old friends are always welcome!

Some old friends stopped and spent their night on the way up north. Her husband has been reassigned to Minot, ND. At least they didn't go straight from the deep south...they were in WA DC for 3+ years, so it shouldn't be such a shock to their systems! (I think it has been longer as they added another one to the mix and the "baby" isn't such a baby anymore!
So what do you do in a house of 13 kids (16 & under) and three adults??? Bring on the booze...just kidding! We had a great time catching up, playing, talking and praying...of course it always pays to have a friend who is an excellent cook. I'm honestly quite amazed at how quickly the kids just jump into instant best friend mode, even though several of mine didn't even remember them, LOL! My kids can't even remember to pick up their clothes, how could I possible expect them to remember friends from 3/4 years ago?! Our lives have so changed and flipped around since then! We met the Lobash family while Paul was stationed at Barksdale and I have to say that Nikki helped me to find my place as the mom of a large Catholic family. My confidence was severly lacking in that department until they came into our lives and I will be forever grateful for that!
I feel like a complete idiot for not getting more pics (didn't think of it until they were loading up)! But here are a few:

Soap making

Right after the camera was rediscovered it was time to make soap...Lauren set out to help (science and math were done that day!).
Ingredients are easy. We've tried several different recipes and methods and finally found one that works well for our family. For more ideas on homemade recipes go to tipnut.com. This recipe actually costs us about $3 to make (estimate) and lasts us almost 2 months. I've tried to make dishwashing detergent, but have never found one that I am satisfied with, so I gave up! But the new dishwasher is much more efficient and larger inside. Runs so quietly we forget it is even on...really miss the noise when Veronica has colic though as the dishwasher was a guaranteed sleep inducer for her!

Lauren turns eight!

Lauren, my fifth and only "waterborn" baby, turned eight the end of August (yes we go broke in August paying for all these birthdays in our family)! We always do a small celebration with just the family when the kids are on their "no party" year, but since Lauren hasn't ever had a birthday party before, we did both. My camera went AWOL after this and stayed missing for quite awhile, until a good friend of mine (thanks Carole) gave me the idea to offer a reward for the missing camera...amazingly enough Becca found it within two minutes....in someone else's room (yeah, right)....so I have NO pics of her gymnastics party, but at least had these two to share. She got tons of Littlest Pet shops and she picked her own cake out since it was a "busy day" we had no time to make one. I'll have to scan a pic of my m-i-l later so y'all can see just how much they look alike!