through the years

My parents raised eleven children. ELEVEN! I have three and not a day goes by when I shake my head and wonder how my parents, my stay at home Mom especially, managed without going completely insane. Watch as the family grows from one to eleven.

The first born...little did they know they had opened the floodgates...no looking back now.

On the balcony of their little apartment in Germany. The little guy in my mom's lap fell off this balcony one day, three stories down onto the cement. We love sticking magnets to the screws of the plate he now sports in his head.
They arrived in Germany with three kids and left Germany with five children. My mom had to travel home, from Germany to Massachusetts with five children under the age of six and 6 months pregnant to boot, by herself. Have I mentioned she should be nominated for sainthood?
The clan now numbers six. And this is where things start to go to pot.
HUH??? We jump from six little ones to a bunch more, some full grown. That's what happens when you got so many, the picture taking falls by the wayside. There are now nine of us in the picture. We completely missed me and my younger brother and sister as babies. Oh well. My sisters loved to tell me I was adopted because of the scarcity of baby pictures of me. I'm the gorgeous child in the white dress. :)

In this picture we have extras...my Grammie, my aunt Sr. Teresa and my uncle Fr. Jim. Yep, a nun and a priest. Have I mentioned we're Catholic...oh yeah, eleven children...I guess you knew that. Only ten of the eleven here. Not sure where my oldest sister is, but this is the first with my youngest sister so technically the family is now complete. I'm the lovely girl on the far right.

And here we are in our uniforms. No, just kidding. We all ran in a road race called the Monster Dash. You ran in a costume. Well, we all didn't run in it but somehow we all ended up with t-shirts. Actually one of my older sisters is absent here. She was away at school. Notice a pattern . There always seems to be someone missing. Can you spot me here? I'll help out, almost smack dab in the middle.
Finally! It took till we were all grown but they finally got a picture of all eleven of us all at the same time. This was at my youngest sister's wedding. See how happy my dad looks...that's because he just married off the last of his girls.

And just for fun.....

This is all their fault. And as per usual people are missing. Can you find me now???

an endangered species

I am so good about making sure the kids clothing is current and in good repair. Their socks don't sport holes and they always have plenty of underwear. Why then, do I slack when it comes to my own clothing? I was in desperate need of new underwear. I was doing laundry more often, not because I am so on top of my domestic duties but just because I needed clean underwear for the following day.

The other night I was out running some errands at our local superstore and remembered the dearth of undies in my undie drawer. So I marched myself over to the intimate apparel and wandered through the maze of bras (thank god I don't need new bras at the moment!) and stopped in front of the long wall of underwear. And that's when I remembered why I'd been avoiding this unpleasant little task. There were briefs, bikini's, string bikini's, boxers, boy style, hiphuggers, thongs, girdles, boxer-briefs and g-strings. There were low cut briefs and hi-cut bikini's. There was lace and satin and ewww! polyester. Underwear in every shade and pattern. Black, pink, green, yellow (YELLOW?), red, floral, geometrics, cutesy prints, and even character sets (think underoos for grownups... which just begs the question, why???). And the sizing. Does underwear need to come in petites and talls? Because, I really don't think it does.

I stood there and did not know where to begin my search. All I wanted, call me boring, was some plain old white cotton bikini underwear. Not red, yellow, green, blue or even black and definitely no prints of any kind. Where was it hiding in this literal sea of bloomers? I started in the middle of the wall, not sure why, but realized I was getting confused and couldn't remember if I had looked at that particular floral pink pair of bikini style before or was that in the hi-cut low rise hiphugger? So I moved all the way down to one end and started over. Every so often I would get all excited because I'd see packages of all white cotton only to have my hopes dashed when I realized they were granny panties. When I arrived at the end of the wall of bloomers I still had buttkis. I slunk out of there with a package of three white cotton bikinis and three black. Not too bad, but not exactly what I wanted. Hmmmmm, maybe I should go back and stock up on them in case they become further endangered? I mean, I know it's not exactly what I wanted but what if they nix the white ones from the package altogether and I'm left with just black? What will I wear under my khaki's or whites? I think I may have to. At the very least it'll guarantee I won't have to shop for underwear for a while.

pizza for dessert

My sister thanked us for watching her little guy this afternoon with dessert. Ice cream pizza. The kids couldn't wait to finish dinner and dig in. Neither could I. It came packaged in an authentic pizza box and looked absolutely delectable. So I sliced it and we dug in. Sam, my picky eater, decided he'd rather not, so it was just us girls.


Teresa sighed deeply after each bite. It was just that yummy.
Katie started at the top and worked her way down to the brownie crust, savoring every morsel of chocolate, each m&m and the fudge topping.
This was what Kate's slice looked like when she declared she was stuffed. She truly is my girl. As a child, I was infamous for licking the topping off my desserts and then proclaiming I was full. My brothers and sisters never miss an opportunity to remind me of this.
When she was about halfway through, Teresa dreamily pronounced "I am in LOVE!"
She stated my thoughts exactly.

Guess what we went and did?

Meet Benjamin Baadaabooty


Disclaimer: I in no way, shape or form, had any input on this little guys name. Teresa came up with his first name and Katie inisted on the Baadaabooty. She is such a fruitcake...but it has a certain ring to it, don't ya think?

I'm an easy audience

A funny little Katie phrase...she calls tootsie rolls...tushy rolls. I just love it and ask her to say it 1000 times a day. And every single time I smile.

that whole spoonful of sugar thing

All moms have cute little catch phrases we use when talking with our kids. Because we all know if we say something in a cutesy way, it will take the sting out of what's really being said. Let me translate for you; "sit like a pretzel" should actually be read as "SIT DOWN!" or "you get what you get and you don't get upset" is actually "too freaking bad, baby!" and "quick like a bunny" means "HURRY, the EFF UP!" I have used the quick like a bunny phrase since way back when I taught preschool. I use it now with all three of my kids. What's funny is none of my preschoolers ever interpreted it the way each of my kids have when they were each about three. I was hurrying Kate to the bathroom tonight saying, "quick, quick like a bunny!" and just like Sam and Teresa before her, she stopped running along and began hopping across the kitchen.

obligatory first day of school photos

Sam and Teresa started back to school last week. They are still at an age where this is exciting and looked forward to. They couldn't wait to meet their teachers and find out who is in their classes. Teresa decided she was going to pick out her clothing (and you all know how I feel about that) but she didn't do too badly. They are now going to school an hour earlier than they have in the past but handled the transition easily. And so did I. No one went to school naked, unfed or without a lunch. Katie was a bit lost without her friends. Actually the second day of school as I got the kids ready Katie asked me where they were going and when I replied school she asked incredulously "AGAIN!" But don't worry, a couple of our daycare friends are back from summer vacation so Kate isn't lonely. So here they are, all freshly scrubbed and ready for a brand new school year.

I have no idea what Teresa is doing here. She looks like she's ready to fall off the steps.
Sam, hands on hips, looking like a man about town.
Sam, smiling his snaggle tooth smile (I'll be so glad when that tooth finally falls out).
Ignore Katie's bedhead, it was all I could do to get the older two dressed and whatnot before bus time.