Valentine's Day

A yummy, yummy, sinful recipe for the Red Velvet Cheese Ball can be found here!
Ben at Wal-Mart sitting on the laundry detergent, leaned against the dog food and buying a Valentine balloon for his sweetheart. This is a special friendship! I love their looks below!

It's hard to believe this pretty girl will be 8 in six days!

We've been having a fun time around here! I could have never imagined how exciting it would be to have not one, not two but three little angels running around, needing milk at the same time, all wanting a different story read, watching three different shows, two different homeworks, a different extracurricular every night, and needing three different Valentines! Well, I don't think they needed three different Valentines but for some strange reason I couldn't do all three Valentines the same. Oh no! They were all different.

Lillee definitely is super patient with all of the boy stuff that goes on around here and I admit that raising boys is very different than parenting her. She is so great with Ben and an awesome helper. Baxter is outside most of the time. He's gathering sticks or up a tree. Lillee gets so frustrated with him because when we share our best part of our day at dinner Baxter always says his favorite part is that everyone is home safely! He really means that though and his heart is so big. Ben, Ben, Ben! I'm not sure what to say about Ben except that he would be the child to have an imaginary playmate. He's a rascal. Always talking, rarely making sense, cracking himself up, cracking up others, just unusual! But so unique. He's pretty easy going unless it's something he's really fixated on. He's enjoying his trains and cars right now and thinks his "CEE CEE" (sissy) hung the moon.

A few favorites of the things above:

Favorite Books at night

Lillee --- Ivy and Bean and she likes to make sure we've done the Jesus Calling devotional

Baxter --- Star Wars-he got a new book a couple of weekends ago and I'm embarrassed to say I could tell you who all of the clone troopers and wookies are!

Ben ---- when he's not busy eating books, he likes to hear about boats and Goodnight Moon. There's a copy of Brown Bear that is almost in shreds. He usually destroys a dinosaur puzzle while we're doing the family devotional!

Favorite Foods

Lillee - She's been trying lots of new things. Does not like brussel sprouts but does like Spaghettios! Tries to get me to buy those ALL THE TIME. Loves pasta and red sauce.

Baxter --- will eat anything and if he doesn't like it, i.e. brussel sprouts or potatoes he puts hot sauce on that stuff. Loves asparagus and rice and meat.

Ben --- Chocolate milk. with goldfish. That's it

Homework

Lillee ---- really working on reading and mastering all multiplication problems. I'd like to see us working on more math word problems but that wouldn't be fun for her.

Baxter ---- sight words, sight words. Almost there and so proud of myself, I mean him! He's doing great. Also trying to write to 100 in 3 mins. Woooooooo

Ben ---- trying to recognize his name is Ben. Sometimes when the librarian rolls him the ball at story time he is supposed to say "Ben." Instead, when he gets the ball he yells, "BALL!"

TV Shows

Lillee --- Good Luck Charlie and Soul Surfer. I think we saw Soul Surfer 5 times this past weekend.

Baxter --- Good Luck Charlie and Soul Surfer. Did I mention he's easy and worships the above child most of the time.

Ben ---- Good Luck Charlie and Soul Surfer. Can you tell he's the 3rd child and she's the dominator! Ben loves him some Jake and the Neverland Pirates and I can always bargain with him and let him watch some Barney!

Extracurricular

Lillee --- Jazz and Ballet on Mondays and Tap on Tuesdays, Church on Wednesdays!

Baxter ---- Kindermusik on Tuesdays

Ben ---Kindermusick on Tuesdays and Mother Goose story time on Wednesdays!

Ben's "ROAR - I'm Wild About You" Valentines were probably the most difficult and time consuming. However, one two-hour episode of The Bachelor helped pass the time easily.

Lillee's "You BLOW me away" Valentines!

Baxter's "You O"FISH"ally have my heart! Valentines!

I found this fun bag for Lillee. She's been wanting a new dance bag for quite some time.

Ch. 2 Renovations

The above fixture is all I have to show for our renovations thus far. And the wainscoting below that Bubba installed yesterday. Also, the vent in the floor was rerouted to the wall and made into a vent there. So, I guess there have been things going on but not near as fun as the light above!

The electrician came today and you would have thought there was an entire crew to see the floors below!!!
The above is a wall when you come in the front door. The light switch was dead in the center of the wall. It did limit my framing! Ha. As if I understand anything about placements of frames. That switch got moved over. Can't wait to see what grand idea I have to go on that wall.

BEFORE PICS
Swiss cheese in the ceiling!
Holes for pendants over bar!

February so far...

Lillee and Scott had a date night at the church. She was so excited and wanted to pick her dress out the night before. It was a special night for her. She did voice concern before Scott got home that she hoped he wouldn't look like he had to use the restroom like he did last year. I hear his moves were a little less embarrassing this go round.

I stayed home with the boys and had some other friends come over while their hubbies and daughters were at the dance. Ben always prepares delicious appetizers.
We spent the Super Bowl with some fun friends from Sunday School. They've got two boys that are Baxter and Ben's age and lots of lots of boy toys! Fun times!
They even had a dress up box!
Farrah was all too happy to be Captain Jack!
Even the girls were entertained!

Kitchen pics coming soon....electrical and cabinets scheduled for end of the week! Woooohooo!

Giveaway stuff???

There is a blog I often post about that I really enjoy reading. This sweet lady usually posts every day around 5 a.m. and I'm probably one of the first readers. She is a fantastic artist and does wonders with redecorating her children's homes. Just in time for Valentine's Day, She's hosting another giveaway! Wouldn't this piece look great in Lillee's new room? Oh, wait. I haven't posted pics of that yet. Will get to it after kitchen!

I'm hoping that this giveaway will work as well! This girl has an awesome blog if you haven't checked it out. She was one of the hosts for the dot mom conference in Birmingham last September. Cross your fingers! What else am I to do from 3:00 a.m. until 5:00 a.m.? Enter 18 giveaways online? Sure! Why not!

While I've got this linked button figured out, I wanted to share my friend, Sarah's blog. She's expecting a little girl any day now so she's in our thoughts and prayers. Her blog is rocking these days! She also has a home decor line at a couple of great antique stores in town. Be sure to check her out as well.

Red Hots, College Roomies and a Remodel

Two of my college roommates and their husbands came for a visit. I haven't laughed so much in a long time. We had dinner here and reminisced about days of old. We spent the night quite differently than we did 20 years ago. They introduced us to a super fun movie game. I'm glad they were able to get away and spend the night. It's so nice to catch up with dear friends.
These three enjoyed a yummy after school treat at CFA. It has rained more in the month of January than I can ever remember.
There has also been a little project going on here. I thought it might be nice to replace my sink to a single sink and turn our long counter with cabinets underneath into a bar. Well, it has since turned into a complete remodel of the kitchen. I decided to take it upon myself to be my own GC, that's short for General Contractor in case you were wondering. Fun times.

Pics of some of my subs...
Everyone needs to live across the street from Bubba.
The above pic is after the cabinets were ripped out. The picture below is a great story. I told my K and 1st graders this story at church. I took Baxter (stayed out of school due to sinus infection) and Ben to Lowe's to pick up one of our sheets of bead board. The board was large but not too heavy for me to wheel out on the special "board" cart. I was attempting to load it into the back of my car when I realized it was probably going to go over Ben's head. I thought about it and decided he could duck down a little for our short drive home. Just as I was attempting my last shove of the board a nice couple appeared and asked if they could be of assistance. Of course I said, "I've got it but thank you thank you." They insisted that Ben could not ride home with a sheet of bead board resting on his head so the kind man backed up his Silverado, loaded my board and followed us home. They obviously had no idea that he was the 3rd child and probably wouldn't have realized the extra weight on his head. Let me add that this couple had a sticker from their church on the back of the truck. I took that as a sign that our lives would be spared. There were a few times that Baxter ask me to slow down since the Silverado got stuck at a light. As they backed into our driveway Bax snapped a quick pic. What great reassurance that there are great people left in this world. I think this nice gesture earned another jewel in their crown.
A typical Friday night around here consists of powdered donut snowmen and squeezing myself into Ben's sleeping bag.
Lots of rain in January brings.....

More Christmas and Blissful Wintry Weekends

It's been extremely warm lately considering this time last year our friends were walking through the snowy woods into our backyard for Winter Jam 2011. We've taken full advantage of every minute and hoping the groundhog has a very early spring for us! In the event that it has been rainy and cold, Ben peruses the isles at Books A Million.
Here are a few (I promise the last) pictures from Christmas. Lills looks JUST LIKE SCOTT in these pics to me.

I'm not sure what Santa was thinking when he decided to bring two swords!

Christmas at Nana and Papa's house

gathering wood for the Christmas oyster roast