Put 'em to work

We weren't home 24 hours from Illinois when the kids were complaining they were bored.  My parents always said the cure for boredom was work.  Our contractor has been away this week, visiting family, so I decided to have the kids help take apart the old deck to re-purpose some of the wood.  Before you look at the pictures, please know that we had a lesson on safety around tools and rusty nails. 

 Chloe

Essie

 AJ's new favorite tool...the sledge hammer

AJ had a friend over in the afternoon and I made the boys help build the new retaining wall for the more garden space.  Thanks, Nathan!

Both Ends Burning

International Adoption Crisis from Both Ends Burning on Vimeo.

Home Again, Home Again

I started out the morning by making pancakes on my new, giant, electric grill. Yum! Yum!  Then the kids dug into their craft projects that they got for Christmas.  Perfect activity for a cold, rainy day.

Essie working on her flowerpots 

Chloe painting her magnets

AJ painting some fierce rocks

A Well-Informed Bunch

Amy got called away while watching the nightly news, and when Matt came to check on the kids, he found them with mouths hanging open, watching with rapt attention. We'd like to say that they're concerned with being aware of what is going on in the world, but the reality is, they will be mesmerized by anything on a television screen.

A Christmas Weekend Recap

This year was our year to spend Christmas with Matt's side of the family, so we headed to southern Illinois to celebrate with Matt's grandparents and family.

Chloe, AJ, and Essie at church on Christmas morning.

The fam: in addition to our five, Matt's parents, sister, grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousin celebrated Christmas with us.

Scooters!

Aunt Buffy's new Rondo shirt

AJ got some new Kentucky gear

Ballerina skirts were a big hit

Learning disguised as fun!

Grandma Melanie

Gigi seems to like her new necklace

Matt's gift from the kids

Amy with her new Kindle Fire

Can you see the girls under all those opened gifts?

New footie peejays!

The girls try out their new scooters.

Chloe

Essie

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas with your families!

Oh What Fun!

Our favorite Albanian born friends came over this afternoon so you know with 5 kids, a dog and way too much Christmas candy around that we'd have a blog post coming.

The kids had their Christmas party last night at church and they wanted to try on some of their gifts from their teacher, Miss Carissa.  Thanks for the fun!

Reni saw the camera and had to jump in the shot

Ellie made some great towers today so we had to get some shots of them.

Everyone hard at work on different projects

The kids went camping in the living room.

Reni was thrilled to get a spot by himself for his cars and motorcycle.

He didn't seem to mind that it was a Tinkerbell tent.

The girls couldn't actually lie down, once they got all 3 of them inside the tent.

AJ chillin'

I

I'm not sure I've ever seen a boy so infatuated with cars.  He played with them almost the whole 3.5 hours they were at our house. 

Reni wasn't so sure about Caesar at first, but you can see our good dog won him over

Deck Build-Day 5

The rain cut our day short with the contractor but he did get the floor of the deck started.  Yah for Ken!

Name That Tune-Holiday Edition

Lookout Matt, someone will be vying for your job as Music Director in a few year!

Deck Build-Day 4

After an early morning rain, the skies cleared and day #4 of the deck build commenced.  The kids and I were gone all day so when we got home, "We got stairs!" was heard echoed through the car.  The end caps were also put on, so we now have a better idea of what a 10x16 deck actually looks like. We will not only have enough space for our grill, but also room to entertain.  I see a picnic table build in the future!