what's up weekly. (we've seen some stuff, and we have the receipts to prove it.)

OKAY.  The last two weeks have been so full, so I'm just going to jump right in to the good stuff.

First of all, in case you were worried, I can assure you that the boys are still acting like their run-of-the-mill selves: lots of stop motion movie-making, lots of play battles.

The girls have been in the business of loving Scooter Boo to bits.

See what I mean?

We also have been jet setting lately: last week, we headed up to Iowa to stay with family and visit the Iowa State Fair!  Good gravy, do I love me some Fair.

The Fair was full of firsts: here we see many of the VVs having their first cotton candy, compliments of their Uncle Austin.

I think it was a hit.

This photo doesn't show much, but HOW OLD DOES PENELOPE LOOK? She is so pretty.

Here, we have our first hardboiled egg on a stick.  Why?  Because it was free, and it was protein, and because Penelope loves eggs.

Here, we see the first time I can remember this baby falling asleep in the Ergo.  And the first time wearing a cap.  And good gracious, it turns out I love Ergo-wearing sleeping babies in hats.  Who knew?

 

First time seeing the Butter Cow.

First time emerging from the bean tunnel.

First time talking to a plein air artist.  Zoom in and enjoy my face.

First time trying a corndog.  It was a hit.

Unfortunately, I also crossed a less exciting milestone: I twisted my ankle and fell while wearing Ophelia.  (It was far from the first time I've twisted my ankle - it's given me trouble since I sprained it when I was fourteen - but it was the first time I've fallen while wearing a baby.)  Thank goodness Ophelia wasn't hurt, but both my pride and my ankle were. 

My pride deflated, but my ankle inflated... and inflated... and inflated... this photo was taken five days after I fell and it still looks jiggly and fat.

Later that evening, we took the six biggest kids to a Skillet concert after the two littlest girls were in bed.  The kids love Skillet, and when we heard they'd be at the fair, we knew we had to go.  Todd got us great seats, and the kids had SO MUCH FUN.  It was so fun to look down the row and see them singing along.  It was funny to see them all enjoying live music in their own unique ways - Atticus was up singing and dancing, Finneas and Rocco just kind of sat and watched (Rocco sang along, but Finneas just kind of gaped), Laurelai sang with all the energy in her whole stringy little body, and Penelope liked holding Callista and dancing and singing.  And I am not typically one to love concerts (they make me tired!), but this one was so fun.  I'm really glad we went.

Blurry and after dark, but I think you can see the excitement, yes?

Atticus loved singing his heart out.

Then there were fireworks after the show!! This might have been the kids' first fireworks show.  The last one I can remember going to was before we had kids.

The rest of our time in Iowa was also well spent: Todd and I got to go out to eat for our anniversary though we got to the restaurant like half an hour before it closed, so we kind of scarfed it down and hustled home.  We visited my grandpa.  We spent some time at my sister's and got to see a cousin whom I haven't seen in years (he lives in Japan, so contrary to what you might think, our paths don't naturally cross all that often), and the kids played and played and played (and then bathed and bathed and bathed) at my mom's house.

We headed home last Saturday morning, and hit our Amish stops on the way down.  It made for a long day.  In the evening, we went over to the neighbors' for s'mores and hula-hooping.

And in other news, the girls are really growing up fast, like Penelope, who now works out and wore MY dress and MY shoes to church this week.

And Laurelai, who will be NINE in a week and who is such a big help around the house.

And Ophelia, who turned eight months old this past week!!

She's already old enough to cordially challenge you to a duel.  Ahhh, they grow up so fast.

She was coronated.  Time flies.

You tell me that's not the cutest baby in the world, and I'll tell you you're a dirty stinking liar.

Learning to crawl.

Starting Pilates.

In order to keep up with the kids' growth, our marriage decided it should also probably age, so we celebrated our fifteen-year anniversary.  We took the kids out to Shakespeare's Pizza.

Our couch (a wedding gift) also celebrated its fifteen-year anniversary/birthday in solidarity with us.  It looks tired.

And that was basically our week.  I did get more packing done, as we are less than two weeks away from L-Day ("Leavenworth," you guys; keep up).  We sent our chickens to stay with friends for a while, we wore matching outfits to church, and we loved being together, like usual.  That's a pretty good week, in my book.

Isn't our church the cutest little thing?

The chickens were very confused about traveling.  Especially that one being sat on by the other two.  Chickens aren't great at common courtesy, or ever really knowing what's going on.

Not pictured: 30% of us.

And that was the loooooooooooong story of our last two weeks!

Well, howdy, folks.  It's me again, your friendly neighborhood blogger.  Unfortunately for my job security, I have very little to report this week. So bear with me while I try to extend very little news into something worth reading.

Last Friday, we went to Leavenworth to be present at the inspection of our new house.  

Long story short, the inspection went really, really well.  The house is going to work out well for our needs, and is in fantastic shape.  The yard is small, but I met the owner of the large green space behind our property, and he said the kids are welcome to play back there.  There is unexpected extra storage above the garage (this house has so much storage!), the mechanicals are all new and high end, and I found out the washer/dryer are SPEED QUEENS!  Oh, how good the Lord is to me.

It was a quick trip there and back.  The kids were pretty tired.

I call this photo, "Road Rage."

I call this photo, "The Long and Winding Road."

I call this photo, "Driving Miss Daisy."

On Saturday, Lolo came down with a bad fever and headache, and started throwing up, and some of the other kids felt under the weather.  So on Sunday, I stayed home from church with the sickies, and Todd took the healthy kids.  We love our new church here in town so much, and we only have a few weekends left here before the move, so I was really disappointed to have to miss the service.

By Monday, everyone seemed to be on the up-and-up, so we ran a couple of errands.  I haven't been grocery shopping for almost a month because I've been trying to use up what we have in our pantry and freezers, and GOOD GRAVY GROCERIES ARE EXPENSIVE.  Seriously, the difference a month has made in prices is just staggering.  Anyway.  We ran to Walmart, Aldi, Natural Grocers and Target, and then I keeled over dead from exhaustion and poverty.

And then it turned out that the kids were not, in fact, fine.  Poor Rocco was running a fever, Lissy had a migraine and started throwing up, all of them started developing wet, chesty coughs.  Even Ophelia got it, with lots of nasty snot and a raspy little cough.

Needless to say, that has been the majority of the rest of our week.  Penelope did help me pack up a good number of boxes from the garage on Wednesday and we sent another load to the storage unit.  But really, the biggest work of the week has just been holding down the fort while the kids are under the weather.  It isn't major sickness, just drawn out, which is tiring in a family our size.  So it has been the right call to not try to extend ourselves further.  We watched lots of afternoon installments of Anne of Green Gables and laid low.

So that has literally been our whole week, and is why I have very little to report.  To make it up to you, here is a little farewell salute from your friendly neighborhood Joes, compliments of the Van Voorst boys:

YOOOOOO JOE!