Year. Two. (May 2013)

It has been two years since our family has officially consisted of the 10 of us.
Here's a little bit about how this last year shaped up.

I took my SIX daughters to a Mother's Day Tea.  SIX!  Wow, God is funny:)

 We had five kids "graduate".

Sarah Grace graduated from 8th grade.  She had the support of many family friends and she even wrote  speech which she gave at her graduation!

Izzy graduted from 5th grade and moved into the big, scary world of Middle School!  Yikes!

She is doing great.

Matthew graduated from Kindergarten.

Gretch graduated from preschool.

And so did Kristina!

Ray and I celebrated our 11 year anniversary and finally decided to go on our 10 year anniversary cruise;)

You know, us plus our eight crazy kids!

This is a picture from Father's Day.  Enough said.

Jessica turned 18 years old!!!!  And was gifted a phone (reluctantly).

A few simple tricks continue to make life easier.  Color-coding children's belongings, for example.

Our "babies" started Kindergarten.  Still hard to believe they are only 4 months apart in age.

Now everyone is in school!

Gretchen's first day.

Kristina's first day.

Most significant this year was that after waiting 5 months and moving three times, the offer we put in on a short sale home was accepted.  

We bought a jungle...

And have spent quite a bit of time taming it.

Everyone pitched in.

Once again our friends showed up in force.
God knew what He was doing when He put us in this community we have.

While we were fixing up our new house, with the help of all our amazing friends, we were 52 days without a kitchen.

FIFTY.  TWO.  DAYS.

So we had a LOT of bonfires.  Hot dogs and s'mores were common dinner items for far too long.
But the kids loved it!

Other notable things about this past year-

Sarah and Jessica both got their driver's licenses!  And each got her first job.  What incredible progress these girls have made- and how quickly time is flying.

We started our first garden this past March and are excited by the possibility of us growing a lot of what our family needs.

After realizing that this is the 5th house that the 10 of us have lived in during the past two years, we are mostly thankful to be settling down and enjoying our new home with the people we love most.  

If you are reading this, you are probably one of those people--- thank you for loving our family:)