A Funny Conversation

Last Sunday night, I was able to go out to dinner with a few ladies after church.  We had Japanese, in case you’re wondering- I declined the sushi!

Anyways, one of the ladies said something that got me to chuckling.  She was telling some story about friends of hers from her hometown, and in the middle of her story, she looked at me, and said:

“They have 7 kids, too- so you guys could be friends!”

And on she went with her story… I couldn’t help but laugh though.  This young lady meant absolutely nothing by that statement, but I had to throw in that I am, in fact, friends with people that have 1, 2, or 0 kids too!

 

Father’s Day’s a Comin’

I saw a really cute and easy Father’s Day card that the kids could make and thought I’d share!

Chances are you already have what you need to make this. 

You can find the directions HERE.

I’m going to have my Sunday School kids make one to take home.  If I pre-cut everything, it takes all of two minutes!

Now, technically the iPhone my husband got a couple weeks ago is his official Father’s Day gift (not to mention his anniversary gift!), but it seems that he should receive something from his children on his day, so we made this:

We just spray painted a wood frame from Michaels and some old puzzle pieces, add a little glue, and voila!  Just add a picture!  I’ve got the perfect picture waiting for me at Walgreens. I just love being able to order prints online and pick them up in just a few hours!  No more hanging around the store for an hour or making a second trip a few days later!

Back on subject-

Happy Father’s Day to the best dad in the world!

Catching Up

I’m still here!  But in a different place!  We’ve finally moved, and that’s one of the main reasons I haven’t been around here for a while.  We didn’t even have phone or internet for nearly a month!

So we’ve officially moved into a wonderful new home, to which my husband lovingly refers as a mansion.  It’s not that large, but we have nearly 3000 sq. feet of space to grow into!  We still can hardly believe we’re living here and are in awe that the Lord would provide such a home for our family.  Since the actual moving took place much later than we’d expected, we had only a few days before we had guests arrive!

My mother-in-law and niece came for a two week visit!  It’s been 4 years since we’ve seen them, so needless to say we were so happy to have them come, and we had a great time.  We didn’t really do anything too special, but even just being at the house was enjoyable.  All the kids got along well, and that always makes for a nice visit!

They left last Wednesday morning, and Thursday night my sister and her family flew in to town!  We had them with us through the weekend.  Their daughter is about the same age as my older kids so they loved having another playmate around! 

So this week I’m finally trying to get settled into the house!  We had all the important stuff in, but our garage is still full of boxes to be sorted through.  Little by little we’ll get it all done!

We have a busy summer ahead of us.  This week our church is having Vacation Bible School in the evenings, next week my husband will be away at Teen Camp, and then we’ll have two weeks of ‘normal’ at home.  I say ‘normal’ because those two weeks will be largely spent preparing to leave for the Spiritual Leadership Conference hosted by Lancaster Baptist Church in California, and from there we will be driving to Oregon for a vacation/family reunion.  All in all we will be gone for roughly 3 weeks!  By the time we get home, it will be time to prepare for our next school year and I’ll be in the final couple of months of this pregnancy!  I figure we should be all settled in just in time for this baby to make his arrival and throw us into another couple months of chaos!  I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Yes, I typed his on purpose!  We are expecting a little boy!  All of the kids wanted a boy, so I’m happy we could accommodate their wishes :)

Many of my friends and family reading this already know the name we’ve chosen, but I think I’ll keep at least that much secret from the internet world until the big day!

Okay, I think we’re all caught up!

Sweetheart Girl’s First Sewing Kit

I was looking through some old pictures, and I realized I had wanted to blog about the little sewing basket I put together for Sweetheart Girl’s 5th birthday last month.

Before I begin, I should say that I saw a similar project on another blog that I stumbled upon quite a while ago, but I cannot find it again!  I need to give credit to someone, but I just don’t know to whom it belongs… so…sorry to whoever you are!

I was able to find this adorable basket at a thrift store that I believe once held a little tea set.  The little nooks and crannies were perfect because I was trying to figure out how I would be able to do that on my own!

I bought some yarn needles, cute big buttons, and a sturdy, plastic embroidery hoop, and I had everything else at home.  I cut some ‘bobbins’ out of some sturdy cardboard for the yarn and knotted one end of the yarn and taped the other end.  For the ‘fabric’ I used shelf liner, netting from a bag of limes, and tulle.  I also gave her one of my extra measuring tapes, a thimble, and some ‘pretties’ (lace, etc.).

Sweetheart Girl LOVES it!  Here’s a picture of the very first button she’s ever sewn!

I just love her crazy ‘fresh from the bath’ hair.  She’s inherited my frizzies- sorry, baby girl :)

Notice her dress up shoes?  Those are the one item she asked for, and she received seven pairs from the grandparents and a friend- needless to say she was a very happy birthday girl!

Eventually I’ll start teaching her some basic stitches, but for now she’s just having fun (and learning how to keep her yarn from getting all tangled up!).  Of course, I’m not much of a seamstress myself so I’ll probably practice right along with her!

Soooo Busy!!!!

Whew!  Since coming back from Mexico (which was fabulous!), we haven’t stopped!

After being gone for just a few days, there was a lot to catch up on, and by Thursday, the kids and I needed to get out of the house!  So we met a friend at the children’s museum, and spent the morning playing there.  This is the first time that Twinkle has interacted with the exhibits so she was fun to watch.  Apparently, Minion 1 developed a fear of the dinosaur section and wouldn’t let us go in it!  It’s a small section and I was able to stay out with Minion 1 while the big kids went in- but he about fell apart at the thought of Minion 2 and Twinkle going in- it was hilarious (in a sympathetic way, of course).  Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

I'm blaming pregnancy brain, but I can’t even remember what we did Friday, and Saturdays are always busy with church soul-winning, errands, and preparing for Sunday morning.  Due to our other activities, the house was extra messy, and we had guests coming over for Sunday dinner, so I REALLY needed to clean house!

Sunday was an absolutely wonderful day.  My husband preached a great message on separation and holy living, and it was really a challenge to our church to step it up!  Our afternoon was filled with good fellowship, and the evening message was just as convicting (for me, anyways).

On Monday we took the kids to the county fair, and spent a few hours there.  The first thing we did was watch the shark show.  We got good seats, but we had to wait for a good 20 minutes or so.  When the show was starting, they played the JAWS theme music.  That music scared Minion 2!  It took a little convincing to get him to stay and watch the show!  We explored the 4-H area, the petting zoo, and saw a couple more shows, and then this mama needed to go home!  I was beat!  A few pictures from our day:

Tuesday, our church hosted a Bearing Precious Seed conference.  This is a ministry out of Ohio (I think) that prints Bibles, New Testaments, John and Romans, etc. in many languages and sends them out all over the world to missionaries and churches that request them- all in the good ol’ King James!  Really, all we were doing was opening our building for them to use, but somehow there was a miscommunication and we found out Monday morning that we were supposed to serve breakfast and lunch for them!  Oops!  We were scrambling a bit, but a dear lady from church (thank you- I know you’re reading this!) came and helped, and everything was pulled off without a hitch!  The kids were great, which was such a blessing because staying calm and occupied while Mom is busy all morning and preachers are in a meeting is no small feat for 6 children!

All that last minute stuff was really a blessing in disguise for me, though, because I had not planned on going to the meeting, as there was no need for it.  However, I had not even thought that the couple running it were dear friends, and I would not have seen them if I had not gone.  The time spent with Miss Bonnie was so precious, and I’m so thankful the Lord arranged all of it!

Tuesday night we observed the Lord’s Supper with the church family, and that is always one of the best services of the year for me.  It’s still amazing to me that Jesus Christ was willing to sacrifice Himself for me.  I hope it never becomes ‘old news’ to me.

Oh, and Tuesday the paperwork was signed on the house!  Praise God!!!  We spent all day Wednesday there beginning the cleanup work!  The fridge and freezer smelled so I began cleaning that.  On the surface, it didn’t look too bad…but then I started taking the inside apart…ugh!  I found a back panel that I think the previous owners didn’t realize was there because the original tubing for the water line was still there- anyways, they definitely never removed it because behind was blood and food drippings and particles.  When I took apart the door shelves in the freezer, there was mold everywhere!  It took me over an hour to get that thing cleaned out to a point where I felt I could be comfortable putting our food in there!

Okay, to wrap up this novel, Thursday I was wiped out and sick (I felt it coming on since Monday) and was of no use to anyone (not entirely true because the family did get to eat, and I did get the girls’ disaster of a room organized and ready to pack), and today we spent another day at the house cleaning, fixing, and prepping.  I’ll show pictures of the house in a later post.

Well, I’m off to bed- oh wait, it’s only 8:15…there is a pile of laundry on the loveseat that I should probably attack..

An Update

Well, I’ve been busy and in the midst of early pregnancy woes, so I haven’t felt like blogging in a quite a while!  So here’s a quick update:

Pregnancy: By the end of this week I will officially be in my second trimester!  I’ve been dealing with typical first trimester stuff- all-day nausea, exhaustion, and the general feeling of apathy towards anything that seems unnecessary and expends too much energy!  However, I really can’t complain, because I certainly know many women who have it much worse, and I myself have felt worse in previous pregnancies!  And I forgot to mention…there’s only one baby this time!

School: McAwesome finished his schoolwork last week, and Hero has just a few lessons to complete this week.  Hero will be done today or tomorrow!  They are, of course, very happy, and I am slightly concerned that this will be too long of a break before we are able to begin next year (our summers are always very busy!).  I can already see signs of boredom so I’ll have to stay on top of that.  The reason that we picked up the pace to get done this early is…

We’re Moving: I haven’t blogged about this yet, but it’s been in the works for several months now.  The house we’ve rented for the past 5 years is up for sale, and (long story, short) we’ve found a wonderful home to rent that is almost bought.  However, it’s a foreclosure house, and apparently the bank just doesn’t care if they get around to selling it!  We were supposed to close March 15th, then it was delayed to the end of March.  We were supposed to close last Friday, but the bank had still not sent the paperwork to the title company!  Grrrr!!  Supposedly, we’ll get it this Friday, but I’m not holding my breath.  We don’t have to be out of our current home until the end of May, but the new place needs a bit of clean-up work first, so we’d like some lee-way time!  Well, more on the house later…

Weekend Getaway: My husband and I are leaving this Thursday to visit some missionary friends in Arivechi, Mexico.  We’ll be bringing them some supplies, and they have some special events over the weekend.  The kids will spend the night with our close friends on Thursday, and my parents will come get them for the weekend.  We’re very excited to get some time together, and it’s been ages since I’ve been able to go visit and help in any kind of mission work- something that was vital to bringing my husband and I together in the first place!

Well, that covers the basics!  I’m slowly starting to feel better so hopefully I will keep up a little better from now on!

First Prenatal Appointment

On Tuesday, I had my first appointment at the birth center.  We got a sitter for the kids so Daddy-man could go with me, and we both really liked it there.  The midwife was very kind and spent a lot of time with us.  Everything seems pretty standard as far as I can tell, and as I thought, I will be delivering at TMC (the hospital) due to my previous c-section.  That’s slightly disappointing because we’d love to be able to deliver there at the birth center, but I expected it and it will be fine.  A good friend of mine had her babies at TMC, and she enjoyed her experiences (plus they offered her a post-delivery massage- I could work with that!). 

Later today I am going in for an ultrasound to get some better dates.  Truth be told, I’m fairly confident in my dates, but I am looking forward to seeing how many babies are in there!  Even though my chances for multiples are decidedly higher now, the odds are it’s only one!  I tend to think there’s only one, but I didn’t think there were two before!

I’ll update later…