365 Project | Week 20

The votes are in ... EVERYONE is loving having Mommy home! :) It's wonderful to be able to simply enjoy being home, and not feel as though everything has to be crammed in to a couple hours (or left undone altogether.) Along with getting to spend lots of time cuddling on the couch reading books, doing crafts, going to the park, and celebrating birthdays, we managed to thoroughly clean the kids' bedroom and trim most of the bushes around the yard--in addition to the normal household responsibilities. It's been nice. And what's even better ... we get to do it all over again next week ... and the week after that and the week after that ... Ahhh. :)

Day 134. Mommy and crew! :) Love these munchkins to pieces!! :)

Day 135. Happy Birthday to ... me. ;) My gift to myself? We cleaned out the kids' bedroom. :)

Day 136. We all agree that going to the park is lots more fun than cleaning bedrooms! :)

Day 137. Shopping with my crew. :) Whew. Glad I can do this in the morning when everyone is still fresh. We're still working on our groove for this aspect of things, but it will come. Overall, the kids did great--it just takes about twice as long.

Day 138. We had so much fun celebrating Daddy's birthday!! Mommy is still super excited, because I managed to completely surprise him with his freshly tuned and repaired bike! :) It involved getting it down from the ceiling hooks by myself, getting it in the van, two trips to the bike store, storing the bike at our neighbor's for a couple days, and then an 8-step scavenger hunt to finally find the surprise in our guest bedroom. And none of that was spoiled, because my ultra-observant husband failed to notice that it had been missing for a week+! :) Woo-hoo! :)

Day 139. A couple girls from church gave us the sweetest gift of an evening of free babysitting--we celebrated Mothers' Day, my birthday, Chris' birthday, and our anniversary with dinner at a very nice wild-game restaurant, a trip to Lowe's, and free icecream at Coldstone. :)

Day 140. The kids were super excited to hang our very own American flag. (One perk of our Lowe's trip the night before.) :)

And that be that! Birthday season has now concluded, so we'll be settling into a summer "routine" ... along with preparing for our Sunday School picnic this upcoming weekend. :)



Birthdays Abound!

'Tis the season for birthdays at our house. :) Thankfully our blog has not been silent due to my 365 Project, but thorough documentation of anything has been less than stellar the last month or so. However, birthdays came and went and we rejoice in the blessings of each one. Here's just a glimpse of our days celebrating Hannah and Peter ...

Growing up, we always hung our birthday banner--can you imagine how excited I was when I found the exact same one for my own family!?! :)

Peter enjoyed a soccer theme this year. :) He took this cookie cake to school ...

And we enjoyed this cookie brownie as a family. :)

Soccer shoes and a soccer goal completed the theme. :)

With Legos by special-request. :)

We celebrated Hannah-bug this weekend ...

Thanks for the birthday dollars, Uncle Pat and Aunt Judy! :)

Thanks for the PJ's, Grandma and Grandpa!

And thanks for the birthday song, Grandma!

Thank you to each one who sent greetings and helped make each of their days special!

Monday Smorgasbord

Mondays are smorgasbord night at our house ... whatever happens to be in the fridge becomes dinner. ;) It seems appropriate for a smorgasbord day for our blog as well. :) So here's random fun pictures from the last 30 days or so ... I love these munchkins the Lord's blessed us with!

Matthew got into grass planting with Daddy! :)

Everybody else had moved on, but Peter gave me one last big smile! :)

Cotton candy was a definite winner at field day! :)

Sunday afternoon nap hair. :)

Peter enjoyed all of the extra games they had at field day and came home with lots of prizes to prove it. ;)

Hannah-bug won a recorder in her reading contest and has been taking it pretty seriously. We bought her a lesson book for her birthday, so Mommy is going to be learning the recorder, too. :)

Matthew defintiely enjoys riding the tractor with Daddy. :)

Peter loved making his kite fly! Mommy loved the energy it expended! ;) (It has since deceased.)

Why read right-side-up when you can read up-side-down? ;)

Matthew. His smile is still as big as ever, but he never. stands. still. Ever. (Well, very very rarely.) Slightly complicates the picture taking process. :)

Climbing the wall was a definite highlight of field day. Very thankful for the spotter who significantly helped (AKA, hauled) Peter up--the rocks were spread a bit far for his current stature. :)

 Matthew the cowboy ...

Daddy and Peter sitting on the swing they hung ...

Kiddos in the wagon ...

And me and my hubby ... love you, hon! Wouldn't want to enjoy this adventure with anyone else! :)

365 Project | Week 19

Woo-hoo, it's official! I am officially a stay-at-home mommy. As one mommy-friend so wisely put it, "Now the real work begins!" :) Chris took Thursday and Friday off as well, so this week actually felt a good bit more like vacation than anything else. We'll be getting into the mommy and kids groove this upcoming week--would greatly appreciate your prayers. We're all super excited, but it's definitely a whole new routine for all of us. :) A very good thing, but completely different. As Peter put it, "It seems like there's going to be 100's and 100's of Saturdays!" Mommy's view is slightly different. ;)

Day 127. What does Sunday afternoon look like at our house? Quiet time for the big kids, nap time for Matthew and (usually) Daddy, and blog time for Mommy. :)

Day 128. Ride 'em, cowboys! Our living room turned corral. The kids were having fun, although I will admit that Matthew was somewhat noticeably distressed in this picture because his 2-year-old sense of justice was violated by the fact that Peter was 1/2-inch farther back than Matthew thought he ought to be. ;)

Day 129. Mommy's bookworm ... :)

Day 130. So thankful for the coworkers the Lord blessed me with these last two years.

Day 131. The last day of school, Mommy's last day of work, and our anniversary, and no, there's no cute pictures of the two of us together. Sorry. :) We did, however, enjoy a very nice, relaxing day. Chris and the boys used his homemade plow to prepare the yard for grass seed, and Mommy and Hannah went shopping for a cute, modest swimsuit. It was a huge blessing to see the Lord answer prayer so specifically! The very suit I had unsuccessfully tried to order online earlier in the week was hanging (in my size) on a lonely rack in the very last store we walked through as we were returning to the van after an hour of unprofitable shopping. The Lord is so good and cares about even these smallest details.

Day 132. We are so thankful for our phenomenal babysitter by the name of Miss Beth. :) What a blessing to be able to enjoy an evening together and know the kids are safe and having a great time. You know you have a good one when your kids ask you when you're going on another date so that Miss Beth can come again. ;)

Day 133.  Hannah's birthday, and another pretty normal day. However, the highlight was most definitely the "hayride," compliments of Daddy's grass planting endeavours. :)

New adventures await! :)

Happy Birthday, Hannah!

Happy Birthday, Doodle-bug!

We are so thankful for you and the joy you bring to our lives! It hardly seems possible that you're seven! You've grown so much ...

:: Birth ::

:: 1 Year ::

:: 2 Years ::

:: 3 Years ::

:: 4 Years ::

 :: 5 Years ::

:: 6 Years ::

:: 7 Years ::

We love you, Pumpkin! :)

Happy 7th Birthday!

365 Project | Week 18

Another week has flown by ... just four more days as a "working" mom! (Ha-ha!) Woo-hoo! :) Definitely looking forward to the new schedule and routine. :)

Day 120. Matthew is thoroughly enjoying Lego trains these days--the longer, the better. :)

Day 121. With this being one of our last weeks to have childcare readily available during the workday, Chris and I decided it would be worthwhile for me to take a couple days and put some focused effort on preparing Missions for Kids for publishing while the kids were at school. The Lord blessed my time, and I now have 57% of the formatting completed. Woo-hoo! (Just to clarify, the content has been finished since last summer, but the formatting was not particularly "professional." A friend helped me with the design, and I'm now finishing up the formatting at which time I'll start pursuing permissions again more agressively.) I took this picture of our hillside on a stretch break. :)

Day 122. Peter can be still be found with a soccer ball most afternoons and evenings. Shall we say multiple showers a day?

Day 123. This week we enjoyed one of the best tree removal experiences to date. It was a huge blessing to find a company who did an incredibly professional job for a very fair price. 

Day 124. Daddy and crew cleaned up the "debris" the next evening. :)

Day 125. Matthew's Guide to Toytime: When one plays with trucks, it is best if one can play with ALL of one's trucks, and even better if one can put them in a very long line. ;)

Day 126. While Daddy and crew moved some dirt and stones around in Toby's area, Mommy went shopping. I was gladly in need of some smaller capris and I decided to check out the thrift shop before hitting Kohl's sale at $20/pair. So thankful I did! The Lord provided FOUR pairs of capris, a cute denim skirt, and a pair of swim shorts for ... $22!!! Woo-hoo! Definitely helps out the clothing budget! (And it doesn't hurt my feelings any that the capris are two sizes smaller than the ones they're replacing!) :)

 Such be our week. So thankful again for this project. Life moves along like a blur sometimes. It's a blessing to slow down and enjoy things like Lego trains once in a while. :)