We've Moved...

Come visit our family's adventures at:

http://firefliesandwiggleworms.wordpress.com

Motherhood...

I realized I'm knee-deep in motherhood when today, eating lunch here at my desk at lunch, I'm analyzing the pasta shapes from the can of Spaghettio's & Meatballs that I'm eating. I got the "Cars" movie themed shaped ones and I'm trying to see if I can figure out the various shapes. The next realization that hit me is that I eat these all the time but yet I'm the ONLY one in my family, including the kids, that eats these.

It's a BABY!

Our bunnies, who live next door under the deck, gave birth to their babies here in the past week or two and this weekend, they ventured out into our yard to say hello! This little guy came right up on to our patio and was just as sweet as could be and allowed the kids to get a good look at him. Kevin eventually had to get a shovel and take him back home as Pepper would like to get a good look at him too...the entire time we were out on the patio, he was looking at us through the back door, crying and scratching to get out.

Take me out to the ballgame...

This past Friday night, courtesy of Kevin's brother, Dan, the whole family got to go to go to the Indianapolis Indians minor league baseball game FREE! This was the kids first professional sporting event that they had been too and so they were extremely excited and driving on the way there, the question of "how much longer to get there Mom" was heard repeatedly!

We started out the evening with free hot dogs, hamburgers, drinks and cookies and then Grandma and Papa bought the kids shirts and souvenir mini-baseball bats. We got to our seats and I think Caden kept his baseball glove up most of the evening, hoping to catch a fly ball!

The evening ended with a nice surprise for the kids...fireworks after the show! As we were walking through the stadium to get out to the parking lots, we ran in to the Pirates mascot and so we stopped and the "boys" had their picture taken!

Adventure Week!

Our church, Northview Christian Life, has their version of vacation bible school each year but instead, we call it "Adventure Week". It is a huge production and you can't think of this as the same VBS that we went to as kids, where we sat at a table in the basement of the church, hearing stories and doing a craft...it's on a much different level. The theme this year was "Knight In The Museum" and for those of you who have seen the movie, we had Dum-Dum with an actual moving mouth, Rexi the Dinosaur and then each night, we focused on someone out of the bible such as Joseph, who dressed up in full attire and "came to life" and taught a lesson in a large group setting. We then did crafts, outside activities complete with bounce houses and water play, and then small groups where we taught the children and did activities. It's 2-1/2 hours of non-stop fun. Caden and Samuel actually love going to this and here's a pic I found of Caden and his group.

This year, I volunteered to be a "small group leader" and what that basically meant is that I was in charge of 13 four-year olds and taking them from activity-to-activity and then each night, teaching them the bible lesson for the night and answering any questions they may have. At age 4, I was able to capture their attention during our bible lessons for about a whole 5 minutes before they tuned me out and turned their attention to the girl/boy sitting next to them. But, it was such a blessing to be part of their lives each evening for 4 nights and I plan to volunteer for years to come, Lord willing.

The last night of the week, it was a very fulfilling moment for me because all the volunteers and children gathered in our auditorium for worship songs blasting out of the speakers and all of us doing the hand movements that motivate the children to get up and sing. To give you perspective though, we had 600 children and 300 volunteers in this auditorium. To see all the kids singing and excited for the Lord was quite a "lightbulb" moment when I realized how many lives, at such young ages, are being impacted.

Photos taken by Shanna Banks, Northview.

Boy of Summer...

Fun Pic Friday!

I love this pic of Samuel I took last night. He's so tan and his hair is so blond that you can tell he's had a fun summer out in the sun everyday, playing with his friends! He's looking so much older now, although he's only 6, but every so often, I get a glimpse of him still being "my baby".

2 year old ATTITUDE!

So Isabella has started this thing here lately, which I'm blaming on all the firework noise from the weeks leading up to July 4th, in which she is continuing to wake up during the middle of the night screaming and crying and will come to our bed wanting to sleep with us. While I would give NOTHING more than to go back to sleep with her in our bed, I am also VERY determined not to start the habit of her sleeping in our bed every night. Another new thing is that she must have her bedroom door completely open in order to get back to sleep and usually we just keep it this way all through the night.

So THREE times last night alone, she comes in crying and babbling and I patiently get up, eyes barely open, and hearing Kevin snoring peacefully peacefully beside me completely oblivious to any of the noise erupting from the 2 year old at the side of the bed. I walk with her in to her bedroom, put her in bed, come back out and sit in the love seat that's out in our open area outside her room. Within seconds, I'm asleep on the love seat and sometimes stay that way for 15 minutes, other times for more than an hour before I wake realizing that I am horribly uncomfortable. But it does the trick for Isabella...she goes back to sleep until the next time she is awoken by some thought, dream or noise...pick one.

This morning, my alarm goes off at 6:55 am (why not 7:00, I don't know but I must feel as though that extra 5 minutes helps me) and I get in the shower and start about the business of making myself presentable to go to work. Before I blow-dry my hair, I tip-toe to her room and shut the door so that I don't wake her up with the squealing that comes from the dryer. A few minutes later, I'm sitting on the edge of the bed watching something that has captivated my interest on the Today show and I hear her get up, start screaming and babbling the whole time and she SLAMS the door open so hard that it hits the wall and then stomps her way back to the bed and falls back asleep. This made me laugh so hard because I realized that my 2 year old, if given the correct words, was cussing me out for closing her door. I'm also realizing that she's doing this at 2 YEARS old...what in all that is good and holy is the future going to bring?

Homemade Laundry Detergent

So my kitchen science experiment for today was making homemade laundry detergent. I've done a bit of research on this by reading several internet sites and have realized that quite a bit of savings can be made by making your own and most have stated that it works just as well, if not better than commercial detergent.

When I posted "my status" on facebook today that I wanted to do this and receiving several responses, I decided to give it a try. One of my friends, Cheryl, gave me this recipe below for powdered detergent and so it's what I decided to go with since it's coming from a personal source. I also have a recipe for "liquid" detergent and might try that one down the road. It requires a 5 lb. bucket, of which we did not have laying around, and so for storage reasons, decided to go with the powder.

In preparation for making this, in recent weeks, I had purchased both types of soap called for in the recipe, Fels Naptha and Kirk's Castile, and so I made a batch of each. For the shaving/grating, I cut it up the bar of soap in to chunks and then used my chef's chopper to "grate" it. I barely use my chopper, believe it or not, for food chopping and so I figured I might as well get some sort of use out of it!

We will run out of commercial laundry soap this week and so I will then try this homemade mix and report my feedback!!

Ingredients
1 cup Fels Naptha or Kirk's Castile, shaved and grated
1/2 cup Borax
1/2 cup washing soda

Directions
Use ONE tablespoon per load.
Use a little more if you have an especially dirty load.

Pregnancy Brain

So I learned today that supposedly your brain shrinks by 8% during pregnancy. Because of this, that's the reason I'm giving as to why I haven't written anything anything on my blog in the past week! Even as I sit here trying to come up with something to write about, I've got nothin'. Sad, I know. Maybe something will come to me this afternoon as I go about my day...stay tuned...I'll get it together soon.