Give me Liberty…

Posted on May 28, 2011 by Abbie

Retreat Center in Gleason, TN. Basically, in the middle of nowhere. Well, actually, it’s near Paris…Tennessee. Yeah, that’s about it.

Anyway, Mark and I have been discussing mission trips to take with the family. There are several organizations that offer mission trips for families but at the cost of around $500 per person. Yeah, you do the math. Oh, I wouldn’t have to pay for nursing babes though…that’s $500 less.

So, we were brainstorming and remembered that we knew a family that ran a Christian retreat center. Mark contacted them and he said there were a few things we could do around the place to help spruce it up before their summer season started.

And off we went, (keep in mind that we had not been home since the homeschool conference). It just so happens that we scheduled this trip after the big storms in April. Thankfully, Liberty did not get hit with any tornadoes but they did have over twenty trees down just on the road to get to the driveway. And on the driveway a big oak (I think) fell taking two more trees with it. There was a ton of branches and such that needed to be picked up.

There was also a trail and a challenge course all covered with large branches from all the storms. All needing to be cleared so campers could use their facilities this summer.

So, we cleared. And cleared. And when the kids and I couldn’t take the heat and needed rest time, Mark cleared some more.

The bunkhouse on the left and the conference center on the right. These places were really nice.

A view from the semi cleared trail.

Josiah worked hard. Ceili Rain did too. At whining. Ceili Rain didn’t seem to enjoy the sweat and branch picking up job so much. She mostly just followed us around begging to be held.

Ahhh, rest time. And satellite tv. No internet but we could watch PBS so all was right with the world.

We didn’t just work, we also got to play. Well, we got to watch others play. The directors sons were playing baseball so we got to see the two oldests’ last game of the season. This was the first baseball game we’ve taken the kids to. They were more impressed with the clean up crew between games than the actual game. I don’t think baseball is in their future.

Liam tried to climb the 10 foot wall…

And quickly found the ladder instead.

Zoe really enjoyed this.

I kept my balance briefly, ever so briefly.

Liam decided he wanted down after climbing the ladder to the wall. We just threw him over the side and let him drop. Not really. I helped him down the rope and Mark caught him at the bottom.

The big oak that fell on the road (like that needed a description). They already had some people come and clear out to drive around it. But all the brush was left out and needed to be moved.

Do you see the cross in the shadow. Pretty!

Yes, we all slept good at night.

Clearing…

More clearing…

Ace likes a challenge.

Zoe too.

If you can’t pull it, might as well just climb on it. The tree was struck by lightening right near the base of it, so we used that as a little science lesson and looked at the black left from it.

This is where we moved all the brush. Big ol’ bonfire is acomin’!

And as we worked, Ace’s keen eyes spotted this sitting on one of the logs…

We took the kids in shortly after this. Mark didn’t have a snake disarming tool at the time and when he did, it had slithered somewhere else. We still haven’t looked it up, but we’re guessing it’s a baby copperhead.

After all our hardwork and leaving…all the brush is cleared away. Firewood is just waiting to be moved.

And Zoe and Ace enjoyed the three story tree house!

And we actually managed a great group shot all on our own.

Ya know, I worry every time we go somewhere that the kids might get bored if there’s nothing to do. But, we had very little “entertainment” in a one bedroom cabin and they had a blast! Lots of games inside and out that they made up and all. Having beautiful weather so they could go out and climb and play was a big bonus too.

Oh, and our tick count was at four. One on Josiah, one on Zoe, and two on Mark. He won. Not something to be proud of. I’m still itching and checking!

And, I’m back…sort of

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Abbie

Still trying to get through my list and get ready to start up next week but this here’s startin’ somethings we’ve been up to this past month…

After the convention we traveled to Alabama and picked up the other half of our kid crew. We enjoyed a short visit and stories about what they did while we were gone.

One of which included Liam refusing to eat baby carrots because he thought they were bay food!

Bryant loves getting cuddles! Grandmere was a little fond of them too.

The biggest treat for the older kids was a zipline Papa bought and installed. That was one of the highlights of the weekend.

Mark also made it a point to let Papa know that Josiah likes the dirt (he will literally roll in it at home). So, Papa made sure Josiah got some dirt playing time in.

Starting off…

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Abbie

We had a busy couple of weeks recently. So, be prepared for an eyefull!

To start off, we attended a convention (more on that tomorrow). We took three children with us and left three to have some extra special Grandmere and Papa time. And the highlight of the trip…

…the pool at the hotel. It was a very, very small pool…but it was adequate for Bryant’s introduction to “bathing in clothes.” He thoroughly enjoyed it, by the way.

His highlight though had to be this:

He met the cutest baby in the world!

And showered him with lots of kisses. He even talked to him a time or two. And he talked back. That was a treat for my littlest man (who, by the way, is gaining wait very well. He’s up to 17 lbs 10 oz in two weeks).

Bumps Bruises and Burns…Oh My!

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Abbie

Last Monday night was date night. And this is how it started…
Sunday, I’m a little queasy and not feeling quite right. Mark felt the same on Saturday but after a few hours felt better and chalked it up to being out in the heat working. We both dismiss it and decide to continue with our plans to go out.

Monday rolls around and I still don’t feel too well. Mark’s a little queasy at this point but we both are determined to celebrate our 15 year dating anniversary.

I decide to get fancy and actually cook on date night. After the designated time in the oven the chicken wasn’t done, it was after 5 and I still had to feed Bryant. I got Bryant “tanked up” ran to the closet to get dressed and left Mark to keep an eye on the chicken.

As I’m trying to get ready, I heard a yell and thud and lots of commotion in the kitchen followed by Bryant’s cries. I run in to see Zoe holding Bryant and Mark trying to get to him.

Bryant was sitting at the play kitchen having a good ol’ time. Mark went to check on the chicken in the oven. When he pulled it out (it was in a 9X13 dish on top of a cookie sheet), the cookie sheet slipped and tilted and the baking dish bumped out and fell on to the floor…and slid across the floor towards Bryant. It slid, ya’ll. Bryant was sitting a good distance away from the oven too. Upon our examination, we thought he may have been burned on his leg. That was not the case though. But we didn’t find out until the next day.

While all this is going on, Liam yells at the top of his lungs and comes running down the hallway. I think he’s just frustrated about something (because that’s the kind of kid he is) and sent him back to his room to cool off. Bryant gets calmed down and I head to the closet to get myself ready. Liam finally walks in while I’m putting on make-up and announces,
“I’ve got my self-control mommy.”
“Oh good babe. What’s wrong?”
“I fell and hit my head on the metal thingy on Ace’s bed.”
Believe it or not, I did stop what I was doing and give him a hug and talked to him quickly. He was good to go.

About five minutes later we’re waving goodbye to the babysitter and the kids. I hugged Liam and he flinched. I rubbed his head and, sure enough, he had a goose egg on the back of his head. He said it hurt but we checked for signs of a concussion and he had none. That kid’s got a hard head.

Mark and I tried hard to have an enjoyable date. And we did…when we weren’t moaning about how bad we felt or running to the bathroom. There’s no telling how many people we infected that night!

Tuesday morning dawned with me even more sick than before. I got Bryant up to nurse him, in between bathroom trips, and noticed a nice blister on his hand. He had not gotten burned on his leg but on his hand. Since he had his nine month check up that day, I saved my call in to the doctor for another crisis.

Doctor B said it was a 2nd degree but it wasn’t deep, nor large enough to warrant a trip to the burn center. They did their best to wrap it with gauze and treat it in house. And we were told what to look for for an infection. I was told to keep it wrapped up to prevent infection. Dr. B also reassured us that those accidents happen and relayed a story of her toddler standing beside her and grabbing the iron that was a safe distance away.

And now I ask, do you know how to wrap a baby’s hand and how to keep the bandage on? Because I do…now. Here’s my secret:

See ya gotta wrap the gauze between his thumb and pointer finger. And then around and then between his pinky and fourth finger and then around and then between his fourth and third finger and then around and then tape it.

But that’s not all. All no! That is not all. The final touch…

A glove.

Oh, let’s just say it’s our tribute to the late “great” King of Pop! And let me tell ya, that glove can, in no way, hinder this little man from climbing, eating, and doing other 9 month old things.

If that wasn’t enough. Tuesday found us praying hard for our family and friends in Alabama. We also praised God when one of the larger tornadoes missed our family by about five miles.

I’m not done.

Thursday night, Ceili Rain and I were playing. I was laying down and she was in front of me. She threw her head back (as only a toddler can do…full force of her body behind it) and whammed into my front tooth. Luckily she didn’t catch the edge…just the main part. So, no damage was done to her. Just amazingly unbelievable pain to me. After much calling and waiting, I was able to see a dentist on Friday and learn that it was just badly bruised and to be easy with it the next few days.

I’m not done.

After returning from the dentist. I was visiting with Tracy, who braved my children for a little while. Zoe was downstairs doing cartwheels (a newly acquired skill). We were up in the kitchen or somewhere. We heard Zoe scream and run. I went after her and she was laying on her bed hyperventilating. Upon inspection, I found a nice gash in her side. One of her cartwheels landed her on the wooden toy box and left a large scrap on her side. Mark checked it out and we both noticed it wasn’t deep so we bandaged with tape and gauze and went on.

That night I went to take the tape off and saw red all around it. We both panicked. First thoughts, it’s blood…that much blood is not good, maybe we should take her to the er to have it stitched up. Second thoughts, it’s a rash. Zoe’s allergic to tape. And finally, realization. Zoe was wearing a pinkish red shirt. The lint from the shirt stuck to the tape. Phew!

And that was what we did last week.

On another wonderful note, we are over the stomach bug and it doesn’t seem to have taken anyone else hostage.

Shower Curtain Re-Vamp

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Abbie

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The girls’ bathroom shower curtain was made of this flimsy sheer type material. But, it matched perfectly and I bought it four years ago and figured, if needed, I’d swap it out later when it was totally destroyed.

Later has come. The top stitching started to tear, the hook holes were tearing and ripping the fabric. I knew it needed to be replaced. But guess what?! No one makes shower curtains to match purple bathrooms in a butterfly theme. I was frustrated with my search. Then, I decided to get creative.

Here’s the shower curtain all spread out. See the rip in the bottom right corner. I had started cutting when I realized I needed to document be it success or not.

Here’s the finished product:

And here’s what I did. I cut off right below the rip in the curtain. I measured off the cut height and then cut off the same amount from the bottom. I’m a big fan of symmetry. Then, I cut a strip of fabric twice that height. I wanted it to be extra sturdy for the hooks and thought that reinforcing by folding the fabric over would help.

I turned the fabric right sides together and stitched the ends to keep it with a finished look (note: when doing this make sure the fabric is the exact same length of the curtain. I was pretty close but it was off a bit and I did have to adjust some.). Flip the fabric right side out and press.

Take the raw edge of the fabric and pin it to the raw edge of the wrong side of the curtain. Stitch.

Flip the fabric to the right side of the curtain and press and stitch again. Then add button holes (another note, make sure you measure the distance between shower hooks on a standard curtain before haphazardly putting holes in your newly revamped curtain!) the same width as was on the curtain.

All done! It really was super easy and went very quick. Okay, so it would have gone quicker had I not totally messed up the button holes, but lesson learned. So, now the girls have a “new” shower curtain, and I can marvel at the fact that I found fabric with the exact same colors as the shower curtain. Really. It’s amazing how well it matches! I was thrilled with my find!

Here’s another look at the curtain:

And, if you can tell, those hooks on the walls are the most adorable towel hooks I found at Hobby Lobby (disclaimer: I paid for those and can get excited about them all I want). I waited until the wall art went on sale half price and picked up four for the girls’ bathroom after I had gotten one for a hand towel hook. I love them. I think towel hooks are much easier for the kids to hang their towels up on. And, since the bathroom doubles as a guest bath, there’s plenty of room for guests to hang their towels on it.

I cant’ believe I just raved on and on about towel hooks. Oh well.

Attack!

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Abbie

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So, Saturday of our Kabining trip was waaaay hot for the middle of April. To remedy that, we hit the local Wal-Mart and picked up enough water guns for a whole trip of campers. Fire Away! The afternoon was full of cool water fights.

This is how we filled up the water guns!

World’s skinniest Sumo Wrestler!

and Keep the Old…

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Abbie

No, I’m not referring to our friends as old…it goes along with the last post…”Make new friends, but keep the old..” Moving along…

Last weekend we met up with most of the Transue clan in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Turns out that’s the halfway point for both our families! And, that’s also a place with plenty of KOA Kampgrounds.

This was our first stay with KOA and while we thoroughly enjoyed it, I believe our camp hosts were a little worried about having so many children. We all survived and I think they were pleasantly surprised. They invited us back at least.

We stayed in a Kabin and it was super nice and way easier than transporting a tent. We did, however, have to bring all our camping supplies to eat and we had to do the community bathroom thing (which was pretty good trek with the kids each time and if we had to go during that night. That was the not so fun part).

They lined themselves up to sing a song. We got a picture!

What’s Kabining without s’mores???

Yep, they were thrilled we stuck them together.

Activity for our full day: Chattanooga Zoo. It’s small, but word has it there were a lot of monkeys loose that day!

Liam loved watching the animals!

This little monkey was particularly photogenic that day.

Monkeys watching monkeys…

Mr. James. Poor little man had a hurt arm but it just slowed him down. Didn’t stop him though.

Ten points if you know who this little owl looks like. It’s from a book…and a movie.

Monkeys like to climb.

Okay, stop me if this is not the most adorable picture in the whole world!

Where to next???

The highlight: the indoor carousal!

Okay, that’s all for now. The rest will have to come when blogger gets it’s act together and I can upload these pictures!

Make New Friends

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Abbie

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We had the privilege and excitement of hosting this young, Young, family (hahaha), the weekend of our mission conference. The Youngs are missionaries with Biblical Ministries Worldwide and will, by God’s grace and timing, be going to Scotland to work with church planting there.

We were thrilled to host this family and their fun children. Their two little ones just fit right in and Nathan and Krystal (the mom and dad) didn’t seem too disturbed by our plethora of children. Mark and I were thrilled to have them in the home and talked with them late in to the night on two occasions, not even realizing what time it was.

Yeah, I think Nathan was praying he’d be released soon from this chaos! Ten points if you can guess who’s missing.

These are all the missionaries who attended and spoke at our church’s conference. I’d love to get the videos for the Louks up, but I can’t figure out how to embed it in here, so I’ll just point you to their website and tell you, you must go see what they are going to be doing in Romania starting this summer!

See they fit right in…fixing toys and such.

And, Mark and I had the privilege of watching their children while they attended a ballet put on by a local company here. They actually trusted us with their kids. Little did they know…

I called it “twin practice” in hopes that one day God will bless us with twins (yes, you read that right…I would love to have twins although the odds are greatly stacked against us).

Madeleine is a couple months older than Bryant.

Pose for the camera kids.

What are you???

Madeleine also cut a tooth while they were there. She was pretty grumpy when we kept her and at one point she and Bryant were both competing in cries. I smiled and saw all the other dear children covering their ears and announced that we could handle twins. Mark laughed. Anyway, we didn’t realize she had cut a tooth until she had kept Nathan and Krystal up all night.

Mr. Miles was a trip. He enjoyed “playing” the Wii. He was close to Josiah’s age and oh so much fun.

Please remember to pray for Scotland and the Youngs as they prepare to serve Christ!

You can learn more about what they are doing here:

Pray for Scotland from Nathan Young on Vimeo.

Or go to their website: Pray for Scotland.

And if that isn’t enough jabber, one of the reasons we were thrilled about having the missionaries in our home was because of the great influence they can have on our children. It is our desire that our children seek to serve Christ and to bring Him glory through all they do, whether that is living in a hut in Africa or working inner city missions or a “regular” job in the states. We also want them to be aware of the great needs that are both here in the US and abroad. Hosting missionaries for a brief time gives them faces to the names that they hear so much about.

PJ Day at Brusters!

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Abbie

Yep, we did it again. This time we brought captives…

It just so happened that PJ Day was the same day as Ceili Rain’s birthday. I would like to think that Bruster’s knew about CeiRai’s birthday and chose that day for PJ day purposefully to help us celebrate.. She thought so at least. Papa and Grandmere were able to come up for the weekend. They opted out of the PJ day and chose to actually buy their ice cream. Who knew that people actually do that still!

Bryant gave up trying to get his ice cream and settled for a sock. That’s what you get if you don’t wear your pjs! We don’t buy ice cream on PJ day!

Some people in our family like to wear their ice cream with pride. It’s like a symbol of pure yumminess.

and cuteness!

So, Josiah got some “Purple Dinosaur” ice cream on his shoe. I didn’t realize this and the next day he was getting them on and showed me his purple on his shoe. Being the wonderful mom I am, I started in lecturing him about the reason we don’t write on anything but paper. He smiled and quietly said, “It’s from my ice cream. I have a purple dinosaur shoe.” I had to shut up then and just giggle. That was too cute!

Happy 2nd Birthday Ceili Rain!

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Abbie

So, yes, we celebrated Ceili Rain’s birthday this month. I still don’t think she had a clue what was going on. But now she associates things with her “biffday.” You know, important things….chocolate cake, chocolate icing, ice cream, presents. She’s going to have a tough time when we get to others birthdays and she’s not opening presents. But she did have a wonderful day. No massive party. I’ve learned now, to save those for when they ask for them!

I’d like to say that after my elephant fondant success that I ventured in to ladybugs and made the cake topper. But that would be a lie and I try my best not to lie. But, I did find it at an extremely reasonable price on Etsy at a great shop by KidsCakes. I ordered it about three weeks in advance and it got here the day before her birthday! The owner was amazing to work with and customized the colors to match the plates and napkins I had bought (on sale mind you). Ceili Rain loved it. We used the leftover polka dots from Tracy’s shower to finish off the decorating. Zoe and Ceili Rain did those.

I have my eye on some adorable robot designs for Bryant’s first birthday! I love that you can get their name on there….and she even fit Ceili Rain on her topper!

That’d be a chocolate cake with chocolate icing for our chocolate lovin’ princess. And guess what…she only ate a little bit of it! That’s alright…more for me. It’s justified…I did all the work to get her here.

Okay,s o she had a little pre-party taste testing for the icing. That may have contributed to the no-need-for-awesome-chocolate-cake time.

Chefs in training!

Check out the waves in the hair! Yep they’re back. I’m not at a spritz, gel, and scrunch method. It’s wavy and a little curly and it works (no, I’m not pregnant).