Tomorrow I leave for 5 days to a youth conference. I will not be taking any kids or my husband with me, although I will get to see my husband at least Thursday night, but he has already been gone for 3 days and I really want to see him. The main point though is...I have never left my family totally on my own since I got married. I have pretty much always had someone with me. I have gone to cub scout camp with my son, even though he pretended I wasn't there, we still went together. Sari is at all the youth activities I attend. It just feels really weird to be able to go and not worry about what someone else in my family needs...I just get to go learn and enjoy myself. Now, of course, I am fretting tons before I leave that my house is not in order, or that I have not done everything I could to make the weekend go as smoothly as possible for my kiddos and hubby. Dwayne keeps telling me that he is perfectly able to take care of the kids and himself...I do have my doubts, but for the most part, I am sure they will be fine...Right? No, seriously they will be fine...they will be fine.

One thing I do enjoy about going away is coming home. Anytime I leave Dwayne home with some of the kiddos he seems to have a greater appreciation for me when I get home. I think for at least 4 days or so, I can do no wrong. I love it. It is always a good feeling to come home to.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

A whole inch!

Ok...after trying on 3 different pairs of tights on my youngest kiddo, with the first 2 being way too small, I thought that maybe, just maybe...my youngest is growing. I mean the first 2 pairs of tights I think she just wore like...maybe last week, but now they only come to her knees? So, I make her go stand in the same spot that all of my kids have stood next to, right against a very old measuring chart. This poor chart is over 9 years old, in fact, I have even had to add paper to the top, because my older to kiddos have outgrown it. I must say it is one piece of paper I will always treasure. I love seeing how they grow. I like to see the different growing patterns. So, anyways, my younger kiddo has grown over an inch since July...since July...oh my she is growing so fast. She is so going to pass up her big sis Dora. Right now, Tobi is the at the same height Dora was at 6. Dora is my girl...she will be about my height and my build, poor girl. I am just resigned to the fact that all the rest of my kiddos will pass me up and look down on me some day. So goes life when you marry into a tall family and I wouldn't change a thing.

Day 5

As many of you know, my husband has quit his job at Ontario Systems and is now working for a company based out of Atlanta, Georgia. Now since we did not want to move and this company really wanted Dwayne to work for them, they have allowed him to work from home. We are on our official day 5 and it is going well. We are still in the middle of remodeling (and by we, I mean Dwayne, my part in the remodeling processes does not come until almost everything is done) so this all means that Dwayne is working in a partially completed room. Things will be much better once the drywall goes up, that will help block the sound a little more. Plus, I will not feel like I am bugging him when I go do laundry. It has been really nice having him home. I have been taking his coffee out to him, except for this morning because I slept in, and I like being able to check in on him. I know he has been kind of checking in on me...just to see what I do all day...so far, I am keeping busy, but I know soon he will catch me on one of my lazy days. But all in all...it is going well and I am looking forward to this new phase of our life!



Dwayne on his first day of work.

Hard to recover...

Now that I am done with all that I have been working on for over a month, I have been taking some time to recover. The only bad thing about this recovery time is that now I have to get back into the working mode. I always have to do a down mode after a period of hard work, but it is always difficult to start back to work again. One thing that helps is doing something small that makes life seem a little cleaner to me. Even if it is just the dishes and straightening up the kitchen. Usually it involves the laundry, and then the more I accomplish these small projects I am ready to head back into full domestic mom/wife mode. It will be interesting to see how my hubby will react to my methods when he is home all the time. Which, by the way, is next week. Today my way of getting back into my domestic mode was by baking. As the weather cools down...I head into my baking season, for which, my children are very happy about. Well...I guess I will finish another task before my kiddos come home and start on the dishes...

Cool video...

Ok...this is just me bragging. My hubby does a great job on videos. He made this over a year ago for a youth lesson. I just found it again and thought it would be cool to show off...

An Awesome (hot) Weekend!

We spent the weekend at Mississinewa 1812. Dwayne left Thursday evening, the kids and I left Friday around noon. We stayed until Sunday. That is way too many days without a shower, but it was so much fun we did not care. We had to keep anything modern looking covered up. Dwayne kept saying it was camping with a purpose and we Lotts love to camp. It was kind of weird being on display during the day. We had people taking pictures of us in camp, we were watched as we ate our meals and when we were just hanging out. We enjoyed going out shopping at the merchants that were set up. We were fed wonderful lunches everyday by kind women who cooked for all of us who participated.

I think that Brighton and Dora spent most of the time without shoes. Tobi just tried to stay clean the best she could, which was really hard. We meant lots of new people in our camp. There was another family there, Dave, Tammy and their son Cody. Cody is 2 1/2 and he loved hanging out with our girls. He was so much fun to play with. The best thing was that the kids had so much freedom. There were enough adults around to help keep an eye on them and they just had a great time running around. Between the 3 families we shared cooking and cleaning duties. That worked out great. Dwayne and I had to borrow stuff from the Clouse's a lot, because while we had the clothing we did not have much else, so Dwayne will be getting very busy over the next year making us some more furniture and stuff to use. I am even checking out new designs in clothing and even though I am wore out from all the sewing I have done in the last month, I am excited about starting some new outfits. I think we might look into more events to do over the year. Everyone that we camped with was so nice. We had a guy who was dressed as an indian give us cool chairs to keep, because he does not use them anymore. Patty and Matt have been doing this for lots of years and they introduced us to many new people, it was great. After this wonderful weekend we can't wait to do it again!

Dora, Tobi and Cody dancing with excitement because we are finally in camp.












Dora out by the river.



















Brighton barefoot.



















Dave and Matt getting ready for the Pirate battle.
















Cody and Tobi having a tea party.



















Night time cannon fire.
















Brighton and Jeremiah's camp.



















Matt and Patty's camp.
















Just hanging out at camp.










Our tent.

















Musicians play at night around the campfire.









Dwayne in his cool garb.



















Dwayne and Tobi.










Dwayne and Tammy make "modern" peanut butter sandwiches.


















Dora, Tobi and Cody take a few moments of rest.

So mean....

I hope those who TP'd my house feel good about themselves.
My poor little 4 year old had to help me clean it up.

Quite the mess, isn't it? I hear I am not the only one sporting this new fashion for my trees, the Pinkertons were hit as well, from what I read. It was not exactly what I wanted to come home to after being gone all weekend. We only have the front yard cleaned up so far. I had lots of unpacking to do from the weekend. I will wait until my other kiddos all come home to help me get the rest of it cleaned up. I will need Dora, my little monkey, to get the toliet paper way up in the tree. Talk about a nice welcome home...

Almost Done!

Dwayne leaves tonight to get our tent all put together, the kids and I leave tomorrow for Mississinewa 1812. We are all so excited. My fingers are so sore from all the sewing I have been doing and I am looking forward to a break. But I must say, I really love sewing all this stuff. It has been really neat to see a bunch of fabric being transfered into something new. (Must be what God thinks seeing us all transformed with Him.) I must say the one thing I look forward to is seeing my living room again. My living room has been buried under material for the past month. Here is just a peek into what my family has put up with....

The floor has been covered in material. The table has been covered in material, along with my sewing machine.



After I get all this finally put away, you would think I could just live easy, but no...Dwayne has started on transforming our attached garage into our new bedroom and I will be helping out there. That is another very exciting project that I am looking forward to working on!