A week in pictures

Abram was helping me carry in groceries last Saturday and dropped a can on his toe.  He limped around clear until Wednesday before the pressure eased up and it didn't hurt any more:

No school Monday, so Maddie made a whole bunch of treasure hunts for the kids with questions like, "Babies are birthed in hospitals, tables are birthed in __________________"  The kids raced for the garage where Shawn built the table.   I didn't see all of her clues, but they made the kids think and I thought they were clever. Not to mention it entertained the kids for hours and they loved it! This is them finding a clue in the downstairs fireplace:

This week when I watched Anjoleena, Pace wanted to read books in the "hideout":

Shawn walks to work and back every day even though he works clear across town just so that he gets more exercise every day.  It works out great because he can walk the kids to the bus stop every morning on his way. Pace and I like to curl up in the front room chair and watch everyone leave the house for the day. Pace hasn't been very happy in the morning lately, and it's fun to snuggle and get him a little more happy before we go get ready:

We got a little snow this week, and Pace spent an hour or two shoveling the sidewalk with a dust pan because I wasn't sure where the snow shovels were.  That tells you how much snow we've received this year:

hours of entertainment:)

I felt my day was ruined on Thursday when Nolan brought me his scout shirt and a lot of badges that needed sewn on.  I have a bad attitude about scouting and ESPECIALLY scout uniforms.  I guess I need to reform.  He told me everything needed to be done for pack meeting that night:

Both of the boys were supposed to bring a cake to the meeting and I had A LOT  more fun helping them with that. First they baked their own cakes, and my recipe book had a whole different look when they finished with it!:D

I got to spend some good, quality time with them:

They were pretty pleased with their finished products:

We had a busy, but wonderful Sabbath.  Shawn spoke in sacrament meeting and I taught Relief Society.  I was able to get two investigators to come to church by offering to pick them up, and after church, we fed the sister missionaries, so I invited the investigators to come to dinner, as well. 

Kitty Soderburg, Isabelle and Maddie:

Anjoleena, Joleen, Sister Stratford and Sister Paz:

Maddie finds uniquely beautiful napkin folds and makes our table look so elegant:

Maddie straightens up

On Sunday afternoons, I have been working on Personal Progress with the girls.  You know - seeing where they are, picking things to work on, and making plans.  I have personally been enjoying this time with them.  I think Isabelle enjoyed it the first two weeks, and Maddie never:D  But she's been a pretty good sport...

I told her that for one of her projects I thought it would be a great idea for her to organize a really messy, yucky linen closet that we have downstairs. 

right side of the closet:

left side:

looking in:

I figured I could sort through it and she could paint it and put everything back in really nice.  She said that she could get excited about the project if I would let her paint on the wall when she was all done.  It was a deal!

She worked all day Saturday painting the shelves and walls, and by the end of the day it was organized really nicely:

And a couple of days later she had her design all painted on, too!  She spends a lot of time every day writing pretty things with Calligraphy, and it was fun for her to do this on the wall:

Kids need wild spaces

...and if there aren't any outside, create them on the inside!

We discovered a space, about a week after moving in that we had somehow never seen before.  On the stairs going down to the third level of the house, we found a little room under the stairs!  We thought that it would be a perfect "hideout".  This week the kids went crazy getting it all fixed up.  They could hardly think about anything else! 

This doesn't show much of it, but is an idea of the space after the kids emptied it of all storage boxes and stuff:

They wiped down all the walls and swept it out really good and worked for HOURS:

As they worked, I heard BIG planning/dreaming going on.  "we should paint this up really nice and put some carpet in here!"  "Yeah!  and maybe we could make a drop down table and have snacks in here and stuff!" "and we could keep all of our weapons in here!"  etc.

Luckily I had lots of left-over paint.  Isabelle and Nolan primed the space:

Then on the designated paint day, Maddie had Bailey Marshall over and she brought her little sister, so Isabelle ended up hanging out with her and Nolan wanted to press on, so he ended up painting the hideout all by himself. Shawn and I came home from evening Parent Teacher conferences to a very dejected Nolan.  He felt like his paint job had ruined the "Hideout".  It wasn't too bad, but didn't live up to their expectations:

I was actually pretty impressed that he did THAT well, but I could see how disappointed he was, so I took a few hours the next day and fixed it up.  It was NOT an easy space to paint, and then I was even MORE impressed with how well he did!:

Then on Friday night the girls and I had a girl's night with the Harrisons, and while Shawn was home with the boys, they laid carpet and built a ladder to climb into the "hideout".


There's still a lot of dreaming going into this space, but meanwhile, it's sure a great place to sleep in on weekends!

some days are like that...

These were all separate crying instances.  It seemed like he was crying all. day. long.  Still had hives, still miserable, and very emotional...

Valentines Day 2018

It was so perfect that I had a beautiful table to decorate just in time for Valentines Day!  Between family scripture time and getting the kids out to the bus we only have 30 minutes to work with, so luckily Shawn was able to help this particular morning.  He has been walking to and from work just to move more during the day, but since I wanted to have a fancy breakfast he decided to drive and helped me make breakfast. 

I love Valentines day so much! Pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream and sparkling cider:

Pace feels like every holiday is for dressing up:)

We continued our tradition of taking cookies to neighbors and also to Shawn's work:

A table at last!!

When we moved to Pendleton, I sold a lot of our furniture that wouldn't work for this house.  One of those pieces of furniture was our dining table.  Most of the summer we ate out on our deck and when the weather got cooler, we set up a long skinny table in our dining room, but it was so skinny that we had to dish up before we sat down because there was only room for plates on either side. 

Well last week, Shawn finally finished building our new table and even though it was a long wait, it was worth the wait!!  We love having a table again, so much!!

Shawn attaching the table top to the legs. He built this like a huge butcher block, out of a lot walnut.  It is beautiful:

He figures the top weights almost 200 pounds, and the whole family had to help him carry it in from the garage when it was all finished.  Kind-of scary!: