Week 33

As you might be able to tell, the busier we are the less I blog. But all the things with which we are busy are all good and wonderful things. The freezer stash for baby is growing. I'll add a few lasagnes, meatballs, and waffles this week, Lord willing. As for baby A, he's doing just fine, rolling and stretching and hiccupping and taking dominion of his little temporary abode. Gymboree has been having a fabulous clearance lately (and I had coupon!) and so I've been able to bulk up the stash of boy clothes, especially church clothes for all 3 little men.

I'm also going to try my hand at making yogurt this week. Our whole family loves yogurt, and but the cost would be crazy (even using coupons) if they ate it eveytime they asked. I'll post about the results if I'm not too ashamed.

In the past week or two, the spring cleaning/ house purging has slowed (along with my body), but this past weekend brought me encouragament from friends that the yard sale will indeed happen, and before baby arrives, so the motivation is back for awhile. I'm already praying for good weather and good traffic.


I also need to show you my latest sewing project~ I'll have to show you the finished product, I'm pretty satisfied with the results. I really should stop typing for now~ my weekly list is accumulating pretty quickly and if I don't start now, I'll be trying to catch up all week. Ciao!

Making the Best of April (Snow) Showers

It began as a romp in the newly fallen snow..

then Daddy came outside and it erupted into a good-natured snowball fight...

Finally they decided to build a snowman.

And what a snowman it was!

Better Late Than Never

We colored eggs on Wednesday after Easter this year, just because our Easter weekend was so full. We had a great (messy) time, and the kids are enjoying the fruits of their labor.

"Open peese", says Josh

The Big 3-0

Today is my birthday. There is no getting around it~ and I'm ok with that.

I could be sad if I was turning 30 and I lived alone and had some dead end job, and attended a dead end church. I could be sad if I had no husband or children. However, I am 30 today and have found the man of my dreams. I don't deserve him. I have 4 healthy, beautiful, vivacious children! I have a tenderhearted, ladylike daughter who helps me with our 3 strapping, manly sons! God has answered my prayers in ways I could never imagine.

God was so good to me in my 20's! Think of all the things that have happened! I met and married my dream guy, became a homeowner and a mother times 4*! I've seen the Black Hills, the Grand Canyon, the Florida Keys, Mt. Rushmore, and a few Hawaiian islands, to boot! I've seen my brothers and sister grow and change into aunts and uncles and my parents into grandparents. I've retraced my family footprints in the south and made new history with my young family right here in Colorado.

Being a wife and a mom is a position that only God can put you in and I remember longing for the calling many years ago. And God granted me my desire. And I love my job. It's even better than all those expectations I had when I was younger. I have my dream job. I really do. I love to cook and sew and organize and shop and read and teach my children. God has blessed me beyond my imagination. Who can do anything but rejoice that another birthday has rolled around? I'm 30 today and I can't to see what God will do next!

This world seems to be obsessed with youth. And hey, being young really is fun. But also this world doesn't value wisdom very highly and wisdom must come with age. So my prayer is that as I go and cash in some years, God will grant me the wisdom along the way.





*(And for the record, I don't believe in all that "baby-to-be", "mother-to-be" nonsense. I believe with ever fiber of my being that when a little one is conceived it's a baby~ not a baby needing validation by birth~ no question. And if you have a baby inside you are already a mother! Let's not embrace the worldly pro-choice propaganda.)

Vacation Week

My wonderful husband had the week off last week so I decided to take the week off from blogging, too. We toyed with the idea of a "babymoon" ~ going on a trip before baby #4 arrives, which we've actually done with every child before, but decided to stay home, be together and just relax.

The week began with our 6th wedding anniversary, which was a lot of fun. Six years! Where has the time gone? Six years of love and blessings. Six years of intense sanctification! Six years of feeling undeserving of my husband and the life we have together.

Throughout our vacation week we watched movies and took naps, played games, went for long walks, had a full day of hospitality, slept in together, visited friends, went shopping together, even had a date night! The week ended yesterday at Easter as we provided snacks at church. We loved having Daddy home and miss him very much this morning.

I've got a ton of things to do today, but here are a few highlights from Easter morning:

The Previous Announcements

Here's what we did for Baby Dabney. We didn't know her gender, so we thought these Pooh
announcements were appropriate.

Here's what we did for David:

And Joshua's announcements:

Junebug Announcements

Something I love to do while pregnant is plan and make the baby announcements. It's another one of those prenatal bonding activities, I guess. I get to think about our little Junebug and pick out some masculine design and colors. I remember doing Josh's announcements on the plane trip home from Kauai. It allows me to be creative and I think it makes me feel like I'm a little more prepared for the baby's arrival. (When you think about it, can you ever really be ready for the tiny person you hold in your arms after delivery?) Anyway I thought I'd show you our new announcements.



Aside from the masculine theme, and considering our economy, the other theme I was aiming for was "practically free". So I surveyed what I had and remembered a little while back while scrapbooking with some friends a friend was tossing a pile of sage cardstock when her project took a different track. I couldn't leave all that beautiful cardstock for the trash so I asked her about it and then snatched it. It happens that there were about 30 pieces, which is perfect for baby announcements. The other paper comes from my scrapbook stash~ using what I already have. The stamp comes from the Stampin' Up stamp set last time I had baby announcements to make. I so badly wanted to order new stamps, but it is just not in the budget this time around. Honestly I can't take credit for the design this time. I copied it from a card layout in a Stampin' Up catalog and sort of changed it into a baby announcement.