Children's museum

Just a few pictures of our family trip to the children's museum. You tell me who you think was having the most fun. :)

So much to do

... and all I want to do is procrastinate it.  About a week ago, Benson and I decided to do some major re-organization in our house.  We have a 3 bedroom house and 5 kids.  And girls have a LOT of stuff,  :) so having all 3 girls in a 10x12 room was getting a bit overwhelming. 

That was our inspiration. I offered (though somewhat reluctantly) to give up my craft room for a bedroom.  We put the boys downstairs and split up the girls in the 2 rooms upstairs. 

A while back we were given 2 loft beds, so we put them to use in our efforts.  Goose now has his own play space up above the floor in his room. 

And Sweetie is sleeping in the other loft bed leaving the room below available to double as a playroom. 

My craft stuff has been split throughout the house, but so far it hasn't been a problem.  Of course, I also haven't had a major project yet either.  We'll see how this goes when I have my flower stuff out for my next piece of art.  :)

Anyway, I wanted to share some of the pictures.  We're still working on getting everything put away, but we are making progress. 

I missed writing about a few things, so here are a few more pictures of stuff we've been up to this past month. 

playing in the snow

daddy daughter dance

Tank turned 6!!!

Goose earned his arrow of light scouting award

Twister learned to use the toilet! 

And lots of other random fun too.  :)  Life is good.

Snow day!

I only got one "during" picture...  I took this last night before it really got  bad.  There wasn't a huge amount of snow all at once, but the WIND!!!  It was absolutely crazy.  I think you would have to hear the storm to really understand how intense it was.  I had a hard time falling asleep. 

And this morning...  Pictures just never do snow full justice.  This is trying to look out our sliding glass door.  That drift "wave" as the kids called it must have been 5 feet tall. 

Looking out into the yard.  You can sort of see a bit of our fire pit there.  Well, if you compare to the before picture you can anyway. 

This is looking out or front window.  If you enlarge it you can see how deep the line is that the guy across the street was snowblowing out of his driveway.

Cinderelly looking out the back window.  This gives a little better perspective on how tall the drift was.  The door goes out and has two steps down to get to the patio level...

Goose actually climbed out our front window and went around to the back to try to help shovel out that drift.  It was pretty comical actually.  He didn't get very far before Benson pulled out the snowblower.  That persuaded him that shovelling was futile and he came in.  :)

After the snowblower.  Thank heaven for that piece of machinery!!!  I have a feeling Benson is going to be helping a lot of people find their way out of their homes today.  He is currently at my parents house helping them to find the driveway.  Anyone who has seen my parent's house will have recollection of how LONG the driveway is.  My dad usually plows it with an attachment on his lawnmower.  Not this much snow!  Benson might be over there for a while.  Not to mention our neighbors who I don't think even own a shovel. 

Haha, look at the snow drift on the roof.  :)

Yea, so check out the walkway to the house.  Looks like 2 feet of snow there to me!  It was a crazy storm. I'm just grateful we kept power!!!  Oh, and also for the snowblower.  :) Yes, VERY grateful for the snowblower. 

Blogging rut

So, I seem to be in a blogging rut... I can't seem to figure out how to make ANYTHING in my life seem exciting enough to write about!  So, instead of trying to make it interesting, I'm just going to put some of this stuff out there.


First of all, I've been working part time for the past month.  I used to work as a medical assistant up until I had Twister.  With child #4, I figured I needed to stay home with my kids.  I've never regretted that decision.  However, when the doctor I worked for called me and asked if I could fill in for him while his nurse was on maternity leave, I was thrilled at the idea.  The first day back I got to draw blood, give shots, get an EKG....  it was awesome!!  Yea, I know that's a little creepy.  I'm ok with that.  Someday, when I grow up, I want to be an RN, so I really oughta love doing this stuff, right??  So, I've continued filling in twice a week for the past month.  I think I'll miss it again when I am done.

As for the kids, Goose just got over being REALLY sick.  I think the doctor wanted to put him in the hospital when we brought him in.  I think the only reason she didn't is that she knows I have medical experience and wouldn't let him get too bad before doing it myself.  He had a really high fever and didn't want to eat or drink anything.  He's so skinny, it wouldn't take much for him to be dangerously dehydrated.  It took him about 5 days to not have a fever, and one extra day to re-coop his strength.  I think the bug started with Sweetie, who then passed it to Twister, then to Goose and Benson.  Goose was the sickest though.  Benson is finally feeling better, but can't seem to shake an eye infection that he got with it.  Just praying now that we are done with it and that it completely by-passes little Cinderelly.  (I think I spoke too soon, Tank seems to be a little warm, UGH!)

Speaking of Cinderelly... she's small.  The official diagnosis is failure to thrive, but I don't like how that sounds.  She started life around the 25 percentiles and around 6 months went down to the 8th, then at 9 months she was in the 1 percentile.  Now she's off the chart.  :/  I'm hoping that it is only because she is VERY active and a bit picky about what she eats.  Hopefully we will find out soon, we have to see a specialist next week.   She is NOT behind in any milestones though.  This week she started standing on her own for a few seconds at a time. 

Anyone have children with phobias?  Sweetie I think may have passed the point of being a bit timid about being alone, into having it be a phobia.  She won't go to the restroom at school alone, she won't go outside alone, in fact, there's oftentimes she won't go upstairs in our own house alone.  I'm not sure what to do to help her.

On a totally different note, we pulled the plug on our TV service.  We actually did this last August, but at the time we told them to put it on "hold".  After not really missing TV for several months, we finally cut the cord.  We watch our netflix instant streaming shows, dvd's, and play on our wii.  We have an antenna for the TV if we want to watch news, but we haven't used it much.  We've had a lot of fun playing Just Dance.  Goose is champion.  I need to start practicing when he's not around.  :)  Tank is pretty good herself. 

Last sidenote, we think we are prepared for the blizzard set to arrive this afternoon.  I have friends who are super-excited about it.  I don't have that sort of mindset.  I don't hate the snow, but I'm plenty happy with 3-4 inches.  This 2 foot possibility is NOT exciting to me.  I'd like to be able to leave my home, and not have to get that much snow off of the driveway.   Thank heaven for our snowblower.  lol!  here's our before pictures taken this morning.

Wish us luck!

Family Picture

For you Mom W.  :) 

Our Happy New Year Greetings

Merry belated Christmas and happy new year to all our friends and family.  Every year, I think I'll put together a cute Christmas card and mail it out, but I haven't followed through for I think 4 years now.  So, once again, here is the online greeting from dear little old us.

Benson started the year off working crazy awful hours as a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant manager while he looked for a new job in his field.  The new job finally came through and he started with Compliance 11 shortly after the birth of our 5th child.  And as if being the provider for 5 children wasn't enough, he managed to tear out and install a new kitchen for us over the course of about 3 months.  He is amazing, absolutely amazing.  (And so is my new kitchen if I do say so myself)

Cheryl started the year pregnant.   Managing the lives of 4 little ones and being pregnant was a lot to handle, but managing 5 little ones has proved to be even more crazy.    Just to add to all the craziness, Cheryl decided to do several craft shows in the fall.  Her art keeps her sane and any money it brings in is a nice bonus.  One of the highlights of this year for her was her family reunion in the summer.  It was spectacular chaos.  :)  We loved it.

Goose started 5th grade this fall and is doing very well.  He manages to juggle all the work he has, and is a huge help to me with the littler kids as well.  He refers to Cinderelly as his "minor challenge" and Twister as his "major challenge".  He loves Wizard 101, reading, Legos, and computer games.  He has started playing the trumpet but hasn't decided if he wants to stick with it or switch to another instrument yet...

Sweetie is in 3rd grade and is also a major help to me.  She likes to pretend she has her own restaurant and makes the family lunch whenever she is home.  She is also majorly into art and likes to draw, paint, and color whenever she has free time.  Since she turned 8 this summer, she chose to be baptized.  We had a wonderful event with her and her cousin's baptisms and blessing Cinderelly at the same time. 

Tank started Kindergarten this fall and she LOVES it.  She has also started getting the art/creativity bug and has some beautiful art to show for it.  This may have started because she wants to do everything her sister does.  They are great friends and I love watching them grow together.  She loves to help out and is a great shopping companion. 

Twister is 2 1/2 now and fits the stereotype perfectly.  He wants to do everything by himself and his way.  He is obsessed with electronics and throws a spectacular tantrum when he has to get off of them.  This too shall pass, right??!!  I just have to figure out how to mold that independence into wanting to be potty trained.  Eventually... 

Our little princess Cinderelly joined our family on March 24th.  We really can't imagine life without her anymore.  She has spectacular BLUE eyes that sparkle when she smiles at you.  She has a strong personality that we love to see more of everyday.

We loved receiving so many of your Christmas cards, we love hearing what is going on with you.   I hope you'll forgive us for sending ours out this way.  :)  Health and a happy new years to each of you.

Love,

Us.

Weekend projects

We had a great Thanksgiving last week! My parents went out of town to visit some of my siblings, so those of us left here decided to have a "Pie Night" on Wednesday. We had pizza "pie" and a bunch of pies for dessert. The kids had a blast playing with their cousins, and the adults had fun catching up and doing a bit of crafting.

I had some visions of grandeur during the week.  I decided I wanted to use the flooring we took out of the kitchen to replace some of the really gross carpet in the girls room.  Lucky for me, I have a husband who can make my strange requests into reality.  It looks great and hopefully it will help with Sweetie's allergies as well.

I also had an inspiration to organize our entry.  Shoes, hats, gloves, snowpants, coats, and boots for 7 people take up a lot of room.  A lot more than I was giving them space for, so it always looked awful.  This solution opens up the front room and gives space for so much more stuff!  I love it!

I've also been playing with a super cute baby and some yarn.  :)  I have some super cute scarves to show for it.  I'm hoping to sell some at my next craft show. 

Oh yea, one more organization project.  My mom in law got me this awesome drawer organizer.  I switched around the placement of some of our stuff to use it to a better extent.  Also... LOVING IT!

So, this Thanksgiving I'm thankful for organization.  LOL!  Oh, and my amazing husband, my sweet children, our home, and sooo much more.  Life is good.