Happy Thanksgiving!  We spent the day with our family, joined by a few dear friends, enjoying the fruits of Jody's newest toy - an oil free turkey fryer!  You may ask "how can you fry a turkey with no oil?"  But that, my friends, is a mystery I still can't explain.  Joseph probably could, because it uses infrared heat from propane and he understands things like that, but I just know that the turkey looked fried and tasted fried but was NOT fried! (: Lots of fun for the men in the house, anyway.  The best part of the holiday was Jody surprising me the next Sunday with a wonderful birthday present- coordinating outfits for a Christmas pic with all our kiddos.  Best present ever!
Hope your Thanksgiving was just as blessed.

The Ogea Men have arrived!

 Having fun with our Pawpaw and Uncle Wacky!

Halloween 2012

The tradition continues!  We dress as a family and we have a great time doing it!  Unfortunately, Emmy had to work but she was a cowgirl who joined our wagon train later.

Summer 2012

I have been very remiss in posting to this blog this summer! Translation - I have been so completely crazy busy with all seven kids back in this "new" house that I haven't had time to go to the bathroom much less post pics and catch everyone up!
Well, here is our summer in quick review....kicked off the summer with a family trip to Hershey Park, had such a great time Charlie cried the whole way home because he didn't want to leave! Joseph was even able to come!...swim team was a blast with much success and I have six great swimmers, with one little guy who is almost ready to be out in the deep alone! Praise God, I will be able to sit at the pool and actually read a magazine next summer...July brought wonderful cousins to visit...the realization that Joseph would not be going back to Auburn because when they say you have to keep a 3.0 to retain your scholarship, the MEAN it.  No, a 2.7 won't cut it.  Life lessons can be hard.  Especially on the parents who have to rearrange our laundry room because no one wants to give up the new room they just obtained in March when we bought this house thinking we were one kid down!  So now Joseph is happily (I use that term loosely) situated on a bed tucked (doesn't that sound better than jammed or smashed?) in our laundry room and is paying his way through a year of community college until his GPA is good enough to get into an engineering program somewhere else.  It is actually not that bad, I kinda like having him home.  July also brought home improvement projects, I mean it is ours now, why not do what we want?!  Like pull up all this carpet and see if we can put down wood floors?  Amazingly enough, Jody and the kids did it!....August brought Jody's new "job" (school at ICAF) and his promotion to Colonel - Yay!!! and now Sept. is here and school has started with everyone, but Drew, back home (his choice). Definitely an eventful summer!   It may be Christmas before I post again so I will try to include some new pics.  We continue to be humbled and grateful for God's blessings on our family.

The best Mother's Day ever! All my kiddos back at home after five months!  I am so blessed!

Happy Easter!

Boy Scout!

Drew advanced to the rank of official boy scout this month.  He moved from Webelo to Boy scout in a wonderful, official ceremony at the Blue and Gold Banquet this week.  We couldn't be more proud of his achievements! The arrow he is holding is painted to indicate all of the badges he earned while being a Webelo.

Happy Birthday Four Year Old!

The big day started, as all Ogea birthdays do, with breakfast in bed!

Charlie had the best day ever, with lots of fun and friends and a Toy Story birthday bash!  It is good to be four!  He still says "lib-a-dit" instead of "little bit" but there isn't much baby left in this big boy!

Our sweet girl turned 17 in January...we are so proud of what a wonderful young woman she has grown up to be! She has been working hard towards her ultimate goal of being a pastry chef and spends much of her "free" time working at the Swiss Bakery.