We started the day off with a good breakfast - eggs in a nest, bacon, hash browns, juice, coffee.

Then Doug had Austin back the van up to the trailor and hitch it up. More and more Doug is having Austin take an active role in his day to day work. This is providing him with some awesome real life experience in practical living skills. I've seen a big boost in Austin's self-confidence since they have begun doing this.

Then we went over to our old house and loaded up the last load of random stuff that was left there and brought it back to the new (to us) house. It's so great to know that all the packing and moving is done. There's still quite a bit of unpacking to do but at least everything is over here.

Of the three kids Amanda has had the hardest time with this move. She always has a hard time with change and this time was no different. Even though she loves our new home, she has a hard time letting go of the old one. She took my phone and was going through the house taking pictures of each room. I was looking through them this evening and found this one she took of herself.

What a sad face.

She cheered up quite a bit though when we told her we were going to McDonalds as a treat since they did such a wonderful job and worked so hard today.

Now her friend CeCe is here for the night and they are watching the Disney channel. Doug is watching Avatar on him computer and I am blogging.

~ Rose ~



Party Mix

Michael, Trinity and I made party mix this morning for snack later today. 

Measure and mix together 10 cups of favorite cereals such as corn, rice or wheat chex and cheerios, nuts and pretzel sticks.

Melt 6 tbsp. margarine, stir in one tbsp. seasoned salt and 3 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce. Pour over cereals, nuts and pretzels.

Mix well.

And of course you have to do a taste test to make sure everything is well seasoned.

Pour (or spoon, as Michael prefers) into two 9x13in. pans

Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour. Stir every 15 minutes. Let cool.

Enjoy!

Daily Adventures at Rose's House Thursday June 3, 2010

What a day this has been! It wasn't a bad day, just hectic.

A large number of our kids receive childcare payment assistance through the Va Department of Social Services. Because regulations and guidelines have recently changed I was on the phone a lot with social workers making sure we had everything in line. Several families here are making changes or facing decisions of one kind or another so there was a lot of sorting out of details there to deal with as well.

On top of all that we were asked several days ago whether we would consider taking a child with time consuming special needs in to live here for awhile. We said we would consider it but would need some time to think about it. Today we were called and asked if we had made a decision yet. We hadn't. So Doug and I needed to talk that over as soon as he got home from work. We decided to do it on a trial basis. Doug is concerned that the added responsibility may be too much for me with everything else we have going on. I feel confident I can do it but am willing to do it on a trial basis too ease his concerns. There are still details to work out that will effect whether or not he comes but we're willing if all works out. 

In the meantime the rest of usual activities went on around all this.

We started our morning by mixing up some pasta salad (recipe here) for dinner. Amanda took pictures while I helped the kids. Some of them were very upset when we got done and then had to wait for it too chill before eating it. I did allow some tasting however.

New pictures in our outdoor art center were greeted with enthusiasm.

And baby Heaven got lots of attention.

Amanda spent a lot of time today working on a play house for her pet rats, Micki and Amber. The younger kids enjoyed watching her. Part of the time she was talking on the phone with a friend while she worked.

Busy and fun and more fun busy-ness on the way tomorrow.

Daily Adventures at Rose's House June 1, 2010

We again started our day off with some fun in the kitchen. This time we made Pineapple Raisin Bread (recipe here) for snacks today.

Here it is being rapidly consumed at evening snack time. We also ate some for morning snack but I didn't get any pictures.

I taped large sheets of paper to the table on the front porch and let the kids have fun coloring.

We had fun taking care of the flowers. There were a lot of dead flowers and leaves that needed to be taken off and of course we had to see how they smelled.

What shape is this?

More playdough fun

We made the Heart Owl Paper Craft. Link to printable template here.

Later we colored pictures of woodpeckers. (Printable pictures found here.)

Austin spent a lot of time hanging out with baby Kaleb.

And the kids had a great time playing outside.