We woke up to our first real snow this morning, it's been accumulating all day and it's so pretty! Especially when I can stay inside by the woodstove and watch it drift down. I did venture out for a few quick pictures.

 Our root cellar is finally getting done! 6 rows to go.....

 I stopped in at the shop last week and offered to bring home these letters to gold leaf.... what was I thinking? Essie wanted to help, Carson slept less because I wanted him to sleep more, and I hadn't done this in a while so I was a little rusty. It got done, they looked good and I earned my paycheck this week.

 The leftover 23k gold..... hmmm, what should I do with it? Essie swiped it onto the carpet with her hand and I vacuumed it up, ooops.

Happy Birthday to my 8 yr old Carrie, a little late:)

A few of the many little ones at church.

 Muffins with Mom at school with the girls.

 Carsons current favorite awake activity, Essies too unfortunately!

 I still have to get used to saying that, having only one boy for almost five years, then adding another makes for some changes in how things are called around here. Instead of Corbans room it's the boys room. I love it.

 Carson is 8 weeks old, growing like crazy, happy and cooing much to his siblings delight. They all like to see who can get a laugh out of him.

 A while ago I was at McDonalds getting drive thru and the kids begged for the kiddie meals that come with toys. For once they had fairly decent looking Hot Wheels Cars and Polly Pockets instead of gruesome alien action figures. I stood my ground though and told them I'd much rather spend a little more on a decent toy from Wal*mart and have it last a few days instead of the usual half hour.

 We got our food and as I bit into a hot french fry I was assulted by a chemical smell and they tasted nasty! I'm sure they must have switched to some kind of trans fat free frying oil. If you can still call it oil.... what ever happened to good old fashioned lard? Now the chemicals will kill you instead of the fat. sigh. That takes care of my craving for fries.

 Somehow the kids took the toy comment as a written in stone promise for new toys the next time we go to Wal*mart and no amount of explaining on my part could pry that thought out of their little minds. So I decided to wait them out. It's amazing how long I can stay away from that place if I have too. Even more amazing is the kids' ability to retrieve information from their memory banks at will. I mentioned going to W*m for diapers and they all volunteered to go with me. That gleem in their eyes gave them away, so I set ground rules for a toy, no fussing, stay with me etc, etc.

 We loaded up and headed north. All too soon that blue and grey building came into sight and I started having second thoughts about bringing the whole crew, I had all the ingredients for the recipe for disaster. I had my shopping list etched into memory because once we're inside there's no stopping to look for a piece of paper in the bottom of my purse. Carson asleep in his carseat went into the top of the cart, Essie in the front. I couldn't see a thing over the carseat but with Carrie and Corban walking on one side and Grace on the other they navigated for me.

 We got the toiletries and furnace filter with me only losing a few brain cells before heading to the toy aisle, they picked out appropriate toys after debating way to long over which one till I finally told them to just pick one for crying out loud! A few more brain cells died a painful death as I started realizing I may not make out of this huge store alive. Should I just ditch the cart and bolt? No, then I'd have to come back, I better just keep going. 

 We moved on to the rubbermaid tub section, I needed just the right size so as I was reading labels, Carrie lifted Essie out of the cart, without my knowledge. I obliviously moved on to the next aisle thinking the kids were all doing fairly well, so I might just make it. I put something in the cart and noticed Essie was missing! As we retraced our steps, I told the girls if the ever let Essie out of the cart again they're getting it. I'll figure out later what 'it' is. We found her clearing of a shelf of rubbermaid containers, happy as a lark. My heart started back up again and I plopped her into the cart along with the one container she had a death grip on, determined not to let 5 little indians get the best of me.

 I tried not to look too closely at the price tags on all the packages of diapers I put in the cart, hoping to salvage a few of those precious remaining brain cells. Bananas, coffee beans and we were on the home stretch, check out lanes in sight, haleluia. After swiping my card, I held my hands over my ears as the checker announced the total, pushed my cart out the door and loaded up again for the treck home.

 It's been a few days and I think I have recovered fully, enough of my brain cells made it through and I'm pretty sure I'll go back to shopping at night. I'll gladly give up a little sleep in order to walk around the store all alone.