Hi!

I'm back! Did you miss me?! I can't believe it's been 10 days since I last posted...I guess I've been busier than I thought! So what have we been up to? Well, here's our last week in pictures and video:

Saturday Brianna receives her 1st Communion. We are really excited, although I'm trying to figure out how I can possibly have a child this old! lol- this is the symbol that we made to add to the banner that hangs in the back of the church so everyone knows who is receiving 1st Communion. I think it turned out cute!

Last Monday I was shocked when I received an alert on my phone that there was a shooting at a local high school. As the story unfolded we learned it was one student who walked into his 1st period class, pulled out a gun and attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head. Fortunately (unfortunately??) he wasn't successful. He survived the attempt and is still in critical condition at a local hospital. It brought up all kinds of feelings and memories though as it happened right around the anniversary of the Columbine attack.

My mom picked up this Jumperoo at a local consignment shop for Eli. He absolutely loves it and got the hang of it very quickly!

Micah was walking around Friday night while we were getting ready for a baby shower here on Saturday with a wrench up against his mouth saying "Mustache! Mustache! I got a mustache! Mustache!" It was hilarious...especially with the Handy Manny t-shirt that he was wearing!

Thursday Brianna brought home her ballet costume for her recital this year. I love it! I think it is so beautiful! We have really lucked out...since she started I think her class has managed to have the most beautiful costumes. I can't wait to see her in it on stage! It makes me such a proud mama!

This mess turned into an awesome luau themed baby shower. The mama-to-be loves ukelele music so I immediately thought of a luau when I started planning her shower. It came together perfectly! Everyone had a great time, especially the parents-to-be, which is the most important thing!

Micah made it through his first year of Sunday school. He loved going to "school" and asked all week long when it would be "school day" again. He learned a lot this year and experienced time in a classroom which is really good for him. I'm hoping to get him into preschool next year so it was great training! They had their closing on Sunday which is always a hoot!

And I leave you with one final picture...we wore ourselves out this week and it's not over yet. One more party for Brianna's 1st Communion on Saturday and then we get to rest for a while! While I love throwing a good party, I'm going to be all partied out for a while!

Crop for CareNet

It has been FOREVER since I have shared any scrapbook pages with you all! I have been scrapbooking for 13 years now, and while I still love it I have less and less time to do it these days. So I get very excited when I can get my butt off to a crop and get some work done. Anyone with more than 1 kid will tell you that you will never get caught up, but it sure is fun to try!

A local church here hosted a 12 hour crop this past Saturday with the proceeds benefiting CareNet of Northern Kentucky. My scrapbooking buddy Jannene and I thought "Why not? We like babies!" Plus, it had been almost a year since we had done our last crop together so we were due. 12+ hour crops are my favorite! (We used to go to a 24 hour Crop for the Cure years ago...I miss those!) I get so much when done when I have nothing to focus on besides scrapping. Well, in between the eating, and talking, and eating, and talking, and talking...you get the picture! I was very excited with what I was able to get accomplished at the crop! All in all I finished 12 layouts-some 2 page spreads and some 1 page. Some were multiphoto layouts and some were single photo. Most of them were for Eli, who only had 1 stinkin' page done at 8 months (so sad!!) and a few for Bri and Jonah with school pictures from this year and last year. But enough talking! Here are some of my favorites that I got finished!

As you can see I still use the traditional method of scrapbooking, good 'ol paper, cutters and pens. I know a lot of people are moving to digital scrapping or Project Life, but I enjoy the whole process of the "old" way too much to ever give it up. Plus, I've invested too money in it at this point to change now! I scrap mainly in 12 X 12 now and I love it! 

I just found a program last night that will allow me to scan layouts and then stitch them together so that I can digitally back up my layouts and share them with you! I am super excited! It's a little time consuming because I have to scan each layout in 4 sections to make sure I've got everything on it but it's worth it now that I've gotten it down to a science! 

So that's it! Hopefully I will be able to share more layouts with you in the future!

Do you scrapbook? What are your secrets to keeping up with it?

I'm A Big Boy!

This little guy:

Yeah, this one:

is becoming a very big boy!!

We had Elijah's 6 month well appointment on Friday. He weighed in at a whopping 15.9 pounds and is 27.5 inches long. Basically he's tall and skinny in the 9th percentile for his weight but 64th percentile for his length! And that head? Yup, it's up to 16.9 inches or 15th percentile, up from the 7th 2 months ago. That must be a big brain in there!! He is still one of my smallest kids (Micah was smaller at this age but not by much!) but he's right on the curve he should be on from where he started so the doctors are very pleased with his growth and development.

He is absolutely the joy of my life! As parents you love every child equally, I fully believe that. But I also believe that you love them a little bit differently. As each child's personality is different, the relationship with each child is different. And I think when you get as close to loosing a child as we got to loosing him it changes the dynamic of the relationship. As I hold him and love on him I thank God that he is here. I know I've said it before, but he is just what this family needed! And knowing that he is the last baby makes it all a little more precious and a little more enjoyable!

I mean, just look at that face!

 He is so affectionate, even at 7 months. He gives kisses! He pats your arm and snuggles into your neck while he's sleeping. He reaches out with arms up when he wants to be held. He laughs all the time and is becoming quite a chatterbox! He was telling me a story this morning and he was quite adamant about it! He is a wonderful eater, an amazing sleeper and has the calmest, most chillaxed manner I've ever seen. He loves to play with his toys, especially anything that he can get a noise out of. He is sitting unsupported. He is starting to turn himself when laying on his belly to get closer to something that might be out of his reach. He'll be crawling before we know it (Heaven help me!!) He likes nursery rhymes (This Little Piggie, Pat-A-Cake, To Market to Market are his favorites). And he is so ticklish! I know it's mean but I love to find that spot at the back of his neck and get a good laugh out of him! It absolutely makes my day! He is pure joy, through and through! 

Little monkey butt! I love pants and sleepers with character faces on the butts! They are just so cute!! lol

Enough pictures mom! I'm done!

Ta-Da!

Yup! I'm great at disappearing! lol! I go through these cycles of loving blogging and hating blogging! Well, apparently last month I wasn't feeling it! Goodness! Well, now that my magic trick is done here's what you missed last month!

Valentine's Day:

Our Valentine's Day Mantel. You can read all about it here if you missed it!

The gifts that the kids gave their teachers for Valentine's Day: boxes of raspberry bar mix with tags that said Shooting for Brownie Points. Tags found on Pinterest (of course!!)

Jonah's Valentine's that, again, I found on Pinterest. We added a little cherry sucker. They were really cute and very Jonah!

Brianna's Valentine's box. The whole thing was foam and was so cool!

Brianna's Valentine's. She made them all herself with a kit we found at Michael's. We added Valentine's pencils that I found at the Dollar Tree. Brianna loves pencils and I thought it would be a nice change from candy!

The kids goodie bags, Micah's elephant Valentine's box (Brianna and Jonah both made sure Micah had a Valentine from them!) and Eli's owl Valentine (Whooo loves you baby!?! lol)

My 2 dozen long stem roses from my hubby! They were so gorgeous! And he's so good he had them delivered the day before! He's a keeper! ;-)

Our little cupid! He's getting really good at this sitting up thing!

 Various Fun:

Brianna being goofy with Eli at the dentist. All three kids had appointments and we were there for like 3 hours!! She got a little slap happy after a while! And I love the look on Eli's face!! It's like "Oh here we go again!" lol

Morning fun with daddy before he heads off to work. (I promise he changed and looked a lot more presentable for work!)

The thing about having a baby with a lot of hair means you get lots of crazy baby bed head!

Date night out at Mahogany's watching my brother-in-law Eric preform. He did awesome and it was such a fun night out. We had a whole crew there including my mom, Steven's parents and her friends Sue and Jim. And of course Samantha was there too to cheer on her hubby!

Eli's food list keeps growing. Here he is trying peaches for the first time!

Love these!! He kept turning his head towards the spoon for more! I really think making our own baby food was one of the best decisions we've ever made. And it takes almost no extra time because we just whip something up while we're making our food. Super easy and nutritious!

So that was the month of February for us! I hope your month was great too! Now on to our regularly scheduled programming!!!

That's a Wrap! Week one

So I was thinking that each Friday I will start to write a weekly wrap up post. I hope it will make me more intentional in taking pictures of things that happen during the week (with my camera, NOT my phone!!) and give me another reason to write on the blog until it becomes a habit again and I don't have to think about what to write about! ;-) Some weeks will be way more exciting than others. This was one of those not so exciting weeks. But next week holds Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday and the first Friday of Lent. What's not to get excited about!?! 

This week I spent most of it sick with a cold. I got very little done around the house but I did get my food storage container cabinet organized, cleaned out my cooking utensil drawer and experimented with my first batch of homemade dishwashing detergent. 

Once I decide whether or not I like this recipe and will continue making it I will share the recipe with you. And I'll also make my container cuter...I have some ideas to put my Cricut and some vinyl to work! I also started getting order back into the Master Bedroom but the cold totally sidelined that one. Hoping to finish that up this weekend, and maybe even get our paint on! (Thank you Federal Tax return!!!) If we do get some painting done I will totally take before and after pictures and show you!

Brianna had a great assignment at school a few weeks ago. They had to use recycled materials and create an animal. She wanted to make a penguin! So we used a coffee creamer bottle, some cups of an egg carton, some newspaper and recycled boxes. A little bit of paint and this is what we came up with:

Cute, huh!?!? She did such a great job! It came home from school on Monday with a note from the teacher that said "Awesome!" and a 100% written on it! She was pretty excited and we were really proud of her!

Jonah is our gamer. For Christmas the kids got Skylanders Giants for the Wii. There are over 100 different characters that you can collect and use to place on the portal while you are playing the game. Yesterday was a big day for Jonah. We went to Walmart while Brianna was at dance and the boys were being so good I let them each choose a new character for the game. And Nina bought them a case to hold all their characters. (They started with 3, they now have 10! lol) If I could tell you how many hours a day this boy will spend playing this game I'd probably be ashamed! As it is, I can't, so I'll try not to feel too ashamed!

Micah is a little obsessed with pirates right now. It all started with Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Now his obsession is Treasure Planet. It gets watched every day around here. (We are on the 2nd play rotation just today!! Ooooh....bad mommy!!!) While he watches he runs around the house with his Jake and the Neverland Pirate Ship and makes it fly through the air like Treasure Planet. He has such an imagination and I love that he uses it to entertain himself, especially when his brother and sister aren't around to tell him what to do! (As I write this he has the Skylanders pieces on the ship and is using them as his crew! lol- Jonah would be proud!)

I swear my TV didn't look that dirty until I was editing the picture! Guess I need to get out the Windex! lol

This week Eli discovered a new (to him) toy. We bought this walk-about from a friend when Brianna was a baby and it's still going strong! 

He's been in this quite a few times but only this week did he decide that he really likes it. He even spends almost an hour at a time in it without making a peep except to squeal when he gets something spinning. He has even figured out how to turn the seat around to get to other toys AND gets the whole thing moving in circles on the floor. Yup, it's my new go to toy when I must get something done around the house and have him some place safe! 

And like I shared in his 6 month post this week he really decided to sit up unassisted. He can't get himself into the sitting position but once he's there he has decided that sitting up is pretty cool.

Go me! Go me! Go go go Me!

This week Steven was busy with Confirmation for our 8th graders. They had a rehearsal on Tuesday evening and then a retreat most of the day Wednesday before Confirmation Wednesday evening. We got to spend some extra time with him on Wednesday after the retreat before he had to leave again. It was nice to have him home for the afternoon, especially since that was the day my cold hit really hard. So now Confirmation is over, nothing really big for him til 1st Communion in May. (As far as his church responsibilities go that is!) Other than that he has spent a lot of time working overtime. I can't complain too much, at least the pay is worth it! But boy I will be glad when tax season is over and the overtime slows down a little! 

Well, that was our week! Looking forward to a slow weekend with nothing scheduled (except PSR on Sunday morning)! Have a great weekend everyone!

What a Difference 6 Months Makes

This little guy turned 6 months yesterday!

It is amazing the difference that 6 months can make! The little thing above that surprised us a month early, gave me the scare of his life by deciding he wasn't going to breathe after birth, who didn't like eating, spent time in the NICU, who made me wonder if we were going to have to worry about brain damage or developmental delays has turned into this:

And over the past 6 weeks he started doing this:

Rolling over!

He grabs anything that gets in his reach!

Forget it mom! You're camera strap is not safe!

And over the past week or so he has decided that he likes doing this:

Look at me!

I know I'm starting to tip sideways mom, but no worries! Everyting is gonna be alright! (My FAVORITE Super Bowl commercial!!! lol)

 Eli has brought so much to our family and our home. I literally cannot imagine our lives without him in it! I was snuggling him the other night and I looked at Steven and said "I love this baby so much! Thank you for not letting me give up before we tried again. I can't imagine my world without him!" Steven just smiled and nodded like "I know right?!!?" He really is just what our family needed! (But babe, don't get the wrong idea or anything! We really are done now!!! :-)  )

He really is a super baby! And we are looking forward to seeing what the next 6 months will bring!

Elijah's Favorites at 6 months:

- His swing

- His play gym that he got for Christmas

- All of his owl toys

- Sleeping...he is a very good sleeper!

- His brothers and sister. He will smile and laugh whenever they come near.

- His daddy. He will turn from whatever he is doing when he hears Steven enter the room. 

-Grabbing onto anything and everything that gets into his path.

- Snuggling. Especially if you have boobs! ;-)

What is he eating:

- Still mostly breast milk. 

- He's tried rice cereal (not impressed) and bananas (thought they were OK, but he was also coming down with RSV when we tried them so eating wasn't much fun at that time.) 

- His fingers, your fingers, everyone's fingers!!

Things that make me mad:

- When he cries and you don't get to him right away!!

- Being on his belly too long during tummy time. He can only roll back to front right now, still working on the other way. So he just gets good and ticked when he's been on his belly for too long and doesn't want to be there anymore!

- Being hot! He hates to be hot!!

Who do I look like?

- Right now he's looking just like Brianna when she was this age. It's almost scary at times! I hope he keeps his dark hair though! I have two blondes, I'd love to have two brunettes!

Happy 6 month birthday sweet baby boy! We love you so much and are loving watching you grow!!