State of the Family #48

Whoops.  Its been a whole month plus a few days.  Thankfully, things have been pretty calm around here so there isn't too much to catch up on.

Most of the excitement around here has been with family happenings.  Cousin's birthday parties, baptisms and births.  Getting to meet new baby Broden aka "Gus"  on Feb. 3rd has definitely been a highlight.  It was hard on mommy seeing a baby boy with many resemblances to Noisy Man when he was a newborn.  Where does 5 1/2 years go?

The other highlight has been the final arrival of winter!  I can always do without the cold, but my motto is that if it is going to be cold at least give me some fun white stuff we can play in.  We all love to play in the snow.  Sledding, snowmen, forts, snow ice cream and my personal favorite, snow angels.  Then to come inside to some nice hot cocoa with cute rosy cheese and noses is the best!

I had been feeling pretty blessed to have such a healthy winter, but just heard on the radio yesterday that the flu is just starting to make its rounds.  Miss Firecracker and Miss Thumb Sucker got a nasty little cough and fever over the weekend but seem to be on the mend.  Miss Firecracker got the brunt of it and is still doing some breathing treatments on the nebulizer to keep it under control.  She gets into some doozies of coughing spells that just make your chest hurt watching her.  So far, everyone else has avoided it.

Noisy Man's 100 days of school project - his favorite thing - LEGOS

Mommy had her bi-annual scrap and only was able to accomplish finishing her digital calendar.  Oh well, fun time with the girls no matter how much you finish is always worth it, right?  I could adapt the old fishing saying to, "A bad day's scrapbooking is better than a good day's work"!  Totally true.  I also got to get pampered at out MOPS spa day, so much fun.

Noisy Man has been on a total Monopoly kick lately and is actually very good.  He is learning so much with numbers and adding and money stuff that it has a double whammy effect.  It keeps him entertained for hours and its educational!  Little stinker actually ends up winning 75% of the time too, without mommy and daddy even having to try to lose. 

Miss Thumb Sucker has finally crossed the threshold for potty training!  She hasn't had an accident in weeks and only has to wear pull-ups for bedtime, she even makes it through nap.  So. Fabulous.  She continues her ornery ways though, and I had just implemented a Pinterest find, the Time Out Jar.  If you put her in time out she just keeps getting up every 20 seconds to ask if she is done.  So, the time out jar was brought into play.  Shake it up when the time out starts and once all the glitter is at the bottom, you can get up.  Now she just has to learn not to continually move it around while she sits there so that it actually all gets to the bottom!

Miss Firecracker has learned to do a cartwheel and land on her feet!  She is so proud of herself.  And if I can learn how to upload a video on here you'll get to see it - if not a cute pic of her dance leg warmers will have to suffice (sorry).

Doing a fun Valentine's Day craft with red noodles!

That about sums it up.  Amazing how I can think nothing has gone one in the last month and then type on for 7 paragraphs.

No More Time-Outs

So, I had to get this down before I forgot it, and by the next time I have time to sit down and do an SOF, I'd probably forget.

Anyway, we were doing our little devotional which, tonight, was about God loving us so much that He sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins.  So, to bring it down to their level a little bit more, I said it was like one of them got into trouble for doing something naughty and mommy or daddy went and sat in time-out for them.  Or if one of Miss Thumb Sucker disobeyed and had to get a spanking but Noisy Man took the spanking for her.  It was really cool to see the connection being made on their faces.  We have told them this time and over again.  They can tell you very easily who Jesus is and what He did for us, but it was a really great analogy for them to be able to really understand it.

OK, so the real memorable part came a little later when we were doing bed-time prayers.  Miss Firecracker chimes in "We thank you for Jesus and that we won't ever have to sit in time-out again or get any spankings because he died on the cross for us."

Hillarious!  Of course I had to set the record straight and clean that up quickly, but we'll see what she says next time she gets into trouble.

Finally Finished It

I would be surprised if Waterbrook/Multnomah hasn't forgotten about me by now.  I finally finished my last blogging for books, book.

The Christmas Singing, by Cindy Woodsmall (I am hooked, OK) again, did not disappoint.  I love this author and everything she writes.

This was a wonderful, short story (I finished it in a couple of hours) that leaves you with a few tears in your eyes and a smile on your face.

In true Woodsmall fashion it is an Amish love story.  Mattie and Gideon, friends since childhood and a true love match, parted ways on very bad terms.  Mattie moved away and started a very successful business.  A turn of events leads Mattie back home to face Gideon.  There are things that were never cleared up between the two of them and, of course, Woodsmall has you turning every page to see if things will finally come to a happy ending.  She doesn't leave you hanging, except for maybe wanting more to read.

I received a digital copy of this book for free from Waterbrook/Multnomah Publishers for this review.

State of the Family #47

Whew!  Survived the Holidays.  With our last Christmas just occurring yesterday, we are finally done.  Now, that doesn't mean super-organized, on top of it all me has the Christmas tree and lights down yet, but we'll get there eventually.  I do actually have the tree undecorated it just needs to be lugged down the stairs, which I think I will leave to Daddy.

Christmas was good to us and I was so glad to have all my kids home all the time for almost 2 whole weeks!  Seriously.  I am not even being sarcastic.  I was so not ready to send them back to school.  There were way more things that we wanted to do before it was over.

At any rate, we had a great time.  It was a blast to get some real play time with my Noisy Man again.  We had some great Nerf fights (although quietly), pirate battles, coloring sessions and book reading times while his sisters were sleeping.  Have I ever mentioned that I am still not a big fan of this all-day, every-day kindergarten thing?

All the cousins at the Piper Christmas

We made the rounds to all the Christmases with all the grandparents and cousins.  We opened gifts and crammed them all into the van without ever having to strap a child on top to make it home.  Miss Thumb Sucker and Firecracker got a new Barbie house, Noisy Man got a Lego pirate ship.  They all got new clothes and tons of other fun things.  I have a counter full of advent crafts from a fabulous activity calendar we did this year called The Truth In the Tinsel.  It was a fabulous way to keep Christ at the center of all our activities.  Every night the kids would ask if we got to do another craft.  And we were busy enough that there were a few evenings we didn't get to the activities so we will have new ones to do next year. 

Miss Firecracker with some good buddies watching the afternoon
preschoolers sing at their Christmas party

Our weather has been unseasonably warm (almost concerningly so) so we
have been enjoying it to the fullest.  This is at the new part at our YMCA

We even did our first ever Christmas with just our family.  Usually we are so rushed between this event and that, that we aren't at home enough to do a little celebration of our own.  Thankfully, this year things slowed down a bit and we got to do it.  It was so nice just to have our three munchkins open a few gifts that they knew were just from Mommy and Daddy.  Next year I think I am going to try and have the kids get 'gifts' for each other somehow. 

The reindeer pancakes we had for breakfast Christmas morning!

We also all made a trip to the Omaha Children's Museum to see the dinosaur exhibit there that Noisy Man has been begging to go see for 6 months now.  We had a great time and they had some fun things, but we will probably stick to our favorite one in Lincoln (which we can since a membership there was one of our Christmas gifts this year!).  I would love to show some pictures of the great things they had in Omaha, but I forgot my camera at home that day.  It made me sad, but at the same time it was nice to just enjoy our time together with out having to interrupt things for a picture.

Back to the swing of things now.  Time to clean up and move on.  I am signed up for my 3rd Lincoln Half Marathon and am back in a better/more regular running routine.  Bible Studies, AWANAs, Basketball for Noisy Man, and all the other fun activities will be back in full swing this week as well.  Can't wait!

Handy Hubby Strikes Again #3

So, I have a bit of a shoe fetish.  I come by it honestly however, as people tell me my mother was a lover of shoes as well.  What better way to carry on her legacy, right?

However, I seem to have received my father's organizational skills rather than hers and my footwear issues have taken over our closet. 


Examining his work

My new shoe shelf (minus the back he put on it later)

Handy Hubby stepped up to the plate and saved the day.  (Of course cleaning and sorting them out helped as well.  I have 20 plus pairs to take to our church and Salvation Army.)  I have had some of them since early in college so it has been a slowly growing process.


But, now, thanks to my amazingly handy husband (and his itch to use his new nail guns that he got for Christmas), I have a wonderful, very tall, shelf for my shoes in my closet.

In place and full already.  I even shared a few spots with the great guy who made it. :)

Anybody Want to Help?

Blech!  Have  I ever mentioned that laundry is my nemesis?  This is a pile that needs folding.  The worst part of laundry.  Wanna know what is even worse?  Probably not, but I am going to tell you anyway.  I have already folded 2 loads and have one more in the dryer and one in the washer. 

So, if you are bored or tired of wrapping Christmas presents please come join me.  I promise I'll do the underwear (of which I made sure none was visible for the picture).  :)

(Update:  While the picture uploaded I got about 1/4 of this folded....but if you are still interested in joining me there is lots more to do.  Did I mention I made Chocolate Caramels the other day and I will share some?)

State of the Family #46

Ack!  It has been almost a month since my last SOF.  How in the world am I ever going to remember everything that we have been doing?  Well, I guess I won't be able to bore you with quite so  much information, then.  (I don't have pics added yet, but will soon!)

I guess Thanksgiving was in there somewhere.  We had a great time with family and my girls got to don their cute turkey shirts my friend, Lacey made them.  I, of course, couldn't leave Noisy Man out and make him a more "boyish" turkey shirt to wear (it has feathers on the back).  These pics were taken at a family Christmas we had the Saturday after Thanksgiving, if you're wondering what the stockings/presents are for.

Mommy did her annual Black Friday shopping and tackled about 75% of the Christmas shopping list all before 1 pm, and I didn't even start until 7 am.

The red hair saga continued for me as well and we finally got an acceptable color for the Christmas Musical.  It is actually still the same color as I haven't had time to drive home and get it 'fixed' yet.  It is growing on me, but something will have to be done as my roots are growing as well.

The week following Thanksgiving is, of course, taken over by the Christmas Musical and the entire thing is a blur, except for what I blogged about it.

The next week we make pretty low-key since Mommy is usually exhausted and daddy would have a coronary if I left the house again.  To make up for some mommy time lost during production week, I took the kids to Lost In Fun for a day full of mommy play time.  We love that place!

We started our Advent activities a little bit late, but the kids are totally loving our little activities that we do with each lesson.  We get to make a little ornament thing each day.  This is a struggle for mommy as it creates a lot of clutter and I don't do well with clutter.  "Why does it not go on your tree?" you ask.  Well, I am one of those mean, terrible mothers who has a matchy, pretty tree and doesn't do well with homemade things mixing in.  Don't worry though, another Christmas tree for our basement for all the homemade ornaments is on my day after Christmas shopping list!

We also had two programs for Noisy Man.  One at our church and one for school.  He did smashing in both of them and was so well-behaved I won't have any stories to tell other than how cute he looked.  Of course, when he was done with the one at church he barely had time to say hello to his grandparents before he had to rush off to the bathroom and I was totally bummed that I couldn't see him very well in his one at school.

Nothing else too exciting.  Miss Thumb Sucker is finally sleeping in her bed past 5:30 am.  Although she still wakes up about this time, she knows she can't crawl in bed with Mommy and Daddy anymore and gets tucked back in her bed.  She usually does well and sleeps again until 7.  Can anyone please tell me why she is waking up this early when she clearly wants to sleep longer?

Miss Firecracker is still loving preschool and brings home at least 5 colored and cut pages every day.  Her hands are eternally covered in magic markers.  This girl is too smart for her own good though.  Should I be scared or impressed that she sat down with us the other night to do Noisy Man's homework and could answer the missing numbers and find the missing numbers just as easily as he could?

My other big news is my new camera!!  Yeah!!  Finally, after waiting for two years to save for other necessities first I finally got to save for my camera and got it a week and a half ago.  It am totally loving it and still have lots to learn. 

Well, lots of presents to wrap, Christmas cards to address (just got them back from the printer) and more ornaments to make and Christmas stories to teach.  I'm not sure I'll make it back on before Christmas Day, so just in case.....

Keep the Christ in Christmas this year and enjoy the peace He brings each day as you surround yourself with loved ones.  Merry Christmas!