We went camping with my sister and family this past weekend and had a good time. Tommy was all over the place so that made things a bit tiring, but it was nice to get out into the woods and the kids had a blast! We went to Paint Creek State park in Ohio and it was a beautiful campground. It was very clean, wooded, and no mosquitos! I wish we could have stayed longer. Here is a picture of all 11 children!

My sweet baby boy, born at home, in the tub, is ONE today! How did a year go by so fast? It has been the most stressful year of our lives. I just can’t believe it went by so fast. Most of his year was spent job hunting(since October) and cleaning and trying to get our house ready to sell(went on the market in February). We are STILL job hunting and trying to sell the house.  I tried really hard to enjoy Tommy’s babyhood and be a good mama to him and the others despite the craziness of our year and I hope I did a good job. It has been a very rough year, and I only hope it is going to get better and easier(well at least I hope we sell the house and find a new job for John)!

Pictures of Thomas today.

I turned 30 on May 24th(last Sunday). We decided to head to Woodstock for the memorial day weekend, so that we could get have our first date in over a year.  My parents and sister Paula babysat and we went to North Mountain Vineyard for wine tasting. We had been there several years ago and it was nice to go back.  We bought 2 bottles of wine(to bring home) and then wandered around. It was lovely, and started to rain, just when we left… so good timing! Next we headed to Spring House Tavern for burgers and beers and loaded fries-yumyum. It was a lot of fun and nice and quiet just the 2 of us!

We had a nice weekend besides the date also. We had a visit with our friends at the park and a trip to Sonic.  I also went yard-saling and thrift store hopping and got a few things.

Here are some photos from our date!

Rick turned 10 on May 10th. He is very excited to be 10 years old! We had a yummy birthday/mother’s day breakfast. Later in the day we went to church. Rick played with his new legos most of the day until we had to pick Sophia up from a camping trip. She was too tired to go out to dinner with us so I dropped her off at home, and I took Rick and Helen to a Mexican restaurant. Rick really wanted fried ice cream because he’d never had it before.  Our dinner was quiet and yummy(John was at home with the 2 little boys, along with Sophia).

Sophia had her first communion today! John sat with with Rick and Helen, and I was stuck chasing Jack and Thomas around in the back. It went well and Sophia was very excited. We had an open house today at our house, so we went out to Cracker Barrel for dinner. Sophia wore John’s sister Clare’s dress. Here are a few photos.

Science lesson with dad was dissecting a frog! I ordered the children a dissection kit from Carolina Biological. It came with everything needed. They were fascinated.  Here are a few pics.

We had a nice relaxing Easter weekend.  Sat. morning I got donuts out with a friend and we ran to the fabric store. We had a fun time. Then I went home and picked every one up for a too crowded Easter egg hunt at a local church, but we still had a nice time.  Sunday was spent having pancakes for breakfast, finding baskets and eating way too much candy, going to church, doing our own Easter egg hunt and having a yummy lasagna and garlic bread early dinner. Naps and sewing made their way in there also! This was the first Easter(of 12 married ones) that we did by ourselves. Every Easter consisted of ham… so we decided to do something completely different(hence the lasagna). It was a lovely day. Here are some pictures.

Naughty boys in the car during second half of mass due to screaming….

Putting on mommy’s shiny lip gloss.

I don’t have any good,  recent pictures of Rick up so I thought I’d post one! Here he is from a week or so ago at his scout derby. He is a Webelos 1 now(and wearing his too small/missing things on it cub scout shirt, but still he looks cute).  He likes scouts a lot.  He turns 10 on May 10th! I can’t believe it! How did 10 years fly by THAT fast.

Rick loves to read and can’t get his hands on enough books, ever. He seems to think he’s read all the books in the kid section at our local library(and he has read most, probably). He’s started writing a sci-fi novel lately and maybe he’ll become famous one day.  He also has a blog called totallyrandomrick.blogspot.com . Check it out! (I have all the comments set on moderation and sent to my email address to approve them, so no worries about any crazy people getting to him). lol

Tommy had his 9 month check up last week. He weighed 22 pounds 5 ounces(and is actually a lot smaller than a few of the other kids were at this age!) The nurse put him at about 27.5 inches tall which makes him very short compared to his weight, but she didn’t stretch his legs out all the way, so I’m pretty sure it was off by a good amount. We were in our room waiting for about 45 minutes. We managed to pass the time, playing with and eating the paper roll, taking turns clapping and clicking with our tongues(he clicks back and it’s too cute!) and banging his head with the cardboard tube that the paper was on. Here are a few pictures of 9 month old Tommy.