Sorry, No Pictures To Post

Yeah, I keep forgetting to charge my camera, so I can't take new pics. Instead you get a monologue from moi.

We had our family photo taken tonight for the church directory. It could have gone worse. Let's just say I picked the least bad...you'll have to wait for the results and judge for yourselves. Pretty much I just kept threatening the kids that if they didn't smile nice (or stop doing rabbit ears, or look at the camera, or a host of other misdemeanors) they wouldn't get ice cream after dinner at the chinese buffet. It is really hard to get 9 people looking their best all in one photo. Especially when 7 of those people are under 10.

So, after our photo session we headed to the chinese buffet in town. I guess they never heard of mood music because it was extremely quiet in there until we showed up. Once all the bathroom trips were over, we were able to take turns getting food. And in walks my friend and her family. This friend has five biological children that are always (at least in public) immaculately dressed and exceptionally well-behaved. She lives around the corner from church and is backyard neighbors with our priest. Our priest that was apparently joining them for dinner at the chinese buffet, two tables away from us. We stopped in the aisle to chat and she confided in me that as much pressure it is to eat at a restaurant with your children, it is magnified by four when you are sitting with your priest. I told her she had nothing to worry about, we would be taking the heat off her for this meal out, so she could just relax.

The kids did OK for the most part. Owen burped (loudly) a few times, Oliver doesn't have the concept of a quiet voice, Teresa was wiggly, Liam ate sweet and sour sauce from a bowl with a spoon (which somehow ended up on the front of MY shirt), and Eddie liked to show the food he was in the process of chewing. Rosa and Matthew were good except for over estimating how much dessert they could eat. Kids were getting restless, so I took the debit card from Steve's wallet and he headed to the car with the kids. I asked the waitress if out check was at the counter, since she didn't deliver it when she dropped off the fortune cookies and she let me know our priest paid for our meal. He thanked us for what we are doing for our kids. I left with tears in my eyes.