Have you ever had a book you couldn't help but flip through when you remembered it? A book you kept coming back to, over and over again?
That's what you are to me
-Kore Yamazaki

"Come on Gold, enough with pictures." I giggle, watching our children groan as they all squish together outside the front door so their dad can take countless pictures of them on their first day back to school. "Let them off the hook."

Something that's a little hard with eight children.

Colton Ash, Maesie Emmeline, Amberly Rose, Zachary Austin, Jeremiah Alexander , Cecily Elizabeth-Lee, Drucella Violet and Octavian Elijah Wolf-Hart, in order of their birth.

Cole and Maesie are twins and eighteen already. Mae stands in the front next to the younger ones and Colton stands in the very back.

Colton got his father's structure, but is only 6'4. Cole has my anger, sharp teeth, his dad's grin and my fierce protectiveness. He growls just as deep and powerful as his grandfather. Without needing to, he often acts like a third parent to the younger ones. He has Asher's mint green eyes, and my dad's black hair. It's difficult to get him to go to sleep before midnight, and he's always the last one awake. Cole also wears glasses, something unique just to him. He rides a motorcycle, and has a leather jacket but he also had a ride-along carriage for his little siblings.

Maesie sadly grew to 5'4, which makes her a good three inches taller than me but did inherit my small frame. Mae is the nice girl with the Devil's smile. She's never without a book, can't stay up past eleven and is the first one to wake up in the morning. She plays volleyball. Mae has central heterochromia, meaning her eyes are mint green in the center but fade to a deep blue on the outer rim, she has my brown curls. Mae also has my dimples. Her favorite color is pastel blue meaning she rides on the back of her brother's motorcycle when she's not driving her gigantic pastel blue truck with cute bumper stickers- -that she named Jager after Jagermeister and Jagerbombs, the only alcohol she'll drink- -and a licence plate that says W0LF-H8RT or rather Wolf-Hart. She's proud of her family.

It's their first day of Senior year -she's the one in pajama's.

Amberly is 14 and already 5'6, but hasn't grown in a year. We think she's done. It seems all my children will be taller than me, ever since they're teenagers. She's a sarcastic little shit though she's nice as can be, but also been in many fist fights already. Not only does she have my sharp teeth, she also has my blue eyes and curls -but blond hair like her father. Amber is a artist, and has already been scouted for having her paintings in different exhibits. She also blushes very easily, but only over boys or because she's mad. Celeste is her favorite Aunt, as so she's taken the habit of throwing fruit, but created her own meanings for fruit. Watermelon is the second most serious, not the first. If she's very, very mad she'll calmly hand someone a sliced lemon, with the other half in her mouth. When she does that, there's no return. It's only happened twice, once to Zach- -when he died her hair puke green and she took three months to get over it when she was twelve and him eleven- -and her ex-best friend.

She diagonal in front of Cole but behind Mae. It's her first day of Sophomore year.

Zachary Austin, named after Asher's brother, 13 and already 5'8. He's stuck in books too, but also plays hockey and soccer in his spare time. He's got my smirk, and his dad's eyes and flat blond hair. Unfortunately Zach also seems to be a player. He can sing, and has made multiple songs already, without any of his friends knowing one of his favorite things to do is sing with me and his grandma while we bake some sort of sweet. He loves lemons. On his birthday he asked if he could get a tattoo of the word 'Loved' on his wrist like I have below my Moon, I sat with him the whole time. He didn't cry once...but I did. I don't see it ever being something he'll hate.

He stands next to Cole and right behind of his older sister. This is his first day of high school, in his Freshman year.

Jeremiah is 12, but only 5'3. Still taller than me, I blame Asher. He also has my fangs, but his dad's niceness and smile. He's a daredevil, the quiet kid in class who also does the stupidest shit in his spare time. He's broken his wrist five times, an ankle twice, and has broken fingers on the regular. He broke his nose once, falling up stairs. He's got his dad's clumsiness as well. Jem has blue eyes and my curls, would a complete mini me if not for the fact he's male. He's a bookworm but also the best football player in the middle school. Jem has picked up my forced habit of never calling people by name, and his dad's speech patterns. He's adorable but already has girls fighting over him.

He stands next to Mae and in front of Cole. It's his first day of eight grade, and he already says he won't like high school.

You and me both Jem, you and me both.

Apparently Wolf doesn't fall far from the Moon.

Cecily- -named after Grams and Papa Lee- -is only 9, and thankfully still under five foot so I might have a chance with her. So far she's very into anything sugary, including lemon drops. She's in love with Harry Potter, and growls even when she doesn't have any sharp teeth to back it. Cece also blushes any time she's embarrassed, just as easily as her dad. She has my blue eyes and black hair, a mini-me of my dad. A devil spawn alright.

She's between Jem and Mae, and grins from ear to ear the Devil's smile.

This little Wolf is grinning because she's wearing her favorite blue shirt, a light blue cotton one with the Cheshire cat winking on it, and her hair put into pigtails that Asher put in with black scrunchies making her adorable tooth-missing face look even cuter. But under that, she still has her black and purple Cheshire cat onesie on, so from the waist up photos she looks completely prepared and full photos she just looks awesomely lazy.

Cece is starting fourth grade.

Drucella is 7 and pixie-framed like her grandma. She has my dimples, the only kid other than Maesie who has them. She's the quietest kid we have, but if she sees something that she knows is wrong, she'll scream her head off. Dru also loves music, in all forms, she can listen to my old rock collection or her brother sing upbeat modern songs.

This is her first day of second grade.

Once when we were visiting Gigi and Baba- -my grandparents Faye and James, before they died not even a yeag ago just weeks from one another- -and Asher took her out on a bus ride because Dru had never been on one before. She saw some random jackass touch a woman's butt, and screamed so loud the driver swerved on the road and parked. Taking her tiny frog umbrella, her favorite animal, she hit that guy hard enough that he fell on the doors, opened it and broken a arm landing on the hard ground.

If Grams was still alive, she'd had lost her mind.

I guess our girls are getting more and more unladylike as the generations go on.

Octavian is our youngest at 4, and is just now starting school. He's the only one who didn't inherit mine nor my husband's eye color. Tavy got my mom's grey eyes, my curls and Asher's golden hair. We're not sure if he likes reading, or just has me read to him so much because he has me do it, but he's definitely avid about it as well as pretending to work out with his dad. He's still at that stage when he thinks he's just a part of my leg. He growls when he's upset instead of crying, then cracks himself up by making the sound. Being as clumsy as I found out his dad was as a child, Tavy has cut himself on his canines more times than I can count.

He's is going into preschool today, and Asher is completely reluctant to let him go -he was this way with all our kids.

Eight first days of preschool, of elementary, of middle school and of high school.

Asher has never wanted to let them go, scared that his kids won't come back or they won't like the new step in their life.

Each kid, at their own time, discovered that most people don't have scars like their parents do. They took it well, but every time it came with questions. Those questions got answered as simply, but it caused tears on both ends telling them our stories.

Zach was surprised, and proud, to learn where his name came from. That day, I saw him hug Asher harder then he ever did before.

And it's just one thing he gets to rub in his siblings faces when they fight each other in trying to decide who's our favorite.

Maesie and Jem, taking after the golden boy when it comes to their niceness, tend to just smile and refuse to fight for that spot, not because they don't think we love them but because they know they don't have to fight for our love. Amberly, though nice, is a fierce fighter.

Colton and Cecily tend to win most fights, unless it's physical ones, then it's Amber and Colton. Being the older brother, he can't help it.

Older siblings.

Tsk.

I know what that feels like.

Colton's best friend is actually Xander and Celeste's kid, James. We call him Jamie. For being seventeen, he's still adorable brown-eyed, black-haired goofy kid.

Maesie has a mortal enemy, Link and his wife, Braelyn's (Lincoln met Braelyn in college, and they fell in love. Braelyn is half black, half Italian woman with black eyes and crazy curly dark brown hair. She made him call her Bae.) kid: Cyrus (a tall boy with Brae's black eyes and impossibly curly dark red hair, and a olive skin tone) Zion Smith.

We can all see that they like each other, and just simply won't admit it.

She calls him Enemy, he calls her Nemesis.

It's adorable.

As Mae has Jager- -her giant pastel blue truck that is probably the safest thing she could drive -curtsy of her grandfather being overprotective- -with the license plate that says W0LF-H8RT, Cyrus has Meister -a dark red sports car with the license plate that says ENMY-NM1 just to annoy the nice girl.

Which I find particularly hilarious.

Anyway, back to reality.

"Okay, okay." Asher tucks his phone away, shaking his head with a slight smile. "You're dismissed."

Immediately they scramble for backpacks and the ones who like to eat in the library, or don't like the school's food grab their lunch bags while others dash to their rooms to actually get ready for the day.

We haven't had a single year yet where all of them were dressed.

Mostly due to Mae and Cece's instinctual need to annoy the rest of their siblings by under-dressing.

I sigh as Tavy dashes to me, his adorable Adventure Time backpack making his movements even clumsier than normal. He doesn't even need a backpack, it's empty besides a Dr. Seuss book, he just saw his older siblings all had them and growled at his dad until he got one.

"Mama, Mama!" Octavian cries, grey eyes holding me captive just like my moms did. "Uppie."

We taught all our children sign language from a young age, so they can communicate with many people. I even teach them Welsh, Spanish, Italian and a little of Russian when I can, so they've grown up with as much knowledge as possible. Jeremiah's favorite thing is to read Russian poetry to his dad, teaching him more Russian than even I know by doing so. Another reason we taught them ASL is so they could ask for things when they didn't have the verbal skills for doing so, that's why Tavy signs for me to pick him up while asking for it as well.

I do as asked, more than aware of how my small frame looks even smaller when I pick him, or any other kid, up.

Asher was more than surprised after the twins were born with how I was suddenly unable to pretend to be so big anymore -even if my mere presence is quite massive. Which is probably why he smiles and walks up to me, hands on my side to pull me into him, Tavy on my hip gurgling at us.

Two sets of mint green eyes look at me, one with adoration and the other with disgust as me and my golden boy are obviously about to kiss.

"Mama, Dad." Colton whines, nose scrunching up just like mine would before he pushes up his glasses to the top of his nose. "Get a room."

"We have a room." I reply, kissing Asher quickly before pulling away as to not disgust our son further, though Octavian doesn't seem to care. "And we use it too."

"Ew." Zachary, who just walked in the room, says.

"They're trying to split us up." I whisper to the nice guy, who grins and moves even closer to me much to our kids annoyance. "Think we should let them get away with that?"

"Absolutely not. Punish them all." Asher quips, glancing at the six children already in the room. Only Cole, Zach and Drucella are paying attention. Amberly is busy picking at the paint that's constantly on her hands, Jem has his face stuck in City Of Bones and won't notice his surroundings until it's time to leave and poor Tavy is trying to figure out why two of his brothers and sister is staring at us with disgust and a glare.

"That's not fair." Zach says, though he knows by now we rarely enforce punishments -simply telling them that we're disappointed and ask them if they really thought whatever they did would turn out good when the answer is usually always no, is usually enough make them never do that thing again. I find it works better than flat out punishments, and explaining why something is bad rather then telling them not to do that bad thing works even better. "You shouldn't punish us, being the products of that grossness is punishment enough."

I scoff, but as Mae and Cecily come rushing into the room the conversation gets cut off. We all know by now that when they come out, fully dressed in Mae's daily sweat shirt and leggings and Cecily's sweatpants and a tee, that it's time to go.

On their way up, they all kiss my cheek and say "See you later." as our family doesn't like doing goodbyes.

Colton gets up first, leading Zach out the door to take him to the first day of high school. Cecily and Drucella follow Asher, who holds Tavy, out the door. He takes them to the preschool and elementary. Mae leaves last, Jem and Amberly in her wake as she drops Jeremiah off at the middle school before going to the high school.

The day Mr. Johnson found out I had kids, he resigned as the principal.

If only he did that after me and Xander were born, then he might not have as many wrinkles.

Now they have a equally as douchey leader of their hell hole, Principal McNamara. He hates Wolf's more than Johnson did, and that's saying something. He'll probably be dealing with us for the rest of his career.

It's funny, somehow, that I went from the devil girl who nobody thought could be loved, to the Wolf girl who is loved by a husband and eight kids.

Either way I've nade my mark, so I'm not worried.

Sighing I pull my own book, Dawn Treader, towards me so I can get in a few pages before Asher comes home again and I get distracted with that sexy-hot-cute mess that he is. And we do get very distracted, which doesnt leave me a lot of time for books.

Oh well, back to reading I go.