Still reminiscing here

Still sorting thru pictures here and reminiscing about past memories. Of course not all memories are wonderful like my “walk down memory lane” the other day. Some are not so great though we can laugh at it now, but I think we may have even laughed a bit when they happened out of utter disbelief.  That is exactly what happened to us last September when a horrible round of stomach flu paid our ENTIRE family a visit. Everyone was hit…hard! This flu was no respecter of persons.  The big down to the very little got it.  No one escaped except for Blessing (Praise the Lord!) who was only a month old.  Even Jeff, Shyloh, and Bodey were hit so they came here since our house is bigger and made a “safe” room for Blessing to be in away from everyone else. It was almost unreal. We’ve had bouts with the stomach flu here in Neyville but usually its spread out so Duane and I can tag team it. Not this time.  Whenever this is brought up around here we all laugh at how crazy this was!

The only good thing with this memory is that I was the last to get it so no one took any pictures of me! Hehe!!

Rainbow Love

My sweet baby loves my hair, like really loves my hair! He always has his little hands holding or petting it. I love this!

I decided to make my hair fun for him so I had Shyloh put in colored high lights. Being an older mom has lots of benefits, one of which is you feel younger than you are. I wasn’t thinking of the fact that I am 41 and how many 41 year olds have rainbow highlights? I was only thinking of the fact that my baby would probably be delighted with the color.

And he was!

And God said, “Let there be light!”

Duane was on vacation last week, well if you can call it vacation! I actually think work is more of a vacation for him because he works so hard at home when he’s off! 

Have I mentioned how awesome he is??

A couple months ago Duane overheard me chatting with my sister in love about how I struggled with feeling down during the winter months. We really don’t get any direct sun in our house and couple that with dark days and it gets to me. I mentioned how I would love sky lights or even more windows in my living room just to have light.  A day or so later Duane says, “would you like windows put in the living room?” My enthusiastic response…”YES"!!!”

That was the project of this vacation week! I am beyond blessed to have a husband so sensitive to my needs in every way and also a man that is willing to try to do anything himself to save us money. He’s never put a window in from scratch before so this was a bit challenging but he was ready for it!

The final result!

 I love it! Every morning I come downstairs and actually have light in my living room I am delighted! 

Thank you honey! You are my hero!!

25 Ways to Wear a Scarf

Lynette, this is for you!

How crunchy are you?

Shyloh sent me a link to a fun little quiz on “How crunchy are you?” I won’t tell you exactly what my numbers were but I did find out I’m crunchier than I thought! I also found out that Shyloh is even crunchier than me! (Not that that is a shocker to anyone! ha ha) Go take the quiz yourself and see where you rate!

Continuation of “Pie in the face”

Last week Shyloh decided to sneak up on Duane and shove a cupcake in his face.  (Such a terrible waste of a delicious cupcake!)  He warned her that she started it!  On Sunday afternoon it was payback time.  She had just woken up from enjoying a nice nap during the football game when he decided to make his attack.  I think the pictures speak for themselves.

Wakie Wakie

The sneak attack

 

Doesn’t he look like a happy guy? Sweet revenge!

Little bit of this, little bit of that

I’m finally getting back into the groove of life after three months of dealing with morning sickness.  I’m really not a very social person when I don’t feel well and go completely into “survival mode”.  I very quickly shut down everything that can be shut down and even a few things that really shouldn’t be shut down. 

Going on baby number 10 has given me the gift of perspective in these early months when I’m tired and not feeling well.  I remember with early pregnancies feeling like I had to do everything and if I didn’t I felt like a failure.  The last few pregnancies I have given myself permission to just take it easy knowing it’s just a short season and then life will go back to normal.

Now that life is getting back to normal I figured I would do a quick update on life here in Neyville.

Even school took a detour and I wasn’t assigning anything extra for the kids to do.  My goal each day was just to get the 3 r’s done and not worry about much else.  It’s been nice to get back to doing some fun things. 

Shannen giving his report at his California mission class

Shayden speaking on Mission San Juan Bautista

Lolly working on her Apple matching folder game

  Teeny tiny student

Another thing I let go of for a couple months was couponing.  It was just easier to have Duane pick up what we needed than hunt and sort thru coupons for the best deal.  And besides he really would rather not stand in line to do 2 or 3 separate transactions and try to figure out what my shopping list meant.  Its been nice to be saving money again and feel like I’m doing my job in making Duane’s income go as far as it can.

I paid $8.47 out of pocket  at Rite Aid for all this and got $8 in UP Rewards to go towards next weeks shopping trip.  I didn’t think it was bad, but Duane said I was a bit rusty and could have paid less. :o)  Rite Aid has become my favorite store to shop at recently.  About 3 weeks ago I bought $97.00 worth of diapers (9 packs of Huggies)  for Shyloh and I.  I paid less than $20.00 for all of them and got $30.00 back in Rite Aid gift cards.  Shyloh and I are set on newborn and size 1 diapers!

We also took a little sabbatical on some of our trips.  It’s hard to sit in the car and feel nauseous at the same time.  Not to mention that Shyloh carried a large metal bowl around with her constantly and hearing her throw up in that while stuck in the car was a really bad mix.

On Friday we took the kids to Santa Cruz for the afternoon and then on to a church there that was having a concert with four bands that my bigger kids really wanted to see.  It was very cold and chilly but I had several children that still braved the elements and went in the water.  We stayed long enough to watch a gorgeous sunset!

 

I guess that’s a long enough update on life for now.  Hopefully blogging makes it back on my list of weekly to do’s again soon and I keep up with it better. With all the holidays sneaking up though I’m not holding my breath that it will happen yet.

Starbucks Share a Cup

All you coffee lover’s out there will love this!  Starbuck’s is having a buy a holiday drink, get one free on N0vember 18-21, 2-5 pm.  This is a deal you can’t miss.  Start digging in those couch cushions for all your lost change!  Starbucks peppermint mocha’s are so yummy!

It’s almost that time…

Time to start planning this year’s Christmas cards. I have been doing my Christmas post cards for 9 years now. I have them all hanging up in our hallway. It’s fun to see all the changes from year to year.

I am thinking and designing in my head. Hopefully I get a head start on these this year. I always seem to get them out at the last minute.

Then there is what to write about. So many things to cover from the year. Many of our cards have had pregnancy announcements in them…..Hmm???

How does this sound?

Nine in Ten equals Eleven, but Ten in Eleven equals Twelve...

We can also say one plus one equals three...

Aunt or Uncle; Sister or Brother...

April showers bring May flowers

We'll be counting down the hours, waiting patiently

Two Mommies and one Mammie

Boy or Girl what will "THEY" be?

Amazing, Amazing Grace

Check out the vocals on this little girl! Amazing!

Twas the night before the first day of school

So here I am counting down the hours until we are “supposed” to be starting our 2010/2011 school year and I am not at all ready. I’m very tired and very overwhelmed at the present moment.

I had planned on using last week to wrap up all my last minute to do’s and put my school room back in order. Didn’t happen. My week was spent holding, rocking, praying for, and caring for a very sick baby. We even had a late night E.R. trip thrown in to really mess us up.

Thankfully my baby is now on the mend and doing much better. (She even threw a tantrum today! That’s always a good sign.) Since she is no longer attached 24/7 to my arms I am trying to dig thru my mess. When I started this I knew exactly what went where, and what was old curriculum and what is new, what gets stored in the school cupboards in the garage and what I needed to keep inside. After a week of little sleep I have no clue.

This was not how I planned on starting our school year. Thankfully I serve a God whose mercies are new every morning and I am praying and trusting that He gives this tired Mama a double portion in the morning.

Binders are loaded with work so that’s half the battle right there. I have old curriculum sorted and ready to be moved in the morning to their new spots for the new year, I just need my strong young men to help me. I can actually see half the table and hopefully in the morning the rest of it appears.

At this point I don’t have high and lofty hopes for tomorrow and that’s just okay. If Shylie wakes up feeling good still, and we can all gather together and read our Proverbs for the day, and if I can not get stressed out about what I wanted to have done, but just keep doing the next thing and trying very hard to be a peaceful Mama for my children, then it will be a good day. It’s so easy to become a slave to the clock, calendar, or schedule and I don’t want to do that.

I may need another week to really gear up for this new school year and that’s okay. That’s part of the beauty of homeschooling! Sometimes we must bend when the wind blows, lest we break.

For those that think that somehow I am organized, here you go. Be prepared…it’s really ugly. Just being real here!

(School desks once, now they are holding my mess)

(My dining table is under here somewhere)

(This was once my desk)

(Um, can we even call this my school table?)

(Our overflowing library basket with overdue books in it)

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23

Clearplay

If you haven’t heard of a Clearplay dvd player and you would love a way to guard your children’s minds then this is for you!  We first heard about this wonderful dvd players 6 years ago.  This dvd player has allowed us to watch some great movie’s that we otherwise wouldn’t watch due to language, sex, or violence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Here are some excerpts from their site:

Q. What is ClearPlay?

A. ClearPlay is a DVD player that enables your family to enjoy all of the great Hollywood movies you’ve always wanted to watch—without all of the junk you don’t want

Q. How does it work?

A. The ClearPlay DVD player seamlessly skips and mutes content based on 12 categories that you can set. ClearPlay Filters are hand-crafted by at team of Filter Developers who watch the movie and masterfully select where the player will remove content.

ClearPlay works with thousands of movies. New Filters are generally made available the same day as new releases.

Filters are then made available to members via a very easy-to-use download process. You can then copy the entire Filter library to your FilterStik™. Once inserted into your ClearPlay player any movie will automatically be filtered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They have great customer service too!  When we first bought ours we had a few problems with it, as they were still working out the kinks to their system.  We called and they shipped us out a new one immediately.  Another time we tried to play the movie Barnyard and the filter they had wasn’t compatible to our copy of the movie. (and yes, we do clearplay most cartoons because so many have to much “adult” humor that we don’t want our children to hear) I called them and they had me send in our copy and they adjusted the filter to my copy.  They even paid the shipping for it!

We love our Clearplay so much that we even bought Jeff and Shyloh one for Christmas last year.  Even as adults we don’t need to see and hear most of the garbage that movies have in them.

Go and check out the Clearplay site and enjoy a great family movie night….trash free!!

Decorative items not included

Shyloh and I got a kick out of this wrapper for a blow up swim toy for Poppet.  Down in the bottom corner it says “Decorative items not included”.  What decorative items???  The girl?  The man? Oh, maybe the water???

(I tried to highlight this for you to see, but it’s still difficult.  Really, what decorative items?  This gave us a good giggle. LOL)

Adoption Miracles

My sweet friend Heather is helping to raise money for her sister and brother in law who are adopting two children. Please go and check out Heather's blog. Any little bit that you can donate to help them bring these sweet children home will help. It's a great cause and if you link to Heather's blog you can be entered to win some sweet baby booties.
Give up a coffee and donate instead!

Summer fun

There are several fun free things going on this summer. For those whose children have summer off from school this is a good way to keep boredom from creeping in. For those of us who still have school (yup, we do school most of the summer and please don't tell my children that there is such thing as summer break!!

Shh, it's a secret. )

we can use some of these activities to count for reading and p.e. The movies will just be a fun treat thrown in. I can't quite figure out how to make them count for school!

Regal theaters are doing their free family film festival again this summer on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
Free bowling between 9am - 9pm
Barnes & Noble Summer reading club
Borders Reading Program
Hebuddy.com Summer Reading Club