happy new year!

May 2009 be as full and wonderful as 2008!

1. train signal tower, New Freedom, PA, 2. Micah climbing a tree in Newport News, 3. Fall, 4. Buddies, 5. Micah and Lulu, 6. Sisters, 7. Beautiful, even when she cries, 8. Sleeping, 9. My favorite people, 10. Fairy house, 11. Summer fun, 12. spring, 13. Lady bug, 14. Dancing fairy, 15. Lawn boy

looks like santa has a soft spot...

for Lulu and her Paci-love!

P.S., Heather asked if I was taking orders for the Art Books I made for the kids. If anyone else is interested, let me know, maybe I will make up a few and put them on Etsy.

more christmas pics

This is what I did while the kids played with their new toys. It was only a 500 piece puzzle, just right for me to do on my own while Lulu napped and the big kids played. (I only had to go to 9 stores to find a Christmas puzzle last week, yikes!)

Christmas morning.

checking out what Santa brought.

The castle was a gift for both Micah and Max from the grandparents, they have been playing with it non-stop since Christmas.

Lulu loves her new Bitty Baby from her grandparents. She named her Abby and with Regan's help as been taking good care of her feeding and changing her :)

Regan has been asking for an American Girl Doll for over a year now and she finally got one! Thanks Grandma's and Grandpa's! She loves her Kit doll!

The Puppets that Santa brought...

in action...

oops!

These cool blocks were a gift to the boys from the grandparents.

This was a total suprise! I was not expecting to get anything for Christmas and Phil suprised me with this! Makes the gift I got him (bath towels) look pretty lame! I can't wait to use it!!!

handmade christmas

Here is what I have been busy working on for the past month, but couldn't show you... We did have some store bought gifts this year, but for the most part I tried to make gifts. It was really fun making most of our gifts and I look forward to more handmade (or Mama-made) Christmas' in the future!

I made these ornaments for the couples in our Bible study. They were inspired by these at Pretty Little Things.

These are Art Books so the kids can take their drawing materials with them.
For my Firefighter, Max

Micah's Pirate bookRegan's book

A Lazy Day Skirt for Lulu, since she loves to dress up and isn't quite ready for colored pencils and sketchbooks yet.

A puppet theater for the puppets Santa brought them (The Royal Family and Goldilocks and the 3 Bears from HearthSong)

Knit Hats and Crocheted scarves for the kids.

wishing you...

a very Merry Christmas- From our family, to yours!

christmas eve

The kids get one present to open on Christmas Eve every year, a new pair of pajamas.

They are always excited to put on their new P.J.'s and model for me...

Well, almost always...

Max fell asleep at church and wasn't really too happy to be woken up, even for new pajamas!

quotes of the evening

Tallulah- "I know Santa is nice, but I don't wanna sit in his lap"

Max, about Jesus' birthday cake- "How will we get His cake to heaven?"

Mommy- "Do I need to call Santa on his cell phone and tell him not to come because you arn't doing what mommy told you to do?" (just kidding, I didn't really say that, but I thought about it :)

christmas

I am finishing up the last of my handmade Christmas gifts and thinking about tomorrow; the excitement that comes with a house full of kids and piles presents, the family traditions of big breakfasts, Christmas puzzles and lounging around in our P.J.'s all morning... But mostly I am thinking about the true meaning of Christmas, what we are really celebrating, the birth of our Savior. I hope that amidst the excitement, we don't lose sight of the most wonderful gift we have ever received.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.
Isaiah 9:6&7

pow wow

Our friends just finished their unit on Native Americans and invited us to their Pow Wow last week. The kids had a great time playing Indian games, hunting for animals, doing native dance and having an Indian Feast afterward.

Regan helping Lulu play Indian "baseball" with pine cones as the ball.

Hunting animals by following their tracks.

Memory- someone would make a picture with these gourds, nuts and corn, then cover it up and another person would try and remember what it looked like and make the same picture.

Learning some native dance.

something I can show you now

I have been having fun with my newest toy(s).

We've gone hat happy in our house! Here are the girls modeling some of the hats I have made this week :)

can't think of a clever title...

We had our bible study over for a Christmas party last night and they just did not do their part to finish off these cookies! I still have a whole tin full!

I have been busy knitting, crocheting, sewing, painting, stringing beads etc. and am anxious to show you all the fun projects I have been working on but, unfortunately, I can't post any pictures (or even take any) until after Christmas because I don't want the kids to see what I am making! I am probably safe to write about some of it, since they are lazy readers (they mostly like to just look at the pictures on my blog), but to be safe I think I will refrain from even that.
I have not been getting too much sleep lately since I have been up late each night working on the kids presents and I have a whole other pile of projects for the day when the kids are awake! I have some templates for making miniature paper houses that I am excited to try, but I have to finish the presents I have to mail off first. I've got 4 done and only 9 more to go! Maybe I should stop rambling here and get busy :)

cookies, and random thoughts on where our stuff comes from.

Regan and Max took these pictures of of us making cookies today for our Christmas party.

Phil and I had a nice evening out last Saturday. While we were in Starbucks I found a bird ornament that just had to come home with us. Phil picked it up and looked at the label... "Made in China". This started us on a whole conversation of "what ifs"

What if, for one year, we did not buy anything made in China? What would that look like? Would we consume much less? Would our everyday lives be majorly effected? Would we spend more money, or less?

Better yet, what if we only bought American made? I started looking at some of our everyday things that we use and was happy to find that my Arbonne products are made in the USA, but some other products are not. I think you could only take the experiment so far, say for example, if I were to buy something off of Etsy, I would buy an item made by someone in the USA, but it would be too difficult to make sure that all the products they used were US made.

Either way, it would not be an easy task! Fun to talk about, and even to make ourselves more aware of where our things come from, but the whole thing might be bigger than this family can handle.

build and grow

Today we went to Lowes for their Build and Grow program. If you don't know anything about it, you should check it out. They usually host two events a month and they are FREE. The kids get a Lowes Build and Grow aprons and each time they complete a project they get a patch for their apron. Today they were making wooden ginger bread houses. It was quick and lots of fun. The kids were able to do most of it themselves, I just showed them where things went and they did the hammering and decorating.

Tallulah wasn't so sure about all that hammering :)