Our Family Project

Kate wanted an art party for her birthday this year. And, I will totally do it all over again ... it was so easy and a lot of fun. The girls painted backpacks, sculpted with clay, made party poppers , decorated door hangers, painted and played pictionary. It was definitely a full day, and despite all the mess, it was a party that will be remembered, if not repeated.

A couple weekends ago we went camping ... in our backyard. Eliza built her first campfire, with a little help from Dad. And, Adam wouldn't have a thing to do with the campfire. Where did I find him? He was in the tent getting the rifle ready to hunt down the rogue rabbits that jump through our backyard late at night. Or, maybe he was just getting some practice at shooting out his eye.

Art Party Aprons

At the advice of a very wise person, we decided to spend more one-on-one time with our children. We sat down and figured out that we could assign each child a night of the week during which they get to stay up later than the rest of the children to do something with us. We let each child choose what they want to do with us, and it's been really fun to do what they want. Sometimes we let them accompany us when we need to go to the store for something (and they always get a little treat in return for doing "our" thing). Although, I think my most favorite thing was when Adam decided he wanted to go to Target and get "big pretzels." He is so adorable. And, I love it that we get one night a week to spend with him, our attention undivided. It really has helped me to enjoy and "see" his personality much more. On his night this week he wanted to go play hopscotch outside. So, we went out and Jon drew the hopscotch squares with sidewalk chalk, then we each pic...

We've been pretty busy the last little while ... giving me a lot to blog about, but also making it hard to blog. I was going to just list what we've been up to, but as I started making the list I realized that there are so many stories that I'd be leaving out if I did that. I don't want to leave anything out since I'll be printing my blog in a book at the end of the year, so I'll just have to take the time to write an entry for everything. Tonight I am remembering a day last week when I slept in. Our children are pretty good in the morning about getting themselves some cereal and just watching tv or playing by themselves if I don't get up on time. On this particular morning, I came downstairs to find that the children had brought all the train tracks and trains upstairs. They had built a track at the base of the stairs. And, the most remarkable thing was that they weren't fighting. I was amazed. So, I grabbed the camera and snapped some pictures of our c...

Maryanne likes to scream. Jon has started calling her Nazgul-ita. At least she's happy!

***Remember to check out my earlier entry for Kate's b-day post!*** I got this finished Wed. & had to post it to show it off. I don't know if they'll work out okay with the decor that my amiga has helped me pick out. I'd decided to paint these stars at the time I purchased them, however I hadn't done it in the two years we've had them. So for a while I had to look at this ugly (at least in my house I thought it was ugly) copper color the stars were. On Wednesday I finally did something about it. I have two sizes and this is what I did with them. Let me know what you think!

I woke up today to see that despite my greatest efforts to keep food & wet stuff away from our computer a child had spilled water all over the tray where sits the keyboard. Therefore, some of our keys are not working. The N, B, right shift & ctrl, & arrow keys don't work anymore. I'm using alt characters to get the letters I need. It makes it go a lot slower, but I desire to get this up before I forget. So, please disregard all mistakes & I'll do my greatest to use euphemisms as I can. So, Kate's birthday is today! Yay! She's a pretty special gal in our family. She by far is our most creative child. She always comes up with ideas to help us get stuff completed in a fun way. On of the things I love the most about Kate is that it seems she is always thinking of others & sharind with them. She is such a sweet girl. Here are some pictures of her from yesterday. Her best friend brought over some caterpillars he found in his tree. They played for q...