Schedules

Is it just me, or whenever you see this word, do you also sound it out in your head like a British fellow...shedules.  
Anyone?  No?  Alright.

Anyway.
First of all, I want to say Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband.  He's the only man in the world I would want to be the father of my children, and I'm so happy he's mine.  I love you, honey!!  You're the best!!!  =)

On to more good stuff...

Mike's job is going great!  He comes home happier, less stressed, and earlier in the day.  But that's about to change.  Well, the earlier in the day part, anyway.  Starting next week, he will start working 4 days a week - 10 hour days.  So, instead of getting home at 4, he'll get home at 6.  Which, if there wasn't some sort of benefit to this, would totally suck.  But here's the awesome part.  Since there are 2 electrical/instrumentation techs at this plant (Mike being one of them, of course), they will switch back and forth from one of them working Mon-Thurs and the other will work Tues-Fri.  So, Mike will have 2 day weekends one week, and 4 day weekends the next.  They switch the on-call back and forth every week, so the weeks that he has 4 days off, the other technician will be on call.  So every other week, Mike will have 4 day weekends, without being on call...which is pretty much amazing!

I'm so thankful that God has blessed Mike with this job, and also, just the ability to work.  He's such a hard worker, and it's not just sitting at a desk type of work either.  I'm so happy I got a blue collared worker, they're way sexier, with their hard hats and tool belts. ;)  Sorry to my family that reads this.  haha.  =D
He got called in alot this past weekend, which kind of sucks, but at least he gets overtime for it.  He worked a total of 17 hours on Friday, and then to top off the weekend, on Father's Day, he got called in at 7am and didn't get home till 4.  He's an amazing man, and I wouldn't trade him for the world.  I love him more than life itself.  

Long time...

...no bloggy.

This may or may not be a long post.  We'll see.

We're up to more projects.  Mostly out of necessity, though.
I go into the boy's bedroom the other day, and smell a funny, mildewy smell coming from Elijah's bed.  We've been having problems with them taking cups of water into their room and pouring it down their race car track that looks like this.

They say it's a water slide.  Go figure.

So anyway, I know they've been into water again, and I'm sniffing around like a K-9 dog trying to find out where this smell is coming from.  I lift up the mattress on Elijah's race car bed, and the whole wooden board underneath it is soaked.  I lift up the bed itself, and water just starts pouring out from the corner.  Ughhhhh...  Isaac's toddler bed isn't holding up much better, with half the boards missing under the mattress, so needless to say, we decide they need new beds a new bed. 

We decided on a bunk bed with a full-size mattress on the bottom.  When Jett is big enough to start sleeping with the bigger boys, we'll move the girls back upstairs.  They are currently downstairs in the playroom, which, if I was a child, would be ideal and totally awesome.  But no, Laney and Chloe (Laney mostly) are asking to come back upstairs and have their old room back.  Ok, whatever.  I'm thinking along the lines of, ok you have a room that's like 4 times the size of the one upstairs, and you have your own TV and pretty much every toy known to man at your fingertips down there, but whatever.  Weirdos. 

(totally kidding, by the way. I don't mind having them closer at night, being the paranoid person that I am.  :D)

So I started googling cute boy rooms to get an idea of what I wanted to do in the boys' room.  Then it hit me.  This is their room.  How 'bout I ask them what they want.  So I did, and they chose Mario.  shocker, I know.   While I would prefer that they have a cute nautical themed room (which my husband said was totally gay) or an awesome outer-spaced themed room, or some kind of dino room, I guess it comes down to the fact that they are only gonna be little once.  They are only gonna ask for a Mario room one time. (hopefully)  They have the rest of their lives to have grown-up rooms.  Let them be little, right? :)  So we got them Mario bedding, and we would love to eventually paint their room like this -

I would actually not mind a Mario room myself, if it looked like this. :D

Let's see...what else?

The girls are on Summer vacation, which means....EXTREME.LOUD.NOISE.ALL.THE.TIME.  I have 6 kids here, every day.  A lot of times, there are 7 or 8, when their friends come over.  I usually can't even hear myself think, but that's okay. 

We (meaning myself, my mom, my sister, my 3 nieces, 2 boyfriends of nieces and partridge in a pear tree) took the kids to Worlds of Fun last Thursday, with my friend Cathy and her little boy, Daniel.  They all had fun, of course.  I'll post pics of that as soon as I get more time. 

Oh, one more thing. 

Mike's mom and dad are moving moved closer to us...like only an hour away close.  We're so excited!!!!  Now, if we could only get Sheri and Sheila closer.   That's our next project.

Has someone been spying on us?

Bedroom Makeover

Since Mike and I moved into our home 5 and a half years ago, we have not touched our bedroom, as far as painting it or decorating it...even somewhat.  Our poor room had been neglected for far too long, and it was high time we did something about it.  We spent one long weekend painting, getting the furniture delivered, decorating, etc.  It turned out awesome!!! 

Okay, I'm swallowing my pride and posting a before picture.  The only reason I have this picture of this disastrous room is because I needed something to use when I looked online at paint colors.  Here goes...
It's hideous.  seriously.  don't say I didn't warn you.

See?  Yikes. 
The only type of wall furnishings we had in there was beautiful artwork done by none other than Elijah Hall, himself.  He gifted us with our very own personal drawing, right above our bed.  I don't know if you can see it, but if you look closely, you'll see letters, squiggles, drawings of playground equipment and, of course, cars.
It was darling, but it had to go! =) 


So now, here are the after pictures:

Ahhhh...much better! 

Details:

I'd like to get a couple of small, old books to put in the large frame.

I made this earring hanger after I saw a picture of it on a craft website.  She had a vase similar to this one in the tutorial post, and I thought it was too cute, so I copied that, too! I also made a frame for my mom and my mom-in-law for Mother's Day!  I know...I should have started the wire up higher.  I fixed that on the one's I made for mother's day! :)

It feels so nice to have a nice place to rest at the end of the day.  It's like my own little sanctuary.  I love it!

It's Monday

Just a few things to say today.  They really have nothing to do with each other, so I'm gonna try the little handy dandy bullet point system.

• First, I wanted to say thanks for the weight loss encouragement and ideas.  My first weigh in was last Tuesday, and thankfully I lost 5.4 pounds my first week on Weight Watchers!!  Yay!  I'm crossing my fingers that tomorrow's weigh in will not disappoint!
• Mike's grandfather passed away last Tuesday.  He was a sweet man, and will be missed.  The funeral was on Friday morning, 6 hours away, so Mike went by himself.  We were originally gonna pack up everyone and spend the night Friday night and come home on Saturday, but we decided it would be best if Mike went alone.  I missed seeing everyone and wish we all could have been there to be with our family.
• The boys finished their swimming classes, and I just wanted to post a few more pics. They were so excited to get to jump off the diving board at the last class! (Elijah, mostly)



{Isaac had to be gently placed in the water :)}
• Chloe had a school program on Thursday night, and she had a small solo in one of the songs. She did a great job! She has the cutest little voice!! ...well, when she's not ear-piercingly loud, that is. :)
  

{Chloe and her friend Candreyenne}

{bff}

 

{getting in line for her solo...she looks nervous :)}

{she did perfect!}



Hope everyone has a great week!!!

Ready, Set...

LOSE!

I just joined Weight Watchers tonight!  This whole losing weight thing isn't happening on my own.  In fact, I've gained like 8 pounds in the last month and a half.  I know I've posted time and time before on how I was definitely gonna do it, and nothing would get in my way.  (I know...go ahead and roll your eyes.  I did.)

Um, no.  Didn't happen.

The thing is, I never had any weight problems when I was younger.  I mean, I wasn't skinny (I never want to be skinny.), but I was at a healthy weight, and I had curves, which I was fine with.  I was totally happy with the way I looked.  That is, until I got married and got pregnant 3 months later.  The whole "eating for two" thing is wrong.  Breast feed and the weight will come off?  Yeah, that doesn't work for everyone.  And frankly, I'm tired of hearing about women who were in their regular clothes a month after they delivered their baby, all due to breast feeding.
I know that I need to have healthier eating habits.  I know that I need to exercise more.  I know I need to get this weight off to be healthier.  I know all this, but getting these thoughts put into action is where I'm having difficulties.  I was doing good, losing weight, eating healthier, being more active, making healthier choices when I last posted about losing weight.  I really was.  And then life happened and Mike's work started slowing, and he started looking for another job.  I got stressed, and of course the excuses can go on and on.  The fact is, I need accountability.  And bless Mike's heart, but he isn't the guy for the job.  He would tell me I looked fine if I were 300 pounds.  And not that there's anything wrong with that, he's so sweet to me, but I need someone to answer to.  I need to know that there's someone waiting for me each week with a scale in hand. I need someone to guide me and to let me in on tips and ideas of what I can do better to meet my goal. 

My sister started with me, and whether she continues to go with me every week to the meetings doesn't matter.  I'm going.  As long as I'm able, I'll be sitting my rear end in those plastic chairs every Tuesday evening for as long as it takes to get me to a healthy weight.

I'm not going to go into specifics here on how much I've lost each week, and what kind of exercise routine I've found to be the most helpful.  Just know that I'll be working my way towards a healthier lifestyle.  For me and my family.  We all need a change.

Just a smidge late...

Just realized I never posted anything about Easter, so here I go.

Our church decided to rent out the Independence Events Center for our Easter service this year.   We were hoping that the place would be packed out, as we've been advertising and praying that we would reach our community in a big way - and that's just what happened!   It was amazing!!  To see our whole church under one roof (we have 3 services every Sunday, so it was nice to be able to have one with everyone together) praising God, and worshipping together was incredible!  I figured there would be quite a lot of people there, but when we arrived, I was in awe!  They estimated that there were about 4100 people there!  Our pastor reported that there were many decisions made to follow Christ, and who knows how many other seeds have been planted!  To God be the glory, great things HE has done!   Our church is raising money to start an orphanage in Nigeria, and at the Easter service alone, they received over $27,000, bringing the total up to $40,000!!!  That is enough to buy the land and start building!  Praise God!  Mike and I are looking forward to the day we can travel with a missions team to Nigeria to help in any way we can, and some day we hope to have the opportunity to take our kids with us!  It will be a life-changing experience, I'm sure!





After church, we headed over to my aunt and uncle's house and had dinner, and of course, an Easter egg hunt for the kiddos. 

My computer got a virus last week, so we had to completely clear everything off of it, and reinstall windows.  What I'm saying is, I have no pics of Easter on this computer.  I uploaded some to this album on Face.book.  

So thankful that the message of Easter is just as real and alive to us every single day of the year! 

"He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay."
-Matthew 28:6