A Month??

 Hard to believe it's been a month since I last posted! Time is FLYING around here. We are so very busy all the time and it's hard to find a minute to take a breather! I find myself very tired all the time, probably due to the constant brain power required to teach these rascals of mine!

Here is our past month in pictures!

Here are my cuties on Halloween:) We have some unidentifiable super hero on the left ($1.30 at the thrift store!), Super Man (borrowed costume!), A Princess/Fairy/Ballerina and....a very austere and thoughtful Monk. Quite a crew!

It was very chilly out on Halloween night but we were still able to score quite a bit of candy.

We also took a field trip with our science co-op to Stratton Farms which is a working farm on a forest preserve. It was a really neat place! The kids were broken up in to three different groups and I stayed with Eliana's bunch.

They got to visit the greenhouse and taste several different plants!

And they got to feed chickens:) Eliana was pretty nervous at first!

But she stuck with it and let the chicken get a few nibbles:)

Their guide also took them into the woods to teach them about plants and to listen for different sounds. Here they are putting on their "deer ears" and listening to bird calls. The kids were like putty in his hands!

And let's not forget the pigs!

We finished up with some climbing on giant hay rolls. Who's that silly kid in the background?!

Playing in the leaves before we go!

We visited a park on a nice Sunday afternoon and I got my trio riding dinosaurs:)

We celebrated both of our mom's birthday! We had a nice dinner here with Ben's mom and family and unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures! And my mom turned the big 6-0 and together, with my sisters' help from far away, I threw her a surprise party. It was lots of fun! She is looking beautiful with her "new" teeth! She got her braces off just in time for her birthday!

And I have been working on a very special project for the past month!! Don't I look very cool in these safety glasses?

I have been sawing, hammering, drilling lots of screws, sanding, staining and painting!!

All in my grandpa's very nifty workshop with my stepdad. Wanna know what we were up to??

Building a kitchen island!! We have a nice square kitchen with very little counter space. I showed my grandpa a picture of what I wanted on my phone, he drew up some plans and my stepdad and I built it!! Here is is before being sanded and painted and put together.

And here it is all finished! We just brought it home last week:) Isn't it beautiful?!

We can't believe what a difference it makes in the look of the kitchen and how much space it gives us!

And this was a peace of amazingly delicious apple pie that my mom and I made at Thanksgiving . time, Mmmm!

And here is a beautiful Plain City sunset! The sunset and sunrises are so beautiful out here! We definitely love our cute little home:)

Weekend!

 It's been a nice weekend! Usually the most exciting thing we do is visit the library or something of that caliber but yesterday we went to a model train show downtown! It was free for kids and it was very crowded!

It's fun to see all the little cities and scenes set up. There is a lot of detail in each one!

We really enjoyed walking around watching the trains and studying the details of the cities. They had trains for adults and trains for kids, too!

Z even got to help drive one of the trains sets:) Our favorite part was listening to an expert speak on Walt Disney and the Railroad. It was really cool and we learned some neat facts! A nice way to spend our morning:)

Ben had to work for a little while later in the day so after I fed my trio, we attempted our first game ever of Monopoly! The boys really liked it and Eliana did, too, and tried to buy as many properties as she could:) She said to me, "Now I know how to play Monopoly! You just go around and around the board." Wish it were that easy!

I finished my cooking magazine project! It took almost two weeks of working in all my "spare time." I love, love how it turned out!! I made a little cover by cutting out magazine letters.

I got a 3 inch binder since I was going through about 100 magazines. I probably could've gotten away with a 2-inch but I wanted to have plenty of room in case I add to it later.

I got wide tab dividers for all of my categories. Each recipe is cut out and glued on a thicker white paper and in a plastic sheet protector. There are about 60 pages, front and back. Can't believe I reduced all those magazines to one binder! I think it'll be so much easier for me to use now and it makes me look forward to cooking more!

(this was about half of the magazines I went through!)

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And this afternoon, we met some friends at the park for about an hour and got a little exercise and fresh air, which always lifts the spirits! It was by no means a beautiful day, being muddy and misty off and on but it was good:)

Now we're ready for a new week!

Project Fun!

 Life seems so much busier here than it was a year ago. It just seems like we are involved in more things and seeing people more often. Which is probably a good thing for us:) I am keeping very busy with my cleaning houses, running to/from preschool and all the errands and things that upkeep our own home. I have been trying to get smaller things accomplished during Eliana's rest time in the afternoons (when we are home) instead of sitting down and reading, which I would really like to do instead:) It's my only quiet time of the day where I don't have to talk to anybody and I treasure it!

Today I made myself finish a couple of projects that have been waiting in the wings. I made some knit leggings for Eliana a couple weeks ago in light pink, which she loves and I finally finished the navy blue pair today! They are SO easy and I love how soft they are!

This is the hem in a fun zig-zag pattern. Eliana has a slight bit of sensory sensitivities just like Samuel and can be picky about the material of her clothes so it feels good to be able to make something she actually likes wearing! My goal is to keep an eye out for good sales on knits and make these in lots of colors for next year. She wears leggings all the time. Under dresses, with shirts, sometimes under other pants. Leggings are great!

I got an inexpensive chalkboard that had a dark frame, which is just not quite my cup of tea so I decided to paint it!

I painted it the same aqua blue color as the furniture I re-did in my kitchen and added some coral accents.

Ben hung it up for me tonight and I love it! I am going to write verses, sayings or my menu plan for the week on it. I am not great with decorations in the house, hanging things or interior design so I decided I needed something to brighten up my favorite room of the house!

More on the kiddos later!

Weekend Wrap!

 On Friday, Samuel was Star of the Day and we were invited to come and watch Samuel talk about his pictures to his class (we sent in 15 pictures of him from birth on up!) and answer any questions they had. At first he was a little embarrassed that so many of us came, haha. It was Ben and I, Eliana and C, the baby I watch. But he was also happy at the same time.

He pointed to every picture with the wooden pointer and explained in minimal detail about each one, which we thought was funny. He kept turning to me to ask when pictures were taken or how old he was. His teacher said, "Good thing your mom is here to help!"

The kids asked him all sorts of questions about the pictures or about the facts he shared. He put that he wants to be an artist when he grows up and one kid asked him what kind of art he wants to do! He didn't really have an answer for that:) I am so glad his teacher does things like this to make each kid feel special!

It was gorgeous on Friday! Eliana and I sat on the front porch for a long time and played and then brought Baby C out to eat his lunch outside when he woke up. We were determined to soak up as much Vitamin D as possible!

Mr. C LOVES to take wagon rides and he thoroughly enjoyed the ride to school yesterday! He had a big birthday this week and we got to celebrate with him yesterday!

We got a special Easter box in the mail from Ben's mom yesterday! Once we got permission to open it (how can you ask kids to wait??), I took it upstairs and assembled all of the Easter baskets. Wow, these are lucky kids!

They were sort of stunned at first and said, "Whoa!" Believe me, they were excited!

They stared for several long seconds and then dug in! Talk about goodies galore!

Happy kiddos! Thank you, Grandma!!

Eliana loves her new pink bunny and it has gone with her everywhere since yesterday! It sleeps with her, went to the birthday party and to church today:)

The kiddos picked out a pack of trucks for Baby C for his birthday since he loves to drive the boys' matchbox cars and I wanted to think of something to go with it. Something homemade to show how special he is to us. This is what I came up with! It is a little mat made of felt for him to drive his cars on. Not perfect by any means but it was really fun to make!

 

A house with a little dog...

A man fishing in the pond. That was Ben's idea:)

A park bench and some trees..

The swing set

And a truck. Kind of a fire truck/ambulance combo. Oh well! The boys were like, "How come you didn't make anything like this for us when we were little??" ha.  It was really fun to make a little special something for a special little guy. He's been like part of our family for this past year and we all love him!

This is what Eliana looked like when she woke up this morning:) haha. She looks different every time she comes out of her room!

At church today, they handed out palm leaves to all of the kids, who waved them on their way out to their classes. Eliana got a huge kick out of the palm leaf and used it to torture tickle us on the way home from church. Stinker!

We cleaned our place all up spic and span for our small group this afternoon, only to have everyone cancel for one reason or another. At least we all get to enjoy a clean house! That's a nice way to start the week. Then this afternoon, I made some homemade yogurt and BBQ sauce. The yogurt won't be ready to put in the fridge for another 2 1/2 hours. I am really really hoping it turns out!

Not that I'm going to eat it. Blech. I wish I liked it, believe me! But I have texture issues and yogurt causes an immediate gag reflex in me. So, this time I will have to rely on my families opinions to see if this recipe is a keeper! If it is, this will save us a ton of money. They all love yogurt and go through it so fast. It's not cheap either! This recipe makes 4 qts and a little over a pint of yogurt for a total price of $3.88! It lasts for a month in the fridge, has the probiotic bacteria and you can add whatever mix-ins you want!

I'll let you know it this works out! That's our weekend in a wrap. Hope yours was nice, too!

That's all for the weekend!

Boys!

 Our boys have been very busy lately! They are full of life, energy, questions, ideas, jokes and creativity. And sometimes they wear me out:) Only sometimes, though!

Zakkai has been a little bookworm lately! He started reading "Diary of A Wimpy Kid" last week and he carries a couple copies around with him most places. And he is actually reading them instead of just paying attention to the pictures:)

Isn't he handsome! He looks so old in this picture! One night at dinner last week, I looked at Samuel and he looked just like Ben and I told him "You look so much like your Daddy." Zakkai piped up immediately and asked, "Do I look like anybody?" I told him that he looks so much like my side of the family! I often see my sister, my grandma and my mom in him. He really liked feeling special! And then he said, "So, I look like the girls??" ha!

Samuel is pretty handsome himself! He is growing so much. He struggles with a bit of teenager-y attitude, which we constantly have to work on, but he is quick, sharp, funny and very smart! He used a belated bday gift card this weekend and got a magic card trick set and in 2 days, learned 5-6 very cool tricks!! He is practicing so he can put on a show for our families at Thanksgiving:)

We got a free table and chairs several years ago and they have been used well. I even recovered them and painted them a couple years ago but slowly they have deteriorated and some of the legs of the chairs and table have barely been hanging on. This chair finally bit the dust this weekend! We usually kept it in the spot where one of the boys would sit on it but it had gotten moved somehow and I happened to be looking at Ben right as he was in motion to sit on it and it was like slow-motion. I called out, "Nooooooooo!" and he looked so surprised as he slowly collapsed to the floor. It was a little funny:)

Needless to say, a table and chairs will be added to our growing list of someday furniture replacement !

This was a picture I took of my wild animals to send a "Happy Birthday" message to their cousin, Dylan! I so wish they could live closer...

And this weekend, we made flubber!! I found the post on pinterest, of course, and it was super easy to make! The boys were SO excited and kept bugging all weekend once we told them we would make it. Here they are pouring in the glue...

And stirring in the food coloring. They agreed on green:)

After some mixing...flubber!

Ready to play with!

The boys were ready to play with flubber after homework this afternoon! Zakkai was nice enough to share with Eliana, who just loved it! She used some playdough tools to cut it and make shapes. I'm glad we tried this one!

It was a little warmer today (low 50s) and sunny so after a busy morning of cleaning and laundry, I took my little big girl out on her pink scooter and to the park, which she has dubbed, "The Hello Kitty Park." Even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with Hello Kitty:)

We were the only ones there and it was just fun to hang out with her! Too bad it didn't wear her out enough for a nap....

Tomorrow I'll be working on Halloween costumes!