Trick or Treasure

We are little behind this year with carving a pumpkin. I picked one up at Walmart a few days ago and we never got around to carving it. So, this afternoon was go time! Me and the kids worked on it while we were waiting on Daddy to get home from work. The big plan was to carve the Jedi symbol on the bottom left, and we ended up with the bottom right picture!! Ha!! Yeah, I traced the Jedi symbol onto the pumpkin and when I took the paper away...big time fail. Scratch that idea and we ended up with triangles for the eyes and nose and a simple bubba mouth. I will have to say that the kids absolutely loved it and thought it was the best pumpkin ever! Mission accomplished!

Below are the kids all dressed up this year. This was the first time in years where we were not sweating on Halloween, which is usually the case. When I was handing out candy, I checked the temperature and it was 58 degrees. We had the kids layered pretty well, so they did not get too cold. Tomorrow's high is 61 and the low is 44...cooler weather is underway.

Jase was Jason the Sea Menace {his name he got from the The Pirates League at Disney World}. He is all about pirates these days. It has been fun to watch him go from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to Davy Crockett and now to Pirates. He loves adventure and exploring. I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for him and his life.

Allyson wanted to be Princess Anna from Frozen. While I have one that is all about pirates, I have one that is all about princesses! And I wouldn't have it any other way; I just love her sweet spirit. She ended up hanging up trick-or-treating half way through the night and passed candy out with Mom at the house. We sat on the front porch together and greeted our trick-or-treaters.

And here is our blue-eyed baby boy, Finn, as Jedi Luke Skywalker. He loves everything his big brother loves! He is growing up too fast and is talking up a storm. I love to hear him tell a story. I may not catch many of the words, but he knows exactly what he is saying.

Our new home group

With us moving away from basically everyone we know, we knew that getting plugged into a community of people would be vital for us. We started attending Denton Bible Church about 6 weeks ago and all of us have loved it. The kids enjoy the Awanas program and Shawn and I love the Married Bible Fellowship Sunday School class and the preaching of the word has been feeding our souls. After 2 weeks of attending, we got connected to a small/home group and it has been a Godsend for sure. What a blessing to have a built in community of believers and a support system. Shawn and I have really enjoyed getting to know these sweet families and are looking forward to furthering these friendships.

Tonight was our night for home groups, but instead of our usual gathering, they gave me and another lady, Kelley, in our group a baby shower. Super sweet!! Kelley is 36 weeks and she is also expecting a little girl. Our Miss Maebry will have a built-in friend to play with. :-)

It was a very relaxed evening: sweet fellowship, yummy snacks, gifts for our little ones and lots of prayers for our new daughters.

While the ladies were baby showering it up, the guys and the kiddos were at Bear's Den Gourmet Pizza. They cook the pizza in some very old ovens and also have two great big bears eat at a table just feet away from you. Shawn said that it was pretty neat and all the kids told me that they loved it as well. We will definitely be going back so I can check it out!

Craft time!

I ordered a replacement part for my old sewing machine and was so excited to get it in. Well it arrived this past week and it was cracked!! Errr. I contacted the seller and they refunded my money, which was nice.

I decided I wasn't messing around anymore, and on Friday when I went to Costco, I picked up a machine. It was on sale and a good deal. Now this machine may do a little more than I will ever need, but now I am prepared. Not only is it a sewing machine, it is also a quilting machine! Future hobby maybe. Haha! I had fun doing a little crafting Sunday afternoon. I made a couple of gifts: rosette headband and a set of burp cloths. So excited to have my own machine and get crafting soon...you know in my spare time! Ha!

I also added some new wall decor to Maebry's room. Shawn had some old antler's hanging around, so I spray painted them gold and restrung them up. I found my veil {which was in Ally's nursery as well} and hung it up over the horns. I really like the way it looks. :-)

Patience at 39 Weeks!

39 weeks today! I am definitely in a trial period with patience. Ha! I keep reminding myself that Maebry is still developing and growing, and not quite ready yet. I usually wake up everyday wondering "will today be the day?" So far, not yet!! :)

I went to the doctor on Friday and I have progressed some from last week. I am nearly 2 cm dilated and almost 50% effaced. Physically, I am feeling ok, aside from a couple of things. For the past month my hands have been constantly numb or tingly. I spoke to the doctor about it and it is like having carpal tunnel when you're pregnant. It should go away shortly after delivery. I sure hope so. And then earlier this week my left ankle started hurting and has progressively gotten worse. Yesterday the outside of my ankle was pretty swollen and it felt like I had turned it. I took it easy last night and put ice on it and I think that helped, because it was much better today. No telling what happened.

Here is my little baby trying out Maebry's little bed. I think he understands he is about to have a baby sister, but we shall see what he thinks about her when she arrives! I pray he is gentle with her!

Time with Aunt Alisha

This weekend Aunt Alisha drove up for a visit! We all were very excited on having her. The kids, especially Ally, soaked up their time with her.

Friday night after she arrived, we checked out some local Friday Night Lights! I think the whole town of Aubrey was there! Ha! We enjoyed our concession stand food, a little frito pie and nachos, and watched a couple of quarters of football. Poor Finn got scared/startled when people would cheer or after a touchdown and a loud horn was blown. He is getting a little better, but I sure hope he grows out of this. Allyson absolutely loved watching the bands perform. You should have seen her marching up and down our bleacher row, acting out the scenes. She is a fan!

If you know Ally, then you know she is all things Disney! Her and Finn caught Aunt Alisha up on the trip we just took. I need to print pictures out from our trip and put them in the autograph books; the kids still look at the one from 2 years ago!

Before Alisha headed out this morning, she went with Shawn and Jase and did a little fishing at the lake. I think she walked away with the most catches of the morning. 

Love my sister and glad she drove up to spend some time with us!

Getting ready

I woke up yesterday morning feeling a little anxious. I felt like it had a lot of loose ends to tie before I had the baby. I'm glad to report that I marked some of those items off my list today!

Below is the glider in Maebry's room. It is nothing special, but we have got out money out of it for sure. We bought it before we had Jase, for around $100 brand new. Through the years it has had plenty of stains. Last weekend we recovered the ottoman, as it was the worst shape. I had intentions of sewing a cover for a pillow to go in the chair to match, but that didn't happen since I had sewing machine failure this past weekend. Today I used some no sew glue and made a slip cover for the pillow. It is not as snug as I was shooting for, but it is done and marked off the list! The fabric is white, light pink and gold chevron!

I picked out some clothes for Miss Maebry to wear in the hospital and to come home in! Eeek! I can't believe it!!

Allyson has made her sister tons of pictures so far!! I just love it! We all love her so much already! Allyson said today "Mom, I can't wait for Maebry to come. I want to see her eyelashes!" Haha!! And Jase too. He is excited about his little sister's arrival.

Maebry's bag is ready to go. I found a Vera Bradley baby backpack for $38 online...I could not pass it up! I am almost finished packing my hospital bag, which is comforting.

We also got our room squared away this evening. Things are getting wrapped up and I am feeling more at ease. {exhale} Our little girl will be here soon!! :-)

38 weeks

Well, it is getting close! And the realization of having another little one is becoming more and more apparent. Shawn and I were lying in bed last night and I said "guess what?" He said "what?" I responded with "we're about to have a baby!" Even though it is our 4th child, it is always so exciting {and surreal to a certain extent} on anticipating a new baby!

I went to the doctor on Friday and it was a good check up. Maebry's heartbeat was 143 BPM and my blood pressure was 110/70. I progressed some since my last appointment, which was nice to hear. And not necessarily that I want to deliver early, but just knowing that my body is heading in the right direction for labor and delivery; it is comforting. I am 1 cm dilated and 25% effaced. Stay tuned! :)

Family Visit

We've had two sets of grandparents up a couple of times since we have moved, which has been nice for everyone. This weekend we had Nanny and PawPaw up for a couple of days. We mainly stayed home and played/visited and ventured out some for a couple of meals.

We are getting more and more done on the house, so we did not have too many things we felt like we had to get done this weekend. Don't get me wrong, we still have plenty of things we want to do, but I finally feel like we are getting squared away, which is a relief. And I've started parking in the garage...huge deal! Lol!

We took a little fishing trip to the lake Saturday evening and it's always a fun time. Daddy and Jase rode their bikes there and I foresee many more bike rides in their future on the trail. While Allyson is so in touch with her princess side, she is not afraid to get dirty, which I love. She loves to pick flowers and grass, which we have known for a while now, but she has added another favorite to the list: playing in the worm container. And I mean, digging in the black worm dirt so much where she has black-tip nails, instead of white tips! And if you need half of a worm, she is your gal; ready to tear a worm in half! It is too funny!

Saturday afternoon we grabbed burgers at a local restaurant. The first time we ate here the wait for our food was terribly long, but it wasn't bad this time at all. They have redeemed themselves! Ha!

Pictures of the kids with Nanny and PawPaw after lunch. It was nice to have my parents visit our new church with us and meet some of the new friends we have made.

I bought a sewing machine a couple of weeks ago and finally decided to break it out of the box while my mom {the pro} was up here this weekend. While setting it up for the first time, we realized that there was an issue: the thread was getting caught in the sewing machine and would not even feed the thread. Defective machine. Bummer. We returned it to the store and of course they did not have another on hand. Later that evening {like at 9:30 pm! HA} I had Shawn get down my grandmother's old sewing machine. My dad gave it to me several months ago, but until yesterday I had not taken the time to even take it out of the huge case. It is from Montgomery Wards, so I guess they will not be honoring a warranty! My grandmother passed away in 1993 or 1994, so it has not been fired up since then, but probably a lot longer than that. My mom and Shawn were troopers and took it apart and troubleshooted it. Other than it needing to be oiled, I think we narrowed the problem down to the rubber belt being stretched out. I ordered a replacement belt off of eBay, so hopefully I'll be up and running soon!

PawPaw was quite the buddy this weekend. From playing memory with Ally to shooting baskets with Finn to playing Legos with Jase, he soaked up his time with his grand babies. We enjoyed having them here this weekend.

Fishin' Time

So I'm not going to lie, one of the reasons we chose this neighborhood is that we loved the easy access to the existing lake and pond on the property. Shawn loves being outdoors and close to the water, and I think it is great for the kids to be with him in his element. Shawn is a great teacher while we are fishing. He's always there to bait a hook, fix a tangled line or to take a fish off. We love our guide!

Stop spreading germs

Today's science exercise could not have been more inline with current events. I'm speaking of the Ebola threat here in the US, particularly in the Dallas area, where we now reside. Since we do homeschool and we never have the news on while the kids are awake {or asleep for that matter}, they do not always know current events like other school-aged kids. Shawn and I try to keep them abreast of things they need to know or situations we need to pray about, but we usually do not share every single bad thing we hear with them. 

We hadn't said anything about the Ebola virus, but since we had just read about disease being spread in Colonial America due to bad living conditions and lack of good hygiene, I thought it was a great tie-in. I hope you're able to read the Science Exploration picture below that details what all we did for the experiment {courtesy of Heart of Dakota}.

In case you can't read the above picture or if you don't want to, here's the gist of what we did. I put lotion on their hands and then sprinkled glitter on their hands to represent germs. Can I tell you that they LOVED that!! I tried to be as low key as I could about the glitter in the new house; they did stay over the sink, I will say that!

The first thing they tried to do was take a dry paper towel and try to wipe off the germs. Germs remained! Next, they rinsed their hands off in a bowl of cold water. Some germs were washed away. Finally, they washed them in soapy, warm water. And bam...all the germs were gone! It was a good time for us to review how to properly wash hands and for how long. As Jase was finishing up documenting the experiment, I talked about Ebola and what it was. I told them about the man who brought the virus back from another country and came to Dallas and ended up dying. We discussed that we need to always wash our hands and keep our hands out of our mouth and objects other than food/drink out of mouth as well. They agreed. We also spoke about sharing drinks {at home} and to try to keep it at a minimal, especially if someone isn't feeling well. It is basically impossible to not share drinks with the kids, but I just wanted them to be aware that germs can be spread like that as well. We also use essential oils as a defense mechanism and take our vitamins.

We continued to talk about the virus and how it is terrible and we would follow precautions the best we could to avoid getting the illness {or any illness for that matter}. We then shifted gears and spoke about asking the Lord to protect us and others from getting the virus. Jase said "it's all in His hands" and I told him he was exactly right. While the virus can be scary, there is no need for us to worry about getting it because it will not help things one bit and worrying is not of the Lord. It was a great experiment and real life discussion with the kids.

Below is Allyson. Her picture is unrelated to our germ experiment! Ha! She just wanted her picture taken! So, why not!?

And below are the two youngest from Monday. I love the tongue/mouth action from them! Allyson was working on her 6's and Finn was actually using markers! He has been asking me and asking me to use them, so I finally broke down and let him draw with them. He loved it! I did not leave his side for one second with them, in fear the whole room would be colored. Ha!

Perfect for us

Homeschooling for us has been a journey. We have are into our 3rd year of it and that is crazy to believe it has been that long already. Lots of learning, lots of trial and error, lots of patience, lots of long days. There have also been lots of smiles, lots of "ah ha"moments, lots of laughs, lots of Jesus, lots of bonding. While our days are far from perfect and we have not figured it all out {or ever will}, I truly believe our homeschool days are perfect for us. Below are the kiddos sharing lunch together at the bar. 

And last week Jase was reading his book to me and I decided to capture some of it on video; I rarely do this. And he did not know I was recording him. Watching this brings a HUGE smile to my face. I love seeing him get so excited about reading. I was far from an avid reader growing up, so I am happy to see him enjoying it. This is one of my favorite parts of the day! The video is less than 2 minutes long, take a break and watch it, you'll smile too! :-)

37 weeks today

Today marks 37 weeks of caring Miss Maebry. I went to the doctor on Thursday afternoon and I was checked for progress. Or shall I say lack of progress! I saw my doctor's partner doctor {mine is out of the country} and she said I was not effaced any and barely {if any} dilated. I know Maebry will come when she is ready, and I don't want her to come a day earlier than she is supposed to, but this late in the game, you get very excited about the arrival of your blessing that you have carried for 9 months! While Finn was delivered before 38 weeks, Ally on the other hand was 41 weeks! So, I could very easily have 4 more weeks. That definitely would not be the end of the world, I just need a little more patience {and energy} to see me through. #Jesus

Every time Shawn takes a picture of me, sweet Ally is right there, ready to take it with me. I adore her sweet spirit. The kiddos jumped in some pictures this afternoon. As you can tell, Finn wasn't having any part of it. #reallife

Save the turtle!

Today we were driving home from church and I noticed a little turtle in the road. He wasn't getting across the road very fast, so Shawn hopped out and rescued it! He showed the kiddos and then we drove it back over to the water! Our little buddy is now safe and sound in the lake.

Fort Worth Zoo

Last week we were invited {with a homeschool group} to the Fort Worth Zoo. It is a good hour away, but I was excited about venturing out with the kids. And Wednesdays are half price, so it was only $15 for the four of us, not too bad. The Zoo was very well put together with tons of trees. It actually reminded me of Disney World's Animal Kingdom with all the signage, very neat. 

Before we left that morning, Jase and I were talking about tigers and a white tiger came up in the conversation. Then just a couple of hours later we saw one at the zoo. I thought that was very cool!

The kids had a great time and we will check out the Texas section of the zoo in detail on our next trip. It was a little warm and this mama was ready to hit the road!

Sunday Funday

Today was good. We got up this morning and attended church. Shawn and I went to a Married Bible Fellowship class and really enjoyed it. They are just starting a study on the book of Colossians and today's introduction was great. I loved all of the history about the City of Colosse, Paul and what he was going through while writing this letter. They use the Expository Bible Study method, which means they go verse by verse to explain the text. It is really a thorough way to study the word, seeking truth and a clear interpretation of His word. I know that it is very easy to take a verse out of context if you pick and choose verses here and there and then apply them to your situation, rather than understanding how the Lord meant for them to be applied. The senior pastor also uses this methodology every Sunday for his messages; we are in 2 Corinthians during that time.

For the Married Bible Fellowship class, the leader gives his message and then he posts questions for all of the tables to address together. It is a very relaxed atmosphere, as he said you can use none or all of the questions for group discussion. We had two other couples at our table and they were super nice. One couple had 4 kids and homeschool and the other couple had 3 kiddos and the husband works in the oil/gas industry; so we connected with both couples. We also picked up information on Small Groups near us and hope to get connected with one of them very soon. It is basically a Sunday School class that meets during the week and it is close niche group of people you invest in and do life together. I am excited about this!

We came home after church and just relaxed for the afternoon. We were eating lunch and watching the Texans football game and one of JJ Watt's commercials came on. Ally turns to us and says "JJ Watt is handsome!" Shawn and I met eyes had to do a double take on what she said. We had a discussion about what handsome meant and even Jase chimed in "it's when someone looks nice." I wasn't sure she truly understood what she was saying, so I tried to help by saying, maybe you meant "JJ Watt is funny or JJ Watt is strong." She immediately responded with "or handsome". We all lost it!! Apparently she does understand what it means. She was all sorts of giddy. T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

This evening we went back to church for the evening service and the kids went to Awana's. The kids seem to be adapting very well and have been very flexible with all the changes. Finn cries a little when we drop him off, but he was doing that before we moved. All of the teachers say that he calms down right away, so that is comforting. After church we ate dinner at good old Whataburger. While we were there I looked at Shawn and said "you know eating out as we know it is about to come to a halt once the baby comes?!" He completely agreed. It was funny, this morning the couples at our table were talking about being late all the time with little ones {one couple has a 3 month old}. Then nursing came up and they very quickly refreshed my memory {i.e. the baby always wanting to nurse, nursing in the car and trying to keep the other kids quiet/preoccupied}. Fun times! Ha! So yes, life as we know is about to change!