Our Family of 13!

All of us at Youth Group!

We are already missing one, Thierry left us on Thursday, but the rest of the gang.
From L to R, Luciano, Wagner, my hubby, Rafa, Junior, Ivan, Ricardo, and me in front!

And we kept getting smaller and smaller! Luciano had to leave before church.

All of us enjoying the yumminess of the Cheesecake Factory!




We were really blessed to have the opportunity to host 6 guys from Brasil that came here to serve in the soccer ministry Ambassadors in Sports. They were trained for a week and then break apart and go host camps all over Ohio and the country to kids ages 6-17. But the reall cool thing is that they don't share just their great soccer skills, but they share the gospel with the kids who attend the camp! They were short on host families this year so we were lucky to get 6 guys. They were all wonderful and the only downside to it all was that we only got them for a week, so just as we were getting to really know them, they left us! :( But we did get to see them once more before they split up to different parts of the country and will be able to keep in touch with them thanks to our wonderful technology!! As they all left Jerod turned to me and said, "See we could totally have 10 kids!!"

Laying around!

Here are some more pictures of the kids enjoying the summer weather! Naomi loves our hammock, as does Isaac. So they had a blast laying around on it when we brought it our for the season. And Jojo was having fun climbing around and playing on the Playhouse!

the Cherry's scream for Ice Cream!

Love this picture!! Such a classic summer picture!

Jojo holding and enjoying her first cone by herself. Usually me or daddy will share with her, but we let her have her own this time! I think she was very grateful and fully enjoyed it!!

He shouldn't like he is in pain while enjoying ice cream should he?!? I think the sun was in his eyes!

We were very proud of our Jojo. She didn't even make as big of a mess as we were expecting. Don't get me wrong, she was still VERY sticky!!








This was such a beautiful day just a couple of weeks ago. So we took the kids to this amazing playground close to our hose called Preston's H.O.P.E. and then finished the day by getting some ice cream. We had lots of fun enjoying getting to do these things with daddy with us. Normally it will be just me and the kiddos since daddy's at work.

More of the car!

Can't you read their minds?!? 'Are we there yet?!?'

Nana with her favorite nightgown. Just as we leaving the house she grabbed it from the dirty clothes pile. (yes, I said dirty clothes!) I guess she figured that if she couldn't wear it at least she could hold it! She loves the texture of the smooth fabric!

This was actually on our way home! She grabbed her blanket and decided she was going to make her own private space!

She sat like this for about 20 min. There is no doubt she is the most peculiar of our children!! But just as special and wonderful!! We are always amazed by how unique and different each of them are! They all share a great strong will tough!!

On the Road again!!

While Isaac and Nana found some comfortable sleeping positions
(at least I am guessing they are comfortable since they slept for a while!)...

Jojo was wide awake and in good spirits!

This has to hurt!!

Can you picture the wet spot behind his mouth there?!?


Here are some pictures of the kids in the car on our trip to Boston at the end of June. They did amazingly well considering that it was the girls' first time without binkies...and we didn't have a DVD player. They only fussed for about the last hour or so!

The Joys of Parenthood

It has been a while since I posted anything. We had left on the 17th to drive to Boston for a long weekend. Then we got back and it was crunch time! I had a ton of work to catch up on and then unpacking, laundry, and getting ready to host 6 coaches from Brasil that were coming to stay with us while training for a ministry camp they'd be helping with (more on this in later posts!)

The night we were getting ready to go to Boston, everyone went to bed and I stayed up to finish packing and leave...we were heading out at midnight or so. So I go in the girls' room to get some of their clothes, and the smell of a stinky diaper was overwhelming! I felt like I had walked into a toilet..it was bad!! But I figured I wouldn't wake them just yet since it was less than an hour from our depature time and I still had to finish up a few things. But I decided to peek closer at each one to figure out who had the dirty diaper. Let's just say that it wasn't hard to figure out who had pooped! So yes, that is poop all over Naomi's face an body. She took off her shirt AND diaper at some point before falling asleep. You can see the diaper by her leg. Amazingly she was able to sleep through the horrific stench...and so was Joelle. And she wasn't even too crabby when I through into the tub. And the poop had caked on, especially on her leg by the diaper it was about an inch thick! And I really had to scrub her to get it off!

Being a parent is such an adventure!!