"P" is for Paige

I made this pillow for a little sweetie who just turned one.


And "P" is for Prayer


Here's a great prayer calendar that I found over on one of my favorite blog sites. You can click on it to enlarge it.

Scissors, Stabbings and Snow

We HAD to get out today! Okay, I had to get out today. With all of our regular family activities (church and school) cancelled, we've been feeling a little cooped up here at home. Since schools are cancelled for the week up here, I thought it might be a good idea to have some school activities on hand. We tried a few this morning, and here's how it went...as I had Caleb on my lap helping him with something, Lily let out a scream because Gracie had grabbed Jared's scissors and was stabbing the top of Lily's head with them. By the time I was able to get Caleb off of my lap and reach across the table to grab the scissors from Gracie, she had opened them and was trying to cut the hair off of the top of Lily's head. This is one of the many reasons I discourage myself from homeschooling.


Mmmm...snow! I do feed my children.


Can you see Lily's little head as she trots up the driveway?

Lately I've been enjoying...

*sitting on my couch, staring out the window at all of our snow

*playing games with my boys. Our favorites are Guess Who?, Clue Jr. and Sorry

*organizing the basement with Phil, while the kids play around us

*folding the day's laundry in the evening while sipping Good Earth tea

*driving in the snow--especially when it seems a bit dangerous. It gives me that "driving on empty" kind of feeling

*when sunshine pours through my kitchen windows

Cuties and Freebies

I got this for free from our Christian bookstore today!


It didn't take the girls very long to catch on...they started dancing as soon as they saw Gigi in her tutu.


At one point in the movie, I noticed Gracie on the floor trying to do the splits like Gigi. That's when Phil ran to get the camera.


I also got this for free:


So we'll start working on the Fruit of the Spirit during our devotional time after dinner.

Just Bein' Neighborly

One of the things I love about Phil is that he has a big heart, and he's always willing to help others. The snow just hasn't let up, so he went outside to shovel several of our neighbors' sidewalks and driveways.


Here he is two houses up the street, practically in their backyard shoveling the snow.


Jared watches from the window. What a fine example his daddy is to him.


Come visit anytime, but call ahead so we can be sure to shovel a path up to our door.

Snowed In

We've had so much snow within the last 24 hours that our church services were cancelled this morning. We had our own little Sunday school class here at home instead.


First the kids listened to a story about a brother and a sister sharing with each other.


Next we had our Bible story about the little boy who shared his lunch of bread and fish with Jesus.



The kids made these baskets with fish and bread for craft time.


Then Mommy shared what was in her lunchbox--goldfish crackers and slices of bread. (Yes, I'm still in my jammies!)


Then we were off to play outside in the snow! Phil made a great hill for sledding out of our old snowfort.

Caleb's Special Time

Caleb's my little night owl. He still needs his afternoon nap to make it through the day, but it means that he's up a little bit later than his brother and sisters. Every Saturday night I make mini blueberry muffins for our Sunday morning breakfast, and sometime in the evening my sweet boy will wander out of his room to join me in the kitchen for a muffin and a cup of milk. Our little tradition started about a year ago. One night, while in his bed, he could smell muffins baking. I found him peeking into the kitchen and I couldn't resist offering one to him. Now we call it our Special Time.

Nana's Book

This is something I found while unpacking my boxes of books. My mom made this for me a couple of years ago.




Blake is my sister Lizzie's little boy.


Let me add here that Jared is wearing a new pair of jeans! :)


Going to Nana's house can be so much fun!


The girls were only a few weeks old. Gracie's on the left, and Lily's on the right. These dresses were made by a friend.

Old Friends

We still have many, many boxes to unpack from our move, but one thing we were able to do this afternoon was unpack several boxes of books. As I unpacked these boxes, it reminded me of the feeling I would get as I sorted through our boxes of baby clothes in order to get ready for the next baby, ooh-ing and aah-ing. Most of our books have been packed away for over 6 years. It was good to see them again. They're like old friends to me.


I doubt Phil feels the same way about some of these textbooks, though. By the way, Phil wanted me to mention to all of the former Meteor Ranch staff that he ran into Steve Hubbard at Bible study last night.


This is totally off the subject, but I just had to post this adorable picture taken yesterday of Caleb. He loves wearing his Daddy's snow boots.

Good Morning!

I didn't take any pictures of the kids in their new jammies last night. Here are a few from this morning. Jared had already gotten dressed--he's such a responsible young man!


One of my projects for the day will be to clean out a few bookcases, but Gracie's eager to help me load them up with books.


Lily thought she'd read Curious George while sister watches it on T.V.


Duck, Duck, Goose anyone? Lily wanted to wear Jared's Cubbie vest this morning, Caleb didn't want to take off his new jammie shirt, and Gracie didn't want to wear a shirt at all.

Has This Ever Happened to You?

Warning: you're supposed to say, "No, Jenny, of course not! Stuff like this only happens to you." I want pity here, okay?

While I was giving my girls a bath tonight, Jared had a terrible bloody nose. It was one of those where dark red blood gushes out of the nose and mouth all over the place. While helping him, I glanced over to the tub and noticed poop floating around in the tub with the girls and their bath toys! YIKES! I grabbed the girls, and they ran off undressed and un-potty trained. You can probably see where this is going. After I cleaned Jared up I took care of the tub, the toys and the floating objects, refilled the tub and then called the girls to get back into the tub. Surprisingly, they came the first time I called.

A few minutes ago (it's about 10:00 p.m. now) I went downstairs to turn off the light in the playroom. It was there I noticed a large wet spot on the carpet. You guessed it! It was only sitting there for about 4 hours. YUCK! We have hardwood floors in every room of our house except for in the playroom downstairs. I'm laughing about it, but I would still welcome your comments of "Wow...nobody has it as hard as you," etc.

New Jammies

Here I was blogging about our very, very cold weather, and the UPS man rang the doorbell to drop off our new jammies. I ordered these 2 weeks ago from Disney.com. They were between $4.00 and $5.00 a pair! Phil just informed me that it was "1 below" when we dropped Jared off at school this morning!

BRRR!

I woke up at 7:00 this morning and it was 2 degrees outside!

A Fun-Filled Day

We had the BEST DAY ! We left the house this morning and headed for Toys 'R Us so the kids could spend their Christmas and birthday gift cards from family. One of the things we chose is the game Twister. As you can see, the kids enjoyed playing tonight before bed. Gracie had to be in charge of the spinner, of course.


We also stopped by Krispy Kreme to watch them make doughnuts. While we were there, the kids talked us into buying a few. :)

The girls fell asleep in the car on the way home, so Phil was able to go into Lowe's to buy our Spring Eve paint (thank you for your votes). Since the girls were able to get a little nap in, we decided it would be safe to stop at Riverfront Park and use up our free passes for miniature golf and hot chocolate. The kids LOVED golfing! After golfing we sat and drank our hot chocolate and watched the ice skaters in the skating rink.

We made such sweet memories today!

Our Dilemma

We took down our horrid fluorescent light fixture in the kitchen to replace it with softer track lighting. This is what we found underneath the old light fixture. We decided to touch it up with the green paint left by the previous owners. Phil brought in the paint and used a little bit behind the kitchen door. Look what we discovered:


Yikes! The green paint that was left behind is the green on the cabinets...not the walls! So it's off to Lowe's!


Two and a half hours later, Phil came home with these and said, "Here, pick one."


What do you think? I'm thinking it's Spring Eve on top. Anyone want to help me out and vote for one? I tried to take the picture with the flash, but it made the wall look white. Hey! That would have been much easier...white walls to begin with!

The Complete Jane Austen

I'm so excited! PBS' Masterpiece Theatre is airing The Complete Jane Austen on Sunday nights. I wasn't able to watch last Sunday night when they aired Persuasion, but here's the schedule:

January 20~~Northanger Abbey
January 27~~Mansfield Park
February 3~~Miss Austen Regrets
February 10, 17, 24~~Pride and Prejudice
March 23~~Emma
March 30 and April 6~~Sense and Sensibility

Any other Jane Austen fans out there?

A Day at the Office

...the doctor's office, that is. We spent our entire morning in a doctor's office. Phil's class did their pediatric practice exams today. Each student had to examine 2 children, so our kids, among the other students' kids, were "models" for these exams.

The kids were paid $5.00 for each exam. Jared and Caleb each sat through 3 exams, and the girls sat through 2 exams. So yes, our kids made $50.00 today! They had a great time running around with the other kids, watching movies and coloring while waiting for their "appointments." At one point, I found Gracie in an elevator pressing buttons, and speaking with someone over the intercom. YIKES! I'm just so thankful that the doors didn't close with her inside. She was only out of my sight for less than a minute. Boy these kids move fast!

New Blog Feature

I've added a new feature to my blog...mostly for Grandmas and Aunties. I'll post pictures of Jared's preschool activities and crafts in the right column of my blog. Jared goes to school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so be watching for his work!

Eeeewwww!!!

It was never my intention to use my blog to complain about things, but I simply must! I went to get my hair cut and eyebrows waxed this afternoon. My "stylist" complained of hot flashes and kept taking off layers of clothing. That's not so bad, but she ended up clipping the hair clips to the top of her pants so that half of the clips were touching the inside of her low-rise pants...yuck! Remember, she was having hot flashes and sweating profusely.

And THEN we went back to the sinks for the waxing. She went to the back room quickly and then came back saying, "Okay, that's much better. I saw blood and didn't know where it was coming from. Then I noticed that I lost my SCAB on my finger." She had gone to the back to put a Band-Aid on her finger.

So the whole time she's waxing my eyebrows I'm wondering if I have her scab in my hair! Is it just me, or is this grossing anybody else out?

As Requested...

Here's the "after the haircuts" photo.

More Fun with Our New Letters

Phil put the letters up in their room last night before dinner.


Corinne even sent an envelope for Boz!

And here's a little something extra: this morning Lily heard me say the word "haircut," so while I was downstairs getting the clippers, she dragged a chair over to the sink and sat down in it.


Here she is waiting for me.