family

Back to School

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Yes school stared last week, but it feels more real today.  After all the orientations and meet the teacher and back to school happenings, last week felt more like an intro into back to school.

I am actually very sad that summer is over, we had such a fun summer, evident from my lack of blog posts ;), that it was very hard to send everyone back to school.

Today it was just Avalon and me at home for the morning, and we spent the whole morning outside, she played in her water table and the sandbox, and I cleaned out 2 flowerbeds, the garden, picked up after Farley and have the tractor sprinkler watering the almost completely dead grass.

Truth: I still miss the kids but I am LOVING being productive when they are not here.

My goal, I am sure I have posted before; for the blog is to post the completed photos of some of the projects we have introduced the beginnings of on here.  For sure the corner fireplace, and some bedrooms that we have been redecorating, also we have what I hope is going to be an awesome project for the garage to post about.

Here are the charmers that I am missing while they are at school:

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*sigh*….off to be domestically productive.

Golden 3

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Here it is the big 3, Avalon turned 3 today marking her Golden birthday.  I really have no idea what the history is for Golden Birthdays, making me think I should do a little research for my knowledge bank.

Back to the birthday girl, she is the youngest, I can’t say last it hurts to much, I would love another, our own or maybe even an adopted,  and I can’t coin her “the baby” because I have expectations for her that are the same as all the other 3.

We went for her 3 year check up today, since she has had some minor growth delays and health issues, I like to keep a record of her growth should it stall/stop again.  Great new for Avalon she is now in the 5% percentile for height and 13%!!! for weight,  considering she was totally of the charts for most of her 2nd year this is awesome!!

It was another day packed full of normal day activities , but I snuck in a city bus ride to downtown with the kids, Avalon really wanted to ride a bus, such an easy wish to grant on a birthday.

After dinner and cupcakes Solomon, Raiven and Santanna gave Avalon their gifts, it juts warms my heart how much our kids love to give to each other and the time and thought they put into their gifts.  The girls each made cards, Raiven’s was a pop out card that I know she spent a lot of time on.

So thankful to celebrate another candle on the cake for our little sprite!  You grow girl!!!

While they sleep

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I should have taken a before picture…..it was a total explosion of imaginext toys, swimsuits from the swim bag and the table was covered in schoolwork debris.  You know the kind all those amazingly “special” papers that come home by the tree load every day.

So while the little girls slept I weeded through all of it and moved the furniture around, and re-organized the “homework” table (that I blogged about here) and have made it summer ready.

I put paper in each bin, one bin is lined and one is plain.  I was thinking some of those little hangs that fasten with tags would be perfect, but since I did not have any I just used a good old rock from the landscaping.

And while I was out there I cut these to bring a little more outdoors in.

So much better!  I can be such a better mom and give them more of my time with clean organized spaces. Think I can finish the house before all 4 of the kids are home for summer starting Friday?

Happy Brithday Girl!

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Raiven turns 8 today, she is so excited, and told us she is not so worried about what her presents are but how happy she is to be a year older. I am glad that she is taking what we are attempting to teach her to heart, and I know she is aware of how important it is to be thankful, but come on, after soccer practice tomorrow, I hope she feels giddy about opening her presents, and that she enjoys the thought that her brother, sisters and Jon and I put into picking out gifts for her.

It seems like a year can change so much in a child’s life, her big teeth have changed her smile into a beautiful pre teen smile. She is a sensitive girl ( she gets that from me) but has a spit fire need to play hard and is not afraid to get dirty, She plays with the boys at school but also has lots of girl friends. She has a tender heart and takes kids under her wing. A boy joined her second grade class this year sometime in late September and really felt out of the loop, Raiven friended  him and his mom was telling me the other day how Raiven has really been a great friend to her son. She just has this caring personality and an innate sense to be a helper. Raiven loves to read and enjoys her math homework. She laughs and giggles easily (she gets this from Jon).

Happy Birthday Raiven So! I hope 8 is another wonderful year for you!!

Repainting/redecorating a room a month?

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We have been in our house for over 5 years, we built this house, I may have said this before, it is a huge process in life and with it comes pride…and lessons, some you learn in the process others you learn while living with all the decisions you made while building.

I specifically asked our builder when we got to the painting stage to PLEASE, puh-lease not paint our walls in a flat paint, this is builder code and I understand it hides any imperfections in the drywall, but seriously we were not going to return the house?!?! Anyway what did they paint the walls in? Flat paint. WE have 4 kids, 2 at the time, and a dog that weighs as much as I do. Are you getting a visual on how my walls might look, now imagine trying to wash those flat paint wall. NOT awesome!

Needless to say we are in the market for having an entire house repaint in a semi gloss or at least a sheen that handprints, splatters, slobber (dog…I think), food, milk,….you get the idea can be washed off and not leave a greasy looking mark behind.

So, I am hoping that we can accomplish one room per month, and since my mind is in creative-room-revamp-Pinterest overdrive I thought I might share some of the befores and afters, and also what the reality of said schedule may become with this crazy house:)

We decided to start with Raiven’s room, it was at one point a home office, and I had painted it a blue/gray color that I liked but, it is rather dark and not working so well for an almost 8 year old girl.

This was taken at night, but you can see the wall is dark, I am thinking about a nice light white color and having one wall with some metallic vertical stripes. I also want to get more photos up on her wall. She has an Isaac Mizrahi peony bed set with bright pinks so I am going to fit more pink into her room and pull come other colors out of the flowers to add color with the walls being more white

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Valentines’ Day Heart Crayon Craft

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This is such a fun and easy craft to do with all ages.  These are great to give as little Valentines’ tokens or to make and bring into your child’s school, they are also really cute to fill a vase with and then put flowers in.

Anyway, this is very easy and does not require reaaly strict instructions.

You will need: Crayons, heart shape pan/muffin pan,  a cooling rack and patience

First gather all your broken crayons, these work best, but if you need to buy some that is fine also, you will just need to break then to fit in the pan.  We divided them into colors that I thought most fit the Valentines’ theme, pink, red, white, but a heart crayon can be any color you choose.

Heat your oven to about 200, this is again not a strict temp, it needs to be warm enough to melt the wax, but not hot enough to cook  it.

Peel all the paper off your crayons, here is where the patience is needed this can take a bit.

Break your crayons into pieces that will fit into your pan.  Put the pan into the oven, check in about 3-5 minutes, this will all depend on the size of your heart pan and then number of crayons that fit in each space.

Once all the wax has melted and congealed (love that word;) we found it was best to pop the pan on a cooling rack into the fridge to let the was reharden, and they popped right out quite easily for the most part.

Then grab some paper and try them out, or give them away or do whatever your little heart desires:)

Happy Winter Holidays!!

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We got our first round of snow here in MN and I immediately got everyone ready for a photo shoot, this was taken on one of our relatives farm and I just love how it turned especially since it was my first time using the camera on manual with a tripod. There are others from this shoot that are great but this is the one I am sharing, do not want to spoil what is coming snail mail to some of you;)

I have to admit I thought ths posted at the appropriate time but alas….not so much!

County Fair Submissions

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We do not belong to 4H, nor or we farmers in the sense that we rely on our bounty for profit.  However, we are a creative bunch that likes to get our hands dirty in the earth and create projects, and what better way to celebrate these than to participate in the county fair.

I know we all have memories from childhood, the midway rides the animals, and cotton candy on a stick.  I just love the fair, I am a cowgirl at  heart.  Every year we take the kids to look at the animals and get a milkshake from the diary trailer.

Now that the kids are a little older we have started a new tradition of entering projects garden grown goodies.

The 3 older kids entered their Lego projects and were given participation ribbons.

Santanna’s Project and her ribbon.

Raiven’s project and her ribbon.

The little girls also entered onions and kohlrabis:

Santanna’s first place kohlrabis.

Avalon’s 3rd place red onions.

Solomon entered red mulberry jam and won first place.  I am so proud of him, he spend at lest 4 hours harvesting the berries from a tree in my mom’s back yard, then he rinsed them, took the stems, off and followed a no cook freezer jam recipe.

I entered the growth chart into an adult woodworking hobby category, I was very pleased to receive a second place ribbon.

The kids take from this experience a pride in participation.  They were very gracious about each others winnings and were already buzzing about what to make next year, taking inspiration from so many wonderful other projects on display.

We did also earn $4.50 in prize money, just enough for one more milkshake…or Tom Thumb donuts….mmmmmm, fair food!

It is such fun participating in the fair and it always seem to come and go so quickly.  Can’t wait until next year!!