Creativity

I must say Jeremy has really been stepping it up helping the kids out with all the "creative" things they think up. Trinity especially is ALWAYS full of ideas whereas Blake is more the stand back and watch type. She came running to me the other day begging me to let her make a baby swing. Now that we have a room for the guests Isaac has much more space in his room so I was encouraging them to make that a playroom as well. I dragged the bookcase of toy baskets and children's books into the room and put the bin of trains in there. Trinity decided it would be her new baby daycare. Her idea was not bad but what will I make a swing from? She already had that planned. She would use the "tunnel" entrance to the tiger tent Isaac got for his birthday. Okay well how would I put it up? I can't reach the ceiling. I told her to ask her father. Jeremy picked up her enthusiasm and got a role of masking tape out, helped her cut yarn to tie to the toggle handles and Viola!

 the baby daycare

 the toys along the wall

 baby swing in action. she insists they be that way so as not to fall out

we'll see how long the tape holds. . .

Now, I wouldn't say I'm a tape all over the ceiling/wall sort of woman. . .ah who am I kidding it's my favorite way to put any and all decorations up and all of the kids artwork to boot. I was happy that Jeremy was willing to help her out. Trinity and Blake happily played daycare; which included doctoring them when they became sick and running thorough "danger drills" where I had to be the "bad guy" who banged on the door and waited a moment before entering to find the children and their baby doll charges miraculously hidden from view (behind and under the crib). I approve anything that gets them playing together that doesn't include some sort of screen time. Jeremy also helped the kids launch the Mento Fountain that Blake received for Christmas. Apparently Mentos mixed with diet soda create a soda fountain rocketing into the sky. Blake was too nervous to pull the string so Trinity took advantage of his hesitation. Now that Blake has seen the result I think he will want to pull the string that drops the mentos should I indulge them and purchase more soda and candy purely for fun/waste. Oh please who drinks diet soda anyway? gross.

I am really enjoying these kids as they start experimenting and they sure love seeing their ideas become reality. I'm also very happy Jeremy enjoys that sort of thing as it is not my expertise.

New Room - part 1

This fall we decided to put a fourth bedroom in. Whenever we have company we have to put Isaac in a pack-n-play in our room with us and I do NOT love it. So now we will have a space for guests and this summer when Isaac moves out of his crib we will put him on the bottom bunk and make it a boys room and move trin into Isaac's old room and she will get her own big girl room. She is going to be NINE after all. *I roll my eyes because I didn't have my own room until I was like 16. What better way to add a room then to have a good friend pack up all his tools, drive across the state, and pay him to do it! So Daniel got busy but not so busy that we didn't have time for multiple rounds of Acquire with MUCH tea and Krispy Kremes. NOT good for my sugar diet. Daniel's favorite color is blue so to entice him to paint the whole bedroom for me and not just the wall and closet he built I picked a dark blue called DEEP ROYAL. Just kidding I would have picked blue anyway and I'm pretty sure he would have painted it whatever I picked. Did you notice even his nail gun has a blue chord? hee hee. 10 days later we have a room and nothing that looks good in it. SHOPPING! Jeremy was upset that I might spend another couple grand outfitting the place, I said a couple hundred would probably do it and just to count it toward the remodel cost instead of feeling like I was purely  spending for fun. I mean I can't have a guest in a blue room with an avacado green and maroon floral heritage quilt on the bed can I? #firstworldproblems  I am going to give you a sneak peek but don't you dare count this post complete until part 2 where I hopefully unveil an amazing room of budget-friendly finds that you will instant buy plane tickets just to sleep in! lol.

I Dwell in Possibility

This is the first evening it feels like since Christmas that the house has truly been quiet. We got home from my parents to jump right back into school and then the boys and I got pretty sick so there went a week and a half, followed by our friend Daniel showing up to add a fourth bedroom in our upstairs for guests. I have missed church for almost a month with travel and illness, missed two bible studies, and am just now catching up on plans laid weeks ago. Somehow I got all the Christmas stuff packed and put away and even managed a hair cut this weekend so I am no longer shaggy. Jeremy is off to Home Depot with Daniel for a late night last minute supply run and I am just. . .taking. . .a. . .breath. Don't get me wrong, I actually got plenty of rest when I was sick but quiet time to write? zilch. Of course the new year brings resolutions and re-thinking about life etc but I feel I haven't had time to process and set goals like I usually do. I got one crazy idea which was to read all of the Penguin Classics. Did you know there are over 1,000? I read one of the initial 10 (Poet's Pub) picked to be in the first set of books published by the fledgling Penguin publishing house and it had a cool introduction that explained how Penguin publishing was formed and why. It was a quaint little English mystery that was charming though not witty and I thought "wouldn't it be fun to read them all"? I could keep a diary of my "road to being a well-read woman" and perhaps put it into book form. People do stuff like that all the time. Then I began doing a little research and realized that it could take me well over a decade to accomplish such a task. I found a complete set of them for a mere 13,000 dollars on Amazon. I used Wikipedia to look them up by author. There was something like 16 books by Dickens alone and others like Les Miserables are massive on their own, without being a collection like Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I began thinking of ground rules. They would either need to be free on Kindle or available from a library. Since some are out of print or not readily available they could be published by other companies as long as they were on the Penguin Classics list I don't care it would still count. I would count ones I was one hundred percent sure I had already read (hello Jane Austens) but re-read any I was not quite sure of. The list of rules began to get lengthy. I found a book from the title list at the library. (Flatland: by Edwin Abbott) So far it's an incredibly dry story of a two-dimensional world. Apparently, this book is sometimes used even today to introduce geometric concepts in intro classes. I.Hate.MAth. Why would I want to read a book about triangle vs pentagon characters? My sister says I shouldn't have to read the ones I don't like but I just couldn't claim to have read them all. . .but the handful I didn't like. Hmm, I think perhaps I have enough distracting me from being a good wife/mother without starting a project like that. Still I couldn't quite shake the idea so I'm not sure what I will be doing with it. Sit on it a while I guess.
     It feels so good to type! I am going to post about the new room soon but right now I am enjoying finally "processing" the start of the year. A goal I have wanted to set for this year is more scripture memorization. I was reminded of this by my friend Rose who is also setting out on a mission of memorization. Last year I did the book of James. I could still say half of it for sure but would need prompts to make it straight through. I enjoy memorizing in large chunks. A chapter at a time is perfect for me. I like a train of thought. This year I am challenging myself to separate verses. I'm not sure how many yet but they will include old and new testament favorites starting with some that I can quote but just need to learn the references for -isn't that sad that I can quote verses but not tell you where they are??? - and finishing with new ones that God brings to my attention one way or another throughout the year. (I haven't talked to Him about this yet but He is faithful and I will get some good ones I know!) For the spring I also want to go through a new study I got over Christmas called Why Do You Believe That? It is designed to help a person witness and be able to converse about their faith in a natural way. Sounds silly but if you have ever awkwardly tried to share something about your spiritual life and it came out all wrong. . .thinking of a time? me too. I will take something that will help me be articulate and kind. A struggle to this spring is that we are still looking for a home church. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record and I do have hope that we will settle into the current church we are attending but not having a "home" brings a frustration I've hardly ever had to deal with before. Our efforts to connect with a small group were thwarted by a crazy fall schedule including my brothers almost impromptu choice of surgery for the removal of his tumor. The church's lack of a women's ministry blocks my usual avenue of meeting people so it is harder to really get to know anyone but I feel the Lord is telling me to give this church some more time so that's what we will do.
     I have been doing SOME reading and finished a good parenting book called The Whole Brained Child. Really good info on how the brain works and ways to help your child navigate strong emotions and subsequent behaviors. I feel like life moves forward so fast I barely have time to evaluate where I am at before the whole parenting equation changes again. I'm back and forth between take it day-by-day and what about their future?!? I will never be perfect. That's always good to remember. *The next few sentences were written the next day because it got late and I got sleepy.* Oh yeah and another goal is 6 more songs for this year! Not to mention I am looking forward to my children turning 9, 6, and 2, plus Jeremy's and my TENTH anniversary. A true milestone. I bought a dress for a cruise. A girl can dream right?

Nature Walk

Our pet rabbit Nibbles went on a nature walk today. Somehow he stayed in the back yard. I came out of the house about 3:30 to get him fresh water and I spied a rabbit in the corner of my flower bed at the end of the yard! "wow" I thought, "Nibbles has a friend". It dawned on me almost simultaneously that it was not a wild rabbit at all but MY rabbit. I crept up to him talking soothingly and THANK HEAVENS he let me pick him right up and didn't make a run for it. I think he might have been a little scared and was glad to see me. I have no idea how he got out (I cared for him last so it must have been my bad) or how long he had been free but all is well that ends well I suppose! We really do love our bunny so very happy it was an easy rescue and that the two new neighbor cats that moved in over Christmas didn't find him.

Christmas 2012

I put an album up on facebook but still wanted to put the best shots from Christmas this year on the blog. We had our own little family Christmas on Christmas morning which was actually a lot more fun now the kids are old enough to really get into their presents. Furbies were the big score this year and Trinity and Blake were pretty excited when they opened them.



We kicked off our Christmases with Grandma Trudy the Saturday before and then joined Grandpa Ray and Grandma Sue later Christmas day. The day after Christmas we headed over to moms for our annual "snow time". The kids of course LOVE their snow time. I can't tell you how amazing it was every afternoon to lay isaac down for his nap and tell the kids to get out and stay out and they jumped to it!! sigh . . .it was wonderful that they were having the time of their lives with their cousins and I got to stay inside and quietly sip tea and visit with my mother.  Here are the photo higlights. =)