On Being Seven

It's late, and its snowing (which is awesome!) but I wanted to post a few thoughts on expanding to a family of size seven...

• Yesterday we all went out for the first time in our newly expanded van (see the next bullet point) and after taking nearly and hour and a half to get ready to go, it was lunch time. So, we stopped at Wendy's. Thanks to some coupons, we ate lunch (six of us) for $7.82! Ha! That was great. But the best part was when Jen was collecting the food, I went to find a table. I had to move two tables of four together... JUST FOR OUR FAMILY! HA HA!! That was classic.
  
  
• The day prior, the long search for the bench seat for our van finally came to an end. We found a perfect match only one hour from our house. (One hour and one minute, to be precise.) The three older kids and I took the trip and had a great time... and once the bench was in, all three wanted to "try it out" on the way home! It was a bit more money than I was hoping to pay, but glad that it's the perfect match, and glad we can now go out as a family of seven.
  
  
• Everywhere we go, people seem to notice us... sorta stare at us... even point and laugh. (OK, made that up... but you can tell we're quite the spectacle) :-) At a rummage sale today, as we continued to pour in, one of the ladies tending the sale audibly said, "Oh my!" :-) (Not to us, she just couldn't help herself!)
  
  
• You can not imagine how much laundry and dishes we do. And just imagine when Emma and Julia are a bit older.
  
  
• We have now outgrown most of our board games. They all say 2 to 6 players. Nice.
  
  
• We have three bedrooms. (Some find that to be surprising... but that's not really an issue so far.)
  
  
• We have one bathroom. I think that one might eventually be an issue. :-)
  
  
• Do you know how much food we have to buy? :-)
  
  
• It will be interesting the first time we need to stay at a hotel.
  
  
• I continue to tell people, it's a party at our house every day. And it just keeps getting bigger. :-)
  
  
• We're starting to really scare our friends. When we come to visit... SEVEN people are coming to visit. :-) (And we're also starting to scare our regular babysitter. She signed on when we only had three...) :-)
  
  
• Have I mentioned how much we're loving this? :-)

It may be hard to believe if you have or come from a small family, but this is just fantastic. We have great kids, who all love each other completely, and we do really have a party every day. It's certainly not easy, but a lot easier than most think. Everyone chips in (mostly) :-) And as our family site says, "Together is a wonderful place to be!"

We wouldn't want it any other way. :-)