I LOVE this blog, Tina!!

Last night, my friend Tina told me about a blog that she follows called "This Young House". Apparently, the young couple bought an old home and is fixing it up in a green and frugal way--two things that I'm in to!

So I checked it out. It's SO COOL! I especially love the post about the chalk on the wall--I may try that in my bathroom--I've been wanting something artsy on this wall and haven't yet found/made anything...so we'll see.


This is one blog I'll definitely be following!

The Stories Ollie Tells...

Having a 2-year old is 'entertaining' enough. Having one with a pretty good vocabulary only adds to the 'fun'. (Note: were it not for the morning we've had, I probably wouldn't have put the ' marks around the words entertaining and fun.)

Last night, in the span of 20 minutes, Ollie relayed to us these exciting details of his few hours spent with Grandma and Grandpa J. (my parents--oh, and I haven't checked the validity of ANY of this with them...so who knows what is true and what isn't!)

Me: "Ollie, what did you do tonight with Grandma and Grandpa J?"
Ollie: "Uhhh...drove to Walmart and buyed 'tuff."
Joel: "Did you take J's car?"
Ollie: "No. We took the other one. The Subaru."
Me: "What did you buy at Walmart?"
Ollie: "Uhhh...Grandma J didn't buy shoes. She just looked at them. And I looked at them. And Grandpa J bought juice. Apple juice...and orange juice...and corn juice. And we bought 'trawberries."
Joel: "What else did you do?"
Ollie: "Oh, at Walmart we saw a cow and rode it and you get on and ride it fast and say, 'giddyap horsie'! You should do that daddy."

And later, on the same ride home... (it was dark)

Ollie: "Oh! Dere's some fireworks over der!"
Me: "Where?"
Ollie: "Oh, dere behind me. You can't see them anymore."


And this morning, after sharing with Joel about my slightly frustrating morning, he left for work after lunch and told Ollie, "You be good for mommy. Give her hugs and kisses and be nice!" So, a few minutes later, as I'm doing dishes:

Ollie: (between bites of apple) "I wuv you, mommy!" (as he hugs my legs with his sticky hands.)

Funny, funny boy.

reverting back

I laid Ollie down for a nap in his big boy bed, a little before 1. When I went in there just a few minutes ago, this is what I found.
Apparently, he crawled INTO Lily's crib (luckily, she wasn't in there!) and sucked on HER pacifier.

At least he's asleep.

We're back!

Pictures to come later. For now...a few highlights:

1. Spending a few days at Joel's sister's lake house in Ohio
2. Eating delicious food
3. Spending fun quality time with our family (us 4)
4. Hearing Ollie ask LITERALLY every 5 minutes "Where's my mommy?" (okay, so maybe that was a bit of a low-light...)
5. Seeing lots of cousins again


Now we're back. Off to Wal-mart to replenish our necessities...I hope Lily sleeps tonight.

And you thought Leviticus was BORING???

So, I started reading through Exodus a few weeks ago. I really enjoy the history of Israel--seeing how God guided them to the Promised Land, how they MAJORLY screwed up, and how God again and again called them His people.
(map of their journey from Egypt)

I'm now into Leviticus. I'll confess, I've been a tad bored with it. I honestly LOVE studying the Bible, but there are some sections that are just repetitive and don't seem to apply a great deal to my situation right now. Examples:

*rules for offering a guilt offering
*procedures for cleansing someone after having an infectious skin disease
*specifics on how God wanted the tabernacle built (actually, that's in Exodus)

I'd heard that there are amazing parallels between Jesus and the 'tabernacle' in the Old Testament, so I've really been reading for that. And I haven't been disappointed!

We're leaving on our trip today for about a week--but I am so excited delve more into Hebrews and Leviticus. I think they correlate well. If you're up for an interesting read, I'd encourage you to read these two books together! I'm going to pay special attention to these themes:

*the atonement cover (also called the 'mercy seat')
*Jesus being our Great High Priest
*People of God being a 'royal priesthood'
*priests had to dress in linen (interestingly, the saints in Revelation are dressed in white linen, and when a 'man of God' appears in the Old Testament, he is dressed in linen, too! See Dan. 12)
*the sacrifice that was required to cleanse people of sin
*the many rules that set God's people apart from the rest of the world (this theme of being 'set apart')

There are SO many more themes I know I'm missing, but these are a few I'm starting to notice. Should be a fun study!!! If you decide to join me, let me know what you find!!!

Fun in the Pool

Yesterday, Ollie, Lily, and our new neighbors, Ellie, and Tripp came over to play in our pool. It was Lily's first time in a pool of any kind! We had lots of fun splashing and playing. We are LOVING having the Beverlins as neighbors!
(Thanks Amanda, for the CUTE suit! We LOVE it!!!)

Going Brown Crazy!!!

We painted our back bathroom light purple when we moved in. I did that, because it matched an accent color in our bathroom set. But a few weeks ago, while showering, I decided that I was tired of that color. What started out as a secret plan (from Joel) soon became a bigger project...so I shared my plan with him.

Here's the before pictures: (we have replaced the shower, painted the vanity, and tiled the floor since moving in)
My sister, Courtney, came and helped me paint one day--we painted it a delicious color of BROWN! I have the same color in part of our other bathroom. I just love how rich it is.


Once Joel was on board with my plan (it took very little convincing, by the way!) we decided to add crown molding to the top, a new mirror and a new light fixture. We're not quite finished yet--but here's how it looks now! (We still need the mirror and lights)

Treasure

I'm not really a big garage sale person. It's too much work for me to stop at random houses, get out of the car, dig through someone else's junk, only to find that I need none of it.

But today and tomorrow, our Young Married's class from church is having our 4th annual garage sale! I worked a while this morning at it--and as usual, I found some things I CAN'T do without! :-) I got a great pair of jeans (always a good thing!) and my most exciting purchase of the day...


(You can't wait either, can you?)




A canning set! (Thanks Jenae!)
I had been wanting one so I could can my jalapeno jelly, raspberry jelly, tomatoes, beans, salsa and other miscellaneous goods. So I'm pumped.

The only thing--it didn't include a rack. Does anyone know where to get JUST a rack?

Nope.

We don't have a rat. We don't have bats in our house.
We're not in the middle of a big 'redo'. No, a vampire does NOT live in this room. (you know, they can't see sunlight...)

So, why the bungee cords and sheets covering the doors?


This little monster. The "stall-for-an-hour,-go-to-the-bathroom-three-times,-sing-at-the-top-of-my-lungs,-and-come-out-20-times-before-falling-asleep" monster.
Scary.

It's the only way we can keep him in his room. And since we sit in the living room most nights, he can see us through the windows...hence the curtain.

Our next house will have iron doors with deadbolts.

Help Wanted

If you know someone who is:

*good at funny poses
*extremely strong
*has a darn good pointer finger (for pressing computer keys...)

Then we have a job for you!!!

But seriously, we actually ARE looking for a few individuals or couples who would be interested in running our photobooths at various events throughout the year.

If you are: reliable, willing to have fun, free on some weekends (usually Saturdays), somewhat computer literate, and friendly--contact us! We'd love to visit more with you.

Little Lily

Lily is such a funny girl! She is starting to get so expressive and animated. Her new favorite activity is 'growling'. Ollie screamed in a high-pitched voice at this age, Lily growls.

She also loves to grab things: toys, hair, earrings, dishes, her shirts!
She loves her brother and is really enjoying watching him and rolling over to see what he's doing. Ollie likes to run out of the room and then run back in to surprise her--she loves that game. We have noticed that she is a bit more finicky about some things than Ollie EVER was, but we can't complain--she is a very happy and content little girl.
Here's her 5-month shot. She was about 13.5 pounds. Her cousin Asher (who is 3 months younger!) is almost a pound heavier. Wow.

We are enjoying our little girl so much. She's such a sweet heart. And I'm LOVING all the pink!

Kansas City

Our small group from church (or most of us) went to Kansas City this weekend for a chance to get away and enjoy being together. (without kids!) We had SUCH a great time!!!

Saturday morning we left and headed to the Legends shopping center where we played at Dave and Busters, ate lunch, and did some shopping. It was a beautiful day for it.

Although we did play lots of video/arcade games, this picture of Shannon dancing was only one I took there! Isn't she doing FANTASTIC? :-) Her little baby boy is due in 2 months--she and Aaron are keeping our group tradition going--in the 3 years we've been together, we've ALWAYS had someone pregnant! (And in that 3 years, this group has 'birthed' 9 children! This little guy will make 10!)

The guys hung out for a while waiting while we went into some shops, but then decided that Cabela's was MUCH more fun.

That evening, we went to Buca diBepo's for a delicious supper.
Bill and Olivia

Shannon and Aaron

And Amanda and Dave


Then on to a comedy club where we were basically the only ones there! But it was really funny, and Olivia and Aaron BOTH got to go up on stage to assist with the laughs.
We came back to our hotel. Several of the guys were pretty exhausted from our day...

So we got out MORE food to liven up the party. And a good game of "Battle of Sexes" always does the trick, too!

After sleeping in the next morning, we went to IHOP for brunch. Of course, I took pictures of the DELICIOUS food we all ate.

We did some more shopping on the way home (Kohl's and Lowe's for Joel and I...) and then finally arrived home in time to see our kids, spend time with my family, and see an INCREDIBLE thunderstorm!

Such a great weekend!!!

Oh heavens.

Disclaimers:
#1--This blog post does not have pictures. It would have been ugly.

#2--I am not openly degrading a certain child of mine. Just simply explaining how I survived the morning thus far.

#3--Our Walmart trips up to this point have SERIOUSLY been successful and very non-eventful.


Okay...here we go.

This morning started like any other morning at our house. In fact, having had a rough last couple of days--this one seemed especially positive. We ate breakfast with no fits, got dressed, and got ready with smiles on our faces. We eagerly looked forward to our every-other-week Walmart trip.

About 9:00 we all piled into the car. (Minus Joel) We drove the 4 miles singing songs and enjoying each others company. My list was in my pocket...we were ready. Upon arriving, we unloaded, walked into the store, and found that there were no giant shopping carts to our right. (You know, the long ones that fit 7 children easily? Yeah. We use that one) "No biggie," I thought. (This should have been the part where we went home.) We began our walk to the other entrance hoping to find a cart there.

Along the way, Ollie stopped at the bank and got one of those color sheets. A tractor one. "Ahhh" I contentedly sighed. "This will be a good morning." We found a giant cart at the other entrance, loaded my purse, my bag of reusable bags, and Lily. When I tried to load Ollie, he threw a minor fit, kicking and saying "No, I want to walk!" I gently explained that no, he had to ride. He crumpled his color page and began hitting me with it. Calmly, I took the page, stuck it in my purse, and buckled him in. Crisis averted.

On to shopping. We went to the plastic tub aisle first. No big issues there, except the tub I got was pretty large, and had to sit in the bottom of the cart. I decided to just pile things in it and on top. On to the food. Ollie interrupted with "Mommy, I have to go potty!" Alright, a slight detour to the family restroom in back. I will add that getting INTO one of those things is not easy with a 10-foot long cart...but, being the trooper that I am, we did it. He went potty, we then headed to the food area.

By the time we were at the chips (not far, mind you) he was getting a bit rambunctious, trying to pull on Lily's seat. I tried to distract him with holding things or picking out things for me. It worked for a few minutes. By the time we were in the paper products aisle, Lily was crying. She was tired. I tried endlessly to distract her with her red bunny. As we're getting more and more food, I'm trying to fit it all in. (Remember the big tub?) I put a few things next to Ollie on the floor of the cart. After moving these items (because a certain boy was trying to open them, or kicked them OFF the cart) we moved on. We continued shopping with crying and grabbing...at about the bread aisle, Ollie says he has to go potty again. "No, you'll have to wait until we're finished," I responded. There was NO way I was going to try to get that cart into a bathroom at this point!

We loaded up our fruits and veggies, bread, and frozen goods and headed to the checkout counter. After I started unloading, Ollie says, "Mommy, my foot's wet." Why, of course it is. There's a large puddle of yellowish liquid on the bottom of the cart AND the floor. *sigh* I grab the wipes from my purse and wipe it up. We load all our groceries on the belt and pay and try to load them all back in. Only 3 or 4 things fell off on our way back to the car. We climb in, and drive home.

You think I'm finished, don't you? Nope.

Upon arriving home, Ollie goes inside and goes potty on the toilet. I begin putting stuff away. As I enter the pantry to give him some crackers for a snack, I put BOTH feet in a giant puddle of something. I ask, "Ollie, did you go potty on the floor?" He (wearing only a shirt at this point) calmly replies, "Yes I did." And then immediately adds, "Whooo will fight meee?" (quoting Goliath the Giant Pickle from the Veggies Tales video) *sigh* I wipe up that mess and get him eating his snack.

After putting things away, I feed Lily, put him in time-out for some random naughtiness, and finally get ready with lunch. We are eating happily. Once again, life seems good. After I finish, I start cleaning up stuff at the sink. When I turn around, Ollie is sitting on his stool, cup in between his legs, TRYING TO PEE IN HIS CUP OF MILK!!! Where did I go wrong with this child????? I take it away, send him to the bathroom, and clean up yet ANOTHER spill.

Thankfully, Joel came home soon after before I did something I'd regret. And I know you'll have a hard time believing me when I say that potty training is going well. Really. This is just one of those days. I don't even have to make this stuff up, people.

Oh, and those of you who talked with me at Walmart this morning? (Debby, Jim, Joyce, and Beth) I know things looked normal. You happened upon our FEW sane moments.