My Craft Table

Friday, April 8th, I tackled my craft table.  This was another spot that became a drop zone for stuff.  I had all kinds of magazines, papers, Premier catalogs and other business stuff, scrapbooking stuff, etc.  I even had a large plastic tub full of books that I had in my bookcase growing up.  It was fun going thru that tub and keeping some of my favorite books so my girls can read them when they get just a bit older...like Nancy Drew and Babysitters Club.

At the beginning of the organizing:

The pile of books

And here's the after picture!  There was a lot of dust and papers thrown out.  A small pile of stuff went back to our bedroom to be organized and stored back there.  Maybe I'll move all my craft stuff back into our bedroom to my desk back there and then we'll have the whole living room back again...we'll see.  :)

I was finally able to get all the stuff I've been purging to the thrift store on Wednesday!  It felt so good to get all of that out of my house.  We had Jacob's birthday party on Sunday, so all the stuff was taken out to the van until we could get to town.  The house looked great for the party because of all the stuff we've been able to get rid of and for all the help cleaning on Saturday from the girls, Daddy, and Jacob.  :)

Computer Desk

Today I tackled our computer desk area...isn't it beautiful?!  This was a complete disaster.  I have figured out that we tend to pile stuff in the room we're currently in with the intentions of bringing that pile to where it belongs when we go there...but that tends to not happen.  I forgot to take a before picture even with having to move my camera because it sits on the desk as well.  I had many different piles laying on the floor around me...it was kind of crazy.  And then there was the dust!  It's amazing the amount of dust we have in this house...I could dust every single day and there'd always be work to do so you can imagine what the forgotten about places look like (think under the computer monitor stand).  I'm hoping we'll be able to keep it like this from now on, but it'll take some diligence on my part.

Bag count:
1 large trash bag
1 small pile for hubby to sort thru
1 small bag for thrift store

Hallway

I started a "photo a day for a whole year" project last year on January 1st.  I found 365 Project and throughoughly enjoyed posting pictures, getting comments, and following other photographers that were also participating.  One of the gals had posted a picture of a clever and great way to decorate and display her kids' artwork at the same time.  I just tried finding the picture of hers, but cannot find it. :(   Anyway, I had scanned the thrift stores for frames that I could spray paint black and use as the kids' artwork wall.  After painting the hallway, I knew the black frames would look great against the gray/khaki colored wall!  Late this summer/early fall, I had gather enough frames and spray painted them all of them black.  Now to just take the time to hang them...well that didn't happen until today!  I decided I needed to finish that project and get a place for all the school artwork that the girls bring home on an almost daily basis.  I measured the wall space where the frames were going up, then laid out a blanket on the floor in approximately the same size area so I could lay out the frames and get the look I wanted with all the different sizes and textures.  Then to find some artwork to hang.  I need to have the kids create some smaller pieces as I have about 3 or 4 frames that still need something in them.  Then, it was time to hang the frames.  This is where I really would like sheetrock walls!  The old wood paneling in this house and the lack of regularly space studs makes hammering a nail in a challenge at times.  I've had enough of that to last me for quite a while!  I think I'll try to wait to let Aaron help me with that kind of project from now on...maybe he won't bend as many nails. :)  Here's a few pictures of my organizing/decor project today!

Looking at the full wall of art!

I found this fun wooden frame out in one of the sheds here on the farm!

This was a gold metal frame...I like it better in black!

Happy 4th Birthday, Jacob!

My Little Man turned 4!  We celebrated on his birthdate with just the 5 of us.  We made homemade pepperoni pizza and then had fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies and ice-cream for dessert.  We followed up with opening a couple gifts and then finished off the night by watching Tangled.

Jacob surprised us all when he joined our family on April 1st at only 34 weeks weighing in at 6lbs and 20.5 inches long.  That day started our second 3-week long journey in the NICU.  We were much more calm with Jacob's stay in the NICU as we had just been there with Lexi 21 months earlier.  His first room was actually just on the other side of the wall from where Lexi's room was.  I was really glad that he didn't have the same room as I was having enough recalled emotions from her stay.  I actually had to keep reminding myself the first couple days that it wasn't Lexi laying in that isolet because they looked very much alike.  A few of the NICU nurses actually remembered Lexi when she was in there and commented on how calm and "easy" we were with the whole process.  I was comforted by the fact that they remembered my baby girl from almost 2 years prior and knowing that they did a wonderful job caring for her and knew Jacob would get that same care.  He stayed in the NICU for 22 days.  I went to the hospital at least once a day, every day to visit him.  Hailey was able to come with us a few times to see her brother, but Lexi was too young and not potty trained so she wasn't able to.  She first met her brother when we brought him home from the hospital.  That was a good day...our family finally together!

Jacob at 4 days old

April 23, 2007 - The day we got to bring our baby boy home!

Our 1st Family Photo

Hailey 3 yrs 21m  *  Lexi 21months  *  Jacob 22 days

An interesting note about the kids' birthdates:  they all share their birthdays with either a relatives birthday or anniversary.  Hailey was born on Grandma Doc's 75th birthday (July 2nd).  Lexi shares her birthday with my Uncle Red's heart & double lung transplant anniversary (July 8th), and Jacob shares his birthday with Aaron's Aunt Ramona's birthday (April 1st).  We had been commenting that it would have been fun to have Jacob share Uncle Red's birthday and Jason & Robyn's wedding anniversary (May 5th), but we were doubtful he'd stay inside that long (his due date was May 13th).

Magazines and Bubbles

My husband actually had a Saturday off!  While I was catching up on email and all the blogs I follow, he took the initiative to clean off the top of his dresser.  I seen him go back there and grab a trash bag, but didn't want to interrupt any work he was getting done by being snoopy, so I waited a little bit.  When I did go to check on what he was doing, I walked in to a surprise...he had completely cleaned off his dresser, wiped it down, threw out a bag of trash, and also did a load of laundry while he was doing this.  When he was taking out the bag of trash, he asked if it counted towards my 40.  :)

Friday afternoon, while putting away some of my hanging clothes, I went thru and purged out my closet.  I got rid of a few sweaters that I haven't worn all winter, a few shirts, and then organized the ones I have left.  It was nice to get rid of those things that were just sitting in my closet.

Not to be outdone by my husband (*smile*), I had to do come cleaning on Saturday.  I've been meaning to organize my magazines for a few months now.  We had even bought a few magazine racks/box things (like they have in the library for magazines) at Ikea when we were there last.  So, for a little while that afternoon, my living room floor was covered with magazines.  I never realized how many scrapbooking/cardmaking mags I had until then!  They completely filled two of my boxes.  Then, was my Rachel Ray in another box and then the last one has a few assorted magazines like the Ikea catalog, Uppercase Living catalog, Premier Designs jewelry catalog, and my newest magazine subscription Popular Photography!  I'm pretty excited about that one.  I also went thru our books some, too, and pulled out our duplicates that Aaron and I have from Bible School.  Thankfully, because the main book you study at AFBLS is the Bible, we didn't have very many duplicate books.
My favorite book and story from this purging was when I pulled out our copies of Larry Burkett's Using Your Money Wisely and looked at the 'bookmark' Aaron had in his copy, it was a receipt from him opening  credit card!  Don't get me wrong, credit cards can be good when used properly and you make sure you're paying them off every month, but for some they do more harm than good.  Aaron was one of them who wasn't the best at handling his money and if he (and I) would have actually read the book, we wouldn't have had as many money problems at the start of our marriage as we did.  I wouldn't give up those problems now because they did help us grow closer as a couple and helped us rely on God to provide for us and our family.  Our past mistakes have also made us see exactly what we don't want to experience again.  We have actually just started following Dave Ramsey's guidelines from Total Money Makeover and also his Financial Peace Junior for kids.  We are completely debt free (yippee!), have established our $1000 baby emergency fund, are saving for our family vacation out East this summer, and are working on establishing a separate 6-month emergency fund for in case Aaron ever lost his job.  Once that's established, we will start saving for our own house and for investing.  We don't want our kids to have money struggles like we did, so we're starting early with them so by the time they are to be responsible with a regular income, they'll know what to do with it.  The biggest thing we want them to take away from it is to tithe and never owe money to anyone.  The kids tithe off their commissions for the week and they give it to Sunday School.  It's been fun watching them put their money in their Giving, Saving, and Spending banks and also watching the kinds of decisions they make when we go shopping with them.  Wow...didn't know that was going to make it in this post!
I took Sunday off, as usual, and today.  It is actually feeling like spring around here...finally!  You can see a noticable difference in the amount of snow and the robins are back!  While washing the dishes this afternoon, I decided that I'd take Jacob outside to blow bubbles.  He seen the commercials for Crayola's color bubbles and wants them.  I told them I think we'll just stick with the regular ones and he seemed fine with that.  I took a few pictures of the kids while we were outside.  It was a lot of fun!

I snapped this photo while Hailey was spinning around with the wand.

Jacob blew a big bubble

Running after the bubbles to pop them!

Waiting for more bubbles to pop.

Trying to blow a big bubble.



More cleaning!

A couple posts ago, I mentioned getting clothes from a neighbor.  Well, that started the massive job of going thru my girls' clothes.  I have learned from past experiences, to do Hailey's first as it makes more work for me if I go thru Lexi's first.  It probably took a couple days for each girls' clothes.  We did an initial sort of the clothes with the girls telling me "keep" or "give".  The girls didn't do as well as I was hoping with the "give" because almost everything was "keep."  Hailey has told us many times that she doesn't like pink and to not get her anything pink anymore.  Well, a lot of the clothes she kept were pink!  I didn't understand at first, but then I started to notice a trend.  She was keeping everything that had any kind of embroidery, beads,  or sparkles on it irregardless of whether or not it was pink.  I had to keep telling her that if she wasn't ever going to wear it, then it shouldn't get put in their tubs/drawers and should go to someone who would wear it.  I also had to try to help her not worry about who gave it to her and to not keep it just because it was from so-and-so.
The last time I sorted the clothes with the girls, Lexi did a wonderful job of "giving" at least half, if not more, of her pile away.  I was so excited and really enjoyed that time and was hoping that was going to be the same case this time...but all it was, was wishful thinking.  She didn't do nearly as well as Hailey.  The whole time I was going thru the clothes with Hailey, Lexi kept commenting that Hailey was keeping a lot of clothes.  Then, she goes and keeps all but I think 1 shirt!  Silly girl.  She didn't think it was as fun when I kept commenting that she was keeping more than Hailey did! :)
Anyways, I was able to finally finish both girls' clothes and get them all back into their two tubs each.  We were given 5 not completely full garbage bags of clothes and we've replaced some of what the girls already had with the new-to-them clothes and have 4 full garbage bags ready to go to the thrift store.  It feels good to have that done, but not it's a matter of waiting for spring/summer to come so we can take out the new wardrobe.  :)

Purging Break

I took a little break from my 40 Bags in 40 Days this past week.  I've been following Craft Snob and she has some great tutorials on making all kinds of different things.  The latest that I wanted to try was making fabric flowers and on Wednesday and Thursday I finally sat down to make a couple.  I now have something new to look for when I stop at the thrift stores...buttons!  :)

Because I know I'll be asked how I made this one, I took the time to take some pictures of the process when I made a red one the next day.  :)

Start by cutting out 8 circles of the fabric you want for the flower.  4 should be about 2 inches and 4 about 1.5 inches (you could easily make these bigger if you wanted a larger flower).  You will also need at least one (I used 2) 1.5 inch circle of felt to attach the flower "petals" to.

I chose to "singe" the edges of the fabric by holding the edge near a candle flame to get the brown/weathered look on the edges.

Then, you start to attach the petals to the felt.  Fold each circle in half and then in half again.  Use a smal dab of hot glue to attach the first petal.  I actually put another small dab of hot glue in the corner of the 2nd fold to keep it folded.  Start with the larger circles, then the smaller on top of those.

Now it's time to add a center to your flower. I just used some that I had on hand in my scrapbooking supplies. I prefer the larger sized ones, but a smaller button would look cute, too.Next comes the step for attatching the pin to the back.  I chose to make these into a pin instead of using for a hair accessory or on a headband because I don't generally wear stuff like that.  My girls will probably wear theirs in their hair when I make them some, but that'll come in another post.  :)  I cut 2 small slits on one side of the 2nd circle of felt.  I used a safety pin and put the felt thru the pin and then hot glued the whole thing to the other piece of felt.

These were a lot of fun to make and I'm excited to try some of the other kinds of flowers that Sara of Craft Snob has posted!