A Mother's Helper

Have y'all heard of this??

Basically, it's simply a younger lady that comes into your home and gives you a hand here and there, while you are home.  We have had the pleasure of having a 13yo young lady stay with us the past two days, while my husband & I have been busy priming the downstairs drywall (still in process - LONG process!).

What a blessing!!  Not only can we work on our project while the kids are taken care of upstairs, but my children are very much enjoying their new playmate ~ they have been playing all sorts of games:  Wii games, dress up, princess stories, cars & trucks.....it's all new when you've got another creative, imaginative friend to play with!

(photo by Isaac ~ he loves his lil' brother so much)

This young lady is quite responsible for a 13yo ~ she is the daughter of my lovely friend IRL, Leanne.  She has a beautiful family and she is quite the role model for me (homeschooling, mother of many, godly daughter of the King).  I am blessed to know her~

Thanks Leanne~

Life Goes On~

Ok, here we have the results of giving a 2 year old boy a GREEN-dyed chocolate frosting, chocolate cupcake.

Oh. my. goodness.

This really speaks for itself, eh?

My children's favorite house guest of the last week.

Razor.

If we could ever find such a wonderful dog, we would adopt him immediately.

Immediately.  Great dog!

Talitha Elizabeth's hair all curled for Christmas Eve service.

Obviously, I'm never letting her out of the house, right?!

~Beautiful~

Dean doing his fatherly duty - putting together toys for Christmas!

Another Daddy-assembled Christmas gift.

BUMBLEBEE!!

Man, those transformers are actually pretty hard to...um...transform ~ he's gettin' it though.

He also got SoundWave - Decepticons, Mobilize!!

Elijah had a rough morning - just tired and cranky - but he did love his new dinosaur w/ the Hot Wheel City.

There were a few homemade items as well.

Tali got a matching hat & scarf (I'm still not finished with the mittens - they're adorable!)

Our family is now properly decked out in OSU attire - thanks to Grammy!

Even lil' Micah in his new OSU bib ~ he thoroughly enjoyed his very first Christmas morning!!

Life goes on.  We are now in the cleaning up process.  My dh is spackling and painting the many spots on our walls.  I am taking down decorations and I *seriously* need to dust!!  No, seriously.  wow.

MANY, many thanks go out to my wonderful mil - she cooked, made candy, caramel corn, buckeyes, banana pudding......she also spent a whole evening with all my kiddos so Dean & I could have a date night.  Whoo-hoo!!  Go Grammy!!  Well, Kenni helped out too....;)

Life goes on.  We are starting the Wii Active (one of our Christmas gifts, along with more controllers, covers, batteries and a 4-pack charger) 30 Day Challenge.  Eating less is still VERY difficult.  It is something I did NOT do well at during some of our Christmas celebrations.  Yet this *is* something we are committed to doing.  I just get up each day and start again.  Whether I've messed up or not.  I just start each day in prayer, committing it to God and asking for HIS power to help me.  I *so* can't do this on my own.

So that's it.  Party at our house New Year's Eve.  Football game at a friend's house New Year's Day.  Then hubby attends a conference and the kids & I get back on the hs'ing train......Life goes on.

And it is a GOOD life~

Changing how we eat....

My husband has been talking to a great friend from our church about how to implement some real changes to the way we eat.  How to be intentional about eating healthy.  Here is a part of his most recent letter:

It is hard. It is totally opposite as to your lifestyle. It is simple. You will be very disappointed as to how much food you will NOT consume. 


Seriously - this is true.  At least, I'm finding it to be true, as I am just beginning to make these changes.  Compared to how much I *was* eating each day - I eat hardly ANYTHING (or so it seems).  Yet I am satisfied - not hungry.  I was just eating way too much.



....very disappointed.....yes, I am.  Or rather, was.  I'm working on it.....



p.s.  if you are this friend's wife, I hope it was okay that I posted this anonymously.  It just really struck me - actually the whole email did.  Thanks so much~

~Tour de Basement~

We start our tour at the top of the steps, looking down (of course).

At the bottom of the steps - Welcome to your home!

Ok, it's still fairly messy - here's the t.v./living area.

And on the other side of the columns, the office/living space.

Two cute children in between columns....

This photo is entitled, "Where is the fireplace?"

(they're supposed to look cold)  ;)

The French doors

Again, a bit messy, but here's looking into the kitchen.

A little closer:  Isaac is in the doorway to the utility/laundry room.

Selah is in the opening to the hallway.

Tali is the kitchen pantry.

And look!  There's your refrigerator (Isaac) and your stove (Selah).

Now we're headed into the bathroom.

(notice the lack of ceiling - this is the drop ceiling part)

Also, the door to the bathroom - from the hallway - is a pocket door.  Cool!

The tub - the only part of the bathroom that's finished - the rest comes later.

Here we are in the bedroom.

Isaac & Tali are pointing behind them to Papa's closet.

Selah is standing near the circuit box area.

That space is going to be for the tall chest of drawers - with the bedroom t.v on top.

Here is the bedroom doorway to the hallway (taken from in front of the bedroom window)

The other doorway is a pocket door that leads back to the bathroom.

And that is the progress from today (Monday).  I didn't show the laundry room - there was some confusion and it wasn't drywalled today.  Hopefully, they can do that tomorrow - looks like there is plenty of drywall left, so we'll see.....

Hope to see even more progress over the next few days - I wonder how far they'll get before Christmas & New Year's???

It's a GIVEAWAY!

Not by me ~ I'm just blogging about it (ya know, for another entry!).

This giveaway is actually on MckMama's blog, My Charming Kids.  It's my first time visiting, but I'm sure I'll be back!

And it's for one of these:

an HP TouchSmart 600 PC

Go HERE, check it out, then enter for your *own* chance to win.  I figure SOMEONE'S gotta win - might as well give it a shot - nothing to lose~

Have FUN & Good Luck~

More basement pics

First comes a big ol' truck parked on the side lawn.

It picks up the drywall, with this HUGE crane, then swings it around to the back of the house.

The men then unload it, one piece at a time.

We've now got a *bunch* of drywall in the basement ~ hope they can get started on Monday!

The ceiling insulation went up yesterday (Friday).

I'm amazed at how much of a sound barrier that is.  We went downstairs (while the baby was crying - he was just fussing cause he didn't want to go to bed, don't freak out!).  While down there, we couldn't hear ANYTHING.  I was worried about sound, but I really think it's gonna be just fine ~ amazing!

Inspections to date:  rough plumbing, rough electric, mechanical & building.

There's A LOT of little details, specific codes, that you must adhere to.  It's crazy!!

Ok, more pics to come this week (walls!!!!) ~YEAH~

Some random pics from life

Look at these Pull-Apart Buns!

Yes, they taste FABULOUS!  (at least, my kiddos think so)

Here are the "clover-buns" ready to go in the oven

(they might have risen *just* a bit too much)

Yet they tasted great anyway!
(notice I couldn't even get a pic before someone came and grabbed one)

A new place for our stockings

Isaac was having fun taking pics of Micah

It seems we always have a pic of the newest baby under the Christmas tree~

He's really crawling now!!

(Again, photo by Isaac ~ he just loves his lil' brother)

Here's a pic of Tali with her newly cut bangs.

She was really nervous ~ yet everyone has told her how much they like 'em, so she's happy now.  I had them cut so maybe she would stop twirling and damaging her hair in front.  She is still twirling, yet she does larger sections in the back, which just curl her hair - rather than knot up small sections like she used to do, which would break her hair off.  She's adorable!

Lastly, here's one of the Jr. High gals ~ who likes to carry around and take care of my babies.

It is such a blessing when I am being pulled in five different directions at church.

This is Jeni's middle child and I just love her!!

That's all the random photos for now.  More of the basement remodel soon....