The Girls' Room

The only before picture I have of the girls' room is from when I first walked through the house.  So here's their room about a month before we bought the house:

That's a queen sized bed - it's a smallish room.  The previous owners sure loved their orange!

We painted the walls and had the carpet replaced before we moved in.  Girly-A had been sleeping in her crib-turned-toddler-bed, but I didn't think we really needed to set that up again, so she just got her mattress on the floor for a few weeks  months. :)  The girls had a big double-wide dresser in here at one point, but I knew it wasn't going to work in the long run - too big for such a small room - so I trucked it downstairs and the mess finally motivated me to get going on my grand plans to modify our bunkbeds. 

 So here it is!  It was clean one day for about a minute, so I took pictures super fast.  :)  I chopped the legs down on the bottom bed to make the whole thing lower, and built a new footboard for the top bed for easy access.  The headboard on the top bed is the original, tied into the bottom bunk in the back corner and a leg-extension there by the window which goes down to the floor and is screwed to the bottom beds' frame for extra stability.  [Nice run on sentence, eh?]  The little reading lights are from Ikea.  I had to drive to Utah to get them, but it was worth it. (j/k - I was there for my brothers wedding, not Ikea's lighting options!)

I made the stair case bookshelf out of scraps in my garage.  Ugh, working with scraps is obnoxious.  But at least it's free!!  The kids helped with the painting:

 We painted the shelf, attached it to the bed and filled it with books and stuff.  Girly-A gets the top bunk and loves it.  :)  See??  Remember the balusters in the living room?  I made that little round table for K-lady with one of them.  It's pretty useless - kind of wobbly and too small for much.  But it holds the chalk for the chalkboard. :)

The wonky tree is a vinyl set from Target - I modified it as I put it up to make it go over the chalkboard; hence the wonkiness.  The chalkboard was a cheapo mirror from a Family Dollar - chalkboard spray paint was a big improvement.  And that's K-lady's reading nook next to her bed, taken over, as usual, by stuffed animals.  

We bought them a new dresser - I actually bought new wood furniture.  And nearly choked on the price tag for a cheaply-built-MDF dresser.  But it fit the space, and I don't like building drawers.  They scare me.   

The butterflies were cut out of cardstock w/ the cricut.  They were attached w/ glue dots, but the changing humidity made them fall off -- it was kind of funny to see 'dead' butterflies all over the floor, window blinds and bunkbeds.  I got out my little hand staple gun and made sure they wouldn't fall off again.  A nice headache for the next time we decide to paint. :)

The best part of the room?  Definitely the cute girls who share it.  

School Days

School started too early this year!  The kids started school while I was filling in at Joseph's office so it was a crazy time.  I have nothing but utmost respect for working mothers - that is one hard lifestyle!!!  I'm grateful I get to be a stay-at-home-mom most of the time.  It's so good to be there to drop off and pick up and run around, but most importantly BE HOME with them.  

So here they are - squinting into the early morning light with rather unflattering pictures, but I did actually take them on the first day of school!!!  

Yow!  How did I get a FOURTH grader??!!

 Do you like J-boy's Christmas green-and-red socks with his sandals??  He's always had his own sense of style....

 Little Girly-A is doing preschool at a sweet local Christian church MWF for 3 hours in the morning.  She's loving it.  We got out K-lady's 4T clothes that had been in storage for 5 years, and seeing Girly-A wear K-lady's clothes to preschool (the same ones K-lady wore to her preschool!) is sending me into crazy flashbacks.  I thought K-lady was such a big girl when she was 4 going to preschool (probably because I had a 2 year old and was pregnant at the time...).  But Girly-A is such a little half-pint to me.  Makes me think that maybe I've been making K-lady grow up way faster than she needed to.  Time to slow that down for sure!!!  

 Grandpa and Grandma L made the 2-hour-one-way drive to go to the kids school for Grandparents Day.

We all did little art projects and ice cream the school supplied.  It was a smashing success.

 J-boy had specifically requested that they bring him some goat milk - he was terribly pleased that they remembered!  We had strawberry- and chocolate-flavored goat milk for a snack as soon as we got home, then sent Grandma and Grandpa on their way back home - they had to get home and milk those goats again!!  :) 

Damage Control

Sweet Baby A decided to give herself a trim a few weeks ago - here she is, hiding her face in shame. Her hair was finally long enough to just tuck behind her ears (she yanks out pony tails and barrettes and headbands, so tucking behind the ears was actually a really good option.)  And then she gave herself a mullet.  I think this is a first for our family - I don't remember J-boy or K-lady getting fancy w/ the scissors.

I tried to clean it up a bit - curly hair can be so forgiving... But I sure missed her long pretty curls.

We needed to get Baby A a passport, and I decided it would just be easier to take the picture myself. Nope. :) Lesson learned.

Social Skills

1 - Approach the situation defensively with trepidation and suspicion.  Growl a little.  :)
2 - once you realize it's safe, a little game of...
3 - peek-a-boo will quickly break down the barriers.
4 - identify head, shoulders, knees, toes, eyes, ears, mouth & nose (the essentials).
5 - your new friend has passed the test - seal the deal with a hug.

Just because

I think she's cute....

Go Buckeyes!!

Joseph and I went to the SHOE!

We attended our first (and, honestly, probably last) OSU football game in October. It was really fun -- the stadium is GINORMOUS, the fans are infectious and the marching band is AMAZING. And the football team was pretty good, too. :) There were a few LONG passes for touchdowns that were pretty exciting. And we won by a landslide. It was a little on the chilly side, but my smart husband had a blanket handy and enough cash to buy us some hot chocolate.

The kids stayed home with Aunt Heather, though they wanted to come and cheer on the buckeyes! This is Baby A's Halloween costume - she and I had nasty colds so we stayed home from the trunk-or-treat, but I dressed her up to take a picture anyway. Don't mind the spaghetti sauce on her cheeks. Just keepin' it real.

Little Pay Day

Today I was going to sneak in to Baby A's room while she was napping to grab a few diapers for my bag. I peaked through the door, and saw her laying peacefully in her crib, playing with her little taggie blanket and jabbering at herself. I love that.

And then tonight, J-boy started singing the song I've been TRYING to teach him in Primary (I'm the children's chorister at church now). We were eating dinner, and he just busted out in his squeaky little boy soprano: "I Feel My Savior's Love in all the world around me! His Spirit warms my soul through everything I see." His squeaky little boy soprano has been driving me crazy lately (MOM! Dan I-dan I- dan I - MOM! Dan I have dookies? MOM! I want a dookie! MOM! Dookie please!!!!! Please please please please please??!!!! MOM!!!!!), so it was nice to hear something sweet coming from his vocal chords. :)

BIG & little

The past few months have brought us several transformations - some big, and some little.  

I made my first solo batch of freezer jam.  There's just something wonderful about freezer jam...  It's probably that there's just as much sugar as there is fruit.  The berries here didn't come from the raspberry patch by the shop (ah, Washington!  My home!), but they did make tasty jam.
Ms. K lost her first tooth!  It was quickly followed by baby tooth #2, and the dentist in the family (more about him later) was pleased to see the permanent teeth sliding into place.
Goodbye, Lafonda (our voluptuous black beauty), hello Sadie (our new-to-us silver sienna).  Lafonda served us well, and squished 3 carseats in the back with great economy, but, alas, it was time to move on.  It is official, I've traded in my youthfulness for practicality, and I am a mini-van mom.  
Baby A's fauxhawk had to go.  
I LOVE SPRING!  The midwest seems to have a knack for dramatic seasonal changes - these pictures were taken just a few weeks apart.  I love watching the trees come back to life.

Proverbs 22:6

{Train up a child in the way she should go: and when she is old, she will not depart from it.}

Two months already?!

Weight: 9 lbs, 13 oz

Height: 22 inches tall

I can't believe how fast the time is flying. Baby A is 2 months old, sweet and full of smiles. Her favorite activity in the whole wide world is eating. But she also likes hanging out in her swing (I'm so grateful for baby gear!), 'playing' with her sister (her brother is just kind of dangerous as far as she's concerned), and having her diaper changed. :) We can't quite figure out our daytime schedule (I'm looking forward to the days of consistent napping -- I have faith they will come), but she sleeps for a solid 8 hours every night, wakes up to eat, then sleeps for another 2-3. I really really really like that about her.

It's been so nice to take things a little more slowly. I'm not teaching as much, and Joseph's schedule is a little less rigorous this year - his academic load is not as heavy. I was released from my calling in the Primary Presidency the day Baby A was born, and now I'm the ward organist, and I teach Relief Society once a month. Piece of cake! At first it felt strange to not have 60 children to corral every Sunday, but now I'm enjoying Sundays as a day of rest! Life in general is a little simpler, and I'm really enjoying motherhood. Don't get me wrong -- I enjoyed my other kids' babyhood. But with K, I was mourning the end of my college days, and we were in an uncomfortable transition from self-employment to graduate school when J was a baby. With A, it's almost like I'm coasting along - we definitely have our moments, but it's not so hard this time around. We're just more settled. And I like it!

I've been having fun taking pictures of my kids. One of these days I'll fork over the money and take a photography class, but in the meantime I'll just keep experimenting. These pictures were too funny -- when Joseph saw the one on the left, he said, "Is that our kid??" And so begins the "For Future Bribery" section of Baby A's scrapbook.