Rainy day

Kevin is gone all day today for football scrimmages, and we really don't have any plans. Because it is gloomy and rainy, I decided it would be a great day to harvest some of my garden veges and make some homemade goodies to freeze. I always miss the taste of good fruits and veges in the winter, so I am making homemade spaghetti sauce from my thousands of tomatoes and homemade soup with tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, carrots, and onions. I freeze most of it, but my house smells so good that I think I will have some soup for lunch.

South Haven

We spent a week in South Haven visiting my mom, grandma, and my brother. My mom rented us a condo with a pool and the girls spent most of the week smimming. They are little fish. We went to the beach and shopped downtown. The weather was perfect for the trip and everyone had a great time. I think that we will make this a yearly trip. I posted some of my favorite pics from the trip.

We have had a busy summer so far, which is why I haven't posted in a while. We had a great Forth of July including a kids fun run at the school track, a parade, swimming at some friends all day, and fireworks at our next door neighbors house. The following week we went to family camp for a week and the kids had a wonderful time. We stayed in a cottage this year and loved it. We already reserved the same place for next year. After that, Haylee had art camp at church for a week, followed by dance camp at church this week. We have had lots of little girl sleep overs, several little girl birthday parties, lots of pool parties, and trips to the beach. Yesterday we were at the zoo and next week we are headed to the Air Zoo. The kids like to go to the library as they have a great summer reading program. I am really enjoying the summer with them. Football is really in full swing now, so our schedules are hectic, but the big girls are plenty independent and seem to be content with hanging out with their friends when we are home. I call our house "Grand Central Station" as there is always someone coming in or out, knocking on the door, or calling on the phone. Next week we are off to South Haven for a week. Hope you are having a great summer.

New family member

Our neighbor got a kitten and couldn't keep it, so I reluctantly agreed to take it for her. I am allergic to cats and honestly prefer dogs, but his little sweety is just adorable. She is super sweet and playful. She is very tolerant of the kids holding her all day long, and is already litter trained. Her name is Smudge and I think that she will be a good addition to our family. Went to the beach this past week with some friends and their kids. We had a blast. Kevin and I went to a wedding last night at a campground. I think that I was a little over dressed.

The pole barn/shed is coming along nicely. This was Kevin today working on the roof. It seems to be taking a long time, but we are very busy with other projects and he just fits it in when he can. Yesterday, I took Kenna to a birthday party at Moo-ville which is a dairy farm and creamery. It was fun. We saw the cows being milked, saw some calves, and ate some really good ice cream. Today is just a day off. No plans with beautiful weather. I love it.

Before and after

One of the birthday presents that my big girls wanted was to redo their room. They wanted less babyish and more pre-tween. I think that it turned out pretty good. I kept them out of the room for several days so that I could surprise them. They really like it and still have so many great ideas for more decorating. The before picture is pretty scary as the room was in process of being painted so was a MESS.

Our garden is coming along. I love the smell and look of my lilacs. I gave them a little more TLC this year with some plant food and plenty of water early on and they look beautiful. I was excited yesterday when I saw the first of my seedlings sprouting. This is a picture of my little pumpkins sprouting. My carrots, peas, and beans are also sprouting. I haven't seen broccoli or cantaloupe yet, but these are very experimental so we will see what happens. I included some pictures of Kevin's building projects. There is a play house that matches our house, some fantastic garden boxes, and the latest is the "shed". As you can see, it is rather big and I call it a pole barn. I have insisted on some changes to original plan including front windows and window boxes to make it look a little less like a pole barn. I will post a picture of the finished product when it is done.

We brought our pool out yesterday for the kids and their friends. It was actually hot but it was so nice to be able to pull out the shorts and bathing suits after such a long, cold winter. Claire thought the pool was wonderful and splashed around with the big girls. She liked taking the little watering can, filling it up, and watering my flowers. Kenna just liked diving head first in the pool.

I also included a picture of my most recent scrapbook page that I completed.

Happy (day after) Mother's Day

I love Mother's Day. I get showered with hand print gifts, homemade cards, and lots of love. I always get breakfast in bed and the entire Sunday paper to myself for a while. I have also made a tradition of gardening on Mother's Day. It was relatively nice out yesterday to garden, and I accomplished all of my list. Kevin was great at keeping the kids busy and letting my have that time to myself. I did have some little helpers with planting seeds, but I didn't mind. After all, I was celebrating what I do best, mothering. I am now only slightly regretting planting yesterday, since today I had to go out and cover anything that may be damaged by frost tonight, but hopefully this is the last really cold night that we have and I won't have to worry anymore. This week we are busy getting ready for our neighborhood garage sale this coming weekend. We participate every year and I am always shocked at how much we still have to sell every year. Anyway, I know that I already sent out cards for Mother's Day, but I want to wish all of the mom's, grandma's, great-grandmas in my life a wonderful (day after) Mother's Day.

excuses

Please forgive my blogger absence. I am just going to ramble a bit about my ignoring of my blog. The spring weather brings us outside as much as possible and chasing Claire into the neighbors yard. She is much more difficult to contain when she sees the big girls running from yard to yard. Fortunately, this year she understands not to go into the road, but I will still be doing lots of chasing. I have also downloaded tons of new pictures and music to my computer so it is REALLY slow right now and I haven't had time to move everything to my external hard drive. I also hate doing all of that moving so I think that I am putting it off. I have taken on some new projects including lots of scrap booking at home (trying to use the supplies that I already have) and losing weight. Yes, I call this a project as I never understood how much time and energy goes in to meal planning, meal preparation, and making time to exercise. I have already lost some, but I have been stuck at my current weight for a long time and felt that I needed to step it up a little so I started a bran new meal plan and exercise program. Because I generally exercise after the kids are in bed, I do not have lots of time to get on the computer. I also find that while Claire is napping, I use that time to bake and cook premade meals. I have also needed to spend extra time planning menus that both fit into my diet and that my kids like. I find my self at the grocery store more often for fresher ingredients and I still need to stay aware of my grocery budget. All of this takes up a lot of time for me. Anyway, I will try to post some more pictures when I finally sit down to organize my pics.

New pictures

Just a few new pictures that I recently took and found to be cute. The first is of Claire's new found activity. She loves to wash dishes. On one hand it keeps her busy for almost 30 minutes at a time (which is a long time for Claire), but on the other hand, what a mess she makes. I always end up with sopping towels, and a new change of clothes for her. The next picture is of our shamrock pancakes on St. Patty's day. The next one is scrapbook page that I recently finished. It is of Claire's first Christmas. No, I am not that far behind with my books, I am just still trying to finish pages that I started a long time ago. It is going slow, but each time I finish a page it feels like a little accomplishment. The last picture is just so cute. I love to see my husband actively playing with my kids. He is really good at playing and is a kid at heart. I was a little nervous about this big guy on the swing meant to hold up to 100 lbs, but it held ok. We just got back from Pennsylvania, so once I have gone through all of my 200 pictures, I will post about the trip.

free day

I don't generally feel that our children need to know the details of our finaces, but I do think that it is important that they understand the importance of a budget. Yesterday we had "free day". We were clear to our kids that it was a family day that cost us little to nothing in terms of money. I wanted to do this so that my children understood that there are so many fun and entertaining things to do that don't involve buying anything. The older girls are at an age that when we say "we are having a family day out", they will often start spewing out ideas for the mall, Chuck-E-cheese, or the Build A Bear store. When they started in on these kinds of ideas yesterday, I simply reminded them that it was "free day" and they became excited to come up with other cheaper entertainment.
So our day started with a trip to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum with a cool exhibit about sattelites. I love how kid friendly (and free) this museum is and the kids have fun everytime we go. Next we went out to eat at a little family friendly restaurant that we had won a gift certificate to. (yes, this was not free, but when the kids begged to go to Chuck-E-Cheese, we were able to say that instead we were going to use the gift card to keep our cost down.) Next we went to the local library and both big girls picked out some books and movies and both got their own library cards. (all free) After the library, we went to the park and the kids had some friends over for a sleep over. Our total cost for the day was $3 for a tip at the restaurant. It was fun for the kids and I felt as if I was teaching them some lasting lessons.

St. Patty's Day

We are not really Irish, but we enjoy celebrating St. Patrick's Day anyway. Haylee made a Leprechaun trap for school. I am not sure who enjoyed the project more, Haylee or Kevin. It turned out great and was very creative. Mackenna had fun picking out green clothes and I let her take pictures of green things around the house with my camera. All of the kids ate their green shamrock pancakes this morning and had a blast pinching me before I got dressed as I did not have any green on my PJ's. Today's weather has been beautiful and Claire and I played with chalk, jumped on the neighbor's trampoline and took a walk. Kenna and I played frisbee while Claire napped and it was so nice not to have to wear a coat. I am planning corn beef and cabbage for dinner, but it may have to wait until tomorrow since I have some yummy steaks and it is a great day to grill. I will be sure to enjoy a Guinness with dinner though cuz I have to sit through another 2 hours of gymnastics tonight. Enjoy the day.

Brrr

The view out the window today was very deceiving. It was amazingly cold. I attempted to go out for a run and ended up just trying to plow through the wind instead. My face is still red and splotchy. The weather this year has been strange and somewhat annoying making me anxious for nicer days. Haylee is almost done with basketball and we are looking forward to a few weeks off before soccer starts. She had her last practice on Monday and when she and Kenna came downstairs in these great outfits to go to practice, I just had to snap a picture. They will be mortified when they are 16 and care about what they wear. We also made up some cute end of the year baskets for all of the players and I was able to use my Cricut that I got for Christmas to make some little award ribbons for each girl. Our plan is to have a little pizza party after the game to celebrate how hard the team worked. (no wins this year, but what great improvements they all made). Other happenings the last couple weeks included a visit to see my friend Angie's baby. This picture is so cute. She looks like she is thinking "Yeah, I know I've got it good". We had a nice visit and I loved cuddling a baby for a little while. Kevin was in a fundraiser at school called "Are you smarter than a 5th grader". He did well except that he had to use all of his life lines. It was very funny and the older kids loved watching dad up on the stage. I also attempted a new recipe. I came into ALOT of tangerines and was not sure what to do with them. I found a Paula Dean tangerine cake recipe and decided to try it. It was SOOOO good, but not so good for you. I gave most of it away or brought it to bible study so I only ate 2 small pieces, but it was definitely a recipe that I would make again. Have a great week.

Time flies

I know that time flies when you are having fun, but it seems to fly faster when you are busy. I have been trying to sit down and blog for the last week and every time I do, there seems to be a new distraction. Work has been particularly busy as people have been particularly sick this year. Kevin's grandfather passed away so we have been busy with family in town and a funeral. Claire has finally realized that she is two and needs to have as many tantrums as is possible which takes up much of my day. Claire has also had trouble with her two year molars which, I must admit, must be painful. Mackenna is doing fantastic in school according to her teacher. As she put it, "She is a ray of sunshine". I am so proud of her. Haylee has been busy with school, gymnastics, and b-ball. She was recently moved up to Intermediate class in gymnastics and can do the splits and a back walk over. I am so impressed when I watch her since I could never do any of those things. The girls recently went to their father daughter Valentine dance. Every year this makes me a little teary eyed. They had a great time and this was the first year that Kenna got to go. She felt so special. Valentine's Day itself was a bit of a blur, but we did make some time to make some homemade Valentines with finger paints and pink heart shaped pancakes. The girls had sleep overs that night, so Kevin and I just watched a movie at home and I made him some ultimate nachos. (Yes, I offered steak, but he chose nachos instead).

New pictures

The last two weeks have been fun. We have had a birthday as Mackenna turned 6 on the 29th. I finished some homemade cards for two birthday gifts. ( I can now post them because I have already gifted them) The kids are getting excited about Valentine's Day parties at school and we are enjoying some warmer weather. On a more somber note, we have lots of family members and friends dealing with illness, hospitalizations, and recent lay offs or pay cuts, so we will be praying for all of you. Hope everyone has a nice week.

Book club book

This is our book of the month and our book club is tonight. I have not finished the book and I don't think that I will before tonight, but so far it is pretty good. It is a murder mystery with some humor. It is set in Alaska in a community of Jewish refugees, but what is interesting is that the author has such an extensive vocabulary. It requires me to pay close attention and not skim. This is hard to do when I am generally interrupted 16 times in an hour by my kids. I will let you how it is after I am finished. Have a great week.

Mommies don't get sick...

... at least my children don't seem to think so. I have had a stomach bug that started yesterday afternoon and will not let up. I have had some chicken rice soup and crackers. This is a quick way to lose 7 lbs, but not exactly a healthy way. My kids can't understand why I am so tired and weak. Mackenna thinks that I should be ready to play wrestling with her and Claire keeps saying "I gonna get you, mommy" expecting me to get up and run around the couch. Hopefully, I can feel better and get out of my PJ's that I have had on all day today. Everyone stay warm and healthy.

So as I am doing my yoga tonight, my little darling Mackenna decided to join in. She was so cute and I just had to take these pictures of her. The first position is upward dog...

downward dog....

Warrior 1...

Warrior 2....

Reverse warrior....

Now we can all do yoga according to Kenna.