The Myth Debunked.

When people hear I have 10 children, their first comment, after they catch their breath from the huge gasp, is, "How do you do it all?"

My response is that I certainly DON'T do it all. Not even close. And here's proof.

If you spend much time at all browsing blogs, you will see ample photos... those beautiful ones where the children are matching and all are smiling and exposed to perfection.

Yeah- I read those too.

Anyway. I have found several photos that I love, and want to try to replicate at my house. Like one where the 8 female siblings loved crazy socks, and put their feet in a circle and took a picture. So when Grama gave the kids all new socks, what better time to do that photo?

Yeah. Right. First they lined up. In a straight line.

CIRCLE, guys. With your feet in the middle. (Not a homeschooling mom's finest moment.)

This is what I got. See Emma pushing Matt's feet to the side. She didn't want them touching her. See Bethany being held in a headlock? She didn't want a photo taken at all. Oh yeah - and there are only 8 pairs of feet. Where are the other two?

So we found Sam, and tried to get Mercy to cooperate. No luck. We couldn't even FIND one of her brand new, really cute socks.

So I gave up.

A couple days later I was trying to get Christmas photos with everyone. I tried to get Mercy and Josiah together. I thought it would be great to try to get Mercy to kiss her big brother she loves so much.

Forget that... let's get them all together. Not too hard right? Wrong.

I believe the words, "You don't have to like this. Just PRETEND you like it. Big kids, DON'T LOOK ANYWHERE EXCEPT THE CAMERA! And smile, darn it," came out of my mouth.

So there you have it. Whatever "it" is. It's certainly not at the Peterson house.

And if you see me in real life, please feel free to wipe the spit up off my back.

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Head over to I Heart Faces to see other people's photos which haven't turned out exactly right...

Christmas Eve Morning

My Christmas Eve Morning Gift from God...



A beautiful sunrise...



A cup of coffee at the perfect temperature...



And the kids all slept in.



Close to a perfect beginning of the day in my book.

Sam

Is this, or is this not one seriously cute baby boy?

My last day

as a mom of 3 under 3. Tomorrow Mercy turns three.



Merry Christmas Everyone!

Playing around

Just playing last night with my camera... I love this ornament. Of course, it is out of date, though.



I love this pretty little church.





I only have two decorations out... the tree, and my favorite part... the Nativity. I especiallly like this one since it is so lifelike, and it is made out of some sort of plastic so the kids can play and rearrange the items endlessly and it won't break.



I didn't get a good picture of my shepherds and sheep which are on the step below this one, but then I put the wise men on the bottom step... since they have so far to come.

Just Call Him Bob...

Does he, or does he not look like Bob the Builder?



We think so too. Now to just get a "pro" looking setup so I can do a photo shoot without the checked sofa behind him!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We've been having a fun time decorating the house for Christmas. The other days they made the paper scraps fly as they created paper chains and snowflakes. We hung the chains on the ceiling and then hung the snowflakes from them



Some people wrapped their chains around the tree, while others wrapped them around themselves.



Once they got the hang of how to do it, they really made some pretty snowflakes!



Nate was a chain makin' fool... he turned everything he could find into a paper chain. He'd have stapled his sisters in if they'd have been still long enough.

Deck The Halls...

Last week we decorated the tree for Christmas. This is as good a photo as I can get to show the general chaos level of the house that evening.



This is our friend Al. Decorating a tree just isn't the same without him.



He likes to pick on the kids, and is generally an ornery old coot. We all love him! Every time Anna would hang up a particular two ornaments, when her back was turned he pulled them off and gave them back to me to give to her.



She must have hung the same ones on the tree a good 20 times. Later she said she just thought we had a lot of them! Haha!



Al is one of our favorite people. :)


Here are some more photos of the decoration day:







Oh yeah- we made cookies too. As you can see by the batter on Mercy's cheeks.

A great time was had by all.

Eric brought the Angel home from a trip to Hokkaido when we were stationed in Okinawa.

Just another of our Christmas Traditions - decorating the tree.

And, by the way, don't try to make home made eggnog. Trust me.

I have posted this link at I Heart Faces . Go check out the other (better photographed) traditions!

First Snow

The other day we had our first snow of the season. It was met with shouts of great joy. The jubilation in the Peterson household was without measure. (See the green in the background? That would be grass.)



They played. (The green at the bottom would be more grass.)



They jumped. (Yep... still grass. I could have edited this to only show the snow bouncing up off the trampoline, but I believe in truth in blogging.)



No one tell them that it was a minuscule amount of snow. I like it that way.

What I've Been Up To

Once again, I have bowed to the pressure of "WHY HAVEN'T YOU POSTED ON YOUR BLOG?!?!"

And, "Where are your photos? I love the photos..."

And to my Friend (E.L. to name names...) who asked what I do all day.

Here you go... example one of what I have been doing lately:



We got to let Sam meet his Grandpa.



And charm the socks off his Grandma.



And play with his Big Brother who loves him oh so much...

And really... if you had the opportunity to photograph that smile, wouldn't you do it too? Even if E.L. HAPPENS to shoot with a Canon. I like her anyway. She has a great laugh.

And those pants... aren't they cute? Not to mention the tooshie...



Another of Nate and Sam. Those two are going to be great friends someday. So that, my dear friends, is something of what I have been doing lately.