Happy Mother's Day

Maxine has a blog... and on her blog for Mother's day she was commenting on the Duggar family. In case you don't know who these people are - they are an amazing Christ centered family who currently have 17 children and #18 is scheduled to arrive 1/1/09. Yep - you read that right - 18 children. They also homeschool all of them...

I watched a TLC (or was it Discovery?) show about them... I find them facinating. They built their own home ... every child aged 8 up had their own drill and was expected to particpate. Each member of the family was able to weigh in on the design of the house. They were moving out of a very tiny home and building a 7000 sq ft home equipped with 2 kitchens (1 cafeteria style) and a basement game room that the boys can access from a slide in their bedroom.

Other interesting things about them... every child learns to play the piano and the violin. Their chores are called jurisdictions - and they are assigned to that everyone knows their part of keeping the house going. And - they are debt free... One income - 17 kids and debt free... how in the world do they do that???

But the thing I find most facinating is how the kids get along. When designing the house - the kids were asked if they wanted be together (boys in 1 room and girls in another)... or if they wanted their own rooms. They said they wanted to remain together. How sweet is that?

I can't even get my boys to share a car ride to the resturant on Mother's Day without fighting....