Fabulous Find Friday

I found this about a month ago. $3 - oh yeah - I couldn't believe it either! Ok it is not in perfect shape - but the kids can get some good fun out of it. PS - these are my best things in the last few months - not every garage sale find is this good :)!

Double Trouble/Pure Sweetness

PS - sorry about the blurry pictures - they look great on my computer, but when I upload them to the blog they look bad. I noticed this with the camping pictures too.

Memorial Box Monday -11 people, crawdads and a bear - oh my!

Jo Jo is on the lookout for bears with her binoculars and walkie talkie in hand.

The bear's snacks?

catching crawdads

We thought there was no way we could take a vacation now with 3 babies and 5 other kids, for 2 reasons. The 1st reason was cost and the 2nd reason was that it would just be too hard. We could afford camping , but we knew it was hard enough last year with 5 kids - the youngest being 2 1/2 . Well, our Mountain moving - always providing God gave us a camping trip. Our friend Socorro came in to town and has never been to the mountains or camping and she really wanted to go and assured us we could do it with her help. She really is equal to 3 people - she sees a need and does it and has a special way with kids that is amazing (of course spoiling them and giving them gum always helps :)). We went to the forest just about 2 hours from our house - for 2 days and 1 night.

The kids had so much fun hiking, playing games, going to the lake to fish for crawdads, roasting marshmallows, singing around the campfire and shooting the bb gun and cross bow.

The hammock was the best thing! Socorro stuck the boys in it for nap time and they swung right to sleep in the warmth of the sun.

Well, not only was it a blessing for all of us to go on a little camping trip and make memories, but the Lord also protected us. When we got to camp - the neighbor campers suggested we put our dogs in the camper or van at night because they heard a bear the night before and their trash had been ripped apart. Well we were planning to put them in anyways and we packed up all our food and put it in the van. Javi and Jordan slept in the van, while the other 9 of us slept in a 30 yr old camper that is falling apart. I heard 3 loud bangs on the window that night. When we woke up, on both sides of the campsite in between our camper and van there were a couple of places where a bear had scratched and dug with his claws. Also that old plastic window right there on that side of our camper was broken. The neighbors also said they heard the bear at their campsite again that night and they were in a tent! All we could think of was how God protected us and what we would have done. We laughed so hard thinking about Javier and his fear of wild animals. Javier said that he and Jordan would have just started the van and taken off :).

So to remember the way our God provided for us and protected us, we added a tiny toy bear to our memorial box. If you are wondering what this memorial box is all about, you should check it out here where I got the idea http://aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com/2009/09/memorial-box-monday-check.html .

We are known by our actions

I believe every life is precious and that we are known by our actions. We can easily say we are against abortion and that children are a blessing, but what are we doing to support women who choose life or what are we doing to care for the orphans? One family is trying to raise $ for the legal fees to adopt a baby from an incarcerated woman. They were teenage parents themselves and now have a beautiful Christian family. You can donate even $5 or $10 or more on their blog and watch them bring home this baby. http://www.storinguptreasures.com/ . This family only needs to raise $3000 more out of the $7000 total needed for the legal fees. You can donate via paypal. I sold some jeans once on ebay for our adoption and never cashed it out - so it was just sitting in my paypal account - purposed for adoption - so I thought - how perfect! Do you have something similar? Or could you give up a couple of coffee drinks or runs through the drive thru to bless this precious baby's life, not to mention bless this family 10 fold? HMMMM - invest in a mocha frapuccino (gone in 5 minutes if you are me) or invest in an eternal blessing?

Fabulous Find Friday

If you only know me through the blog, you may not know that I buy EVERYTHING from garage sales. Every piece of furniture in our home was either passed down to us for free or bought at a garage sale with the exception of 1 set of couches and a huge coffee table my dad made custom for us. I think every decoration and all my curtains were also garage sale finds and most of the kids' toys and clothes are from garage sales. Well, I think I hit the jackpot the other day. I found this solid wood wardrobe thing for $20! The kids had fun pretending it was the wardrobe from Narnia, but now I put in the shelves that came with it and it holds our school stuff. I was needing more storage to organize my school stuff and I would have spent the same amount on 3 big tubs at Targ*t. This is how we save so much $, but have everything we need/want. I just might make this a regular post on Fridays :).

Mia's new friend

A month or so ago we got a new long haired chihuahua named Quico (keeko). He was really scared and snappy at first, but now he is so in love with our kids - especially Julia.

Caught Red Handed

Make a run for it

Aww - she caught me. (yes that is a bag full of brownies and one in his hand too. He scooted the chair to the counter and snatched that bag - can't blame him - they were really yummy :))

(another post below)

1st buzz

BEFORE

AFTER

My late grandmother would always ask me one thing about Jordan . . . . "Is his hair still nice and short?" That was really important to her and it is also important to Javier. Well, I couldn't take the sides flipping out any longer . . . so . . . . J J got his first buzz. Janae was so cute and ran to get a ziploc baggy and wrote the date and name on it (she is my brain since I don't have one after 8 kids :)) I know he looked better with hair, but it will grow. First haircut - 8 months