Random Happenings

The weeks are just flying by here, how about for you? 
This past weekend we had a birthday party for this little guy!  He just turned one.  Isn't he cute!  He makes me want another little one, but unless the Lord plans for that to happen...it won't be!!   So I just have to live vicariously through my sister, and enjoy her littlest one!  I hope she doesn't mind!!!

He had an adorable sock monkey party, my sister did an excellent job with it!   I took several pictures of him enjoying his cake, because like I said I have to live vicariously and I'm trying to fully learn my camera and it's settings! 

Here I am living vicariously again!!!!  We painted our house (walls) almost a year ago, I still haven't decorated most of the rooms.   I normally have to get something on the walls, because it drives me CRAZY to have them blank.  I think I've been pretty patient, trying to take it slowly and really make it how I want it!  So in turn, most of my rooms have NOTHING on the walls!  I'm always checking out things that I like to get ideas!  I think my sisters shelves are super cute!
The real reason I'm including this picture is because I chopped my hair off.  I'd been contemplating it for a while now... It's been cut over a week now, I'm still not sure I like it!   I like parts of it, but I wish it were a little longer around my ears, but it's hair and it will grow!  C'est la vie, right!

I did mention that this was random, right?!?!?!?!
  One of the things I love about homeschooling... If you're having a rough time with math, mom can make you a peach smoothie and put it in a special glass.  Doesn't everything seem better with a goblet???  Maybe that is just my philosophy!!! 
By the way my sister in law has the best smoothie recipe ever...some water, some milk, frozen fruit, and a little bit of sugar, that's it!  I use a little less than 1/4 cup for a whole blender, and a quart bag or so of fruit!  So easy, and we love it! 

What a great way to end a school day...poetry tea.  I didn't read poetry, a novel instead. The kids painted and had hot cocoa, while I read.  It was very relaxing, we need to do it more often! (We have really enjoyed our poetry teas this year,especially when we've read poetry!)  We wrote on paper with a white crayon then painted over it, simple but wonderful effect.

Football Party

All the way back in October we had a birthday party for my hubby and his brother.  They have birthdays just a few days apart.  They both love football, especially Notre Dame. (for some crazy reason!!!)  After looking around on Pinterest I decided a football party would be easy to pull off!
 We had an easy menu of brats, hot dogs, and BBQ pork sandwiches.  I found this neat "snackadium" on Pinterest.  I knew I had to make it,  it looked so cool!  I made mine a little different, but with the same idea!  I borrowed these cute little white trays from my sil, thanks Megan!  If you look at the original you can see they had a large guacamole "field" and end zones that are cheese and salsa.  Only a few of those attending will eat guacamole so I didn't want a whole field of it!  I didn't want the poor avocados to feel bad, so my field and end zones were all the same size...I think it still turned out cool!
The original had bacon wrapped hot dogs around the field, since we were already eating hot dogs I didn't want more hot dogs around the field.  It also wasn't a super healthy meal so I put carrots and celery around the field, to give us a little serving of veggies.  I used carrots and celery for players too.  We bought some brown cardstock and used that to help hold the chips,or fans, in!  The fans were potato chips,tortilla chips,Doritos, and crunchy Cheetos.  We used Slim Jim's for the goal posts.  Multiple times the fans got a little rowdy resulting in tearing down the goal posts!!  =)
The only thing I forgot was to put sour cream yard lines on the field.   This was really easy and would be awesome at any football themed party, or for the Superbowl.

  I wanted the feel of a real football game, which makes me think of hot dogs and beer! We don't drink, so instead we had IBC root beer!
Strawberry footballs, and apples with caramel were our fruit!

Brie looked at a picture of the Notre Dame Leprechaun and then drew it by hand!  I was impressed, I thought she did a great job! 

I forgot to take a picture of the dessert table!  We had football brownies, football sugar cookies, gold football helmet sugar cookies,and football Oreo truffles!  My mil made the boy's favorite dessert~ lemon lush. (among other things)  (thanks Jeanne!)  It was a footballtastic night! 

State study part 2

We finished up our state study with a visit to Indy. We made a side stop in Wabash. Our state song is "On the Banks of the Wabash,Far Away." We wanted to check out the river that inspired our state song. (Here are the lyrics, interesting song!) Mark and I both wanted to stay in Wabash, what a beautiful little town! We read the lyrics of the song, and then walked down a nice little path to the river. It was a beautiful way to start our morning!


















We quickly got back on the road and went to The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum. (I love cars!) It was a lot of fun to see them up close! I think it would be a lot more fun to drive them though! We each picked our favorite car, but of course I didn't take a picture of the favorites! Titus was a little upset that he couldn't get inside all of them! I hope someday we can actually go to a race. We are not race fans, but to hear the sounds would be really impressive, I'm sure.














We finished out our study by stopping in at Johnny Appleseed park in Fort Wayne. We read several stories about Johnny before we got there. It seemed like a nice little park. We didn't spend much time there though, we were all tired, it was HOT, and Titus had hives. It was a quick little stop, we checked out his grave marker and went home! It was a long day, but we had a good time, and learned a few things too.

Logan

The first time I met you I think you were 7...I was 19. I immediately fell in love with you. I was dating your wonderful uncle at the time! I remember thinking I hope I have a beautiful little blond girl just like you! (The Lord blessed me with that beautiful little blond girl!!!!)
Logan, I can't believe you're 19. You've grown into a beautiful young lady, we are very proud of you! I can still remember going off by ourselves and playing, shopping trips, staying up late talking. (times I'll always cherish!) I love who you are, your sarcasm and sense of humor. You are an amazing girl, I hope your second year of college goes as well as your first! Happy Birthday Logan!

The pictures are from a little party we had for her! (Brie made everyone place cards!)

Easter Party

Easter is my very favorite holiday. It is such a humbling thing for me to think about. I love being able to focus on what Jesus did for me. What God did for me (for everyone) by sending his one and only son to suffer. Something I don't deserve,and can never be good enough for. Something he didn't have to do, but because he loves me he did. What an amazing God I serve!

I decided to have an Easter party! It was lots of fun! Here you can see our simple spread! Sandwiches, Chex mix, fruit and dip, hard boiled eggs (dyed of course!) and donuts for dessert!

Zeke asked if our glasses were plastic...I laughed and showed him that they make "music", proving they're not plastic! They both tried to make music, but it didn't work for them.

Before Mark came home from work I decided to take some pictures of the kids in all their finery! If you're wondering what's up with Zeke in these photos, while I was getting dressed Zeke and Brie were playing wheelbarrow... he fell and hurt his rib. Don't you just love Reuben's expression!

Reuben had his first ear infection this week. Titus was looking in Zeke's ear saying I think you have an ear infection! Too funny!

Here he is trying to get a closer look, to confirm his diagnosis!

And here are all 4 of them looking towards the camera! I am so amazingly blessed! Look at those gorgeous faces! I look at their faces and it takes me back to what my savior did for me. Something so amazing, something I can never repay, something I don't deserve,but something he did anyway. I LOVE YOU LORD JESUS! Happy Easter everyone!

Busy,Busy,Busy!

I've had so many things I've wanted to share here. I enjoy blogging, but I have this little problem....



I know he looks really cute, and don't get me wrong he is, but he gives the word busy a whole new take!


I started a post about unit studies, he shut down my computer! I restarted it and sat down to keep working on it, had to get up to clean up a mess, he published it, but it wasn't done, so I deleted it. (because I didn't know how to remove it without deleting it!)


The mess I had to clean up...some people have mice, I have a boy named Reuben!

(I know it's hard to see the hole.)



I could tell that he was in my lazy Susan. I should have gotten up right away, but I didn't. After a few minutes he had bitten a hole in the bag of sugar and had some on the rug. I cleaned it up, shook my rug out and put the bags high up on the counter. I still had a bag of brown sugar under the lazy Susan, well after I sat back down it wasn't 5 more minutes and he had the brown sugar bitten into, all over himself and the rug! (I had forgotten it was down there)

(sorry it's a bad picture!)


He also really likes light switches. He drags any chair he can get a hold of to the nearest light switch. I'm considering bolting the furniture to the floor! =)
He sure is keeping me on my toes! I'm hoping that I will be able to get back to some regular postings soon!

My latest happenings...

It has been a long time since I've posted, and I've missed it,I've missed reading others blogs too. Unfortunately this is just a quick update, I will still be missing for a while. I don't think I've ever been this busy, I'm ready for a break!

I still have Oregon pictures I haven't shared, maybe this fall!!

I've been madly working on school curriculum. We are doing unit studies this year, very excited about it. I can't wait to start, which is just a few weeks away for us!

I started cleaning out my trees, BIG, HUGE job! It will be worth it when it's done. (Having my second run of poison ivy, because of it,so it better be worth it! )
*Before*


*After, with tons of work still left to do!* (but I hope you get the idea!)



We are having a new driveway put in. It has been so much fun to watch. I'm very thankful to my cousin Josh, my Uncles Steve,Dan,Jerry,and my Mom and Dad. They are working so hard! It looks sooo different, I can't wait to see it finished!

*Before (we had cut a few trees down, in preparation) (Thanks Dad and Shawn for cutting them down)




Starting to take the trees out!

Ahhhh, the tree's are disappearing...

Here are some pictures I took of hubby's side of the family! They did a great job!

I'm looking forward to things calming down and being able to post regularly!