Barn Wood Island

Things are really coming together!!! I cannot wait to be done with minutia. Running around searching for bun feet for my vanity, searching craigslist for newel posts, reviewing 100 grout colors to find the perfect one. Does that sound like complaining? If so, I don't mean to. I am so grateful every day that we are able to build this home. But I mean, the amount of decisions that have to be made is astounding. But we should be moved in ONE MONTH! YAHOO!! A little photo to share: This pile of barn wood looked like this one month ago...

And this week, it's our island, just waiting for a countertop! Have you ever sweated a decision? REALLY sweated it? That was me, waiting for this guy to be completed. I know barn wood isn't everybody's "thing", but I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out.

I'm not planning to do much posting about our house, but our cabinet maker is awesome. I had to share!!!

My Morning Routine

I begin almost every morning with a bowl of steel cut oats and a cup of coffee. My darling Jewell begins every morning with several bowls of cheerios ("Ree-O's"). And then nearly every morning, my darling Jewell tries to steal what's left of my breakfast. What a little stinker!

Freezing PBJs

All of the sudden, I'm the mama of a large family. In a million years, I never saw it coming. I always thought two seemed like the perfect number of kids. How wrong was I? I'm loving raising 4 little ones, but it is a lot of work to keep everyone clothed, fed, and to school on time! So, I've recently taken to freezing our peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. I make a ton, and wrap them in saran wrap. Yes, not the best for the planet, and I use the cheap stuff (not the healthiest stuff) for the sandwiches. Because frankly, the "healthy" stuff isn't the best for the freezer. Anyway, it saves me tons of time and morning energy. 2 loaves of bread last my family like 3 days. Have you ever tried it? What do you think?

Building a House

Wow - taking another mini-break to update you on our house progress! Have you built a house or remodeled? If so, you know - it's a lot of work! And messy, too! Lance's shoes usually look something like this.

Building a house, plus raising 4 little babies who are home all summer long, even more work! But we're getting closer & closer to finishing up. And it's all starting to come together. All those drawers will be in place soon!

Right now, I really have no business blogging. I have about 4 loads of laundry to fold, 1 load to start, dinner & lunch to think about, paint colors to pick, faucets to buy, and a thousand other little things. So off I go!

Dancing Queens

A taste of what you've been missing. Sassy pants! Jewell is a little copy cat these days, wanting to do everything her big sister (and brother - notice the pj's!) are doing!

Goodbye Facebook, Hello Again, Blogger!

So I'm back! (Hooray!) I can't promise I'll blog regularly, but I've deleted my facebook account and I'm posting at least for today. Over the past few months, we've been hard at work building our house and surviving the summer heat. Are you still here with me?

1 Month

I blinked and now a month has passed! I keep meaning to post about so many things, but time is going by so quickly! Here is a picture of my fuzzy headed little baby. I hope soon to post about the progress on our new house. Hopefully that will happen. One day.

At 1 Week

I blinked and my baby is 3 weeks old already! Here are a few pictures that our friend Laurel Pankratz took of Esther when she was one week old. Laurel (Eilas photography) can be found here!

Esther Amelia

Have you been checking in on me? Esther is here!! She is adorable. Weighing in at 8 pounds and 8 ounces, she's a healthy little bundle of joy! When she was born, her face is a little bruised up from her journey. Poor thing!

Moving Dirt!

Have you ever built a house? Although ours is part build/part renovation, it pretty much falls under the "build" category. It's a MAJOR undertaking, completely gutting the house and regrading the yard, etc. I have a guy coming over this weekend with a metal detector. We've been told that the house behind us was once a plantation administrative house, and then a confederate headquarters. And our yard was a campground for the Confederates. So hopefully he'll find something besides bottle caps and nails. Much of the grass is gone and dirt is being moved around, so now is an ideal time! I love searching for treasures!
Speaking of treasures, here's one...My sweet Katie Belle and her bundle of dandilions!

My Family

Here's a sweet picture of my family - and everyone is happy!!! 2 weeks left until baby #4 gets here, and I'll have one more to add to the picture!

Building!

We're building a house!!! Well, renovating. But practically building, because we're gutting an old house & adding on. Why? Because having a 4th baby just wasn't enough for us. So we just completed the first arduous process of creating floor plans and drawings & getting approvals from our city board (it's a tough neighborhood to build in!) Here we are marking trees that have to come down. I've always wanted to spray paint trees! We want to keep as many as possible, but THAT's a LOT of trees. Right? I hope to update the blog on the process, but...who are we kidding? I'm having a 4th baby in a few weeks, just moved in with my parents, selling our house and building another. I'm tired just thinking about it all!

35 Weeks

Are you still reading? Astounding! I've been super-duper busy these days. The whole household has had it's round of sickness, plus...We bought a house! We're moving! We're completely gutting & renovating! Lots of changes around here. Pretty soon, we're moving in with my parents in order to show our house without going bonkers. I asked some friends who said how challenging it was to show a house with small children. Add a newborn, and it sounds like a MAJOR challenge. So we're moving out, boxing up stuff, and planning a renovation! I can't promise any regular updates, but I'll check in with the blog from time to time. Time to waddle back to my load of laundry!

30 Weeks...Baby #4!

With the first baby, I enjoyed my baby bump, and never minded the challenge of figuring out what to wear. With #4, It's a major effort to get me out of my sweat pants. Looking back at my 30 week pictures, I don't look too terribly different, but I am way more uncomfortable these days than the first go around. The tugging and pulling of maternity jeans and shirts is making me crazy! Good thing my husband and kids don't mind the sweat pants!

More Christmas - Dip Dyed Bags & Ornaments

Here are a couple of other projects I pulled together for our homemade Christmas gifts. Dip Dyed Bags and Christmas Ornaments. Here were my inspirations: Baskets. Ornaments.

Hot Chocolate & Peppermind Marshmallows

Another year of homemade gifts. This year's projects included an especially delicious treat. Homemade Peppermint Marshmallows and Hot Chocolate on a Stick! This year, a group of girls I had coffee with were talking about gift giving. And so we made a plan together to make food gifts together. It was a blast! We scoured the internet (thank you pinterest) and thought peppermint marshmallows and hot chocolate on a stick sounded like a fun combination. (We used recipes on the above links above, but increased the sugar in the hot chocolate, and decreased peppermint in the marshmallows.) If you plan to make these one day, let me know. It was a pretty big project, and I have some tips I could share with you!Cutting, Dipping in extra chocolate, getting ready for their packages!My list of recipients is growing - More teachers, more neighbors, more relatives, more friends! And I packaged these up several ways for a variety of recipients.

Thankfully, I found these free downloadable labels online too! Hooray!

Here are 2 other cute packaging ideas if you decide to try this on your own! Here and here.

Snowman Milk

Here's a project that I found on the internet, which claimed to be "quick" and "easy." That's partially true, if you don't exclude all the time it takes gathering all of the supplies! This took much longer than necessary. But it turned out super-cute, I think! If you decide to give this a try, here's what you'll need:
Here are the supplies (because it took me a while to get this figured out.)
-Milk Bottles (or Starbucks Frappucino bottles, with labels removed by Goo B Gone or Turpentine)
-Orange Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds (I called around, and got the last pack from my local TJ Maxx!)
-Icing to affix the "nose" to the "face"
-Chocolate Nonpariels (only works if you use a thick cakelike donut)or a Edible Pen (works for airy or cakey donut)
-Powdered Donut Holes (this was a toughie! I went to 10 locations looking for the right ones. They were either not covered with enough sugar, irregular in size, too small for the bottles, or would not work with the sprinkles) If you are in Middle TN, Fox's Donut Den makes the only ones that will fit.
-Straw & Milk
-Felt for Scarf (the craft-sized felt is too short. Must buy yardage at your local fabric/craft store)
-Buttons & Glue Dots (or with Hot Glue, or stickers, etc.)
-Egg Carton for transporting donuts

Family Photos

We got our family photos back a few weeks ago from photographer Tec Petaja. Wow - he captured some amazing shots! Click here to see the highlights!

Thanksgiving Table

Some more fun projects I made, based on stuff I found on pinterest! Pilgim Boats, made from felt, craft foam & a straw!The kids table placemats. A free download from here. I had them printed at my local Kinko's, since it is larger than a 8-1/2 x 11 format.

Trick or Treat Bags

This is a late post...but I decided to make some more trick-or-treat bags for my other kids. One kid always had a cute one, while the other had a grocery sack! So I finally bought some felt to make 3 other bags. The one in the back is the original. Lance & the kids designed the faces (can you tell which is Ethan's and which is Katie Belle's?), while I made them into bags. I haven't finished the upcoming new baby's bag, but I think that at 7 months old, she's not going to be needing any candy anyway! Now they are stored away, ready for next Halloween!