Five Brown Kids

We are just plugging along over here. Big D has a ride to school and that helps tremendously. Seven people make so much laundry! Tyrone and I tag team all day keeping it and everyone else moving. Scotia is on fall break and I worked yesterday and today so Tyrone had kid/house duty. Coming home to a clean house and happy kids is such a luxury.  Wish I had an awesome job and a full time house husband!  She rides her bike until she's done and then we just leave it on the side until the way back. Bubbles at library story time.

Want to see a killer Jaxon Brown touchdown?  As my mom says, "It's too bad he's doing so well."  This success makes it hard to quit. One of three this game.

Emily watched our five charges while we headed off to a weekend at the beach.  Emily is a superwoman and a saint and saying hello to her at church that first Sunday a decade ago was one of the smartest things I have ever done. (This weekend brings our days away from kids in 14 years total to nine) We stayed in a super cute ocean front condo in Surf City (Topsail island)  with a big spacious sleeping loft.  We relaxed. (period) I still feel sad that I had to come back to the chaos that is my life! Looking forward to next year already.

At her baby gymnastics class.  Every mother there asks me how old she is. ...

This summer a teenager in our church who needed a place to stay came for a night. He fit in well with the family and ended up staying for two weeks before a relative came and picked him up. The night before school started he showed up again with his bag of clothes. We made room of course. The only answer to a kid on your doorstep is - "Yes of course, come in. The trunk is still empty - you can put your clothes there. Are you hungry?"  Taye has started seminary so we are now getting up at 5, the bus for the boys' new schools leaves early, transportation hasn't kicked in yet for the new kid so we are figuring out every day how to get him there and back. Some help from church in the morning and then me waking the baby from her nap in the afternoon.   Blythe also felt inclined to wake at 3 am for the first week or two of school.  Every day is a puzzle with a million different pieces and I have to figure out how to fit it all together.  I have responsibili...

I finally hired some cleaning help. I hate scrubbing the kitchen floor so I worked out a brilliant deal with Taye in exchange for cool clothes. I buy Taye a vinyard vine shirt or whatever the latest and greatest is and then he pays me back one floor scrub at a time. We make a little chart and I check it off every week. I haven't scrubbed the floor in a year :-) (Taye also has lots of lawn mowing money that he spends on cool shoes- I just provide the basics.)