Lately

Haven't posted in awhile.  Things have been eventful, but uneventful I guess.  We've had some fun and excitement with two new babies born in the last week or so and a couple of fun outings, but for the most part life has been pretty normal...and good!  I am continuing to learn so much from our Bible Study, books I'm reading, and even songs and it makes life so rich.  Maybe I'll write about some of that another day.  In the meantime, here are some pictures from the last few days:

 Gray's turn!  He got to go to a Duke basketball game with Matt, Randy, and Andrew.  Matt says he was ready to go partway through the first half and this game went into overtime!  He had to employ many distraction techniques (a.k.a. food and candy) to make it through.  But Gray says he had fun and Duke is his most favorite team.  Don't think Matt will be signing up to take him to a game anytime soon...good thing it's the end of the season!

 Julia got all decked out in her jewels for a family party Saturday night.  We celebrated three birthdays (they just keep coming in this family!) and it was a fun time to be together.

 Of course the cousins just love getting time together.  Here they are playing "stay on the hammock"...think there were about 7 kids on there at one time and lots of screaming, laughing, and falling.

 Stacy was cleaning out and gave us this trombone.  Matt has an affinity for musical instruments and enjoyed getting it out the other day.  Gray was super excited to get a chance to play and have his picture taken.

And then he insisted on me taking a turn playing...and getting this lovely picture made:)

Our Big Snow

Like many kids I'm sure, my boys have been waiting and waiting for a good snow. Well yesterday morning we woke to a two hour delay for school and the tiniest patches of snow in our yard. A little underwhelming, but the boys still happily went out to play, intent on a snowball fight. Julia just looked out the window and upon seeing the snow in the chairs out back said, "Mommy OH DEAR!" She obviously has no memory of our many snowfalls last winter!

Gray tried and tried but couldn't really put together a good snowball. And you can see in this picture, the sun was already coming up and melting it all away.
And here's Julia again, still wondering what all that stuff is out there.
Joshua did manage to make a couple of snowballs and throw them at the window. And then there was breakfast and we moved on. So much for snow this year!

Weekend Ups and Downs

We were all set for a fun weekend...parties, visitors, sports--it would be great. Well things don't always go as planned. Friday afternoon the boys had a checkup, which Matt graciously volunteered to take them to. They survived their vaccination updates, but ended up feeling pretty bad later, which had me a little on edge during our gym party. I just hate not knowing what's wrong and wondering if they will throw up all over our guests, plus not being able to make it better. Joshua was up half the night with aches and pains, but thankfully both boys were all better the next day, albeit exhausted from going to bed at 10 and then getting up in the night.

But overall the party was an 'up.' We had a great turnout, great food, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. In between laying down and feeling sick, Gray managed to become a dad to triplets:) Two little kindergarten girls just loved having a boy to be the daddy/boyfriend/whatever man was needed in their little world.

Then after the party ended, my parents arrived for their weekend visit. Saturday morning we were all pretty tired, but the guys geared up for an NC State basketball game, which we had high hopes of winning. Joshua LOVES the wolfpack and was thrilled to get to go. Gray elected to go to the Duke game this coming weekend, though once he realized the boys were leaving without him he was super sad. But he snapped back quickly and those of us left behind spent the beautiful day outside in the sun, followed by a nice long afternoon nap. (hence the picture of Julia after her nap, hanging out with Mimi who had just been woken up from hers)

But another 'down' as the wolfpack did not nearly pull out a victory, which was quite a letdown for the guys. But they pulled themselves together and we headed over to Matt's parents for a visit and dinner. Well we stuffed our faces with a dinner of basically bread (thick crust pizza, bread sticks) and headed home. And then the major 'down' for me this weekend was discovering that my body no longer welcomes gluten, especially in the amounts I consumed that night, so I was up half the night with major stomach pains and the like. Somehow it subsided enough for me to feel relatively okay to be at church, but it came back with a vengeance soon thereafter and I spent the rest of the day in the bed. Even Julia was complaining of a stomach ache all day and her little face was all swollen that morning. Boo to gluten.

And there you have our weekend. Sometimes fun, sometimes much less than fun.

But here's to one exciting week in our family, as we have a new nephew here and one more to come soon. Julia loved Baby Leighton from the second I mentioned "tiny baby boy" and she can't wait to meet him! Congratulations, Leightons!

Little Valentines

We kicked off our celebration with a little Valentine's Eve BINGO. The boys loved it and we played many rounds. Judging from this picture, don't think we needed any extra sugar that night, but they did enjoy eating the "chips" (conversation hearts) anyway.

Hope you all have had a good Valentine's Day! Most of ours was pretty ordinary except I went to Joshua's class for my first time volunteering this morning. I really enjoy getting to know the kids and boy do they need some encouragement, discipline, teaching, and love. I don't know how teachers manage having so many needs in their class and so little time to deal with them. I hope to keep going back each week.

After Joshua got home from school, we did our annual Valentine's Treasure Hunt. Julia had no idea what was going on but she was happy to hang out with everyone and get her unearned treasure at the end!!

Matt was the clue reader and he decided in honor of the day we were celebrating, the boys would have to work together, stay together, and hold hands the entire time.
It was a bit funny, but they were so excited about the hunt that they went along with it.
They have made some serious progress in the last 2 years! I remember the first year of this tradition. Joshua couldn't find anything to save his life, no matter that I put the clues out in plain view, and Gray was just confused and threw a tantrum. This year was much more fun.
Julia's treasure was a little Tinkerbell. Without my knowledge, this little doll's shoes, about the size of an ant, are removable. We've already lost one.
Yay for the treasure seekers! You can't see Gray's prize, but it's a little Thor and Joshua's is a Captain America.

Fun had by all.

Special Events!

Besides the Kids' Night, I had several other events last week, which were out of the ordinary and fun, but also I realize that adding in anything extra makes it tough to keep up with everything the way I do on slower weeks. Basically I'm not going to make it when my kids are older and have to go here, there, and everywhere!:)

So last week we had a congregational meeting at church one night. We were given a very detailed survey to complete the week before, which I thought was really great as far as really figuring out what works and what doesn't for our small, but growing church. In this meeting, we talked about how things have been and where we're headed, plus got a lot of ideas on how to improve. I think anytime the group can come together and talk things out, we are built up, so I thought it was a good meeting.

The next night, Matt's mom and I went to a party for the home-based business "Uppercase Living". It's a bit similar to what I was hoping to do with my painting...decorate rooms with inspiring expressions (or in my case, Scripture) that really mean something to the people that live there. This company does more with the words (they are vinyl decals) and less with graphics than what I would paint, but has some really cute ideas...actually tons of really cute ideas. No one even made an order that night because it's just too overwhelming to figure out right away. But it was a fun time to be with some ladies I know and some I have just met a few times and some I didn't know at all. And there was great food too:) **Side note- great appetizer my friend had for us--cut endive into little "boats" and fill with cut up apples, blue cheese, and a little balsamic vinegar.**

And finally, the only special event I have pictures from was from the twins' birthday party at a local play place. The boys are no longer shy about this sort of thing and dove right in. They had so much fun and burned a lot of energy. Think they will sleep good tonight! Julia didn't really play, but I was just happy I didn't have to clean up any pee from a public place. Think we are finally getting a bit more secure in the underwear:) She was missing her nap, but besides one moment of passion where she screamed, "I don't want this cup! I need some banilla almond milk!", she was great. She is growing up for sure!

Julia loved Baby Stella and everything that came with her...her bottle, her carseat, her teether.

My baby isn't looking so much like a baby, especially when she was trying to feed Stella her bottle! Little Mama already.

And this is the corner of the play place where we hung out on the froggy potty:) We returned there later to play with blocks and slide.

A glimpse of the birthday boy and girl!

Most of the time we saw only enough of the boys to verify they were okay. They were much too busy to hang out with us!

But I did make them come over for a few pictures, mostly because I realized I am not taking many pictures of anyone these days!

Thanks for the fun, cousins!!

Kids' Night Out Kickoff

Something else that I've been telling you about took place this week. We had our first Kids' Night Out. It turned out to be not what Robyn and I were imagining, but still good. We ended up not having a very good idea of who would come, as our contact in the school that was taking the RSVP's was having trouble figuring out who would just bring their kids and who would stay with the kids, as we had hoped they would this first time. We had a count of 10-17 and we pictured that these would be young wild boys. I don't know why, but that's just what we thought.

In reality, we had 4 children and they were all 4th and 5th grade girls. I was a little bit nervous when they first came because I thought that we wouldn't be able to hold their attention, being that our planned activities were geared more toward kindergarteners, not preteens. Even worse, the girls didn't want to eat so the time wouldn't be taken by dinner either! But they all loved crafts and drawing, so we made necklaces and valentines and then we managed to get them to eat a little and finished the night playing many rounds of the Valentine Bingo.

I was disappointed at first that we had so few participants (our contact said that some of the kids who planned to come were sick), but it ended up being so good to just talk to these young girls and begin to get to know them and just give them some positive attention. And it was also nice talking to their parents. Two parents stayed and one did not, but did talk to us a lot before and after. As we cleaned everything up that night, we were just feeling really glad to have begun some relationships with these families that we can hopefully continue in the months ahead.

Now we have some planning to do! Our next event is mid-March and we will continue to work with the social worker we have been talking with, but will probably pursue some of our other contacts now that we have had our "trial run" and feel slightly more ready to take this program on. In the meantime, I've got "tweens" on my mind. I don't know much about this age group at all, besides from my own experiences being that age, so it's different to figure out what they like, how to connect with them, what their needs are. We had two young girls from our church to help out so that was really neat. I think it would be really great if we get a big group of young girls that we could really get to know and maybe even have some sort of Bible Study for. I know the ones that came could really use some love and hope and truth! But I'm thankful that it is the Lord that directs all things and he will be the one to take this program where he wants it to go. Stay tuned for more info next month:)

Painting again???

I have obviously not been into blogging lately! Since we got back from Fort Mill last weekend, I have kept busy with several things, which I'll update on this week..

First, I decided after talking with my mom, that I should attempt to paint some decorative/inspirational kinds of work on canvas to sell. I bought some supplies and got started. I planned to crank out 10-12 pieces and post them and see what happened. That idea lasted a few hours.

I started on two small paintings and thoroughly enjoyed myself for about 3 minutes at a time, but overall it was just not good between the dishes piling up in the sink, the kids arguing, the laundry sitting in the washer, the kids peeing and/or making messes everywhere, etc, etc. It was just not a happy home that day so I decided to finish the paintings I was working on, but make them gifts for two friends of mine.

I have two more started and some ideas I really like, but I'm just going to have to be patient waiting for time that I can work. I really, really enjoy it, but young motherhood just doesn't lend itself very well to lots of solitary time to spend on hobbies.

Spring is here?

I'm getting that feeling lately and it's not just our super warm days and the daffodils I saw in our neighborhood today. I tend to think of winter as gloomy, dark, and boring...sometimes depressing. I tend to like staying at home and I like calm, un-busy life, but I also tend to feel more upbeat when there are fun activities on the horizon. Enter February and March.

I counted and in a matter of about 5 weeks, we have 11 birthdays in our family, plus my sisters both have babies that will hopefully come in this time period. And these 11 birthdays aren't great aunts or second cousins--they are Matt and Gray, our siblings, my dad, our kids first cousins--people we are close to and celebrate with! Excitement!

Also in these months we have the kickoff and followup to our church's new ministry, Valentine's Day (we do a little celebration with our kids and since the room mom in Joshua's class just moved to Texas, I'll probably be doing his class party too), a gym gathering at our house, an Easter outreach at church, a CrossFit affiliate gathering, a trip to West Virginia to meet my new nephew, the beginning of soccer season for the boys and so on...

For a not usually busy girl, this is a pretty crazy time. And it's all fun stuff! Some of it, I do have some responsibilities for though, and when I have extra duties on the horizon, I tend to make lists, get a little tense, and start doing everything I can ahead of time, hence the pictures below.

The last few days have been quite crafty, as I have...

made a BINGO game for the kids' night

shopped for gifts..well, that's not crafty

prepared crafts for our Easter outreach

made a BINGO game for my niece's "seashell" birthday party

drilled holes in shells for necklaces and painted these shells for prizes

Lots of stuff going on. Lots to look forward to. Bring on the Spring!