Summer Break is here!!!

Hi all! Sorry for the long break between posts, we’ve been enjoying a much needed break from everything in life.  We finished up school, completed the Awana year and are just about done with ballet lessons for Emmy.

Here are some pictures from the Awana awards ceremony:

Thank you all for your patience!  After much prayer and thought I have decided to take the summer off from my blog to spend time with my kids.  The time is so short before they are grown and I want to enjoy every moment I can!  I will continue to pray about what direction to take this blog and will keep you all posted as decisions are made.  As time and inclination allows I may post occasionally this summer, so feel free to stop by and see if anything new has popped up!

Here are some pictures of our summer fun so far!

For those of you following my project 365, I hope to finish, but of course it is dependent on what my decision is regarding the direction of the blog.  Regardless, I won’t be doing any more with it for the summer.

Enjoy your summer everyone!!!  See you later!

Betsy

Project 365–Day 130

Elijah and Mark working together on their hobbies.  Like father, like son!

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Project 365–Day 129

Josiah and Malachi.  Love this picture!

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Project 365–Day 128

I had some time to bake chocolate chip cookies today!!! Yum!!!

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Project 365–Day 127

This week was “kids shopping week”.  Usually the last week of the month I pay the kids their allowance (one dollar per year of age per month, so for example, a 7 year old would get 7 dollars) and we go shopping so they can buy anything that they have been saving for.  We were a little late this time around!  Emmaline bought this little creature that she loved and asked me to take a picture of.

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Project 365–Day 126

I loved this picture of Malachi watching all his siblings talking and playing at the table.  He was so intrigued by them all!

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Mothers Day 2013

We started the day off with a lovely breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, and toast that Mark made for me!  Yum, yum, yum!

Mark bought me some gorgeous flowers and surprised me with them when I came downstairs!

After we ate breakfast I opened all my gifts from the family.  Mark had taken all the kids shopping and they all got me a little something, so sweet!

Then it was off to church for the morning.  I was scheduled in the nursery so I spent the morning holding little ones, one of my favorite things to do.  I even got to sit and rock a little girl and sing songs with her, which was a treat.  :-)

When we got home from church Mark grilled lunch and I was able to just sit and relax.  It was awesome!

After lunch the kids all played quietly.  Elijah worked some more on his model airplane, Mark worked on his hobbies, and I worked on my dollhouse.

Later in the day I made muffins and we had muffins and fruit and watched a movie. 

Although I really didn’t take the time to plan anything for the day it still ended up being a lovely day!

Project 365–Day 125

Elijah, Emmaline, and Josiah ate dinner at a friends house today.  It was so weird to see the table set for 4, it seemed so empty!

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Dollhouse Progress Update

                     April 2013

Yes, I know we’re halfway into May!  I set a goal for myself of posting a dollhouse update once a month and I don’t want to give up after only 1 posting!  So I will hopefully be posting again in a few weeks! :-)

First off, some regression.  All the kids playing with the dollhouse were too much for it, and almost all the porch rails fell off.  I hope to get these fixed by the next update…

 

I rebuilt my addition on the side of the house.  It too had suffered untimely demise at the hands of loving children.  I have yet to figure out how I’m going to finish it all out and attach it to the house but I was glad to get it rebuilt.

I laid some more of the floor tiles on my kitchen floor template.  I’m loving how this is turning out!

And finally, I made just a few more mini’s to add to my ever increasing collection of accessories!  A mini box of oreos and a small file box, so cute!

So, there’s my progress for the month.  I didn’t have to spend any money for any of it, but still was able to feel pleased with what I got done.  Yay!

Project 365–Day 124

Emmaline asked me to draw a picture of a “pretty girl” for her, which I did.  Then she tried to copy it on the opposite side of the page.  I thought she did a great job!

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Project 365–Day 123

Wow, is that our school room?!?  NOPE, this is at a friends house.  I loved how nice it looked and just had to take a picture!

And, completely unrelated, but I’m 1/3 of the way through this project! YES!!! Woohooo!!!

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Our Menu this week

On the schedule this week is a Mom’s night out, company over one day, ballet, awana, kids to my in-laws for a 3 day, 2 night stay, a Doctors appointment for Malachi, and a get together at my parents house on Sunday.  Actually,this is a really easy week for cooking, because most of the days will be just Mark and I, or with someone else cooking!  Yay!

Here’s the plan for the week:

Monday – Chicken Ritz Casserole and a Green Salad

Tuesday – Hot Dogs, Chips, Cut up Fruit

Wednesday – Bean and Cheese Burritos, Cut up Fruit and Veggies

Thursday – Mark and I are going out to eat with a gift card that was given to us!

Friday – Homemade Pizza and a Green Salad

Saturday – Homemade Mac N’ Cheese, Leftover Fruit and Vegies from the week

Sunday – At my Parents house!

That’s it!  Like I said, super simple and easy this week.  We finished up school this week and I’m sooo excited for the summer break!  I’m ready for easier days (and more time to cook!) for awhile!

What about you, what’s on your menu this week?  If you have kids are they done with school, or do you still have some school days left?

Kitchen Update

Unfortunately, I seem to be the slowest person alive at finishing ANYTHING.  I have been plugging away at the kitchen cabinets organization but have not finished them yet.  I think I need to extend my goal a bit, like maybe 6 months? :-)  Ah well, such is life.  I wanted to share the little that I have done anyway.

First, the before picture.

And, the after picture:

I know, it looks a lot more full.  ONLY because in the before picture almost all the dishes were in the dishwasher, ha!  This setup works great!  On the bottom shelf I have

* All my serving dishes, most used spices, medicine and first aid kit.

The middle shelf holds:

* hot drink mugs, sippy cups and water cups for using between meals, and all our water bottles

On the top shelf we have:

* Tea and hot drinks, and half of my teacup collection at the back of the shelf

Everything in this cabinet is in the most logical spot, where it is used.  I have been amazed at the amount of time this has saved me when cooking!  It’s not necessarily pretty to look at but very, very functional.  I’ll be working on making it “pretty” in the next couple months.  Like I said, this will be a lot longer project than I thought! 

Project 365–Day 122

Time for our seasonal clothing switch.  We have so much clothes that I store ahead. It’s a HUGE job changing out all the clothes for all the kids!

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Project 365–Day 121

I wanted to get a picture of Emmaline’s cute bun but she was holding Malachi up on her shoulder and it was just so cute I had to include him in the picture!

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Project 365–Day 120

Kitchen helpers!  Micah and Jeremiah just had to come in the kitchen and help me make lunch.  They had fun peeling eggs for me!

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Family Photo Shoot 2013

Mark did some work for a customer and in exchange she took some gorgeous family pictures for us!  Here are a couple of them:

Aren’t they lovely?  I love them!

Project 365–Day 119

Painting time! 

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Project 365–Day 118

Hi Cutie!  What a big smile!

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Project 365–Day 117

We got all dressed up for a family photo shoot.  Before we headed out I snapped this picture of the kids lined up in front of the garage.  Don’t they look cute?

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Menu for the week

I was feeling a bit discouraged last night when I was planning out my week, kids school, and menu.  I was feeling like it takes me sooo long to get anything done and comparing my accomplishments to others and coming up lacking… So, I decided to time myself to see how long it actually took me to do my planning.  Here’s a breakdown of how the evening laid out:

6:10 – Home from visiting friends for lunch and fellowship.  Unloaded the car, cleaned out all the trash from the car, nursed the baby, fed the baby, changed the toddlers diaper

6:54 – Got a cup of tea and sat down with my household planner to start the weekly prep…

6:56 – Went to investigate crying child and discovered they wanted to change their clothes and couldn’t unbutton their shirt, helped them unbutton their shirt and change into clean clothes

7:04 – Sat back down to plan…

7:06 – Up to check on crying baby, soothed baby and laid him down in crib for a nap

7:09 – Back to planning…

7:20 – Child comes in with bloody nose, help them clean up their nose and face and change clothes

7:23 – Back to planning…

7:24- “Mom, can you help me put on shoes?”  Sigh, help child put on and tie shoes

7:26 – Back to planning…

7:30 – Kids ask for snack, stop to get everyone apple slices and tie another kids shoes

7:32 - Back to planning…

7: 45 – Complete Meal Plan and Weekly To Do plan! On to school planning…

7:50 – Break up kids fight, take care of crying baby, help kids get jammies on, brush teeth, turn down sheets, read bedtime stories (1 each), tuck in bed, nurse baby, change baby into jammies and put to bed

8:36 – Back to school planning…

9:15 – Done with school planning!

Total time:  3 hours and 5 minutes

Total time spent Planning:   1 hour and 12 min

Whew!  No wonder I feel like it takes me forever to get things done!  What an eye opening experiment!  And this was only a 3 hour time window!

Anyhow, I thought you all might get a kick out of this, now we’ll move on to our menu for the week.  Since I was so busy I only planned main dishes this week.  I’ll wing it with the sides.

* Chilli, Cornbread

* Baked Chicken

* Chicken Salad Sandwiches

* Thursday Night Soup

* Pizza

* Homemade mac n’ cheese

* Tea, Scones, Snacky dinner

How about you all, how do your attempts to accomplish things go?  Better than me?  :-) 

Project 365–Day 116

While the kids were gone at my Mom’s house I started painting the kitchen cabinets.  I elected to paint them black because I think they will be easier to clean. This is the only cabinet I got done so far but I’m looking forward to getting more done.  I love it, it looks so much nicer!!!

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Project 365–Day 43

I’m fudging a little here.  I missed day 43 so here is a picture of Elijah with his Valentine’s card from us.  He LOVED this card and must have read it a dozen times at least and every time he read it he broke out in this huge grin!  So very cute!  He told me “I love Valentine’s Day because you get cards that make your heart happy!”

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Project 365–Day 115

Ladybug birthday party at a friends!  Isn’t everything so cute?!  It’s hard to see in the picture but the strawberries and pretzels both have chocolate spots to look like ladybugs, so creative!

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Project 365–Day 114

Breakfast alone!  I’m always amazed at how little time it takes to throw together a meal for just Mark and me.  This whole spread, juice, danish, omelets, and coffee took only about 15 minutes to throw together.  Compared to almost an hour to prepare any sort of cooked breakfast for the fam, it’s no wonder I don’t like to make breakfasts!

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Project 365–Day113

5 of 6 of the kiddos went to my parents house to spend the night.  Fun times!  They adore going to Grandma and Grandpa’s!  And it’s a nice break for me… :-)

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Project 365–Day 112

Library Trip!  We usually get to the library once or twice a month.  We have a few rules, each child is allowed to pick as many books as they are years old (6 books for the 6 year old, for example).  Once they are good readers, ie: have moved on to chapter books, then they can get as many books as they want.  We also allow each kid to get one movie, and one computer game.  The kids love going to the library!

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Project 365–Day 111

Emmaline at her ballet lesson.  Don’t all the little girls look so cute?  :-)

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