Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Visiting with Great Grandma

This past month my husband's Grandma has been visiting.  We were wonderfully blessed in that we were able to see her quite a bit!  Elijah was able to go camping with most of Mark's family on Mother's Day weekend, and to spend some time getting to know her there.  He had a blast!

The next thing we did with her was have tea at my Mother-in-law's house!  Yum!!! It was such a special time for the kids to see their great grandma!  Mark had to work so it was just me and the kids.  My kids are a bit shy so it took awhile for them to warm up to her, but once they did they stayed right by her!  :-)


The next time we got together was a bit different in that it was just me, my mother-in-law, and great grandma.  We went out for a tea/brunch, then spent the morning window shopping.  Mark watched the kids for me, it was such a nice break!

Our final get together was at my in-laws house for Memorial Day, a celebration/goodbye time all in one.  By this visit the kids had warmed up to Great Grandma enough that Emmaline wouldn't leave her side but just sat and talked her ear off!


It was a very special time and I'm so glad the kids had a chance to spend this time with their Great Grandma!!!

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Dollhouse Home

I like to see all over views of other peoples dollhouses and thought you might enjoy one of mine as well.  Since I'm working on the inside now I've flipped it around so the exterior is facing the wall.  I haven't made much progress on it, summer is a very busy time.  I'm sure I'll get something done on it soon though. 



Currently my dollhouse "lives" in our garage.  Someday I'd like to have it in our bedroom, but as that's not really feasible right now, the garage is very workable.  Plus, I can leave out a mess while I'm working without driving myself crazy.  :-) 

Friday, May 25, 2012

Love Note

One morning this week I got out of the shower and came into my room to find this note on my nightstand!


Awww, so sweet!  It made me cry... :-)  This will be cherished and treasured for many years to come!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Another Birthday Celebration

This weekend we went out to my parents house to celebrate my Mom's birthday!  All of the family that lives here was able to be there for the party, which made it such a nice special time.





Emmaline and her cousin having fun with an old wagon!

Monday, May 21, 2012

Family Room

After swallowing a hard dose of cold reality, I realized that the chances of painting the family room before this little guy is born were extremely slim.  So, I went ahead and rearranged all the furniture and got the room set up the way I wanted.  It is still kind of rough, there's no decorating done or anything like that but the set up seems to be very workable for us.  We have done school quite a few times and found it to be ideal.  Also, with the kids toys where they are at, the little ones can play quietly with toys right next to us while we do school!

In this picture you can see how it's set up.  The computer desk works so well under the window!  Next to it is the turtle tank in the corner, then the school shelves, then a dresser full of all our games (we like to play games, so we have a lot of them), and finally the toy shelves.  We bought a new tank for Elijah's frogs and put them on top of the game dresser.



Here are the school shelves.  I went through the school stuff somewhat as I put it on but I need to do more sorting and organizing as I can.  All our picture albums, baby books, etc are on the top shelves.  I also put all the art supplies (paper, glue, scissors, playdough, etc.) on these shelves.  Our library books occupy one shelf (2nd shelf from bottom, left side) and our kid books are on the next shelf down.  I'm always amazed at how much school/kid/art stuff there is!


And here are the toy shelves.  I did a major sorting of all the toys when I set up this shelf.  No, these are not all the toys, we still have 7-8 bins of toys in the garage as well as oversized toys that I switch out on a daily basis.  The toys that made it onto these shelves are the ones that are played with consistently on a daily basis.  There's also a box of weapons next to the shelves on the left that you can't see in this picture.


I would still like to work in a bookshelf just for books, but I'm not sure where yet.  Maybe in the corner by the game dresser?  I also want to build some shelves to hang above the toy shelves to put 3D art that the kids make on, and hang up a bulletin board to display all the drawings the kids make.  But for now, I'm very happy with how this worked out!

Friday, May 18, 2012

Saturday

This past Saturday my Mom and Dad came over for the day.  My mom and I went to a Mother's Day Luncheon, while my Dad stayed with Mark and the kids and did some work in our backyard.  It was a very productive day!

Emmaline didn't go to the Luncheon with us, I didn't think she was quite old enough yet.  When she saw my Mom's outfit she went upstairs and changed her clothes though, because she wanted to match Grandma!



Mom and I had a great time at the Luncheon and were so impressed with it, it was a fundraiser for a local charity and everything was great!  While we were gone Dad and Mark put down mulch in the backyard around our lilacs and in the garden, cut out and fitted a table top for our table out back, and installed an umbrella over the table.  It all looks so nice out back!



Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Switching out clothes, part 2

So, I just realized I never updated ya'll.  I did switch out all the clothes for the kids, about 3 weeks ago.  It is always an all day job for me, and then some.  The kids were a big help this year, transferring clothes up and down the stairs for me, folding clothes and putting it away, and just generally doing whatever I asked them to do.  It has been sooo warm here that the summer clothes have been in constant use, although I left out some cold weather clothes too, and they have been used some.


These are all our bins of clothes.  I have two for next seasons clothes, and 1 for clothes that we're keeping but which won't be worn next season (ie: next summer, etc.).  I also have a small bin of baby clothes for each gender, not much because I got rid of all the boy clothes that I was so tired of, and I don't have much girl clothes because, well, I've only had 1 girl!  I also have a small bin for off season coats, and one bin of shoes.  It's always sooo much work to haul these out of the crawlspace and go through it all!  I'm so glad it's done!

Mother's Day

I had a lovely Mother's Day this year!  We went to church in the morning, then came home and had lunch.  The older kids all bought me presents and had such a fun time watching me open them all!  The afternoon was spent reading books and hanging out as a family.  We had tea for dinner, a complete "high tea" with tablecloth, candles, etc.  Then it was off to bed for the kiddos and Mark and I watched a movie together.  It was a great time!


Awana Award Night!

This past week was the kids last week of Awana!  All the kids finished their books and got awards.  They were all so proud of themselves!

Emmaline recieved a ribbon and a certificate for completing her book, review book, and multiple other verses!


 Elijah completed 2 books plus 3 review books plus multiple other verses so he received a special award from the commander, she called it the "Wow Award", because he went so far above and beyond what was required!


This was Josiah's last year as a Cubbie, so he received a special certificate, big ribbon, and very own tote bag!


After the awards there was ice cream floats provided to celebrate!  The kids had a blast! 

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Store night!

The kids had a wonderful time shopping at the Awana store this past week!  Josiah had just over $50 (Awana bucks) to spend and ended up getting just a few bigger things.  He has had a great time racing his cars on his new Hot Wheels track!


Elijah had almost $130 Awana bucks!  He also ended up with a few bigger things including a book for him to fill in all about himself, which he has had a great time doing!



Emmaline by far had the most money, coming in at nearly $160 bucks, and she had a marvelous time spending it all!  She came home with 4 huge plastic bags full of her stuff!


All the kids also bought Mother's Day gifts for me, but I, of course, won't see those till Mother's Day!  :-)

Next up is Awards night and then Awana will be done for the summer.  It's sort of bittersweet, nice to not have to focus so much on keeping up with verses for all the kids but at the same time they love going so much, and I love to see them enjoying themselves!  We still are not sure what we will be doing for next year, but we'll keep you all posted.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Picture Wall

After seeing photos of different picture walls, as well as seeing them in other people's homes, I knew I wanted to put one together.  I ordered sepia prints of pictures of all the kids, as well as one of Mark, and bought picture frames at the dollar store.  I also bought several different stick on sayings to try with the pictures to see which one I liked.  After some fiddling, this is what I came up with.


I can't get the pictures to hang straight, one of the "benefits" of getting the frames from the dollar store.  But since these are at the top of the stairs I figure it looks fine, like people have walked by it many times and they are just due to be straightened soon.  I like it!

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Hairstyle

I promised I would post a picture of how my hair is styled now that I'm used to it so here it is:


This is pretty much how it looks all the time.  I like it just fine now but I'm still thinking of growing it out a bit longer.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

20 week update

Well, I'm at the halfway point for this pregnancy!  It's going so fast, it's hard to believe I'm that far along already!  My morning sickness is just about completely gone, just smells bother me every once in a while.  Also, my energy level is picking up (for a short time anyway, lol!).

This time around, for the first time ever, we decided to find out the baby's gender.  Our reasons were:
1.  I sold all my baby stuff after Micah was born because I had used it all so much that for this time around I wanted new things, and if the baby was a girl I wanted PINK things.
2.  Also, we wanted to give the kids time to adjust if it was another boy (and me too!).

The big day was this week.  And the baby left NO doubt as to it's gender, it was more than happy to oblige for the ultrasound!

It's a . . . BOY!

I have to admit to being just a little disappointed, although it wasn't unexpected.  I really wanted a girl.  But, the baby was healthy and looked very happy and active and I know once he's born I'll love him to pieces, just like all my kids.  It will just take a little bit to adjust to the idea of 5 boys. :-)

Anyhow, other than that, there's not much to report.  I always go into panic mode right about now, "too much to do and not enough time, ahhh!".  I'm one of those people who likes to have everything ready waaay in advance so the next few months will be spent trying to get everything done that I want done, all the while knowing most of it won't happen.  Such is life!

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

New Dryer!!!

After only a few weeks without a dryer we were blessed with one by someone at our church!  Mark was able to get it installed and it's been working great!  I'm still using my clothesline and loving it, so between the dryer and clothesline I'm able to really keep on top of the laundry, which is so nice!


Library

The kids had fun this week turning our living room into a library, including displays, a sign, and a box of books that people could buy, as well as library books to borrow!  We had just gone to the library so we had lots of books on hand to use! :-)

Display Table and sign

Hand lettered sign done by Elijah

The library!  Looks so comfortable and homey!