Singing the ABC's

This morning Benjamin was playing with all of his toys in his little corner when he just started singing the alphabet song on his own.  I listened as he sang it through a few times and he was singing the whole thing!  So, I grabbed the video camera and caught the cuteness on tape.....my clever little boy :-)

Thanks for the jammies Jack!!

Hi cousin Jack!  Just wanted to thank you for the Thomas the Train pajamas you handed down to me.

Obviously, I looooove them!  You're a great cousin to share with me.

Love, Benjamin

Little guy under the weather

Our poor little guy isn't feeling too good.  Last night he had a temp of about 103.5 and just cuddled with me, not wanting to eat or do anything.  He fell asleep in my arms at bedtime, but was up stirring every couple of hours all night.  He had a temp again this morning so we've been keeping some Tylenol in his poor little body.

I don't mind the extra cuddles at all but I hope he feels better soon!

Here's a pic from the other day showing what happens to my sweet boy when he enjoys part of a Kit-Kat

He was loving it :-)

A bit tired

Tonight, I'm feeling a bit tired.  It's the good kind of tired.....where you've spent your days doing things that are productive and meaningful, but tired nonetheless.

Saturday morning my nesting instinct kicked in and since we're keeping the nursery the same, I needed another project.......the garage.  If you've been to our house you know just how bad that garage was.  I'm not kidding, I should have taken a picture of it's horrificness (yes, I realize I probably just made up that word) but that would have been embarrassing.  Peter was not too excited about my burst of energy but it's looking a whole lot better and we're close to being done.  Then I'll take a picture.  Just because it would shock the people who have seen it's "before" with their eyes :-)  Benjamin "helped" by sweeping, trying to run away to the neighbors, and climbing the ladder over and over.

 enjoying some cereal before Mommy breaks the news that it's "Garage cleaning day"!!!!  :-)

 this is his new "cheeeese" face

no fear, climbed up all on his own!

Sunday was church and I was super excited because a girl we've been praying for tons in our EPIC group actually came for the first time.  God is so good!  That afternoon, a friend of mine and her little boy came over to stay with us for the night.  We enjoyed some good fellowship while our little guys played together but we stayed up way too late!  The worst part of it all was that I slipped on Monday morning and slid down the stairs, bruising up my back a little bit.  I'm okay, just a little more sore than I usually am from just being 6 1/2 months pregnant! 

Monday afternoon we watched our friends 3 kids so they could go pick up a family member at the airport that evening.  It definitely makes you flash forward a few years when their youngest is in kindergarten and you realize the world of homework, and showers, and getting up for school is on the agenda.  We had dinner, played pool, and ate popcorn while watching The Little Rascals.  We got up a little earlier this morning so we could both take them to their different schools.

 Benjamin didn't make it through the whole movie, but he looked pretty big sitting with the big kids

he is obsessed with this game and wants to do it all the time

Benjamin and I went to Wal-Mart for some much needed produce, then headed home because one of the high school gals from our EPIC group was coming over for most of the day.  She's a sweetheart and I love having her over.  I took her to her play practice at 2:45 then came home so I could teach my piano lesson from 3:20 to 4:00. 

Peter came home at 5:15, we ate leftovers for dinner, I am doing more laundry while Peter gives Benjamin a bath and then soon we will call it a night (with a Twix ice cream bar that may or may not be in my freezer at the moment)  Tomorrow I'm babysitting another friend's 2 little girls for a few hours, teaching another piano lesson and then we have our Connections home group in the evening.  Busy, busy!!

Life is full, and I'm a bit tired.  But there's a contentment you feel at the end of the day when you're able to be used to serve others and use the resources God has given us for His purposes.  I've not always had the greatest attitude when I feel like I"m being stretched thin, but I know that God can change my heart on this and make me look more like Him.

 

Channeling my inner Martha

For the past couple weeks I've been secretly planning and crafting a surprise baby shower for my dear friend Kristen.  She is having her 4th child, a baby boy, in a couple of weeks and there is just no one more deserving of a little extra sprinkle of love and appreciation. 

We had told her we were going to have an EPIC girls dinner and murder mystery party, but instead, 11 of us young moms/gals from our church got together to eat some good food, shower her with gifts, pray for her, and celebrate this new life.  And the best part........she was actually surprised!  It was great.

Anyway, I'm not super craft on my own, but I am a great copycat.  So a fun dinner party/baby shower was the perfect excuse to get in touch with my inner Martha Stewart!  I loved the challenge of making things look "put together" on a tiny budget :-)  So here's a few projects I worked on.....

It was the perfect timing to incorporate the pumpkins you can find so cheap into the decor, but I didn't want to have the "usual look" of the orange pumpkin, so.......I used a deep red spraypaint.  It was super easy, took only a couple coats and a few minutes to finish 4 pumpkins.  I then cut off the stem, cut out a circle for the large tealight candle, touched it up with a bit more spraypaint, and it was done.  I really liked how it turned out and you can use the spraypainting pumpkin technique for a ton of different decor ideas.

I was lucky enough to get some clearance roses and lillies at Wal-Mart, and I loved the deep red and burnt orange.  I also found the two coordinating fabrics on clearance at Wal-Mart and got really small remnants of each for only $1.00 total.  I wrapped 2 baked bean cans and 2 tomato sauce cans that I'd used earlier after making taco soup for our small group.  They weren't perfect, but I thought they were cute.

I originally found the idea for this decor, here.  I already had the dixie cups and some of the scrapbook paper, and the other paper I got 4 for $1 at Michaels.  It took about 40 cups to fill 2 strings of white lights.  It took a little while to cut out the pattern of paper for each cup, and cut the "x" slit on each one for the light to fit through, but they looked really beautiful when they were lit up and strung above the area where the food was served.

The green vase is something I had bought from Ross a long time ago and one I use in our guest room.  The branches were picked in the field next to our house and spraypainted a darker brown.

 (ignore the flecks of dust on top of the runner)

I thought it'd be fun to have a table runner but didn't want to spend a lot of money on one.  So I had originally thought of the idea of using wrapping paper as a runner.  But I couldn't find any cheap enough or one that I liked that went with my color scheme.  So, I purchased a roll of brown postal/craft paper from the dollar store, cut it to size (about 13ft to fit across 2 large tables), and taped off about a 1 inch border with painters tape.  I grabbed leaves from our yard, dried them, then arranged them in a random pattern on the brown paper.  I taped them each down, then used dark spray paint to paint over them.  Once it dried, I removed the leaves and it left a "leaf shadow" on the paper almost like the way the leaves can make a shadow/imprint on the sidewalk.  Again, it wasn't perfect but it was really fun, though a bit time consuming, to make.  Nobody had any idea it was something I actually made myself at the party so I think that was a good sign!  And it only cost $1!

I also used some leaf candle holders from our bedroom, some other square votive holders I had in storage, a bit of ribbon, and some Scrabble tiles to spell out some cute baby sayings.  It all seemed to tie together well.

I made a bookmark for each lady to remind us how important it is to remember and be in God's Word and let it be always on to forefront of our minds and actions.  I just used leftover scrapbook paper and some red ribbon.

Of course, I'm a complete dork and forgot to take a picture of the whole setup before people arrived but I grabbed one quick picture right toward the end of the evening though I don't think I captured everyone in the shot and it doesn't show the gift table or food area.  I'm definitely no Martha but I think it was cozy.  And I'm able to use some of it for at least a little while on our own dining room table.

We only played one baby shower game because quite frankly, I think most of them are kind of silly, but I used this game found here, with a few variations and it was actually really fun.  Of course, winning candy makes everything fun!  But I didn't get a picture of the poster board with the game on it.

It was a really fun evening with friends.  I served a yummy salad (recipe here), the Pioneer Woman's recipe for lasagna (found here), French bread, and oreo ice cream dessert (we got to enjoy the leftovers tonight!)  Add some coffee with white chocolate mocha creamer and a whole lot of girl talk, and it was great.  Kristen is such a blessing in my life and I loved being able to do something fun for her.  Now, we're just anxiously awaiting the arrival of her baby boy!!!!