Lilacs!!!

The weather here has been so warm and wonderful!  My lilacs did in fact bloom this year, for the first time ever!  I love the smell of them and seeing them out my window!  While they didn't bloom a lot, I look forward to more flowers in years to come!  :-)

Dollhouse Kitchen Wallpaper

I bought the paper for the wallpaper in the kitchen!  I'm using scrapbook paper this time, both because it was cheaper, and easier to get.  I got all of it trimmed to the correct height, now I just need to cut out all the windows and doorways, and then, of course, glue it on.  :-)  The furniture is all just set in to give myself an idea of how I want it to be set up.  Still not sure about this layout, but haven't gotten any brilliant ideas for any other ways to do it.

After the wallpaper is up I'm hoping to do the flooring.  The design that I'm thinking of right now is similar to the entryway flooring of this dollhouse.  So many ideas still ahead!

When I grow up...

For Awana the kids dressed up as what they want to be when they're grown up!  Elijah dressed up as a farmer, Emmaline dressed as a Mom, and Josiah dressed up as an airplane pilot.  They had so much fun putting their outfits together!

Here is a picture of them all together.  Micah just had to get in on the picture, even though he probably has no idea what he wants to do when he's grown up!  (Jeremiah missed out because he was asleep.)

Emmaline just had to have long orange hair to be a Mom, not sure quite what that says about me!  ;-)

Mini Cinnamon Rolls

I have had the bug to make something for the dollhouse of late, so I sat down last night and crafted these cinnamon rolls!  I love how they turned out!!!  Makes me want to go and cook some up for real! Yum!!!

Thank you!!!

I have noticed that I have been getting a bit more traffic lately on my blog!  A BIG thanks to You, my readers!!! 

I was wondering, what posts do you all like reading best? 
    ~  General posts about our family
    ~  Homeschooling 
    ~  Home management/decorating
    ~  My dollhouse
    ~  Frugal living
    ~  Or something else? 

Also, what kind of post would you like to see more of?  I'm always looking for ideas, so if there's something you'd really like to see please let me know!  Thanks for all your input!

Water Gun Birthday!

For Josiah's birthday we celebrated with a water gun party! 

Josiah asked for a gun party, but we decided on a water gun party because we don't have enough of the nerf type guns to go around, it would be too expensive to buy more, and a logistical nightmare to have each kid bring their own! 

We ended up doing the party on a Sunday afternoon, although in the future we are going to be transitioning birthdays to weekday nights or afternoons, for various reasons, mostly related to the large number of birthday parties with friends/family that we know.  Anyhow, back to the subject.  Josiah turned 5 this year so we allowed him to invite friends.  He only ended up inviting a few and only one of the families could come, so it was a small party, with just my family, Marks, and 1 other family.

We started out the party with a coloring activity, bookmarks.  They were not gun themed.  :-)  After that we did a water gun game in the garage because, wouldn't you know it, it was only around 50 degrees outside and we couldn't be doing water games when it was so cold.  We had set up army men on a table covered with a plastic tablecloth and filled all the water guns the day before.  Each of the kids got to choose a gun, then all the kids lined up around the table and shot over the army men.  They had a blast!  Then we refilled the guns to do another game, but it turned into a water gun fight.  The kids also enjoyed that!

After the games we had cake and ice cream.  I made chocolate and white cupcakes, frosted the white ones with blue (for water, you know), and the chocolate ones white with guns piped on them.  I wasn't real pleased with them but wasn't sure what else to do.  We also had a vegie platter and a fruit tray, standard for our parties. 

Finally, we finished with opening all the gifts.  Always a favorite with the kids!  :-) Then it was time for everyone to go home.  It was one of our best parties yet!

Switching out clothes, part 1...

For several weeks now we have been talking about making the big switch, switching out our winter clothes to summer clothes, that is.  I still haven't gotten around to it, but Emmaline, bless her heart, decided to do her own clothes as much as she could.  She spent one whole morning in between school and chores going through all the clothes in her drawers, refolding it, deciding what to keep out, and putting only the summery type clothes back in the drawer!  This from the girl who a few years ago was known to stuff her clothes (clean or dirty) in any possible location, so long as she didn't have to deal with it!  :-) 

                                                                 I'm so proud of her!

Easter 2012

                       Here the kids are, all dressed up and ready to go to church!  So cute!!!

No Soliciting Sign

When we moved into our house we were inundated with solicitors, so I taped a card to the side of the house next to the door that said "No Soliciting".  And there it has been for nearly 4 years, rain stained, dirty, but doing it's job perfectly.  However, one day last week I was feeling crafty so I decided to make a new sign to hang next to the door.  I took a piece of wood leftover from the dollhouse, covered it in scrapbook paper, put on the letters for "No Soliciting" and a few decorations, covered it in contact paper and hung it up. (No, I didn't tape it up, the tape marks you see in the picture are left over residue from the other tape holding up my card that was on there for years...)

I think it turned out good and I like the fact that something looks nice out front now, even if it's just a small sign!  :-)

Dryer Woes...

Our dryer died 2 weeks ago.  It has been interesting, to say the least, trying to keep up with the mountains of laundry in our house!  My children must be quite messy/dirty because we have between 15 and 20 loads of laundry a week normally!  (This includes around 3-4 loads of sheets and towels.)  I also use cloth diapers, and the total doesn't include those loads.  However, since the dryer broke I have been using only disposables because I can't keep up with all the laundry that needs to be done.  There was one day where Jeremiah had no clean pants at all left to wear, so he just wore a diaper and shirt!  Thank goodness it was warm that day!!! 

This past weekend my Dad came over and put up a clothesline for me and it has been sooo nice to have!  I was able to get a few loads done, and they dryed so much faster outside than in the house! 

The past few days have been cold and wet so I haven't been able to use it but I'm looking forward to using it today since the weather is warming up again.  We won't be buying a dryer until we can find a good deal on craiglist or at goodwill, but we are not able to spend more than $100, so it could be a long wait.  Now that I have the clothesline though it shouldn't be too much of an issue, it is such a blessing to have some way to dry the clothes!  :-) 

Flower Bed

I was able to spend some time outside this week working on my flower bed, it was so nice!  The weather was great and I actually ended up getting a little sunburned on my arms it was so warm!  I usually leave my flowerbeds in the winter and then clean them up in the spring.  It actually doesn't bother me at all, I can look out the window and remember how beautiful everything was and imagine how good it will look in the spring.  When I do clean them up for the winter I think they look depressing, all empty and brown.  Just my personal opinion. :-)  So, here's the before shot.

And here's the after shot.  I think it looks so much better!  I only got half way done but am looking forward to finishing it up soon.