfillment.

(To see Bean again, click Here. For Roo, click Here. And for my Little Rabbit, click Here.)

Another Note for the Family Archives

The baby rolled over today for the first time, front to back. Clever Little Rabbit!

Baby Oak Leaves

I've never watched an oak tree bud out before. This is fun!

Twenty Years of Myopia

Let's take a little trip through the last 20 years of eyeglass fashion, shall we?

I got glasses in 1988-- about fourth grade. This was my first pair:

Big plastic goggles were the thing in the 80's, and they actually suited my face quite well.
(Please excuse the goofy expression-- I was excited about my Christmas presents.)

Then the 90's came along and everyone ran out and got wire frames with nose pads, but they were still big and round. I got some halfway through 6th grade.

You know what's funny about those glasses? Their brand name was Nintendo. Perfect for 1990.

When I was a junior in high school in 1996 I befriended a computer geek named Steve who had these exact glasses. But he was really embarrassed about the Nintendo because that was NOT perfect for 1996.

At the end of 7th grade I started wearing contacts, which did wonders for my self-esteem. See how happy I look?

The summer I was fourteen I went to my church's Girl's Camp deep in the northern Minnesota woods. Partway through the week I lost a contact lens. Alas, I did not have my Nintendo glasses with me for backup, and having clear vision in only one eye really messed up my depth perception, so I made my Mom (who was one of our leaders) drive me a million miles into Virginia, Minnesota where there was a Pearle Vision at the local mall. Poor Mom, I sure put her through a lot. Anyway, I picked out another pair of goggly plastic glasses because they were still sort of in fashion and I thought they suited my face well. But I was never really happy with them, as you can see from this picture:

I wore them for awhile that summer until I could get my contacts replaced.

I didn't ever want to wear glasses again. I was an Acuvue girl and I didn't think that would ever change.

But it did. After I had Bean my eyes got really dry from hormone changes. My contacts got more and more uncomfortable so I started wearing them less and less. When I was pregnant with Fish I went into America's Best to get some replacements for the Nintendo-style glasses I had and I was amazed at how small and square-ish lenses had gotten.

And they just keep getting smaller and squarer. This time at the eyeglass store there were several pairs I thought were children's pairs at first because the lenses were so small. Pretty soon we're all going to be wearing postage stamp spectacles. With thick plastic frames.

Or else maybe we're going to go back to this:



(I think my sister is right-- I think I DO look a great deal like my Mom!)