The French Family

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Happy Valentine's Day

What a fun-filled day we had today. Our Valentine's fun did not start today though, let me back up to this past weekend and show you what all we did.

I sat down with the kids at the computer a week ago and asked them what type of Valentine's they wanted to give their friends at our homeschool group. I showed them a few options and also told them we could buy them at the store too. They all opted to make Valentine's to give our friends and then we brainstormed ideas and finalized plans.

First, we started on Finn's. Shawn's parents were in town, so Shawn's mom was a big help and we had an assembly line going. The conversation hearts I bought were a big let down. The quality of the printing was terrible on them and half of the sayings I did not care for at all. After about 20 hearts I decided to just turn them around and "glue" them onto the bears with the blank side showing. Before starting I knew that my surface are was super small on the bears and hearts, so using a spoon was a no go. I happened to think of using this syringe and it worked perfectly. I simply heated up white almond bark and glued the hearts on the bears. It was pretty simple and straightforward.

Now this was the tough part: getting Finn to sign all 24 of them! He was a trooper and I ended up paying him with m&ms. Hey, a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do! He did well over half of them and I chalked it up as a win! Here's Mae helping herself too!

I like you BEARY much! I added some m&ms and mini marshmallows as filler and they turned out cute.

A few rounds of Tenzi were played while making Valentines!

Next, we worked on Jase's Valentine's. I thought these turned out cute! A {square} Stacker Mallow, two graham cracker squares and a mini Hersey's chocolate bar.

I saw someone on IG with these glasses and they mentioned they got them from Walmart, so when I went there to buy our supplies for the Valentine's, I scoped it out and found them. These glasses came in a 4 pack for $0.98, so pretty cheap. I bought a few packs and when I came home I tied up the loose ends on what the tie-in would be for the Valentine's: I only have EYES for you!

I was waiting on part of our supplies for Ally's to come in the mail, so when they did on Sunday, we knocked them out.

Valentine, you're the BOMB, I mean BALM! She loved them!!

Of course I had all the scrapbook paper and washing tape. #hoarder

We also made some fun treats for our party. Strawberry creme wafer dipped in almond bark.

Homemade snack mix drizzled with almond bark. {are you catching onto my almond bark theme? I mean, you can't go wrong!} In this mix I have: Corn Chex Cereal, Chocolate Chex Cereal, Honey Nut Cheerios, Pretzel Sticks {broke in half}, and m&ms. There was no precise measuring going on. I tried to use equal amounts of all the cereal I had {maybe 2 cups each}. I had very little pretzels and I might have used half to a whole bag of m&ms. I mixed all of these dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and heated up {maybe} 6 squares of almond bark in the microwave. Once melted, I poured it into the bowl and mixed it all up. After it was all coated, I poured it out onto foil, sprinkled some fun red sugar sprinkles and let it set/dry. {I was out of wax paper and parchment paper, so this was the next best thing and it did not stick at all, so yay!} Once dry I broke up the mix in pieces in various sizes. This filled up my largest round Rubbermaid container that I own. It is pretty tasty; that sweet and salty combo does not disappoint.

So, I was in charge of Valentine's Day party. Does that surprise you!? Ha! Our director said to keep it pretty low key, no big activities, just food and fellowship. Instead of big group activities, I decided to print up some Valentine's Day related sheets {on half pieces of paper}: word search, coloring pages, mad libs {great for our middle school kids learning all about English grammar}.

And I knew I wanted a Bible verse visible, but I wasn't exactly sure how I would do that. Then over the weekend it hit me to simply write it on the table cloths. I looked up verses that dealt with LOVE and wrote them on there with a Marks-A-Lot marker.

I really like how it turned out. Simple, but profound.

We had pizza delivered and we all pitched in and brought goodies and drinks. It really was a fun time and the kids LOVED it! Can you tell what Valentine's of ours was a big hit?? Mae's glasses were a favorite for sure!

Ha! This is the only picture I took of her and of course she would be licking her lips and not looking. She did look super cute today!

Another funny one!! I snapped this right after Allyson tried to put chapstick {BALM} on Finn!! He did not want "Girl lipstick" on him! They were sitting down, going through their Valentine's!

The plan was to give some of our neighborhood friends a Valentine that we had made from this weekend, but somehow we ran out at our party. #badmath #sorrykids No need to worry, we had plenty of Almond Bark Snack Mix left, so we {I} decided to make up some Cupid Crunch bags for our friends! Thankful for a printer with ink!

I'm only showing you this selfie I took today because I thought my leggings were super fun! I bought them last month at a "party". They are LuLaRoe leggings. I heard about them last year from a friend who started selling them, but I am just getting around to jumping on the bandwagon! I own 2 pair and they are super comfy. Definitely a win in the legging department.

Look how fun!

Still with me? Yes, I know, long post. Well, it was a busy and long day! But a good one! Daddy and the girls went to a Daddy/Daughter Sock Hop Dance tonight. This was organized by her AHG troop. We do not own a poodle skirt and with our tight schedule, I really did not have time to make one, nor did I want to buy one for this one event. So, we improvised and it worked out perfect!

Look at this girl!! Do they come any cuter!? She is so full of life; I love her to bits! Can you tell that she was looking forward to this night with her Daddy?

Daddy and his girls. Mae did put her shoes and bow on before the dance! This little girl is a pistol when trying to talk her into wearing something she did not pick out. She has been doing this for quite some time now. You literally have to make her think the outfit is her idea. Crazy!

Here is Maebry looking on as Allyson participates in the limbo.

Watch a short clip of Ally doing the limbo! She loved it!

While the girls were with Daddy, Jase started asking me about my favorite restaurant and where I liked to eat! I knew where this was going. Then he told me that he wanted to buy me dinner! He said that Dad gave him the idea along with $20! So sweet. We decided on Rosa's Cafe, a fast-food Mexican restaurant, but it is yummy! Our meal ended up costing over $20, so Jase used the his own money to pay the balance. {He doesn't know, but I put that money back in his wallet tonight.} I caught the tail end of him paying for dinner tonight.

Did you catch what he said at the beginning? "Keep the change!" What a good guy he is. I'm sure he has heard his daddy say that on occasion. What is funny is that the change was $0.02. It was perfect though, he was so sure of himself and confident. Makes me think of Proverbs 22:6: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." I think this verse can be applied in several ways, with the main one being the Christian faith, but I think manners, kindness, etc can easily be inferred.

Oh Finn, he has a love for Mario Kart 8 on the Wii! And he is getting pretty good too. I'm surprised at how well he can maneuver the remote at 4 years old! Here is a clip from this past month of him beating Jase!

Here is another 1 minute clip of Finn telling me all about the new Raccoon Suit for Mario tonight! He can go on and on about it and in this video I let him! I wish I could bottle up this 4 year old!

What a fun day with my crew today! I'm so thankful for them and the LOVE that we share.

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Mother Daughter Tea Party

Yesterday at Allyson's American Heritage Girls meeting, we had a Mother Daughter Tea Party. The girls are working on a Daughter of the King badge and this was one of the requirements along with talking about manners. We also created a craft together, which is something we both love to do. It was a nice and relaxed time with Ally.

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Home Update

I'm not sure if I posted anything about our home on the blog, I don't think so. Well, let me catch you up to speed and get a little personal.

Shawn and I attended a marriage retreat back in September 2016 at Pine Cove with a group of couples from our Married Bible Fellowship class and it was a wonderful time. We actually had adult conversations together without being interrupted or falling asleep! And they were in person and not over text! Woohoo! We spoke about everything from kids to finances to spiritual to goals to daily life. It was simple things, but it was very intentional; we loved it.

During the weekend we kept going back to our budget and we realized that we needed to increase funds or decrease expenses. We have been more than blessed by Shawn's job over the last 10 years, we are not complaining at all, but we have also been hit financially with the downturn in the oil industry over the past year or two. So since that is our reality, we both agreed we needed to make some adjustments.

While cutting cable would help a little, we really needed to do something a little more drastic, like sell our home. We love our home, our neighbors, our little town, so this was not a fun or popular decision for us to make; however, this was the adult thing to do. We have always wanted a place with a bigger backyard, mature trees. Initially we were thinking out in the country somewhere.

We came home from the retreat, starting looking for houses and getting our house ready to sell. We found a smaller home on 2/3 of an acre about 35 minutes Northwest of where we currently live and before we knew it, we were under contract. This was in October. We also put our home on the market in late October.

We were moving forward with the process and due to unforeseen circumstances, the house fell through. While we were bummed, we definitely did not want to force something that was not meant to be. We prayed and prayed some more for the Lord to guide us on our journey. In the meanwhile our house was having barely any traffic at all.

After the country house fell through we decided that we would not physically look at anymore houses until ours got a contract on it. Fast forward to the beginning of January, we decided to lower our listing price just a little to see if that would help it move any faster. That week we got a couple of showings, then a couple of more the next week and a few more the following week. Then on Monday, January 23, 2017 we received an offer. So, we are currently under contract on our home. We are still in the option period for a few more days, but as far as well know things are moving forward with the sale.

With a contract on our house we decided we better start getting serious on our house hunt since the close date is March 7th and we will need a place to live. We looked 3 different days for homes last week. I'll save you all the LONG details and give you the meat! A house we looked at on Tuesday already had a contract on it unbeknownst to us. We loved the property, but the house needed some work. Once we found out it had a contract on it, we were a little bummed. Then on Friday we received word that that house was back on the market. We went and looked at it again and decided to put an offer on it. Here is a picture of the backyard. Plenty of room for the kids to run and the trees, I love them!

Our offer was accepted and we are currently under contract and are scheduled to close on March 7th. While there are still things to be lined out and cleared up, we are excited and hopeful. And if this house is not the one, we will remain optimistic that something will work out for us. The good Lord has not failed us yet, so we have faith that it will all work out, it just may not be how we have it planned out. And that's ok.

While we originally thought we wanted country living, adding all that time onto Shawn's commute just didn't add up for us, especially at this stage in our life with kids involved in activities. We decided to move 30 minutes Southwest of our current home to Highland Village. This would get Shawn closer to Dallas and Fort Worth and even Frisco, where his office is located. I love the area and Shawn's commute will be a lot better. The home we currently have a contract on is on .44 of an acre, so it has a big yard, which is perfect. And it is a fixer upper, which is also what we wanted. And Shawn confirmed that we can have chickens...another thing we have talked about for years! And this home will benefit us financially. Shawn and I are both excited to make this house our home.

Stay tuned to what the Lord has in store for us.

Making Memories

We've been so busy making memories, that I haven't had time to post lately! I thought I would put a quick post together on what we've been doing since the spelling bee!

01.15.2017: We had a fun time at the Dallas Mavericks basketball game!

01.15.2017: Our little Finn earning a Green Apple patch at his Awana meeting!

01.17.2017: Finn at our Classical Conversation co-op during art time!

01.17.2017: Allyson at American Heritage Girls. The girls in the Pioneer and Patriots unit taught the girls about making a fire and fire safety. Ally was ready to eat her edible fire!!

01.17.2017: Ally presenting some of her favorite things to her unit to help fulfill a requirement of the "Daughter of the King" badge. She is showing some artwork here; she loves to draw!

01.18.2017: Listening to Allyson read on the couch! It is sometimes wild and crazy!!

01.19.2017: I was able to give her my undivided attention and listen to her read. I'm so glad that she enjoys reading.

01.19.2017: Working with Jase on his writing assignment.

01.19.2017: Enjoying some ice cream at Chick-Fil-A. Deep in thought!

01.19.2017: Jase is always ready for a picture! You should see all the selfies on my phone from him, he is a mess!

01.19.2017: Little Mae trying a cow hat on for size.

01.20.2017: Watching the Inauguration of President Donald Trump with the kids. This was our history lesson for the day!

01.20.2017: We attended a Missionary Conference at our church. Denton Bible Church is very mission minded, which I love since we are commissioned to make disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:20). Every two years our church brings home as many of our missionaries as they possibly can for a week and they share what has been going on abroad (or local- we have some missionaries who are state side too). Our church does a great job of loving on them and providing meals all week long and this also acts as a team huddle for our missionaries, as it allows them to connect with other missionaries who are working along side them.

01.23.2017: We gathered together with neighbors to watch the funeral procession for Officer Jerry Walker of Little Elm Police Department. He was killed in the line of duty when he responded to a call. Continuing to pray for his family and our law enforcement as they lay their life on the line for our safety.

01.24.2017: I got the privilege to listen to Jase present about a book he had just finished: Boxcar Children. He received a four book set for Christmas and he loved the first one and is on the second one now.

01.24.2017: Art time at CC. Jase was drawing things in nature.

01.25.2017: Morning hugs! These two love each other. It is too sweet!

01.25.2017: She loves sticks, flowers, grass, all of nature's goodies! I had to take this picture in order for her to get into the car the and leave the stick on the ground! Ha!

01.27.2017: So funny watching some of the kids in our CC group take a group selfie at the library. Every 3-5 weeks we get together (outside of class time) and meet at the library and the moms of the 4th-6th grades watch a DVD over writing. It gets us a step ahead of what will be taught to our kids during the Essentials portion of our co-op day. While we are watching the DVD and being trained, our Essentials Tutor watches ALL the kids! They bring their work and have Study Hall, review our CC material and then take selfies!