teddy bear picnic

Friday Micah had a Teddy Bear Picnic at school and the parents/siblings were invited as well. He informed me on Thursday that his teacher told them they could bring any animal so George got to go :) They sang a couple of songs and he actually sang and did the moves with a smile on his face. BIG DEAL! After we sat on our picnic blankets and ate pizza. Connor was so excited to watch Micah sing and watching the two of them sit and eat together cracked me up. Pretty much because one (connor) is a nut and the other (micah) sets him up to be one.

crafting and catapults

Since Micah has started going to pre K every morning for school I've missed him. It's strange having him not here which just means Kindergarten next year might put me in some kind of miniature depressive state ;) Of course there will be a 9 month old around to take up a lot of time so maybe it won't be all bad. Anyway, on the days that Connor goes to school also I make sure Micah and I have a fun one on one activity to do together. I had gone to Michaels this morning and found some cool wooden models to paint and put together so today he painted what would become a catapult while I sat with him and made magnet letters to mark their 'school' stuff. We just sat and talked and had the best time :)

Crafts In Progress

Catapult in action

Our 'school' magnets

chocolate joker

rocket man

Micah and I spent the afternoon turning his box play house into a box rocket ship! It's amazing what you can do with cardboard and packing tape :) He had a blast playing and even added some personal touches of his own. Like...

a rocket ship nose like an airplane has

a transformer button that changes the rocket into any kind of transportation

a flight log (my term he called it a piece of paper) to right down where you're going. It's covered in tape so he can you a dry erase marker on it which he thought was amazing!

And there's the cute, imagintative pilot!

fireman

Just because he's so darn cute :)

connor's first day

Connor had his first day today. He will be going on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It started out as we expected, with tears, but thankfully our friend Rebekah works at the school and he knows her from church so she was able to calm him down. Apparently he threw himself into her arms! When he got home he told me, "I cried to Beka." bless him! Otherwise they said he had a great day until he had a stinky diaper and didn't want them to change him. He told them "No change britches!" They did anyway of course and we I picked him up the first thing he said was "Mama change britches, no they change britches!" Mercy me!

Before you think I spent the day eating bon bons think again. My Tuesday and Thursdays from now until boy #3 are already pretty booked with doctors appointments, dentist appointments, grocery shopping and every other errand I have to do so that all my other time is completely free for fun with my fellas. For example today I spent the whole time putting the first coat of paint on the baby boy's room. I do hope I can get some craftiness ESPECIALLY SCRAPPING done so that I'm all caught up before I add another book in to the mix.

pre k

Micah started Pre K today at First Methodist in Covington (same school as last year). He will be going 5 days a week from 9:00-12:45. I seriously can not believe he'll be in Kindergarten next year! Yesterday was Open House and Micah was very nervous. He was holding up fine until we actually walked in the room and then he burst into tears. After about 10 minutes I was able to calm him down enough to tell him I was going to the bathroom and I'd be right back. Technically it was a big fat lie but he let me out of the room and then was fine. Today he said he was a little bit ok but once we got there he put his stuff away, walked right in and gave us a wave. Big brave boy!

p.s. I got the idea for the first two pictures from pinterest. I'm planning to take a pictures of him holding his 'grade' every year. Once we get to high school he'll probably complain but he'll get over it!

bunkbeds!

The bunkbeds were put up last night so now the boys are officially sharing a room. Zach estimated an hour and it ended up taking us 2 1/2. geez louise! Those things are STURDY though so we did a good job! Both boys climbed right in and were super excited. The look on Connor's face was oh so cute. It took them awhile to settle down last night but since it was late and new I understood. As long as it's not a common occurrence :) I still have some more to do on the room (hang stuff on the walls, curtains, costume storage) so I'm not going to share pictures until I'm all finished. Be waiting though :)

handkerchief baby blanket

For a baby gift I made my sister in law Katie a baby blanket of vintage handkerchiefs. I am very proud of it because it's a semi original idea. I say semi because I made it up on my own without seeing it anywhere else but I'm sure someone else has done something like it at some point. I don't have a tutorial per say but I can share the steps I followed. Please know this are coming from a very non professional seamstress!

1) Buy handkerchiefs, flannel, and that soft fabric with the circles. I got the handkerchiefs on a shopping trip to Scott's Antique Mart and then filled in with two I found on ebay and bought everything else at Joanns with a coupon.

2) lay out handkerchiefs in a square and sew together.

3) sew handkerchiefs on top of a larger square of flannel. I did this because I was afraid it would be too small.

4) sew right sides of flannel/handkerchief and the soft stuff and then turn inside out and sew up the hole.

5) sew "in the ditch" to adhere the two pieces together firmly and sew around the edge.

It is definitely not perfect because I can't sew perfectly but I LOVED how it turned out :)

highlands, nc: 4

Thursday afternoon we climbed Whiteside Mountain. Which is the mountain we stared at the entire week. It's summit is referred to as Monkey Face. If you look in the picture you can see that it kind of looks like the outline of a monkey's face (or Iron Man's face if you ask Micah). Nana (linda) stayed home with Leah, Connor and Eli and the rest of made the hike. Micah had been looking forward to climbing the mountain all week. He did great! I on the other hand brought up the rear the majority of the time. Seriously hiking with a belly is not an easy task! The views were gorgeous though and it was a fun time of course. Difficult or not I love hiking. I love being out in creation enjoying it and resting in the awesomeness of who created it!

We ended the evening with dinner, smores for dessert and after the kids were in bed the old kids went to Sunset Rock while Nana and Poppy monitored the children. We got there too late to see the actual sun but made it for the after effects :) This was our last night there so we wanted to make the most of it.

The next morning we went to Dry Falls again so that Andrew and Krista could see it and we packed up and headed home while everyone else enjoyed the cabin for another day.