Home Improvements!

The last year we have been able to do many improvements, big and small to our home!  It's exciting to see change and for the better!!!

Here are a few pics of inside our livingroom, dining room, and kitchen.  My ways of organizing over the years have had to change, especially recently with our girls and them growing up!!

We really love our home and Lynn works hard to do the things he can do or is willing to attempt to do!  He is really good about doing things when I ask him in a reasonable amount of time :-)  He knows I like to make our home nice and he helps me do that.

Everyone has their own box and I have the rest!  It has worked beatifully!  The shoes coming and going is always going to be a challenge.  But a big bin sure helps a lot!

I've learned I like to organize using bins/baskets like this!

I finally figured out what I wanted for window treatments here!  It only took me 5 months!

It also took me 5 months to figure out what I wanted for these windows in the LR.  But I'm happy with these Roman Shades from BBB.  The best part is that they are cordless...great bc of how low the windows are.

My Birthday!!

I had fun celebrating my birthday!!  I love to make a big celebration of our birthdays...the girls catch on and helped me celebrate!  The morning of my birthday they working so hard to make me cards and special things.  I love their childlike desire to please and make others feel loved and special.  It is so precious.

Going back to last week...we had a babysitter and Lynn and I went out.  We had dinner together at Green Mill (were we had our first date) in the mall near us.  Lynn gave me money to go shopping (with him!).  We I got a few things. Fun!  Shopping for myself is on the last of my list of priorities most of the time.

Monday was my birthday.  I skyped Andrea my sister in China early in the morning...great way to start the day :-)

My friends Sara and Sarah and I have been trying to get together on a Monday since that works for all three of us.  Well it turned out that the day we met was my birthday.  It was fun to celebrate with them and have a wonderful time visiting.  The 8 children played well and we got a lot of talking in!

In the afternoon my parents arrived.  They were flying to Arizona and so the girls and I took them to the airport.  Lynn works within minutes of the airport and so we went to visit him at work....Elliana was excited to tell Lynn's coworkers that I turned 34 today!!  He left work for a while and took us out to Culver's!

Back home I celebrated with my precious family!!  The girls made the cake and frosted it for me.

On Tuesday, Shawna my sister, came over and watched my girls (as well as her 3) for the whole day!!!  She even made supper for us all!  wow!!  i ran errands ...Yes know really exciting...however, as this stage in my life its a blessing to be able to have a day by myself to run errands and get a ton done in one day!  Thank you thank you Shawna!!!!

I also received birthday call from my family....thank you for thinking of me!!

School is so much fun!

We've had a lot of fun in school this year.  We have an hour of school in the morning from 9-10 each day.  This is the written work  part.  However this does include some things like Letter sound Bingo and show and tell!!  The Lord has brought creative ideas to my mind...I'm not gifted with lots of creativity!!  So we do crafts and other activities throughout the day.  Lynn has devotions with our family in the morning sometimes and talks about what we are learning that day.   Each letter is stands for some part of God's creation and I teach the girls a phrase to remember that deals with their character.  So then we are given ideas of how to incorporate them into our family devotions.

We check out lots of books and do fun projects like reading a book and making up our own version of the book!

Z is for Zebra, "I can't hide anything from God."

For example, Letter P was for penguins.  "I show love to everyone, especially my family." 

So we talked about that during the 6 days we focused on letter P.

One thing I love about homeschooling, among the many things I love, is that I know exactly what they are learning and I can teach them anytime...it's not just during "school."  Things come up all the time whether I'm teaching them academics or how to be  Christlike.  I feel like the verses in Deuteronomy 6 about teaching your children is coming true in my family.  Where ever I am and whatever I am doing I should be teaching them in different ways. 

We have our "moments!!"  However, I am learning to anticipate them and am hopefully becoming a better Mom each day.  As I look back to the beginning of the year I realize how much I've figured out about how to teach my children, motivate and encourage.

Both Elliana and Madeline are learning to read!!!  It is so amazing to teach my children how to read!  I can hardly believe it really. 

I love to watch them play together and we had sooo much fun outside today!!!!