Sweet as Sugar Candy

Welcome Annesley Kate!

2011-07-31T21:58:00.009-04:00

So obviously a lot has happened since my last post. We had a very busy Spring and Summer preparing for our sweet baby's arrival. We were very blessed to welcome our little lady:

Annesley Kate
June 22nd 11:52pm
7 lbs 14 oz 21 inches

Our sweet one arrived 2 and a half weeks early so we weren't quite ready for her arrival. Dad had been out of state with work all week and Mom was busy doing a major clean sweep with Grandmother and Aunt Emily to prepare the house for a new baby. Well I guess Annesley wanted to come and see just how clean the house really was because that night I started to have contractions. I was up through the night with a dull ache in my back so early the next morning I called the doctor to ask what back labor felt like. He said since it was #5 he'd feel better if I went into the hospital to get checked out. So we threw some things in a bag really quick and headed to the hospital with all intentions of coming home after the nurses reassured I wasn't in labor.

Well to our VERY big surprise I was having contractions and showing some progress towards delivery. I just couldn't believe it! I thought for sure it was just a false alarm! It wasn't until they broke my water much later in the day that I was like...we are really having this baby today! The whole thing that day just seemed so surreal since I never thought I'd be going into labor at 37 1/2 weeks. I have head early labor with the last 3 kids but Annesleys pregnancy had the least amount of early labor so I thought we were in the clear for an early delivery.

The labor was a very slow progression but I generally go into the hospital further progressed than I did this time so I was at the hospital through all the slow early labor. The laboring was pretty smooth and uneventful all day. My mom, Nathan's mom, and his grandmother were all in the room to see the little one make her appearance. The first thing we thought when we saw Miss Annesley was look at all that hair...wait...it's RED??? I never thought I'd have a read head! Aunt Emily says its a strawberry brown, but in the natural light it just glows red. Who would have thought??

Shortly after she was born she started coughing and gaging a bit. The nurses said that she might have just had a bit of fluid in her lungs from delivery and they worked on suctioning it out. After several minutes they began to realize that she was struggling quite a bit with her breathing as well. They decided to take her down to the nursery to have the doctor check her out for a bit. He said she was struggling to get the carbon dioxide out because she was panting so much and it looked to be from premature lungs. He said they would do some tests and monitor her for a while to see if she could get her breathing under control by herself or not. After several hours she still had not relaxed her breathing she he said she needed to be sent by life flight to Akron Children's Hospital.

Nathan went ahead and left for the hospital so he could be there when she got to Akron. I had to spend the night at the hospital but life flight was so amazing that after they had her intibated and hooked up to all her monitors they wheeled her entire cot, isolet, and all into my room so I could see her before she left. They were so wonderful to answer all my questions. They said they gave her a dose of artificial cerfactin and that with premature lungs sometimes they don't produce the "oil" needed to keep the lungs form sticking together. When the lungs stick together they have to work extra hard for each breath and can wear out after a while. This dose of medicine that gave her would open up her lungs and give them the lubricant they needed. They said they would give her one more does in Akron and that should fix the problem.

The next morning my doctor released me to go and Alicia took me up to see the baby. My best friend form college had jumped on a plane as soon as she heard I was in labor and came to be with me. She missed the delivery by a couple of hours but was there for the whole next week. It was definitely a God thing that she came because He knew how much she would be needed while we were at the NICU. She stayed there with me and Nathan all week and just sat by Annesley's bedside with me. She was an encouragement as well as someone to sit and chat with during that stressful time. What a blessing she was!!

When I reached the NICU the baby still had her ventilator in, but she looked so much more at peace and was not struggling to breath. She ended up having her intibation tube removed the next day and was able to just have a little tube in her nose that forced air in instead. She also was on several monitors and had a feeding tube and IV. Once they began to wean her onto room air she also needed to go under the blue lights for her biliruben levels for a few days. Because of that we could only get her out for a couple of times each day. They started by having me do "skin-to-skin" holding with her. Basically we were chest to chest with a blanket wrapped around us. It was amazing how much she calmed her breathing down and relaxed while I was holding her. Simply so sweet.

After her breathing issues were under control and she was off the blue lights she still needed to get nursing figured out. They were worried about her figuring out how to suck, swallow, and breath all at the same time since she had just gotten her breathing regulated. They wanted to slowly introduce nursing to her..however Annesley had a different game plan. She latched on the very first time and went to town with feeding! No slow process for her! She was ready to go!

We ended up spending a total of 7 days in the NICU at Akron. The staff there was just simply amazing at not only their level of care for Annesley but also just how wonderful they were to work with. They did a supreme job of taking care of our entire family.

The kids were able to come up to visit the baby twice but never saw her out of the isolet. When they came to visit all the girls were excited and had a million questions. Caroline seemed the most interested in her. She put her little face up to the arm whole in the bed and started singing to the baby. So sweet! She kept telling everyone her sister was in a special box. She was like "how do they get her out?" She thought the baby was stuck in there! Elijah had no clue that this baby was ours. I said "Look Elijah our baby!" He looked around at all the other baby beds in there and was like "Baby! Baby! Baby!" pointing to each bed. He missed the concept! Afterwards he was more concerned with playing with her bed than he was with his new sister?

We had Annesley at our family doctor 2 days after coming home from the NICU and he said she looked perfect! What a true blessing from God! Just like our doctor said, she had a rough start but is doing just fine now. Praise God!

Reflections on How We've Changed and What's Important

2011-02-18T23:09:00.004-05:00

So I just spent the last while looking back over my old blog posts through out the past 2 years and seeing how much has happened/changed in our lives. I was just thinking that a little over 2 years ago we were buying our house, starting the remodel, and I was very pregnant with Elijah. Fast forward a little over 2 years and here is a little bit of how different our family looks:

Elijah is born
Major remodel of our house is basically done
We now own a dog
We've driven 4 children in an SUV to Washington State and back in 3 weeks
We've gone from one kid in kindergarten to now one in 2nd, one in kindergarten, and another in early preschool
My bow business has more than doubled in size
We went through a miscarriage and are now expecting again
My best friend has come to visit twice and we have gone to see her once
We learned about bats and successfully concurred them!
I've gone form anti-cooking to now gardening and canning
And....we are about to be a family of 7! WOW!

I am just simply amazed at how quickly our lives change. It doesn't seem like that much is changing, it's just when you look back you can't believe how far you've come in such a short time. I'm overjoyed at where we are in our lives. Yes we've had some pretty tough life lessons this year but we wouldn't be where we are today if we hadn't of gone through them. And as my sweet sister-in-law Miss Emily says, I'll look back next year and realize not only how much stronger Nathan and I's relationship is (which I can see already) but also how much stronger of a person I am. As I look back now I think well I guess I have changed this year. I don't know if I would call it stronger, I just see it as really realizing what is important in life. I see so much drama around me and I think really? Is it worth it? I hear 15 year olds acting like their life is about to end from some drama at school that day and I think...what major life event have you witnessed in your short 15 years? Have you lost a parent? Has your house burned down? What could possibly be that bad. I see things going on around me and all that wonderful drama on Facebook and I think really? How much of what seems soooo life ending to so many people today, will they even remember occurred 10 years from now? I guess I just changed my faded glasses of the past for more clear ones and see things a bit different now. I guess I just think that life is way to short to sweat all this drama. We aren't promised tomorrow and we have no clue how quickly our seemingly perfect lives can fall apart. I don't mean that in a dooms day attitude, I just mean that we should be thankful and feel blessed for the happiness we have because something ACTUALLY major could happen tomorrow. Then we will sit here looking back at just how petty and simple our drama from the previous day seems. I don't know, I guess that this past year has had me ask 2 questions when problems or drama arise.....1. Is this something that is worth all this emotion (will it change the path of my family or greatly affect one of it's members). More importantly perhaps 2. Is this an eternal issue (will this outcome of this event change either my faith, someone else's faith, or possibly lead or pull away someone from to or from Christ?) It kinda changes your whole outlook on life and everything in it. I don't think it's made me a glass half empty or morbid kinda person. I just think it's made me look twice at what really matters in my life, my faith, my husband and children (in that order), my extended family, and my close friends. I praise God for these things which He has blessed me with and I also praise God for allowing the rough times to show me how important the actual important things are in my life. God is able to take a hard time we go through and use it not only for His glory but also to sculpt us into the vessel He has planned for our lives.

I know DEEP, but it was what was on my heart so I thought I'd share it in hopes of encouraging someone else.

January Already Come and Gone!

2011-02-15T22:09:00.006-05:00

So January has already come and gone. It amazes me how quickly time can go by when you are chasing 4 little ones and drained from carrying your 5th. A large majority of the month was spent at home with at least one of the 6 of us sick. It seems as soon as we would get the last person over a virus, someone would start a new one. We had a horrid battle with the stomach flu this past month which had out whole family out for a week! I am so ready for Spring when I can open up all the windows and get all these nasty germs out of our house!

In the midst of all these viruses going through our house we also had an ER visit with Caroline. the girls woke us up very early one morning saying Caroline was shaking and they couldn't get her to talk to them. It looked like Caroline had had another seizure. She's had 3 previous ones but they have all been during some sore of illness and she's had a high fever of over 104 degree. This time there was no illness and a very low fever, but after the seizure she did not regain her language abilities. Anyone who knows Caroline knows she is definitely not lacking for words! So after a nerve racking ER visit, many failed attempts to get a blood sample (poor thing), and seeing 2 doctors they diagnosed it as another seizure resulting form a fever? Everything that led up to it just did not feel right so we were glad that at our follow up visit with our family doctor he suggested that we see a pediatric neurologist just to be sure. Caroline and I went up to Medina to meet a doctor form Children's Hospital. He was such a nice guy and answered all of our questions. He said the previous 3 seizures were fever seizures, but this one looked different. He said he believed this 4th one was an epileptic seizure and he ordered an EEG. He said that her reflexes and such looked great and he thinks the EEG will be fine. He also said that this doesn't mean epilepsy but even if it ended up to be, 75% of all kids grow out of it? I've never heard that before. So we left feeling better that we had our questions answered, but now having a whole new batch of questions. So we go in about a month for her EEG and we'll see the doctor again then. Until we just pray God will protect our Carebear and that there will be some answers when she goes for the EEG.

Miss Caroline also turned 4 this month! That doesn't seem possible! I still think Maddelyn should be just 4 and learning her letters and colors! WOW! Caroline celebrated the day by having her friend form across the street, Isabelle, come rollerskating with us. that was an adventure! Having 4 totally non-skaters and only 2 adults kept us busy. Maddelyn ended up being able to skate around slowly by herself. Emma and Isabelle did an okay job of skating around the room by holding onto the wall. Caroline pretty much gave up after about 30 minutes. She seemed to be having fun, just done with the whole skating idea. On her actual birthday she went out for her Daddy-Caroline Birthday Girl Breakfast and ate up the attention! We also had a family celebration that night with her favorite diner of tacos, decorating the dining room, and opening her gifts. It's hard to believe that out Sweet Little Caroline is no longer my peanut but turning into a little girl! She still is just such a sweetheart and always saying out of the blue "I love you Mom", " Your Beautiful", "I like your shirt", or simply giving hugs and kisses.

A Wonderful Christmas

2011-01-10T21:12:00.005-05:00

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. I actually think I told Nathan it was one of the best in years. The whole season just seemed so relaxed and no one was in a hurry. Well I'd say quite a bit of that had to do with me spending most of December on the couch sick with baby #5. It sure does make the busy season slow down a lot! The Christmas holiday itself was just as relaxed! It was so nice to not be running and just take time and enjoy the little moments.

This year Elijah was so much fun! He realized very quickly that if he went and at in his "spot" at each gift opening, he'd get a present to open. All you say is "Elijah, you're turn" and he'd run and sit himself down in "his spot". So very cute!

Maddelyn this year also decided she didn't believe in Christmas magic anymore. Well let's just say this was the year where she said she didn't believe but, just in case she still wrote a letter to Santa. She also had to of course tell her younger sister Emma all the facts about Christmas, now making her be doubtful. Maddelyn can't learn any new facts without HAVING to share them with Emma. I was saying that since Maddelyn (at almost 8) still hasn't lost any teeth, she'll be over the tooth fairy now too before she even had a chance with it! She's too smart for her own good!

I tried to pick out some of my favorite pictures from Christmas. I didn't have all the pictures downloaded off my camera yet, but here are the favorites from what I had.....

Christmas Morning in their little Christmas dresses and suit.

Elijah got a workbench under the tree this year!

The girls with their American Girl Bunk Beds. They each unstack too so they have their own beds. I think they were pretty pleased with them!

The kids with their books from us. Each year we buy each child a hard back book, hopefully about something special to their personality. I thin write a letter to them each in the front cover of their book and date it. The letters are about what we've noticed about them that year and how they are growing. Hopefully when they leave us they will have 18 (or so??) books to take with them, each with a letter about how they changed that year.

Maddelyn in her church Christmas play.

Emma and Caroline as Birthday presents for Jesus in the Christmas play.

Making cookies at Grandma Great's house with all the cousins.

Elijah testing out how strong his new train table is that he got from Grandpa Greg and Grandma Bobbie.

Caroline and her beloved Bitty Baby. this was what she wanted most for Christmas and I think it made her day. She plays non-stop with Bitty Baby now and I'm almost fearful that Dumbo might have been replaced?? My little girl is growing up!

It's been a long time.....

2010-12-21T21:28:00.011-05:00

So obviously it's been a really long time. It's been a busy year and a year of walking on faith too and really blogging wasn't the first thing on my mind. Maybe blogging would have made the year a bit smoother if I had typed it all out but life goes on and before you know it months have passed and no blog updates. So out with the old and starting fresh from here.

The summary of our year...

In June Nathan and I went out to Texas for his cousin's wedding and we got to congratulate Andrew and Elba on their beautiful wedding! I was blessed to try my hand at taking some photos or them of the wedding...so much fun!

July brought lots of visitors to our house! We started the month with Alicia and Emily and then ended the month with my sister-in-law Emily. It was so nice to have a house full of guests! the kids didn't know what to do with themselves after everyone had gone!

This Summer we were very blessed to find out that we were expecting a 5th baby. For reasons known only to God Himself He chose that our precious wee one was better off with Him. The rest of the Summer was spent learning a lot about God's plan for our lives as well as trusting completely in Him for our well being. I think God really was able to use this as a time for both our family and Nathan and I's marriage to grow stronger.

In September we were sooo excited to spend Labor Day in Williamsburg Va visiting my bestie Alicia (love ya girl) and her parents. We had so much fun both visiting colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown but also just spending time with her family. Of course the time ended way too soon and we can't wait until Alicia, Emma-Lee, and hopefully MeMaw Joye come to visit us this next Summer.

October was filled with Emma's 6th birthday party and our annual Hamons Family Camp Out. Emma had her very first slumber party and was blessed to have Miss Heidi do her party as an example for her new party business. Our house was oozing in hot pink and black with bling!! The Hamons Camp Out this year consisted of 34 people in 5 campers and 2 tents, 14 of those people being 8 and under!

November brought another wonderful blessing of finding out that we were again expecting a new baby. Of course there were lots of worries and fears but God has really given us a sense of peace over this baby and as of 2 weeks ago we were able to see a precious wiggling baby with a good strong heartbeat! As of the week of Christmas I am now 11 weeks along and our new arrival is due July 10th. Nathan is pulling for a boy for Elijah's sake, but of course I'd love another little girl! I've never had a little one to do my own hair bows on so it would be a really fun change...however we'd be thrilled with either!

That now brings us to December and Elijah's 2nd birthday. That just amazes me that he's 2! So weird to thing that I was pregnant with him when we bought this house and started our remodel! Wow! Elijah had also was blessed to have Heidi do his party as well and we of course had to do John Deere and farm. It was adorable!

So looking back this has been a very full year! We now have 1 girl in second, one girl in kindergarten, and one in preschool, Elijah is now 2 and oh yeah we have a new puppy! We welcomed Hershey our chocolate lab into the family in July. So anyways its been a full year but a blessed year. We've had quite a bit of time relying on God, but He has always been there when we've needed him and been directing our path along the way.

Hopefully this now means that I'll be updating my blog again on a regular basis. I'm making it a priority even if it's just a quick post. Happy Advent!!

Month in Reivew

2010-04-28T22:54:00.010-04:00

Wow! A month since my last post! Honestly though that's kinda where I am in life right now. Life is full...to say the least. Not really a bad full, just full. Besides that with being able to connect with so many people on Facebook with just a simple 1 or 2 line post about wheat we're up to, I don't feel that burning need to make a blog post as much. Although I said the whole reason I wanted to start a blog was to keep basically a online journal of the happenings of our lives for my kids to have in the future. Of course that would be quite a bit better if I had my blog actually printed out or something. Yep...let's just go ahead and add that to the master-never ending-always updating-to-do-list. Print Blog....check. Okay so back to what's been going on in the not so tiny butter cream house on the corner.

Well since we came back from NCY Miss Maddelyn turned 7...yes...pick yourselves back up off the floor...she's 7! I mean I know time flies by but 7? She's officially not a preschooler-kindergartner anymore! I think every day I see just 1 or 2 more things about her mannerisms that show me she is growing up. She has become a wonderful reader and spends any free time she gets on the floor or couch with a book. All of this reading has opened up a whole new world for her and she now has lots of new questions about what she's read as well as the world around her. Sometimes I honestly have to tell her "I really don't know Maddelyn?" Parenting for the past 7 years as well as a college degree in Early Child Education in no way prepared me for all her questions. I guess that's the way one learns though! She's so her father's child!

To celebrate Maddelyn's birthday she had a horse party at someone from our church's riding stables. Each of the girls got to help groom the horses and watch them be saddled up before they each got a turn to ride. The older girls were even able to guide themselves through the course once they got the hang of it. Maddelyn had a blast! After she got the American Girl Doll Felicity for Christmas last year she's been all into horses...just like Felicity. We searched all over town for the perfect horse cake and Grandma and Great Grandma got her a horse for Felicity to ride as well. I asked her if this was the best party ever and she said "Mom all of the parties have been the best!" Awe bonus points for her!

The next week we of course celebrated Easter. We were excited that Nathan's dad came to visit for a couple of days and was here to go with us to a local church's Easter egg hunt. That was so much fun! Caroline was kinda shy about it at first but eventually did pretty well. Maddelyn was a super egg hunter, and Miss Em...well she took the prize with how many eggs she got. I'd have to say she definitely inherited that competitive gene from her dad (just don't tell him I said that!) The older 2 girls were in a dance Easter morning at church and after service we had a family cookout at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Willard. It's kinda like the first cookout of the season for us all.

April also saw a bridal shower that we threw for my sister-in-law-to-be Beth. What a sweetheart she is! Not only is she amazing with my nephew and nieces (and keeps my brother in line haha) but like Caroline says "Beth Ann's my best friend" kinda sums up how much my children adore her. Welcome to the family Beth!

I was so blessed to have a mother-in-law who loves me dearly enough to make a very last minute-unplanned trip to Cincinnati for a Homeschool Convention. All I'm going to say is AMAZING! If you're a homeschooler and have never been to one it is worth doing everything you can to get to go to one. We went to the Midwest Homeschool Convention were there were over 250 speakers and 300 vendors! I left feeling so inspired and feeling like yes we can finish the rest of the year! Not only was I able to sit in on some amazing speakers, but I was also able to see products first hand and go through each curriculum. I also found lots of new ideas and companies that I had never heard of. Of course I did do well more than enough shopping, but I came home with a new spelling/phonics curriculum for the girls (All About Spelling - AMAZING), science kits like dissecting an owl pellet, workbooks, manipulatives, readers, devotionals, and lots more. It was a wonderful time both at the convention and spending a weekend with my Mom-in-Law. Thanks Carla!

The next weekend I went to Louisville for a Women of Joy convention with our church. My mom, aunts, cousin, mother-in-law, and grandmother-in-law also all came making the weekend even more fun! The only thing that could top that off is not only did we see Steven Curtis Chapman and Michael W. Smith in concert...but we saw SARAH PALIN!!!! Let me just say that she was even more amazing in person than I've ever seen her on TV. She not only spoke on her faith but what it was like for her to go through the rough waters she's been through lately both politically and with her family. I left seeing her even more as a role model! It was a great weekend of great speakers and a wonderful "girl time" with the family.

Well I guess that puts us to here. So right now finds me getting ready for our annual garage sale and juggling trying to finish up our lessons for the year in school as May approaches. This will be the first year that Maddelyn takes her state requited testing to see where she's at with her school work. I think Momma is much more nervous than she is? No...I know Momma is much more nervous! Basically it feels like I'm being tested. You think my education background would make this a breeze for me...nope I think it makes it worse because I know how much the public school students are being tested on. I guess all we can do is try and expose her to as much as possible this year and just pray that she does well on them. Why does it sound so much easier than really doing it?

So as May approaches we will be starting tee-ball and coach pitch with all three girls. Yes even Caroline will have a team for her this year. That could be very interesting??? We are still working on Elijah to walk...yes the kid WILL NOT let go of us or the furniture and just take off. He can do it just fine but refuses to let go. Stubborn that's the only word for it. Nathan will be traveling a lot this month with work so that means there will be a lot of mommy-kid time to fill. We'll be doing quite a bit of yard work when he is home trying to get the overgrown mess the previous owners had under control. Something that drives an OCD person nuts is pulling in their driveway and seeing nothing but weeds! Oh my! It's also getting very close to garden time to so that will be on the agenda as soon as the garage sale is over. We had a huge but lovely crop of tomatoes last year that I made into freezer spaghetti sauce. I'm not sure what else I'll be putting out this year, but I do know that this year the bunnies and I will be at war!

So you can see that this will be yet another full month in our house but like I said before, full doesn't mean bad full. It just means full!

The Big Apple

2010-03-28T21:43:00.010-04:00

So New York was AMAZING! It was so good to be away with just the hubby and I, relaxing and getting to know one another again. We realized that these past 2 trips (NYC and then San Antonio last Nov) were a wonderful time to just get to know one another again..a.s husband and wife...and not just the other parent. We were able to actually talk and not be interrupted 10 times, laugh about silly memories from our past, and just relax. it has helped us remember that we were "we" before we were parents. So we have decided that we need to make a vow to each other that we will make time every so many months to do this. After all someday it will be just us so we had better make sure we still know each other by then!

Okay so the new Target Liberty of London ads have be all googly eyed! Like I told Nathan seeing these everywhere makes me either want to shop...or scrapbook! LOVE all the florals!

Okay...I don't love the Liberty of London of florals as mush as this man! Thanks for the trip Sweetie!

Love how the sun was shining on the Empire State Building here.

I was amazed how bright the theater district was even at 11 at night.

Those lovely Target ads again! :D

Time Square

I just had to take a picture of my breakfast that morning. We ran into a little market/coffee shop to grab something quick for breakfast and I saw these! They had entire pies but then I saw these tiny ones just perfect for breakfast. Oh and and the inside was Bavarian creme. Ohhh so lovely!

Had to show off the new sweater I got in NYC. Okay I'm a sucker for all the ruffles that are in style right now.

So I guess we didn't put 2 and 2 together that we were going to be in NYC over St Patty's day and the parade. It was nuts! Okay...imagine the normal amount of people in the city but then add about 1/2 that many people again..bagpipes..way too much alcohol...and a lot of green. Se we got to see the annual NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade! Well I guess you'd say parade. I'd call it more a festival in the streets of green and bagpipes that slowly moves up the street and lasts all day.

Ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza

And the reason for our trip...WICKED! Lovely just simply lovely!

Carriages in Central Park

Had to stop and pick up some souvenirs at the toy store FAO Schwartz

Picked this little sweetie up there for Caroline and Elijah. We were trying to find just the perfect thing to take home for the littles when I saw a sign above this little foot bike that said $159.99....sale $9.99! Yep after my sweet hubby lugged this box down 5th Ave for me we checked that baby as checked luggage and onto Ohio it went! Boo-ya! See you can still be frugal on 5th Ave! Ha!

Oh so pretty window displays but look at the dollar signs swinging next to those purses. Yep...keep walking!

We of course had to pop into Tiffany's. I had to pick up my jaw just a few times at the amount of bling in that store. Totally amazing!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2010-03-16T13:28:00.008-04:00

Well I figured since I had a few minutes to waste while sitting in the Columbus Airport waiting for a flight I mine as well update the blog! We had a wonderful time in Tennessee at the Twelvefridays Weekend Celebration, even though when we arrived on Wednesday there was SNOW on the mountains! I thought we were in Tennessee and not Ohio??? Oh well at least we were inside almost the whole weekend. It was an amazing time to relaxing with friends, creating, laughing, and just getting back to me. I was able to teach 3 layouts during the retreat and even better yet...I was able to sit down and work on the layouts the other teachers were doing so I too came home with a completed album! Some of my pages even had pictures in them! Now I just have to stay on myself to get the pictures on the rest of the layouts as well as complete some journaling. I also did a few of my own layouts as well so I ended up coming home with I think 27 layouts! Yeah that's more than I did in the last year I'm pretty sure? I have some cute pictures to share from the weekend and my camera is here in my carry-on...but my download cord is unfortunately in the checked back. Blah...so I am lifting a few off facebook to share! (Thanks Heather and Virgina for the picture loan!)

I also had a few pictures of Miss Caroline to share that I did after church on Sunday just because she was too stink'in cute! Oh what a ham in her hot pink wool coat and zebra jumper. I think she know she's a doll?

We actually are headed out to NYC...just the two of us...as in NO children! Nathan surprised me for my birthday and as a early 8th wedding anniversary celebration that we are headed to the City for 2 nights! My lovely hubby has tickets to see Wicked on Broadway, a spa reservation for me, and plans to spend the rest of the time shopping! It's going to be a wonderful 3 days away and my mom was so kind to keep the kiddos for us!

Winter Storms and Getting Ready for TN!!!

2010-02-21T18:44:00.008-05:00

We've been pretty busy around here the past couple of weeks and I just realized how long it's been since I posted..wow! Last week I spent quite a bit of time filling hair bow orders the website and just living life! We got dumped on with snow so we didn't do much outside of the house. The kids had lots of fun playing in the snow with Daddy for the first time this Winter. Maddelyn was definitely not quiet about how she had not been in the snow yet. Caroline was absolutely hilarious trying to walk through snow that was calf high to her...but the little trooper still had lost of fun. I was also able to get a few shots of the house through the knee high snow.

I was able to slip away one day with a friend from Church. Pam and I spen tthe day at the Lodi Outlets...well more like just at Children's Place! :D Gotta love when they have most of the store on clearance for $1.99 - $2.99...and you have a coupon! With 4 kids it's a great time to stock up! Besides all the shopping it was a great time to just hang out with another mom and just have fun. Both of our husbands were oh so sweet to keep all 7 kids at our house for the day. Talk about an act of service for their wives!

The kids had a nice time away with my parents the other night at the Mohican Lodge. While they had a grandparent night we took advantage of just one child and headed to Columbus to celebrate Nathan's 29th birthday. Nathan said he wanted to go to Gameworks (like Dave and Busters) and then a movie, so that's what we did. He was so sweet to let me run into Trader Joes to re-stock on some of their gluten free items like noodles and crackers and then to let me run into Archivers. When you've been out of the scrapbook world for several months...it can be overwhelming for you! I have always been amazed at how quickley the scrapbooking market revolves. With 2 major shows a year when scrapbooking companies are doing new relases...the market is just flooded with new product all the time. Great for scrappers who always want new products..bad for someone who steps back for a bit and then wants to start back again! Where does one start??? I am realizing though that this year's trends are very homespun, as in things you'd find in a vintage sewing box. Hmmm, some I like and some are too altered/distresses for me. I am loving though all the cotton lace, straight pins, polka dots, and vintage ladies in aprons. Kinda hard to scrap anything for Elijah with that though. I am sooo not used to a boy, even after a year!

I've also been busy scrapbooking believe it or not! I am starting to realize just how much I miss this hobby of mine. I have done a bit of scrap'n for myself but most of it has been for my classes at the twelvefridays weekend celebration! I'm pretty excited that I've even tried out a few of those vintage trends myself on these layouts! Hopefully I'll soon have some sneak peeks to share. Less than 2 weeks to go until a relaxing weekend away! :) This is my second time going to Tennessee with the girls and this year I'll be teaching 3 layout classes. We had such a good time last year and even though I really got nothing done scrapbooking wise (besides the layouts the other teachers were teaching) I still had a lot of fun. The gals I'm going with are such sweethearts and always loads of fun. Not only are we scrapbooking all weekend but staying in an amazing cabin and hopefully shopping! If you're interested in going I know the girls are running some pretty good deals for last minute sign-ups!! You can email me for more information. You can also take a peak at what we did last year here.

I was just realizing that last year when I went to TN we had been dealing with a house full of sick kids for quite some time and we had .... the first B-A-T in the house!! Well we are currently dealing with sick kids who have had some sort of cold virus for the past 2 months!!! Caroline has bronchitis and Elijah has an ear infection. I'm praying that the little furry flying mice stay faaaaaaar away, but with or without a bat run in I'm again ready for some time away!

So with just a few days left until I leave for Tennessee, Nathan heads out to Texas for work, and the kids head to their grandparents in Pennsylvaina it's a busy flurry of packing and such. It will be nice when Nathan gets home form a work trip tomorrow since we've had sick kids all week as well as me trying to get everything ready for next week. As I tell Nathan all the time it feels like I need a week's vacation to get ready for a week away and then about 3-4 days afterwards to get caught back up again! I guess that's just life as a mom!

And Just becuase he's so stinkin cute!

Lesson Plans 2.8.10

2010-02-08T21:36:00.002-05:00

So things got a bit off track last week and I did not realize how many lose ends we had to tie up so we delayed the start of our doctor unit until this week. So this morning was our first day with the great I wanna be a Doctor unit I picked up from The Old Schoolhouse. LOVE when you can get 10 units for $19.99!! The kids seemed to have a rough time getting started while I was reading the narrative part of the unit. this is a multi-age unit so I had to water down a bit of it for the girls. I just can't understand when they didn't want to know what an oncologist and podiatrist do?? Haha! They did really get into it though when they were able to act out different types of things you might see a doctor for. I think everyone tried the broken leg hop at least once. Tomorrow we will be discussing germs and preventative health so I'm sure they will really get into that as well. Caroline for weeks now (after her run in with pink eye) has been going around the house saying "Don't touch me I have germs!" or "Don't touch me I have THE PINK EYE!" That's a great one to announce at Walmart when you actually don't have it. It will make more than a few moms turn there head in your direction. I am hoping that the week also allows to look a bit into first aid seeing how life with 4 kids always involves a trauma of some sort!

We also began a week's study on Valentine's Day. We read a book on the history of St. Valentines and how America adopted the holiday. I was going to show them a video on it as well, but I felt like I would have to censor it too much. I was amazed at how vulgar the Roman roots of this holiday were? We did though talk about chocolate being a Valentine's Day treat and we watched 2 videos on how chocolate is made. Emma was amazed at how they shake the almond trees to harvest the nuts for candy bars. On Friday we will be having a little Valentine's Day party of our own. We had done a Valentine's Card exchange with some other homeschool kids whose moms I met on The Homeschool Lounge. The past 2 weeks we've been getting little packages in the mail filled with Valentines cards and candies that our kids have been storing in their little heart shaped baskets waiting for the 14th. I know that we will be doing some crafts that days as well and I am hoping to make some gluten free heart shaped cut out cookies as well. We'll see how it goes and if the cookies end up being jello jigglers instead?

Homeschool Lessons Plans Week of 2-1-10

2010-02-01T23:30:00.001-05:00

This week should be a fun one in school since we have finished up our Civil War/Abraham Lincoln unit with Maddelyn and now are starting with our Health and Safety unit for Miss Em and Miss Maddie. Over the next three weeks we will be working on learning about:

Doctors (their professions/first aid/germs/hospitals/emergencies/different types of doctors)

Fire Safety (firefighters/protective clothing/stop-drop-roll/stay-low-and-go/911/fire prevention/tools firemen use)

Police Men (strangers/only good things for your body/police dogs/helping others/different types of police officers/neighborhood-street safety)

We will be pulling resources for lots of different places including Homeschool Helpers Fire Safety Lapbook, Making Learning Fun's Printables, Prekinders Activities and Links, and the great ebooks we picked up from the Old School House Magazine while they were running an amazing sale last week, 10 studies for $19.95! Totally worth me stepping out of the "never bought a homeschool e-book before" phase! We also found a great video on fire safety on where else you tube. This one really seemed to keep the kids attention and had them asking lots of questions!We will be ending our study with field trips to the Fire and Police Departments. Kinda helps when Grandma is a police dispatcher and Grandpa and Grandma as well as several other family members are firefighters!

This week Caroline is working on the color green and we will be of course taking Tuesday to learn about Groundhog's Day and Weather Prediction. Emma is working on the letter "D" since we started over with the alphabet after New Years. Long story but the previous curriculum just was not keeping her attention so we started over with a great new "Letter a Week" program and she seems to be enjoying it as well as retaining the info! Maddelyn is also going to be working with the Starfall website that I have heard is wonderful extra practice while learning to read.

Relaxed and Ready to Start the Week!

2010-02-01T22:55:00.005-05:00

We had a wonderful time at our marriage retreat in Amish Country with our church. It was a great time of not only relaxing and spending time with my husband, but also spending some quality some with other couples from our church as well. We got home on Saturday just in time to get ready to host our first Bible study in our new house. We have started a young couples Bible Study on Saturday nights and the first book we are working on is Love and Respect by . Nathan and I did this book about 3 years ago with another group from our church. We really enjoyed it and have both said how much it changed our marriage so we wanted other couples to benefit form it like we did. Nathan and I are very excited to be hosting our first small group in our house. We knew from the time we first looked at our house that if we got it for the bid we wanted...this house was definitely God given and to be used for ministry. Part of that is using the over 4000 sq feet for small groups and young couple fellowship. So last Saturday was the first small group Bible study of what I am sure will be many over the next years to come! I think at this point we have 9 couples signed up so obviously we did hire our babysitter Ashley to sit for all the kids upstairs each week while the parents have our discussions downstairs. When doing any type of study or class for young couples, babysitting is a must...unless you want 1 or both parent missing most of each session while dealing with their kids. Thank you Ashley for being willing to help us out!!!

This week started out very smooth or at least smoother than expected for a busy Monday! The day started out with ADT setting up our security system and trying to teach us (me) how to use it. I'm afraid the local police department is going to get tired of the false alarms coming from the butter cream house on the corner??? So between me forgetting that I set the alarm and the girls tripping the motion detector or opening a door....we'll see how the week goes!

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

2010-01-24T20:19:00.010-05:00

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!!

2010-01-19T21:35:00.006-05:00

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

2010-01-11T22:26:00.004-05:00

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!

2010-01-01T15:25:00.002-05:00

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

Happy Birthday Elijah!

2009-12-16T16:14:00.010-05:00

I just can not believe that our little guy is already turning 1! Wow where did the past year go? It seems like just a few months ago were were bringing home that 10lb bundle of joy. It has been a wonderful past 12 months watching him grow and develope his own little personality. Anyone who knows him will say he has to be one of the happiest babies they have ever me! He is truely a JOY to us and we are very blessed to have been given him! So as I tearfully glanced through our last year of pictures I thought I would share!

November and December in Our House

2009-12-14T23:19:00.006-05:00

So I know it's been almost a month of no posts, but I had come to realize that the Fall had swept me over with all the major events we had/hosted and something had to give. I had to take a bit of a step back and re-prioritize things...which included my limited free time and how I spent it. Well sorry for all of those who follow me on here..but you guys were one of the things that got put on the back burner for a while. But now that things will be starting to slow down after Christmas I am hoping to get back into a regular posting habit again. After all the whole reason I started blogging was to keep a sort of online journal for my family and friends, but also to have a place to keep all of those memories together for me to print out and save for the kiddos. So back to blogger land it is!

The past month has been pretty busy with another the girls being flower girls in their uncle's wedding, another craft show, Elijah's 1st birthday party, Christmas and Birthday pictures, and now preparing for our 1st Christmas Open House! Jeremiah and Emily's wedding was of course gorgeous and she made a stunning bride! :D The girls were too cute in their flower girls dresses and having their hair done in up do's and I personally thing the best man was HOT! (Okay yes I do happen to be married to him so I was kinda partial!) I don't think the girls could have stood anymore glam! It was also great to spend time with family from out of state and of course we had to get a 4 generation picture with the Martin men. This was the first time that Grandma and Grandpa Martin had met the one that will be the first to pass on the Martin name. An awful big responsibility for such a tiny little man huh??

Elijah's party went really well and I was for sure the poor kid was going to bust at the seems with all that chocolate cake he ate (Gluten Free of course!) It was so cute seeing all of those "boy toys" he received. We definitely are NOT used to those! Of course the pictures form the party have not been downloaded on to my computer yet? We have said since last year that when the house was finished we wanted to have an open house to invite all of our friends and family as well as neighbors on the boulevard to see the house. We did not know then that it used to be the big thing up and down the boulevard too see all of these grand Victorian houses done up for Christmas. So the timing of our house completion was perfect fr us to have our open house just in time for Christmas. If anyone is local reading this you are more than welcome to stop by our Christmas Open House Saturday from 4-7 or Sunday from 2-4.

I thought I'd also share a few of our newest Family pictures we had taken. I will have to post Emma and Elijah's birthday pictures tomorrow since it is getting so late.

Missing the Warm Sunshine of Texas!

2009-11-17T00:01:00.005-05:00

So after a cold and windy day here in Ohio I am longing for the warm sunny weather of Texas again! Oh so sad that I can only revisit the memory with pictures. I thought I'd share a few that I took on the last trip for my fellow cold weather firends who are preparing for a cold shift in the weather. Enjoy the sunny pictures of Elijah at the Alamo!

Texas, Bows, Surgery, a Wedding, and a Chirstmas Tree!

2009-11-15T23:57:00.003-05:00

So I figured that I was long past due time for me ot update what we've been up to. As I mentioned before this Fall is just swamped with activities so my free time is stretched pretty thin and well...I just forget to post what we've been up to. The first week in November we visited San Antonio with just huby, Elijah, and I/. My dear in=;laws kept the girls for us (yes I have amazing in-laws who are willing to take my children for a week at a time to let hubby and I spend some much needed time together, aren't you jealous??) San Antonio was just goregous and of course warm. I was so nice to break the capris back out and ont have to bundle up Elijah everytime we went out. I did lots of shopping both trying ot get the kids outiftted for Winter and to find outfits for Jeremiah's wedding this week. We of course also went and visited the Alamo which even though I'm not a big Wild West fan..I thought it was pretty inspiring and was surprised at the sense of awe and respect there was at the exibit. Elijah couldn't leave without a coonskin cap...at daddy's insiting of course. He left it on just long enough for pictures and that was it.

We returned home last Saturday and life quickly began again. I had to start getting things together for my craft show with my hair bows. I had been working on them for some time but it was crunch time which menat tryign to get all the bows that I ahd been working on in stages finished and ready to go as quickly as possible. My show ended up going really well and I was so greatful to have my grandmother-in-law help for the day. It made it somuch easier to have a helper along, besides chatting makes the day go so much faster!

Friday Miss Maddelyn had her tonsils and adnoids taken out. She had endured 4 cases of Strep Throat this Summer/Fall so it was time to get them out. She was kinda nervous about it but she did really well. She of course was just miserable after coming out of surgery. we did find out though that Maddelyn is especially sensitive to the pills they give kids to relax before a procedure. She had the same meds before her filling in her tooth and had the same results. The kid is hilarious after the meds kick in. She is giggly, asking dad why he has 4 eyes, seeing things that aren't there, trying to blow up her blood pressure cuff with her mouth, and just plain goofy! She sure was a totally different child coming out of surgery though. Poor kid! She has done pretty well the last couple of days but today her steroid they gave he during surgery wore off and she was feeling pretty bad. She's been living of a diet of pudding, jello, popsicles, and such but today she just wanted to snack on them all day. that's a good sign that her appetite is coming back and she must be getting a bit better.

Some good news is that while we were in Texas, our carpet was installed into our master suite on the 3rd floor! Besides the little bits of trim needed and the touch up paint we are able to move in! Now if I could only find the time to get all of our bedroom stuff up there I would finally be in my master bedroom suit and Elijah in his nursery. Hey if we waited this long...another week won't kill us.

We are trying to get our house ready for company this week since we will be hosting at least 11 students form Lee University's Campus Choir this weekend. The choir is coming to sing at our church and the students needed housing for the night. Unfortunately we will be out of state for Jeremiah and Emily's wedding but my aunt volunteer to house sit for us the the students could stay here. We have always said that we wanted to use this house for ministry and we knew that us getting this house in the way that we did, this house was meant to be used for Him. With the house being so large we have plenty of extra room to put up several students. The last I had heard there were at least 11 and maybe more staying at the house while we are gone.

We leave on Wednesday for Pennsylvania for the wedding. Thursday are the Bachelor and Bachlorette parties, Friday is the rehearsal and dinner, and Saturday is the actual wedding. Nathan is the best man and Maddelyn and Emma are the flower girls in the wedding. The girls are all so excited about it and have been counting down the days since they were asked early in the Summer. It should be a really nice time this weekend and we are excited to be able to see family from out of state as well coming in from Texas and Missouri. And hey...I had a reason to buy a new little black dress!

The next week we will be hosting Thanksgiving in our house for all sides of our family. We will have close to 40 people in our house for the day and a few staying overnight. It will be nice to host our first big family event in our new house. We certainly do have the room for it ...and since we are partially to blame for the growing family that is getting snug in our old locations....I guess it's only right of us to offer to have it here! I just hope our Thanksgiving guests don't mind eating their turkey and stuffing by the Christmas Tree???

10 Months

2009-10-28T22:36:00.003-04:00

I can't believe that our little man is already 10 months old! He is changing so quickly nowadays and becoming my little toddler instead of that tiny (okay never tiny) bundle of joy. He has finally gotten the full crawl down instead of his normal army crawl. For the longest time he could do both, but he knew if he wanted to get somewhere fast he could do it much faster on his elbows with an army crawl. It seems that the very same day he got the crawling down he began to pull up to his knees around the coffee table. He also had realized that crawling means freedoms and discovering his world. He has also began being our mini "vaccum cleaner" by picking up and eating whatever he can get his hands on form the floor or such. I would hate to know how much he really swallows with me having no idea. Oh well, the other 3 lived doing it. Little Man has also began eating a more normal diet this month with trying lots of new gluten free foods. Becasue he has 2 sisters with gluten problems, we have decided to keep him gluten free as well for at least the first 12 months to see how he reacts when we slowly introduce it. Some recent new foods were: pancakes, scrambled eggs, gluten free bread, frozen peas, spaghetti with homemade sauce, dry cereal, and thanks to Uncle Carl a bit of coffe on his lid. He also learned to FINALLY say Mom! Yeah! Each of the kids has learned to say "Dad" first, but he has been the slowest at saying that second word of "Mom." He also is becoming so much more playful and wanting to interact with other people. The girls just love playing with their baby brother and he and Dad have begun playing catch with a rubber baseball. He can't throw it yet but he will hand it back to you. It's way too cute! I just can't believe that we will soon be planning a 1st birthday party for him. How does the 1st year always go by sooooo fast....but then that the 2nd-3rd years with potty training go so much slower??? Or maybe the potty training jsut makes it seem to drag on??

Busy Fall....and a Funny Farm!

2009-10-26T16:28:00.003-04:00

We have crazy busy this Fall and I'm not really sure how it happened to end up that way but it did. We literally have some event every weekend and most of them are pretty big items. So here's a brief look for all those out there who's like where on Earth is Mandi and why is she majorly slacking on posts lately??

Oct 10 - Emma's Tea and Family coming in to say for the weekend

Oct15-19 Annual Family Campout (froze our pattoties off!)

Oct 23-25 Penn to host Emily's Bridal Shower

Oct 26-Nov 1 Getting ready for Craft show and Nathan TN for part of that

Nov 2-7 San Antonio

Nov 13 Maddelyn's tonsils out

Nov 14 Lexington Craft Show

Nov 18-22 Jeremiah and Emily's wedding

Nov 26 Hosting Thanksgiving in our house for close to 40 people

Dec 5 Ontario Craft Show

Dec 6 Elijah's 1st b-day party??

Whew...can I take a breath yet???? Just typing all of that makes my feel tired! So basically every week has to be assigned to a certain topic and I have to focus on that topic ONLY that week. This upcoming week is BOWS BOWS BOWS for the upcoming craft shows and packing Eli and I for TX (girls will be in PA.) Of course this is on top of the normal homeschool lessons, dr appts (since there seems to be at least 1 sick person in our hose from mid Sept to mid April), unpacking from the previous weeks events and trying to get it washed and hung back up before it gets packed in another suitcase for the next week, and the day to day running of living with 4 small kids. Oh and did I mention Nathan is r-e-a-l-l-y wanting a puppy???? Yep just sign the papers now and go ahead and commit me to the funny farm. I know it's only a matter of time! HA! Just thought you all might get a good laugh out of our calendar for the next couple of months. I'm just glad I am a organized/planner kinda person. See...God knew my life would be a tornado of chaos so He made me a super planner/list maker/clean freak! HAHA! I'm not OCD....I'm equipped. That's my quote of the week. I'll be back tomorrow night with more pics of camping, Elijah's 10 months, and the bridal shower but that's it for tonight.

Fancy Nancy Party

2009-10-25T22:20:00.014-04:00

So I am finally taking a few minutes of out a crazy month to update my blog. Yes...I am also finally posting our Fancy Nancy pictures since I have had so many people asking to see them...who have probably by now given up on me! HA! We did have a wonderful time at Emma's 5th Birthday Fancy Nancy Tea Party. We had 12 little Fancy Nancy's attend our tea and I think each one of them had quiet a memorable experience. As each guest arrived in their most Fancy Like Nancy outfits, they received a necklace, ring, feather boa, fan, and a tutu puff hair bow to add to their ensembles. We then had the girls sit around and read one of the Fancy Nancy books, just in case any of our little party guests was not familiar with her and her special way of making life fancy. After this we discussed different secret messages that we could say by using our fans and practiced each one. The girls also each had a turn at trying to walk with high heels and a book on their heads. After this they were all seated at our Fancy Tea Table for their big girl tea party. We served them finger foods such as pink candied popcorn, apples and caramel dip, cookies, tea pot shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cupcakes and of course hot tea (and lemonade for those who preferred it.) We also had a parfait making parlor to match where Fancy Nancy went to have parfaits ( a fancy word for ice cream Sunday's.) Each girl was given a cute dessert bow filled with ice cream and she could pick her own toppings to fancy it up! After opening all her presents ( I had no idea there were so many Fancy Nancy items out there in the stores) the girls played upstairs in the playroom for a bit before their parents arrived to take them home. I twas a wonderful tea party and a great way to celebrate that our sweetie is no longer out little toddler, but has officially begun her time as a little girl. Oh my! Two tea parties down and so sad to say that before we know it we will be doing the 5th birthday tea for Miss Caroline as well. This just happens way too fast!

It's Fancy Nancy Time!

2009-10-08T00:04:00.003-04:00

So this past weekend at the Twin Sale in Columbus I picked up this Johnny Jumper for Elijah. We had always wanted one for the girls but never lived in a house that had door frames that could support one. Well now with this big old Victorian we have plenty of wood work to hold a Johnny Jumper. I wasn't sure if he would like it or was on the edge of being too old for it, but he has taken right to it. The first couple of times he was in it he kinda just acted like he was in a walker or seat of some kind. I'm not sure how he figured out he can bounce with it, but now he is a bouncing machine. The past couple of days we have literally just sat in the floor watching him and laughing (yeah the entertainment of parents) because he really gets into it. He is Tigger-type bouncing in it and gets way down before he pounces again and of course giggles. I'm really thinking now that I totally missed out on this for the first three!

This past weekend the girls and I did a bit of projects in the kitchen for school. Okay those who know me are know picking themselves back up off the floor at Mandi doing anything semi creative in the kitchen. Don't worry the house stayed intact...they were both box kits with EASY directions. I had wanted to do caramel apples with the girls this fall so we picked up these neat caramel sheets that you simply wrap around the apples and then back for a few minutes to get them to melt. When we picked up the caramel sheets in the produce aisle Maddelyn saw the chocolate banana kits thought they just had to try them out so we did. They too were simple by just warming the bag of chocolate in a bowl of water and then pouring it into a cup and dipping the bananas. We decided they needed a bit more so we added some sprinkles. I was frustrated thought at how long they were taking to dry to they got wrapped in plastic wrap and went into the freezer before being totally dry to they don't look quite as nice as the ice cream shop ones do.

I also wanted to share our latest Muffin Tin Monday lunch. We didn't do a theme lunch this week since we are working on our Little House in the Big Woods unit and I want to wait to do a Muffin Tin Monday when we can have the girls try out some of the Little House recipes and include some of those in the tins. this week was just too crazy to try any of them. In these tins we have: Honey rice cakes covered in peanut butter, cheese cubes, out frozen bananas, apple slices, some gluten free snack?, and grapes. I guess it was good because all the trays were empty when they came back from the table.

So Emma got her first present today from my parents and grandparents. My mom had picked up for her the prized "Fancy Nancy Doll" as well as a few outfits and she figured since Emma is having her Fancy Nancy Tea Party this weekend that it would be nice to let her have it early. Emma while opening it said...I hope it's a doll, an American Girl. Well by the time the box was open there were no thoughts of any 18 inch $95.00 dolls. You can see by the light in her eyes that this was exactly what she wanted. You can also tell by the fact that it is sitting in her nightstand now as she sleeps...of course in her Fancy Nancy Bath Robe! Silly me forgot to get a picture of the actual doll so here it is at Target. What's hilarious is that my mom had purchased both the doll and one outfit even though I was like $55 for a doll and one outfit is silly for a 5 year old. Well she said she knows what it's like to be a 2nd child and wanted her to have something special of her own so she got it. So this weekend at the twin sale I am digging through the toys on a hunt for a second Dumbo for Caroline (always nice to have a back-up of a lovey just in case one needs a spin in the washer) and stumbled upon a like new Fancy Nancy doll with 3 outfits for only $20.00. I was like uh.... she's 5 and will have no clue it's from a garage sale if it's in a pretty wrapped box! This frugal momma is not ashamed! So as I had thought pulling her out of a shiny wrapped box today left her no second thoughts on if she had a previous owner or not and now it left room for more Fancy Nancy accessories in the budget! I'm so excited to see what she does with all the other Fancy Nancy items that I've heard other family memebers are picking up for her as well.

I'm really hoping that this weekend will be a special memory for Emma. We started with Maddelyn the tradition of doing a 5th birthday tea for each (girl) child and making it a big deal. It's kinda like their rite of passage into being a little girl instead of a toddler. Emma chose to add the theme of Fancy Nancy (a book series that might as well have been written about my daughter Emma and how she lives to be fancy!) I of course will be posting pictures of the party later on but after starting to decorate tonight we have place settings for 17 little girls (10 of them family), boas and tutu hair bows on each chair, 17 real tea settings, paper fans, beads and rings for everyone, and of course a chandelier draped in boas, beads, and pink paper lanterns. Hey even if that light does prove to be a 1900's Tiffany light...even it can use a bit of being "Fancy like Nancy???" We also have planned having etiquette lessons on fan communications, curtsy lessons, and trying to walk in both high heals and with a book on their heads. We also will be having an ice cream parfaits (because as Fancy Nancy says that the fancy way of saying ice cream Sunday.) I guess it might seem a bit much for 1 of 4 children, but I figure they are only a little girl for such a short time...why not treasure it and make them feel like a true princess for that one day.

9 Months!

2009-09-30T23:17:00.005-04:00

I can't believe our little man is already 9 months old? he's just growing up way too fast! It seems like just a few weeks ago he was that tiny...okay not so tiny at 10 lbs...baby we brought home from the hospital! Why do babies have to grow so fast?? He now is gotten his little army crawl down to a tee and so much so that the little booger can fly across the floor on just his elbows and belly. He has also mastered getting up to his knees around the furniture. It seems that our little man has decided that he's going to take his own spin on the crawling method! The other day we walked into the bedroom to see his standing by himself in his crib! It won't be long now until he is pulling all the way up to his feet and then he'll be off! Little Man is also weighing in this month at just over 21 lbs, making him just in the 50th percentile. Kinda funny for a baby who started off at 10lbs at birth?? He is still just as much of a joy to be around as ever. He is just a peach and everywhere we go people are noticing how happy he is. We are truly blessed to have our sweet baby in our lives and can't wait to see what next month brings!!

Weekend Away

2009-09-24T11:02:00.003-04:00

We had a pretty busy week last week with Em's appointment and then spending the weekend. Em's appointment went really well at the dermatologist. We found out that we are being referred to a plastic surgeon for the birthmark on her head. The doctor also treated the warts on her hands and said that when she has the surgery on her head that they will also take care of the little red spot on her cheek. It really dawned on us that day just how sensitive her skin really is! After our appointment in Columbus of course I had to run by my friend Amy's scrap store! She really does have the cutest store so if you're headed to Columbus email me and I will give you directions. I am hoping all the new scrap stuff will inspire me to get back into scrapbooking again. I feel like it is almost this long lost friend.

We then headed to Pennsylvania for the weekend to help celebrate my mother-in-laws birthday. We had a nice lunch together at an Amish restaurant. After the meal the guys all went to a sports bar to watch the Nebraska game (you can't get it on the local channels). Too sad that they got to watch their team lose in the last few seconds of the game. Nathan's sister and I went shopping with Emily for her bridal shower while the guys were watching the game. I think we've decided to go with a black and white theme with lime green accents. I'm so used to doing kid parties that it's hard to switch out of that pattern. Somehow I'm thinking pull string pinatas and goddie bags are not a norm for bridal showers??? Just kidding! Hopefully this will be a more grown up affair.

Nathan and I were able to sneak away for the night Saturday night without any kids. (HUGE thanks to the in-laws for kids sitting overnight!) We spent the night in Akron and the next morning went to the Yankee Peddler Festival in Canal Fulton. This is our third year going to the festival and we will definitely be back next year! It's a great time away for just the two of us and we also find some great items for the house. this year I picked some dried flower bundles to hang over our kitchen sink, in front of the window instead of a valance. I also picked up a tea pot cookie cutter for Em's tea party in a few weeks, a military family sign, and a few Christmas gifts. It was a very nice time away just remembering that we were best friends before we had children. It's amazing how easily we just get in the blur of raising kids and keeping life going that we forget why we even have this house and family to begin with. Sometimes it's just nice to be able to enjoy time with each other catching up on life. When your main conversations of the day are "The doctor said", "I've started noticing such and such with the kids," "So and so called", "When you're out can you stop and pick up whatever", you tend to kinda lose sight of the person you married and all the qualities about them that made you fall in love with them to begin with. We are truly blessed to have family to help out in watching the kids sometimes so we can take a few moments away by ourselves. We love our kids dearly but sometimes Mom and Dad just need time alone together.

Muffin Tin Monday 9/14

2009-09-17T22:19:00.003-04:00

This Muffin Tin Monday meal was the one that the girls had helped us shop for on their grocery store field trip last week. We are working on the lapbook "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" with Maddelyn so I wanted to do a weather themed Muffin Tin Meal for them. It really was a whole family project sine the girls helped us at the store thinking of things that we could use for each weather theme. Nathan then helped us in preparing the tornados and lightening bolts. (I think he did a pretty awesome job at it!) We used bologna swirls for tornados, lightning bolts of cheese, orange slices for the sun, pumpkin seed raindrops, blue frosting rain puddles, marshmallows clouds, and topped it off with blue punch flood waters. the girls of course loved it and can't wait for the next Muffin Tin Meal!

I Don't Want To Get Shots At My Party!

2009-09-16T00:25:00.004-04:00

We had a very nice day today just hanging out with the kids and doing things on the I-would-love-to-do-but-never-have-enough-time-to list. We made brownies (Gluten Free of course), played with daddy;s huge plastic tote of Lego's from his childhood, ate carmel apples, watched Dora, researched ideas for Emma's 5th Birthday Tea Party, (huge event in our house), made pizza on corn tortillas for dinner, and basically just had a good day. The girls seems really relaxed, I was pretty stress free and able to deal with things quite a bit easier, and I was able to get some things done that were beyond just the day to day necessities of life. I've been working on planning Emma's party as well as a bridal shower for Nathan's brother's fiance (Emily), and I even got some things made up/planned for my Fall craft shows!

While doing planning for the party I asked Emma what she thought of a Fancy Nancy Tea Party? Fancy Nancy is all the rage in our house right now. She is a character from a series of children's books who thinks life is better when you live it fancy. She calls everything by a fancier name and dresses to the nines in tutus, boas, and sunglasses. Basically the perfect book series for three little girls. Well I thought Emma would be beyond words excited when I mentioned it but instead she started crying? I was like Emma why are you crying about planning your birthday party? She said because I have to get a shot at my party! Well that is called being a younger sister. For the past year Maddelyn has been telling Emma that when she turns 5 and goes to kindergarten she will have to get shots. So you can only imagine how often Maddelyn reminds her sister that she had to and so will Emma. Yeah such a sweet big sister. So Emma is now correlating turning five means getting shots and not having the HUGE tea party?? In our family we have started with the girls that truning 5 means that you are no longer a little girl but you are growing into a big girl and we celebrate that with a real ladies tea with real tea cups, finger foods, and such. So Maddelyn being the wonderful big sister that she is has turned being 5 form the day of your 5 year old tea part yo the day you get shots. Thanks Maddelyn!

Busy Weekends

2009-09-14T22:41:00.002-04:00

We were once again busy this weekend....but of course I really can't remember what kept us so busy?? Nathan had guard this weekend so it was just the kids and I keeping the fort down. There was a crop at our church this weekend that I was really wanting to go to but since it was just me and the kids I had a sitter come for the day. It was the first time with this new sitter but I think my children had more fun at the house than I did at my crop? They walked to the park, painted nails (with patterns and 3-D stars), played outside, watched a movie, just to mention a few things they did! They had a blast that day. Sunday after church and naps we went to Willard. There was a festival in town and the county's smoke trailer was there for children to learn about how to escape from a burning building. I took all three girls though and they really seemed to enjoy it. Maddelyn knew more about fire safety than I knew she did. Emma however didn't know that much. I guess Maddelyn picked it up somewhere...so sad that someone who's entire family is involved in some way with the local fire department and spent a large amount of her childhood at the fire station now has children who are out of the loop on fire safety. What a slacker mom! I guess we will be doing a fire safety lapbook during fire prevention week in October.

This week we have yet another busy week...now that I think about have I EVER had a week as a stay at home mom that wasn't busy??? We started working on our "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" lapbook today with Maddelyn. We were excited to find out that after we picked this lapbook to find out that the movie of the book comes to theaters this week as well! What a great way to end our study! We will be flying solo this week since Nathan is on a trip this week, which just makes each tiny errand and event so much more chaotic. 4 to 1 ration is quite a bit different from the normal 4 to 2 ratio. We are also scheduled to have Emma visit with her dermatologist at Children's Hospital in Columbus to look at the birth mark on her head. I think that we are ready to have it removed so we are going back in to see the doctor to get her opinion. the last time we were there she said that she would suggest we have it removed at some point to avoid any abnormal cell growth as well as her being self conscious about it later on and we could just let her know when we were ready. This past Summer Emma has been mentioning it quite a bit so I think it's time to go in and see about it.

So even thought it's not a major even week I'm sure it will fill up rather quickly. Even if it doesn't I'm positive the 4 little ones will beyond fill my extra time! They are really good at that?

Muffin Tin Monday 9-7-09

2009-09-09T12:19:00.003-04:00

So while doing some research on homeschool ideas I stumbled upon this adorable idea http://michellesjournalcorner.blogspot.com/2009/08/muffin-tin-monday.html and fell in love! What a fun way to have lunch one time a week. You can read all about it on her blog but the gist is that you have one meal a week served in a muffin tin. It can be following the theme that she suggests each week or you can do pretty much anything you want. We did our first one the other day which was totally not a theme but was just what I already had here at the house that I knew they would like. The kids were so excited and lunch was a hit. Maddelyn said it was just like at a real school where you get your lunch on a tray and carry them to your seat. I can't imagine how excited they will be when we do a themed muffin tin. This week we had rolled turkey with tooth picks, yogurt in muffin papers, gluten free pretzels, cheese cubes, applesauce in muffin papers, and chocolate covered nuts as a treat. I also want to pick up some of those cute rubber muffin pans that only have 6 cups in them like these do, but the tin ones worked short term. These will also work wonderfully with our themed units/lapbooks that we are doing for school. So since this week will are working on grocery stores in our lapbooks. So on our field trip to the grocery store later this week I will let the girls help me pick out items for their muffin tins for next Monday. They will also be comparing prices and hopefully using coupons!

8 Months

2009-09-07T22:00:00.005-04:00

I can't believe that little is getting so big! I forgot to post these last month so here are his 8 month pictures. He's really changing his looks a lot lately with his hair lightening up and starting to get teeth now! As of this weekend while camping he now has his second tooth! Yeah it took 8 months but if he follows Maddelyn's footsteps he will now start getting them in like crazy. His 8th month he also FINALLY starting sitting independently. He's been sitting up for quite sometime but I could not trust him to sit alone because he would throw himself backwards and crash his head on our hardwood floors. So when he was sitting up I had to be with in arms reach to catch his head before he could throw it backwards. Crazy kid? It hit me the other day that we'd be throwing a first birthday party before long! Wow this year with our little peanut has just flown by. He is looking so much like a little man that it makes mommy sad!

Sick Day

2009-09-06T22:38:00.002-04:00

So today by our surprise we all stayed home sick from church. I can't remember the last time we all missed Sunday service? I should have seen it coming though because Elijah has had some stomach bug all week and Emma said her tummy hurt last night. So this morning it hit Nathan and I and then in combination with the "after camping allergies" I was done in. So we all stayed in our PJ's today...yes sad to admit... and the girls played and watched some movies. Dad and I napped a bit and then did some work on our computers.

I was able to get some homeschool lesson planning done. Week one went rather well, besides our little no-focusing bit earlier in the week so on with week 2. I have done lots of research this past Summer on different methods and curriculum and I have decided to order Five in a Row (FIAR), which is also a theme/literature based program but it is pretty laid out for you. I will still have to do the "3 R's" on the side but everything I've read/seen on the program seems to be wonderful. I also have a friend who is using FIAR and she was so sweet to have a chat with me a while back about the benefits of the program. Another great thing is that we will be able to teach Maddie and Emma both with the same FIAR volume and just do their individual 3 R's. We still will be doing certain lapbooks here and there on themes we want to cover but FIAR will be our main program. We are also able to do our labooking with these FIAR stories as well. I'm pretty excited about it and now just have to wait for it to arrive in the mail. Until it arrives we have the "Grocery Store" lapbook to work on this week with the girls. It covers things such as the food groups, money, how different foods help you, categorizing, and such. Emma and Caroline will also be working on a "Color Yellow" mini lapbook. On top of these they have their regular phonics, math, and such lessons. It should be a fun week.

Finally Back at It!

2009-09-05T23:56:00.006-04:00

So now that the new school year is here I am getting back to blogging on a regular schedule. I really do miss my regular posts and the whole reason I was bloggin was to keep a nice little online journal for the kids some day as well as to keep out of town friends and family updated with our lives. Well both of the reasons are why I need to get back at this again.

So on Monday we started our homeschool year. Maddelyn is now in 1st grade (oh my how did that happen??) and Miss Emma is a kindergartner! She is a bit young, not turning 5 until the second week of October, but we think she was ready. After all isn't that what homeschooling is about, taking things as your kids need them and setting your own pace? So far she's done pretty well.. just a bit wiggly but that's normal for this age. If we get past the wiggles she is learning a lot. Growing up my mom had a Rose of Sharon Bush in our yard and each year we took our first day of school picture in front of it. Well to my joy the pretty bush we had in our yard all Summer bloomed out to be a rose of Sharon in the same color! So our kids also get to take their first day of school pictures in front of the same type of bush that I did. Okay...sappy, but as Nathan says "Traditions!!!"

As I had posted before we totally re-did both our entire curriculum as well as our homeschool room. I thought I would few pictures of it. the girls are pretty excited about it and how much it looks like a real school room. We even have a real class pet... thanks to my parents and their goldfish. It still has no name because Emma calls it Dorthy (after Elmo's fish) and Maddelyn has named it Bubbles so officially it has not name. But..I guess after living it's entire life up to this point at my parents with no name it can survive a bit longer until we decide on a single name for the new fish.

These are the beautiful storage rods we picked up at Ikea for $1.99 a pole and $2.99 a basket! We also got a set to hang under the chalk board and 2 sets for our Master Bathroom. LOVE them!

All of these boxes are the girls workboxes, which I will be posting more details on very soon. I wanted to get some pictures of them using them before I did a big write up on them. All I can say is they have totally changed our method of homeschooling by making our day run much smoother! The girls might even like them more than me if that's possible??

I will post more about the workboxes soon but I need to call it a night since we have church in the morning. there is just never enough hours in the day.

Patriotic Weekend Away

2009-08-20T22:51:00.006-04:00

I'm writing this from the Great Wolf Hotel in Cincinnati as we are going to the Freedom Concerts for Nathan's work tomorrow. It should be absolutely amazing and full of Patriotic pride. I'm pretty excited to not only see all these true patriots who are helping out with the benefit for soldiers and their families but also to spend an evening listening to some great Country and Christian artists play for a crowd full of Patriots.

We dropped off the 4 (yes I said 4) kids to my mother-in-law on Thursday so we could come down to the concert this weekend kid-free. Even though I hated the thought of sending little Elijah to Pennsylvania, Nathan is still working this weekend. The worst part is that not only do I feel awful for sending him, then I find out today that Maddelyn is sick. She's got a fever, sore throat, and throwing up. Poor thing and all when she's so excited to be at Grandpa and Grandma's, now she's feeling awful and not enjoying her time there. We will be picking up Elijah from them on Saturday night and then the rest of the kids will be staying until next Friday so I can have some time to work on homeschool lessons for them uninterrupted. I've got lots of planning and cutting/sorting/prep work to do before we start school next Monday. I'm really getting excited about the upcoming year. The more research online I do the more excited I get about all the neat activities and topics I want to cover with them. I have decided to do the lapbooking still but I will also be pulling Math and Language Arts for sure from a few other sources and perhaps throwing in a few lessons here and there for the other topics. Basically we will be doing as much as possible from Ohio's Grade Indicators using the lapbooks we do and then filling in where ever we need to with supplements.

I told Nathan there was no way we were coming to Cincinnati without coming to Ikea as well. Four hours later I left the store with tons of stuff for our homeschool room as well as our Mater Bath and even a few Christmas items for the kids. Man I love that store! I've come pretty far with the room already but I just needed those final items for organization as well as some bookshelves, the boxes and shelve for my workbook system, and I still need a good table for the girls. We had desks last year but I like the idea of sitting with them at a table to do their school work. I of course will be posting pictures of my room when it is done, but here are a few others online that I really liked.

Loving the words under each letter. I think I might just do that same idea under our alphabet train.

We bought these today for both the school room and the master bath. Mine are a tiny bit different but I loved these! The rails were only $2.99 and the baskets were only $1.99 each! Yeah LOVE Ikea!! ------>

Hands on Homeschooling

2009-08-15T23:23:00.002-04:00

So this week has been nothing but getting ready for our next year homeschooling the kids. As I mentioned in a previous post I've been getting ready to order the girls school books for the year and not until the day that I was going to place the order did I finally give in to the doubts in the back of my mind. For the past several months the thought of continuing on with the current curriculum was pretty worry some with Emma. Here are a few thoughts I had written out about it in an email to a fellow homeschooling friend. "I'm not sure if you know but we've done Abeka with Maddelyn for the past 2 years and really liked it for it's organized lessons ( I know she's learning everything needed) and for how well she's done with it. However we now have Emma entering kindergarten who is a total hands on learner and I'm realizing Abeka is just not the best for her. I've been researching lots of different hands on styles of homeschooling for her and possibly even Maddelyn. I'm REALLY interested in lapbooking and had remembered you were working on some of that stuff in TN in March. Nathan and I love to read and I want to share that passion with the girls as well, Lapbooking seems to really focus their lapbooks around children's literature as well. I have realized that it is time to leave Abeka for something more hands on for Emma's sake and I think Maddelyn would really enjoy it as well." So needless to say as much as we have enjoyed using Abeka these past 2 years I believe that for the sake of my hands on learner coming up, we are going to be leaving a traditional program for a more hands on "unit/theme" approach. The lapbooking that I mentioned above is basically a theme unit based on either a theme (oceans) or a children's literature book ( Little House in the Big Woods.) This theme is then carried out in each subject (language arts/math/science/history/etc.) For example our first lapbook we will make will be on Johnny Appleseed so we will be doing early fractions by cutting apples in halves, thirds and such for math. We will also be doing her history but learning about how this area of Ohio was visited on John Chapman on his apple planting trips. We will include cooking with apple recipes, cutting apples in half to dip and paint and stamp on paper for art and such. Basically we will be weaving that theme through out our lessons. The whole time we are working our way through this unit the girls will be also making lapbooks (kinda like a mini scrapbook made of file folders) showing each of the new concepts they have learned. It is a great way to both connect all the items learned and for them to look back through later to refresh the lessons learned. I really think this will be a much better way to teach Em than a strict curriculum filled with worksheets. So, with like less than 2 weeks until school should start I decided to not only ditch our old curriculum to write my own but to switch our playroom out with our homeschool room to give us more room. I'm pretty excited at how nice the new school room is coming along. I decided to do a aqua and lime green color theme to go with my brown walls. I had to spruce it up a bit making it more kid friendly but seeing how we just painted, Nathan said no to a new paint color. I found the cutest containers and buckets at the Dollar Tree of all places and then more matching milk crates, lime green folding chairs, and an adorable monkey prize jar from Target. It's amazing how much fun and cute homeschool stuff I had in storage that I've picked up here and there but never really found a way to include it into Maddelyn's previous curriculum. Well now I've got it all pulled out and am so excited about how nice the room is turning out. It actually is starting to look like an actual elementary school room with the chalk board, alphabet train across the top of the walls, calendars, posters, and such. My parents have even offer their goldfish as class pets...not too sure about that. I have visions of me walking into the room to see Caroline letting her Barbie "swim" in the fish bowl and the poor fish flopping around on the floor. We'll have to see about that.

Website Re-Design!!

2009-08-12T20:32:00.004-04:00

I'm so excited to FINALLY announce that we completed the total re-design on our hair bow boutique's website http://www.sugarsweetbowtique.com/ !!! It took a bit of time to re-do but the new site was totally worth it! We are able to offer our customers so much more as well as a smoother check out with the new design. We also have cute new features such as a guest book, coupon codes, and gift registries! We also have added LOTS of new products! A few of my favorites are the Birthday Girl Shirts, Felt Clippies, and Layered Boutique Bows.

Check out the new design on our website and let me know what you think! We will be adding lots of new items as we get ready for the Fall craft shows so be sure to check back!

Summer Flew By!

2009-08-11T23:35:00.005-04:00

Okay so I am realizing that regular blog posts during the Summer is really not just going to happen. I can barely remember my name at this point so updating about our crazy life really just hasn't happened. I am going to make a major effort though to keep regular posts once the school year has started. Man...where did the Summer go? I can't believe that the school year is just a little over 2 weeks away. I realized today that I hadn't even started ordering the kids school supplies from A Beka yet. Yeah I was totally caught off guard with how soon school will be starting. I guess I need to get on the ball. Maddelyn will be starting first this year and I believe we will be starting Emma with kindergarten. We've had lots of conversations as parents and I've done some work in each of the kinder and preschool textbooks with her to see which she is ready for and I think we've decided to do kindergarten. She has one of those October birthdays that puts her withing 2 weeks of the cut-off date for making the local city school's kindergarten class this year. So, after lots of thought we have decided on kindergarten this year. Emma is VERY driven and loves to learn so I think she will do well. Like Nathan said if we have problems we can always pull back and start the preschool curriculum instead.

We've spent the past week with Nathan's family visiting Pa and Cedar Point and then we did the Ohio State Fair with my parents. The kids had such a great time but boy were we tired after the garage sale and then right into our week with Nathan's and my family.

While in Pa, Nathan's brother's fiance Emily died and cut my hair as well as gave Elijah his 2nd hair cut and straightened Emma's hair. Emma just thought it was the best to be all done up like that. Doesn't she look like another child?

Busy Busy!

2009-07-25T01:23:00.007-04:00

So obviously by the lack of posts lately you can tell we've been super busy. Not only is life crazy with 4 small children, a major remodel, and a hair bow business, but every spare moment is going into working on the new hair bow website. It will be wonderful when it gets done....and wonderful that it is done...but until then my evening when I normally blog are kinda busy. It's pretty much impossible to get any work on it during the day with the kids, so Nathan and I start on it every evening when the kids go to bed. We are getting pretty close but not quite there yet. On top of everything else I decided that now was the very best time to have another garage sale...yeah. Basically this was the only time available in our calendars before school starts for everyone and garage sale season ends. My friend Jenn and I both wanted to give it one more try with all the stuff since it was all labeled and all before packing it all back up. Hopefully this will pay for homeschool materials and flower girl dresses!

Maddelyn finished her swim lessons today. I think she might be a level one again next year but she made huge improvements from when she had started. She now is going like 99% under the water and most of the way diving for sticks! This is my kid who hangs around the ladder anytime she's in the pool and will not get her face wet! So, not quite swimming but much better than before.

Our hot dog party from last weekend went great. The weather was beautiful and we had several people show up. We even had Mr. Oscar Mayer the Wiener dog himself show up. Yes my aunt and uncle have the cutest dog ever and he is just one of their three adorable pups. Lucy and Emmit unfortunately weren't able to attend since it was an "Oscar Mayer" party.

Miss Em took her turn today getting pictures for Mommy's new website. We are going to be carrying some boutique clothing on the website including these adorable Birthday Girl Tee Shirts of course with the matching bows. Emma had pointed out that I always use Maddelyn for my pictures so I told her she could try the new shirts and bows for me. She was thrilled until she had to pose and such. Yeah...sounds like a lot more fun while someone else is doing it. I guess I just always use Maddelyn because she has the longer hair and she is the ham when taking pictures. I tend to use Caroline for all my baby headband pictures but she is close to growing out of those shots. I guess I need to find another baby girl since Nathan won't let Elijah model hair bows for me???

Today after swim lessons we took the kids to play at the park by the swimming pool. We had been promising them all week and between apointments right after swimlessons an drain, we had not yet been able to let them play. It was a perfectly sunny but not too hot day to play outside. So sad that before long it will start getting cold again!

7 Months Old

2009-07-16T23:15:00.010-04:00

So my little peanut is 7 months old now! Wow! That's hard to believe. It's so weird to me that we're over 1/2 way to his 1st birthday party! He has grown up so much this past month with sitting up, cereal and baby food, babbling, scooting/rolling on the floor and so much more. We are really starting to learn his little personality much more as well. He sure is a HAPPY baby. Everywhere we go people say "Man he's sure happy" As he grins one of those makes your cheeks hurt kinda grins at them just because they spoke in his direction. He isn't just a content, easy going baby, he's a happy baby! He lives to smile! The last picture with him and Daddy just about makes me want to cry! He's just not old enough to look that big! Now of course I couldn't get his to sit for me to take his 7 month pictures. He was determined to wiggle all around so he kept throwing himself backwards. When I would lay him on his back to get a shot of the number on his shirt, he would immediately flip over. Needless to say the days of easy baby photo shoots with Elijah have passed! Oh how frustrating the next 2-3 years will be with taking pictures. I love how when they are tiny you just aim, focus, and click the camera. there is not trying to get them to stand semi still in your viewfinder while getting the to remotely smile or at least look semi in the direction of the camera! Yeah...not easy. All I can say is that all of my children have had more than their share of camera lens caps in the pictures with them. I learned long ago that it is better to give them something tiny that might show up in a picture just to get them to sit still for a moment while you click a picture. This works really well on hair bow pictures when I don't really need to see their faces anyways.

So this weekend we are hosting a big cookout..like I think my over excited hubby invited over 60 people? Yeah he's proud to host our first backyard event in the new house. See I won a prize pack form Oscar Mayer to host a "Hot Dog House Party." (Long story check out houseparty.com to see what I'm talking about.) So by qualifying to host a party for Oscar Mayer I got a big prize pack in the mail including 25 coupons for a FREE package of Oscar Mayer All Beef Hot Dogs, a free ranch dressing and mustard, more coupons, an Oscar Mayer apron/plates/napkins/serving tray, and this adorable glass serving tray as well as 20 Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile Whistles! Too Fun! So the official day to host these parties was while we were on our trip so I am doing ours now. It should be a lot of fun and hopefully the weather holds out for us.

So obviously my posts since we've been home have been kinda slim, but I am still working on our website re-design for Sugar Sweet Bowtique. It's taking quite a bit of my free evening time not only entering all the detailed information onto the new host, but there is a lot of behind the scenes stuff that I have to do to get ready for ll the new products we will be adding to the site. Once it is up and running I will have to link it here again for everyone to see. We have an adorable template that we ordered from a web designer that has pink owls and hearts. Too cute! The site will still have the same web address and all it is just getting totally re-done behind the scenes.

Putting our Heads above the Water!

2009-07-10T00:23:00.005-04:00

So I'm here...and still alive. so obviously you can image how much unpacking/getting the house back in order I am trying to wade through after being gone 3 1/2 weeks. On top of that I think the weeds took over while we were gone...no joke Nathan said the neighbors probably thing after the way the house looked and not seeing us for 3 1/2 weeks that we were foreclosed on! No...we just decided to let our yard turn into the Shelby Jungle! So I've been trying to find our yard through the knee high weeds (no joke) and of course my allergies are LOVING that! I also ended up getting into something and have a huge rash on my arm. I actually went the doctor to get treated for poison ivy and he said it was just an irritation??? What?? Okay so this is the worst "irritation" I've ever had from a weed? So not only are we unpacking/cleaning out a month's worth of dust bunnies, getting the yard in order, and trying to get back to normal life, but I thought there wasn't enough on my plate so we started the website re-design on my hair bow website that we've been putting off forever! I'm really exited about it but it truly is time consuming switching everything over to the new web host. Even though it's a lot of work it will look so much more professional and it will run a lot smoother behind the scenes.

We are also getting pretty excited at how close our 3rd floor master suite is coming to being finished. The contractor told my husband today that we should be ready for carpet on Monday. Yes...we've heard that more times than I would really like to think about but we are praying that this time is it. Our bathroom is really making some progress this week and it is just awful looking at that beautiful jacuzzi bath tub and knowing it don't work yet!

Nathan has been at his annual 2 week guard all week and he has to be there until Next Friday. He is coming home some nights, but as crazy as it is here trying to get back into everyday life. It doesn't make it any easier that he has to get up at 5:00 every morning to drive 1 1/2 hours to guard and then has other work items to work on when he comes home in the evenings. We're both beat still and need a vacation from the trip!

Maddelyn will be starting swim lessons at the city pool on Monday. She is NOT happy about it. My little princess is a lot like me in that she hates trying anything new and hates water in her face. this should be fun, especially cine they start at 8:30 that morning when the water is nice and not-so-toasty!

I've also been making up lost of new bow samples for our website and our wholesale customers. Of course Miss Maddelyn was happy to model for me while her sisters were taking naps today! Sad thing is that she was born to be a hair bow model! Yeah I did ask her to pose a bit because I wanted some cute pictures for our website but she naturally hammed it up then coming up with her own little poses! Now if I could only hire her out as a boutique model we could get free little girl boutiqe samples for her to try out and get pictures in and even earn some cash too! I know there have to be other mommy businesses that need a little girl to try out their adorable items! Okay...maybe mommy just wants to try out their adorable things??

Yellowstone, Custard, and Rushmore

2009-06-25T20:32:00.008-04:00

So I finally am getting time to post today...How is it that I spend hours in the car riding but never seem to remember or get the time to post on my blog?? The girls just loved Yellowstone National Park with all the animals. It was beyond beautiful there and so not what I had envisioned it would look like. There were so many different types of landscapes including: geysers with boiling pools and steam vents, forests, plains with buffalo grazing, and crystal clear lakes with ice capped mountains in the distance. What a variety, but all amazing. There were tons of animals to be seen as well. We saw the most of bison and antelopes, but we also saw elk, mule deer, and pronghorns, mountain sheep, grizzly bears, and black bears! The girls favorites were the bears by far! The grizzly bear was literally 5 foot from the car...not on purpose! Yep, I was like Girls DO NOT ROLL DOWN YOUR WINDOWS!!

After Yellowstone our next destination would be Mount Rushmore. We made a pit stop at Little Big Horn to see Custard's Last Stand. What a beautiful area of rolling hills covered in prairie grasses as far as the eye can see.

Mount Rushmore is just as beautiful and majestic as you think it will be. Unfortunately the sun was at an awful angle for pictures but it was still just breath taking. The girls thought it was neat for about .... oh 2.5 minutes until the wow-ness of heads carved into rock wore off. After that running around all the tourists and climbing on the park benches was much more entertaining.

We are now spending the night in Norfolk, Nebraska. Nathan spent several years living here while he was growing up. We will be visiting to some of his old family friends both this evening and tomorrow morning. It really does amaze me though that every time we meet up with a family (old family friends or stangers at McDonalds) who have a little boy Emma has found the new love of her life. Now mind you she is F-O-U-R and already about to commit her father to the nut house with her boy craziness! No matter how much we instruct her that boys/dating/marriage/kissing are only for adults and adult conversations she still constantly says "I'm going to marry him" or "He's cute!" Yeah......really scary! Like my mom said, I'm surprised she's not got a ring on her hand already from all the young boys she's met on this trip! Seriously kid you're going to give me a heart attack in like 8 years! Boy crazy at 4?? What happens when hormones kick in and we hit the du du du (sound effects) P-R-E-T-E-E-N years??? Prayer, that's what happens a huuuuuge amount of prayer!

Quick Update About Yellowstone

2009-06-25T02:59:00.003-04:00

So I had this huge blog post wrote out and then I realized that Ihad posted it on the wrong blog! Uhhh! I'm sure my coupon blog followers could care less about us visiting Yellowstone. How frustrating. So I guess I will be re-posting tomorrow while we are on the road. Here are a couple of pictures though to tide you over!!

Baby Hannah's Newborn Shoot

2009-06-22T01:40:00.004-04:00

I fianlly had a few moments to post the pictures I took for a friend from church of her 4 day old little lady. Oh how I love doing newborn pictures! Poor little Hannah was not too happy with me when I stripped the tiny 5 lb sweetie down for some diaper pics. Yep...she screamed but we still were able to get a few good ones.

Trip Update

2009-06-22T00:56:00.002-04:00

So for all you Ohio Family and friends....this is what the west is like...BEAUTIFUL! Now don't get me wrong Ohio is great and all but how do you compare a cow pasture to this? Don't worry Mom. It's Beautiful but not quite enough to get me to put our house on the market (after all the hurdles we've jumped in remodeling??) and pack our bags to move out here.

I don't have too many pictures to share with you since most of the past few days has been traveling. We did leave Salt Lake to head on to Boise for the night where we just chilled in the hotel that evening and let the kids swim. After that we left for Spokane Washington where we stopped by the White Elephant Store. My father in law said that he and his family had visited there many times while he was growing up in nearby Idaho. This store has contracts with certain manufactures for their "seconds" or basically their non sellable items. These items all looked to be in perfect condition but for some reason the manufacture couldn't sell them. For example perhaps there was a warehouse fire or maybe a semi accident...whatever but the items all looked like any other items you would find in a regular store but discounted. The store was mostly camping supplies and toys but the best was the clearance room. It was like a walk down memory lane with almost all toys from the 80's and 90's still in the packages! Nathan and I were having so much fun and I'm sure the girls were like what's up with them??? They had an original Baby Alive (I had one of those!!), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Nickelodeon Gack, 90's Barbie clothes, and so much more! You know that stuff had to worth something on ebay!!

Last night we took the kids down tot he kiddie pool. This was Elijah's 3rd time in a swimming pool and he seemed to love it. I just hate him getting in and getting all wet with that nasty pool water (with kids with swim diapers on) and then sucking his thumb....blah!!!

We arrived just outside of Yellowstone National Park this evening and took the kids into the park for just a quick peek before dark. In just the short time that we saw Elk, Bison, Pronghorns, and Mule Deer. Maddelyn didn't understand why we couldn't see them closer and where the fences were? I think she thinks it's just a REALLY big Zoo of some sorts? Ok....remember we live in Ohio, all of our animals (cows, sheep, goats, horses, pigs) are fenced in but you can still pet them. We will be spending the day tomorrow back int he parks looking for more animals and visiting the natural springs and Old Faithful.

6 Months!

2009-06-18T00:38:00.007-04:00

I really can't believe that our little man is 6 months old now! He has grown up so much in the past couple of weeks. He is now grabbing at everything with in his arm's reach and putting everything in his mouth. He coos and tries to mimic you when you speak to him. He still is the most happy smiling baby that any one could ask for! I did take a few "6 months pictures" on the road but I will need to take a few more when we get home to match the others on the black backdrop with my lights. That little booger is getting harder and harder to get his picture. You have to hold his finders out of his mouth with one hand and then snap the camera with the other hand all while trying to get him to laugh. I guess I get spoiled when Maddelyn just hears a camera cap come off and she is striking a pose for you. Elijah also must have decided that now that he's 6 months old...it's time to knock out a couple of milestones today...he sat up on his own and got his first solid food!! He was all about the cereal at first and was even grabbing the bowl and spoon but after a few bites he was done. Hopefully tomorrow night will go better? He did love it at first, he just was not in the mood. I think the combination of his stuffy nose and then eating thick cereal made swallowing it frustrating for him. I also thew in a few photos of the views on our way to Salt Lake City last night. The photos are mostly of Wyoming.

Colorado and Cute Etsy Shirts

2009-06-16T02:23:00.007-04:00

I am finally getting a chance to post today. We had our longest hours on the road today (supposed to be 8 hours but with kids and mommy stopping it was 12!) Yeah and of course being in the middle of no where Wyoming you don't really get great Internet connection on the blackberry?? No surprising though when all you see for about 100 miles at a time are a few Prairie Dogs playing Double-Dog-Dare-Ya with semi's. Yep, LOADS of kid friendly entertainment! No in all reality the kids were great with the DVD player, Odyssey, the BEAUTIFUL views, and of course a super long nap.

These are pictures of the girls in their adorable "Name Shirts" that I ordered off a lady on etsy. Too cute! She did wonderful work and had pretty reasonable pricing on all the items in her store. VERY cute and unique birthday gifts!

Yesterday we took the kids to Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Co. They do have a nice visitor's center, tour, and bookstore but all the fun is downstairs in their remake of Odyssey! For those not familiar it is Christian Kids radio program that has been around forever. Basically it was the "Veggie Tales" for the kids in the 80's and 90's! I think Nathan had more fun than even the girls did yesterday! The had fun playing puppets, climbing through the many neat places in Odyssey, ridding the slide A-Bend-We-Go, eating ice cream at Whit's End, and even being in their own radio recording. Nathan got to read a script and Maddelyn got to do sound effects and then we got a copy of them in the episode before we left that day. What a neat souvenir.

After Focus on the Family we took the kids up to Denver to eat at Casa Bonita's. It's a Mexican restaurant that has lots of live entrainment. There is a cliff diving show, live mariachi band, arcade, old time photos, caricaturist, haunted house, people walking around selling glow in the dark necklaces/toys, a treasure room, and all in this HUGE restaurant.

I just had to share a few landscape pictures from Colorado.

Omaha's Henery Doorly Zoo

2009-06-15T01:07:00.004-04:00

Yesterday we took the kids to Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo. We had a great time but learned one fact to share with future zoo go-ers.....NEVER go to the zoo on the opening day of the College World Series games, right next door to the Zoo, who also share the same parking lot. Yep....even though the zoo's website said they would be "directing parking??" we still drove around like and hour looking for a spot to park. Not fun! But we did get to see some nice tailgaters! The girls loved all the animals and even got mommy to see (well walk by quickly while looking at the ground) the snakes. Yep...no reptile house they were just mixed in with their continent's animals. REAL tricky! Thanks! I seriously have a snake phobia. Caroline was over joyed at seeing the real elephants! While visiting Disney last year she bought a stuffed baby Dumbo as her souvenir and sleeps with it every night. So needless to say she's into elephants (none to the delight of her very much republican/conservative father.) Caroline I don't think has ever seen a real elephant and since we left she has been making elephant sounds...kinda like she's blowing her nose without a Kleenex???) and pretending to shoot water at you with her trunk. She saw one of the elephants at the zoo taking water up into his trunk and then drinking it back out with his mouth. Highlight of her week! Of course she decide to spend her chips on a mini elephant in a purse at the gift shop. Oh the chips is a little reward incentive that we are doing with the girls on the trip. Nathan's parents used to do it with their kids when they took long trips. Basically they earn poker chips for good behavior and lose them for bad behaviour. They can then turn in chips for special things such as taking something form the prize bag, getting ice cream, choosing where they want to sleep that night, choosing where they want to ride in the car, buying a souvenir, etc.

We did swing by Lincoln after leaving the zoo so we could video tape the outside of the Nebraska Cornhusker's stadium...per Nathan's request. He was able to tour the building a couple of days ago on behalf of his job...seeing behind the scenes but he wanted the girls to see it to. I don't think they were too impressed (6, 4, and 2 looking at a place where they play football meant nothing to them) but Daddy wanted them to share in the excitement with him. It's really funny to see Husker shirts at the stores and big red "N"s on the back of car bumpers. It's kinda like there really is a Nebraska fan group larger than my husband, his dad, and his grandpa? Wow! All these years it's kinda been like the die-hard fans on a team that exsits some where out there??? I mean come on when you grow up in Ohio State Buckeye territory it's hard to understand the one...no three people you've ever met in your lifetime that roots for some team that are called Cornhuskers?? I mean a Buckeye is a Nut, but what's a Husker??? It's just wierd seeing that my husband isn't as alone as I thought he was! In all fairness though we are on the hunt for Elijah's first Husker team items.

That night we drove about three hours before getting a hotel just so we could get down the road some. Unfortunately I ended up feeling very sick to my stomach so we did make it to the town we were trying to get to, but the rest of that night was shot and we took our time leaving the hotel this morning. We then traveled another 6 hours to Colorado Springs, Co where we will go to Focus on the Family tomorrow and then drive into Denver tomorrow night to eat at Casa Bonitas, a Mexican Restaurant with live entertainment.

So here are a few Zoo pictures to share....

Omaha Children's Museum

2009-06-13T01:52:00.005-04:00

So today we took a break from the road/hotels and the girls and I ventured out to Omaha's Children's Museum while Nathan was in meetings. This was definitely a stretch for mommy and her sanity but I really thought the kids would enjoy it. The girls loved the pretend/imagination room the best where all the dress up, puppets, mini grocery store, water table, fire station, and mini house all were. I couldn't get Caroline away form the fire station and play trucks. She was in full coat/hat/boots driving a pretend firetruck saying "Me firetruck!" Grandpa's firetruck!" How cute! Anytime I couldn't see where she had wandered off to, I'd find her at the wheel of that firetruck. Maddelyn and Emma had a blast playing in the make believe miniature house with some other children. Emma told me she wanted to go with a group of older school children on their bus back to school. Um??? Ok? Maddelyn couldn't leave her OCD tendencies at the hotel. She was having fun playing in the little grocery store where you "shop" for items, check out with them and then put them all back on the shelves so other children can shop as well. Well, I found Maddelyn not just shopping with her little cart like all the other children, but putting everyone else's items away. Yes, she was cleaning/organizing the mini grocery store! It half makes me proud and half freaks me out just a tad! This evening we spent with a family here in Nebraska that used to be Nathan's youth pastors! He also used to babysit their oldest boys when they were both still in diapers and not... 17 and 15. Yep that makes us feel old! Tomorrow we are heading to the Omaha zoo so it should be a great picture taking day.

Road Trip

2009-06-10T15:52:00.008-04:00

So the lack of posts the past weeks show how crazy it's been around our house getting ready for our 27 day ROAD TRIP. Yes, you read that right 27 days on the road with 4 kids 6 and under! No we're not trying to get ourselves committed to the insane Asylum...honest! Nathan has to make an extended business trip out west and we are allowed to travel with him since he will be driving! So, over the next 27 days we will be on the road, driving to Washington state and back!

We got on the road yesterday only 3 hours late! We had reserved a Suburban rental car and of course when we went to pick it up they had an Expedition waiting for us. Needless to say they are NOT the same size! After packing, repacking, loading, reloading, and trying our best to get everything we as a family of 6 would need for the next 27 days ready we FINALLY got on the road! We traveled just east of Chicago the first night, spent the night and then traveled on to Iowa yesterday. Nathan of course has been stopping all long the way for business meetings. We had lunch with a political friend of Nathan's and then after Supper last night we took the girls to a baseball game. Nathan had to go for work but the kids and I tagged along. They actually had a blast since our seats were right behind home base. We left just in time to come back to the hotel to swim but, the water had to be the absolute coldest swimming pool water that I have felt in a very long time! So obviously the swimming was cut short!

So after a few more meetings today, we are on the road again to meet with another one of Nathan's political friends at their home for a cook-out. I'm really excited to meet this incredible family that Nathan just thinks is so amazing with their 9 children. He said they are the most behaved kids he's ever seen ....even at a restaurant! Why can 9 kids behave better than just 4??? Our kids heard cook-out, 9 kids, and lots of farm kittens and they were ready to jump in the car! Tonight should be fun.

3 days down and 24 to go!

Give-a-Way Winner!!!!

2009-06-02T11:13:00.003-04:00

So we do have a winner of the Hair Bow Give-a-Way! According to Random.com's random number selection, the winner is #12.......

"Amanda said...
I love the gerber headbands! Too cute! I also love the little clippies.. great for everyday use. What great stuff you have!"

Congratulations Amanda! I will be emailing you shortly for your mailing address to get these bows sent out to you! Thank you so very much for all of you who participated and of course to all of our wonderful customers at Sugar Sweet Bowtique!

Hair Bow GIVE-A-WAY!!!!

2009-05-27T23:43:00.004-04:00

HAIR BOW GIVE-A-WAY!!!

We are so excited to announce our Summer Vacation Hair Bow Give-A-Way!!! What a great way to start out your daughter's Summer than a prize package stuffed with Summer themed bows valued at over $45.00!!!

To enter our contest simply visit our website http://www.sugarsweetbowtique.com/ and pick out your favorite items and then leave a comment here stating what those favorite iems are as well as an email to contact you with if you are the winner.

You can get a bonus entry by blogging about this give-a-way on your own blog. After doing so be sure to leave a comment on here with a link to your blog post. ***Make sure to leave a seperate comment for each entry**** Each entry counts as your "entry number" and on Monday I will generate a random number. The person whose comment corresponds with that entry will win!

This give-a-way will end Monday night at midnight EST and the winner will be announce Tuesday morning on this blog. The winner will also be contacted by email.

These bows are just a tiny sampling of the boutique bows available on our website http://www.sugarsweetbowtique.com/ our website specialized on making all of your princesses' dreams come true! We are also running our Summer Vacation Sale on the website this weekend so you can pick up some great deals on bows of all types to match your princesses' Summer wardrobe and Patriotic outfits.

Memorial Day, Purple Markers, and Boys????

2009-05-27T14:41:00.005-04:00

It feels like forever since I've updated...or maybe it is just that a lot has happened since my last post. We spent the holiday weekend camping with my parents at a local State Park. It ended up that my Aunt's family and my Uncle's family also got reservations that weekend so we had a last minute family camp out. It was so nice for the girls to have all the cousins to play with. We had my 4 as well as my brother's 3 and my Uncle's 3 running around our campsite most of the weekend. With the 2 sets of twins (age 7) our girls had a blast. It is starting to get kinda scary at what these 10 little girls will be like during that pre-teen age! Oh my! Add in the other 2 cousins who visit from Tennessee and that is A LOT of hormones! Maddelyn spent the weekend working on riding without training wheels and learning to tie her shoe. She is doing great with both! I finally said...okay you're six now, this is getting ridiculous. It's time to start learning some new things! Swimming lessons are next! Well, Emma being a second born decided she was going to ask Dad to take her training wheels off as well! She still needs some practice, but did amazing for just being 4. Not long after getting off hr 2 wheel bike, I saw her in a lawn chair trying to figure out on her own how to tie her shoe. Can we say competitive????

Emma also had a little boy run in this weekend. She was making eyes at a little 8 year old play mate of my nephew. Oh my! I over heard her talking to her cousin, so I said.....

Me: Emma, what did you say?

Emma: I'm going to marry that boy someday!

Me: Why do you like him? Do you think he's cute?

Emma: And handsome too!!!

Me: Why do you like him?

Emma: Because he watches me when I do this. (as she dances around)

Me: Do you even know what his name is?

Emma: Let me go ask

Emma: (after running back form asking him) His name is Gace and he's 8.

Me: Emma that's 4 years older than you! That means he was 4 when you were born. That's like You and Elijah!

Me: Emma I don't want to hear anymore about boys until you're 15, and if you do your dad is going to lock you in the camper!

She then walks away and heads back over to watch the little boy play corn hole. She takes turns sitting in a lawn chair that she has pulled up beside him and walking around doing her little dance that she said he watched her do. OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! We're in trouble! Those little blue eyes are going to cause us a lot of gray hair I think!!!

Did you know that Crayola's poster makers are NOT washable! Neither did I! Well let's just say that while Mommy was packing for camping last Friday, Caroline climbed a chair to reach the art supplies shelf in the homeschool room. I think she was thinking Sour Grapes Lady (Strawberry Shortcakes Arch Nemesis) when she when with the purple marker??? So needless to say that the child got spanked and then we tried to scrub her down, only getting the first layer off. It was awful funny that she had a white pull-up line under the pull-up! That is definitely a perfectly white panty line! So after Daddy comes home Caroline says" Emma color my belly!" What????? So I call her down and she denies it all. Daddy then looks at her hand and see's a tiny bit of purple eon her coloring hand. He just looks at her and she starts sobbing crying GUILTY! So let's just say that she was in HOT water for not only coloring on Caroline (yes even the inside of her belly button was perfectly purple) but for lying and telling me Caroline had done it and then Caroline got disciplined for it. Funny part is that we had almost the exact same thing happen with a green marker with Maddelyn and Emma when Maddelyn was about three. That's how we knew to check the guilty party's right hand for evidence. Maddelyn was green only on the underside of her right fist. Guilty! It took all weekend for the purple-people-eater to finally fade away!

Here are a few pictures of Caroline modeling some of my new layered boutique bows on my website. I'll be back later tonight to announce a Summer Vacation hair bow give-a-way for our website!

5 Months Old

2009-05-21T00:13:00.009-04:00

I can't believe my little man is 5 months old aready! Why is it that this time always seems to F-L-Y by but the last 5 months of my pregnancy didn't? Hmm??? So what's new this month? Elijah has really grown attached to his thumb. We tried to push the binki but once he found his thumb that was it. Elijah is such a wonderful baby, smiling all the time! He is such a joy! He definitely loves to cuddle and is a Mommy's Boy....well don't tell Daddy! All of my kids are Mommy's kids until they stop nursing! HA! He has also really been trying his hardest to talk. He is cooing a lot and blowing rasberries. I thought boys weren't supposed to be chatterboxes like girls are??? He is also trying his best to sit up. Obviously he's too young to sit up by himself but he sure is exercising those little tummy muscles by pulling himself up. His hair is also lightening up quite a bit and has thinned out a bit as well. Sad to say that after his 1st hair cut a couple of weeks ago, his hair is already past his ears again on the sides! So here are his 5 month pictures. It's amazing to see how he has changes each month.

REAL Cowboys

2009-05-15T23:38:00.002-04:00

Okay...I know that it's been a week and a half since I last updated. We've been super busy with our annual garage sale. We are so blessed that we sold over $1000 in just 2 days, and the first day it was raining! How good is our God! We've also had a pretty sick little girl. Maddelyn had a bad cold that then turned into a high fever and an ear infection. Poor little thing has been miserable. Now that she has an antibiotic in her she should start feeling better. Tomorrow I am going to a used homeschool curriculum sale at the local Christian school. It is hard to believe that our baby is going to be in first grade. Man that seems so weird. On on hand it seems like Maddelyn has been here forever and on the other it seems like it's impossible that she could be starting first grade?? Man does that make me feel old!

Since we live in Ohio, Mininite and Amish families are quite frequent at our garage sales. Well my little Emma is will say anything to anyone did it again yesterday. An Amish boy was in the garage and Emma says to her grandmother..."I've never seen a REAL cowboy before!" Now mind you he did have a straw hat on and all so I can see where she got it. Thank goodness he didn't hear her!

Conversations with a 4 year old....

2009-05-04T10:46:00.002-04:00

So I once again got a tiny peak into how the mind of a 4 year old works, while getting the girls dressed the other morning....

Emma: "Mommy when is this house going to be old?"

Me: "What do you mean? Why?"

Emma: "I mean when is it going to be old so we can move back to Grandma Bobbie's house again?"

Me: "Emma we aren't going to be moving again. This is our house forever now. We just stayed at Grandma's house while we were getting ready to move in here."

Emma: "Well when is that other guy coming back."

Me: "What other guy?"

Emma: "The one who lives here?"

Me: "You mean the one who used to live here? He isn't coming back. He sold it to us so we could live here and then he moved to a new house too."

Emma: "Oh".....(with a frown on her face)

So all of this time she thought we were just house sitting for the other man and soon we would be moving back in with Grandma and Grandpa??? I guess when you spent your first year of life at their house while Daddy was in Iraq, and then another 2 months while waiting on the new house......it could start to look like when you're not sure about things the default is just move back in with Grandma and Grandpa! Oh my!

Hair Cuts and Etsy Finds

2009-05-01T18:50:00.006-04:00

Can you tell by the lack of posts that I've had lots of hair bow orders to fill the ast couple of weeks? Good for us...bad for blogging! So this week re-cap: Monday we took all 4 kids to get their hair cut. Yep...Caroline and Elijah got their first hair cuts on the SAME day! Sad when at 2 1/2, your 4 month old brother has more hair than you! Caroline looks like a true 2 year old in her little bob now!

Elijah still has a ton of hair. Our stylist just timmed up the back and front and took the below-his-ears sides up to above the ear. He looks so much older now! My little Man!

Wednesday I took all 4 kids by myself to the library! It was the first time sinc Eli was born that we tried the library and the first time we visited the library here in town. The kids were of course so excited to pick their own books. Even little Caroline carefully chose what 2 board books she wanted to bring home. Maddelyn and Emma were surprised to find out that both of them were able to get their own library card to take out books on. My little kids are growning up!

I seriously just LOVE Etsy! I found the most adorable shirts from a lady on etsy this week! She has just the cutest handmade children's clothing items ever! I'm so excited to get these shirts in the mail. Of course I will have to take a picture of them wearing them for the blog.

I also found this shirt on another lady's etsy store...LOVE it! I haven't bought one yet but I just had to share how cute it was! Thought another blogging mommy want want to snatch one of these up. She also makes shirts that say "Tweet This" for Twitter Moms! Too Cute!! This lady also sells the hand made superhero capes and masks, as well as the baby pouch/slings like I have for Elijah. LOVE my pouch! You can see him in my pouch here (scroll down).

Teaching Frugality

2009-04-26T23:33:00.003-04:00

So Emma tells Nathan yesterday that she wants to go to Disney again this Summer. He tried to explain to her that we went last year and after just buying a house we are not going to be able to go again this Summer. She them wants to know why and we explain that it is very expensive and costs a lot of money. My then frugal-learning-six-year-old Maddelyn pipes up and says "Yeah Emma, we used to have money....now all we have is coupons and a debit card!" So wise, now if we can just teach her to take out the debit card and do a cash only budget the Dave Ramsey way we'd be right on track! LOL! I even had her couponing the other day. She had $1.00 to spend if she could behave for me while we did our errands the other day. She new our last stop was Meijer and she could spend it there to get a candy if she behaved through the other stores. Well while at CVS (right before Meijer) I showed her that they had flavored Twizzlers for 75% off at $0.40. I told her that if she bought those now instead of something at Meijer like she wanted, that she could get the candy and STILL have money left over. She was so proud to come home and show her dad that she got a bigger pack of candy than she normally could have with her dollar and she also got money back! Wow, I'm so proud! She's learning a lot about using the resources God has given you to the very best of your ability!

My Last Week Summed Up

2009-04-21T10:47:00.005-04:00

So we've been busy little bees around here the past several days! We finally have gotten all the yard work done. Well....as much as we can do until after the weather FINALLY breaks here in Ohio! Just as we think it might finally be Spring here, after a lovely weekend, it is sleeting today...yes and forcasted for snow tonight! UHHHH! My capris are itching to make their appearance! We ended up hauling away 3 trailer loads of brush and tree limbs form the backyard! Yeah! Let's just say it needed "a little bit" of trimming!

We also have been busy getting my hair bow website updated as well as posting a new sale as well You can check it out HERE (Yes, hubby did finally teach me how to in bed my links! I feel like a total dork after 3 years of not knowing how to do it!)

I also have been busy snatching up so GREAT deals on my coupon blog! I update it several times a day with all the amazing deals that I stumble upon!

I just realized that I never posted any pictures of the amazing project table that my husband made me! Ignore the weird glare that showed up on some of the glossy black paint here in my picture?? I had my eye on a table that sells for well way to much from Target and Pottery Barn. My husband said that he would try his hand at making me one instead of forking up all that cash! I am guessing that we saved about 90% by making it! Well, here is what he made for me! Pretty nice huh? We also have on order actual counter top laminate to coat the top of it in as well to make it look more like a store bought piece of furniture. He did such a nice job that he thinks he now should go into the furniture business!

I also thought I would share a few pictures I took while my friend Alicia was visiting with her daughter Emma-lee. These adorable matching dresses were a gift form her mom. THANKS Joye!!! It amazes me how I always forget how hard it is to get that many kids to take a picture...until I actually try and do it! Not too bad though for 5 kids, 6 and under who would NOT cooperate! Let's just say the pictures that we did get were the result of being bribed with candy and a little stuff bunny on my head!

4 Months Old!!!

2009-04-18T00:45:00.003-04:00

Tax Day Tea Party

2009-04-15T23:05:00.005-04:00

So what is Tax Day without a little TEA?? Of course we took the kids and went to our local Tax Day TEA PARTY! The girls stood there proudly carrying their signs in the yucky, cold mist and even cried when it was finally time to leave. Maddelyn said she didn't want to go! What a proud parent am I! When we asked them later on what we were doing there they said the goverment is taking too much of our money! Yep, so sad that they really have no clue how much in debt they are already at ages 4 and 6! So here are a few pics from our local Tea Paty. I believe the local news channel said there were close to 1000 there in our small town of about 50,000 people.

My NEW Coupon Blog!

2009-04-13T23:30:00.003-04:00

So since I've been on the couponing band wagon for a few weeks now I have decided to do a coupon blog as well to help other people find some of the amazing deals that others have helped me find! The way I look at it is that why pay full price for the brands I "normally use" when I can get a competitor's product for sometimes 90% less or even for free? Our family believes that it also is our Christian responsibility to make the most out of what we have been given by God. The more we save/have available, the more we are able to use that to bless His Kingdom. So I invite you to join this stay-at-home-mommy as I find and share some of the best money saving deals out there to help you do the most with what you have been given as well!

Now it still is in the works and needs lots of tweeking...but here is the link. Mark it in your favorites and check back to see it as I continue to develop it and add new deals! I'll be both adding great deals I stumble upon as well as sharing how I use my coupons with the sale adds to show you the math on how to make your money stretch the farthest!

http://raisethemcheap.blogspot.com/

HAPPY EASTER!!!

2009-04-12T22:46:00.003-04:00

Meet Daisy and Annabell!

2009-04-11T00:14:00.004-04:00

Yep...I never would have guess she was serious, but my mom finally got the pygmy goats she has always wanted! We always thought she was just dreaming (kinda like that Volkswagen Beetle Convertible she wants), but as of yesterday the family expanded to now include two 7-week-old female pygmy goats! I took the kids over last night to have a peak and they were so excited to see them! They are cute but man goats? Mind you they live in a small housing development area outfide of their small town! Mom you kill me! I'm glad you have checked one item off your bucket list.

After the visit with the new goats Daisy and Annabell, my dad got out the tractor to give the kids a ride. I really wonder if he does anything else with the John Deere wagon BESIDES giving the grandkids a ride? Of course little Elijah had to have his first ride as well, but Grandpa held him upfront this time. The kids had a blast playing outside on the swing set and then Grandpa made a small fire for them to roast hot dogs on for dinner. What a wonderful taste of the warm weather that is just around the corner!

Too Fast!

2009-04-10T01:15:00.002-04:00

Why do they have to grow up so fast? These were just a few picture I took of Maddelyn on the morning of her 6th birthday, last week. She was on the way out to eat for her Daddy-Maddie breakfast that they always do on her birthday. Man she looks so old in these pictures. She was so proud that her new shirt made her look more like Mommy than she already does. She said that it looks like my shirt...I actually have an outfit very similar to that! Daddy already calls her mini-mommy! It's so amazing how fast they grow!! We are so excited to be heading into the big girl years of diaries, littlest pet shop, crafts, wispering with friends, thinking mom isn't so cool anymore, and all those other silly little things that we never did with preschool aged girls!

Free Princess Movie!

2009-04-09T15:43:00.002-04:00

As many of you know I've entered the world of coupons and frugal living! Not only is it a challenge and a lot of fun for me but it is obviously helping our checking account and as many other coupon moms say....the more you are able to save the more resources you will have availale to use for the Kingdom!

So one new deal that I stumbled upon is for a free princess DVD from Fisher Price. Thanks to Bargain Briana for the deal! The movie is totally free (even shipping) and all you need to do is click on the link and enter it into your shopping cart and check out. It says it will arrive in 12-14 weeks but everyone is saying it will get there much sooner. Just thought I'd share!
http://www.fisher-price.com/pages/v6/default/preciousplaces/landing.asp

I am seriously considering starting my own deal saving blog but until then I will be adding some of my favorites that I follow to the side bar. That way you can check out their amazing deals as well. If I find some more great ones like the steal I got on diapers a few weeks backc I will be sure to pass them along!

Slumber Party and Visting Friends

2009-04-08T00:46:00.007-04:00

So obviously we've had a pretty busy last 2 weeks getting ready for my best friend Alicia and her daughter Emma Lee to arrive as well as getting ready for Maddelyn's big 6th birthday slumber party. Alicia and I have been having so much fun this past week that well frankly blogging has not been on my mind at all. We spent the first few days getting ready for the big slumber party bash and then since then have been scrapbooking like mad! We went to Columbus yesterday and visited my friend Amy's store...love it! We also ran into a couple of other stores including Trader Joes (found some great CHEAP gluten free foods there!) We've really gotten some good use out of the project table that my dear hubby made for me for my birthday (pictures to upload soon) Lets just say that both of us are scrapping on it with p-l-e-n-t-y of room! Now if I can just convince hubby to put a flat screen TV on the wall in my scrap room we'll be set!

Maddelyn's party was a hit. She even told me afterwards that it was the very best party ever! We ended up having 14 girls for the party itself (mine included) and then 10 spent the night with us, all 7 and under! We had a Barbie Slumber party with all the girliness included. We did crafts, painted nails, ate popcorn, watched a movie and basically all the norm slumber party things. My little girl is getting so big! I thought I would share a few pictures of the night.

Nathan entertained the girls for a bit with a funny sing-a-long. The kids love when he plays for the, It was cute with all 14 girls singing along.

Here is a shot of the girls' dress up room (off their bedroom) that finally has the hooks hung in it. the little vanity set was from Santa (Target) and then we just hang boards and coat hooks around the room. We still need more hooks as well as curtains at the door way that can be tied back when they don't need them closed.

Ohioians!

2009-03-27T11:15:00.003-04:00

Because my best friend Alicia is coming from Virginia this next week I thought I would post this ...getting used to Ohio... post. I think all my Ohio friends and family will get a good chuckle out of it as well!

You Know You’re from Ohio When...
You've never met any celebrities.
Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway. I hate that!
"Vacation" means driving through Hocking Hills or going to King's Island. or the State Fair in Columbus!
You've seen all the biggest bands ten years after they were popular.
You measure distance in minutes. Yep
Down south to you means Kentucky. Yep
You know several people who have hit a deer. my brother hit one this year
Your school classes were canceled because of cold. yep
Your school classes were canceled because of heat. I wish!
You've ridden the school bus for an hour each way. 45 minutes and we were like 5 miles from the school
You've ever had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day. yep
You think ethanol makes your truck "run a lot better."
You know what's knee-high by the Fourth of July. CORN!
Stores don't have bags; they have sacks.
You see people wear bib overalls at funerals. Sadly yes, but that is all they ever wear
You see a car running in the parking lot at the store with no one in it no matter what time of the year. um....yep
You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition. Example:"Where's my coat at?" or "If you go to the mall I wanna go with." Sad to admit as a teacher I've said the first one
All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, or grain. melon, bratwurst, corn
You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked. yep, not us anymore though after the break in!
You think of the major four food groups as beef, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows. Grandma makes the whipped jell-o salad with marshmallows
You carry jumper cables in your car. most people do
You know what "cow tipping" or "Possum Kicking" is. Been cow tipping with my teacher! Long story
You only own 3 spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup. Haha! Yep and Season Salt!
You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit. Every year!
Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow. yep
You think everyone from a bigger city has an accent.
You think sexy lingerie is tube socks and a flannel nightie. not sexy...necessity!
The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page but requires 6 pages for sports. so true!
You think that deer season is a national holiday. Some schools get the day off!
You know which leaves make good toilet paper.
You find -20 degrees F "a little chilly".
You know all 4 seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, and Construction. Funnier than you know! So our construction is a "season" now?? Oh my!
You know what a real buckeye is, and have a recipe for candy ones. Grandma makes them
You know if another Ohioian is from southern, middle or northern Ohio as soon as they open their mouth.
You can spell words like Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas. yep
You know that Serpent Mound was not made by snakes. yep
You know what pop is.
You don't think of Flordia first when someone says Miami.
You snicker when someone is from Tiffin because you think of the State Hospital. HaHa!
Schools close down for the State Basketball Tournaments. Um...yep
You're proud of your state fair, but would rather go to Cedar Point. Both??
You live less than 30 miles from some college or university.
"Toward the lake" means "north" and "toward the river" means "south."
You root for a college team though you've never taken a class there.
You know the proper way to say Lima (Lyma), Berlin (BUHRlin), Bucyrus (Bew-sy-rus) and Rio Grande (Rhyo Grand). Haha!
It’s Interstate, or Highway - NOT Freeway or Expressway.
You know every exit on I-71 And what is at each exit!

You actually get these jokes and forward them to all your Ohio friends.
Isn't it sad? You just said "yup" and "uh-huh" or aint that the truth" to most of these!!!

Happy Kitchen Dance!!

2009-03-23T17:29:00.003-04:00

WE FOUND THE B-A-T!!!! And you know where??? My Bedroom! Ahhhhh! So a week and a half after my first sighting I was getting ready for bed (why is it always me? Do they just like me or know I'm a wimp?) and turning on the box fan we sleep with. Well while turning it on I was fooling around with it adjusting the speed and such and as I was walking away I was like "what on earth? Oh my gosh its the bat!" So I then yell and run (Nathan said more like pranced like a deer) across the bedroom floor to get Nathan up. I am yelling "Nathan! Nathan! The B-A-T is on the F-A-N!!!!!" Yes I spelled it? No clue why but I did? Nathan said at least we know you can spell in a time of crisis (even though I can't on my blog! HeHe!) So he jumps up to get it and I dive onto the bed with Elijah and cover us both head to toe in the blankets. Nathan is trying to figure out a game plan of getting it without spooking it when he realized that since we turn the fan backwards so we can just hear it but not feel it the bat was actually stuck to the sucking in air part of the fan. The bat was stuck and could not move! So, he just grabbed up a Children's Place bag and plucked it off the fan. He said it went wild biting like crazy trying ot get out. He then...cough....cough...disposed of it......cough....cough (for all those animal rights activist!) I love all God's creations as well, but NOT in my house!!! So we are just praying that God will direct his creatures to remain out of our living spaces! LOL! The spiders that we come across as we are cleaning up from our huge remodel really don't seem quite as scary as they did pre-bat!!

The other night Maddelyn went to her cousins' Hannah Montana sleepover. We found out that she went up to my brother's fiance that night and while all the other girls were singing karaoke she wanted to know if she could clean the girls' room??? Yeah weird? So Beth said ok and Maddelyn not only picked up in there but she had it cleaned to perfection so everything was in it's own place. She then walked past my brother's room and said "Boy it's messy in there! Someone should clean it up!" (They had moved all the house furniture and such in there to make room for the sleeping bags) She then said "Do you want me to clean it? Yeah I am a clean freak and that still psycho! I am soooo not brain washing her!

Great news....... we are finally in our kitchen! YEAH! We've been living with a college fridge, freezer, and microwave in our formal dinning room since we moved in in January. Yeah frustrating to say the least! So they are still working on some of the decorative trim (getting new trim cut to match the antique original trim), doing 2 more small sections of counter tops, and Nathan has to paint a few more cabinets for me to be able to have the complete kitchen done. We also are waiting to put our new wood laminate (well actually a recycled rubber product from Lowes that looks like laminate but cheaper and much more durable) down until after the 3rd floor master suite is done since the construction workers get up there through the butler stairs in our kitchen. Even though I don't love cooking it has been exciting cooking in our new kitchen with all our new appliances.

I need to run though. I am "trying" to gain control today of the constant construction dust monster that lives in this house. I WILL eventually win this never ending battle!!!!

Back from Tennessee.

2009-03-19T12:08:00.020-04:00

Ok, so I know I have been neglecting my blog posts lately, but that is just a small window into how crazy our life has been over the past few weeks. I did return home on Monday from the twelvefridays weekend celebration (crop/classes) in Tennessee. We had a wonderful time and I even brought home an album of 30 FINISHED layouts that the other oh so talented teachers taught over a 2 days span. I wen tot help out and ended up still getting some work done! Woo-hoo! I did not get too many pictures because I was so busy but I did swipe a few from other ladies blogs and such. I do have more pictures of my own but with me not feeling so hot today, I think thse pictures will have to wait a few days. Thanks Heidi and Heather for the great trip! I also met a sweet, sweet lady Amy who was so kind to drive down with me to Tennessee and then ended up being my roommate down there as well. I don't think I've ever met a sweeter person! LOL! So since she owns a scrapbooking store about an hour away form me....that is double reason to drive down and visit her!

The twelvefridays staff that weekend. Heather, Nicole, Me, and Amy. Virginia had already left for home and Heidi was not feeling very well. Say a prayer for her she is having some major back and hip problems right now.

The albums they were working on this weekend. When they left they had a completed American Crafts album with 30 layouts in it. I think that is amazing for 2 days of class and then a crop on Sunday. They were able to do 24 layouts in 2 days of class and then we had 6 additional layouts that we taught as make and takes on Sunday afternoon.

The group of laddies that attended. What a great group!

Us working girls taking a break over lunch in front of the fireplace. Ahhh! So nice!

Virginia Tilley teaching one of her classes. What a sweet girl and doesn't she look adorable in that apron with her little pregnant belly! Another mommy with lot's of little ones. She has a beat by a little bit though with her oldest at 3 1/2 and #4 on the way.

Ladies working on some of the class layouts.

Amy teaching a layout with the layout up on the big screen.

So here is the bat story (REALLLLLY condensed) that I have been promising to you all. I was sitting working on hair bows late one night while Nathan was with work in Texas when I realized I needed another strand of ribbon form the other room. While walking back through the room something darted past my head and I jumped back not knowing what it was. When I turned back to see what had just passed me it was a BAT and it was flying right back at me! I of course screamed!!!!!! I believe the high pitched scream messed up it's whole radar senses because that thing when mad and was diving at my head! Yeah I did not figure this whole theory out until the next day. Well I run into the living room screaming and hide under my baby grand piano. the thing is still flying over my head and I am still screaming under the piano! I finally get enough sense in my head to grab the cell phone on the arm of the couch and call my parents to help. I am sobbing crying when my mom answers the phone and of course she thinks something is wrong with me orthe kids but passes the phone to my dad. He asks if I need him to come and of course I say yes, sobbing. I then realize there is no way I can sit under the piano screaming with it flying over my head for the next 20 minutes while he gets there. When the bat flies back into the other room I decide to dash into Nathan's office and shut the door while grabbing the baby out of his swing on the way. Nathan asked if the baby had been on the other side of the room would I have grabbed him before running into the office and I said I don't know! LOL! Not mom of the year award material! So I then call Nathan in Texas form the office still crying! He asks me where the girls are and I say in bed. he then asks if the doors are closed and I say no. He said that I need to sneak out and get those doors closed. I (still sobbing) say that there is no way I am leaving and he just needs to pray REAL HARD for his kids because I am not leaving that room! Yep, another no mom of the year award! So long story, but he doesn't ever find the bat and I end up staying the night at my parents until he came home. We did though end up covering my fireplace in our bedroom just in case that is how he got in and to keep his friends away. Yet another joy of old houses!!!

March 5th

Maddelyn taking her first pictures with my camera of Elijah in his new pouch carrier I ordered off the Internet.

March 6th

This was the first day that our kids could play outside. They were so excited just to be able to play on the front porch. The grass was still way to muddy to get in the yard but they were just tickled to be outside. Of course another picture of the outside of our house. I can't wait until it warms up a bit more and we get start planting flowers!

Fevers, Smoke, Scrapbooking, and BATS!!!!

2009-03-14T01:20:00.003-04:00

So I am still alive. I am so sorry that it has been forever since I posted. We've had a couple of insane past 2 weeks. Just to give you a hint it is now 1:30 am and I am doing a super quick post from a cabin in Tennessee at a scrapbooking retreat for twelvefridays. Ahhhh. hear that??? No toddlers! I love them to death, but YEAH!!!! Mommy got some kid-free (well almost, nursing baby in toe) time with other adults! You can check out all the fun we are having here! http://www.twelvefridaysweekend.typepad.com/

So the past 2 weeks have been insane with all four kids getting that nasty flu virus. I think that entire week and a half that they had it I might have gotten one night that I slept more than 2 hours in a row! The theme of the week was high fevers, deep coughs, round the clock meds, and middle of the night breathing treatments. Fun! Anyone who knows me knows I don't do very well with little sleep, so almost no sleep makes me not a very pleasant person to deal with.

Of course while Nathan was gone on a trip for work last week all craziness broke loose. We had the super sick kids, major hair bow orders that I had gotten behind on while dealing with the kids, a house filled with smoke as I chared some ribbons in the oven, An oh.... a new little B-A-T friend in my house!!!!! Yeah! Great times!!!! I obviously need to head to bed so I will be a "pleasant twelvefriday's rep" tomorrow instead of a sleep deprived grumpy scrapper! So I will have to wait to tell you my: bat diving at my head - me screaming and hiding under the grand piano - dad with a plastic baseball bat and a butterfly net story until tomorrow. I promise you that as hard as you are going to laugh at me it will have to wait until I get a moment to post later this weekend.

Trouble Maker!!

2009-03-06T00:10:00.002-05:00

So I had my 4 sick kiddos with me at my orthodontist appointment today. Yes they were all sick but I had no time slot to reschedule and of course couldn't find a sitter. Anyways, as soon as we get in there and the kids all sit down while I am waiting in the exam chair I hear....

Maddelyn: (very loudly) "My mommy doesn't ever wear that thing in her mouth except for a night." (my retainer)

Me: "Maddelyn! Yes I do. You're not even up when I go to bed so how do you know??"

Orthodontist "Do you not wear it?"

Me: "Yes I wear all the time except for when I am eating???"

Orthodontist "You promise?"

Me "Honest I do! I have no clue what she is talking about???"

That little rat got me in trouble!! And to think, he thought I was fibbing and she was ratting me out. Seriously you can't sneak anything by kids....even when you didn't even really do it!