Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Out with the Old, In with the New

The transition from Spring into Summer has brought along a couple of changes for us. Today was Cole's last day of Pre-K at Lakeland Christian Academy. We had a big end of the year party (my last job as room mom - which I loved doing:) and we had to say our goodbye's to everyone. This fall he'll be a kindergardener at Highland Village Elementary. He is growing up so fast. Even as a baby, Cole opened my eyes to just how much children can learn. Cole has such a good memory, the possibilities are endless! I'm so excited to see how he's going to do in the coming years.

Another goodbye we had was to Cole's spring season of baseball (it was his first season of coach pitch). He's always had fun and we're on a great team but Cole really doesn't seem to be into it. He can't stand being in outfield (he's the one kicking the dirt) and he says he doesn't like to sweat (ha! . . . there were a couple of hot game days towards the end). We'll see if he wants to do it again in the fall but in the meantime we want him to tryout for LAC swim team. We'll probably do that after we get back from California so it will be towards the end of July.

Next, we finally found a big boy bed for Cy. He had been ready to be out of his crib - we just hadn't found the right color bed at a reasonable price. So when Daddy put together that big boy bed he went to sleep with a smile on his face. It's been a few weeks now and he hasn't gotten up once (except to turn his closet light on because he wants a night light:).


Another big change we made happened this week. Cole and Chase have shared a room since Chase was just a few weeks old. Well, after night after night of them messing around, getting hurt or constantly getting up to tell us something we decided to seperate them - just for the time being. It's been a really good change: they go to bed easier, bedtime routines are easier (they'll actually listen to the book that I'm reading instead of being distracted by each other), and keeping their rooms clean is a lot easier (for some reason the playroom was always so hard to keep clean!!!).
Chase is so excited to have his own room and of course, he loves the train theme (we kept the train table in there). The only thing we didn't like about seperating them was the bonding time we know that comes along with sharing a room. That's why I said it's just for the time being and Brandon and I decided to let them have a campout in one of their rooms once a week - I think it'll be fun - we'll see . . .

The final change was re-doing the landscaping in the front yard. Here's a picture of our house when we bought it just a little over a year ago.
We wanted to get rid of all the bushes (a lot of them were really prickley and grew like weeds so they were a lot of work to maintain) and we also wanted to make the planters smaller and give them a little more curve.
After a lot of digging, tilling, pulling and rearranging we were finally ready to put in what we wanted. (actually Brandon did all the tilling - I just wanted to look strong:)

We wanted to go with a tropical theme so we put in a pond, two little palm trees, elephant ears, tropical canna's, dwarf lillies and we still need some little flowers to go in front of the pond for some color. On the other side of the house we planted three royal crepe myrtle's (that will be bright pink when they bloom!) and more dwarf lillies. Eeverything right now is really small but I can't wait for it all to bloom and fill in!


So here's the after picture.










That's enough change for now! Now we'll see what the summer holds for us.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Baby Isabelle

This weekend was my very pregnant friend Christen's baby shower. She is almost ready to pop (she is so tiny but she has BIG babies). This is her third child (someone else hopped on the wagon!!) and it will be her third girl so I wanted to make a bunch of stuff to help make this shower extra special. Isabelle's room is all purple and yellow which made quite a quest to find fabric for the quilt but I did it! The quilt turned out great and after a few more washings the minkey used on the backside should fray up a little more.
The onesies were a great success. It was my first time using my die-cutter on fabric and it worked! As for the bib, I use the printable fabric and I love how it looks. I was going to put her name on the burp cloth too but our printer decided to stop working the other day :(




Christen also wanted something to put up on a shelf in Isabelle's room so I made a jar filled with yellow candy and put "Sweet As Candy" around it.

I hope you enjoy all of it Christen. I can't wait for Isabelle to arrive!

Go to http://www.needleinascrapstack.etsy.com/ to view all of our new creations!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Happy Mother's Day!

With Mother's Day this past week there seemed to be more moments with my kids to make me think just how blessed I am. I know every mom has their bad days (or weeks or months!) and with a 5, 3 and 2 year old they are at the ripe age to throw me challenges evey day. It was in the midst of some of these challenges that I was reminded of how much I am going to miss this. Really? Yes, never again will they be this age, the way they speak will change, their reactions will change, the way they play together will change and someday I will just think,"remember when?"
This past Friday Cole had Muffins With Mom at school where we were treated with songs from his class, flowers, and, of course, muffins. I love having individual time with all my boys so I was just eating it up.
Sunday, we went to church, enjoyed Mimi's for lunch with Joanne, Kristin, Nick and Erin (Grandpa was out of town) then everyone came over to our house later. The boys each gave me a new workout shirt and I also got to pick out some new running shoes.
Again, I missed spending time with my mom. I wish I could fly her out here (or me out there). For her present (that I still haven't sent to her yet) I made Wall Art that matches her room. Her bookshelf is full of pictures so this should make a good addition.














Thank you mom for being such an encourager, teacher, friend and most of all being my mom. Happy Mother's Day! I love you!


More examples of Wall Art
www.Needleinascrapstack.etsy.com