Skip to main content

Cousins and Chaos

All of the people in all of these photos are family. Lots and lots of family. Not everyone is represented in these pictures but what's here will give you a good idea of what Thanksgiving week looked like. We were so busy with visiting and crowd control that we never thought to capture a photo of the whole group.












Comments

Janelle said…
That looks positively wonderful!
ocean mommy said…
I have one question.

Do you all stay in one house?

Looks like an incredible week of reuniting!

Love to you all,
steph.
God's girl said…
Wow-That makes me wish we had a HUGE family. It looks like a blast!
Thanks for sharing.
Love you!
Ang
Kate said…
Steph,

We were in four houses but my parents still had ten grandchildren and six adults not including themselves at their house.

Kate
Sarah Markley said…
This is amazing! How fun and exciting! I want to know how the cooking is organized! Also, it looks like the kids had so much fun with like-aged cousins/siblings!
Kate,
Those are great pics telling the story of sweet family fellowship! Funny you titled it "cousins and chaos" - when we get all our family together, my Mom always calls it "happy chaos." What a joy!
Alana said…
How fun! I love big family gatherings...thanks for sharing!
tammi said…
What great pictures of happy times and heart-warming memories! I especially love the one with the kiddies running on the sidewalk. I don't know what it is about it, but it just stuck out. Maybe because it captures the sheer abandon with which children play together. Their carefree-ness. It's just beautiful.
Those pictures remind me of the Christmas Eve family get togethers that we had when I was a child. Children practically sitting on top of each other and people eating standing up. Even as a child I knew there was something special about belonging to all of those people.

Thanks for sharing!
Heather C said…
Looks like such a great time! Thanks for the glimpse into your family! :)

Heather
Children, children, everywhere! What fun! It looks a bit like our Thanksgivings, in my family of eight children. Brothers, sisters, neices, nephews, dogs, birds...laughter.
Love the picture of the trapped grown ups behind the baby gates! :)
Melanie said…
I love that pic of the kids running! What wonderful and special times. You are very blessed!

Popular posts from this blog

Artistic Expression and Faith

A few days ago, I came across a post called Of Books and Faith written by Beck at Frog and Toad are Still Friends ( The best blog name EVER to my mind.) She writes about how the Christian market is saturated with mediocre books. How few fiction authors there are who really grapple with the messiness of humanity from a Christian perspective. I agree with her whole-heartedly. The Christian life does not come with the lack of conflict and the happily-ever-after resolutions that I find in many books of this genre. It's funny that I came across that post because I had been thinking similar thoughts about another form of Christian expression. Art. Christian art is often either poorly rendered or is just too pretty. It lacks creativity. It doesn't engage the mind. Remember when I made that long trek to Hobby Lobby for stencil supplies? That was where this idea started to form. I spent a few minutes flipping through posters. Flip. Glowing Jesus in a meadow. Flip. Glowing Jesus surr...

4-H Exhibits-Updated

Update: Blue ribbons all around! 4 of our projects will go onto the state fair. John's headboard exceeds size limitations and so we will lug it home tomorrow. We are relieved. That thing is heavy! ************* For the past few weeks we have been busy sewing, sawing, quilling and painting 4-H projects. The kids have been in 4-H for about a month and they started with a bang. The annual 4-H fair is tomorrow. So this morning we loaded these projects and four kids wearing slippers into the car. The fifth one had sense enough to wear flip-flops. (The other four complained as we pulled out of the driveway that their feet were sweating.) John reclining against the headboard that he built with Stuart. He wrote the 10 Commandments of Table Saw Safety to accompany this project. Claire's quilling project. Lauren modeling the apron that she sewed. Lauren and the dog painting she has been working on in art class for the past few months. Faith and her quilling project. So now...

The Ice Cream Parlor

The Tooth Fairy doesn’t come to our house. Not because of any deep seated anti-Tooth Fairy angst. I'm just a tradition rebel. When each child looses his first tooth, we leave the rest of the pack at home and take the newly toothless one out for ice cream. This was easily accomplished when all of the children were young and the ice cream parlor was ten minutes away. We realized this simple tradition had become more complicated when Claire’s first tooth came out in my palm. The big guys don’t need a baby sitter. The little ones do. Kid combinations are such that we can’t leave them all home alone without outside supervision. Add in the drive time to and from the nearest soft serve establishment and we’re looking at three hours. Just for a quick trip to get ice cream! What to do? “I know, Mama! We can drive to the grocery store and get ice cream and eat it in the car!” “I don’t know. The thought of eating cold ice cream in the car in a hurry in January isn’t my idea of a da...