Family Friday: Thankful For Them

Dear Family and Friends,
There are people in our lives that we just can't live without. You know who I mean...the person who shows up when you are stressed out, the one who stops what they are doing to help you with a problem or the one who drops off chicken noodle soup when they hear your family is sick. They are people we need in our lives.

Blast From The Crazy Past- So Many Updates (Part Two)

As promised, here is Part Two of my Thanksgiving Trilogy of Answered Prayer From The Past: 
If you missed Part One, you can find it here.

Where To Go From Here....

I'll be honest...I really haven't known where to go with this blog. I had numerous family members and friends let me know over the past couple years that they missed my blog and wanted me to write again...

So I did. On October 9, 2016, I got back on the band wagon and was really excited to do it!

However...

I LOVE MONDAYS! Really!!!

Mondays are different around here: We do not give our girls school work on Mondays as they volunteer with their grandparents at a local rest home and Lil Mr goes to preschool. So it is perfect for catching up on the little things that build up over the weekend or finishing up projects from Saturday.

Today was no exception. I dropped Lil Mr off at preschool then ran to the post office to get some stamps and also get hollered at by some random stranger who was not having a great day. That was pleasant. Then it was homeward bound with the vision of the two projects I wanted to finish dancing in my head.

The first was to reclaim my son's room. He is very good about putting things away, he likes everything in it's spot or he starts twitching. ( Reminds me of his dad.... :P ) However, if he has a friend over, things don't always get put away before said friend leaves. Then I see this glazed look come over him and he just dumps everything. Probably part of the Sensory Processing Disorder. So...to make it easier on him, I gave away a big sack full of toys that he really doesn't play with as well as a stack of books. Then I put up some of the toys like his blocks, Legos and Little People. This left his cars and trains to play with. The others can be pulled out when he wants to play with them, but  are out of the reach of  friends. Looks MUCH neater in there. We also moved out his big dresser he wasn't using and put in a smaller one. I have to say that it warmed my heart when he came home and saw his room. I pointed out where his shoes go and he said, "Wow, thanks, mom! Where do my socks go?" Too cute!

On hubby's lunch break we ran to Home Depot to get a few little things and off to Joann's to get another panel of muslin for my dining room curtains. When we got home, hubby put up my curtain rod, fixed the doors on my corner cabinet and changed out the hardware on the doors. The result was amazing! (Pics below.) While he did that, I scurried to my craft room and got my curtains sewn up. Was pretty simple to do but did take a couple hours.

All in all, I am really happy with how the dining room is turning out. It's taken a couple months, slowly but surely. It started with being wild and crazy by painting the dining room table and chairs. I moved some furniture around in the dining room. Hubby also moved the piano out of the dining room and into the living room. Then Saturday, hubby painted my dining room a beautiful creamy white color while I finished painting the corner cabinet. I have just two more things I want to do to finish it: I want to get a  cool "vintage" window and make a chalkboard out of it. I am also looking for a nice English or French countryside picture to hang on one wall.   I am pretty picky about what I will spend. I don't like spending more than I have to, as I would rather make things myself! However, a painter I am NOT. My poor parents tried giving me classes in middle school and let's just say...I am not talented in that area!

Anyway, there are some pics below. I hope you enjoy them and have a great night!

New hardware for a lovely old piece. Found out that this corner cabinet has been in our family for over 45 years.

Doors are secure and it is finished!

To save money, I waited till the outside panels of material went on sale for 60% off!
Then I only bought 3 yards, cut it in half and added muslin panels in the middle.

That long dresser was in my son's room. We brought it in here and turned it into a buffet.
Then I was going to put that little dresser out in the shed and hubby had the
great suggestion to put my cookbooks on it and walah! (Also known as "voila"! I just like my non-words!)

Chores:

If you have any questions about when you should start training your children on chores or how, check out my post called E is For Everyone Helps on my homeschool blog!

Making Memories and Messes

So I was working on my project indoors and hubby was working on the backyard...he comes in the house and says, "Can you be ready in a hour or so and we will go cash the cans in." Now, I haven't paid attention, but I figured there were maybe 5-6 bags of cans. No...he had to take the seats out of our 8 passenger van and the back end was FULL! Where were these for the past five months? Apparently it proves that we rarely go to the side of the house where we store cans in the winter time. No, we do not drink that much soda! Alot of them are water bottles and then we have different relatives that give us their bottles and cans. It adds up...

So we figured that we were there at least 1.5 hours, but possible two. Cashing in cans is hard, nasty work. I don't know if you cash in cans, but in the winter time it is cold, miserable, dirty work. However....we made a decent amount of money in that short amount of time, I am happy to say! The kids worked hard. I didn't think ahead to how the noise in that echoing, loud room would affect Lil Mr's Sensory issues. He was having a hard time dealing with it, so the girls all took turns playing with him in the little area outside the building. The ones that weren't playing/watching Lil Mr all took turns getting cans/bottles from the van, loading the bins, taking caps off the bottles, cleaning up garbage and various other little tasks. They were troopers! I was so proud of them. Not a single one fussed till the last 15 minutes or so when they started getting hungry. It was hard work, but daddy is treating them to some of that hard earned money by picking up one of their favorite foods for lunch! Yay Daddy!

It was messy and we all have dirt shoved up under our fingernails and streaks of mud across our faces, but it was productive and we left thankful that we do not have to do that for a living as some people who were there. God is good and I am so thankful for Him in our lives!

Today: My Son's Room

Thankfully, my son's room didn't take too long. For one, he is much younger, so less time in his life to accumulate things. Two, he is not sentimentally attached to a whole lot yet besides his trains. Don't mess with his trains!

So here is what we did in his room in the hour that I worked in there:

• Cleared out a large garbage bag of toys & stuffed animals to pass to Freecycle.
• Gathered a small bag of things of our foster son's that we will pass on to him next time we see him.
• Collected a small bag of garbage. 
• Gathered a LARGE pile of his sister's things, for whatever reason!
• Brought down toys that had been put up for their safety! (The little guy that stayed with us loved to take things apart!)
• Collected a bunch of small toys from the bottom of his toy box. We are going to use these to make a "sensory" box for him. You fill it with rice or beans & mix the toys in. When he plays with it, he is able to experiment with the different textures.                 

And that is about it! Only took about an hour, but made a HUGE difference!