10 Feet of Trouble

Here are all 9 kids. Our 5 & Tony's 4 made for a rambunctious bunch. The nice thing was how wonderfully all the kids got a long. No drama. Here is Savannah and Sydney back in December of 1999. Unfortunately I did not capture a picture of just the two of them. I did get Anna and Ruby though. Here is a picture of my 8 month old Savannah and below is a picture of my 11 year old Savannah with Larry. Same wagon. My how time flies. My princess in a tree. A swarm of monkeys in a tree. Ethan diving in the mill water. Look how far down he went. Almost angelic. My favorite picture of Larry. We had such a great time. Stay tuned for some more images. Yes, I know. I went over board.

While at Cades Cove, we visited the Black Smith. I highly recommend a visit here if you go in season. He and his wife are phenomenal. Here are my boys peeking in waiting for a seat. Here is the Black Smith and his wife. He made a ram coat hook and letter opener while we were there. Sorry there are no pictures of the finished products. The kids were just mesmerized by him. Not to mention,he and his wife both were quite interactive with the group. My kids learned a great deal from them both.

Here is my current quilting project. I dove in to all my patriotic fabrics and started making stars. I am so in love with it.

Halloween weekend, we were invited to spend the weekend in the Smoky Mountains with our dear friends, the Dietrichs. It was the perfect weekend! Just outside of Asheville, on our way to the Smokies, we encountered some beautiful hot air balloons. Our kids were so excited. Honestly, my photo does not capture their beauty. Heck, it barely captures them at all. They are the little specks above the mountain tops. Our arrival at Cades Cove. The last time at the Cove, we came with the Dietrichs and Savannah was only 8 months old. Now we have 4 other additions and thankfully none of them are 8 months old. Here is our crazy bunch. I went a little over board with the pictures. Honestly, I did not want to miss a moment. Notice the wardrobe change below. We do this in case we capture that one image that is enlargement worthy. Ruby is always posing. Unfortunately, it is never the way I want her to pose. Don't let the primary president see this. I have some anxious kids ready to give talks...

This year, Black Mountain held a Heritage Festival. It was really cute. Many of the classes in the two schools had little presentations or productions. Xander got lucky and learned a little square dancing. It seemed like it took forever going through all the kids in his class, but it was cute. Wouldn't you know it, Xander & his partner were last. Savannah's class got to sing some old John Denver tunes. Larry Denzil was singing along. One video is of Savannah's class singing and the other video is my Xander.

This year I registered Savannah & Larry for JAM sessions. That stands for Junior Appalachian Musicians. The kids are taught to play appalachian music for the fiddle, banjo or guitar. And eventually, all the kids get to play the bass. It is a program for 4th through 8th grade so unfortunately Xander will have to wait another year. Savannah quickly chose the fiddle. She has wanted to play the violin for nearly 2 years, but was not willing to give up the piano. This year, her piano teacher retired so fiddle it is. Little Larry picked the banjo. He fell in love with the uniqueness of the banjo. And I think the very excited instructor helped lure him in. Check out my son's hobbit feet. Geez! This class meets only once a week, but the kids are learning so much. And they really have a great time the hour and a half they are there. Lots of singing and some clogging goes on while the kids are learning. The video is of Savannah singing one of the appalachian songs they are learning....

This year, Halloween snuck up on the Roberts' family. We were totally ill prepared. We bought pumpkins and forgot to carve them. I was working on costumes the very day of trick or trunk and did not finish. And we did not get a group shot of our kids. Not to mention, we failed to take a picture of Ms. Ruby! Savannah is there in the red. She chose a costume that did not look like much of a costume to me. I think she was just trying to be a cute little Hannah Montana or something. Little Larry went as FBI. I searched high and low for an affordable suit for him. After 11 stores, I got one at Belk 40% off. Ethan was mistaken for a power ranger, but he actually went as a ninja. At least that is what he said he was. My twilight obsessed boy went as a vampire. He wanted me to make him a cape, but it had to have the red lining. His daddy wanted to buy one of those muscle padded shirts and rip some jeans for Xander to go as Jacob. A Family Fun magazine recipe. Spinach hummus with some gh...

I am almost caught up in the blogging world. Whew! Last month, Savannah's class worked on a heritage project. They were to pick someone in their family that they find interesting. Forget that Savannah has a Japanese grandma, or some very interesting aunts and great aunts and uncles. Savannah chose her daddy for the simple fact that he was born in Kentucky just like her. They worked on this project the entire month of October. She had to come up with questions, gather pictures, and put together a book. Then they had to present it in front of their class mates. Larry & I both surprised Savannah by attending. Here she is posing with her life size drawing of her daddy.

This is a fun post. Ethan's 1st grade class celebrated Columbus Day by building individual boats and then racing them down a small creek next to the school. The teacher sent down 2 boats at a time. Here is Ethan right before his race. He and his daddy had so much fun building this boat the night before. Ethan was one of the last two racers to go. He was absolutely terrified when he saw he would be racing the biggest boat in class. I am happy to report that Ethan won hands down. The large boat was too big for the shallow creek. It kept getting caught on all the rocks and tree limbs. Ethan's Dread Pirate Roberts Ship. Here is Charlie's large cruise liner. The kids were so creative with their boats. This was such a fun class project.