Busy with projects

I don't know if you had noticed or not, but I have not been as regular with my posts as of late. It's not that I don't like to post, it is just that I have been busy with projects. This past Sunday as the boys sat in the pew and were no longer interested in what we had in our church bag, I decided that it was time for a change. So, I have been busy this week making things to keep them busy and reverent. I know that this doesn't look like all that much, but it has been time consuming to do this sort of thing and laminate it too. I just used contact paper laminate, but it still works. I am happy with the things that I have done and still have a stack of things to finish putting together. :) So now we have some file folder games, pictures of the prophets and apostles to look at, lots of pages of fun stuff from the past Friends to do, church themed dot-to-dots and cross word puzzles. Now, if only I could keep Amber corralled and not have her climbing under the benches and running to the front to see Daddy, I would have it made in the shade!! :)

We Match

This morning when the boys came downstairs they ran up to me and said, "We match!! We match!!!" They were just too cute not to snap a picture before they left for school. I think that it is so great that they are such good friends. It was fun to see them when it came time to pick out school clothes. They had to confer with each other about shirts to see if they both liked it and then they would ask buy it. :)

No Coats

On Saturday I went out to get some $ .99 patterns from Hobby Lobby so that I could do some more sewing. :) While I was gone, Barth turned on 101 Dalmatians that we had recently bought from a garage sale. That evening, while I was serving up dinner, I asked the boys how they liked the movie. (Aaron didn't know, he slept through it.) Weston and Brian both thought that it was a good show. I asked them if it was scary. They said no. I then asked them if they were worried for the dogs during the show. Again, the answer was no. Then I asked whether or not they were concerned that Cruella De Vil would take the puppy's coats. With a look of pure innocence, Brian answered, "But Mommy, they weren't wearing any coats!" After a stifled laugh, I explained that Cruella wanted the fur from the dogs to make a coat. To this, Weston got a look of horror on his face and promptly replied, "Then I don't think that we should ever watch that show again!!!!"

Wearing the dress

And here is the finished dress on Amber! Doesn't she look cute? Make sure to scroll down for the sewing lesson on this dress.......

How to sew a dress.......

....by Kristie

First, start with the material and an easy pattern. (Make sure you buy the clearance sale fabric, because then you won't feel as bad when you mess the whole thing up.)
Then, cut your fabric all up according to the pattern. And just so you know, the cutting of the pattern itself is a killer.....all of that tissue paper that has to be cut just right...... It is actually easier once you get it on the fabric and start cutting that.
Next, get to work actually sewing pieces together. Make sure that you make a HUGE mess in whatever room you are using. See mine? Try to make yours look this good. Be sure to sew a few things wrong so that you get the whole sewing experience. It isn't really sewing unless you have picked something out a few times. (Like me, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do the facing around the arm and neck holes. Took me at least 3 tries to get it right. Since I had never really sewed much before, unless you count curtains, this was a whole new experience for me. And I told my mom that home ec was for wimps......boy was I wrong!!!!! Anyway, back to the lesson....)
Now, be pleased as punch when you are done with the dress!!!!!!!! It only takes most of the afternoon, during which time, your kids can run amok in the house. :) And make sure you pick and choose what fancy things you want to do. (pockets....no, ric rac.....yes)
Consider your dress practically perfect in every way, even though your stitching looks like this. Remember, you don't have time to be a perfectionist anymore. You have a whole houseful of kids that need things like being picked up from school, snacks, diaper changes, potty training, hug and kisses when they get hurt because they are pillow fighting with their siblings because you are busy sewing and not attending to the careful monitoring of what is going on, etc, etc....the list goes on and on. :D
Be totally thrilled when the zipper looks like this because, you have never even done one before, and really, with a baby this cute, who will ever look at her back anyway. Now, get all set.....tomorrow you actually get to dress her it this cute little thing!!!!!! Hasn't this been a fun sewing lesson? Stayed tuned tomorrow to see how it fits!!

Watch me go!!!!!

Anniversary day two-- Cedar Point

On the second day of our trip, we took the kids over to Sandusky, OH to Cedar Point. It is a HUGE amusement park. It holds a world record for something (I think for the largest roller coaster park, but I can't remember) and was really a lot of fun. I must say that it was perfect weather that day. It got up to about 82. Who knew it could be so cool in August? At any rate, we were there for about 7 or 8 hours before heading home that night. There were lots of coasters, but we didn't go on any big ones. We mostly stayed in the kid parts. There were 4 kid areas there. Brian was a little frustrated at the beginning. The big rides (the ones not in the kiddie part) required you to be 48 inches, and he was just under at 47 inches. Too bad. :( I guess that we will just have to come back next year when he has grown!! (okay, so upon further inspection, I look like I am mad in this picture. I am not, but I didn't have too many with me in it, so I just chose this one. :) )
Here are Barth, Weston and Brian waiting to go on a ride together.
Aaron is taking in all the action from the sidelines.
Here is one of the kiddie parts. I think that one of my favorite things was the sky cars that you could ride. From way up there you could see Lake Eerie that bordered the park on 3 of it's 4 sides. I wish that I had taken a picture, but I didn't.
Brian and Aaron on the helicopters. (Barth took Weston to ride a bigger ride during this time!)
Amber just chillin' in the stroller while the boys rode the rides.
Here we are waiting to go on the spinning cup ride.
This was the last ride of the day. This red spider thing was what Brian and Weston really wanted to ride. Aaron decided that he didn't want to be left out, so as long as he rode with me, he could go. Weston and Brian rode together. They were in the car right next to Aaron and I. I must say that Aaron takes after me in the loving of the crazy rides, and the other 2 boys take after Barth! Although they said that they liked it, they both had their heads buried and were hanging on for dear life. They occasionally looked up with a look of fear plastered on their faces. They were glad to get down from there.
By the end of the day, everyone was tuckered out. Aaron and Amber both fell asleep on the stroller ride out of the park. All in all, we had a great weekend and we were so glad that we went. :)

As we drove home, Barth and I were talking and realized that in the 10 years we have been married, we have been to 25 of the 50 states, owned 3 houses, been in 3 apartments, lived in 5 states, had 4 kids and way too many jobs to count!! :) It has been a crazy 10 years, but I wouldn't trade all of it for the world!!!!

First Day of School

It is hard to believe that it is already time to start back to school. Where did all the time go? The boys were so excited this morning to be going to school. Weston said that he woke up at 4 this morning because he was too excited to be going back. Here are the traditional back to school pictures for you to enjoy. It is hard to believe that Weston is going into 3rd grade. This year, when we were buying new shoes, he had to get a 4 and a half. His foot is almost as big as mine!!!!!! Before I know it, I will be looking up at him instead of down. :)
I can't even begin to tell you how excited Brian was this morning!!! I took him into the gym this morning (which is where all the kids gather on the first day and then the teachers take them to their class from there) and then I got to walk with him to his class. His teacher seemed very kind. We saw the little boy that we had met at the park the other day who said that he would also be with Brian's same teacher. Here kindergarten is just a half day. I think that it is kind of nice that way. He came home and told all about his class. He couldn't remember any one's names, but he said that he had a great time. He was excited that they sang some of the same songs that they sang in preschool. All in all, he had a wonderful first day of school.
Here are my two sweet boys getting ready to start their day!!!! Happy first day of school!!!!!

Anniversary Weekend

As you know, Friday was our anniversary. We thought that for it, it would be fun to plan a short trip up to Kirtland for the weekend. We left first thing on Friday morning and got in there in the early afternoon. (It was a little over 4 hours from here.) It was a gorgeous day out there and we had such a fun time learning all about the early saints and seeing some of the sights there. The boys will probably not remember most of it, but it was still a great experience for us and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
I thought that it was so neat to see where the school of the prophets was held, where Joseph and Emma and their family lived, and the old mill there. We spent a few hours here before heading over to the Temple.
We got to the Kirtland temple about 20 minutes before the tour started. The re-organized church (which is now called Community of Christ) had a visitor's center which had lots of neat things like an old Book of Mormon, hymnals from the early years, pages of manuscript, and they also had this fun center where the kids could dress up like old pioneers. Brian thought that the pioneer box was neat and had fun trying on the clothes. He couldn't convince his brothers to join him, but looked very cute as a pioneer.
The temple was very pretty. The grounds were gorgeous and it was perfect day for seeing the temple. It was cool to see inside the temple. I wanted to have a picture of the kids taken in front of the temple, but with the shadow of the trees, you can barely see them. I was so glad that we were able to go see Kirtland.
And here is a picture of the temple from the front. Beautiful! A lot of hard work went into building it!
After dinner we headed out to see Lake Eerie. We had hoped to see some beach, but as it was, we had a hard time finding access to the lake. We didn't find any beachy stuff, but we did find a park with beautiful views of the water, right at sunset. The lake was huge and lovely. It was a cool evening, and Weston said that he needed a jacket. (We didn't have one.) All in all, it was great first day of our vacation.
The beautiful sunset......
Stay tuned tomorrow for more pictures.....

Happy 10th Anniversary to Us!!!!!

Today is the day! Happy 10th anniversary to us!!!! Barth and I have sure grown a lot in the past 10 years. On this day, I want to say how much I love my dear husband. He is a wonderful man. He is a fantastic and loving father to our children. We have had our share of ups and downs, but the good has far outweighed the bad. I have to say that in the last 10 years, we have grown together, relied on each other, cried together, rejoiced together and become even closer through it all. I am so thankful to have him in my life. I am grateful for all that he sacrifices for our family. What a happy 10 years we have had! Here is to an eternity of even happier days. I love you sweetheart!

Kindness

Today my post was supposed to be a great video of my kids swimming at our neighborhood pool, but the big thunderheads are rolling in fast, and we are supposed to have rain all afternoon, so I guess that I will just have to postpone that one for another day.

Today I was the recipient of an act of kindness. It seems like, in the world today of cutting people off on the road, lack of concern for others, and loss of respect in general, there isn't nearly enough kindness to go around. However, in our family there is plenty to go around. Weston makes breakfast for Aaron nearly every morning. Brian loves to make everyone lunch. Aaron loves to play with Amber and make her smile. The boys LOVE to do anything that they think will help me out and make me happy. But today, the act of kindness that I received was not from anyone that I was related to, or even knew for that matter.

This morning I was trying to finish up some last minute school clothes shopping for Weston and Brian. They need a few more pairs of jeans, but I need to do that shopping when I don't have Aaron and Amber with me. Today, we went to get shoes. When we left, the trash man hadn't come yet and our trash was at the curb. Our shopping didn't take long. As we pulled onto our street after our shopping, I noticed that there was a car in our driveway. I wondered who it could be. As we got closer, I noticed a lady outside her car putting the lids on my trash cans and pulling them up to the garage for me. How nice was that? Her son, who was probably just a few years older than Weston, was busy delivering our local, once a week, paper to the houses on our street.

As she finished and pulled out of our drive, I thanked her and she simply smiled and told me that she hoped that I had a nice weekend. The whole thing brightened my day considerably. What a good example this stranger set for me. She had no idea who I was, and yet, she was happy to serve and help me. This experience has renewed my resolve to serve and help others, even if it is in a small way and no one will ever know. Even if I have no idea who the person is that I am helping, it doesn't matter; I know that I will feel good just by serving. When I feel down about the state of this world and it's increasing wickedness, I will remember that there are still good and kind people on Earth, and that I can do my part to help the world be a better place to live in.

And so, as I go throughout the rest of my day, and the weeks and months ahead, I will try to keep in mind the words to one of my favorite primary songs......

I want to be kind to everyone,
For that is right you see.
So I say to myself, "Remember this,
Kindness begins with me!"

Caps

Did you ever have caps as a kid? I did!! My brothers used to have the guns to put them in, but mostly I liked to make mine go off with a rock. :) Well, on Saturday evening, we went to Dollar Tree as a family. Brian was dying to spend his money from the tooth fairy, and so what better place to spend your dollar than the dollar store? While we were there, Weston picked out a package of caps to get with the dollar that he had brought from home. He had never played with them before, so this morning, I went out to show him how it was done. He had a great time playing with his caps this morning!!!!!
Isn't he getting so big? I just love my Westy Pesty!!!
Since we were outside, I thought that I would take a picture of one of the beautiful roses that are on the bushes out front!! They are growing so well. The red one has 2 roses on it and the pink bush has a few buds, but no roses right now. Uncle Aaron must be putting some heavenly miracle grow on these roses or something!! I never could get roses to grow nearly half this well when we lived in Florida!!!!
Here is Amber watching the boys play this morning. I had to let her have her binky since all she wanted to do was eat the dirt!!
The boys had a lot of fun playing outside this morning. It has been perfect weather here. (upper 70's) It feels more like March than August, for sure!!!!!!!
Here is Brian giving Aaron instructions on how to be the flag man for the race between himself and Weston.
"Now this looks like an interesting toy. And look.....mud! Maybe I can eat some while my mommy isn't looking!!! :)"
Weston needs the brother of the year award!! He is so kind to his siblings. This morning, he helped Aaron with his bike for over an hour. When I asked him if he wanted to ride his own bike, he told me that he would rather help Aaron. What a good big brother!
Here is Brian going to town on his big wheel. I could barely get him to stop for a picture. He was having too much fun chasing Aaron and Weston.
It was time to go in for lunch, but Aaron wanted me to take one last picture of him. I just love days like these!

Pigtails

We all know that I have been dying to do hair-do's on my little girl. I decided this afternoon that I would see if her hair was long enough to do pigtails. Okay, so you can barely tell from the front that she has them in, and they look more like little sticks poking out of her head than anything else, but I still managed to get them in and I LOVE them!!!They look mighty cute, don't you think?

A close call

Okay, well perhaps it wasn't that close of a call, but I did see a rather crazy sight today on the way to church. It makes me thankful that we have our morning family prayer and that a blessing of safety is part of it. I think that I must first set the stage by saying that we live very close to an airport. We hear airplanes as they pass over our house every few minutes. It is not all that uncommon for us to be able to see their landing gear. Today was different though.

Although the airport is just about 15 minutes from our house, and our ward building is right by it, it takes us roughly a half hour to get to church in the morning because we have to drive around the airport on side roads to get there. This morning as we were driving along the road, just minutes from church, we saw a plane coming in for a landing. It was LOW. It passed over the road, not more than a few yards in front of our car. I actually thought that it might just end up landing on the road that we were on. This is where I was thankful for that prayer of safety that Brian gave this morning. As it passed over the road, it hit the tops of the trees just off the side of the road. It then disappeared behind the line of trees. As we passed under the spot where the plane had just passed over, I said a silent prayer of thanks that the plane had not landed on us and that we were able to make it safely to church. I hope that the next time I see a plane up close, it will be safely on the ground and not almost on top of my car!!!!!!

Watching Daddy

Barth is out mowing this morning. I decided that while he was doing that, I would put together the school bags in the dining room. Aaron and Amber joined me, but were soon distracted by Daddy mowing outside. Since it is a cool morning, I had opened the windows. They had so much fun waving at Daddy and saying hello to him! He would, of course, stop and wave back every time he came around. It was just so cute that I had to stop what I was doing to snap a few pictures.
Aaron decided that we wanted to be closer to Amber. Isn't that a sweet picture?
I just had to get a picture of those cute little tippy toes boosting Amber up to see and wave at her beloved Daddy!!! :)
Happy Saturday to all!!!

Making me smile

The other day Weston was in Amber's room while I was getting her changed. While in the room, he wanders over to where her pink car seat is stored and proceeds to say the following:

Weston: Mommy, I really like Amber's pink car seat much better.
Me: (slightly puzzled at this comment since her newer car seat is very much like the pink one, just able to hold a bigger baby) How come sweetheart?
Weston: Because it is pink. And it matches her pink outfits so much better than her gray one. It really just makes her look so much more like a girl.
Me: (smiling) You are sure right Weston.

Now if I could only get this sense of matching to carry over into his own wardrobe. :)

Birthday Bike

While we were in Texas, our sweet little Aaron turned 3!! Our main present to him was to be a big boy bike like his brothers. Since I didn't want to haul it all the way back here to Kentucky, we decided to get it once we got home. Well, yesterday was the day!!! There were several to choose from at the store, but this is the one that Aaron liked and could ride the best. He is so happy to have a big bike and be just like his brothers!!!
Go Aaron!!
Here is a better shot of what the actual bike looks like. Pretty cute if you ask me! :)
After riding for a short time yesterday morning when we got home, Aaron announced that it was too hot to ride (at a sweltering 82). In the afternoon we went to the pool and upon our return, he rode on the driveway for a good hour. He is really getting the hang of it.