Milestones & a Makeover!

I finally took some photos of our school room makeover from last weekend!  I continue to be SOOO excited about this room, which has been transformed with the purchase of some shelves and a new desk, all from Craigslist.  Upon moving into our school room, we used only what we had and made it fit the space in order to at least get settled and unpacked.  However, once I started schooling in there, I knew we weren’t using that room to its fullest potential and began looking for some online inspiration.  I found some beautiful school rooms that got me really excited.  What got me even more excited was when I found an incredible deal on the same shelving on Craisglist!  But in order for those shelves to work, we would need to move our current computer desk out of the room. We were anticipating a transition period until we could find the right desk for our space, but the Lord so graciously allowed us to find a perfect fit for a great price the very next day on Craigslist!  Yes, we are quite the Craigslist junkies these days!  We then spent Friday night and all of last Saturday re-constructing all the furniture we had bought (that we needed to disassemble to transport), unloading our current shelves, re-setting up our computer, etc.  It was a much bigger mess than when we were moving since it wasn’t all boxed neatly this time!  But to see if all come together in a weekend caused me to jump for joy close to midnight on Saturday night.  Honestly, I look at this room and can hardly believe it belongs to us!  It’s not a picture on someone else’s blog!  The Lord has been so gracious to us and we are constantly reminded of that as we enjoy our home and appreciate the blessing that it is.   We don’t take any of this for granted, and we continue to give praise the the Lord for giving us so much more than we could have asked for!  Enjoy our homeschool room makeover photos…

These are the room before…Don’t get me wrong that we were unhappy with this room before.  Considering where we had come from, we were thankful just to have a room dedicated to schooling!  However, I knew it had so much more potential and that we could use the space much more effectively, which is what brought about the change!

Here is the room after…To say that I’m hugely excited to get things organized for our next school year would be an understatement!  It has also been awesome to see how the kids enjoy the room so much more, which is a good thing since we will spend a lot of our day in here!!  They gravitate toward the table much more now, and with supplies more accessible, they are enjoying them much more too!  Thank you, Lord, for this room!!

And just a close-up of our new desk.  We had some pretty specific dimensions and needs for this desk and it is working just perfectly for us!  So blessed!

Monday morning brought our last Faith Kids day!  Though an exciting day with graduation later that evening, we were both sad to see this fun year coming to a close!

Graduation cap treats

All set to head to graduation!

Her self-portrait on display!

Each of the kids was assigned one of our monthly memory verses to say that evening.  Bethany did a great job reciting Psalm 106:1 “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.”

Each mommy presents a gift to their child, which is a memory book of some sort from the whole year.  What I gave her that night was a book of all her letter crafts and homework, but her real gift will be a photo book coming soon.  I just wanted to get the graduation photos put into it before printing it.

Love this picture!

We had a beach-themed reception after the ceremony.

Enjoying our free slurpee’s on Free Slurpee Day at 7-11 this past week!  This was a first for them and they have asked for them every night since!!

This Saturday afternoon, we had the idea to take the pedals off of an old pink bicycle that has been laying around until Lauren is ready for it.  We thought it would be a great way to let Zachary learn to balance while still keeping his bike available for riding. Anyway, he’s plenty used to pink considering all his sisters!!  He did a fabulous job and seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly, even trying to put his feet on something as if he could do the pedals.  So we went for it and took the training wheels off his regular bike…

…a little help from daddy to get the hang of it…

…and he is off!!!!  We are SO proud of our little guy!  Honestly, from the time of taking pedals off the pink bike to riding his regular bike on his own was probably about an hour!  And he was so very controlled the entire time, including starting and stopping!  I guess he was ready!!

Way to go, buddy!  We are so proud of you!!

Happenings Around the Home!

Our last Faith Kids field trip for the year was to the LA Zoo.  It was a beautiful day and we had a fun time with all of our friends there.

Mommy braved it and took all 4 kids to the zoo for the first time.  It’s always nice to do something like that with lots of friends around to keep things light!!  Actually, it went really well and we had a great time!

Lauren getting a chance to stretch her legs at the playground.  Lauren is now officially a toddler, walking quite well and hardly every crawling anymore.  Now that she is walking, letting her loose becomes much easier in one sense, but much busier in another sense!

Some of my last days with Bethany in Faith Kids!

Lauren LOVES being outside and now that is walking well, we love being able to take her out a bit easier!

Exploring the playhouse!

All ready for church!

A few Mother’s Day photos with my 4 little blessings that have given me my full-time job!!

Mommy devoted Mother’s Day to a fun family day at Magic Mountain after church.  We were all in need of some fun family time and we were told it was a good day to go in terms of the lines.  It wasn’t actually as good as we had hoped, but still not bad.  We had a great day!  It was our first time to take Lauren with us, and while she only slept a total of 30 minutes all day, she was a trooper and hardly fussed.

These pictures crack me up.  The force pulling them to the outside was incredible.  I love the action shots!

Lauren’s first amusement park ride ever!  She loved the carousel and went on it twice, often squealing and kicking her feet!  A thrill-seeker in the making!

These are pictures from Bethany’s last normal week of Faith Kids.  This week is our last official day, but we’ll be busy preparing for our little graduation ceremony and reception so it won’t be a normal morning.  It sure has been a fun year with some great ladies, and a special time to be one-on-one with Bethany!

Her snack was to decorate a cookie on a stick to look like a zoo animal that we saw at our last field trip.

Practicing her Z’s

Taking her turn to tell the class what her favorite field trip was this year and why.  She chose ice skating because it was something she had never done before!

Just a cute picture of Bethany during their playtime.

Making a zebra craft…

Bethany is definitely Lauren’s second mom! She handles her very well and genuinely loves it!  I love her motherly heart, as well as the extra set of hands at times! She truly wants to be a mommy…

…and here’s even more proof of that! We discovered her in another room, “feeding” her baby!

Getting comfy among some boxes?!

All ready for church again!

We’ve been up to some “re-modeling” in our homeschool room this weekend!   I’m giddy with excitement to show you some photos from it so stay tuned.  I tried to take some before posting this, but the lighting was so bad for photos at night that I decided to wait on them.

Home Sweet Home!

Well, if you’re still here after the last huge post of photos, then you’ll get a little preview of our house!   Please note that  I didn’t wait to take the pictures until ALL was in its proper place…just wanted you to see it in some of its lived-in glory!  It’s a work in progress!  But we are SO thankful to be here.  We praise the Lord for His faithfulness in providing this home for us and that we are finally able to call it home!  When we first arrived after getting our keys, I was struck by the large stack of realtor business cards on our kitchen counter.  It caused me to pause and thank the Lord for choosing US for this home.  The stack was large, which meant that MANY people had viewed and put offers on this house.  Why us?  I don’t know, but we thank God for His perfect provision!

Kitchen:

Family Room:

School room/Office: (from two different corners of the room)

Under-stairs Toy Storage:  (This closet was completely empty until Dad did his shelving work! Seeing such organization makes me smile when I open this door!)

Downstairs bathroom:

Master bedroom/bath:  (So happy to be reunited with our canopy bed after it being in storage for 2 years!)

Bethany & Zachary’s roomDad had to re-do most of the bedroom closets due to their poor design.  While they were solidly built, there wasn’t enough clearance for even the kids clothes to hang freely.  It was one of our bigger projects to tear out what was there and raise everything up.

Laundry room: (So excited to have a room dedicated to this!  Again, this room was completely empty upon moving in.  Dad put in all the shelves, cabinets and hanging bar…love it!)

Front Door entry, from the stairs and from the front door:

Guest room: 

Upstairs “kids” bathroom:

I actually couldn’t remember what I had taken pictures of and realize now that I forgot one of the bedrooms and all of the outside/backyard.  Guess those will have to be forthcoming…  We also have a formal dining room and living room not pictured because they are currently completely empty!  We still have much to find in terms of furniture, but at least the process has begun!  And empty rooms aren’t quite such a bad thing for us after being in such close quarters at our previous home!

Where Do I Begin?

I can hardly believe all that has happened in the past 6 weeks when I go back and look at pictures that I hadn’t yet processed until tonight!  You can say that I’m just a little behind in the area of photos these days!  I’ll do my best to keep this post reasonable by only sharing a few highlight photos from some of the bigger events.  Of course, the biggest event has been the fact that we moved!  Our actual moving date was April 14, so we have now been here 3 weeks, which is hard to believe.  Packing up, moving and then unpacking has been all-consuming, though we are definitely feeling fairly settled at this point.  We have most everything unpacked, though the process of making it “home” will surely be a very long process!  Unfortunately, I have almost no photos of the actual move.  What I wanted to document from that was the MANY hands that contributed to make the move happen!  What a blessing it was to have so many hands on deck to help us out, both on our moving day and again the following day to help get things set up and functional.  And perhaps one of the greatest helps came from my Aunt Jodie and Uncle Pete in Huntington Beach, who offered to take the 3 oldest kids to their home for the weekend of the move.  And then when Sunday rolled around, they offered to keep them an additional 2 days to allow us to make more progress!  They sacrificed much and we are so appreciative of their love and support!  Dodie Largent took Lauren the day of our move and kept her overnight that night as well.  Being free from kids during the actual move allowed much to get done and all to be safe!  On the Tuesday following our move, we welcomed our children back while also welcoming Kristin’s dad and sister (Kendra)!  My mom graciously took Kendra’s kids so she could come out to help me unpack, make decorating decisions, run errands, etc.  She stayed for a week, which was SO helpful and fun to share this exciting time with her!  And my dad just left this morning after almost 3 weeks with us!  What an amazing gift it was to have him here for such an extended amount of time.  His skills with woodworking were put to use and he worked diligently to help get us organized with shelving throughout the house, fixing many little things that are discovered with a new home and really allowed us to be as settled as we are because he made organized spaces for all of our toys/boxes/etc.  Whether it was friends helping us move or clean, family watching kids or traveling, we have been surrounded by loving hands and we are so thankful for how the Lord has provided!

Other highlights during this break from posts has been Brianna’s 7th’s birthday and Lauren’s 1st birthday!  Both were in the midst of some process of the move, but at least they didn’t pass without some photos!  There have also been many end-of-year activities throw in.  Anyway, here are some photos…

Brianna’s 7th birthday, with mom’s best attempt at a horse cake!

The Largents joined us for a birthday dinner, which is always a treat!

Brianna’s actual birthday was on a Sunday, which is when she opened her gifts and cards from family.

Matching dresses (x4) for Easter Sunday!

Almost everyone smiling!  We tried…

This was taken the night we closed on the house and got our keys!  We had some things to purchase immediately, so we had someone stay with the kids once they were in bed and we had an 8-10pm date to close out Lowe’s that night!

  A picture of our family on the steps of our home the very next morning after getting our keys!  We were there to meet the painter and get them started with our all-house paint job!

Then back to the old house for more packing!

The kids were getting in on some of the packing by gathering their outside toys!

Whoa, what a mess!  The packing process is so messy!

One last fire at our old house, on our last night there.

This was taken very late at night, the day before our move!  The kids had already left for Huntington Beach, which meant we had a lot of final packing to do!

No pictures from our actual move day.  This was taken the following Monday, the first photo after the move.   Some very kind friends had pity on Lauren and took a rug from one of their rooms and let us use it until we could find a rug of our own.  It was a blessing to give the kids a little play area that was a bit softer than hardwood floor!

Look who I found!

Now these next photos were taken with Aunt Kendra’s really nice camera, starting with Lauren’s 1st birthday!

So thankful someone woke up from her nap happy on her birthday!  Happy 1st birthday, Lauren Rebecca!!

Lauren was making some progress in walking and spent significant time practicing on her birthday!  Love these first steps!  (Since then, Lauren has made significant improvements in her walking.  She is also able to stand up from the middle of the room, which means she is walking much more now.  In fact, I think we officially have a toddler on our hands at this point!)

Our joyful little girl!

Lauren recently learned to “pray”…not just folding her hands, but actually speaking mumble-jumble while doing it when we ask her to pray.  It is one of the cutest things ever, and we always get a chuckle out of it!

Dinnertime on her birthday!

A cake a was bit too much since had only moved about 3 days prior to her birthday, but we did manage to get some cupcakes made and frosted!

Needless to say, she had a VERY good time with her cake!  Adorable!!

Time to wash it all down…

…and then wash it all off in the kitchen sink!!

Aunt Kendra with Lauren…

…Zachary and Bethany!

Love these pictures with Lauren!

The whole gang, taking the only break we took from house work during that first week after moving!  We enjoyed a picnic dinner and playtime at a new park!

I was SO thankful to have this week with my sister!  Thanks, Kendra, for putting aside your own life for a week to help us get ours a bit more settled!  It was a huge blessing to have you here, to help me choose some carpet, to help unpack, to shop for home needs, to organize closets and to tackle the daunting areas of the house.  You helped me keep my sanity I think, and brought fun to very big projects!  You are a treasured friend and I’m so thankful for you!  And a big thank-you to our mom too, for allowing Kendra’s visit to happen since she had her kids that whole week, which was no small sacrifice either!  We’re so thankful for the support of friends and family!

Lauren got an upgrade in carseats and is now able to face forward with her first birthday!  Happy girl to have a new perspective!

Love this…Grandpa taking a minute from his work to cuddle a crying baby!

Grandpa was around for our end-of-the-year program for Classical Conversations, a bonus for the kids!

Brianna’s class getting ready to sing one of their favorite history songs for all of us!

Brianna with Mrs. Bauer, her CC tutor this past year.  She did a wonderful job with the girls and made it a great year!

Grandpa was also around for Lauren’s baby dedication at church this past Sunday.  The fact that none of these extra things were planned, yet happened to fall within Grandpa’s stay was a treat for us since our grandparents aren’t normally around for most of these kinds of things!   Here Lauren is praying, very appropriate while at church, right?!

Lauren spent almost the entire time up there pointing her finger and saying her favorite word, “That!”  You can see I’m trying to keep her hand down to keep her quiet, but it was no use!  While she was loud, at least she was happy and pretty cute!

This past week also marked the end of our Awana year, which meant it was awards night.  Here are our two Cubbies!

Our three Awana kids…so proud of their hard work this year to learn so many verses!

The Cubbies up on stage to sing their song and get their awards.

Again, a special evening was made more special with Grandpa there!

Lauren and Grandpa had some excellent bonding time during this 3-week stay.  After a slow start the first week, Lauren finally warmed up to him and then couldn’t get enough!  Here are some night-time snuggles after her bottle before bed.  Incidentally , we are down to just one bottle a day before bed, so these cuddles are probably short-lived!  We’re enjoying them until our formula runs (soon) and then all bottles will be history…sniff, sniff!

On Grandpa’s last night with us, we finally managed to have a fire at our new house!

Dad, words can’t express our appreciation to you for the time and work you gave us!  It was an amazing gift!  You have left your mark all over our new home and for that we are so grateful!  I’m thankful for the time we had together, and for the work that was accomplished.  You enabled us to be mostly settled and functional in fairly short order by creating space for organization and so much more!  You are so gifted and we are so thankful that you were willing to use your gift on our behalf.  We love you and hope you have some restful (or perhaps just peaceful!) days ahead!  You’ll never enjoy the quiet of your home so much as after being with us for 3 weeks!!

Since this has gotten so long, I’m going to do a 2nd post of house photos…stay tuned!

Spring has Sprung!

While we had our annual Spring Celebration this past week to welcome the start of a new season, it rained almost all day and has been very cool.  It felt like summer around here a month ago, and now we’re back to California winter, while the rest of the nation enjoys that summer-like weather.  At any rate, we were forced to be inside for our Spring Celebration, and with a very full schedule these days, we didn’t have the option of trying to do it on a different day.  This weekend, we are celebrating the birthday of our oldest!  We can hardly believe that she is turning SEVEN years old!  For some reason, that is a scary number in my mommy eyes.  It just feels much older all of the sudden and we certainly feel these years passing by so quickly.  More birthday photos will be forthcoming, but she got one of her gifts early, which we have pictures of. As for the house, it is continuing to move forward and we are VERY excited.  After the very stressful due diligence period, it has been fairly smooth sailing so far.  Everything is in the hands of our lender and escrow office as we await approvals, sign forms, await more forms and sign more forms.  We’ll keep you posted.

In the midst of our messy garage, the girls invited me out for a little tea party lunch!

This past Saturday was our annual Spring Celebration, a highly anticipated activity that has become a fun family tradition.

Who’s that cute girl that just turned 11 months?!  Someone, please stop the calendar from ticking by!

Soooo big!  This is one of her “tricks.”  One of her newest additions is learning to sign “please,”  definitely one of my personal favorites!   It’s so hard to say no when a baby says please!   She has also started communicating a bit more verbally too.  She says “nigh-nigh” when she sees her blanket or when we tell her night-night.  She also says “bleh” when changing her diaper or if we take something away that she isn’t supposed to have…so cute!   Communication is such a fun step in development!

Back to Spring Celebration with some face painting…

We had the kids wait outside under our covered patio (since it was raining, of course for one of the first times this winter!) while we hid eggs throughout the house.  Look at this crew of egg hunters!

And they’re off!

Checking out the spoils!

Time to dye a few eggs…

  Though it rained most of the day, it was a good chance to slow down after a very busy week.  We played a lot of games together, which is quickly becoming a favorite family activity.  I love that the the kids are getting old enough for that, and that we can do many of them all together!

We had a field trip to a fire station for Faith Kids this past Monday.

Zachary came along for the field trip this time, which I thought he would love, but he was actually fairly grumpy.  In hindsight, I realized it was probably because he was at the beginning of getting sick.  He got a fever that evening and had it most of the week when I finally took him to the doctor on Thursday to find out he has strep throat.  After two days on antibiotics, we’re definitely in a much better place for the weekend!  This boy has been sick almost all winter with one thing or another…praying this may be our last round of anything with him!

I think she liked the ravioli!  This girl has finally turned a corner with her eating.  We can’t get anything on her tray fast enough as she shovels it in her mouth!  Such a nice change of pace from the battles that were occurring 3x a day a couple months ago!

Though Brianna’s birthday is Sunday, we had planned to do the celebrating on Saturday since church commitments make Sunday a hard day to do too much extra.  She started her morning with a breakfast date with Daddy, to no other than McDonalds!  This has quickly become a favorite birthday tradition that the kids look forward to, at McDonald’s no less!

Love this picture of these two having fun together!

It was at breakfast that she was given her early birthday gift in an envelope…the first of two 45-minutes horse lessons was scheduled for that morning!  She has kept her interest in horses so when we saw a Groupon for a local stable, we decided to give it try on Brianna!  It was a pretty big hit!

Mommy took her to her first horse-riding lesson.  Here she is getting suited up…

…complete with some riding boots and a helmet!

Getting ready to mount this beautiful horse named Katy.  It was a Thoroughbred and former race horse.

This huge smile was hard to wipe off her face as long as she was on the horse!  Getting the stirrups adjusted…

…and out in the rink with her great instructor, Maddie.  She started out learning some basic commands while walking.

But most of the time was spent learning how to post while trotting.  It took a little time for Brianna to get the rhythm of it, but she ended up doing a great job!

By the end of the lesson, I think Brianna was surprised by the work required of her to ride a horse.  I think she was anticipating a leisurely stroll on a horse, but this “work” brought all smiles!

More birthday photos to come with the next post….

Catch up!

Whew!  These photos only tell a fraction of the story going on in our lives these days, which will also explain the lack of consistency in my postings!  So first for the photos, and then for “the rest of the story!”

First, some Faith Kids photos from a couple weeks ago when we did “R” week:

Since getting our new beds set-up, we made the transition of some of the kids to different beds.  No matter how old they are, I still love the peacefulness of sleeping children!  And since the transition hasn’t been all that smooth, it is especially nice to capture a sleeping child!

These are some Faith Kids photos from S week:

Sorting…

…working on her S’s and doing very well!

We had a special nurse visit us to help teach the kids about their body.  Bethany was a helper for the blood pressure cuff…

…and a sling!

The girls had so much fun with some new chalk, creating a work of art on our brick wall.  It is still there 2 weeks later!

Sister enjoying a book together!

Here is our very own Camp Wallaballa performer!  This past weekend, our church youth choir performed their musical that they have been working on all year long.  It was called Camp Wallaballa and they did a fantastic job!  All of their hard work paid off.  With a dress rehearsal Friday night and a long practice and performance Saturday afternoon and another performance Sunday evening, it was a full weekend!

Singing the “blues”…the Bus Breakdown Blues to be exact!

Brianna is front and center!  She even had one line and did a great job with it!

It was a very lively musical about standing on the promises of God in all of life’s circumstances.  These kids were on their way to camp when their bus broke down in the middle of nowhere, and some groups set out to get help.  This performance will wrap up choir for the year, but it has been a great experience for Brianna!

 Okay, so what these photos don’t tell is that we are in escrow for a new house!  It has been quite the ride in these last couple of weeks through price negotiations, paperwork, inspections, and then discovering a surprise with this house!  The surprise is surrounding the septic system, which we knew it had.  What we didn’t know was that this particular system is more like a little water treatment plant in our front yard with some pretty significant costs connected to its maintenance.  Upon discovering that, we’ve had a lot of research to do and we are currently waiting on the bank (this is a bank-owned property) to respond to a proposal we put together for their review regarding this system.  We are still optimistic, and praying for the bank to be reasonable with these new findings.  All of that aside, we continue to be amazed that the Lord opened the doors for this house for us—a home that meets and even far exceeds our criteria in a home!!  After looking for over 2 years, we are praising the Lord for His goodness, yet also completely dependent on Him to see this crazy process through to the end.  If things continue to progress, we are looking at closing escrow around the middle of next month!  So in an attempt to just keep up with life, pictures and postings may be sparse, but we’ll see what we can do!  In the meantime, please join us in praying for the many steps still before us!

Feeling Better!

After such a long stretch of illness with Lauren especially, it was a joy to see her smile return this week.  And it was also a treat to be outside as much as we were, with temperatures in 70’s most of the week.  Not many photos for this relatively normal week for us.

Hard to believe that Lauren is already 10 months old!  So happy to see her smiles back!

This was quite the train that was put together!

This girl loves to be outside.  She flaps her arms and kicks her legs when we step outside with her!

Uh-oh!  You caught me getting dirty while crawling to get the ball!  Crawling outside brings a whole new level of dirt to the situation!

After using some water to find a puncture in a bike tire, the kids enjoyed playing in the bucket of water.

What a Week…in such a different way than last week!

I’ll post the pictures and then give commentary with those…

The kids had so much fun with markers and stickers, letting their creative juices flow as they put together some valentines for their friends at Awana, Faith Kids and Classical Conversations.  We put lollipops through the middle for the body/head of the butterfly, but I guess I never got a finished product picture I guess…oops!

We explored a new park with the Largents on Saturday.  After a short hike, we found this fun duck pond!

Another family from church, the Avillas, joined us for the hike.  Malachi is 4 months (and is the recipient of all our boy clothes!).

What a blessing to have the company and help of these ladies while daddy was busy all day!

The older Sedy and Avilla kids

I LOVE this picture of Janna and Lauren!

Lauren’s first experience on a slide!

For Faith Kids, Bethany was the star student.  Each child has a turn to be interviewed during the year.  Bethany is such an exuberant little girl.  She never stopped smiling and was very confident in her responses!

She chose to play the cymbals while we sang a special song to her.

Bethany and Alicia after finishing their quilt picture for Q week.  We had the privilege of watching Alicia all day on Monday while her parents enjoyed some time.

This was a picture that highlighted the word Valentine within the verse, John 3:16…so creative.

Filling her friends mailboxes with Valentines.

Our breakfast table for Valentine’s Day…

…and our less-than-perfect, but still highly loved pink pancakes!

A special heart-themed lunch…

…and even some love at dinner!  Funny that Lauren is taking a peek around the corner!

Look at this mommy in the making!  Diaper bag, purse (worn around her just like Mommy does), baby,  and extra bag…  She’ll be a great mommy on day!

Unfortunately, we were thrown a little curveball this week with a trip to the doctor on Wednesday morning for Lauren.  With a terrible cough, fever since Sunday and then sleeping horribly on Tuesday night, we took her in to find out she had a double ear infection, was wheezing and is basically being treated for bronchiolitis/RSV.   They gave her a breathing treatment at the office and then sent us home with the nebulizer to do them at home.  We were also given an antibiotic for her ears and needed to go back on Friday to follow-up.  While she had improved, she was still wheezing slightly so we have had to continue the treatments through the weekend.  It has been a long week with a very clingy/uncomfortable child, mostly on our hip, yet feeling so bad for her as she just sounded and looked miserable.  We are praying for some great improvements in her health soon!Her evening breathing treatment usually put her to sleep as she’s so tired!  Makes for some nice snuggle time for Mommy!

We had not planned on this scene this week either, but you never know when Craigslist is going to fill your need!  We had been looking for a captain’s bed for Zachary’s room as he’s still in a converted crib bed.  Our goal is to then FINALLY move Lauren out of our room!  Our plan is to move Brianna into “Zachary’s” room with Lauren and then move Zachary with Bethany in the other room…a giant bed shuffle!  While we were obviously looking for just one bed, the one we found was actually a pair!  We could have just purchased one, but chose to get the two and store the second one until Lauren is ready for it.  At least we’ll have a matching pair when we need it some day.  A big thanks to Fred Largent for making the hour trip (one way) on Saturday to help Paul pick this up and somehow fit it all in our minivan!

This small room was completely rearranged to fit this bed and the room is now completely wall-to-wall furniture.  However, there are 4 very large drawers in the bed, plus a hollow cubby that runs the length of the bed for storage.  And we were excited that the wood ended up being such a great match.  We’re excited about finding a great fit for us and beginning our “child shuffle” soon!

Here’s the new layout…not much wiggle room, but praise the Lord for allowing it to work in our limited space!

While I don’t have photos, one very significant part of our week was learning that my brother and sister-in-law needed to be transferred (by air) to Mayo in Rochester, MN from Iowa due to some complications with their pregnancy.  We are praising the Lord that all is stable at this point, but they will likely be at the hospital for the duration of her pregnancy due to the high risk situation.  She is currently 31 weeks.  This is their third child, which means they are about a 4 hour drive from their children for 5-6 weeks at this point.  As you think of this family, would you join us in praying for them?

An Incredible Week!

This post is a bit later than my norm, but for very good reason this time!  My wonderful husband threw a surprise at me last Wednesday night.  I won’t go into all the details as that would take way too long, but the short version is that he had my sister, Kendra, on skype set up in the garage after he got home from Awana  last week.  After we got the kids down to bed, he off-handedly asked me to go get his bag that he left in the garage as he quickly excused himself from the room to go to the bathroom.  I found the request extremely odd, but went ahead and followed his request.  I flipped the light on in the garage and didn’t see his bag, but suddenly heard a voice from somewhere in the back of the garage saying, “Kristin…Over here, Kristin…”  I jumped and started to walk to the back of the garage before my mind kicked in and I jetted out of there and back into the house.  At this point, I knew Paul was up to something, but I was too afraid to check it out by myself!  Paul eventually got me back outside to “go talk to the voice.”  Upon going back out and hearing the voice again, I recognized it as my sister and followed it to the computer set up.  She proceeded to tell me she was part of a scavenger hunt set up by Paul.  She directed me to my first clue, which consisted of “things I would need:”  hat, mittens, book, and money.  My next stop was a file folder that had a picture of a plush-looking bed on it, saying that this would be my accommodations for the next night.  The next paper was a flight itinerary.  My mind was so off kilter at this point that I really couldn’t even focus on any of it long enough to put the pieces together.  Then my dear husband had also written me a poem, which spelled out a bit more clearly that it was a trip to Chicago to see my sister, at which point I started squealing in disbelief, especially since my flight was scheduled for the following day!  It was a pretty incredible surprise, well-executed and well-concealed!  He had apparently been cooking this up since the middle of December when he initially presented the idea to Kendra.

There was so much for me to wrap my mind around and so many emotions.  Of course I was overjoyed, but also so humbled by the fact that all this planning had been done on my behalf and I knew there were many sacrifices being made to make it happen.  While I was so appreciative, it was hard not to feel guilty for taking off and leaving Paul behind with 4 (sickish) kids for almost 4 days.  It was all just a big mix of emotions.  Mostly, I just felt like I had the most incredible husband ever to not only think of this, but also to take action to make it happen.  The Lord has shown me so much grace through my husband and I’m so thankful for the blessing he is and the blessing he gave in planning this get-away.  I was gone from Thursday afternoon until late Sunday night.  Other than not getting a whole lot of sleep (late flights, late nights and then also not being able to sleep), the trip was so refreshing and it was great to get away.  We were also productive in that Kendra served as my personal shopper to update my wardrobe, which we managed to do by hitting some major clearance sales!  And to top it all off, they had arranged for Barbara Scroggins (who moved from CA to Chicago in November) to have lunch and the afternoon with us on Saturday.  Besides the obvious blessings that came from just being there, other highlights included seeing my sister’s new house for the first time, meeting my new niece for the first time, and seeing the Scroggins new home.  Our activities really weren’t all that picture-worthy, but there are a few to document the weekend.  The others are a smattering of photos taken earlier last week.

Last Monday for P day at Faith Kids, the kids got to wear their PJs and we also had a visit from a policeman (a Faith Kid dad).  It was such a fun and memorable day for the kiddos.  Here are some photos from the day…

Lauren looks happy enough in her booster, but this is not truly reality when it comes to eating! Though we have seen some improvements in the last couple of weeks, she has been largely disinterested in eating either baby food or finger food, unless it is Cheerios or puffs, without putting up a fight. She’s clearly not wasting away, but it would sure be nice to not have to go to battle at every meal!!

Another sibling moment caught on camera!  Bethany is our little Mommy-in-training as she totes her dolls and their diaper bag around with her everywhere.  Needless to say, the real deal is even more fun, especially when Lauren is cooperative!

I love this picture.  If our back door is open, Lauren arrives quickly on the scene for a glimpse of the outdoor activity!  In fact, if she’s heading for it and I close it, she melts down with disappointment.

Hey…a drive by visitor!

We had the privilege of having two of the Bauer’s girls at our house Thursday morning during Classical Conversations as they had colds, but their mom had to tutor.  Our kids already had colds, so it worked out well!  Olivia loves loving on Lauren, and once Lauren got used to the idea, Lauren enjoyed the extra attention too!

Now these pictures are from Chicago.  Our first photos happened on Friday morning when we got an awesome manicure at Kendra’s neighbor’s house.  I’ve never had my fingernails done and had them last for more than 24 hours without damage so I was skeptical of the claims being made for this system.  However, almost one week later, my nails really do look like I just had them done!  And I don’t think I’ve had my fingernails done since I’ve had children, so it was a real treat!

Our first stop on Saturday was at the Scroggins new home!  It was so fun to see their place and put a visual to where she is as she goes about her days.  What a blessing to give hugs to the Scroggins family!!

Such an unexpectedly soon reunion after parting ways in November!  It did my heart good!

Since I didn’t have my kids to worry about, it was fun to be able to focus my full attention on my nieces when we were around them!  Addison is about to turn 3 and has changed so much since I last saw her!

This is Brylee, who was born exactly one week after Lauren.  While Kendra and I compare notes all the time, it was a joy to interact with her in person.  She is a little doll and quickly wins your heart!

I love this picture!  Sisters and friends!  What a joy to spend those days with you, Kendra!  Thanks for what you did to make it happen!  I felt completely spoiled by all you did on your end.  I’m so blessed to have you as my sister!

In Chicago in the winter, yet outside for a picture!  While it wasn’t exactly warm (especially by CA standards!), there wasn’t any snow and it wasn’t bad compared to what is normal for that time of year!  Again, thanks for a GREAT time, Kendra!  I love you!!

This past Monday, Faith Kids had a field trip to a local music store where Mr. Ed explained and also demonstrated almost every instrument for the kids.  He’s a believer who attends our church, so it was especially neat to have it all tied back to worship and the use of music in Scriptures.

When he got to the string instruments, he let the kids take turns trying their hands at them.  Bethany got to try the violin and was all smiles!

The joy on Bethany’s face while recklessly pounding on the drums was priceless!

Faith Kids Fun

It was a special week for Bethany because she got to do Faith Kids twice in one week!  In addition to Monday, it was also Dad’s Day on Saturday.  This is such a highlight of the year for the kids as they get to show their dad’s the ropes as they take them through a typical Faith Kids day.  They had a great time, plus a little bonus surprise was tacked onto the day for Bethany!  Not too many other photos this week…

On Monday, we had N week, which included some noodle counting…

…unscrambling her name…

…and name badges (in preparation for soon-approaching police day)

Lauren finds most anything to stand at these days, and does it proudly!

These photos make me laugh.  Lauren continues to love her doorway jumper and is getting quite talented in it.  She can make herself spin in very fast circles and can also jump in such a way as to swing herself back and forth as she jumps.  I love the joy on her face as she is soaring as she jumps!  They aren’t all clear, but you can see the height she gets nonetheless.

After a cool and rainy start to the week, we returned to beautiful near-80 degree weather by Wednesday!  It has been unusually warm, but we aren’t complaining!  What a cool dude!

Getting all ready for Dad’s Day on Saturday.  Daddy’s sporting his special shirt made by Bethany and Mommy especially for this day!

They moved on to O on Saturday, and were filling the O’s with Cherrios!

Bethany was the weather helper while Daddy was there.  She’s heading outside with the binoculars to check things out.

What Bethany didn’t know, was that Daddy planned to take her to Magic Mountain for a few hours after Dad’s Day, for a little extension of Dad’s Day!  She sure had a fun day with her Daddy (and now the other kids are more than ready for their turn with him!).

Time for bed…good night!