Wedding

One of my sisters was married yesterday. I still can't believe Steph is married. Seems like just yesterday I was bringing friends into my house to show off my tiny newborn sister (before going to watch Top Gun at the theater LOL)

Here is Steph.


Here is my baby sister with the flower girls.


Here is another pic of the flower girls. Anybody who follows my sewing blog knows who made those dresses ;)


There are nine grandsons in my family, and three granddaughters. These are the granddaughters. Harlie, Riley and Sadie. Out of all 12 grandchildren, only the girls were born with black hair (and all three a lot of it).


And my fam. Missing is my older brother and another younger sister, her husband and their three boys. I have four sisters, and two brothers in case you didn't know that. I love the candid pictures best, when everybody is not looking at the camera.

Tin Can Lanterns

If last weeks art project was a disaster, this weeks made up for it! This was the coolest project! You fill a tin can with water and let it freeze. Take a hammer and nail and pound out a design (and two holes to hold the wire handle). Run hot water to get the ice out, and add a candle! Unless, like me, you think it's crazy to give kids real candles. A few weeks ago, I happened to find little Halloween lights that are made to go in pumpkins so I bought some knowing this project was coming up. They flicker just like candle light. Isaac did a dinosaur design while Elijah and Sam did sharks.

Yup, I'm One of Those Moms...

...pierced ears before she even hit her first birthday. Even before I had any children, I always knew if I ever had a daughter I would want to get her ears pierced as an infant. Jeremiah was fine with it, obviously, or I would never have done it. When I walked in the store I wasn't quite sure I was ready to do it, but the ladies were so reassuring, and confident. They assured me they do babies as young as two months all the time. For her first earrings, I picked out her birth stone (I had already decided on that months ago). They marked her ears, and did both at the same time. She cried for like two seconds and was cooing and smiling by the time we left the store.

An Outift for Every Occasion

Yesterday, I brought Sadie with me for my walk (love that Ergo). Of course, she had to put on her exercise clothes-right down to the shoes- even though she slept the whole time.



Today, one of Jeremiah's co-workers invited us to his farm that happens to be just a couple miles away. It was so much fun. They have horses, cows and chickens. Elijah even got to gather eggs. They made dinner, and brought us on a hay ride. So, what does a fashionable baby wear to a farm? Red gingham of course! Jeremiah didn't understand why red gingham works with a farm....men.

Art

This weeks art project was called a "catch all". It involved wrapping a paper bowl in yarn to make a basket. I made one yesterday to see how difficult this was because it seemed a little bit much for young kids. After I made one myself, I did feel it was a bit too hard for the boys and was going to skip this lesson but they had already saw me making one and insisted on doing it. The boys started out eagerly enough, after all it involves glue and they love anything that involves glue. Isaac actually ended up in tears because he couldn't get it right, but I finally convinced him to just do his best and not worry about doing it wrong. In the end, they had fun because ,after all, it did involve glue. However, I would say this is more of a 10 years old and up thing for anybody interested.

Speaking of Art, I brought our 4 month old piece of God's handiwork to her checkup today. She weighs 11 pounds 8 ounces, still chugging along in the 5-10 percentile. She is 24 inches long. She was quite charming and smiley to everybody and got fussed over appropriately.

Four Sweet Months

It feels like I just wrote a post for Sadie turning 3 months! Sadie started rolling over a few weeks ago. Only Elijah rolled over earlier than that. I was surprised, I thought girls tended to do the physical things later. She also loves to be in the saucer. She has really started to notice the boys lately and watch them, and the best place to do that is the saucer. She doesn't have her 4 month checkup until Friday, so I'm not sure about her size. She is getting sweeter and more smiley by the day, and we just love her to bits.

Crayon Muffins

This year I moved Art to Friday figuring it would be a nice way to end the week. Last week the boys did "remembrance collages". They were supposed to think of a person and make a collage of pictures that remind them of that person. They kept changing their mind about the person, and eventually just ended up cutting out pictures that they liked. You can't dictate art, right?

Today we did "crayon muffins". This involves melting down crayon pieces (which we had plenty of) and pouring the wax into muffin tins to make big crayons. The best part of this project is how long the boys were occupied ripping the paper off the bits of crayons and sorting them by colors. A great way to use all those broken crayons.

Too Funny

Everywhere we go, people comment on my childrens lack of red hair. Maybe this is what they expect my babies to look like.

A Milestone!

Thanks to the tiniest little Ouchless ponytail holders, Sadie was sporting her first ponytail today! Nobody else in our home really shared my enthusiasm so I thought I would share it with the internet.

Can you see it?

School

Three days of school in so far. It's going really well. I was pregnant for pretty much the whole school year last year, and I forgot how much more patience and energy I have when I'm not pregnant. I was pretty nervous about teaching more than one this year, but I actually like it better. Isaac always had a hard time concentrating when his brothers where off playing, so he tends to relax when they are at the table with him.

Another good choice was not to buy a curriculum. We were given some really good materials last year, so I'm taking what I like out of those as well as finding things to supplement them. So all in all, I think we're all enjoying school so far.

I did start Sam in kindergarten this year along with Elijah. He is holding his own. I do cut him some slack but I think he will do okay.

This morning when Elijah answered a question really well I felt like saying "good job! 5 points for Gryffindor"

Back to Muggle Land

Not that any of you probably noticed, but I have scarcely been at the computer these last two weeks. I have been reading all seven of the Harry Potter books, I finished the last one at 4:00 a.m. this morning (yes, it was that good!) I have been wanting to see what all the fuss was about for years, but I am glad I waited because I would of went crazy waiting over a year between books! Like I said, my motivation was primarily to see what all the fuss was about as most of my favorite bloggers have read the series (and I am so grateful to all of them for not letting any spoilers slip). Seems that people either loved the books, or they think Harry Potter is the devil in disguise (ironically, usually those same people like LOTR) and I wanted to see for myself.

I did not expect to enjoy them so much! I do not remember caring about fictional characters so much since I read the Anne of Green Gables series way back in Jr. High. And I guess this shows how old I'm getting, but the character I identified the most with was Mrs. Weasly! :D Wouldn't it be nice to be able to send a howler once in awhile?

I can't think of a better way to end my summer then having two weeks of such enjoyable reading. I think I have mentioned before that sometimes I wish you could erase books from your brain just so you could read them again for the first time.

I finished just in time to get everything ready for school tomorrow. Yup, we're starting school tomorrow.