happy belated birthday, dad

robin turned 51 this year and while we did celebrate on the day, we're a little belated getting pics posted. love you dad!

peter and pairs/pears

he loves this game. and he knows all his letters, but refuses to learn how to read. since mike doesn't want to sit on my lap to read or be read to anymore, i think he's afraid if he learns to read himself, i won't let him sit on my lap to read anymore. we still read aloud at night in their room, and try for once a day sometime during the school day, but he likes his special one on one time with mom. and he loves this game (even though he makes up his own rules about it)... love you pete.

view from my kitchen window

this year winter wasn't as fierce or as white as last year, but this was the prettiest snow out my window in january. we are still waiting patiently for spring to actually get here. it has been so rainy and cold... but the garden is ready!

life's too short not to arrange your books in rainbow order

finally a chance to relax/breathe.. here in tennessee celebrating easter again with my brother and his family.

and a chance to post pictures that i took in january of the "new" house!

but i don't know why they post in opposite order from how i chose them.



















the new ikea dining table which opens to 11 feet...




this is the view from the front door as you walk in looking left. i want it to eventually look like a dining room, not a school room (and in fact the globes are now in the family room to brighten up the dark fireplace wall) but my kids and their friends LOVE to use the chalkboard, and i love my kids and their friends and in probably 8 years they won't have an interest anymore, so the chalkboard is in here for now. this room will (Lord willing) get its makeover "lite" this summer, with batten board siding and new paint/curtains, but leaving the cheap (ikea) light fixtures for now.











these are the same bookshelves we had in florida, but we painted them. this is without a doubt my favorite room in the house, but keeping the dogs off the furniture is a problem.



i came up with a brilliant idea of where to put my cake plates-- both pretty and useful. as different vignettes on the shelves. now i can add to my collection without guilt (book or cake plate collection, you decide).

field trip: crayola

the week before christmas a friend from mops and i took some of our kids (her youngest 3 of 5 girls and 3 of my youngest 4) to the crayola factory. despite driving through squall like conditions only to have it dry at crayola and at home (strange weather....) and a few wrong turns, we had a really fun time, and had almost the whole factory to ourselves.

more christmas

the boys had the homeschool choir concert which was so much fun (short and festive) and so nice to see them in ties (even if they were a little long, thank you salvation army).



friends gave us free tickets to the christmas production at sight and sound (for us over a $200 value). all peter could talk about was seeing his good friend garrett's new baby brother who sat a few rows in front of us (his dad is our children's pastor at church and in our small group):

karis gave pete a bath and took pictures (thankful she's willing to give the bath and remembers to take pictures):

christmas

our lifelong friends, the snyders, attended christmas eve service with our family and then came back to the house.. we love the snyders! mom and jerry were here too and they KNOW we love them!


and olivia and keri:

christmas

i was busy this christmas having surgery on my foot for two (of three) long standing problems (click on two and problems for the specifics if you dare/care) but i managed to take a few pictures (though my memories of christmas day are very sketchy and vicodin tainted).

art work by olivia (14)


check out the art of imitation by peter (5)
olivia made the tree outline and he spent a looonnnggg time putting all the "ornaments" on it, then he drew baby Jesus in the manger
(isn't that the sweetest thing?)

what karis has been up to...

before she leaves for AFRICA on thursday.
she was asked to make a 40th anniversary cake for some people in our church.

here's how it turned out:



nice, huh?

the joy of new old things

we've gone "stir crazy" for our stir crazy popcorn popper that is. so much cheaper and healthier to pop your own, and the kids love to see how quickly it pops. what we took for granted as kids is fun to introduce to our kids now who think popcorn comes saturated in orange chemicals to pop in the microwave.






happy new year!

happy birthday

to my mom who is 71 years young. so glad you and jerry could join us. we love you and we love being close.

now i know...

why laura ingalls wilder called almanzo "manly".....



more pictures of our new home soon...

how to save your sanity, your blog and $135.71 in less than 5 minutes

my laptop (really the only way i blog) is over 5 years old. somewhere along the way, a 2 or 3yo boy found out how easy the keys are to pick off and they are really. hard. to get back on.


so fast forward to this year when more than 8 keys were missing (some had been pulled off, attempted to be put back on, but they would stick or not work at all when pushed) and me really, really wanting to get it fixed. robin, bless his heart, had wanted to just get me a new one, but i like this one. i don't want to learn a new windows, and if i get a new laptop i really want a mac like karis, but so many of my things don't work with macs....you get the picture. (plus this laptop is my favorite kiwi color). we asked our computer people in florida how much for a new keyboard: $150.

we asked our computer people here in pennsylvania how much for a new keyboard: $150.

then i asked google. they first sent me to amazon. $19.99 with $4.99 shipping. one of the reviews there recommended ebay.


$14.29 with FREE shipping.

and karis and i replaced it in less than 5 minutes.

now! on to the catching up of the blog! (after making dinner, making a treat for haley's graduation planning meeting tonight and showering and attending the meeting....)

stay tuned...

easing back in....

some things we've been busy with the past few months:

picking and freezing (and eating) strawberries




slamball (basketball hoop pulled up to the trampoline)


field day for homeschool co-op
(jack and mike only)

packages of care

nick's been gone almost 6 of the 9 weeks (but who's counting...) and before he left i tucked a little paper mache box that was wrapped in 8 different colored thread or ribbon. the idea was for him to remove one thread each week, and that would be the color of the package we'd be sending that week. once all the threads/ribbons were gone, then he could look inside the box and read a note of encouragement about coming home. it's been just as fun for us to peruse the grocery store looking for colored items. i thought light blue would be a hard week, but look at all the things we found!

rest of the new house tour

dining room (check out that full floor to ceiling wallpaper with matching orange carpet!)



into the kitchen (notice the very tiny, original, avocado green wall oven)



looking right towards the eating area/family room



looking towards the family room (the only picture i have of it since the woman of the house was resting there and i didn't want to disturb her)



check out the vintage green plexi-glass in the upper cabinets. i'm afraid those cabinets will have to go to open the dark space a bit...

heading into the laundry room. at this point, the garage is the left, the wash/dry are to the right with a door to the backyard, and if you keep going straight there are 2 closets on the left (one for coats and one for cleaning supplies) and on the right is a powder room. there is room for an extra fridge and freezer too (and dog water and food bowls...) love the set up of this room!


more wallpaper....


super big double garage with bump out storage area in the back with a door that goes to the backyard (okay, not as big as our garage in atlanta)

steps leading to the basement (from the bottom of the steps)

these three cabinets stay. they were built by her father who was an amazing woodworker and they are too big to be moved out. lucky us!

looking towards the fireplace


other end of the same room

there's also a full bathroom (with shower) between this room and the other side, but i didn't get a picture of that
woodworkers side. has a door that goes up steps and out a bilco door to the backyard





and that concludes our tour. we may have to start school early this year since i don't think i'll be able to wait until next summer to tackle some of these big projects (like stripping wallpaper, painting, stripping wallpaper and did i mention stripping wallpaper?)