Leaps Behind

I guess I don't need to say how crazy life has been- hence the last post being in August.  I'll try to recap these last several months.

September 2011....

The basement's foundation is now fixed so, although still unfinished, our things can finally be moved back downstairs.  Mess, mess, and more mess.  But kids are having a fun time.  Here Josh is making some shelves out of drywall scraps.

Such determination.

Our remodeling has turned into a large can of worms.  For example, we would take off the carpet to see the subflooring needed replacing.  This month we tore into the kitchen.  I should have taken a good 'before' picture.  You can sort of see the kitchen in the background here.

We wanted to extend the kitchen towards the family room for a little extra space.  Here are some demolition pictures.  

The cupboards are down, now it's time for the ceiling to come down...

Because of my pregnant state, we had a teenager from church helped us.  So thankful for Matt!  What a job.  He tore down all the ceiling.  Mess. Mess. Mess.

I just shivered remembering soon after the ceiling was down, Sophia pulled a mouse sketeton from my hair.  Anyone who knows me well, knows that mice are my least favorite creatures.  I was in too great of shock to take a picture of that one.

For the next several weeks we replaced drywall.  We made a new place for the fridge and opened up the doorframe between the dining room and kitchen.  When we first moved here, every room had doors.  The dining room, kitchen, even hallways.  We took the doors off right away, but have always wanted to open up the area even more.

Now I had to be creative and cook without a kitchen. 

It's a Boy!

We found out this month that another boy will be added to the family!  The expected date of his arrival is late December.  I brought all 4 kids with me to the ultrasound.  Micah was the most excited because he was 'alive and healthy'!  Josh was a little quiet- he was excited, but he wanted a sister for Sophie.  Sophie was dissapointed, but that has mostly worn off .  Judah saw that Mommy was right, there really was a baby in her tummy!  We celebrated afterwards by going to a park and getting some icecream.  So thankful for the little blessings God has given me. 

Under Construction

We have been doing this all summer:

Just after the new year, we received word that my husband's job would likely be transferred to another location.  For 3 months we started looking for houses there and began preparing.  In the late spring, some unforeseen circumstances happened at work and he was asked to stay.  As soon as we found out we were staying, literally that evening, my husband took a sledge hammer and started knocking down walls in our basement.  We have been wanting to remodel our home for some time now.  We have seen traces of mold in our basement and with Judah's asthma, we knew we needed to take care of that.  We began the planning process to remodel before the word about the job transfer.  When we found out it was likely, all plans came to a stop until we knew for sure what was happening (we would do just what we needed to do to sell the house-if we moved, not all we wanted to do).  So, when we knew we were staying, we started the remodeling process back up. It has been a can of worms.  It's been a series of peeling up one layer and seeing the bottom layer needs work.  My husband has been doing all the construction (in our college summers, he worked for a builder and therefore had learned so much), my dad has helped us with the electrical, so we've only needed to hire help with the plumbing so far.  I've heard remodeling is such a mess and it is.  There is a layer of drywall dust on every surface in the house.  But we're little by little getting somewhere and that part is exciting.  The basement, which started as the main focus, now has became the last.  It is unfinished now, but free from mold and mildew.  The new focus has been to bring the laundry from the basement to the 2nd floor and redo the master bathroom on the main floor (since they're right on top of each other they needed to be done simultaneously).  We also decided to expand our kitchen a bit.  So, maybe, by the time baby arrives this bit of construction will be over.  In the meantime, it's a family affair- mixing dope, sweeping with the shop vac and bagging up garbage.  Trying not to be overwhelmed- especially as school is starting up again next week!  God is teaching me many lessons through all of this for sure.

Two Summer Birthdays

Joshua turned 7 this summer! We dearly love this little boy-- he's so affectionate and yet so serious! He's my little thinker. We 're so thankful for all 7 years we've had with him so far.

Legos are a favorite around here right now. His cake was made by cutting into blocks with halves of marshmallows on it. Super easy!

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Sophia turned 11 a couple weeks after Josh. She's turned into quite a young lady and is getting so tall. I'm thankful for her passion towards music, reading and writing. I'm looking forward to see what this next school year will bring for her as she'll be in the 6th grade already!

Judah turns 3!!!

It's hard to believe my little boy turned 3! Judah is such a delight.



Who knows who he's calling.

We love our little man!

Happy Birthday, Samantha!

Today would have been Samantha's 4th birthday. Unbelievable! I finally figured a way to get a clip from our home movies of her smiling for the first time. This was taken 2 weeks before she died (9-18-07). She was 4 months old. We weren't sure if she would smile at all (honestly, we weren't sure if she could see or hear much). This series of smiles (they lasted about 3 days) was one of the most precious gifts she gave me.

What's Been Occupying My Time Lately

Several weeks ago I had 2 very large packages come via semi truck to our home.




The kids loved the box they came in and were busy making a house in no time.



The first mural idea the client wanted was something like this (a picture he found) :

So this is what I came up with:



I changed the children to resemble the client's children and I changed the angle of the fence to make it more artistic. Finally, I added 10 hidden pictures throughout. Since this will be hung in a dentist's office, it will be something fun the kids can find.

Hidden below are a ball and jacks, gecko and teacup.

Peppermint and Bible.

It's been so much fun. However, I didn't anticipate the size or the amount of room they'd take up. I could not maneuver the canvases down the stairs so the only spot for them have been in the living room. The kids have been very good in keeping far away from it, but they've been disappointed that we haven't had many people over for visits because of the risk. I'm hoping to deliver the canvases this week and will be relieved when they leave in one piece.

Spring Break ?

We had a week off of Classical Conversations, so we decided to head up North for Spring Break. This time, Amy (my sister) and Elena, her daughter, came with us. My poor boys. Joshies had an ear ache on the 9 hour car ride up and was in bed for the next 4 days with a fever. The day after, Micah was hit. They both went in and out of sleep for several days. Finally on Friday (the day we were planning on heading home) I took them to see the local doctor. They were prescribed antibiotics and the next day they were improving. I was noticing Judah was starting to act sick so I wanted to head home right away.

I had a moment during the week where I could get a long look at my favorite lake. It was so pretty seeing the ice formations.

The kids had a blast with their cousin, beside all the sickness, and thankfully, she escaped it all and went home in good health.

After returning home, the next day I took Sophia to the doctor and found out she had strep. Judah was immediately tested and his test was also positive. Now our fridge had 8 bottles of amoxicillin. I asked the pharmacist if it came in gallons.

The first night I gave Judah his medicine he developed a rash all over one side of his face and his eye lid was all puffy and he started wheezing (we've found out this winter he has asthma so I've been watching for signs all along). I guess he's allergic to amoxicillin. Poor little guy was better after a breathing treatment.

Whew. What a week. I agree with Josh who said when it was all finished, "We missed Spring Break!! Can't we do it again??"

Evening Entertainment

My husband and I were actually having uninterrupted conversation this evening after dinner. We soon noticed why the divided attention. I bet the 'pot' was at least 20 minutes of entertainment!

Over Night Adventure

We decided to go with some friends to the Great Wolf Lodge for a night in Mason. It ended up that some other friends went too. The party eventually became 5 adults and 16 children! We had so much fun!! The place was huge! With all of the friends having the large spectrum of ages, was so much better too. There was always someone they knew nearby. The kids (and I) didn't want to stop swimming. It was such a great time.

Micah's 9

Unbelievable. What a great kid we're blessed with!

My Trio

Here is the video of Sophie and Micah, accompanied by Daddy, playing Fernando Ortega's song If I Flee on Morning Wings for the opening ceremony at CC (Classical Conversations-- our home school group).

Judah Moments

Life is certainly anything but dull around here. This week there were two particular funny moments. One, was Judah 'helping' Sophie put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher. Behind her back, he was dropping the spoons into the full milk container that was on the counter. Rather than try to get them out, I just stuck the milk back in the fridge. At least they're clean spoons, right? Most people hardly noticed. They thought it was just ice in the jug for a while. Daddy was the lucky one to find all of the silver at the bottom!

Later one evening, my husband and I were sitting on our bed, each working on our respective laptops, when we heard this low continuous beeping sound. It seemed to have started right at the same time the heater kicked on. My first thought was the heating system was going haywire. We both held up our laptops, trying to see if it was coming from it. Nope. It stopped. We turned off the light and it started again. Finally, he jumps out of bed trying to find it and it stops again. Several minutes later, we found Judah had buried deep under the covers the Taboo game buzzer.

If we were given a book as newlyweds, that would tell us all the things our kids might do, we would never have any. But, it's these sorts of moments that I can't stop laughing and hope never to forget them.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Love,
Sophia, Micah, Joshua, & Judah

Isaiah 9:6-7

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government

shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor,

Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace

there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness

from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

Girl's Night Out

Sophia and I have a tradition that when we complete a violin book, we have a night out. So my husband booked a hotel through Priceline for downtown Cincinnati. We started our exciting day, however, by going to the Nutcracker Ballet. We met Nena there and enjoyed the wonderful performance.

Afterwards, Nena treated us to lunch and gave Sophie an ornament to remember the special day by. I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful mother-in-law.

After lunch, Sophia and I went to a few stores downtown. The candy store was a favorite of hers and mine was the art supply store.

We stayed at the Hyatt by Fountain Square. It was so pretty. With all the Christmas music in the sky walks and the snow all around made it especially magical. We had to ride up and down the escalators just for fun.

After checking in the room, we decided to head up the Carew Tower. There is a viewing deck at the top. It was snowing, so it wasn't the clearest day, but we still had a great time.

We then headed to Fountain Square where there was ice skating. Sophia had soo much fun.

After skating, we went to the Rock Bottom Restaurant where Soph had a couple of refills of hot chocolate.

The Chrismas lights were so pretty. Even the carriages were all lit up.

The hotel lobby had an amazing gingerbread village on display.

We ended our trip the next morning, riding the free carriage ride around the block. It was a very special time and I'm so thankful for such a lovely daughter.