Babies in the House Again!

 It's fun having babies in the house again!

Here, we set Aaron on the counter so he could "help" spoon salt, and shake pepper and spices into the meatballs.

With 15 children in the house, it's been a bit of a circus at times,

and with two litters of puppies right now, it's also been more than a bit of a zoo!

Right now there are puppies just about everywhere you look at our house!

Carrie is giving Baby Aaron a bit of cheese that she was putting on top of the open face turkey sandwiches we had for lunch yesterday.

The oven still wasn't usable--till the heating element finally arrived last night which Jonathan had ordered with express shipping last week! Thankfully they refunded us the express shipping since it took a week to get here!

So we used the broiler.

I think there is more than one puppy dog around here that likes to get into the trash bag!

We got a big kick out of that!

It was time to bundle him up and take him out to look for eggs.

As we went down the deck steps, Aaron's 3-yr-old brother Benjamin saw a dog coming up the steps and asked,"Does she lay eggs?"

Gotta get those boys around the farm!

Gotta keep an eye on this little feller, too! He pulled the bottle brush from under the kitchen sink and started sweeping the floor with it!

I got some paints out for the children to do some projects for their daddy's birthday. My brother Gabriel has a birthday this week. Timmy had an extra birdhouse he'd built, and Andrea painted trailing vine and flowers on the sides, as well as painting a three-heart wooden plaque.

Benjamin is so sweet, wanting to be in the middle of everything.

During break from school, the children snowballed each other outdoors.

Carrie helped with forming  meatballs after I mixed them.

Hannah had made jello, with which we let the little boys and her make cutouts.
We used cookie cutters, and yes, this kind of thing doesn't seem as important as being a missionary somewhere in Africa, but somehow, down deep inside, I believe it is just as important.

You can make disciples (and maybe future missionaries) of your little nieces and nephews by valuing them as small children and doing jello cutouts and making a big mess with paints and blocks of wood.
Then when you talk about Christ's love and commandments that He wants us to keep, they will listen better.

You can make friends forever by taking them to find eggs in the shed, and letting them put the brown, white, and green eggs in the carton.
You give up "accomplishing something" this week, and welcome the opportunity that God hands you--
molding a soul and making children happy.

Finally the heating element arrived and Jonathan had Timmy help put it in the oven.
Yay! Now we can make cookies and gingerbread.

Here are a couple pictures of raising our puppies. As they got older, we tried putting tiny baby socks on their paws so they wouldn't scratch their poor mommy when they nursed.

We are not exactly recommending this procedure as the socks did not stay on! :)

The children are very sure that being allowed to hold puppies helps them tremendously with school--especially Spanish class!

Here is the newest addition to our menagerie.
On Valentine's night, I was on my knees about our finances, and the next day a lady called who had this 11-week-old puppy available. She lives several hours away, but a family from the Springs was going down to purchase another puppy, and they were willing to bring it to us since we had told them about this lady.

I couldn't believe what a beautiful, mellow golden retriever (part English Cream) puppy she was!
Everyone welcomed her right into our family--

except big Durango who was so  scared out of his wits that he jumped right up onto Rosie's lap!

 All over this new little puppy!

Here are a few snaps the children took of the puppies they were selling.