Mishaps and More fun

Lately it has just been a lot of the same...up early, play hard, bathes, dinner and bed. Phew! Makes me tired just typing it.

So much has been going on around us...church is gearing up for our yearly Back to School event, Day of Hope. We provided school supplies, backpacks, shoes and haircuts for free for families that need them in our community. Last year it was huge success and we are excited to see what God does through this event this year. (If you live in the area, we are taking donations of new backpacks, shoes and school supplies...as well as monetary donations. If you are interested in donating, please contact the church office: www.pendletonfirst.com

Last month John's brother Josh and his wife Meghan who are missionaries in Spain, welcomed their new baby girl Gabrielle. We were able to Skype with them once so far and see her beautiful, sweet face. They are doing some amazing work over there, but it still makes me sad that we won't see them for at least another year.

My grandma, Yvonne, moved from her home in Adams, into Pendleton following the loss her brother Maurice who she lived with. It was a long process and I am sure she is glad to be getting settled in now. She and Uncle Bud(family friend) have both been attending Pendleton First with us, along with Aunt Doris and Uncle Jerry (Bud's SIL and BIL). It's nice to have so many family members in the same church. The kids love seeing them every Sunday...and so do John and I.

My brother, Aaron, moved back to Nashville...something he has been trying to do for a couple years now. God has blessed him with a place of his own and a job. He is doing great! We miss him TONS...but we know God has a plan for him.

Yesterday, Alison was holding a picture of Aaron and singing a little made-up song about him when she turned to me and says,"When is Aaron going to get a mother?"

"A mother?", I said.

"Yeah, you know a mother." She replies.

"Well he has a mother, its Nana. Do you mean a wife? Like Daddy has me for his wife." I asked.

"Oh yah! A wife! When's he gonna get one of those?"

"I don't know Alison, maybe you should ask him next time you talk to him."

"Ok. I will. He needs one of those." She ran off with her picture of him still singing her little Aaron song.

So....Aaron...when you read this you better call your niece. She has some important stuff to talk to you about!

I have been doing all kinds of homemaking lately. Getting more and more into herbal remedies, healthy eating, sewing more, creating more. It's so refreshing to know that I can make things for my kids to eat, wear or heal with and I also know what they are made of! One of my favorite new things to use is my own homemade deoderant...I know, sounds a little crazy, but it's great. I know every ingredient that is in it (there's only three main ones) and I can make it smell how I want to smell. Plus, never in my life have I had softer, smoother underarms...seriously! I used that Dove Smoothing stuff for almost a year and had zero difference. After one week of my own homemade deoderant I had super smooth underarms. This is a little bit personal for some of you...but hey-this is my blog! lol I got my recipe here. On the flip side, I attempted to make my own toothepaste from the same sight....it was not so good!

I have also been sewing quite a lot since my birthday last year when my wonderful parents gave me a new sewing machine. Since I did not have a dedicated space for crafting, my kitchen table was overtaken. No worries, we eat in the dining room so it was not a huge deal. Although, everything under the sun ended up on my table. Well, when Grammy was moving I inherited her sewing table and storage cabinet. I have been trying to find a corner somewhere in the house for me to claim (haha...john says the whole house is my "claim"). Finally, I decided to make some space in my already-cramped laundry room. My hope is that by having some crafting space in there, I will in turn, also keep up on the laundry! We'll see if that actually happens. :)

A couple of weekends ago we went to Hoodriver, well Parkdale actually...for a family reunion. It was so relaxing and fun. The kids got to play with their 4th cousins(crazy). John and I enjoyed the day playing and relaxing. It was Bentley's first car ride and he did great. He even jumped into the river!

And our latest trauma...Alison hooked Hosanna with her fishing pole...and reeled her in. Yikes! After cutting the line and getting her to the ER I decided I better take a few pics. The injury wasn't as bad as I initally thought, but it's still a good thing I took her in. I probably wouldn't have been able to get the hook out as gracefully as Dr. McQueen (that's right, his name was McQueen!). Here are some before and after pics.

Well....that's it for now...I must go out and capture more entertaining moments!

Summer Lovin'

So things are hot here in Eastern Oregon...I don't mind it so much, if it weren't so hot! lol I'm sorry but I have to say....I'm ready for fall. No suprises there, John and I have always loved the fall more than any other season.
Our biggest and greatest news is that we have a new member of the family!!! No, John did not permit me to have another beautiful-precious-wonderful baby....but we did get a dog. Bentley or officially named- Henley's Amazing Black Bentley is now almost 10 weeks old. He is a good puppy and a full bred labrador. He has been training very well and we hope Jeremiah will truly have his bird hunting dog with Bentley. He has been talking about this for quite some time! Even though at the end of the day Bentley is a family dog...he really is Jeremiah's dog.

The kids have been enjoying the sunshine. Just the other day they were out playing in the sprinklers. After they came in and dried off, John was asking Alison what they were doing outside. "Oh we just were baptizing each other in the red wagon Daddy." I love thier imaginations and that they can bring what they have learned into their play :)

Along with various VBS to attend and home school as well as a visit from their cousins over the holiday weekend they have really been enjoying their summer. We will be getting ready for school before you know it and I can't wait!!

So things, as usual, have been very busy! John has been working hard....as usual....he had a good Father's Day, even though he worked and we enjoyed giving him the extra hugs and kisses. He's getting ready to switch to 12 hour shifts which will be really good in the long run with how his days off are going to work out.
Jeremiah is finishing up whiffle ball this week...he is doing awesome! He can hit that ball pretty stinkin far! I think we will be ready for baseball before we know it ;)
Both Alison and Jeremiah have been homeschooling this summer. This has been so wonderful. I have really enjoyed teaching them and they have enjoyed all the fun. They are also doing any and every VBS we can get them in this summer...no lazy kiddos in this house! They have been having lots of fun with all the activities.
Our calander continues to be full...both with family activities and church...just the way we like it. Hopefully we will have some time to spend away soon though....I can smell campfire in our future :)

First words...

So lately Judah has been talking up a storm. One of the silliest things he has discovered is how to tell me when he's pooped. Everyday when I go in to get him out of the crib he says..."uh-oh...stinky...I pooped" I think its pretty hilarious, but I'm his mom! This video is a little long and I think I probably asked him if he pooped a few too many times, but...I'm his mom and he is just so cute!!

Life in April...

Obviously I am not doing so great at keeping up with our posts....but at least I'm maintaining a monthly post! Hahaha

Things continue to be exciting around here...a few weeks ago, John decided that he would use one of the nice burn day's to burn out some bushes above our house. He spent time preparing by soaking the area around it with water and trimming, ect. I planned on helping him out after I got out of the shower that morning...as I stepped out the back door I could smell the smoke and then I saw.....flames and lots of FLAMES...flames so high one could not see the house above us! John was working as fast as he could with the garden hose to keep it contained and did a great job of keeping it from spreading to the carport. Someone in the neighborhood called the fire department and said our whole house was on fire....apparently from the highway before, the flames above the house concerned a few people..haha The funny part about the whole thing was that about a half an hour before all the commotion, I had called my dad to ask if we could borrow a ladder. He said he just got off work and would run home quick and then be up.....little did we know he would be driving his BIG red fire truck! John had the fire knocked down pretty well by the time the guys got there, but they helped him finish the job....lesson learned: John + fire = great blogging material! (Love you John :))

I went up to Wallowa in the end of April for my mom-getaway and scrapbooked for a whole weekend....it was wonderful. I was able to spend time with my mom and some really great girlfriends old and new ;)

Three of the kiddos had their annual well baby check-ups and everybody is healthy! Growing very fast but very healthy. Judah and Hosanna are still only a pound apart, Judah weighing 27lbs and Hosanna weighing 28lbs! Jeremiah finally broke over the 50lb mark and Alison is nearly square weighing 42lbs and being 43inches tall ;)

Judah has gone from running everywhere to climbing on everything! He is pretty good at though and I have only suffered a few minor heart-attacks. He is a non-stop talker saying all kinds of things...momma, dada, stop it, down, go, hot, please, thank you, cracker(his fav), ect. It's pretty cute...but he's very cute!

Hosanna and Alison have a new profession....hair stylists. Alison decided to cut Hosanna's beautiful curls off last week, leaving only two precious locks on her head. She let her sister take a turn on her hair, but only held out a small portion from the underside of her head so she wouldn't look "silly". I didn't get very good pics, but there are a few. I had to take Hosanna to my stylist to get things evened out because the same night this all happened we were headed to Jeremiah's spring concert...I was not taking her into public looking like that :( It turned out great and after grieving the loss of her beautiful curls I am doing much better now! Ha! Thankfully she is a curly-headed angel for life, so by fall they should be grown back.

BEFORE HER "ALISON" HAIR CUT

AFTER HER "ALISON" HAIRCUT

All in all everything is grand around here...living our crazy circus of a life and loving almost every moment of it!

The Latest...

AHhhhh....it's been busy as usual around here. Jeremiah had spring break and we all survived :) I was very busy with a lot of drop-in daycare kiddos which was a nice distraction for my kids. They had nice weather so they spent most of the week outside playing with their friends.

The latest news is that....I'm back to being a brunette! LOL It is a fun change along with getting some bangs and growing out my locks...John likes it too which is always a plus :)


Easter was good. John had to work so the kids and I got ourselves dressed-up and went to church. My parents were suppose to join us for lunch but mom got sick so dad just came up to take pics of the kiddos hunting eggs(I don't have those pics to post yet).

Alison and mommy...

This was Jeremiah's attempt at taking a pic of us girls with my cellphone...not the greatest, but you do what you can when daddy is gone :(


The sweet girls and their cute dresses!

My handsome-never-stopping boys.

The big kids...they are so cute :0

This is the best I could get them to stop wiggling...

Smothering Judah...hahaha

Earlier this week the kids and I watched a 3-D movie. It was so much fun and the glasses made it evern funner(yes, I said funner). John stopped by while we were in the middle of it and he made a pretty funny face when he walked in :)

March

Ugh...having no camera to call my own has been a little of a downer. We've had mom and dad's for a while, but they need to use it too, so we have used our camera's as best we can....so, some of the pics aren't the greatest quality.

We've been very busy lately. If you look in our calender, there is something written on just about every day. It's good, but tiresome as well. The last few weeks have been hard also because we have all been battling colds. Judah and Hosanna both had sinus infections and Judah had an ear infection too. I kind of lost my voice the last few days and sound rather manly...lol!

So, earlier in the month, Jeremiah went to a birthday party for a friend at school. It was very fun and set-up as a carnival. He and Tori had a really fun time.

Last weekend Jeremiah also participated in his first Pinewood Derby race with the Royal Rangers from church. He and John worked on his car all week. John had to work so he carpooled with friends of ours from church and had a really fun time. No ribbons to bring home but that's ok...he's a winner to us!

This last Sunday, after John got off work, he took the kids big kids down to the Sportsman Show to let them fish for trout in a pool they had. They came home with two very nice fish! Daddy showed them how to clean them and they talked about all the fish parts. They even asked Daddy to pop out the eyeballs! After they got the fish cleaned I stuck them in the oven and we had a very yummy dinner that everyone loved!

Finally, here is a cute pic of the little ones a couple weeks ago...obviously I have two extras and Jeremiah is at school. I often have extras...they are sweet!

Addison, Carson, Hosanna, Judah and Alison