Another one bites the dust!

So, anyone who knows Mark knows that he attracts bad drivers like a magnet.  And, true to form, this week Mark was in another accident.  :-(   The front of the bug is sooo smashed, it looks so awful.  Fortunately Mark wasn't hurt.    We are trying to figure out how to pay for another car, because the other driver didn't stop.  We have uninsured motorist coverage but that will not cover another car.   

Look Mom, I'm Standing!

Micah has started standing on his own and taking steps!  He can almost walk all the way across a room without falling!  When he does fall down he just gets back up and keeps going, he's very determined.  :-)  He'll be running in no time!

Iced Tea Social

My Mom and several other ladies at her church put together an iced tea and dessert gathering for the ladies of their church and their families.  Emmaline and I were able to go and spend some time fellowshiping with the ladies and enjoying the tea.  Everything was lovely!  We had a wonderful time!

And then there was one...

You may remember that we purchased two turtles for Elijah for his birthday.  Well, we have only one now.  :-(  On Sunday we had the turtles out of the tank and were letting them run around the family room.  Some of the kids decided to play out back ... and left the back door open.  Sam, the smaller turtle, saw the opportunity and escaped.  We spent over two hours looking for him but were never able to find him.  Elijah was so sad, he cried himself to sleep.  :-(  We are all so glad that we still have one turtle left, Missy.  Here she is basking in her tank, all alone.

Our Week in Pictures

We have officially started our summer break, which will last us only about a month before we start up school again.  We do it this way so that we can take off more days during the school year as we need. 

Elijah has been spending a bit of his time learning about fishing in anticipation of a fishing trip he is planing with his Papa, Mark's dad.  Elijah even started his own wormery, to try and harvest his own worms and make his own bait!

 Emmaline is enjoying her new school supplies that I have purchased.  This alphabet puzzle is her favorite of all the things I bought so far, which bodes well for learning to read!

 The weather has been fluctuating greatly between 60's and 90's, with mostly 90's.  It is so hot that the kids have run in the sprinkler almost every day.

 
Here is our flag.  We fly it every day and are proud to be Americans, even when our country is so messed up right now it's still a great place to live!

Anniversary Party!

Mark's brother, Michael, and his wife, Jessica, celebrated their 10th anniversary this week!  Michael put together a surprise party for Jessica to celebrate!  So sweet!  Yet again I forgot to take pictures of most of the important stuff, but here are the pictures I did take.  It was a lovely time and so touching to see them together and still in love after 10 years!

THE CAKE ... Yum!

My sister in law, Jessica, (in flowered dress), talking with  her friends

I missed out on pictures of the cake cutting, and of Michael and Jessica together, bummer :-(  Somehow, I'm always busy watching kids and can't seem to find time to take pictures.  Hope I can change that in the future...

Father's Day!

Our Father's Day was pretty simple.   I made french toast for breakfast, Mark's favorite. I had a small gift for Mark which he opened at breakfast.  Then it was off to church, we always leave at 8:30 to get there by 9:00.  After church we came home, changed into regular clothes, and headed out to Mark's parents house.  Mark's folks provided lunch for us, hamburgers, hot dogs, and lots of sides, Yum!  We had a nice relaxing afternoon.  Mark brought out all his airplanes but wasn't able to fly any of them because of the wind.  He was pretty disappointed.  Besides that it was a very nice day!  :-)

Sorry for the bad pictures, I forgot to take pictures for most of the day and was in a hurry for the few shots I did take... :-(

Dollhouse Progress

For those of you wondering whats going on with my dollhouse, the answer is "not much".  I have picked out some wallpaper for the living room (Roosevelt Rose in Pink) and have it setting up against the walls but I can't install it until I get my lamps either bought or built depending on the spot. 

Currently I have everything set up with what I have even though it's not how I want the finished room to be.  I'm going for a shabby chic look, and am slowly getting there.  I built the coffee table and painted it and also painted the bookcase in the corner.  I still need to make the firebox for the fireplace.  And I can't decide on what finish to do on the floor!  So many decisions to make...

I decorated it for the 4th of July last night (a little early) and think it looks so cute!

  Will keep you posted when I get more done!  :-)

Success!

Our garage sale went MUCH better than expected!  We ended up making $240 and my mother-in-law made almost $100!  I'm so happy with how it went!

Mark made this clothing rack for me last year and it works so well!  It really helps to move the clothes, a hard item to sell, by making it easier for people to find what they want.  I sort all the clothes by size and have paper dividers to make it easier for my customers.

I also try to keep like items together, creating a "kitchen" section, "decor" section, etc.  All the big stuff I place on the side where it's easy to see and will hopefully make people want to stop.  By the end of Friday most of the big stuff was gone though... not really a bad thing!

There were a few toys that the kids didn't want to part with but I wanted gone.  This Dora game was one of them...it ended up in the house more than once before being sold!

Emmaline was my big helper at the paying table, she helped me hand out change to all our customers.  She is wearing a hat and coat because Friday morning it was only 50 degrees till late in the morning.

I take all the little toys that are too small to sell alone and I make "grab bags".  These sell really well, especially with 7-12 olds.

All in all it was a GREAT sale!  After it was all said and done we took all the leftover items to Goodwill, so our garage is much cleaner!  Yay!!!

Too much stuff!

This past week I have been preparing for my annual garage sale this weekend.  We have a LOT of stuff to sell and it's been quite the project trying to get everything priced and ready, especially with the kids asking me to keep everything that they see!  :-)  I'll let you know how the sale goes this weekend, my goal is to make $100.  It doesn't seem too hard considering how much we have to sell...

Elijah's 7th Birthday!

We celebrated Elijah's Birthday this weekend with a big party for family and friends!  We tried, once again, to combine the two groups rather than having two birthday parties.  And amazingly, this party went much better than last year!  Yay!

We started the day by giving Elijah his birthday present from us:  2 turtles!  Elijah has been saving up for a turtle since Christmas and he was sooo excited!  He named them Sam and Missy.
  

In the afternoon we had his birthday party, which was quite large:  12 adults and 15 children, not including our family!  I had planned a few activities for the kids to do, which seemed to help to keep things under control and manageable.  I also had several adults out back supervising kids, so we didn't have any accidents this year, whew!