Overacheiver

I love this little girl so much!!! She is fun and vibrant and completely 100% girl! That said it is no wonder that 99.9% of the day is spent talking, singing, or making noises with her mouth. It has been said that females can say around 20,000 words per day. I can almost guarantee you that Kaelynn says that AND MORE each day. The girl can talk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Andy has been fishing this afternoon and the kids were starting to get to me after a long week. (T-minus 27 days and counting until the first day of school by the way!) Kaelynn was in her usual noise making mode. When I was just about to break down, I challenged her to see how long she could be quiet. Know how long it lasted? I timed it. Literally 15 seconds. Even when she is watching a video she is talking about it or singing made up songs about it or asking questions about it. Usually the only time sound isn't coming out of her mouth is when she has a sippy cup in her mouth. I say usually because sometimes she manages to hum and drink at the same time. I get some time away tomorrow morning to have some me time and I am seriously thinking about finding a sound proof room somewhere so I can relish in the silence.

A weekend with family

My parents and niece and nephew visited us this weekend. We had a fun-filled weekend with lots of activity. On Friday we celebrated almost all of the July birthday's on this side of the family. I say almost all because my brother-in-law Rusty's birthday was on July 25th, but they weren't with us. We still sang Happy Birthday to him over the phone the next day though. There are 4 of us with birthdays in one week. It's almost like saving up for Christmas :) We took the kids to Scheels where they have a ferris wheel inside the store. We have been here several times since we moved back. The kids love it!!!!

The gang!!

Saturday was a little cool, but we still took in some swimming in the pool in the backyard. The girls watered these flowers for about 20 minutes.

Much of the weekend found at least one boy with a sword or toy/water gun in his hand. Boys will be boys ......

Our little cherubs all dressed up for church.

Enough of the serious stuff....

Thanks for coming Grandma, Papa, Brendan, and Emma. We hope there will be many more of these times in the future.

Happy Birthday to you

Before we get to the birthday update, we have to give notice to another very important event in our house. Carson lost his first tooth!!! The night before his birthday he showed us that it was really starting to be loose. He worked really hard at wiggling it for about an hour and popped it out before bed. It really added to the excitement of the days. Connor of course moped around wondering when his tooth would be out. Andy offered to go get his hammer and that quickly put an end to the moping :) (Sorry about the toilet in the background. With a house full of boys, and now three toilets to keep track of, it doesn't all get caught right away :) Onto the birthday pics. Connor and Carson turned 6 on Friday. They enjoyed the traditional chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. A great way to start off an already super exciting day- caffeine added to two adrenaline charged 6 year olds makes for one crazy house.

Grandma and Grandpa came down for dinner. We grilled and enjoyed cake and ice cream. Kudos to Walmart. They really cater to everyone. I just couldn't get it together this year to make cakes, but they have these great mini cakes. They are very reasonable and they had the exact themes that the boys wanted. They serve 2-4 people and we only had 1 piece left over. Carson chose Spiderman and Connor chose Cars.

We went to a Redhawks game after dinner and gifts. It was the first baseball game the kids had ever been to. We made it through the seventh inning. Carson had lots of questions about the actual sport. Connor was more into looking at all the people and what they were doing.

Enjoying cotton candy- hmmmm more sugar!!!

Kaelynn did great the whole day. I was a little concerned about how she would do being the only child who didn't get presents, but she did great. She just sat back and took it all in. All in all it was a great birthday week! Now that it's over I am back to the house. I am starting on the family room tomorrow. I should have it done by the end of the week!

Change is good

I went in yesterday for a birthday haircut and came out with this....... I really like it. I can also wear it straight if I want to. Most of the time I am very frustrated with the wave in my hair. Especially with the style I have had for the past year or so. Straightening the wave was starting to get to be a lengthy process. But as of yesterday I love the wave God gave me. My blow drying time was cut in half this morning. I love it!!!

Change is good!!!

What we've been up to

The days are flying by. It's hard to believe that the birthday week is already upon us. Because the boys and I share the birthday week, mine tends to be a little bit of an afterthought even though it is before theirs. As I get older, I don't mind quite as much. As of tomorrow I will officially be well into my 30's. I couldn't be happier though. God has blessed us richly! So what have we been up to??? Well here's the past week or so in picture review... We are still working on the house. I put the kids to work too. They actually had a blast tearing off the wallpaper. They actually had permission to destory something in the house :)

I do have a plan for the family room now, which I am super excited about. Look for pictures in a few weeks.

So what does one do with the piles of boxes after they have been used?

1. Give as many as you can away to another "moving" family.

2. Make a castle for your kids.

There have been a few warm days since we moved here. I'm not kidding when I say a few. Grandma has come down a few times. This time she brought her sewing machine to hem some curtains for me. She has a lot more patience with the kids than I do so she gave them a little sewing lesson. We've also been working on Kaelynn's room. I haven't done a good job at doing before and after shots. Her room was sports themed with a tan sponge painting job on top and a moss green paint on the bottom. In between was a border with basketballs, footballs, soccer balls, and baseballs on it. So before.... very boyish. After...... very girly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it and so does she! So things continue to move along here. I'm going in for a birthday haircut tomorrow. We'll see what I come out with :) I'm feeling adventurous....

Better late than never...

Yes, I finally got some pictures taken of our new home. Soon is a very relative term when you are moving into a home with children 5 and under. I gave some before and after shots where I could. The ones I had on a previous post were from Andy's phone and they didn't get saved to this computer. I think you'll get a pretty good idea though from the pics that I got. We love this house by the way. We still have a lot of painting to do. I don't have any pictures of the downstairs or the kids' bedrooms, because they haven't been worked on yet. My goal is to get those done before my family gets here the weekend of the 24th. We'll see if that goal is too lofty :) Here is the front: A view from the entryway looking upstairs (obviously). Kitchen is straight ahead, living room and dining room are to the right and the hallway to 2 bedrooms and 2 baths is to the left.

The living room before: (There was wallpaper on that big wall that had to be taken down- and in the foyer too.)

The living room after:

The dining room:

The kitchen:

The main bathroom upstairs before:

And after: For those of you who really know me, you know that I love dark chocolate. I now have a dark chocolate bathroom which makes me very happy. In fact as I was painting it on, I kept thinking, "This looks good enough to eat!" Don't worry I didn't!

We also painted our bedroom the same color that is on the living room, foyer, and hallway. So we've accomplished a lot. There is still much to be done. I don't like to rest until I have it just how I want it. It's been hard for me to stare at the red and blue striped wallpaper downstairs, but we'll get a start on it this week. Well I'm off to do some more work. More updates to come...