DyessFamChronicles

Surprise on the Bunny Front

2012-02-17T12:02:00.000-06:00

Yesterday afternoon after co-op, my friend Sue and her crew stopped by to have a little peek at the bunnies', ahem, reproductive areas. Much to my dismay, Strawberry is not so aptly named! Should be more like the Mike part of Mike and Ike. Yeah. :( He had already sprouted the necessary gear to start the baby bunny-making process, so he had to vacate these premises forthwith! He went back to his previous owners last night and we will wait and see if one of the other two bunnies that are available might possibly be a girl. Otherwise, Sue and her crew are expecting baby bunnies soon and we may be able to get a girl from them eventually. Until then Shortcake is hanging solo, except Ailey keeps her lots of company. :)

Bunnies!

2012-02-15T15:16:00.000-06:00

Sam and I have been talking for some time about possibly getting bunnies. We are very interested in their poo for our garden and we were thinking they would be good first pets for the kids. Well, it came sooner than expected. We found out there were some bunnies in need of a good home and so we took the plunge! Our newest additions:

We borrowed a cage from our fantastic friend Sue D. She also supplied us with that first batch of hay and the feeder. Thanks so much, Sue!

We started discussing names and Braden immediately came up with Rosie and there were some other rather odd names, but we kept on brainstorming until we all agreed on two names. The list we had was:

Lavern and Shirley
Kit and Kat
Peppermint and Patty
Butterball
Peanut butter and Jelly (thanks James!)
ice and cream
nilla and wafer

Sam put in the following:

Thing 1 and Thing 2
Appetizer #1 & #2
PM 1 & 2 (poop machine)

We finally settled on Strawberry and Shortcake.

This is Strawberry (she's the oldest):

This is Shortcake:

They are so very sweet and fun and super soft!

I've already run amuck at Petsmart. Sam was a trooper and went out the first night we got them to buy a water bottle. It was the only kind at the store and it was a total flop. The claim on the bottle was that it didn't leak. Well, we filled it up and it immediately started leaking. Yeah. I gave it a chance, but to no avail. After I had to fill it up twice within two hours and it leaked all over the floor by the morning, I was done and went to find another that evening. The one we now have does not leak. It has a water droplet that hangs out at the end of the tube after the bunnies have gotten a drink, but that's all. Yay!

I, of course, had to google as much info as I could find about keeping bunnies as pets and I came across this lady on youtube.

She is a fountain of info and its neat that the kids can watch how they are supposed to handle and care for the rabbits. After watching the one above about litter training a rabbit, I put that into action and it works! Woohoo! I also fixed a rabbit run so that the kiddos can have access to the bunnies throughout the day and the bunnies are not stuck in the cage.

Our next goal, which will hopefully be realized this weekend, is to build an outdoor rabbit hutch and play enclosure. I have found these online and really like them:

I like the first and the last the best because of the larger doors. I want the kids to be able to get into the enclosure to play with them. I would also like to put two wheels on one end to be able to roll it around the yard so the bunnies can partake of the green grass goodness for as long as it lasts. ;)

Be my Valentine!

2012-02-14T18:59:00.000-06:00

Sam and I had plans to go to the Valentine Banquet hosted by and benefitting our youth group at church. On Monday, Braden woke up with a sore throat, but I thought it was just drainage. Later that day, he had a fever, but I was still just observing. He slept that night okay, but when he woke up this morning, his throat was worse and he was still feverish. :( He was having a very hard time eating and drinking and I was thinking he might have strep, so I called the doctor, got an appointment and away we went. My suspicions were correct and we got the necessary antibiotics, but we had a bit of a pickle. We had already paid for the banquet and childcare. So, Sam came up with a great idea! He suggested I take Zekey as my date and he would stay home with Braden. Ailey and Brea could still go into child care. I was running around trying to get stuff for the bunnies and the prescription for Braden and decided to pick up Rudy's for Sam and Braden's Valentine's Day feast. Couldn't let my guys go hungry on Valentine's!

I got back and purtied myself up. Sam helped me get the kiddos ready and into the van.

There's my little Breaboops!

Here's Lerloo all gussied up, too! I've been really loving her hair like this lately. She has, too, for that matter. :)

Here is my handsome date!

I asked him what he was thinking about when we first started eating our salads and he pointed to the chocolate cheesecake sitting in front of him! Haha!

After a very patient, but undoubtedly excruciatingly long wait, he finally got to dig into the chocolate yumminess....

He was very happy about it. :)

He sat all the way through the whole 2+ hours. I think there was one other kiddo in the dining area, but we weren't close to her. He ate all that focused attention up! Everyone was talking with him and paying him compliments and he was loving every minute of it. I asked him two separate times if he wanted to go into the children's area and play, but both times he said he would rather stay in with me! I loved spending this time with him. It was very special and this type of thing seems to be his main love language. :) I'm thinking we may be doing more of this type of thing with each of the kids. We go on mommy or daddy dates with the kids one on one to the store or running errands, but this is pretty unique. I'm thinking Daddy needs to have a tea party with his Gracie!

We ended the night by rounding up the rest of the crew and heading home. It was good all around. The girls had a good time, Zekey and I had a good time and Sam and Braden had a good time. This was a great Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Baby Shower Fever!

2012-02-06T00:32:00.002-06:00

We had ourselves a baby shower for some very dear friends yesterday, Sean and Christyn. They are expecting their first baby boy near the end of the month! So exciting!! I am so blessed by a wonderful group of ladies in our church and home group. I basically co-ordinated the plan, donated a few items to the cause and they brought the party with them and then took the party away when it was finished! Fantastic! I have to admit that my house was in complete disarray and it took most of last week to get it cleaned up and into party shape. I need to start praying for a maid...for realz!

Anyway, we had such a great turn out. The men folk came, too, and Sam started a fire in the fire pit in the backyard for a focal point addition to the party. ;p They mozied back and forth between the fire and the food and occasionally to speak to their respective spouses. :) We had a full house, that's for sure and not enough seating, but that didn't seem to matter. Lucy took over photography duty and I'm so glad she did because I didn't even think about it! So, I have visual aids for blogging purposes! Yay! Plus, she was totally having way too much fun experimenting with my camera. Work your artsy-fartsy skillz! We had fun, managed to get one game in, ate lots of yummy food and the parents-to-be made out like bandits with the gifts! Mission accomplished!

After everyone left, Sean and Christyn stayed so that I could do the indoor portion of the maternity shoot. I was having lighting issues and then my fabulous husband had a stroke of genius and brought in our green house lights and he and Sean set up a make shift studio in our dining room. It worked out really well and now I am going to see if getting different bulbs and making some diffusers for them will make it any better for future use. :)

At some point during the process, the guys decided to take a field trip to do something guy-ish...looking at a derelict truck at a junk yard. ;p After plenty of fidgeting and different poses and pondering and all the jazz that goes with the territory that is my life, we got done with the shoot and they offered to get pizza for dinner. Fine with us! Then we hung out til after dark and they went home and we eventually got everyone into bed. Lots of fun packed into one day!

Anyway, I decided to use an online photo editor and played around with the pics and they turned out pretty well, even though I do say so myself! I will eventually play around with editing the outdoor shots that I took a week or so ago, too. I still have lots to learn by doing more shoots and figuring out what works and doesn't and all, but for now I am content with how it all came out.

So, here follows a bazillion pictures! Enjoy:

Lucy made the diaper cake and did a fabulous job! Leah A. made the topiaries and most of the hanging pom poms! She, too, made fabulosity!

I made the banner....felt is my friend. :)

Hanging pom poms are my new favorite party decoration!

Beautiful mom-to-be

Lucy busted out her mad gift basket skillz and put together two of them from our home group.

This was the beautiful and super yummy cake that our friend Christina made!

Christina had to wrestle and wrangle fondant and I believe she now has the same relationship with the stuff that I do...we agree to just be strangers. ;) I blame Lucy! She had the idea for the baby bum cake, I then googled for visual aid purposes and then asked Christina if she wanted an, um, interesting challenge. ;p She agreed and the masterpiece above was born! She did a fantastic job!

I, of course, had to make a funky, inspired at midnight mobile for little Liam's room. Felt and ribbon brought together by hot glue....I'm in total like with these crafting mediums!

Sam opened the festivities by praying over Sean and Christyn.

Ummmm, Lucy! You were s'posed to be praying! I'm tellin'!

Food yumminess! We had sandwiches, a veggie tray, a fruit salad, a cheese and cracker tray, cinnamon bread (I could have eaten a whole loaf of that stuff! Accolades to Kim M's mom!), ducky s'mores, breakfast casserole (tater tots, scrambled egg mixture, shredded cheddar cheese, sliced up lil wieners and biscuits), punch, coffee and hot chocolate. I'm thinking we can get together to do this food combo anytime!

Christina also put together this fun baby ornament tree! I love this idea! She was so funny. She said someone had given it to her and she saw this idea and also saw a way to give this tree to a new home. ;p

Laury and McKayla chowing down...

Baby food tasting was one of the games and then we were supposed to play baby charades and just ran out of time.

Caught in the act!

This was on the punch counter...the duckies would not cooperate and kept tipping over. Can't really blame them, they didn't sleep well the night before. Ailey kept trying to take off with them!

Man-gathering around the fire.

Ladies who braved the cold to eat outside.

LOTS of gifts!

Ducky s'mores! Yum! Saw the idea on pinterest for heart ones for valentines and just decided to make them duckies instead.

Heather right and Christina left.

Baby food tasting...

I think there was much pondering going on....

Eun and Kristen chillaxin' in the corner.

Sean even joined in!

Ms. Leah A. in the foreground there..

Time to open prezzies!

Sweet Nadine!

No, Sean, it isn't a hat!

Saw this idea while googling. :) He like it and wore it proudly.

Mommy corsage. My take on a google inspiration. ;p

Lovely Lucy and Laury.

And now....the indoor maternity shoot.

Mama!

2012-02-02T10:05:00.000-06:00

Last night Brea said, "Mama!", loud and clear and more than once. She was naturally wanting something, naturally, ;p This morning, she said it again. It has begun! :)

I don't wanna...

2012-01-23T12:32:00.000-06:00

As anyone can see by the date of my last post, I have not been inclined to blog as of late. I need to though because I need to at least update on the kids if nothing else. I really just don't wanna! I'm wanting to get back into a good routine in the house and I can't seem to get there after the holidays and the plethora of three day weekends we have had. I also need to put all kinds of pics on here and again, I don't wanna! I think I'm burned out from the Christmas season. I really need to stop doing that! I'm really close to only doing the Advent calendar and the tree this coming year and leaving it at that. I guess we'll see when it comes around again.

Okay! I'm just gonna do these updates and stop the procrastinating! Here we go...

Brea is up first because I have been so slack in keeping up with her developments! I am loving her personality! She's still fairly laid back. She's curious and is starting to get into things, but still hesitates in unsure territory. She LOVES her blanket. I mean there is a BOND that is so strong, no other blanket will do! As I'm writing this, I decided to go ahead and wash her blanket because it was just yuck! Nap time is now upon us and said blanket is going through the spin cycle with the drying cycle next up on the schedule and Brea is NOT okay with this plan. She is in there very upset because I tried to substitute another blanket in THE blanket's place. I'm thinking buying THE blanket's twin is looking like a good idea for wash days. Poor baby. :(
She now has another tooth. It made its debut right around Christmas, but because I am who I am, I didn't not do a quick post on the day that I noticed. I'm not quite a month late on documenting it, though, so I could actually count that as an improvement! ;p
She's a very funny little girl. She's still little bitty and is mostly belly with these little arms and legs as accents. This girl can pack away some food!!! I have no idea where she stores it until it bursts forth trying to eradicate her brave diaper. Skeery! She is still grunting as she eats. She's very serious about her meal time. I'm thinking she would do well as a future food critic.;) I was all trying to be good about not introducing kids snacks to her, i.e. goldfish and animal crackers, until she was older, but she has a tendency to scavenge off of the floor under the dining table where her obliging siblings leave her odds and ends. So, in defeat, I gave her some goldfish one day and the next moment they were gone. Okay. Then, I gave her an animal cookie and she gummed it into a pasty mess and down the gullet it went and that was the end of that. Yep. Now, she actually knows where those animal cookies are kept (in the huge Sam's Club bucket size) on the floor of the pantry closet and anytime the door is open, she heads straight for it and grabs at it in the hopes of me acquiescing to her unspoken request. :)
She's been putting her head on the ground and looking back through her legs. She thinks that is great fun. She is also traveling along edges. Walking is not far off. Its very funny to see most people's reactions to her standing up and kinda puttering along an edge. The comment is usually, "She looks too little to be able to do that!" She does nearly look too little to be doing that, but then again she's a little more than 2 weeks off from being 10 mos, so she is a little big for her britches. :) She took a nearly 6 hour nap the other day and when she woke up, I looked at her and I honestly think she got taller!
She LOVES her brothers and sister. Loves them! They are really so very good with her, excepting the occasional times when that is not the case ;). I love seeing them just randomly going and playing with her all on their own. Braden comes and gets her and takes her into the boys' room to go play with everyone else. Zekey will go to her and the next thing I know, she is belly laughing. Ailey is very sweet with her and I think they are going to be great friends! I really do feel so very blessed to be a part of this really interesting dynamic God has put together. Oh another thing is she has been sleeping through the night like a champ! No issues whatsoever. Yay!

Okay, Zekes next. He has been growing up too fast. He is really imitating Braden a lot lately. He will come and talk to me about something in a serious manner and he will move his head in the same way Braden does when he's being serious. Zekey still has his own mannerisms when he is being funny, though. He loves to be super silly about stuff and his big eyes just light up and I love it!
Currently Zekey favorite color is red. It was blue for a while, but he has been steadily firm about red for quite some time now. It'll be interesting to see if that changes or not.
He always wants to help me cook. Whatever I'm making, whether he would actually eat it or not, he wants to be right there with me being all involved in the process. He also wants to be able to do everything himself now. He and Braden pretty much take care of breakfast all by themselves when we are having cereal. He gets the bowls and milk down and Braden gets the cereal and spoons and he can pour his own cereal and milk and only makes a little mess for the most part now. He also usually prepares Ailey's cereal for her, too. I can also have him fix peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for everyone for lunch (or dinner ;)...he is such a great helper!
He learned how to ride his bike the week between Christmas and New Year's. He was having some trouble and he wouldn't let me or Sam help him because, "Braden is teaching me how to ride my little bike." Well, okay then. :) I remember going out every day for about two weeks getting Braden to ride his bike and then he just took off and he's not slowed down since. Zekey is no different. He and Braden were out there diligently learning and teaching, respectively, and Zekey got it and away he went on the little bike. Then, he felt the need to switch to a bigger bike. Its a girl bike that I thought was more the size of the little boy bike, but when I got it, it was the size of Braden's bike. I just kept it because Ailey will, no doubt, be riding it before I know it! Anyway, Zekey has no care for whether its a girl bike or not, he's riding it anyway. I think he was able to ride it a bit easier than a boy bike anyway because the middle bar is lower and he is able to get on and off of it easier. Anyway, off he went on that and it took him less than an hour of trying on that to get the hang of the braking and all that jazz. Kids are amazing, aren't they?! So, now he and Braden are out riding bikes together. Wow! Time, where dost thou goest? ;p

Braden is like a blur before my eyes these days. I can't keep up with him. He is so interesting to watch and talk to and spend time with. I can't get over how he retains what he learns. Its amazing. I also really enjoy how he tweaks things to his own specifications.;) He still has days when we really have to deal with his heart attitude, but he is learning to recognize that there needs to be a change there and he is capable of making that change himself most of the time. His looks are changing, too. He is looking older and he is moving in to the older boy stage. He is trying to come and have more serious conversations with Sam and I. He wants to relate to us on a different level now and its just interesting. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but this kids has a six-pack tummy. Seriously. I don't know what his body fat percentage is, but it can't be very high because he is just nearly all muscle. He's a lean, super-duper high energy kid. He doesn't slow down 'til bedtime. I want some of that energy! I think Sam is right, though, if we had that kind of energy, it would probably kill us! Hahaha!
Braden also likes to help me cook. It can be very interesting trying to fit me, Braden, Zekey and Ailey all in the kitchen together, but I can already see that eventually they will be an amazing food preparation team. :)
He has been making some new friends lately and I love to watch him interact with other kiddos. I don't think he's met anyone he doesn't like yet. He just has that type of personality. I heard him talking to the little girl who lives next door. He was telling her that she is his second best girl friend. He already has a first best, you see. He went on to explain that the little boy who comes to visit his grandparents across the street is his best boy friend...that is until we go to co-op and then he has several best boy friends there, too. ;) He's just funny. Another funny thing of note is that Braden's favorite color changes from one week to another. It usually coincides with something that has caught his attention, like angry birds or an airplane that he saw that is specifically appealing to him at the moment. Again, funny.

Lil' Miss Ailey is keeping me on my toes, too. She is my shadow. She loves to have my attention all to herself. I'm learning how to enjoy this season with her. Though there are many challenges, there are soooo many rewards, as well. She is such a little sweet heart. She is very quick to make sure all is well if she has hurt someone or done something she is not supposed to do. She is mostly very willing to clean up her messes and apologize to whoever was the recipient of harm. :) She is so stinkin' curious about everything and that's where she has a tendency to get into trouble. She also wants to do what I do and what her big brothers do and more often than not, she's just not physically or developmentally there yet to be able and well, that is just not going to stop her from trying!
She is now very into coloring....with whatever medium is available to her. Most of the time WASHABLE (totally learned my lesson about the ones that do not specify washable) crayons and markers are her artistic utensils of choice. We are finally mostly in agreement with those being used on just the paper specified for creative outlet, but I still come across the occasional defacement of the table, floor or unsuspecting piece of furniture. Most of the time, she transitions into body art and I find that her nostrils and mouth have not escaped her particular decorating flair. Again, washable is the key here. :)
She is now able to put her own pullup, clothing and shoes on herself. She's been able to take all of that stuff off all by herself before, but I can now just set the stuff in front of her and tell her to put it all on and she usually can without any help from me. LOVE!
A few weeks ago, she started to wake up in the middle of the wee hours of the morning and she would slap and pull at her pullup and say, "Ow!", which would then break down into all out crying. I at first was thinking maybe she had an infection of the yeast or urinary tract sort or maybe she was constipated.... After the third straight night and whole lotta no sleep, I took her to the doctor and he said he was thinking she had just realized she could hold her pee and was having trouble figuring out how to release it. So we have been on a very interesting potty training adventure with her. The doctor asked me how the boys were potty trained and I told him that I watched to see when they seemed ready to transition and then just told them it was time to go to the potty and they just obeyed. Ailey is, however, not cut of the same cloth. I fully believe if she wanted to, she totally could be fully potty trained (aside from the wiping part). BUT, she doesn't WANT to. She has gone both teetee and poopoo on the potty several times and still there is only occasional interest in wanting to actually accomplish this on a regular basis. I've actually caught her several times hiding in the bathroom, pooing in her pullup and then trying to keep me from getting in the bathroom. I remember Braden and Zekes would go off and find a nice quiet little corner to squat and do that, too, out of the way of my watchful gaze. :) So funny! Anyway, I think with her, she will eventually not like it in her pullup for starters and also want to be like her brothers and me and sit on the potty every time. I also think it will be a sudden decision and all of a sudden it will just be like that. She seems to do things that way.
The other interesting change has been her wanting me to fix her hair. For a long while, I would put her hair into pigtails or a pony tail and she would leave it there for a few minutes and then pull it out. Now, she comes to me and asks me for tails. She will keep them in for most of the day. She is also enjoying putting on her princess dress up clothes that her granny brought her. Yep, I think she's starting to enjoy a little more girliness. ;) She still favors pink first and then purple if no pink is available. She doesn't really have a favorite baby, exactly. She kind of rotates between about three or four things (a bunny head attached to a little blanket, the little doll I made her that she named Bella, a little posable doll she named Ella and a set of stuffed poodle puppies that was a recent gift at Christmas. ) and then occasionally will concentrate on a doll or something outside of the usual. Remember all the time and effort I put into finding the perfect first baby doll for Ailey? Yeah, she doesn't really ever even pay attention to it. The ones she seems to favor are ones that have long hair and look like an older little girl. Oh, well. On the other hand, I have seen that sometimes the doll (named Brenna) has gotten attention from Brea. Hmmmm....could be something there. We'll see. She also rotates between having to have one of two specific blankets when she lays down for a nap or to sleep at night. She is still sleeping in the pack and play in our room, but she sleeps all night long and in her own space. I think Sam and I are just okay with this situation right now because we are getting some sleep! I think there will be a time when she will want to sleep in her own bed in her bedroom and want to be in there with Brea, but I think this is working fine for now.

One more thing about all the kids is they are all into Pingu right now. Even Brea likes it. Its so funny to me how each one of them enjoys a show about penguins where there are no actual words, only mumbling like they are actually talking. Funny. I am just wondering where they are getting all the stuff they use in their daily life when they live on Antarctica. Yeah.

Just as a side note, Brea never did actually go to sleep when I put her down with the impostor blanket. It finally finished drying a few minutes ago and I pulled it out of the dryer and she immediately buried her face in it, stuck her sucky fingers in her mouth and laid her head down on the blanket. I just laid her in her bed and there was no protest whatsoever. In fact, there was complete relief. I think a back up blanket would be a good investment! :)

Okay, thus ends the ginormously long monologuey update on the kids. I will bring relief to those of you who actually made it this far and give other updates in other posts sometime in the near future. ;)

Poser Christmas Tour 2011

2011-12-16T16:25:00.002-06:00

So, I have noticed the web version of the Christmas Home Tours and I really enjoy looking at some of them and getting ideas. ;) I thought, well maybe I should do one of my house. Not because it is tour-worthy in any stretch of the imagination, but because it appeals to my sense of humor to do so. So, without further ado, here we go:

This is the living room. I really should have a taken a picture of the other side of the room because it was a mess. I basically just picked up in front of the couch for aesthetic purposes.

This is the heavily-ornament-laden Christmas tree. I plan to add some more to it each year. Maybe one of these years, I'll have Sam fashion a metal cage shaped like a tree with tons of slots for hanging ornaments and we can just forgo the tree.... :) I'm thinking this might be our last year doing the fake tree.

This is my nod to an artistic shot. I laid down on my back on the floor and took the pic upside down. We were considering getting a new tree this year because we really have a hard time fitting the width of the tree in our little living room, but I just couldn't see spending money on a new fake tree, if I could possibly use the one we already have! So, I just left the bottom section off of it and put it up on our side table. Works for me!

An overhead shot. Yep, I still haven't done any more to the wall since the starburst mirror project. :)

I got this idea from Apartment Therapy...see? I think I may spray paint the stick white, so you can actually see it against my wall.

This is in the bathroom. I'm not crazy about it and I actually rearranged a bit after I took the pic. It is still bothering me and I think it is the napkin turned table cloth that is under it all. Its too dark and everything is blending together. I'll figure something out. Sam is calling it my little shrine to Christmas....now I'm definitely changing it!!! :)

A closeup for better observation. :)

This in 2D looks like a hodepodgy mess. In 3D, it looks only slightly better. I think what really makes it all come together is the messy table and Ailey's addition of some building blocks and jingle bells, not too mention the reflection of the school wall in the mirror.

This is supposed to be our Advent Calendar, but seeing as how I didn't even get it put up until around the 8th and its on a hands-off mirror, I didn't bother this year trying to make that work. I've got to figure out a better place to put it.

I got one shelf decorated for the season. The rest...well, they didn't make the cut this year.

Thought it would be enjoyable to view the whole, um, scene.

I cleared the table just for this photo. I have tried to decorate with things that I can use year round. Since I have an obliging backyard with trees that don't hesitate to share their branches with me, I went outside and cut this one off of a MUCH larger limb. Come to think of it, it might have been attached to the stocking "rod"....

I think the bright orange paper lantern lights in the background really add a certain ambience....don't you?

This is my wanna-be mantle that is really the top of our bookshelf, that is really supposed to be an entertainment center. I'm totally not in love with this set up and I will probably arrange and rearrange it until it is time to put everything up. I have a couple of ideas and it involves taking lots of things off and putting some white stars up there. Along these lines:

and these:

from besthomeinteriordesign

We'll see....more project craziness. :)

Yeah, there's a whole lotta no inspiration here....

The top of the computer cabinet. I'm completely underwhelmed.

This sits in the dining room next to the entryway to the kitchen. Again, a whole lotta underwhelming inspiration going on here.

In addition to all the other paraphernalia going on in the above pics, I do have a wreath on my front door that I don't care for. I would like to chuck it and do something like this:

theoriginalpopupshop

and/or this:

offthewallexpressions

sistersally's

I also like these for all the time:

grassrootsmodern

domesticfluff

CB2

I want to make this one only in the same way as the ornament ball wreaths above. I want to get lots of clear and frosted balls in different sizes and make one and then I could just change out the ribbon I hang it with to go with whatever season all year long!

the nesting place (I really LOVE visiting this site! It pops up in the majority of my google searches.;)

Here's another one from the nesting place and I really love how large it is and how you just use paper....

Okay, I'm done.....end of tour...

For now....:)

Snowflake pillows and Furry Fantasticness!

2011-12-16T15:05:00.001-06:00

For some reason, a couple of days ago, I decided I would like to make some snowflake slipcovers for my throw pillows on my couch. Yeah, like I needed another project. Apparently, I like to dive into many challenges all at the same time and make myself a little nutty! I turned to my trusty google search and found a very cute pillow and a tutorial by means of another tutorial on TipJunkie. These are the pillows from her site:

So cute, right??? So, I printed out the snowflake pattern with the intention of beginning it very shortly, when I came across these stockings by rikrak on etsy in my google wanderings. It gave me an idea. :) I decided I liked those snowflakes, but for my pillow covers. I made a pattern and got to work. I had a good amount of red sparkly felt and a natural cream felt, thanks to a recent shopping spree at my mom's house. ;) I must take a moment and pause to say that I really appreciate having a rotary cutter! Anyway, here are the pillows I made:

I am really loving how they turned out! The kids really like them, too.

Also, you see that wonderfully fuzzy, fluffy, makes-you-want-to-wallow-in-it blanket? That was a belated birthday present from Sam. It is the softest most comfy blanket I have ever come into contact with....it was love at first feel. :)

From the mouths of babes

2011-12-16T14:13:00.000-06:00

The boys have been going to Awanas and Zekey has taken to calling it "iguanas". Its funny, I think we'll keep it.

The kids were at the table the other day and they were talking about powers. Braden was talking about electric power and Zekey was talking about fire power. Braden was correcting him about fire not being a real power and then I hear Zekey bust out with "poo power"! We try and discourage talking about poopoo and teetee as being fun stuff to talk about. It just gets waaaay out of hand when they get going with it! Anyway, I didn't say anything because I wanted to see what was going to come of this conversation. Braden started correcting him saying poo wasn't really a power and I really had to laugh to myself as Zekey staunchly defended his stance on poo being a power. I was thinking that there are, indeed, days when poo is a power! Hahahaha!

When I am training Ailey, I tell her that I need to see her eyes, so I know she is listening what I'm telling her. A couple of days ago, I was talking to Brea and Ailey came up and started telling her that she needed to see her eyes. ;)

Braden has said several funny things the last several days and I cannot remember them! Ugh! Maybe I'll remember and then I can add them to the list..... :)

A long awaited arrival

2011-12-13T08:00:00.000-06:00

Last night as I was riding the crazy sleep deprivation train and I was working on trying to get Brea to go back to sleep, I decided to feel in her mouth and sure enough, I could feel the top of her bottom right front tooth! The other one is working on making its debut, too, but since she's been teething since her 4 mos. mark, this is a momentous occasion! Yay, one down...um more to go... ;)

CHRISTmas

2011-12-08T13:33:00.001-06:00

Its coming up on Christmas and I did it again. Sam got down all the decorations for me and I went to work. Granted, I took more time doing it this year. I wanted to be relaxed and not get crazy and irritated. Things were fine the first day. I got the nativity set out in its box for Braden to set up the next day and then, I got the shelf top cleared off and the entryway landing strip cleared so we could set some stuff up. The next day, I got the tree out and set it up in preparation for the bazillion ornaments to hang on it. That's where the detour popped up. All sanity and goodwill and graciousness went away as the grabby hands came out of the woodwork. After the second glass icicle met its demise on the floor, I lost it! To be honest, I wasn't upset about the ornaments. They are actually not beyond repair. I was not in control of the situation and my kids were not obeying and I was not responding at all well or in any manner worthy of emulation. I threw a little mini tantrum, growled my irritation and clenched my fists up on either side of my head. I then stood completely still with my hands over my eyes while I prayed that the Lord would take my irritation and agitation and help me restore order to the chaos. That's when He began to ask me if it was that important. Yes! Of course it was! I wanted to get it done and done in a certain way and my kids were not getting the memo. They were messing up my plan!....Okay, no, its not really important. I don't want them to remember Christmas as being a stressful time, when the Crazy-Eyed Mom Monster makes everyone miserable and sets a completely wrong example of how to handle situations that aren't going according to The Plan. So, we stopped right in the middle of decorating the tree. It was the right choice. I had to ask forgiveness of the Lord, then I asked forgiveness of Ailey and then Braden. Yeah, totally in the running for Not-So-Mom-Of-The-Year Award. ;) It also gave me the opportunity to get somewhat back on track for our day. You know, get some school work done instead of the "oh-so-important task" of tree decorating. Yep.

After dinner, I decided to resume my decorating escapade while the boys were at Awanas. I was getting a bit overwhelmed at how I could set everything up. (Its funny, I get that way about my house, but no one else's. ;) I was googling for inspiration and tweaking here and rearranging there and finally just gave up after everyone had gone to bed with the intent of starting afresh today. I started with God this morning instead of the myriad of other distractions that I generally get caught up in and my what a difference that has made! I also came across this link in my fb wanderings this morning and I needed to read this! http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2011/11/29/the-christmas-conundrum. I don't think coincidence had anything to do with it, either. It is exactly the way I feel about this time of year and God has been doing quite a bit of gearing us toward simplicity for the last few years....I think it might have finally sunk in. I have to admit that I like the lights and decorations of this time of year. What I don't like is the misappropriated focus that tends to lead the way. I want my kids to enjoy this time and have fun putting up a tree and lights, but I don't want it to be the focus. Sam and I also need to talk about presents for the kids. I'm not so sure I want to do that anymore. We were going to get each kiddo one gift that they could open, but was for sharing with the other kiddos, as well as stocking stuffers. We'll see.

Braden and I had a talk about presents a day or so ago. He mentioned something about presents going under the tree and I told him I didn't know if we were going to do that or not. I said its Jesus' birthday, not ours. He understood perfectly and was quite satisfied with that answer. We are going to shop in the World Vision gift catalog as a family and decide what to get Jesus for His birthday. :)

I really like how Octamom puts it: Jesus is NOT the reason for the season, but He IS the answer for it! She is sharing a series called Christmas Secrets and I have found the first installment VERY interesting. If you've ever wanted the history of how the celebration of Christmas came about, you can click here and listen to her speak on this subject.

So, to end: Merry Christmas! I hope you are having a very joyful, relaxed, enjoyable holiday season with your loved ones. :)

Brea's much needed update

2011-12-04T16:29:00.001-06:00

I have been woefully slacking on the Brea updates! She started crawling and then basically took off! A couple of days after starting the crawling process, she started sitting up by herself and pulled herself up to standing. She is now in the process of trying to scoot along while still holding on. I think she will be walking before the end of the year.

She's also finally got some teeth working their way up. I can see them still under the gums. Its the two bottom front teeth and they are coming in together. She's rather fussy about it, but not too bad and she is great once you give her something cold to numb her gums down.

Once I started her on solids, well she can pack away some food! She has gained over 2 pounds in less than two months. She still nurses full on, too. Its like her drink with her meal. All I can say is wow!

She still has a very calm and pleasant disposition and LOVES her brothers and sister. They really do love her, too. Braden has gotten very good at feeding her. Zekey is still perfecting his technique. ;) Ailey just likes eating Brea's little snacks for her. :)

Crafts and Craziness and Monsters, OH MY!

2011-12-04T10:06:00.001-06:00

I worked my first Farmers Market yesterday. Craziness, I tell ya! I was a Momma Monster the week leading up to it trying to get all my crafts finished and prepped and the table "scape" prepared. I have been in many conversations with God through the whole process and I kept asking if I should be doing this. Did He want me doing this? Had He made this the path He wanted me to walk down? I wasn't really getting a clear answer to be honest, but I will tell you what I was getting. Agitated. I wanted to have certain things made and prepared and ready to go and it took away from my family, made me into a bit of a Momma Monster and as a result, my family suffered. The night before, I presented a request to my Father in Heaven in much the same way Abraham's servant did when he was in search of a wife for Aaron. I asked God to make it abundantly clear whether having a booth at craft fairs on a regular basis was something He wanted me doing. I asked that if this was a green light, that all my stuff would sell...every single thing...nothing left. If I had even one thing left, then I would know it was not a go. Haha! God totally answered. I had all of some things and just a few of others left over. I do believe I now know for sure! ;p

My dear friend Lucy went with me and totally blessed me with her time, company, help and previous fair expertise. She helped me set up, took turns holding/feeding/entertaining Brea and just hung out with me. It really was lots of fun, but it was lots of work for little return as far as the business side of it goes. We did get to meet some interesting people and got to get back into the practice of saying MERRY CHRISTMAS! Many people thanked us for saying that instead of Happy Holidays. :) We also came across plenty of people who were doing whole body cleanses and so did not partake of the tempting samples we had laid out. I thought that was particularly interesting. Especially at this time of the year. Here is what our booth looked like at my house the night before when I set it up to see how I wanted everything:

The bumbo in the background was not a part of the display...;p Everything was squished at the house, but not at the actual event.

I love that I got to use my Pampered Chef stands and platters for my display. Those things are mighty handy and can be used for so many things! Hey, hey!

I put my business cards on the stems in the vase. I saw it while googling and really liked that idea.

You know those cube shelves you can get at Target and they click together with the little discs? That's what the display stands are. I just used silver twisty ties to connect them. Ghetto, but effective AND nothing a little ribbon or lots of scarves won't hide! ;)

Here is what our booth looked like at the market:

That is my beautiful friend Lucy back there. She's feeding Brea while I take pics.

I was rather surprised at what sold and what did not. I only sold one bag of chocolate chip cookies! What?! That was unexpected! I really thought those would disappear. You never can tell, really. I really didn't expect the tutus to sell and they didn't. The lip balm sold rather well. The bread sold pretty well and even some of the apple butter found new homes. No jewelry was adopted and neither did the flower bow/pins take new journeys. :) They will be going on the website. I will also list some of the lip balm, although some of it will be going in stockings. :) I don't think I want to mess with trying to package and shipping the apple butter. Those will be given away, I think, along with the cookies as Christmas goodies for the neighbors.

After it was all said and done, I came home with stocking stuffers, bread to eat for breakfast and some things with which to set up my online store...finally. I have decided to go ahead and actually do something with the business fb page and blog that I started over a year ago. Yeah. I started setting it up yesterday afternoon and even listed a couple of things. I was going to list some things in my Etsy store, but found that it had been suspended. I found out why this morning and it has now been reinstated, but I don't know if I want to mess with Etsy for the time being. I am able to have paypal on my business blog and people can buy it directly off of there instead of me having to mess with listing and selling fees on Etsy. We'll see. I still have to link my fb and blog pages together and also finish listing all my stuff. Once that is done, the bulk of the work will be done and I can just list stuff as I randomly make it. I've also decided to take custom orders on a limited basis for now. This is a much more do-able format for me than booths at a market or fair. I think it would be fun to do that occasionally, but only if I have plenty of things already made up and I have a friend to make it fun. I would also want to look at it as a ministering opportunity. If I don't ask God into all that I'm doing, then what is the point?! I'm still learning to do that and it is just so lovely when I do and He is there with me in all of the details! So neat! When I get everything listed and linked, I will put a link on here as well as my usual fb page and see what happens from there. It should be interesting at least. :)

In the Middle, its a little fuzzy

2011-11-15T08:41:00.001-06:00

I am right in the middle of trying to get Brea to sleep all the way through the night. Sleep deprivation does not do nice things for me or Sam. ;) Ailey, too, has been waking up during the night lately. She hasn't slept the same since she got croup a little over a month ago. I am not a fan of letting a baby cry through the night, but man am I tired of not getting any sleep! So far, I have had the girls in with me so that Sam, at least, will get some sleep. When both of us are on the sleep deprivation train, well...I'm sure you can imagine. Its not pretty! I did let Brea cry through the first part of the first night. She woke up several times and cried and then went back to sleep on her own. I fed her around 3 am and then she slept the rest of the night until 7, when Zekes decided to make his debut. (Still working on that. My children have not gotten the not-until-after-8am memo.) Ailey didn't wake all the way up, but she would turn over and put her hand on me every now and then to make sure I was still there and then roll over and continue on with sleeping. Not bad for the first night, but I was still working the lack of sleep routine yesterday and my attitude was having a hard time being pleasant. So, I decided to watch the next in the Freedom Classes Foundational Series from Gateway Church. It is LIFE CHANGING!! I challenge anyone to go through them all and not come out of it a different being. AND, that is exactly what happened to me yesterday. As I made my way through the 3rd class, God was working a miracle in me! Despite my lack of sleep, energy, motivation, self-control and general peppiness that I started out with, I ended up with all kinds of energy, patience with the kiddos and steadiness throughout the day. I am so thankful that God gives so freely of Himself! I truly needed to hear that message yesterday and I absolutely needed more of my Lord, Savior, Redeemer, Healer, Master, Creator and His joy in which my strength is found! Praise You, Father!

Last night was even better. Brea went to sleep and then Ailey and I followed suit and she slept until 5am! Yay! I fed her, put her back in her bed and she slept until 7. I'm thinking the kids have a conspiracy to NOT sleep past 7. Ugh. BUT, I was soooooo grateful for the continuous hours of sleep last night. Woohoo!!!! Yippee!!! Ailey did her reassurance routine and slept very well. I am excited to see how tonight goes. I want to be consistent for 5 nights to break the habits that have been formed. Of course, I have been covering all of this in prayer, asking the Lord to HELP!!! Tonight will be no different and today is going to be full of rejoicing! I'm also excited to hear session four of the Freedom class!

That Other Kid

2011-11-10T09:02:00.001-06:00

I've stumbled upon a delightful tactic with my older two kiddos, Braden and Zekes. Braden, especially, has a hard time with his attitude and heart when things do not go as planned or if he gets angry. He comes by it honestly, I'm sad to say! He follows in my footsteps. When I am upset, I want to sit in it until I am done. I don't want to be happy or have a good attitude, I want to finish out my irritation, frustration or anger first. ;) (Vanessa, I still remember you trying to get me out of my bad moods and vice versa. Fun times!) As I was encountering this situation with Braden for the who-knows-what-time, I told him that I don't like it when that other kid comes to visit. I told him that I like my Braden and that other kid needs to go back to his house. The result? Instant smile! Followed by much giggling. Awesome! I shared the technique with Sam and we have both been employing it and I must say, we are pretty excited!

I used it with Zekers this morning and it was a beautiful thing! The winds of heart change, they are a blowin'! I am also learning to pray with them when they are having a hard time gaining self-control. That is one of the fruits of the spirit and the Holy Spirit gives it freely as well as the ability to make the choice to want it. I want them to learn that no matter what is going on in their lives, good, bad or eh, that if we continually ask the Lord into it, invite Him to be a part of every moment of our day, that He GLADLY joins us, guides us and encourages us. It also causes us to seek Him BEFORE we make decisions to see if we should even be doing whatever in the first place. We can truly rest in waiting on Him and walking the path He has set before us! That is peace! Its a slow process because I am still a work in progress, too, and I have to change my heart and attitude and built-in reactions to situations, as well. I'm excited! Bring on the pruning!

Gearing Up

2011-11-10T08:43:00.001-06:00

I have been in super crafting mode. I have the opportunity to have a table at our local Farmer's Market - Christmas edition. I have a list of things I want to make and I intend to just go down the list and see what I can get done. I have a little over two weeks left. I am going to have toddler tutus, scarves and neck warmers, towel holders, rolled flower bow/pins, baby blankets, spaghetti sauce, apple butter, cookies, friendship bread and pumpkin and banana bread. I may be able to make waffles, too, but we'll see. I'm thinking about adding lip balm, but I really need to get my recipe firmed up before I do that. I should also probably write it down...same goes for my apple butter recipe. ;) I'm really bad about not doing that. Anyway, these are the items I've gotten done so far:

Like my toilet paper rolls in the background? ;p

Ribbons will be added to the tutus..

Still have to edge the baby blanket

I had to take some pics of Zekes in the hat I made for Ailey. It fits his head better than hers and I was trying to show someone how it looks. He's a willing guinea pig. ;)

Braden's First Six Weeks

2011-11-08T09:33:00.000-06:00

Whew! We made it through the first six weeks of school! Braden is really doing well and I am starting to get used to being lots more structured in how we do school here. I decided a certificate was in order, so I made one up and printed it out on card stock and presented it to him. We got a shot of it.

I'm going to rework the certificate a little bit...I'm not quite satisfied with it, but I like adding this to the reward system. I hung it on our dining room wall, since that is our school room, too. :) Sam is really doing an excellent job being Braden's math teacher. I am so glad he's doing that subject with Braden instead of me. I learned math in a round about way and I'd rather Braden learned it way better than me! I'm pretty sold on Sonlight and intend to start Zekes on it next year for Kindergarten. Braden was having issues holding his pencil and writing. He was holding it using all four of his fingers to guide the pencil and he was moving his whole arm and wrist to write. I had my mom and Aunt Kathy (both Occupational Therapists!) take a look-see and my Aunt Kathy had him try a few things and then I implemented one of them pretty strongly at home every time he writes and it has made a huge difference! Right now, he puts the pencil between his first and middle fingers with his thumb supporting from behind to train him to set his pencil on that middle finger and to use those three fingers to guide his pencil. He tried writing with his first finger on the top of the pencil in correct form and he did really well for a bit, but still wasn't there all the way yet. I think it will be soon, though! He also remembered another technique that Aunt Kathy had him try that he wasn't able to at the time and when he tried it again without any sort of prompting from me, he was able to do it very well and was extremely excited about it! I really enjoy that about him!

Right now, Zekey is doing a great job of learning his letters. He's already got his numbers 1-10 down and we are working on 11-20. He knows all his colors and shapes and matching and sorting and all that good stuff. He enjoys doing school work, too, only in smaller increments. He's really funny because he'll have hardly done anything and he'll ask if he can take a break. He so loves to do what Braden does. Ailey goes into stealth mode and will take a page out of Zekey's workbook and draw on it. She likes doing school, too. ;p Here are some pics of her using a particularly interesting writing technique:

That's my girl! :)

Here we go...again...

2011-11-05T16:18:00.000-05:00

Throughout the past decade, God has really been working on me. (Or more correctly, I've been open to Him working on me. ;) There are so many things I used to do that now hold no sway for me. I have no or very little interest in them anymore. I don't watch movies with an R rating because of language or nudity or both and I really don't need all the violent mess either. The same goes if it has witchcraft or magic as being good in it or that somehow the source of it is human developed or evolved or some other non-sense. Depending on what the message is, mostly I won't watch something with witchcraft or magic at all because I really don't need that in my mind in any shape or form. If its PG-13, I find out why. If there's any sort of nudity or compromising relational scenes in it, its an abolute no-go. I have no tolerance for gratuitous violence, language or scenes involving exposure of body parts and no commitment beyond getting to the goal of self satisfaction. Even if there is a commitment, why must I see what someone else does with it?! No thanks! Why must I rant on about this? Well, do let me share!

I gave up a lot of shows several years ago. Anyone who's known me for a long time, knows I have seen way too many movies and tv shows in my time so far. Sam and I agreed to rid ourselves of cable and satellite due to the graphic nature of most shows, not to mention the commercials! I went to just going to certain channel websites to watch specific shows, for which I had an appreciation. We also have Netflix for the occasional veg out session. Here are the ones that I kept up with: Psych, Eureka, Warehouse 13, Sanctuary, Haven and there are occasional shows on Masterpiece Theater that I like to watch. Basically, all of these have been nixed for me recently due to the content falling into one of the above categories. I was watching the latest episodes of Eureka and Warehouse 13 and I really just felt God saying to me to really look at what I was watching. I had felt Him trying to get my attention about it, but to be honest, I really liked the shows and didn't want to give them up. God is so patient with me and He just gently persisted and finally, I listened. :)

This last season on Eureka, the sex content has skyrocketed. Not one episode goes by that doesn't have something to do with that. The sad part to me is, it really isn't necessary. The premise of the show is funny and quirky and enjoyable. Why, oh, why did they have to start adding gunk in there? If it is for ratings sake, I'm going to go with a huge, "Oh, Please!!!" on that because the show has a following and people were already hooked on it for the funny quirkiness. Now, Warehouse 13's premise was along the same funny, quirky lines, but really deals with the paranormal without admitting it in the show itself. Interesting. This may sound odd, unreal or outlandish to some, but its very real for me. I don't want what I watch to open any door for the enemy (meaning demons a.k.a. satan and his cronies) to have any sort of influence in this house or my family! Yuck!

Okay, so I just knew as I watched it that I shouldn't be. Psych - same funny, quirkiness. There's a whole bunch of silliness in that show that I really enjoy and appreciate, but throughout the seasons the sex content has escalated. Also, the language has continually gotten stronger and more frequent. Again, not needed. Alas, it too, must go. Sanctuary - along the same lines and issues of Warehouse -13. Haven has an eeriness to it that just didn't sit right. I always liked X-Files and it has that kind of feel to it. Masterpiece Theater has plenty of the no-gos from above without any sort of warnings. Its nearly like it thinks it can get away with airing that stuff just because its on PBS and because its usually a British-made show of some sort. Now, I will say that they aren't all like that and there have been many enjoyable shows without all the extraneous, yucky mess included. Anyway, basically, its about protecting my mind, heart and home and those shows have all kinds of stuff in it that does the exact opposite. So, I don't need them. There is a freedom there knowing that I don't have to be held captive by things like that, but I will admit that its disappointing because I do like to veg out on occasion with a good flick and my options are getting less. That's fine, though, because the benefit outweighs the hardship/sacrifice. :) Oh, and the best thing is, I know I am blessing my Father God's heart by submitting to Him in all of this and you just can't beat that!

Brea the explorer

2011-11-04T15:08:00.001-05:00

Who Needs a Foodsaver...

2011-11-01T18:59:00.001-05:00

When you have storage baggies and a straw?! It works so I'm not gonna knock it! I've been separating things and putting them in the freezer and I'm appreciating my handy straw and baggies team. :)

In other news, we went to the doctor again today. Yeah, I told him we should just camp out there because it was becoming a daily habit. Anyway, this time was for Zekey's well kid and to have Braden's hands looked at. Zekey is 37 lbs and 9 oz and 42". Braden didn't get his height done because it was not a well check for him, but his weight is 50 lbs 3 oz.

When Zekes got his temp. check, he had a bit of a fever and then when the doc took a look, he found both ears with an infection. :( Not a new occurrence, but we will be doing some more garlic and onion ear drops. Zekers also had to get three shots. He hadn't had any since he was two-ish, so his face alternated between shock, horror and anguish. Poor Zekey! He only cried during the process and for a few seconds afterward, but some toys and a sucker later, he was right as rain. ;p

I love our kids' doctor! He is very much a let's-give-em-meds-if-they-need-it-and-try-alternative-routes-if-we-can. He doesn't ever scoff at my alternative measures and most of the time he is already aware of them and just supports and encourages. That is such an unusual stance for a doctor and I feel very blessed to have him as our pediatrician! Point in case - Braden's hands have many warts on them. I know this can be a sensitive subject, but we don't make a big deal out of it and he knows the facts of what they are and why we are trying to get rid of them. He also knows that both Sam and I have dealt with them. Sam had them when he was little and I had a very pesky one when I was around 12-ish. I got mine frozen off and Sam had to get his burned off. So, today, Braden got two of them frozen. The doctor and I discussed several options and I ended up liking the idea of just aiming at one on each hand and seeing if it will jump start an immune response for the rest of them. If it doesn't work, we'll probably either go in on occasion to get several frozen off at a time or the nurse had an interesting suggestion. She said her daughter had lots on her fingers and nothing really worked until she went to see the dermatologist and he injected yeast into them. Same principle at work - trying to get the body to realize there is an infection there and to attack it. We'll see what happens.

Hopefully, we are done with the doctor trips for a while. :)

This is a Happenin' Place!

2011-10-30T11:30:00.000-05:00

I have realized that lately I have really only blogged about the challenging side of the kiddos, especially Miss Ailey. Shame on me! There are so many sweet things that she does! This past week has been a challenge because Ailey had a fever starting Tuesday night and it escalated to 103+ with us going in to see the doctor Thursday night. He confirmed what I thought it was - croup. Yuck! I had noticed her breathing becoming labored in the early morning hours on Thursday and researched it online and it was the most fitting explanation. She is the first of the kids to get that. Poor baby, I took her to co-op and just kept her with me the whole time because I didn't want her sharing whatever it was and she was a trooper! (I honestly thought at first that is was due to the vaccinations she had gotten last week. All the kids have a delayed reaction in one way or another to them, so I just concluded that is what the fever was due to.) One of the other moms held her and let her go and watch sharks being dissected in the older kids' biology class and she was apparently very interested in all of that. She's curious about most things, which I think is where the challenge for now comes in. I think as she gets older it will definitely turn into a gift! Anyway, I believe it was Thursday, early evening, I found her in her room playing with all the cook stuff while she was supposed to be taking a nap and she looked up at me and said in her sweet little girl voice, "I'm cooking, do you want to come and play with me?" Well, I couldn't pass up that invitation! I love it! We sat and fixed quite a feast! She's also super cuddly when she doesn't feel good and lots of times when she does and she's been so very cuddly and sweet. She keeps coming and asking to hold me or Sam. We've also found that a lot of the trouble we've had lately of getting her to go to sleep at night is her just not wanting to feel alone. We did have her sleeping in the boys' room, but she and Zekey and many times Braden kept each other awake for HOURS and that was just NOT working. We put her back in her room and now laying down with her until she gets settled and then leaving the door open a crack so she's not all the way shut off seems to be just what she needs. Yay! Sam keeps commenting how different girls are from boys. :) Its so true, though! The boys actually prefer the dark and the door closed all the way. When my sister and I were little, we liked the door open and I remember when we would go stay with my granny that she would lay down on the pallet on the floor with us until we were asleep or nearly so, so that we wouldn't be scared. Anyway, she's responding better. Yay! She's also been super helpful and willing to assist me. She especially loves to do the dishes. Well, she likes to make a huge watery mess, while I do the dishes, but she has been wanting to do everything I do. So sweet!

Yesterday, we had a Toby Mac cleaning day. I put on Toby Mac songs and we cleaned up some of the house. We had an impromptu dance party and at one point I was in the kitchen at the counter doing something and Braden came up beside me gyrating all funny and said, "C'mon, Mom!" So, we had some dancin' to do! It was so funny! He's always doing something like that and sadly, my sorry memory forgets before I can get it written down on here! Hoping to do better with that.

Poor Zekey had a horrible earache last night. I really, really hate it when Zekey doesn't feel good. Most of the time he suffers in silence and it takes a while to even figure out that he's not doing okay. He's not usually vocal about it. BUT, there are times when he feels absolutely rotten and then he does vocalize it and it just breaks my heart and I start crying with him! Last night was one of those times. He deals with majorly bad allergies and it goes from normally yuck to terribly yuck in a matter of hours for him. He was sort of congested yesterday and then it got upped to the next level and he started talking about his ear hurting. He started crying and pacing all over the house and telling his ear that it was a bad ear. He couldn't get any sort of relief. I tried to give him a warm compress, which helped a little, but not for any length of time. :( I also gave him motrin, which didn't seem to do diddley-squat! I got him into the shower which helped all the while he was in there, but the minute he was out, he was in pain again! So, I got online and looked up what else I could do! I knew about the onion and garlic oil drops because I'd tried that with him when he had an ear infection before, but it didn't seem to do much for him at the time. This time, however, we weren't dealing with an infection, but an ache because of sudden pressure build-up, so I fixed up some oil, dropped it in and then massaged down his lymph nodes in his neck. I gave him a warm compress again, this time putting a baggie of hot water and wrapped it in a warm, wet wash cloth. It stayed warm longer. Progress! I also added some claritin in the mix. He was still feeling yuck up to bed time and it had been a while since the motrin, so I gave him Tylenol to help with the pain and inflammation. He went to sleep pretty quickly and only woke up once during the night. It seemed that his ear was already better when he woke up, so he went back to sleep and had been his normal chipper self since he got up this morning! I was praying LOTS concerning healing this week and know that the Lord was with us every step of the way and totally had his healing hand on this family! Thank you, Healer! In case anyone wants it, here is the website I got some really good earache info from.

Brea is definitely crawling now, although she does revert back to the belly flop and scootch on occasion. She also sat up all by herself last night for several seconds before returning to crawling. She's be in crawl position and then stopping and plopping to one side propped up by one arm plenty lately. It was just a matter of time before she sat all the way up by herself. :)

Today is shaping up to be a very good day. Praise the Lord from whom all blessing flow! Love you, God!

Family Reunion

2011-10-25T19:20:00.000-05:00

This past weekend we went to Abilene to visit with family that we haven't seen in a while. Some for nearly 10 years and others in lesser increments than that. We had a good time and it was really great being able to see so many loved ones. It was a short visit and I, for one, didn't get to visit nearly enough with several people. I think some road trips are in order in the future. :) We got some good pics and well, some not so good ones, too. Here we go:

Ailey and her cousin Lauren. We had some who thought they were twins at first.

Lauren and her cousin Elijah

Ailey trying to get in on the pummeling-Elijah's-head-with-favored-stuffed-animal action.

Aunt Dianne - isn't she lovely?

Billy Gene - super fun cousin!

Aunt Mary Alice and sis Jennifer

We took up a whole room at the bbq joint.

Uncle Enslie and Aunt Linda there in the middle

Memaw and Pepaw - wasn't trying to be artsy, just didn't have my flash on. ;p

Don't you just love it when you are trying to eat and someone is taking pics?! Mwwahahahaha! Brother and sister comedic duo Winell (I'm sure I completely botched the spelling!) and Billy Gene. I seriously love being around them! And Aunt June is on the right. We were celebrating Billy Gene's and Aunt June's birthdays.

Uncle Nelson on the right.

Uncle Nelson and Aunt Mary Alice's crew.

The Dyess siblings.

The Dyess and Towels siblings = cousins.

They are such fun!

The Towels siblings.

The kids of the siblings - crazy-fun cousin stuff here!

Aunt June's crew.

Uncle Nelson's crew.

Lonnie and Winnell's reps.

Billy Gene and Patsy a.k.a Pantsy as Braden calls her. :)

Sharon's crew.

Linda and Enslie's crew.

Our crew. (totally scary pic of me, but I'm sure that's exactly what I looked like that day). Next time, I think pics outside are called for! The following is yet more evidence of the impossibility of getting a normal pic with our family. Pay special attention to Ailey there at the bottom:

Uncle Jim and Aunt Dianne's crew.

Jennifer alerted me to the arm wrestling match in the back, so I had to get some footage...

They were so funny talking it out and trying to get the rules straight. :)

We had such a good time and hope that we'll get to spend more time later with some of the peeps we didn't get much time with this time around. If you didn't notice, time was the star of that last sentence.

After all the food consumed over the weekend, I go up Monday morning and started my fiber attack! There's no rule that says it can't be hidden in cookies!

Oh, yeah!

Go, Baby, Go!

2011-10-25T10:08:00.001-05:00

I didn't get a pic, but Brea crawled last night before bed!!! She got the opposite hands and knees going three times in a row. Its inevitable now! I'll try and get a pic when she does a repeat performance. :)

Braden vs. Big Honkin' Tree/ Picnic Table Team

2011-10-21T13:07:00.001-05:00

Braden came in screaming his head off, holding his ear and his knee. After he calmed down enough to talk, he explained that he was swinging on the rope hanging from our ginormous backyard tree and he swung into the tree, exfoliating his knee and then slammed his ear into the picnic table on his return swing. So far: Big Honkin' Tree/ Picnic Table Team - 1, Braden - 0. I'm sure he'll try for a rematch later. :)

Brea's and Ailey's Stats

2011-10-21T10:42:00.000-05:00

I finally got Brea in to see the doctor for her first well baby check up. I know. Its not because I'm all into the not vaccinating thing or whatnot. I do like to wait until at least two months before we start vaccines because I think its just too much drama for both me and the baby. Some of the drama can be saved for later. ;p Anyway, there was an insurance mix up and necessary appointment cancellations and well, it just ended up taking this long. BUT, I did get her in at the 6 mos point. Usually its on some off month, so yay! Anyway, she was weighed and measured and after we got into the room, the nurse was looking at her weight and she said...."Um, let's go weigh her again. That doesn't seem right." She was a little over 12 lbs. I agreed that seemed light, so off we went to re-weigh her. The result was the same, though. I looked up Ailey's 6 mos stats and she was 15.2. They aren't too far off. I think they are just petite girls. They come by it honestly, though you wouldn't know it to look at me or Sam. ;) My grandpa on my mom's side is from a very petite family. Ailey actually reminds me a lot of my sister, who got the petite gene. On Sam's side, there are petites from both of his parent's lines. I think the boys are gonna be tall and the girls, um, not so much. :) I could totally be wrong, though. Wouldn't be the first time nor the last. ;)

Both girls had to get shots. Ailey only had to get one and she took it well....especially after receiving a lollipop as a consolation prize. :) Brea was doing the whole shocked expression/ delayed reaction cry for each shot. Ending with the full-on cry finale. Poor baby, this is just the first of many to come! They both did a really great job handling the shots well. AND instead of giving the nurse death stares and trying to stay as far away from her as possible, there was a congeniality and peace in our goodbyes with her. :)

Anyway, here are the girls' stats:

Ailey - 35" and 26 lbs 8 oz

Brea - 25 1/4" and 12 lbs 3 oz

Two-Headed Alien Monster

2011-10-20T09:18:00.000-05:00

This came clomping into the living room this morning.

LOVE their silliness!

Goin' a Little Crazy....

2011-10-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Paper doll crazy, that is! It all started out with me trying to find felt "paper" dolls and I did come across a couple of websites that sell them in sets. They are not overly expensive, either. I just was really wanting something a little different. I found these on Etsy:

Little Pink House

maureencracknell

Totally loving these!!! Alas, its not exactly what I am looking for, but close. These both gave me a jumpstart on an idea formulating in my head. I will ponder more and experiment and then post my result when I finally get around to it.

In the meantime, I am finding all these super cute paper doll templates online and printing them out. I want to see what Ailey thinks about them. Here are the ones that I really like and they are free! :

Savvy Projects Blog - by guest designer

Melanie Montes de Oca

She did such an amazing job! You really need to see all the little outfits she made for the dolls. So fun! Gonna try it out.

Wee Wonderfuls by Hillary Lang

I love that this is a really simple one and all the outfits are ready and you just have to cut them out. I'm thinking about attaching magnet tape to the back of the doll and the backs of the outfits for them to stick. We'll see how that works out. OR, just had a thought, I could get that magnetic paper....I wonder if I still have some of that stuff... NOPE!!! Bummer! Gotta put that on my list...

Zoe Paper Doll at Play Powerhouse

This one gives you the option of printing the outfits out in color or in black and white. I'm not super crazy about the color combo of the first two outfits so, I am going to color in my own. :)

I think I might have more fun prepping these than Ailey will have playing with them. :) I'll report on my findings.

Since writing the above and printing out the wee wonderfuls one, the boys thought it was neat and said they would like boy ones. This is what I came across:

True Town

There are three different boys to choose from and three pages of outfits. Braden requested an alien one and so I just made up my own and also added an astronaut costume. My scanner is not cooperating so here is a pic I took of my templates:

The boys had a great time coloring all of the clothes and costumes for their little guys and will soon be playing with them...as soon as I cut them out and put magnets on them. :)

I did end up putting magnets on the wee wonderful doll and clothes by putting a blank piece of cardstock behind the printout as I cut it all out. I then stuck the magnet tape to the printout making sure to keep the poles on the magnets correct so they wouldn't repel and then using a glue stick, I glued the blank template to the back of the printed cutout over the magnet. Now they just stick right on the doll! Nice. Here's what it looks like:

*Sigh* Since writing that last bit and making the boys' sets, Ailey has rebelled against the wee wonderfuls one. I think she likes all the different kinds of clothes as opposed to the wee wonderfuls one that is all dresses. She keeps trying to take off with Braden's! Braden is not coping well with that. Weeee! Okay, so I went back to the site where I found the boys and printed out the girls counterpart. It also has three different dolls. It does crack me up that there is a dark skin tone, a medium skin tone and a light skin tone for the girls, but for the boys, there's a blonde, a brunette and a redhead. The brunette has a medium skin tone. Its just funny. Here's that one:

True Town

Another neat thing about making them magnetic is that they will also stick to the fridge or a filing cabinet or other metal objects.....I'm thinking about getting a plain lunchbox type container from Hobby Lobby and spiffying it up for each kiddo's dolls. :)

Here are all the ones we now have in this house:

This is Braden's. He likes to embellish stuff. Notice the fire coming off of the feet of the outfit top left. They are rocket shoes. :)

This is Zekey's. Zekey is a one color for the whole picture type of boy, for the most part. ;) He doesn't believe lines mean a whole lot, yet, and there is no time for details, for now.

This, of course, is Ailey's. I colored hers because usually not only the paper gets colored, but whatever the paper is on and then she gets distracted, travels with the colors and walls and other furniture get art treatment. :)

I wanna do that!

2011-10-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

So, I was in hot pursuit of a shaker like we had when I was part of the worship team at Vinyard of San Antonio many, many, many moons ago. As a matter of fact they still have it. I caught a glimpse of it on our last visit there. :) It looks a lot like this, only I think its actually a gourd or fruit or something from some other country:

This one is plastic, but the right size. Anyway, its rather difficult to order just this one as it tends to come in a group of fruit shakers for upwards of $70+. Not really wanting that.
So, I started looking online to see how others had made their own. I came across this guy, Hal Walker. He's all into what are called bana kula. Here he is doing his thang:

Well, as I went along, I came across all these other names for the same instrument. For instance, kashaka, kosika, banakula, kass kass, patica, and asalato and there's more! Its African in origin, but in different parts of West Africa, it is used in different ways and for different purposes. Its very interesting. Here's an interesting article on it. Anyway, apparently, these instruments have been of great interest in Japan and it has really exploded. Here, let me show you some amazing, talented individuals:

There are lots more videos on youtube.

After an extensive search, trying to find some of these, I finally found them on Amazon. I will be ordering some soon. I seriously doubt I will ever be able to do what these guys do, but I do think it will be fun to try! I did try Hal Walkers homemade bana kulas and didn't quite succeed. I just kept the balls separate and filled the holes with hot glue and they are pretty good little shakers. I now have 4 and intend to make more! You wanna see? Oh, good, I knew you would! Here:

Along the same lines, we have had a small African djembe that I ordered online about 9 or 10 years ago, just hanging around getting the occasional beating from the kiddos. I found these videos on youtube and am now trying to learn how to play this sucker! I really like how this guy explains every little detail. He's putting up a lesson each week and so far there are three:

So, there ya go. Your rhythm and groove session for today. :)

Bradenism

2011-10-17T16:23:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting on the couch a few minutes ago and I have shorts on and I'm reading to Braden as we try and get caught up on his schoolwork. All of a sudden, he points out that I have two plastic dots that have attached themselves to the side of my thigh. Then, he proclaims, "Your leg is pretty fat!" and just to make sure his point has been made, he reaches up and squishes the bottom part of my leg in his hand and says, "See, look how fat your leg is." He says it all with an innocent smile on his face. I look at him and say, "Thanks, Braden." Yeah.

Latest Semi-Completed Projects

2011-10-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Awhile back, I wrote this post about a table frame that I rescued from the horrifying possibility of front row seating at the local dump. If you are interested or just now joining this party, click here to read that post. Here was the table frame before:

Here is what I did to it:

I spray painted the frame and sam built a top that fit down in the, um, top. I, along with my trusty and much loved staple gun, stapled the fabric over the top and then topped it off with plastic. Oh, yes I did. (I wonder if I can use "top" any more....) I'm not sold on the fabric I put over the top (yes, I can), but its an easy change and it'll do for now. I think it looks so much better. It looks so clean and new. It just looks like it feels better. :)

The second one I did was this chest of drawers:

This was one of my found-it-on-the-way-to-get-eats-at-Taco-Bell-in-someone's-strange-front-yard-sale. It was an olive green with bunches of flowers on the middle of the drawers and had a distressed England Country-ish sort of look to it. I totally forgot to take a pic of it before I went all spray painty on it, but I am going to go ahead and show this it in its current state. I'm not done with it yet. I am going to stencil the drawers with a geometric pattern in the same cream color as the main body. I might have to poly coat the top, since we use it as a landing strip. I'll put up a pic once it is complete, but who knows when that will happen! It already looks waaaaay better than it did and it, too, will do for now.

New Adventure in Aileyville

2011-10-14T15:22:00.000-05:00

Ailey once again made it up the only tree in our backyard that the kids are able to climb. I went out to get her down because she hasn't figured that part out yet and I saw her pop her head out around a limb and say, "I poo-pooed...." I was thinking to myself that that was great. I hope it doesn't get on my hands when I get her down. Then, I got closer and got the full view. Literally! She was buck nekked up in the tree with poo on her bum and on the backs of her legs. She had decided to go ahead and take the pull-up off and in so doing, complicated matters for me. Yay. I had her throw the pull up down to the ground. Didn't need that staying up there and had to think about the best way to get her down without me taking a poo-bath. So, I told her to stay put and not touch! and I'd be right back. I had to go get the ladder for this. I went and got the ladder, had her step down to me and put her in a football hold, bum out. It was then a straight shot to the tub and a thorough scrub down. I might have to sanitize my bar of soap later. Ew.

Cedar Pollen is Evil and Seriously?!

2011-10-14T12:32:00.001-05:00

About a month ago, the weather started its tumultuous downward spiral in an attempt to aim at winter via fall. Thanks to my rather persnickety allergies, I began a similar downward spiral into an endless vat of snottiness. Then came the hacking cough which usually signals a possible end to the sinus flooding and draining...along the same lines as multiple innings at a baseball game or overtime at a football game. You really don't know when or sometimes if it is ever going to end. :) About a week ago, I really did think the end was in sight, but then a snot onslaught barraged my being and the cycle started all over again with more coughing involved and a new player, congestion. I was still thinking weather was the culprit until someone happened to bring up the cedar pollen storm that hits about this time of the year. Yeah....somehow after living here full time the last two years and off and on the three years prior to that, I, again, forgot about the dreaded pollen of the evil cedar forest. Someone mentioned on fb that she thought that in its original form after God created it, it was perfect and had its purpose, but after sin entered, it became a menace and that possibly the devil just planted the mess out of it around here. (I was liberal in my retelling of the original statement...;) I'm inclined to agree! I think of cedar pollen on the same plane as mosquitos. God created them and somehow, some way they were for a purpose, but I think they turned to the dark side after The Fall! The cedar trees apparently took the same route. Death to the cedar pollen!!!:)

Okay, a couple of days ago I saw an ad for the remake of Footloose. Really?! Do we not have enough teeny-bopper dance movies bombarding us these days? There's Highschool Musical 1 through a bazillion. Then you have Step Up and sequels, which should have halted in the process of even considering making the first one....just sayin'. You've got You Got Served along with all the other stompy types of dance movies and let's not forget an honorable mention for all the dance spoof movies floating around out there. After all that, I have to come to the conclusion that they ran out of material and are now having to revisit dance movies of old. They already sequelled Dirty Dancing with Dirty Dancing: Taladega Nights...oh, sorry, I meant Havana Nights. Anyway, I know there are those die hard Footloose fans out there, but I cannot be counted among those ranks. The substance of the movie was bad enough the first time and from the looks of this latest attempt, via the trailer, it looks like few improvements have been made. I think they took Coyote Ugly and tried to smoosh it together with Footloose. Scary!

You know, now that I think about it, why don't they completely trash Singin' in the Rain with a remake or hey! Why not hip-hop up some Phantom of the Opera? That might actually be interesting.....

Anyway, I think I can safely say that I will not be participating in the spectator portion of this upcoming, traumatic visual "entertainment" of frolicking appendages that are not properly concealed and bound while gyrating body parts in a fashion that makes chiropractors and head trauma units the world over cringe!

Done and done.

Sleeping and Another Score!

2011-10-11T12:14:00.000-05:00

I've caught Zekes sleeping on camera twice in the last week.

My mom has lots of pics of me sleeping throughout my years at home, but I don't tend to get my kids sleeping because I don't want to wake them up! Its necessary for them to stay asleep! ;p There is the whole issue of my sanity, you know! Theirs, too, come to think of it. :)

Now for the score part. I found this exersaucer on craigslist for $10!

Yep, I have an unabashed romance with craigslist! :) But, seriously, $10?! All I had to do was wipe it down and throw the seat and toys in the washer. Yes, I did do that with the toys. I don't have a dishwasher so I have to improvise at times. Those delicates bags work wonders for lots of stuff! The other kiddos like to play with it, too. Not the delicates bag, the exersaucer. I just got it yesterday and already it has been a rocket ship, a robot body and a trampoline for Zekey, a fun house for Ailey and Braden also got in it while the seat was still in the dryer and was being silly. Good times!

I also found a crib bedding set on, yes, craigslist. I had one from before Braden was born that my sister had gotten for me, but it had been through a lot and it was not really girly at all, so I had gotten rid of it a while back at my garage sale. I decided that it would be a good idea to get a bumper for the crib so that I could have Brea start sleeping in the crib to get used to it. (I want to transition her into another room soon.) Well, I couldn't find just a bumper on craiglist and when I went online to see how much just a bumper was, the cheapest I found was $29+! Seriously? For a bumper? I know you are probably asking, "Shelly, why don't you just make one yourself, since you are all up in that?" Well, I will tell you why....I don't wanna. I have other projects waiting in the who-knows-when-I'm-going-to-get-to-them wings and anyway, to go and buy the fabric and batting for it would still be more than $20+ with coupons and watching the sales. (I just had an epiphany! I may not be able to jump into the whole grocery couponing craziness, but I'm all about it when it comes to craft stuff and online discount surfing! Yay! Okay...where was I? Oh, yeah....) So, with that in mind, I will continue to justify my crib bedding purchase. :) I had intended to see if I could get some bedding a bit at a time that would complement both Ailey's bed and Brea's crib. I have never set up a nursery. Never. We never had a room set aside for a nursery. When we had Braden, we lived in a one bedroom condo. When we had Zekes and Ailey, we lived in the motor home. Brea is the only one that has come home to a house. Since we only have a three bedroom and I put my babies in a bassinet or pack n play right next to my side of the bed until they sleep all the way through the night...well, you get the picture. Now, however, we have a girl room and a boy room. I can at least get nice bedding for the crib for the time being, right?! She'll be in it for another year or so at least. Okay, so again, I found some on craigslist. Here it is:

It will go with the sorta shabby chic thing I'm aiming for. It came with the diaper stacker, fitted sheet, quilt, bumper, toy holder thingy hanging on the wall in the pic, the heart pillow, bed skirt and the bumper. It also has a valance, but where it says on the package that there are two, I think they forgot to cut it and so its actually one super duper long one. :) The lady bought it, then had a crazy pregnancy where muted colors messed with her mood and never used it. She paid $169 for it and I paid $65. I talked her down from $75. I'm thinking that was a pretty good stinkin' deal! AND, in my tradition of tweaking, if I ever get around to it, I can make something else out of it all....if. Or, I can just sell it. Whatever. ;p

Gonna Keep It Old Skool Again

2011-10-10T10:20:00.001-05:00

This is Sam and Shelly: The Early Years:)

We could totally have done a super interesting version of Charlie's Angels!

Haha! Bum shot! ;p

Found some old skool pics

2011-10-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

I was in the process of actually putting pictures in the frames that are up on the living room wall when I came across this picture that I had put together of Sam and I for a table at our second wedding ceremony. ;) I thought it would be fun for those of you who, like me, like to see which kiddo looks like which parent. (Personally, I think they all look like a mix of us both, just different mixes.)

Yes. Yes, I did. :)

This is my basic training pic.

Pics of the last few days, plus, Nearly crawling, a Brea Developement

2011-10-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

I had to snap some pics of this, cuz it was just funny. :)

I think she will have a fun sense of humor, too.

I switched to using the flash so I could get a clear picture of the wiggle worm and you can really see her auburn (I know you are rolling your eyes right now, Vanessa, but I don't care! ha-ha!) hair. :)

Little Missy has also been doing lots of this lately....

Its only a matter of time before she is truly mobile. Is it right to feel a bit of glee that the rest of my kiddos will soon be getting pestered by their littlest sister? Mmmwwaaahaahaahahahaha!

I had to capture the Cuteness in a busted up Bumbo. Thanks to her brothers and sister who think they can still fit into said bumbo, it now has some nice cracks in it.

These are my children thoroughly enraptured by Blue's Clues and Braden is grooming the inside of his nose.

Braden and Zekes were having such a good time having a foot fight until Braden's foot slipped and mortally wounded Zekers crotch-side. Its all fun and games until....

These are more pics of the amazing flying baby.

Score!

2011-10-02T15:04:00.000-05:00

We got an Ikea Ektorp sofa fo' 50 bucks! and a Kirby 5G vacuum cleaner for...wait for it....wait for it.... THIRTY DOLLARS!!! Yes, you read right, 30! I need to get some bags and attachments for it, but THIRTY DOLLARS!!! Just one more time: THIRTY DOLLARS!!! Okay, I think I can continue in lowercase from here on out... ;p A sweet lady from our homeschool group was needing to rid herself and family of some items and these two were among them and I swooped in like a buzzard on fresh road kill. I'm not ashamed to admit it. The funniest thing (as opposed to the usage of most funny in a recent, previous post) was that Sam was super excited about it. He gets excited about things, but usually it is not outwardly visible. It was this time concerning the vacuum! I got it home and he went and got it and started putting it through it's paces. It was funny to watch. I think it will help to explain that Sam did a two-week stint as a Kirby salesman in our first year of marriage. Though Sam is not in any way, shape or form salesman material, it is a fantastic vacuum and its been our standard ever since and now God provided us the opportunity to have one for THIRTY DOLLARS!! Apparently, I wasn't done with the caps button yet. :)

The couch was another interesting blessing/provision. We were given a really nice couch when we moved in and we have been so grateful for it. I was intending to paint the fabric a different color because it totally wasn't jiving with The Plan I'm working. That, however would have been an involved process and lots 'o work. I really wanted a less formal couch with a removable cover that I could wash. Enter the Ikea couch. I can get a custom cover for it from Ikea for a fairly decent price. Anyway, I talked it over with Sam and we decided to sell the formal couch along with the two chairs that were also given to us for what it would cost to get a new slip cover. I listed them on Saturday and sold the couch on Sunday! I asked God if He would please send buyers for the items. Yep, He wants to be involved in that stuff, too, folks!

This is the couch that we did have:

This is the Ektorp we have now:

God is not a wish dispenser, but rather he knows even our tiniest, piddley-est, silliest desires and at times when they co-incide with his plans/will for our lives He blesses in very neat, creative ways. In addition to that, He blesses us for His purposes and I'm interested and fairly curious to see what will be required of us involving the vacuum and couch and most probably our house and generosity (we've been blessed and provided for LOTS)...we shall see!

Owling?! Really?

2011-09-30T23:54:00.000-05:00

We had a good friend come and stay with us for a couple of days and on the last night here, we had some other good friends come over for dinner and fellowship. I had to leave to go to worship team practice for a good chunk of the time and when I came back, I was treated to a very interesting, um, experience. While I was gone, our friend brought up Planking. This is apparently where people go around and randomly lay across two objects straight as a board, hence planking, and just stay there. Yeah. Then, there is another random act of silliness called Owling, where one perches atop random objects like an owl. Again, with the Yeah. Oh, there's more, upon discussing the random act of Owling, apparently, two of our friends had to demonstrate. Gonna go with Yeah, again. I really wish I would have been able to observe this first-hand because it was just so silly! Plus, if you ever get around these guys...funny just follows! Okay, here are pics:

Jason is sporting a wig I found on the dollar aisle at Target. I got one for him for his birthday a couple of week ago and one for the kids' dress up bucket. He really likes it, I can tell... ;p

Aaron is sporting a real beard...yep, that's his facial "sun screen" ;)

They are Owling on our picnic table...

There was apparently need for more of a challenge, so Aaron moved on to our clothes line pole.

If I catch my kids doing this up there, I will blame Aaron, but not before I run inside to get my camera for a quick pic...

A Different Conclusion

2011-09-30T09:15:00.000-05:00

As I stated in a previous post, I have not been a fan of hot tea. I have now come to a different conclusion. After consuming my body weight in tea the past couple of weeks, thanks to my over-active allergies, I do believe I like it. BUT, I have figured out that I like only certain kinds. Shocker!, I know. In the past, the kind I had was types either my mom had on hand in the house or the kinds Sam preferred. I know for a fact that I DO NOT like mint in my tea or any form of menthal-y flavor or smell. Ew. I do not like super strong tea, especially the black variety, unless it is sweetened and cold, which is the way it was meant to be, I assure you. :) I do not like lemon in my tea...at all, and that is coming from an unabashed citrus (with the exception of grapefruit) lover. I just don't believe it belongs in tea, hot, cold or otherwise. I like fruity teas and I like teas, red, white or green, with cinnamon in it. I like a good vanilla flavor, as well. After trying several flavors, of my choosing ;), I find that I prefer white or rooibos teas with the aforementioned flavors. OH and I like a little tea with my honey. :) Its similar to the way I drink coffee, too, about half a cup, or less, of coffee and the rest creamer or milk and sugar. Don't judge! Its the way I shuffle. So, in conclusion, a whole other world has been opened to me. The end...or is it just the beginning?! *pinky poised dramatically at the corner of mouth, single eyebrow raised questioningly*

Starburst Mirror Project

2011-09-28T15:32:00.001-05:00

So, I kept seeing lots of the diy starburst mirrors here in blogland and decided my wall needed one.

Here are some that I've come across on other blogs:

apartment therapy

Instructables

dollarstorecrafts

re-nest

meijo'sjoy

thriftyandchic

casasugar

addictedtodecorating

nestingplace

Flamingotoes

AND.....

Here's mine:

I think I want to make that huge flower-looking one from nestingplace. It would show up really well against my dark green walls. :)

Homeschool Mania, Week 2!

2011-09-26T12:25:00.001-05:00

I don't know if I'm actually going to keep up with this topic from week to week, but I did feel compelled to do another post about it. :)

This week has been super-duper crazy. We had our two round-trips to Georgetown to get the 'puter fixed, which totally disrupted those two days, Monday and Tuesday. We ended up doing school work well into the first evening and then the second we had to stop short because we had a home group to attend.

Somewhere in there Zekey's curriculum arrived in the mail and I worked on and off printing out all the workbooks for him for next week..... He's very excited that he has his own school stuff. :)

Wednesday was kinda off because I woke up and couldn't really talk. Sonlight has LOTS of reading involved for the parents and....yeah, you get the idea. I still read what I could, but I couldn't do any of the different voices for the characters. :( Sam, had to read the next chapter in The Red Sails To Capri that we are reading for part of Braden's history lesson.

Thursday, I was supposed to go to worship practice, but thanks again to these allergies 'o mine, I didn't think a croaking frog was going to help with the harmony there. ;)

Thursday was a bit better, but my voice was still playing hide and seek. We didn't get anything done that morning, but did manage to get all the way ready for Co-op. My 6-8 yr old science class went really well. I way over-prepared just to make sure we weren't all twiddling our thumbs for 10+ minutes at the end of the hour. I am so very blessed to have my friend and co-conspirator co-teaching my classes with me! Thanks, Ali! The 3-5s was chaotic to say the least. We attempted to do an eggs on spoons race with plastic eggs on plastic spoons with 29 kiddos in a small space and well...we just didn't accomplish that feat. I felt so bad because several of the kids didn't get a turn because we just stopped and did snack instead. :( Oh, well! AND, I had a new song to sing on my phone and with all the noise in the class we couldn't hear the words and it was nearly like a comic routine. I definitely learn what NOT to do a little bit more each week. I should have it down pat by the last day. :) Anyway, I definitely want to tweak for next week.

We also had a birthday partay to attend and went to get some silly things for the gift. Mission accomplished! We went to the party and stayed out way later than we had intended. (Good company will do that, you know! Happy Birthday, Jason!:)

Friday, a whole lot of nada got done! I was exhausted and my voice was still being sketchy. I did, however, get the house in some sort of order. My "fang shooey" was constipated so I had to get my groove going again for the sake of my sanity! Saturday was just a huge blur and Sunday we chilled (at least for a little bit until I decided the living room needed to be rearranged!), so we get to do a double day of school this week. Whew! Basically, I've decided that I will be doing only minimal extra activities this week and possibly next week. Need a break and I need to get back in a routine!

I now understand why certain homeschool heros of mine do not answer their phones during the day or after a certain age participate in co-op!

'Til the next installment of Homeschool Mania...

A movie review x2

2011-09-23T08:34:00.000-05:00

I recently watched the latest Jane Eyre and Rango.

Jane Eyre was...interesting. I really like the story and have read the book. It seems like every time someone tries to remake this movie, they concentrate on certain parts. I know it is a long and indepth story and would need to be done in the same fashion as the 1999? version of Pride and Prejudice to get most of the nuances and a real feel for the storyline and characters. The most funny thing to me is that several of the newer versions of this have rather good looking people playing Jane and Mr. Rochester, when the book is very clear about her being plain and he not being handsome at all. I did have to reconsider that, though, because in that time period, pretty and handsome were not necessarily the same as our definitions of those words. I'm thinking now that Mr. Rochester was probably very good-looking, just ruggedly so, which would have been rather repulsive in that time of dandy-type men, who I think of as pretty boys. I think Jane was probably rather pretty in a very natural, unmade up sort of way, which would have been looked-down upon in that era. Then again, they could have both been ugly, indeed. Who knows?!
Anyway, I did enjoy this version of it, all except for the ending. It was extremely abrupt. The movie moves along at a rather climactic speed from the beginning and then the ending feels like you run straight into a wall, SCHMACK!, and that's it. That is just a tad bit disconcerting.

Onto Rango. I know that it is rated PG and that if you look at the ratings, it tells you why its rated that way, but I think it needs to be rated somewhere between PG and PG-13. PG- perhaps? Its a "cartoon" and the advertising of it definitely aims at kids and families like it is friendly for them to all watch and its just NOT. I previewed this one after everyone had gone to bed. I'm really glad I did it that way and not just started watching it with the kids and then have to turn it off and explain to them why because of the pieces of vulgarity they would have been exposed to. It reminded me of a softer version of The Book of Eli (I so wish that had not had all the language in it, amongst other things!). So not what I want my kiddos exposed to! Why, pray tell, do you need cussing in a cartoon? Also, why do you need drinking and smoking in a cartoon? I'm well aware that saloons are not nice places and I'm still wondering why that was necessary. It was even complete with some sort of rodent or lizard (still not sure which), sporting bouncing, half-hangin' out boosies. Yeah. Why? Droppin' this one OFF the movie radar.

So, there are my official two reviews for the...well, at least for now.

Losing one's voice is not conducive to parenting... ;p

2011-09-21T09:23:00.001-05:00

So, my allergies have been rearing their cumulative ugly head for the past 3 days and this morning I woke up and my vocal cords were covered in muck. Any time the weather changes, I deal with major allergy mess. I think all the smoke from the fires everywhere is involved, too. Several years back, there were fires and the wind was carrying the smoke far and wide and my sinuses did a total revolt then, as well. I'm not gonna complain, though, because I'd much rather deal with this than getting a virus or bacterial something or other. So, yay! allergies! ;)

My voice is in hiding right now and I'm forced to drink hot tea with honey. ichhhhk! Not a fan of hot tea, normally. This stuff isn't too bad, though. Its Black Raspberry Green Tea a.k.a. Superfruit Tea and it has a good flavor. Need to get some more of it for such times as these. I'm thinking it would be waaay better as Sweet Iced Tea. :) Voooiiiccce! Come out, come out, wherever you are! Right now, I sound like a hoarse frog and I'm having to whisper because my tonsils, vocal cords and larynx are sore. Today is going to be a very interesting homeschool day....

A Mac Adventure

2011-09-21T09:19:00.000-05:00

For some time now our Mac has been slowing down and we have had issues with the cdr/dvdr drive. I had called about the drive before our warranty ran out last year, but since the nearest place was in Austin and it would mean we would be without our computer for a time as well as the driving there and back twice in a short period of time, we just didn't make it in to get it fixed. Lately, it all seemed to get worse, so I called Apple to see if they would just sell me the part and maybe I could replace it myself. You can laugh if you want to, but I could probably find a youtube video on just exactly how to do it. I'm just sayin' ;) Anyway, the phone call didn't go exactly as I'd planned. Because I had called in about it and they had recorded it on our account and it had been within the warranty period, the guy I talked to got permission to open a ticket to fix it fo free! I know right?! Yay! Doing a dance of exuberant happiness! Okay, so, I had a choice of taking it in to an Apple store or having a certified technician that contracts with them work on it.

I went with the technician because he is located in Georgetown. I called up Tyrosys Corp. and explained what was going on per the instructions from Apple. Grant, the owner, was able to look my unit up on their records and verify everything and we agreed that I would bring it in on Monday, leave it there and come back Tuesday morning-ish;) to pick it back up. I got there, with only a slight commotion where the kids were concerned. (Ailey is also a seatbelt Houdini and I had to stop to address that concern.) Grant had told me on the phone to call him when I pulled up so that he could come out and carry the computer in for me. Yeah. I'm a fan. :) I followed him in to make sure of the arrangements and told him that I noticed the screen was a bit hazy and he confirmed my suspicions that it was probably dust. I asked how that generally gets taken care of and he said that it gets cleaned when you bring it in for its yearly maintenance. Hold up....what?! I didn't know we were supposed to be doing any sort of yearly maintenance! I didn't get that memo. Oops! I was used to the yearly upkeep of a pc, which means you hope it runs well for the first year, makes it through the second and then you most likely will have to get a new one after that... Okay, so I told him that since it was there and he was gonna have it apart anyway to go right on ahead and maintain it. :) So, I left it with him and had to stop at Taco Bell for a potty break and lunch for all four of us under $8. Yep.

That night was pretty weird without the computer. No emails, no surfing, no ability to work on lesson plans for co-op, no netflix, no zoodles for the kids, no facebook for Sam....weird I say! Our computer is way too integrated in our lives....gonna have to ponder on that, I think!

Tuesday dawned bright and early thanks to my two girls who had apparently made plans with each other to both be awake before 7. Really gonna have to work with them on that! Since, Braden's homeschooling on Monday went nearly up to bed time because we didn't get any done that morning, I decided to do several parts of it before we left to go pick up the computer. It actually worked out well and we got a good amount done. Then, we all loaded back into le van and headed back to Georgetown to go and pick up our very much-missed computer. This time it was smooth sailing all the way there. It helped that I had the ipod with the kids favorite music on there...like toby mac and their collection of vbs songs from all the vbses they attended this past summer.

When I went in, he got the computer and gave me a run-down on everything he did. Apparently, we had a whole colony of dust bunnies inhabiting our computer. Ahem....oopsy!..sorry 'bout that! 3 years of no maintenance = dust gone wild! We also were at 62% fragmentation. Nice. He repaired that. Yay! He also informed me of some other good practices that would help our computer live a longer and fuller life. The fragmentation was due, in part, to our having our computer fall asleep if no one was using it after a couple of minutes. Basically, we had our computer in a narcoleptic cycle that was throwing it into what amounts to computer bipolar disorder. Another oops. After that, Grant also gave some suggestions for future upkeep, like upgrading to more memory and getting an external hard drive to back everything up and then to upgrade our hard drive in the future. He gave me a price list and I must say that it is all very reasonable. I really love it when I find a place/person that gives me straight answers, does honest work and has decent prices for fixing things. I found a mechanic, I have a favorite vehicle oil change/inspection garage and now I have a mac repair/upgrade/whatever-else-needs-to-be-done-on-our-computer guy. I'm on a roll!

Before, I give all the details about this company, I do have to add that on the way back, Ailey was again practicing her Houdini tricks and I am considering investing in lots of duct tape. Okay, moving on....

If you have a mac (or a pc, cuz he works on those, too:) and you want a calm place (unlike the Apple stores, which are always crazy busy and super noisy) to take it in to get it diagnosed/fixed/upgraded, here's the link for the Tyrosys website:

Tyrosys Corp

and here's the address and phone number:

2913 Williams Dr., Suite 220
Georgetown, Texas 78628
Phone Numbers:
512-686-0469 main
903-640-4951 fax

They also have a Dallas area location:

406 N. Center Street
Bonham, Texas 75418

Phone Numbers:

903-640-4900 main
903-640-4951 fax

Don't forget to tell Grant I sent ya! *

*(Disclaimer: I was in no way compensated or am I likely to ever be compensated for this unabashed plug for Tyrosys Corp. I just happen to like the service I received and thought someone else might like to have the same kind of great experience I had. AND telling him I sent ya just lets him and his staff know that word of mouth advertising is at work!)

Bath time fun

2011-09-19T08:53:00.000-05:00

Her little legs go nearly the whole time I bathe her.

Gotta keep those fingers in her mouth!

A River Sort of Runs Through It

2011-09-17T23:39:00.000-05:00

We decided to go to Colorado Bend State Park to just hear a whole lotta quiet for an afternoon. Its an almost two hour drive, but we get to drive through Lampasas, which has some really neat old houses. The rest of the drive is through the countryside and then it takes fo'eva to get to the river from the beginning of the road to the park. It is also nearly all caliche "paved". Now, some of you remember the, um, incident regarding our previously-ours motorhome pulling the van on a tow dolly taking on a concrete barricade in a construction zone and not winning, while at the same time making the passenger-side door crunchy where it meets the wheel well. Kay. Because of the aforementioned crunchiness, there is a bit of a gap in that area and basically it makes a mini wind tunnel. Now picture this through your mind... super dusty caliche road for about twenty minutes at around 30 mph, mini wind tunnel sucking in said super dusty caliche road for about twenty minutes at 30 mph. Normally, our dashboard is a slight gray color due to the dust build-up on the black that gets cleaned a good 2 times per year, but because we had a minor "sand storm" in our car for, say it with me now, twenty minutes at 30 mph, it is now a powdery white color, along with every other surface on the interior of our van. Sam was also powder-coated since he was the one sitting on that side of the vehicle. I think he did a good rendition of Sean Patrick Flanery as Jeremy in Powder.
On the way back, we did get a clue and plug the hole with a towel. Yep, that was much better. :) Especially, because it was now me who was sitting on that side. ;p We got to the park, finally, and enjoyed ourselves for about an hour/hour and a half. After that, the kids who decided they needed to fully immerse themselves in the water of the not-so-at-this-point-in-our-drought river and then came to the conclusion that they were cold once out in the wind. I was getting fatigued carrying Brea in the Moby and sweating profusely because of same Moby, while hiking over rocks and sludge in the river and at the same time keeping Ailey steady on her feet. When we decided that it was time to head back to the van so that I could chill and feed the Boopster while Sam took the boys on a walk, we got out of the river and part of the way up the bank when Ailey decided to poo-bomb her britches. By this time, Brea was getting fairly fussy as well and I was just done. Poor Sam! We just decided to go ahead and call it a day and head back home, with a soothing ice cream stop on the way back. Let's just say, we are glad we have a parks pass! :)

Here are some pics of our white-ish water adventure (Totally rockin' my sun-protector, too! Don't be hat'in', cuz you know you wanna rock one, too!):

Don't you just hear banjos playing here...

For Reina: Stir Fry from scratch and Red Velvet cake turned trifle

2011-09-17T09:55:00.000-05:00

A while back (at least 2+ mos. ago), I mentioned on fb that I made a stir fry from scratch (usually its in a bag or box or Panda Express...;) and I promised to post pics. So, here they are, late as usual!

I took this on the same day. I was excited to finally have a terra cotta brown sugar keeper.

This was leftover from friends coming over to our house for dinner and I decided it could be repurposed for our home group potluck. I was going to make cake balls, but that would have been more work than I wanted so I went with a trifle.

This was the sweet and slightly spicy sauce I made for the stir fry. It was pretty yummy.

I had all these veggies hangin out in my fridge, which is why I was going to make a stir fry in the first place. They needed to be used before they all shriveled up and made my fridge stinky!

Now that I've made this, what I will tweak next time is when I add the sauce to the veggies and chicken. I didn't drain off the liquid that came of the chicken and veggies reducing, so it was rather soupy and the sauce got way too diluted. Next time I will drain the liquid off and then add the sauce. Much better!

Homeschool Mania! Week 1

2011-09-17T00:39:00.017-05:00

This week was our first week of school. I originally was going to begin last week, but decided to hold off for another week to see how the first day of co-op was going to go. This semester I decided to go for extra craziness and teach two classes. Here's a breakdown of how it goes. There are 3 hours of co-op. The rule is you have to either teach or assist. You can teach one and assist one, teach two, or assist two. Theoretically, you get one of the three hours off. Many times there is a need to fill in for someone who can't be there. Okay, so there was a need and I decided to go for it. Yeah. I'm enjoying the teaching part, but the prep part is challenging. I got one of my classes' itinerary finished completely, while the other one is still in rough draft form and I'm finishing up the guts of it each week. On the plus side, I've started going to the library lots! I haven't been to the library for about 5 or 6 years. I never really needed to...the internet is so stinkin' handy at times. Anyway, I'm enjoying using the library resources and hopefully, the kiddos will get to where they enjoy going, too.

We went with Sonlight for Braden and Cait's Curriculum for Zekes and possibly Ailey.... I am waiting to start Zekey's next week because I ordered his curriculum late and I am grateful for the reprieve to get Braden in a groove first. Its been a crazy week, but its been good. Braden stays busy almost the whole day. I've got to figure out how to plan play/down time into our day, but we'll get it. The Sonlight curriculum is VERY structured and I'm going to have to tweak it a bit to fit us a bit better, but so far, I really like it lots. I like how it is set up and the kinds of info that is integrated all together. I love how I didn't have to put any of it together, though I must say it would have behooved me to study the instructor's guide quite a bit more before the first day instead of just diving in. You kind of have to figure it out.

The reason for getting Zekey started later is I really thought that the My Father's World curriculum that I have was pre-k. Its Kindergarten. So I got online and did a thorough search for Chrisitan pre-k curriculum and came across Cait's Curriculum. It is a cd-rom that has all the stuff on it. You can print out however many you need. No limit. You can use it with as many children as you want, which was a plus for us! It is comprehensive and all set up as far as structure and scheduling. All I have to do is print the stuff out. It was also not much more than I paid for the MFW, which is good, but not the way I wanted to go this time around. I want something that I don't have to keep purchasing the consumables with and that is a much more put together for me. I intend to have the littles go through this curriculum and then Zekes will start on Sonlight next year, too. By the time Zekey hits second grade, we'll only have to buy the full curriculum for Braden each year and only the consumables for the other kiddos as we go along in each grade. LOVE that!!!

Visiting Nina and Padrino

2011-09-05T08:29:00.002-05:00

We went to visit Nina and Padrino (godmother and godfather in spanish) over Labor Day weekend. It was loooong overdue and we thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it! They gave us the opportunity to go on TWO dates. TWO!! We got to spend a lot of time in discussion and ministering to one another. It was fantastic! The kids, of course, could have stayed and wouldn't have batted an eye if we'd left them there for a much longer period of time sans us. :)

Ailey and Nina had an especially...special time together. Nina totally dolled her up. She painted Ailey's fingernails, put makeup on her, got her hair did and put her in one of her dresses and wedge shoes. Ailey was in little girl heaven! She loved every minute of it!

Here follows the fun of it all:

Ailey was all into what was going on...

Ta-Da! The finished result!

She was being so funny about being in the spotlight...

You could tell she liked it, but...

she was a little shy about it, too.

She wasn't actually posing here, though that's what it looks like. Sometimes when she gets embarrassed she puts her hand back behind her ear like that.

The next day, I was determined to get a good pic in good lighting of Nina and Padrino and the kiddos together. I used Braden for some test shots first....

I'm tellin' ya, this kid has a whole bunch of silliness bursting forth!

I finally got a good "normal" smile out of him. :)

Then the whole crew piled onto the couch. The process was...interesting. Keep your eye on Braden:

Wiggly Ailey.

Nina, no making faces!

Now Brea is causing confusion and delay (50 points to whoever knows where that phrase is from:)...

...

yeah...

Ok, 4 out of 6.

Braden and Zekey!!!

Braden!!!

I'm losing them again...

Braden!!

Zekers!!

Ailey, Brea, Focus! Padrino, you too! ;p

Almost...

I think this is as good as its gonna get....I'm done, I'm done, I'm done!

Lil' Miss Grabby Hands and the Crazy Kid Crew

2011-08-19T10:29:00.047-05:00

I'm thinking that could be a great name/title for something....;p

Brea is getting busy. She's been rolling over from both sides for about two weeks now and her latest development is reaching out and grabbing stuff. Her favorite so far is noses and hair. She's gotten a hold of Ailey's hair a few times and Ailey responds saying, "Brea, don't pull my hair out!" Very funny! She's also started giggling in response to a bit of tickling. She's been laughing at the kids talking to her occasionally, but now she's going into my favorite stage of liking to be tickled or caused to laugh. She's still my super chilled baby. She still only fusses when she's tired, hungry or poopy. She has had a couple of days of fussiness because of teething, but a little Tylenol and some teething pellets and all was made right again.

Ailey is revisiting her messy tendencies. She is a strewer. She leaves a trail of toys or whatever she's picked up for two seconds and then discards as she goes through the house. I need a robot maid like the Jetsons. Rosie, right? There are some days that all I have done is gone around and picked up and then I look around and it still looks like an Ailado has been through the house. She's quicker than quick. She's faster than fast! She's sweeter than sweet! :) I put her hair up in pigtails yesterday, because that's how I had mine and she wanted them, too. They actually stayed up for more than thirty minutes, but lost out to Ailey's grabby hands, eventually. We'll just have to work our way up to a whole day. She's been cracking me up lately at how she relates to Brea. She's so very sweet to her, talking to her, hugging her, sharing her food and blankets with her.....;) Then, I'll look and she'll have her foot on Brea's face. I guess we all show love in different ways. I've come to a different perspective concerning her ability to get into anything and everything all at a pace I can't seem to keep up with. Since she is apparently taking after me, I know that there will be a point at which this curiosity will be turned from a frustration to an advantage. I look forward to that day, while still enjoying her fun quirkiness now.

Zekes is being more aggressive in letting us know he needs our attention. I'm loving that! I think he finally figured out that he's really got to let us know, so he's started coming and climbing in our laps more (he's a sucker for a back or neck rub;) and saying he needs our attention. Now, with that we are having to teach him to not interrupt and to be patient to wait for an answer, but it all goes with the training territory. He has currently reached the stage of getting upset about most things not going his way and not handling it at all well. We are having to show him how to handle his frustration in a better way. Its really funny that Braden has just been coming out of that stage and Zekey is going in....earlier....yeah. I think Ailey is trying to join him already...maybe Brea will join in and we can just get it all over with now! We all might be a wee batty by the end, though. ;p Zekey has this amazing kindness that just blows me away at times. If Brea is upset, he will sit beside her and show her all sorts of stuff or talk to her for long periods of time. He and Ailey have been playing cooperatively together more often, too. Exciting to see him grow!

Braden is just such a help! He's eager to help out most of the time and I sure am grateful for that! He's fun and we laugh a lot together. He has such a great sense of humor and its fun to see him get new humor concepts like puns. Anytime I am making something, he wants to do it, too. He's very interested in cooking and every time I'm doing a craft, he wants to try it, too. He wants to be able to crochet, but the concept is still beyond him for now. Its so funny to me when Zekey and Braden see me crocheting something and they decide all of a sudden that they want to have some yarn and a hook so they can make a blanket. Haha! Well, maybe someday. :) Braden is doing an amazing job learning how to be an encourager. There are still times when he chooses to use hurtful words or have a yucky attitude, but the really great thing about him is that he is easily corrected and it sticks! One of the fun things that I like to see with him is when he's trying to be serious about something that is more funny and I start laughing and he tries not to laugh. He opens his mouth wide to keep from smiling and averts his eyes, but usually he can't keep from laughing for long. :) Really fun!

Here are some random gratuitous pics from the last month or so:

This one I have name: Bare-bum baby tries to fly.

Yeehaw, ya'll! (Not really, I DO NOT say ya'll!)

Sam got these vintage safety glasses from a guy at work and the kids loved them! Zekey looks nerdy in a circa 1950's sort of way. :)

This is my Granny. She HATES having her picture taken and because of that, I think I take a sort of delight in taking her picture whenever I can...mmmmwwwaaahahaha! Do you see the small daggers being shot from her eyes? hehe! I love, love, love my Granny! I keep telling her the pics aren't about her so much as they are fond memories for the kids.

My kiddos call her Gran-Gran.

Sweeter Zekers!

Granny a.k.a. Momma with Brea-boops.

Rockin' Ailey's hat at 3 mos.

Littlest Sweets!

Yeah, so I'm saying it again...I love the Target $ aisle! I got each piece of the space costumes for a buck each as well as the sunglasses for the same price each! Nice.

So pretty!

I didn't anticipate that Ailey would want to be a spaceperson, too. Braden shared with her and the next day I went back to Target and got her outfitted, too. :)

Grabby hands hard at work.

What is up?!

2011-08-11T14:07:00.000-05:00

I received an email through my homeschool group asking me to sign this petition. Well, I did, of course! I can't stand it that supposed "adults" can't leave children's programming alone! This one has to do with a petition to Sesame Street to have a gay marriage for Bert and Ernie. Really?! Here's what its all about:

http://www.onemillionmoms.com/signpetition.asp?id=121

In the News...

2011-08-05T12:12:00.000-05:00

Well, my news anyway. I'm still working on getting back up to speed with the kiddo updates. I have pictures coming out the wazoo here and I'm trying to keep ahead of the avalanche! I've been sitting at the computer a lot the past few days trying to upload pics to get them developed and starting certain photo projects for gifts and on and on and on...ugh! Anyway, hopefully, I will soon have pics to put in all the frames hanging on the wall.

I've got some projects in mind for the near future, but here's what I'm knee deep into right now. I decided to make the pantry that Sam converted for me only a half pantry. I stuck my craft paraphernalia in there, too. I'm still trying to get it all organized, which might take me the next year or so to accomplish, but here it is so far.....

I know that I've mentioned in previous posts that I am indeed a ribbon junkie. Here's some proof. This is actually on the low side because I've used a lot of it lately. I'll be stocking up soon...:) I also found this to help me organize all that loose ribbon:

This is the Ribbon Ring and you can buy it here.

This is actually supposed to be the pantry part, but it is hosting some of my craft junk until I can figure out where to put it all!

I couldn't fit everything into the closet and had to leave these two rolling bins in my bedroom, so now I'm trying to figure out how to beautify them. Right now, I'm thinking of getting a piece of plyboard and cutting it to fit across both of the tops and then surround it with a curtain and decoupage or paint the top. Then I can use it as a nightstand. We'll see.

AND...I kept passing a house down the road and kept seeing these chairs sitting outside and then a couple of days ago noticed that they had been moved to the back of the truck in the driveway. I decided to see if the intent was to throw them away and so I stopped and asked. Sure enough, the man was going to throw them away! So, SCORE! I love the lines of these chairs. I'm gonna reupholster them...well, after I've cut two new seat bottoms for the ones that are bottomless. :) Anyway, the bonus is that they pair well with this table that I rescued from being tossed at a neighbor's down the street. I'm just a small step away from dumpster diving.....;p

Oh, and this is on my list for the future - a Play Kitchen!:

Found this one among others here.

Totally in love with the little ruffled curtain on this one. Don't really have room for this kind of spread though. Found this one here.

This one's a beauty! Found it here.

Lovin' this one, too! Found here.

Lookey here at this fancy-schmancy one! They did a really great job on this one. I prolly won't feel like putting this much work into a play kitchen, but it sure is cute! Found here.

This one is my favorite. Sooooo cute! Found it here.

Then, of course, we'll need to furnish it with felt food:

Cuteness!!!
Again with the cute!

Seriously talented lady!

And...Check these out!

click here to see or buy.

Today...

2011-07-28T17:05:00.000-05:00

Today, Zekey dressed Ailey.

(Braden made some flip flops of his own...)

Today, I made the kids little barnyards for lunch out of graham crackers, peanut butter, cheeze-its, pretzels, animal crackers and shredded mini wheats.

Today, I made one for me, too. ;p

2011-07-27T08:00:00.001-05:00

Braden came in this morning to wake me up and ask if he could go ahead and get all the cereal stuff ready. I said he could and then rolled back over and snoozed for a bit. After a while, the kids were running through the house and I thought that maybe I should go ahead and get up and pour milk in their bowls so they could eat. I dragged myself out of my room and came upon Ailey dunking some shredded mini wheats into a little bowl of milk. Then, I immediately looked beyond that to see that the milk that Braden had used was the buttermilk. Oops! Not one of them said that it tasted weird or different or yuck or anything. I'm thinkin' Braden is hired! ;p

My kind of S'Mores

2011-07-23T08:20:00.020-05:00

So a while back, I wrote about the baby shower we had at the house and one of the goodies was S'Mores pops. I made some again sans the pop part and decided to do a step-by-step, since its easy and I actually felt like taking the time to take pics. ;p One of my biggest dislikes about S'mores is that the chocolate doesn't melt enough to mingle with the graham cracker and marshmallow. I usually end up with the chocolate taking over the whole bite and I like balance. I'm rather crotchety about how I like my chocolate and I'm just fine with that. :)

Step 1: You need a whole mess of yummy marshmallows, a good handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips and crushed graham crackers. I would also suggest the mini baking cups to put them in, but you could also just put them on parchment paper.

Step 2: I melted my chocolate in a pot on the stove top and once they got melty, I just turned off the burner and resisted the urge to drink it straight.

Step 3: I set up my assembly line and this is how it went:

Step 4: Get a good grip on your marshmallow. (It will try and wriggle out of your grasp and become one with the pool of chocolate.) I will also have to admit that this is the stage where, sadly, some of the marshmallows don't make it through the whole process...

Step 5: Dunk and twirl until the chocolate is halfway up the sides of said marshmallow and there is full bottom coverage. We don't need no daisy-dukin' marshmallows here!

Step 6: Gently shove the now chocolate-treated mallow into the graham cracker crumbs and mush it around until the chocolate is wearing a crumb sweater or coat as it were. ;p Don't want our marshmallow catching a cold, now do we.

Step 7: Attempt to make your hand put it in the little baking cup instead of dropping it down your gullet. It's pretty difficult to achieve this, so you might need someone in attendance to assist in this endeavor, but beware the temptation is catching so it might be good to have a whole support group present. Ach! Who are we kidding?! Just go ahead and put the mini baking cups back up and save them for one of the kids' art projects.

Optional Step 8: If you want to be all facy-schmancy for a special occasion or to see your kids' eyes light up, you can stick some cookie sticks into the centers. It does keep little fingers safer from the attack of the Chocolate Mush Monster, though sometimes the fingers are lured into its enticing trap anyway.

TaDa! Super Easy and not only is the chocolate completely incorporated with the graham cracker goodness, its bite size stature contributes to *99.9% of all of the yumminess making it INTO your mouth, so you don't have to store it for later AROUND your mouth.

*This statistic was the result of a completely biased and unscientific study conducted in an independent, non-controlled approach outside of a laboratory environment.