Cute quotes, mulberries and crab-sized spiders

Today Hannah said, "When I grow up, I want to be a doctor.  But first you have to get me the outfit for it, Mom."

We've been studying the solar system lately in school and Zoe is devouring all the facts she can about our sun and other planets.  She came to me tonight with a very worried look on her face and said, "You know, Mom, I just learned that all stars die.  What is going to happen to us when the sun dies?"  I tried to assure her that we'd be in heaven by then and that there's no sign of the sun burning up anytime soon.  She wasn't convinced, though, and went to bed with it weighing heavily on her mind.

Lastly, we have mulberries!  Our mulberry tree in our front yard is producing much fruit again.  They are delicious!  Yesterday I made a mulberry tart and served it to my two dear friends, Kristie and Michelle.

All of our kids (8 between us) played in the back yard while we three chatted up motherhood and adoption (we each have one adopted child) and more.  Three Japanese little girls from next door came over to play too.  As a token of gratitude for allowing the kids to play for about an hour, their mom brought over two little snacks: a box of "digestive crackers" (hmmmm) and veggie sticks (like pretzels with veggie flavor).  Japanese snacks are always an adventure.

I thought you might like to know how our pup Piper relaxes every night on her doggie bed: 

Lastly, you know you live on a sub-tropical island when there is a spider in your house and your child yells, "Ah!  There's a crab in here!  Mommy, a crab just crawled under the couch!"  Then, when you question your older children about the location and size of the "crab" you learn it was spider, and indeed the size of their hands.  The problem with spiders with legs this long is that they run very fast and they are hard to reach and kill.  I don't think they're poisonous, so grandmas, rest easy. I believe they are called Brown Huntsmen spiders and I've heard that the Japanese actually welcome them into their homes, as they eat other bugs.  Blegh.