Family Bowling Night, First time

The Girls earned bowling tickets from the summer reading program and Halloween was the last day to use them.  Luckily a friend of mine mention they would be going on Thursday night so I jumped on the band wagon and we put into plan a bowling night.  The girls where so excited. And the experience was priceless.  Some bowling alleys have a creepy dirty feeling but this one was super family friendly.  Since the girls got two bowling games for free and the special for the night was 3 games plus rentals for 7.00  the guy behind the counter worked his magic and gave us 2 games for James and I plus fries and drinks for the special's price.  

Grace didn't want to wear bowling shoes, who can blame her they aren't that fashionable, we tried to convince her but the more we pushed the more she didn't want to have anything to do with bowling, so finally was backed off and started our game.  Gwenevere went first, then me, then Papa then it was Grace's turn.  It took some convincing but she decided to give it a try as long as she didn't have to wear the shoes.  After sending her first ball down the alley she was hooked and the rest of the night was history.  

Gwenevere was a natural, she quickly figured out she could throw the bowl different ways and stopped using the ramp.  

My favorite part was watching the girls do there victory dances after each round.  

Matchy Matchy

Gwenevere's first time

What the other parent does when it's not their turn

All night I had giggles in my stomach reminiscing on the bowling outings we use to do with friends while we where dating 10 years ago almost to the day.

She's figured out the lean

It's not always pretty but we sure have fun

I love how the both help her

they soon figured out they could do it without our help

It took us 2.5 hours to get through both games and we where the last to leave, it was fun having the alley to ourselves and can't wait to go back.

random end note:  The family next to us had two young kids and seemed really nice, when i realized I forgot wipes and Everett smelt stinky I quickly turned to the mother and asked if I could use some of her wipes.  It kinda shocked me how fast I jumped up to ask her.  She was super kind and of course gave me the wipes.  James went to change Everett's diaper but it turned out it was just farts.  Anyway, before the family left, the mother came up to me and asked if I was a stay at home mom, I said yes, and then she looked at me, and I asked "Do you want to hang out sometime?"  She got all excited and we exchanged phone numbers.  LOL  It was a total surprise to me, but I guess we where meant to be friends.  hahahahaha, (it's kinda funny because the shirt she was wearing is one that I have and she even had a similar look as me.  When I first saw her I kinda chuckled to myself at the fact that I could see myself in her.)  Her name is Anya and she from Russia, I secretly have a deep curiosity about the Russian culture and family systems.  I'm actually really excited about this bazaar meeting.  So here's to new friendship.

Hello Blog it's been a long time

It feels like forever since I did an actual post.  I've dropped the ball and haven't taken many pictures lately. But on the up side, I've been super motivated to clean my house.  It's not at all near clean everyday, but i'm doing better and keeping up with the cleaning.  

Now back to blogging.  

Schools been going well, I've taken pictures of each weeks themes and projects and someday will update the schooling blog, but let's be honest, one step at a time, right?!

I've started the goal to memorize The Living Christ, by next Christmas.  It's all about baby steps.

Speaking of baby steps I just finished reading Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover and I'm excited to start implementing his "baby steps" in our personal finances.

James is doing well, work is work but he still enjoys it.  He's put a lot of work into the yard the last couple of weekends, he still has a huge list of things he wants to do but will be busy every weekend in November with Continuing Ed classes, a trip to Portland, and working since he'll get Thanksgiving day off.  Yeah, life keeps going.

I've been thinking about the holidays and how this time of year seems to be so busy.  I've been trying to figure out what i want to do to try and help it feel less chaotic.  Last year I tried to have all my shopping done before the month of December, that was fun but it didn't really feel like it helped since, I kept finding things I still needed to buy for the holidays.  So this year I haven't even started to shop, I figured I'd do it all in one week closer to Christmas.  I'm hoping this will also help to keep the Christmas shopping simple.  The other plan I had was to draw names for Christmas, that way each family member will get an opportunity to give a gift and receive one and I won't need to make sure everyone gets or makes something for everyone.  

We'll probably wrap of Christmas stories from the library again to have some Christmasy festive things to everyday in December.  

The main point is, it hit me the other day, that even though I feel like time is flying by so fast, my kids still live one day at a time.  I don't want to rush them to grow up with countdowns and busy schedules of events, I want to try harder this holiday season to live in the moment.  If the kids want to make cookies, we'll make cookies, if kids want to do a Christmas craft we'll do a craft.  So that is the goal.  and I'm looking forward to celebrating this season of Thanksgiving and Christ centered service.  

wow, I love keeping a blog.  this was not at all what I got on here to do.  I was going to post pictures of what has been happening.

Yesterday I was visiting with some good friends, talking about life, raising kids and fallowing the spirit.  One of my friends kept saying, "Oh I'm going to write that down."  Whenever she heard a insightful piece of advice.  She then very simple shared her testimony of journal writing, it made me realize how grateful I am that I keep a blog, but how I still need to keep it going.  I love it.   

Another thing I've been thinking about lately is how I need to use our family blog to share my thoughts and feelings and promptings of the spirit, because those too are as important as pictures.  So if you find my blog post to be more wordy then normal, feel free to just skim and look at pictures.  I won't be offended after all this blog is for my children and probably won't be reading it anytime soon.  

So with out any further ado, here are some PICTURES!

A couple of weeks ago our friend Sarah invited us out to ride her horse.  It was a big horse her name was Olive.  

James was last to ride the horse but took the lead and dominated his Boy Scout merit badge skills.  

Everett was less than excited for the horse ride but didn't cry

Gwenevere was the first to jump on, no fear for this girl.

Grace was a little hesitant but when she saw her friend Adelaide ride she worked up the courage to try 

I got invited to join a toy swap with ten other mommies.  I actually fallowed through this time.  YIPPEE!  we made 80 painted rocks called imagination stones.  The girls help paint them, it took several days but we had so much fun.  

Everett is still not walking but boy can he climb.  He pushes toy bins around on the grown turns the upside down and makes step stools.  He's favorite place is the piano.  Most of the time he just climbs up to the seat so he can play.  He loves to play the piano. 

Our bunnys are getting bigger.

a bunny named Katie

I can't believe how nice the weather has been for Oct

We bought claims at the farmers market and James made homemade claim chowder.  It was wonderful and the claims shells made beautiful artwork for my picture loving Gwenevere.  

Everett is 13 months now.  He's so handsome in is his Church sweater.  He melts my heart. 

He has two teeth now and loves to show them off, you can't see them in this picture but he often sticks out his lower jaw to show his two teeth.  He's so cute.  

Oh and he loves to give kisses.  If i'm not willing to let him kiss my lips he'll grab my hair and pull me in to give me some of his love.  He thinks it's funny to blow bubbles while he kisses me.  Oh how I love wet bubbly kisses from my little man.  Hopefully he'll learn to be a better kisser for his future wife someday.  

We got to have another cousin sleep over party and went to our ward trunk or treat activity.  I love having family close.  

Taylor loved holding the bunnys as long as he couldn't feel their claws 

after our sleepover party we went up to North Bend to spend the day with Will and Jenni and to participate in their trunk or Treat.  

Grace and Gwenevere got to attend Preston's friend's birthday party.  Lucky kids.  While they partied Will watched Everett so James and I could go on a date.

then it was time to dress up again and get more candy.  

Super Jenni even got a cousin picture. Cool Cat, Little Penguin, (Will dressed Antarctica explorer looking for penguins, Anna Cat, Transformer Pirate, honey bear and fire fighter.

On Monday we went to Sterino's farm and picked out some 99 cent pumpkins along with 40.00 worth of produce that is already gone. Love me some fresh produce.

Everett loved the "balls" and trying to sit on them

Gwenevere's bunny pumpkin

Papa's Pumpkin face

Grace's Murphy Fish Pumpkin

Grace's Puppy dog pumpkin

Learning about Mummies in school

Do mummies have tongues?

Grace dressed up for our preschool Halloween party, she's over the Anna thing.

Making bread at preschool

Grace's Elephant bread

finished the third book of our family blog.  hurray

Funny Sayings and other random life tidbits

We've been sounding out a lot of words around here.  Today Grace comes up to me and says "Mom I know how to spell Makayla  she goes on to make the "m" sound, the "a" sound, sounds out "kay" and "la"."  I love that she's trying to be like her big sister.  We're learning lots around here.

Another learning quote from Grace:  Today Gwenevere came up to me and said "I'm ready to do my school work."  (I jumped on the opportunity especially since i'm not going to force school this year.  We work when she wants to work and so far we've been able to keep current with the curriculum calender.)
Grace overheard  Gwenevere's request and came running to me to ask if she could help Gwenevere do her school work.  Grace is learning to use scissors (which to be honest is really scary), gluing and identifying letters.  We love to learn at this house.

While driving the the car the other day Gwenevere asks me if I will be watching our little neighbor tomorrow I tell not tomorrow she replies "Oh Good."  Kinda shocked I ask "why". Gwenevere goes on to tell me she doesn't want to be awakened by a baby.  I point out the fact that there is still a good chance Everett will wake her up.  With a big huff she says "Okay I'll tell the truth, I wanted to make you breakfast in bed."
She is so cute and really into cooking all by herself these days.  She can cook toast all by herself and she thinks she's pretty cool.

Grace has decided a name change is in order,  right now she likes to be called Nightmare Moon.  We'll see how long this lasts.  She corrects me almost every time I call her name.

Gwenevere is the bunny whisper,  when ever a bunny gets loose she's the one to catch it and put it back in the cage.  She is also a great second mom to the baby bunnies.  She checks on them several times a day and holds and pets them all to make sure they are loved.

Everett is climbing to new heights these days.  He's made it to the top of the piano to through pictures frames onto the ground, and likes to play horse ride on the arm of our couch.  I can't tell you the number of times my heart-rate jumps up in a day.  But the other day I felt like I was going to have a heart attack.  hahahaha  that boy sure knows how to scare me.  I'm ready to get him a membership at a climbing gym  in hopes of channeling his desire to aspire higher.

New Windows, promptings and another reason I love my husband

Last year when we bought our house,  we met with a guy about buying new windows and a heat pump.  Things didn't turn out like we had imagined and we only bought 3 new windows.  The windows for the bedrooms.  The heat pump guys kept contacting us with great offers and each time we where about to do it, both James and I just didn't feel good about it.  bummer.  Even though I wanted to push throw the uncertainty I'm so glad I fallowed James' lead.  We never got the heat pump installed last winter, instead we when to home depot and bought space heaters for the two main living areas.  Yeah, we're that ghetto.

This summer Tacoma Power had a great intensive to get a heat pump, so again I pushed for the idea.  When both James and I got the stooped of thought feeling again I was a bit disappointed.  Then in August I heard about a new window installation program the Tacoma Power was putting on.  I did some more research and got a few bids.  This time everything fell into place and it was perfect.  Dates for installations where set and I couldn't believe it was happening.  Yippee.

Last week we had the heat pump installed.  It's been awesome.

Today was the day we where going to get the windows installed.  All day yesterday James was not settled with the idea of the windows being installed.  He even called into work to see if he could get the day off.  He just wanted to be here when they installed everything to make sure all went as planned.  When his work denied the day off, I reassured James for the hundredth time I could handle everything, and that everything would be fine.

Well today went as fallowed:

Awake up 5:20 am- Watch little neighbor girls (another blessing, I contribute to paying tithing).

8:00 am girls wake up, get them dress, feed them breakfast,

9:00 am Little Nimi is picked up, comforted baby Everett who had been awake since 6am and was tired and ready for his morning naps, while trying to get the girls ready for school and picking up odds and ends before window guys got here.

9:15 am Window guys arrive, fanatically move couch, get boots on girls, put everyone in the car (this takes 30 minutes)  check in with window guys to make sure they have everything they need.

9:45 am Take girls to school.

10:30 am Back at home Everett still asleep in the car.  Check in with window guys, things seem to be going smooth, notice they are putting the old trim back on the windows.  Text James to make sure this is okay.

10:45  am James calls back and confirms my worst fear.  That was not the plan.  Go to window guys, ( I don't do well with confrontation) explain we thought they would be replacing the trim as well.  News to him.  He calls his boss, boss says that's not the plan.  Call James, he's doing Evals and is super busy today.  Poor guys.  I call Todd the salesman, explain that we where under the impression that the trim would be replaced.  Todd searches his e-mails and says no such agreement was made.  I remember the conversation about the trim was super short and very veg.  Salesman calls James and says they can add trim for 50.00 a window.  James not knowing what windows really need new trim and what ones we can skimp on at the moment is kinda stressed out.  I tell him I can figure it out.  When I talk to the workers you can tell this is not what they want to hear.  they reply without thinking "putting new trim in is asking for trouble, it's a lot of work".  Not the thing I want to hear.  I can't really ask them for their professional option because I know it will be tainted with the amount of work it will require of them.  I tell them straight up what I'm thinking and decide to go ask my neighbor who just installed new windows and trim in his own house.  This makes the window workers realized what they just did.

11:30  After many phone calls back and forth with James and the salesman I call my neighbor, I figured he'd know which windows need the trim the most.  Meanwhile, James takes an early lunch break and finds the e-mail concerning the trim  and the  vague agreement that includes the trim.  We forward the old e-mail to the salesman, it doesn't go through, I double check the email address and send it again, still doesn't go through, 4 yes 4 attempts later I send him just part of the e-mail, it goes through, but not the part about the trim.  Getting nervous because the poor workers just want to finish the job.  James reassures me I can just print out the e-mail and take it to the office for clarification if I need.

12:00  Salesman calls me back, says he found the e-mail, and confirms we where right all along.  Big Sigh of Relief.  Workers stop mid job because this news changes everything.

12:30  They leave with only installing three new windows.  They will be back to undo the work they did and to finish the job right which will include new trim on all the windows.

12:45 Rush out the door to pick up girls from school.


I'm so glad I try to listen to my husband's promptings.  This has been a crazy but awesome experience for us.  Right now I'm in the middle of trying to refinance,  I keep getting that same feeling we got a year ago about the windows and heat pump.  With all rational thinking it just makes since to refinance.  Having this window installation experience happen right now, makes me think twice about fallowing the promptings of the spirit or my intuition.  We'll be holding off on refinancing for a bit longer. we'll do some more research and wait till we both feel good about the decision.

I can't thank James enough for swooping in and helping me figure everything out.  I'm so grateful for James, he's a hard worker and all that he does for our family.  Because of him we saved over $400.00.  their bid was already 2/3rd the price of what other bids we got and now we'll be saving even more with new trim too.
I kinda feel bad for the business, clearly the salesman was in a rush when he sent his e-mail to us and did not double check what we where asking.  The Salesman and the workers where both super supportive and helpful figuring everything out (once I mentioned to them my thoughts) and working with us to get what we wanted.


the reason I wrote down this whole experience is to Testify to my kids that the Lord will lead and guide you if you seek for his guidance.  Not every decision you make needs approval from the Lord, he expects us to use reason and thought to make correct choices but if we try to seek for his inspiration he will let you know when things are not right, and if you have the courage to follow those promptings you will be blessed.

Homesteading

I feel like September and now October is getting the better of me.  We've been up to so much I can't keep up with the blog posts.  So here is a combine post of all the homesteading projects we've been up to lately.  

Helping Papa get lumber for the rabbit hutch

Working on the hutch

Everett hammering with Papa

Painting the rabbit hutch

Rabbit hutch almost done

Rabbit hutch complete

Baby Bunnies for the new home

Playing in the garden

Watering the blue berry bushes

Everett helping me till the flower bed, moving the bulbs so we can plant strawberries here next year.

Picking Sunflowers

October harvest from the garden.  Next year our chickens are going to love eating the sun flower seeds

Getting ready to can tomatoes from the garden

First time canning as a couple, yummy tomatoes

Collecting Honey from the hives

three happy honey tasting helpers

Before added dirt

Leveling the dirt

Added 15 cubic yards of soil to the back yard, Planted a few fruit trees along with grass and clover.

Making Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oh I almost forgot to mention.  James installed a new dishwasher.  And we had our ductless Heat pump installed today.  Next week we're getting new windows.  exciting times.

I'm sure I'm missing something.  But we're trying hard to make homesteading a second full time job for Papa.  Counting down the days til he can retire and play in the yard everyday.