Big Mama and various other situations

   The house is warm, smelling faintly of paint fumes and freshly baked cookies. It will soon smell like freshly baked hamburger rolls, since Zachary is making supper and his menu of choice is grilled burgers on homemade rolls. He loves to cook and I suspect that of all our sons he will take after his daddy when it comes to the kitchen. The house smells of paint fumes because Eric was painting their beds in the basement. Why would you sleep on white bunk beds when you can make them black?

   Christopher is still snoozing away at his nap, Emily and 3 little boys walked to the library, and Eric and Josh headed for the tennis courts to work off some energy. You know, one thing that I have found interesting about living in the city is that we walk more than we ever did in the country. You walk to the grocery store, you walk to the post office, you walk to the subway, you walk to the park and you can even walk to church if you wish. Of course we drive places too, cause when I go to Aldi, I buy lots of food and I'm not carrying home that many boxes. It never ceases to amaze me how much food this group of males can put away. Astonishing!

  So we've been here around 6 weeks and it feels much longer. I mean that in a good way. It feels like home and we love Boston already. And no, our children aren't doing drugs on the corner and neither are they swigging from dark brown bottles. I'm not saying those dangers aren't real but quite frankly the country is just as dangerous. I remember just a bit to clearly certain young amish boys trying to inform weaver children about the attractions of girls but it just so happened that Big Mama Weav was around the corner and as she casually walked over to her sons, the amish boys had the grace to look ashamed even while the weaver sons looked amazed. This happened in a little country bulk food store, in a beautiful rural setting. Thankfully the amish heathens hadn't gotten farther than asking my sons if they think such and such a girl is pretty etc (with that certain expression that I recognized from my days of also being a heathen...red light, red light!) but needless to say, we made sure they never were alone with our sons. You want to take them on a pony cart ride? Over my dead body unless I'm bouncing along right there with you and since they didn't look to excited about that, they went their merry way while the Weaver family had discussions about life and what's appropriate and what's not. And the sad thing was that these kids were only like 9 yrs old. No, city heathens don't scare me any more than country ones and in either case, it's best to have your pulse on who your children are befriending. And since our children are just as much the sons of Adam as any others, its all the more important to know our children, wouldn't you say?

   Speaking of Big Mama's, I'm hitting that mark right on. I'm big and waddling and so, so ready to be holding this little man. Yes, it's another boy!!! Yes, yes, we're excited and not disappointed. How can we be? How many people can say they have 9 sons??? And such handsome ones at that! Not even apologizing for bragging, esp after all the hard work of getting them here. Maybe some day we'll have another daughter but if not, I'll just handpick my daughter in law's. Ha! Yeah right.......

   The crew is slowly returning, which means the quiet and peace will be evaporating like water in a desert. Marlin is in Uganda for two weeks, working on a refugee project so I'm the sole parent in charge. So thankful for these hefty teens of mine and so thankful for return tickets. And reunions. :) The cookies are almost finished and the grill is getting hot, so time to go be a mama.