Jeremiah's 1rst Birthday!!!

On Sunday we celebrated Jeremiah's first birthday! We had a party here at home and most of our family was able to come. We did a Winnie the Pooh theme. My sister-in-law had given me a bunch of leftover decorations from one of her birthday parties so it was really easy. :-) Mark and I made the cake together on Saturday. It was the first time we had done that, it was really fun to make the cake together! Jeremiah had a great time, he was so wound up that he skipped all his naps for the day!

My Dad's Birthday

Last week we celebrated my Dad's birthday at my brother's house. It was a really nice time, especially because the whole family could be together one last time before my sister moved to new station (Navy) in San Diego. It was also special because my sister's fiancee' was able to come as well as my brother's girlfriend from South Dakota.

Stitches!

Yesterday I had just gotten the kids up from their nap time and was helping Emmaline clean up her room when I heard a loud scream from the boys room. Josiah came running into Emmaline's room with blood covering the left side of his face and eye. I scooped him up and laid him on the bed then went running to get a washcloth to wash him off and sent Elijah to get the phone for me, while Emmaline watched to make sure Josiah stayed in place. After washing Josiah's face off I could see that all the blood was coming from a large gash just below his left eyebrow. I called Mark and asked him to meet me at the closest Emergicare, then loaded all the kids into the van and headed out. When we got to the clinic I walked in and they sent me right back without even filling out the paperwork! The nurse came and looked and said she thought maybe one stitch would be needed. Then the doctor came and said probably 2 and when it came right down to it, he needed 3 stitches! Mark stayed with him while the doctor sewed the gash closed, I had already almost thrown up several times, I don't handle the sight of blood well! Praise the Lord the cut was where it was and not any closer to Josiah's eye! We are still not sure what happened, we think he might have tripped and hit his head on the metal frame of the boys bunkbed. We really don't have anything else sharp around that he could have cut himself on. Never a dull moment around here!

My Annual Fall Friendship Tea

Yesterday I hosted my Annual Fall Friendship Tea. The kids and I spent most of the week getting ready for it (cleaning and cooking). We served scones with lemon curd and clotted cream, pumpkin bread, grapes, deviled eggs, spice cake with cream cheese frosting and soft spice cookies. It went really well, and was so much fun! A lot of the people that come every year are ones that I don't see very often so its great to be able to catch up on all the news! This year I had the ladies in the kitchen/dining area and I asked Mark to "serve" the kids table which was in the family room downstairs. (In the picture of the kids table the little girl on the far right is my daughter Emmaline). We ended up having 7 ladies, 2 men (Mark and his brother) and 11 children! So, the men had their hands full! I don't like to ask any mother to leave her children at home so I have for the past several years had a tea for the kids at the same time. (In our house the policy is, if the kids aren't welcome then I don't come either). It worked SO much better to have someone else to take care of the kids table though, so I could enjoy the tea with the ladies! Mark is off on Friday's anyway so it was a perfect setup and he did a great job! Mark even needed me to brew up a second pot for the kids! :-)

Big Weekend Project

Our big project this past weekend was switching the location of our computer with two bookcases, moving all the kids toys onto the bookcases and packing up all of my books (no room left after putting out the toys). These are the "before" and "after" pictures. Mark did all the moving of furniture, setting up the computer, etc. and I put all the stuff on the shelves, sorted it all out and packed up the books. It was a lot bigger project than we expected but we are finally almost done. I packed up the books today and Mark will move them into our crawlspace tonight when he gets home from work. It looks sooo much better!