Continued...

Getting into the van...

That’s when the next big problem came up. We had gotten eight inches of snow that morning. My husband and been gone all day. I had thought he would be coming home to dig us out. I was wrong. Our van was buried…our driveway was invisible.

We had 16 minutes until our appointment, and still had to pick up Josh and get him changed.
So there I was, in my SANDALS, trying to scrape off the inches of snow on the windshield. Here is what I learned…my arms are not long enough, even with our massive windshield scraper thingy, to get the whole windshield.

It’s a big van.

I did the best I could and got into the van with very numb toes. (I had NO time to go back in for boots! I just grabbed the last pair of shoes I wore to church).

I said a prayer that the van would make it out the driveway, because I did not have time to shovel out the driveway, and if I had to, I didn’t want a picture of myself at that point anyway. I was going to be highly annoyed if I got everyone ready to be stuck in the driveway.

I gunned it, and the van miraculously made it out, and we got to Josh’s office with 7 minutes to spare. (Small town=short driving distances=good thing when rushed).
He got changed in record time, and we arrived at the elementary school with one minute to spare. Every so often, I impress myself.

The ladies oohed and ahhed over how nice everyone looked (it really, amazingly...looked really good) and asked where I had bought all the outfits. I told the Reader’s Digest version of the “unarriving fleeces” and last minute planning, and they were impressed. After having a minute to look at us all…I was impressed too. We looked good!

Considering there were 10 children and 2 adults to get posed just right, the photo session went really well. Everyone cooperated great, and it was a lot better than I had expected. Marcus wouldn’t stand still, until H. asked him if he could put his hands in his pockets. He shouted “YESH!” (he has a cute lisp!) and then stood every so nicely with his hands in his pockets.

Belane wanted me to hold her…big surprise…and I am sure she didn’t smile, but she was totally darling in her dress and giant white hair bow, and looked at the camera the whole time. H. had all of the kids say “Money!” every time she took a picture, and they all did except for Belane. My big kids are all hams so I wasn’t worried about them, and Maggie and Amanda, who sometimes cry for pictures, were in a great mood and smiled nicely. I think we did about seven or eight “Money!” shots, so hopefully at least one came out good. Proofs will be ready on Monday.

We went through the drive-thru at Burger King for an easy dinner, since it was almost 6 p.m. at that point, and after waiting forever (it is so NOT fast food sometimes) we drove home to find…

Two giant boxes of Old Navy fleece sitting on the front porch.

You can’t make this stuff up.

But my favorite moment of the day came after dinner…we had eaten and all of the big kids had cleared out to do their reading and the other little kids had gone off to play and it was just me and Belane. She has been silent all through dinner. She pulled on my shirt, and when I looked down at her, she had a twinkle in those huge, gorgeous brown eyes.

I said, “What Belaney?”

And she said, in her tiny little voice... “Money”.

A day late and a dollar short, but OH so cute. She does not miss a thing!

So, hopefully I will have a new family picture to show off here soon…one worth all the effort. And if not, at least we got all these nice new fleece pullovers.