Sickies...Layouts...and a Wonderful Week to Come!

So we are now entering our 3rd week with sick ones in the house! In the past 3 weeks we've had 5 cases of pink eye, 2 sinus infections, snotty noses, upset tummies, deep coughs, and now Miss Em probably has an ear infection! I think we are about to request a speedy check out lane at our doctor's office, or at least the option to earn frequent flyer points! Even little Elijah got hit with the nasty virus. Last week he woke up with pink eye. I don't think I've ever had one this young with pink eye before? He looked just pitiful! Poor little guy! I was thinking today that last February we had done the exact same thing with the never ending virus except that time it was a flu bug. I guess I can count my blessings then that at least this long virus is just the cold and not stomach flu virus.

This weekend I was so blessed by an amazing husband who said I could take some much needed time for myself and lock myself in my scraproom Saturday night. Oh how wonderful! It's been way too long since I've scrapped anything. It was different scrapbooking without someone to sit and chat with, but sometimes it's nice to just have that quiet time to yourself. So not only was I able to get 3 layouts done, but I also was able to break out the new Cricut Expression. I know, it's the one that I got for Christmas and that has sat neglected in my scrapbook room since then. But in my defense it could have sat there *much* longer like all the scrapbooking products I've been stashing away for the past few months since I haven't had time to scrap. We had a really busy Fall so scrapbooking was just not a priority. So it was like Christmas pulling out all these shopping bags full of new products. I had pretty much forgotten what all I had purchased, so it was almost as if I had just gotten back from a trip to Archivers and then sat down in my chair to scrap. Nice huh? So now that I am realizing how much I miss that creative part of my life I'm sure I will be scrap'n on much more of a regular basis. Here's a look at what I did last night....I know bad pics of the layouts, but I can't find my disk to load my scanner to my new lap top so here's to better than nothing!


This week should be a good but short one. We will be finishing up Maddelyn's Civil War/Abraham Lincoln unit and hopefully finishing up yet another Addy book from the American Girl Series. All the sore throats the past couple of weeks has slowed down the read-a-louds more than I'd like. Since we wil be having a short week this week we won't be starting any new lapbooks with Miss Em until next week. We will however be getting our Valentine's finished up to be mailed out. We are so excited to have been able to do a Valentine Exchange with other homeschool kids form across the country! I heard about the exchange on the Homeschool Lounge, which is an amazing support system for homeschool families. Our three girls will be mailing out about 18 Valentines each this week and over the next couple of weeks they will be each receiving the same number. We got our first ones in the mail a few days ago and the girls each placed them in the little heart shaped baskets I found at the store for them to use as their little Valentine's Day mail boxes. On Feb 14th I will let them open and read all the little cards they received as well as enjoy all the treats that came with them. Since we school at home we won't be having the normal Valentine's Day party like traditional schools will be, but we will be celebrating just the same. The girls also spent some of their craft time this week making and decorating hearts to hang up all over the school room. I think their pretty excited about Valentine's Day this year.

The reason for the short week is that Nathan and I have our annual marriage retreat with our church this weekend. Our pastor and his wife take 3 different groups of 8 couples down to Amish Country to a bed and breakfast for a time of marriage building, discussion, learning, and fellowship. It's nice to have such great marriage building time, but also to have it at a wonderful b&b in the scenic Amish Country. When you look out your big glass doors on your suite at the B&B all you can see are the rolling hills dotted with Amish Farms. It's hard to be stressed out with such a view! So we'll be off to the B&B and our beloved Ashley will be here to sit with the kids. Our children just adore her and definitely won't be missing us while we're gone.

So even with kids still fighting this bug and we will more than likely be back to the doctors office....it's going to be a good week!

It's a Circus Around Here!!

So as to the comments from some persistant friends and family members I am finally getting pictures posted from Caroline's 3rd birthday party. Miss Caroline is a HUGE Dumbo fan and even though we tried our best, there really is just not any Dumbo party supplies (let alone anything else Dumbo) available out there. We instead convinced her to have a circus themed party since Dumbo was a circus elephant. I found a great printable circus party package from a lady on etsy. She was wonderful to work with and not only were her designs adorable but she even personalized them with Caroline's name and age. She would have added photos too if I had chosen. The birthday party went great and I believe all the 19 kids and 20 some adults had a good time as well. As the kids arrived at the party they were each given a party hat and a felt bag with their names on tags tied to each bag. These bags were for them to store their tickets and prizes in through out the party. Around the 1st floor of our hosue we had set out 7 different canival type games: bowling, boat guess, bean bag toss, tumbing cans, ping pong toss, and ring of fire (a hula hoop covered in red and orange streamers and then kids would try and toss stuffed circus animals through it.) At each game they would win tickets. I'm pretty sure some of the adults who were helping withthe gmaes were stuffing kids bags with tickets! Ha! After they won their tickets the kids could then turn them in for prizes from the prize table or treats at our concession stand. We had hot dogs, cupcakes, ice cream cones, circus peanuts, animal crackers, fresh popped popcorn (in a popcorn carnical popper borrowed form a friend), HUGS juice bottles, water bottles, and punch. The kids loaded up on prizes and food since they could spend whatever tickets they earned. During the games I also painted the kids faces. After the games were pretty much over we had Caroline blow out the candles on her gluten free cake and then open her presesnts. As you can see in just these few pictures, there was a definite elephant theme to the gifts. Caroline had a blast at the party and is still telling everyone we see that she had a Dumbo party and is now 3!

Resolutions

With the look back at last year I see things that went well, as well as things that I would of course like to improve so...no better time than to make my New Year Resolutions. It's not too late for that is it? I also figure that if I type them up to post online and then print them out, I not only have them made up where I can hang them up to remind myself but all my friends and family can see them to keep me acountable for them! Okay so some of my resolutions are concrete things I would like to accomplish this year and others are more ideals.

1. Set aside time to scrapbook so I will spend time for myself. as well as try to get caught up a bit!

2. Read a book a month for myself (realizing this might be hard to achieve it can be a teaching/parenting/marriage/faith based book!)

3. Get my old photos at least organized into photo albums since I am realizing I will never get them all scrapbooked!

4. Get back into the swing of blogging! I know how I have neglected my blog this past year! I started blogging to keep an online record of our lives to print out for my children to have so I need to get back at that.

5. Get my past blog posts printed out, organized, and in albums.

6. Complete the rest of our basement (ie, paint and carpet) so we can have a tv room/playroom/rec room.

7. Do the landscaping around our yard that we wanted done last Spring!

8. Take the girls to see a play...would love to take them to see Lion King!

9. Learn to just smile and remember they are only young once....when they are all grown and moved out I will actually miss all the smudges, crumbs, and noise.

10. Get into a better morning routine with the girls before school starts. Oh how mornings are my true test of patience. I will get up early and have my quiet time...I will get up early and have my quiet time....

11. Have a mommy-daughter day with each one of my girls where we do whatever they want for the day and just spend one-on-one time with them.

12. Work on setting aside time for both myself as well as time with my husband just to relax and repair.

13. Start a Love and Respect Bible Study for young couples in our house.

14. Take the family to Williamsburg and Jamestown to see where our country got it's start.

15. Go away for another couple's time with hubby like we did in San Antonio last year.

16. Print out last years pictures and get them oganized and ready for either albums or scrapbook layouts.

17. Continue and expand my list of blessings to pray over our children each day.

18. Make use of both our Y membership as well as the fact that we live on the edge of our city park.

19.. Make our homeschool experience one where they learn through life experiences and not through textbooks.

20. Learn to pick my battles with my children while they are young so we are prepared for when they are older and it really matters!

Welcome 2010!

I can't believe that 2009 is already over! Wow! I guess one thing about getting older is that the years tend to fly by much quicker? Maybe it's just that while chasing all the little ones I don't realize how fast each week flys by and before you know it the year is already coming to an end? This year has definitely been a busy and very productive one for us Martins! I think the theme of this year has to be summed up in one phrase "construction!" It's amazing how even though you get in the routine of construction dust and workers in your home for over a year, you never really get "used" to it? But I am VERY blessed to say that now that it is over we have a beautiful century old home that God has blessed us with! We LOVE our home and so much so that we've told the kids we hope they like it here because we when we die one of them is getting it! As in God Himself is going to have to be VERY vocal if He ever sees fit for us to move from here, I'm talking pigeons out on the front law spelling out M-O-V-E before we'd even consider! HA!

Looking back at 2009 I'm still sitting here surprised at all that got done around the construction mess! Here is a brief sum of 2009.....

~Maddelyn turned 6 and started 1st grade at home.
~Emma turned 5 and started kindergarten at home.
~Miss Caroline turned 2 and became the little diva of our lives
~We learned what the color blue was all about with little Elijah and actually got "boy toys" when he turned 1 the week before Christmas
~We finished the remodel of a 7 bedrooom, 3 1/2 bath, 4000 + square foot Victorian
~Nathan started his own political consulting firm and landed his first major contact
~My website Sugar Sweet Bowtique just took off and we opened up an etsy store as well
~The kids and I saw the West for the first time on our 4 week trip driving from Ohio to Washington State and back. Yes we did earn the badges saying "I survived 17 states and 7000 miles, with 4 kids under 7 in and SUV!"
~We hosted our very first holiday celebration in our new home by having 32 people for Thanksgiving
~Our older 2 girls got to be flower girls for the first time in their Aunt Emily and Uncle Jeremiah's wedding
~I got to go to Tn to spend some lovely scrapbooking time with friends for the twelvefriday's weeekend celebration
~My bestest Alicia and her baby Emma-Lee visited for a week and helped celebrate Maddelyn's 6th birthday
~Was honored to attend a Freedom Concert this Summer, and of course the girls were jealous that Mommy and Daddy got to see Miley's dad Billy Ray
~Froze our behinds our but had a great time with family at our annual Hamons Family Camp-Out in October
~Ended our first year in our new home by having an Open House for all our family and friends as well as the Boulevard neighbors who welcomed us into their neighborhood. I actually had one Boulevard lady say jokingly about me raising children in my high school rival town "That our children are not Shelby children, they are Boulevard children." HA!

So as you can see we had a very busy but wonderful first year on our new home. We had lots of surprises come up along the way but God has so richly blesses our lives and we can see how His hand has guided our paths throughout 2009. We are very excited to see what wonderful things He has in store for us in 2010 and we know whatever comes along, God has said... For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. -Jer.29:11