Jeremiah's Birthday Party!

We celebrated Jeremiah's birthday this weekend!  We kept the invite list small, only family, and only the grandparents and my brother ended up coming so it was a very small party.  This was probably for the best as Jeremiah doesn't do as well with lots of people around.

The party theme was trains, Jeremiah is crazy about trains.  I made a train cake for him, I thought it turned out well.  The oreos didn't fit on the coal car so that is why I cut them up.  And, yes, the train engine is leaning slightly.  And I know that the caboose should have been red.  So I'm not perfect.  At least the kids were happy and didn't mention all the flaws.  (Unlike some of the adults at the party...)  :-(

Before everyone came over we opened Jeremiah's gifts from the family.  Elijah, Emmaline, and Josiah had made or given some of their things to Jeremiah.  So sweet!  We gave Jeremiah a small car race type track.  I'm not sure exactly what the correct word for them is but he loved it!

And before the party I thought I should get a picture of the big (or not so big :-)) birthday boy.  What a cutie!

When everyone arrived for the party I had all the kids color pictures of trains.  Then we went in the garage and played with balloons for a bit.  First we put all the balloons in the center of a sheet and shook it till they all bounced out.  We did that a few times, then let the kids just throw the balloons or whatever (Elijah popped a few, and Grandpa had fun rubbing balloons on kids' heads and sticking them to the wall!).

After the activities we headed up for cake! For anyone who notices that the smoke is gone, Micah ate it!  I had to redo the whole front of the train between the first picture and the party.

All the kids sat in the kitchen to eat their food.  And some adults too...

And finally, the fun part, gifts!  Jeremiah had just 3 gifts but that was good, so he didn't get overwhelmed.  

The gift from Grandma and Grandpa was HUGE!  What could it be?!?

Yay!  His very own trike!

Altogether it was a good day and most importantly, Jeremiah had fun.  :-)

Kid Pics

Some pictures that I took of a few of the kids this week.

Micah.  He came in from playing out back with the mark on his cheek and no one seemed to know what happened. (of course!)

Jeremiah.  What a cutie!

Emmaline.  I just had to get a picture of this!  She looks so feminine with her hair up and then she has the gun in the holster on her hip! (play gun of course)  You can tell she only has brothers!

Jeremiah had fun in the dirt!

Big sis and baby brother.  Only baby brother isn't so little anymore!

All the kids are fighting off a cold, thus the runny noses in the pictures.  Just so you don't think I never wipe my kids noses, they had all been wiped right before the pictures were taken.  :-)  And they are not normally so dirty either, that's why I took pictures is because they were dirty!

Dollhouse Trim and Porch

I was able to spend a bit of time on my dollhouse this past week.  I stained the porch boards for the first floor porch and installed them.  Here is a picture of it before:

And here is the picture with them installed.  I stained the base and the boards, sanding in between coats, then glued them down with tacky glue.  As you can see in this picture there is no trim on the corner of the house (the white edge of the wall), so that was my next step.

I cut the boards to the correct length for the trim, painted them with 2 coats of my trim paint, and glued them in place.  I'm really pleased with how this all turned out and can't wait to get the rest of the trim up!

Here is how the dollhouse is looking right now.  My goal is to have the front of the outside of the house done by Christmas and I just might make it!

Fall is here!

The weather has finally turned cooler and feels like fall!  This is one of my favorite seasons, surpassed only by spring.  I Love all the beautiful colors and how crisp the air feels after a hot summer.

We already went and got our pumpkins!  I think they look so nice on the living room window seat, especially with the leaves on our big tree out front changing.

We bought 6 pumpkins this year, one for everyone but me.  When we carve them I spend so much time doing everyone else's that there's no time for me to do one.

Our gorgeous tree out front!  I like to leave all the leaves on the lawn,  I think it looks more festive that way.

Here is our fall decoration by the front door.  I don't do a lot of decorating, I think God has done a wonderful job without any help from me!  :-)

Day with Grandma

Once every couple of weeks my mom will come over for the day, just to spend some time playing with the kids and chatting with me.  :-)

This time Mom spent some time doing crafts with the kids.  Here she is tracing around their hands onto paper to cut out.

And here is a classic picture, Grandma and Granddaughter.  :-)

Homemade Laundry Soap

To help save money for our family I make our own homemade laundry detergent.  One batch lasts around 3 months.  I wash about 20 loads a week.  So for a smaller family it would go a long ways!  Here is the recipe I use, as well as some pictures of the process.

First, gather your ingredients:

4  Cups - hot tap water
1  Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax


The fels-naptha bar can be bought at Ace Hardware and the Borax and Washing soda come from King Soopers.

 

Grate bar of soap.  I use a cheese grater from the dollar store reserved only for this.  Put in a saucepan along with your water.  Stir continually over medium-low heat with a wire whisk till soap is dissolved and melted.   It's important to stir it continually or the mix will not gel.  You can use it if it's not gelled, it will still clean.  But for me it's a mental thing, it needs to be gelled to seem like I'm using the "right" thing.  :-)

Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of HOT tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.  This is what it will look like the next day.

Stir.  Divide the mix between two 5 gallon buckets.  Fill each to the top with HOT tap water and stir again.   Fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser with this mix.  Shake before each use.

For those of you who just like to see the recipe without all the pictures, here it is:

Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent
4  Cups - hot tap water
1  Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax

1.  Grate bar of soap.  I use a cheese grater from the dollar store reserved only for this.  Put in a saucepan along with your water.  Stir continually over medium-low heat with a wire whisk till soap is dissolved and melted. 

2.  Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of HOT tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

3.  Stir.  Divide the mix between two 5 gallon buckets.  Fill each to the top with HOT tap water and stir again.   Fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser with this mix.  Shake before each use.
 
Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

A bad day for flying...

On Sunday we went out to Mark's parents house to celebrate his Mom's birthday.  Because the weather forecast called for perfect RC airplane flying weather Mark decided to bring all his airplanes.  The first plane he took up was his bi-plane, shown here when he first got it last year. 

After flying it for a bit he decided to do some fancy moves.  Bad idea.  The tail of this airplane has never been very stable, we bought it already built and it wasn't straight.  Mark took the biplane into a loop but when he went to pull out it went into a spin. Then it went into a nose dive straight into the ground, where it literally exploded into a million tiny slivers of wood.  Here is all that is left of the plane.

After such a poor start, I thought Mark would be done flying but he wanted to keep going.  Next he tried to fly his piper cub (the yellow one).  I should explain that Mark's parents drive way is pretty short as far as runways go, and there is a fence at the end of it.  Anyhow, he started the piper taking off only to find that the plane didn't respond to any of the controls.  He cut the engine and tried to land it but it didn't have enough airspeed, flipped over, and landed on it's wing, ripping the wing struts from the plane, tearing a hole in the wing covering and denting the front engine cover.  But at least this one is fixable.  I didn't get any pictures of this crash, I was in shock that he had crashed again.

Next up he flew the T-Craft (the little blue and white one).  This one flew perfectly, with no problems at all.  So, Mark decided to take his Extra up (this is the black one, that I gave him for Christmas) for it's maiden flight.  Mark started the take off roll, lifted off the ground, and... the engine died!  Because of the fence at the end of the runway Mark tried to turn the plane to the side.  The wing was ripped in half and the landing gear ripped off as well.  I didn't get a picture of this either.  It was simply to painful to see all that time and effort ruined in such a short time.  It is fixable, the fuselage is fine, but Mark has to rebuild the entire wing from scratch.

So, at the end of the day, Mark had 3 planes less than when he started.  What a rotten day for flying!

Book It

I enrolled Elijah in the Pizza Hut Book It program for the first time this year.  The first day of the program was October 1.  I told Elijah he needed to read 3 chapter books for the month.  Well, on October 3 he had already read 3 chapter books!  To say he was excited about the program might be understating it a bit!

Mark ordered Elijah's pizza and they went to pick it up together, then came home and ate dinner with the rest of the family.  Elijah was so excited to eat his pizza, all by himself.  :-)  Now he is counting down the days till next month!  (The goal for next month will be a bit higher, so it will take him a little longer to earn, hopefully...)