Busy, Busy, Busy....and LOVING IT!!

Yes, life has been VERY full and busy for us latley. We are tired but, I would rather be tired like this all the time by having my family with me like I have and will continue to have throughout the week. We are still looking forward to Grandma LaWanna coming for a visit this week! Todd and I are especially greatful since she is taking children home with her for 2 weeks!!! Yeah!! We love our babies but we NEVER EVER get any breaks, did I mention EVER!!! We are also wrapping up the last week of school.The kids have had all kinds of "theme" days. I know I should have taken more pictures, but getting 5 kids up and out the door every morning is kinda, well, INSANE! But I did manage to get a couple of shots of Yasmin. My niece Alyssa did this for her. It looked awesome! Yasmin said she had the best crazy hair in the whole school! And you can see why, it's looks so cool. Great Job Lissy! Well, I know this is a Loooong post, but I probably won't have a new one for a while, so you can just come back and read a bit at a time-LOL!! :)





Meet our newest additions. Princess, Shane, and Hercules (who is now named Alyssa since the vet informed us he is a girl and it is our niece Alyssa's favorite cat). These lil' cuties were born under our shed in our yard about 5-8 weeks ago. We knew something was living under there because our dog would go balistic everytime he would go outside. He would run to the shed and bark and dig, so we had to start putting him on a leash out back! We were affraid it was a skunk family (yes, we have had a couple of those around through the years) so we didn't want to upset them and have our yard permanently smelll like skunk. Just as we were trying to figure out a way to deal with the pest issue, we began to hear little voices Meow-ing, and we knew we didn't have skunks under our shed. We never saw the Mom, but somehow these little ones survived (it is the 2nd litter that has been born in our back yard this year!) one of our other kitten's earlier this year, didn't. So, I finaly took them to the vet yesterday (with Spencer's help, I happen to be VERY allergic to cats. I can hold these guys for a couple of minutes, but then I have to hurry in and wash my hands and make sure they don't touch my clothes. I know this seems extreme, but I was hospitalized with Athsma for 4 days when I was 15 when I stayed the night at a friends house that had indoor cats. I love cats, but my body doesn't:(

ANYWAY.... I was trying to see if I could surrender them, but they wouldn't take them :(
But, the vet said they were in good health and I was relieved. I was so scared that they would be sick. We're still not sure, but it looks like they will be a permanent part of our family, well, our OUTSIDE family. Indoor cats they are NOT, but they were born tough so the outdoors seems to agree with them.


Spencer and my favorite, Princess. I guess she is somewhat rare. The vet said these cats are usually always boys.




Princess and her brother Shane.



Alyssa AKA Hercules our Tourtiose Shell Calico.








Our lil' Lanna and her Mamma who is my lil' Munchkin. This is our 18 mo. old niece, isn't she adorable! Her and my sister Monica stayed over for a few days last week and it was a blast! Our other niece Alyssa, 17 years, was here too and lil' Allana and her loved playing together. We had a full house that week but it was great to have our loved ones to hang out with and enjoy!





It's Swim time with all the cousins! The DeGraff and Johnson clans had a blast haning out and swimming together all day Saturday! I think we had 16 kids (4 of them teenagers) all together! It was a FULL house but SO
much FUN!!!!









Spencer thought it would be funny to scare all the kids while they were outside, at dark, eating ice cream. So he put on this mask and a black costume and climbed out his bedroom window to sneak up on them and scare them. Well, he did scare them, some more than others. Poor Mariah was terrified and screamed and cried for almost 10 min!!! Then as Lexi was trying to comfort her, she told Mariah that it was only Spencer and that was all she needed to hear I guess. Riah started doing a Laugh/Cry upon realizing it was only Spencer and before we knew it, she was laughing histerically. It was very cute. And BOY did Spencer get in trouble! He is our biggest mischief maker!