Weekly Update

Last Sunday we headed down to Stafford after church to celebrate Grandpa's (Sean's Dad)Birthday. The kids had a great time visiting with Nana and Grandpa. Jacob was thrilled to be able to watch basketball on the big screen. He is turning into Sean when it comes to sports. He wanted to watch Sports Center this morning instead of cartoons.

Monday was Emma's dance class. She is such a girl. She does not get it from me. I think, I KNOW it comes from Aunt Laura!! We sure do miss her.

This week we had preschool at our house. We have Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Seth always loves when it is here because he gets to "go to school". We talked about flowers this week. Today we made flower shaped sugar cookies. What a mess but the kids had fun.

This weekend Jacob is supposed to have his first soccer game. We will have to wait and see. It is supposed to rain. Hopefully I will remember the camera.

Lucy has not been napping very well this week. Which has not been easy for me since I have had preschool here. She is growing. She was 3 months on the 19th. She talks and laughs a lot. She really laughs at the kids. She is always happier when she can hear and see them.

Sorry no pictures...

Yesterday Jacob had his first soccer practice. He has never played on an organized team before. He really had a great time at his practice.

Last night Jacob, Emma and I went to Family Bingo at Jacob's school. The two little ones stayed home with daddy. I think that Sean opted for the little ones so that he could stay home and watch college basketball. The prizes were games but we did not win any. We had fun and saw some Jacob's friends.

This morning we all headed to the mall to watch Emma's dance performance. It was in a big opened area in the mall. The girls had a hard time hearing the music but did really well. What we did not know when we headed to the mall for the performance this morning was that there was a kid expo at the mall today. What a zoo. We let the kids do a few things. They were satisfied and I was ready to go. I did not mentally prepare for that one.

Finished Floors

From the front door into the entryway and looking into the family room toward the back door.

Pulling up the carpet in the family room.

Taking out the wood in the entryway.

The finished computer room.

Our floors are finished and I LOVE IT!! The kids and I left Sunday afternoon until Monday evening so that we were out of the way all day on Monday. The guys worked most of Monday and finished up on Tuesday morning. We have been working on cleaning dust and putting furniture back in place for a couple of days. We need to get a couple area rugs but other than that I love the way it turned out.

New Floors

View as you walk in our front door (PLEASE ignore the shoes and other things all over the floor)
From our family room toward the front door. To the left of the door is our living room.

Our family room (Ignore the little girl play Mario Party).

Our computer room, just to the left as you come in the front door.

The flooring that is stacked in our living room.

I will be offline for a couple of days. I am posting these as my before pictures. We are getting new floors in our computer room, family room, entry way and the hallway to the family room. Right now it is all stacked in our living room. They are coming Monday morning to start and said it would take two days. The kids and I are going to head to my parents house after church tomorrow and come back on Monday evening. I do not want Jacob to miss two days of school and I do not want Emma to miss school since she only has it two days a week. I will have to figure out what to do with the kids on Tuesday so that they are out of the way. I will post after pictures when we get the computer set back up and things are back in order which will hopefully be no later than Wednesday.

In a child's eyes....

Tonight as we were doing our daily routine of baths, teeth, books, etc. I was feeling a little overwhelmed and getting frustrated with my children. I commented to Sean that I needed a "new job". Emma overheard me tell him and this was our conversation...

Emma, "Why do you need a new job mommy, because this one is too easy."

Me, "Right".

Emma, "You want to find a "harder job"?

Me, "You think mommy's job is easy"?

Emma, "Yeah, all you have to do is hug and kiss us".

Oh if life were that easy. They are all in bed asleep now and right now my "job" is easy. :-)

Pay it Forward Results

My good friend Cara made me these. (Yes, I know Jacob is missing keep scrolling down and you will see why.)

Beautiful table topper from "Grandma Nutt", my kids love it and want to put it out now.

Unfortunately, Jacob did not fair very well in the shipment.

A few weeks ago I came across a "Pay It Forward" post on my friend Cara's blog. It sounded fun so I decided to play along. Well, I got a bonus because Cara's mom, Grandma Nutt, does not have a blog and wanted to play also so she said that the next person to post on Cara's blog would get double surprises I was the lucky one and the pictures above are the wonderful handmade gifts that I received. Although, I do feel a little guilty getting them because not one person posted on my "Pay it Forward" post. It was a fun idea. Thank you Cara and Grandma Nutt, I love them!!

Skipping School in Kindergarten

I let Jacob stay home from school today. :-) Emma's Joy School group was going to a "nature center" on a field trip today. We have gone before as a family and the kids loved it so I thought I would bring Jacob. It is learning. He must have said to me at least 20 times in the 30 minute ride, "I can not believe that you let me miss school". Am I teaching him bad habits?!? We had tons of fun. The "nature center" is like a science center. There are seven different rooms with activities for the kids in each room. They can go in and out of the rooms as many or as few times as they want. Seth loved the water/air room. There are a lot of balls that fly in the air and splash through the water. Emma had fun in the garden room. There are fake flowers, fruits and vegetables that you can "plant" and "pick". Jacob like several of the rooms but I think his favorite is the light room. They have an area where you face a wall and they "take your picture" with a flash and your shadow stays on the wall for a few minutes. He had a lot of fun making all different funny shapes with his body. We all had a great time.

I love Lucy!!

(not sure what the shadow on the side is from)

Every time I get the camera out they all want me to take their picture too.

I have not taken a lot of pictures of Lucy so far. I am turning over a new leaf and am going to try to be better about it. She is almost 11 weeks old. She is becoming more scheduled and taking better naps. She is doing well a night. She sleeps for about 12 hours and only gets up one time to eat. That makes for a happy mommy. She smiles and laughs a lot and I think I got some good shots of her doing just that today. It is hard to believe that she has only been here for a little over 2 months.

We are all finally getting over being sick. Seth is still holding on to his snotty nose but that is normal for him when the weather changes and it is so cold.