The Latest Escapades of the Terrizzi Family

Gonna Move...

2009-11-05T13:04:00.003-05:00

Hi Everyone,

So I have finally decided to go ahead and move the blog. After the hacking incident occurred they were actually able to secure the original site but it was AFTER I had already set up a new e-mail account and all.

It has become rather cumbersome signing in and out of old and new e-mail accounts to publish posts and comments so here is the link to the same blog just in a new location!

If y'all would be so kind as to save the link once everyone finds their way over there I think I am going to shut down this blog completely and be fully separate from the business account.

See ya over there!

Ladybug day!

2009-10-30T13:17:00.002-04:00

This past Sunday was ladybug day. :) We had planned Julia and Evangeline matching but then the girls' little friend Hope came to church wearing hers too!

Of course we had to get some shots of Julia and Evangeline together...they were so cute. :)

They both smiled in the same picture!!!

And just one more picture with some other "little ladies". :)

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Family Pictures Coming Soon!

2009-10-22T16:45:00.003-04:00

Next week we are going to have our family pictures done and I am SO excited. :)

A few days ago my friend and I went and looked at locations to do our session. She took some shots of the children while we were scouting out the area. If you'd like to see them go here!

Science Experiment

2009-10-14T15:43:00.008-04:00

It's always more fun to do things with friends! So tonight we are packing up our science experiments and are taking them to church. :) We have been studying mountains, volcanoes, and the earth for "science". We are taking earth balls that we (when I say "we" I mean "I" with children watching) made yesterday. ;)

Peanut butter, honey, chocolate chips...a good start eh?

powdered milk, graham cracker crumbs and sesame seeds...

strawberry jelly as the "inner magma"

roll 'em around

chill and then cut through the layers to see the core, inner magma, outer magma and the earth's crust!

Then comes the volcano...my style...easy! It was actually in the book and quite perfect for a small scale experiment!

8 oz plastic water bottle filled halfway full with baking soda, with foil crinkled around it then covered in a layer of modeling clay.

Vinegar dyed red, ready to make our eruption! :)

I hope to get a few pics of all the little kids participating tonight...my kids can hardly wait!

Jewelry

2009-10-14T15:17:00.005-04:00

So over a year ago I found this store and while I am not a huge silver fan some of this girls stuff makes my mouth water but is just a bit too expensive for me to just purchase for myself! :) Isn't this necklace pretty? If you subscribe to her blog and newsletter there are plenty of specials, sales, and chances to win her things (I haven't won anything yet but it's worth a try!).

A few days ago though I found this store and she has a larger variety of such delicate little things...almost makes me forget that I hardly wear silver, but anyways she is doing a giveaway! All you have to do is let her know what you like and you are entered! Just thought I would share. :)

Related?

2009-10-14T15:12:00.003-04:00

I have a BAZILLION other things I am supposed to be doing right now so I am being extremely naughty to be blogging but...
yesterday I found a picture of Caleb from when he was about 10 1/2 months old and I wanted to compare it to a picture of Titus at roughly the same age. We have other pictures where they definitely favor each other more...Titus is much more strawberry than Caleb was/is *sniff sniff* maybe one day Lord?! But I think it hilarious that when I look at these two pictures side by side all I see is Charles and Emily. Y'all know my husband and sister in law, what do you think?! :)

Not Me :)

2009-10-12T22:09:00.003-04:00

It has most definitely not been me who recently, whenever my 2 year old asks me for gum, will proceed to take the abc gum out of my mouth and give it to her. I would never do something like that and she of course does not respond, "oh, thank you mommy!" and go happily chewing on her way. :P

It was also most certainly not me that could hardly wait until it was time to decorate previously mentioned 2 year olds birthday cake just because I wanted to eat the leftover m & m's. I would not be that addicted to chocolate!

There are so many other things that I would love to claim that I did not do. I am just so eternally grateful that the Lord loves me despite my weaknesses and encourages me patiently to grow more in him!

A few good laughs can be found over at MckMama's blog. Y'all have a good night! I'm off to make a fondant bow (for a wedding cake I'm doing this week) while the house is quiet! :) I would definitely not stay up til midnight just to be able to do something without 4 youngin's awake...would I?!

Mercy is 2!!!

2009-10-05T16:25:00.008-04:00

Phew! Nothing like having the power go out while you are in the middle of trying to export/post pictures!!

I'm sorry to have been so delinquent in my blogging, I am trying to iron out a schedule where I have a regular time slot that I do it. :)

My baby girl turned 2 years old today!! I can't believe it! I have such fond memories thinking back on the day she was born. Ahh, sweet. ♥

Well, we had my family over for lunch yesterday and Mercy had birthday cake, boy was she looking forward to that. I was excited when I found pastel sundrops at our health food store (yes I am a crazy organic freak :P) and snatched them right up to make her cake. She loved it and I only caught her up on the piano once eating the sundrops off it before her birthday dinner. ;)

She picked "yellow" candles for her cake...she calls everything yellow. :)

Sitting with daddy

How do I blow out the candles?

Enjoying a leftover cake picnic on the front porch today.

Yum!

And in no particular order here are some pictures of Mercy over the past couple months that show her little personality. :)

Teaching Julia school last week, she calls her "JuJu" or "Dooleea"

She loves her baby sister ♥

I know this is fuzzy but she and Caleb can be quite a pair! This was them playing with their dinner on the way to church on a Sunday night. :)

She loves to fix Julia's hair...she went and got each of these hairbows out and had me stick them on her headband. ;)

She LOVES to cook and is constantly by my side whenever I do ANY cooking and lately she has decided to try out the swing.

Caleb took this picture one day, I absolutely love it.

She LOVES slides!

She really enjoys Mr. Potato Head...as you can tell he turns out rather interesting. :P

I just love her

She enjoyed trips to the beach with her cousin Titus

She LOVES LOVES LOVES to play dress up....normally she has a soldier helmet on but I couldn't find a pic of that. :)

She reads to Julia all the time, I'll have to tell you how this storytime ended some other time, lol.

She loves her big sister Charis

She loves being a big sister

She is constantly working and wants to help with EVERYTHING!!

Working with daddy to put the floors down in the master bedroom

Did I mention the fact she likes to dress up?!

Occasionally we'll get an expression like this though...

Banana chips are a favorite snack

Little Lady

And BOY does she LOVE to sing in church, oh my goodness, she can't pronounce very many words but that doesn't keep her from making a joyful NOISE!! :D

And I had wanted to take outside to get some "I'm 2" pictures but she got in the way of her aunts and uncles doing the patty cake polka on my parents driveway Saturday and got some lovely scrapes and bruises on her face (as you can see) plus it's raining outside so it wouldn't have worked anyway...

Happy Monday from me and Mercy ♥

Growing Up

2009-09-14T18:20:00.001-04:00

Charis is growing up. She loves being the big sister. :) Her most recent thing (on top of trying to completely dress herself and Mercy) is trying to do her own hair and Mercy's as well!

I had a lingering headache Sunday morning that had lasted all night and most of Saturday, yuck. :( I was laying in bed for as long as I could eek out but Charis was on top of things that morning! I had done all the ironing the night before so everything was ready for two very excited girls, they were getting to wear some dresses they had never gotten to wear before. They got their slips, shirts and dresses on and buttoned, sorry, don't tie their own bows yet. ;) Got their shoes on and fixed their own hair! Ain't it lovely?

Notice since they could not find Mercy's white shoes she is wearing her ever faithful pair of "lip lops" as she calls them. :)

A close up of the "fuzzhead" and the "mophead" as their daddy lovingly refers to them. ♥

While they are doing great momma did decide to spruce them up just a tad (and even tie their ties, hehe). Notice we still could not find Mercy's white shoes before church but at least they are more appropriate than "lip lops". We did eventually find them late Sunday night once everyone was in bed on top of Charles' bedroom dresser, how they got there I have no idea!

I am so thankful for my girls. God has given me their sweet smiles to brighten my days for which I am very grateful. Happy Monday!

With Daddy

2009-09-09T16:30:00.001-04:00

I'm so thankful to have a hubby who loves to spend time with his little girls. I took these shots that month of Julia and Charles and it reminded me of the ones I took of Mercy and Charles.

Sweet memories. ♥

"And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." Malachi 4:6

I wish I had....

2009-09-09T13:01:00.002-04:00

...a camera that could take pictures in the dark!

Last week it was late at night and I went to let the dog inside, we have a street light on our property that we really enjoy (since we have a bunch of creepy people who walk down our street) but it had flickered off which it does from time to time. But it was soooo bright outside it practically looked like daylight! I went ahead and stepped out onto the steps and it was absolutely amazing!

The sky was very clear and a light gray color (not black like the pictures show) and it was a beautiful full moon. Not that a full moon isn't a normal event but I have never seen it like this.

The moon itself was completely clear and defined. You could see every single crater perfectly. But around the moon itself was this clearing and then a perfect ring of light around it as well. And the ring was made up with the colors of the rainbow, a perfect prism surrounding it.

Let me tell you, it was gorgeous!

When I added the fill light you can kind of see the prism I am talking about. But the sky was so clear, bright and beautiful I wanted to capture the moment, but, alas no such luck with my little camera.

I love the sky and could never get tired of looking at it.

"And God made two great lights; the greater LIGHT to rule the day, and the lesser LIGHT to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give LIGHT upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the LIGHT from the darkness: and God saw that it was good." Genesis 1:16-18

God is indeed, very good. Y

For Amelia

2009-09-03T09:13:00.001-04:00

Since you were not able to be at church last night and Julia wore the little outfit you gave her. Y

Really quick...

2009-08-26T15:10:00.003-04:00

...I thought I would just share a picture of my sweet girlies taken this past Sunday. ♥

Until next time. :)

"Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. " Isaiah 51:11

40 +10

2009-08-15T12:34:00.001-04:00

Our little girl is now ten weeks old. It seems like only yesterday that I was 40 weeks w.a.i.t.i.n.g for her to come. And now this past 10 weeks have just flown by! Treasure each moment, they are a precious gift. Y

"He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord." Psalm 113:9

An old picture...

2009-08-15T12:16:00.000-04:00

I came across a picture of when I was 6 weeks old yesterday while I was cleaning out a closet. Julia definitely looks like herself and not exactly like any one of her siblings. I couldn't help but think that she looked a bit like my picture so I tried to get a couple of shots. In the bottom collage I tried to age the photos a bit and get her to look in a similar direction, what do you think? :)

A Photoshoot by Caleb

2009-08-15T12:09:00.001-04:00

I just love my C & C! They really brighten up my days. :) We went to a family lunch yesterday and while I was distracted Caleb decided to do an impromptu photo shoot with his sister in the restaurant. As you can see, Charis has quite a personality. ;)

Little Lady Bugs

2009-08-15T11:58:00.001-04:00

A girl who has her own etsy bow shop started making these cute little ladybug bows. I just couldn't resist and had to get some for the girls! They enjoy wearing them with their red ladybug clothes they already had. If you look closely Julia has on a pair of ladybug sandals that were Charis'. Isn't it fun to dress up like a little lady? :)

9 weeks already?!

2009-08-07T00:32:00.000-04:00

Where has the time gone? I cannot believe it has been 9 weeks!

I was finally able to catch some grins and smiles on camera!

She is starting to talk sweet talk too, it melts our hearts!

We love you Julia!

Clouds

2009-07-30T15:23:00.005-04:00

I love looking at the clouds, I don't know why but they always amaze me with their beauty. As I was driving around this morning on some errands (new contacts, yay!) I was gazing at the sky and a particularly pretty patch. Of course I can't photograph them well in the city at a stop light with power wires in the way, just doesn't have the right effect. :)

But as I was looking at them it of course makes me think of God their creator. I know of course that he is God and has no limits and boundaries but it so special to me to think on top of all else that He does for us He takes the time to do little details like clouds. They are all unique and are just another little way to demonstrate His majesty and might!

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork."

Psalm 19:1

Makin' Cookies

2009-07-21T15:45:00.000-04:00

For Father's Day this year I had wanted to bake cookies with the children to send to Charles' dad and granddad who live out of town. Father's Day came and went but we decided late was better than never so a couple weeks ago we went to work!

First we made lemon snaps, a recipe we tried recently and really liked.

The girls smelling the lemon juice.

Getting to try one, I told Caleb he didn't always have to look at the camera like that...

...so then he gave me a nice smile. :)

Starting on the chocolate crinkles.

What ya doin'?

Giving it a try...

Look Mommy!

We're cute.

C & C

Miss Mercy

Scoopin' the sugar.

Making it just right.

Busy workers

btw, I did apply the powdered sugar to the noses, it's just too cute for pictures. ;)

So much fun!

First you scoop the dough...

...then...oops, you didn't see that!

Big scoop

She's saying, "Cookie!".

Rolling balls

Yikes! That was a definite washing the hands!

hmmmOur balls were very interesting.

If I hold my tongue just right...

...I'm sure it will make the cookies taste better...

...I think!

I was there too. Nursing a baby with one hand and rolling balls with the other.

We made a big mess.

But what did you expect?!

We had fun. :)

Before baking.

*smile*

We baked chocolate chips one in between.

Yummy!

They turned out so pretty. :)

It was a lot of work but the children enjoyed themselves so much and we made some wonderful memories together. :)

Not My Child Monday

2009-07-20T16:32:00.002-04:00

So I came upon this girls' blog awhile back and normally she does a post called "Not Me Monday". Don't know if any of you have seen it somewhere but they can be quite hilarious and very true. :) I had thought about doing one before but just never had. Well today she is shaking it up a bit and doing a And since one of my "not me's" was going to be about one of my children I thought that today was as good a day as any to join in. So here goes...

It was definitely NOT my 5 year old little man that carried his 4 day old baby sister to the door to show my friend when I had gone to let her in. Yikes! I hadn't shown him how to carry her yet so that was definitely NOT my child.

I do NOT have a 4 year old who would go up and carry on a conversation with a scarecrow who was her height and then kiss it before she walked away. MY child would have more brains than that!

My 21 month old did NOT walk over to the diaper pail while I was changing her sister and stick her hand in the poopy diaper that was sitting on top waiting for me to wash it out. That was definitely NOT my child.

My 5 year old son does NOT yell out "Mommy don't look at that naked lady!" every time he sees a woman in a bikini or camisole top. Although I wouldn't disagree with him my son would NEVER be that blunt.

When at the beach last week I did NOT turn around and find my 4 year blond daughter standing atop the tall red lifeguard chair that clearly states "keep off" with her arms spread high very proud of herself! That would never have been MY child, besides, she can't read yet anyway. ;)

While sitting and nursing my baby I did NOT have to tell the 5 year old to stop his 21 month old sister from taking kleenex's one by one into the bathroom and flushing them down the toilet. MY daughter would never do such a thing.

When going to a prenatal midwife appointment my son would NEVER walk into the waiting room and then run out loudly announcing to me that he couldn't go in there by himself because there was a "bad guy" sitting in there when a black gentleman was in there waiting for his wife. MY son would NOT be that rude.

My sweet 4 year old does NOT come up to me almost every day and ask me if the 10lbs of postpartum weight that I still have to lose around my waist is her "baby brother" that she is wanting. My daughter would NOT be that insensitive to my feelings! :P

My almost completely potty trained 21 month old daughter did NOT come up to me with her wet panties wadded up in her hand saying "pee pee Mommy". That is definitely something she would NOT do.

This same little toddler does NOT have a severe problem with eating toothpaste where I have to make sure I remember to put the toothpaste up out of reach or else I might walk into the bathroom and find her in there sucking on the tube. My child does NOT have such an addiction!

And although I know it's not a "Not Me" Monday I'm going to put one down just because...

It was definitely NOT me who when the afforementioned incident with the 4 year old and the lifeguard chair happened did NOT consider having her climb back up there and pose for a picture because I thought it was so funny. A thought like that did NOT enter my head. :)

Well, that was fun! You should try it sometime. Hope I didn't scare you away from being friends with me and my kids now that you know what we are really like! :P

PS You can't tell who is the one that gives me a run for my money most of the time, can you? LOL!

Hope you had a wonderful Monday!

6 weeks old

2009-07-17T08:15:00.000-04:00

Little Miss Julia is a chubby 10lb 4oz 6 week old baby girl today!

Hope each one of you have a lovely weekend!

1 month, I mean 5 week old pictures :)

2009-07-14T14:22:00.009-04:00

I had wanted to take some pictures when Julia turned 1 month but did I remember? Of course not! So then I thought I would grab some 5 week pictures, that's close enough, right?

I had seen a lot of baby and maternity pics incorporating blocks in them recently and I wanted to try it. I wasn't as prepared as I should have been and was scrambling around and I had a 21 month old who was being oh so not helpful! ;P

So here is how our crazy photo shoot started, Julia is making sure her bow is just right. :)

So I tried the blocks like this.

And then I turned them like this.

Then I turned her on her side and PLEASE do not ask me why in the world I left the blocks in this order! I didn't realize it until I downloaded them onto the computer that I had pretty much ruined the pictures. I wish I had caught it while I was doing it. :(

But I did like how some of them turned out.

Julia however got tired of it really quick!

Hi!

I'm sweet.

Can we PLEASE be done?!

baby girl

I had no idea what I was doing...

She did not want to lift up her head for the picture.

She started to fall asleep.

I love the cloth diaper bump, it was challenging to balance blocks on it though. :)

In my jean jumper with the pockets on the rear end.

She konked out.

Zzzzzzzzzzz

My sweet girl

j u l i a

little tootsies

Sorry to bombard you with not so great pictures. I just clicked away in between Mercy messing with the baby, the blocks, the blanket, the blocks, the baby, the blocks...well...you get what I mean! :P

I love her so much.

Boy, typing out a post one-handedly can sure take time...oh...and don't remind me that she turns 6 weeks on Friday!

Tree Hill Nature Center

2009-07-14T13:27:00.006-04:00

I'm so sorry I've been neglecting the blog...I've been lazy. :)

Amelia and I had tried for a couple of months to go here. We wanted a change from the zoo but someone either got sick or had other events that messed up going. So we finally made it there last week. It was an overcast July morning so the heat wasn't incredibly intense and we didn't get carried of by mosquitoes (wow).

Here's the gang, growing up way too fast.

Samuel 5, Charis 4, Caleb 5, Timothy 8, Mercy 21m & Peter 7

Looking at the minnows.

Oops, sorry, I forgot to rotate this. Mercy is squatting, trying to copy the boys laying down on the boardwalk. :)

Amelia said, "Look at me!"

She took pics of the kids enjoying the science lab.

They enjoyed looking in the microscopes (or telescopes as mine call them!).

Charis gave Amelia a "look". ;)

Gotta be on the stools like the big kids!

Looking at the turtles.

Checking stuff out.

Timothy with a turtle shell and animal pelt.

Peter and Caleb check out the snakes.

snake skin...

A soft shell turtle, I believe.

About 5x a day at least Mercy plops herself down wherever she is at and says, "I hold her!" She did it while we were there. :)

We had a nice time and the air conditioning in the center was wonderful after walking the trails. I had gone here when I was between 10-13 years old it seems like yesterday, it's hard to believe that it's been 14-17 years ago!

Oh, and I wish I had had the camera out to capture this but I'll just tell you about it. Charis is such a sweet fluffy headed blond. :) After we walked the trails we walked past a cute (not mean looking) scarecrow that was about 4' tall. My dear daughter walked up to him, took him by both hands and started talking to him, she then gave him a kiss and walked on. I about died laughing cause this was such typical behavior of her. Talking to and kissing a scarecrow, that's my girl!

She even made sure to tell him goodbye on our way out...lol! :P

Latest Smocking Project

2009-06-25T13:20:00.005-04:00

These are a few pictures of my most recent project. It was a lavender micro check dress, pantaloons and bonnet set for a friend at church.

Close up of the bonnet detail

Dress detail

On the real model ~ Miss Evangeline Grace

A sweet smile, much cuter than the baby doll. :)

Photos taken by Ruth Ann

Julia's first week and a half ;)

2009-06-17T12:45:00.003-04:00

I thought I would just post a few pics that I am enjoying from Julia's time with us. :)

This was her first diaper change the morning after she was born. She didn't mind that one at all, now, well that's a different story! But I love how you can see Caleb, Charis and Mercy all gathered around her. :)

Julia with her namesake. Y

A Sunday afternoon snooze with Daddy.

I thought they were so sweet looking at each other.

Sweet baby getting some sun through the window on her blanket from Gigi.

First car ride going to Wednesday night prayer meeting.

I love the booty in the air and the pouty lip. :)

Mercy cannot get enough of her, she is her buddy!

A toy Mercy brought her. :)

And last night I grabbed this shot. I was getting ready for bed and she was fussing, Charles started singing some scripture songs to her and she quieted down and was listening to him, so sweet. :)

Besides adjusting to a new baby things have been going fairly well. Had some high stress time last weekend which is very hard to have with an infant barely over a week. Got thrush which you know is painful and no fun but we are dealing with that and know that God will bring healing soon enough. Had a little scare yesterday with a blood clot in my varicose veins but my midwife was able to get me an appointment to have a sonogram done on my legs to rule out the possiblity of DVT which are the blood clots in the deep veins that can go to your heart/lungs/brain. God was very merciful that it is only one superficial blood clot in a place that is not too dangerous and we are working on getting it dissolved!

We hope that all of you are doing well and are enjoying your summer...until next time! :)

The New Quartet

2009-06-06T16:28:00.002-04:00

They are already fighting over who gets to hold her... :)

Julia Kathryn

2009-06-05T16:40:00.003-04:00

Last night we were blessed with another sweet daughter at 11:39pm. Julia Kathryn was born in water at home and weighed 7lbs 12oz and was 20.5" long. We thank you for your prayers!

PS Susan, we just had to keep the Schmidt trend. ;)

Hodge Podge :)

2009-06-02T09:47:00.005-04:00

This is a hodge podge post of what has been going on the past couple weeks. On Memorial Day Charles thought he had to work and then the jobs were able to be re-scheduled so we got to spend some time together.

I don't know what it is with our family and mailboxes but bad things always happen to them around here. :P So together we worked on replacing the top of our most recent mailbox. Boy, it was stinkin' hot outside! Charles parked his truck on the street so his tools would be handy and the kids had a fun time getting stuff out of his truck. :) We had had a lot of rain and our ditches still were not drained. Charis got a pair of work goggles out and went and stood over the culvert, I told her she had better not get any ideas of trying to get in the water! She thought she was cute though.

Caleb got an assortment of stuff and decked himself and Mercy all out...

He then gave her lessons on how to tell cars to stop if they were to drive down the road, she was cute and was listening to what he said and waving her arms at imaginary cars yelling, "Dop!"

We have been running lots of errands for Charles lately as we have been preparing to move our office out the garage in the back to a new location! I snapped this pic of what our naptime has looked like a lot. :)

This past Saturday my brother and sister-in-law hosted a surprise going away party for a military dad at our church. Margaret, my sister, has been interested in learning cake decorating and so she got to practice with me doing this cake and these cute cupcakes. I thought she did a good job. :)

Then Sunday we had a baby shower for a girl at church who just had her first little girl. It turned out to be a really nice time and I snapped a couple pics of the cake I did before taking it to church but of course I didn't get any pics at the shower. Emily did though so I may try and grab a few from her sometime.

Thanks to Gracie who helped keep my munchkins occupied so Margaret and I could decorate cakes!

Yesterday we went to the beach with my family and some friends they have in town. The children had a great time.

Made me wish I could go out and float around too, but I'm not sure these were rated for a full term preggo lady though. ;)

Mercy warmed up to the beach real fast this time and was in and out of the water with whoever she could get to take her out. We ended up staying for a long time and she fell asleep in my lap, only bad thing was the tops of my feet and lower legs got fried. Big ouwie. :(

Overall, we have had some good times the past few weeks. It definitely wasn't all that we had "thought" we would be doing but we look forward to hopefully being homebound for a bit really soon with a new baby. :)

Hope you all are doing well!

We're still here... :)

2009-05-26T15:47:00.001-04:00

Hi Everyone, Sorry I have been neglecting the blog for the past few weeks. I have been hobbling around for a couple weeks now with a pinched nerve in my hip and it has been really bothering me and then last week I totally crashed with a bad cold that went straight into my lungs again. Boy, it was not fun but I am so grateful for the prayers of friends and for God's healing hand raising me up.

Now, we are waiting and waiting for our little bundle to arrive. We had had a day or two that we thought was going to be it so when they turned out not to be it just makes the waiting even harder! Charis was born late at night 6 days before her due date and Mercy was born early in the morning 5 days before her due date...today is 6 days till due date...could it be tonight or tomorrow morning?! I would love it to be!!! Caleb was 15 days early so that has come and gone long ago, the baby didn't get the memo that I had wanted an anniversary baby (our 6th anniversary was Sunday) so beyond tomorrow the rest is uncharted territory which I had hoped would remain uncharted but only time will tell and God knows the perfect day for this baby to come.

So, hopefully, my next post will be an announcement but to tide you over until then (I know you all must just be dying that I haven't posted in 2 1/2 wks...j/k) I thought I would leave you with a few recent pics.

Here is my sweet Caleb and Charis wearing matching outfits for her birthday, as you can see, my son is about as photogenic as his father and that was the best I could get him to smile! ;)

Mercy is our sweet little girl who LOVES to sing, all the time and anywhere. :)

A couple of pics of Charis with her doll cake that she requested for her birthday. As you can tell I didn't feel up to doing anything fancy, thankfully she is only 4 and didn't mind too much...besides it was chocolate cake! :)

And here is the progression from week 20, 24, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 37, 38 then 39 and still waiting....

Hope you all are doing well...until next time!

Charis is 4!

2009-05-11T16:55:00.001-04:00

Today my little girl is turning 4 years old! I can hardly believe it!
She is such a sweet sister to her big brother and her little sister. I made the mistake of telling her that the earliest I could have this baby would be on her birthday so now she associates baby with birthday and says her baby *brother* (as she calls it) is going to be born today. When I told her not necessarily (I'm at 37 weeks!) that it will be born today or that it will be a brother, she then decides that I will have it at the birthday party later this week at my parent's house. ;) I kindly told her, no thank you, that if I happened to go into labor at the party I would just go around the corner to our house to have it. Ahh, a 4 year olds mind. :)

Anywhoo, she's precious to us and we are so thankful that the Lord blessed us with our sweet Charis Joy 4 years ago tonight!

We're Here...

2009-05-05T16:40:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone, as many of you already know, last week someone hacked into our personal and business e-mail accounts and website hosting. Whoever it was was very hateful and sent out such wicked things from our accounts and unfortunately caused harm to friends, clients and family. I am very blessed that the person did not realize that I had a blog attached to the business' google account as I was very concerned that they may have posted evil things here as well.

Our case is under investigation with the local police and FBI. Our google account may be shut down completely very shortly and will thus close this blog down with it. I have already figured out how to export it to a new spot and should the need arise I will make sure everyone has the new web address when/if this blog should close. Leave a comment if you want to make sure and have the new site when it changes. There is light at the end of the tunnel, praise the Lord!

Hope you are all having a lovely week. :)

Hooray!!

2009-04-29T12:48:00.000-04:00

Hallelujah it is found! A picture I discovered on the camera documenting the last time I saw the camera...in my bedroom closet.

And a very happy little boy who excitedly brought me my camera that he just found while destroying, I mean, playing in his room this morning. Yay! I am so happy. Just thought that I would share.... :)

Easter Sunday

2009-04-16T12:27:00.006-04:00

Well, I'm a little bit upset right now but it's partly my fault. Caleb had our camera out going on 2 wks ago and I saw him with it and should have had him put it away right then but I was distracted. I told him to turn it off though since he was using it as a flashlight in my walk in closet. :P And so now I cannot find my camera, I know it has to be here somewhere I simply cannot find it though! How can someone not find a camera? Well, ours is a very small and slim (about 2"x 4.5") and it can hide very easily unfortunately!

So all that just to say I haven't been able to take pictures of the children like I would want to. :(

On Easter Sunday morning though, Ruth Ann was taking some photos of the Crane boys for Amelia. They are a hoot as you can tell! :)

I mean, isn't this great?!

So while she was out there I asked her if she could take a few pictures of the girls walking through the field behind church. The sunshine was just gorgeous and the grass was so green!

Just what I was envisioning...

Ruth Ann, put this verse of _Stepping in the Light_ on this picture. I love how it has mercy and grace mentioned in the words. :)

I, of course, put them in their matching smocked dresses, why not?! And they will probably be in them again for Mother's Day too. :) But is was sweet putting them in their little hats.

Sweet sisters

Run to momma!

Thank you Ruth Ann!

Growing up...

2009-04-07T21:56:00.004-04:00

Where does the time go? On Sunday Mercy turned 18 months and I can't believe how fast our little girl is growing. I just went through some recent pics and pulled out some of my favorites of Mercy to share.

At a recent birthday blast she enjoyed playing the piano, being with Mommy and Daddy and playing with Papa and cousin Titus. :)

I love pictures of sleeping babies, Mercy thinks sunglasses are very cool and enjoys playing outside. :)

Smile! One morning she got up with her blanket and then just laid down in the hall, Charles had to take a picture of her. If you can't tell she is really into slides and loves them immensely, sitting with Charis at the zoo. :)

More slides and plenty of dirt at the picnic park area of the zoo, a smiley face while I was on the computer one day, outside watching a plane go by (which she loves as well) and enjoying the clover blossoms. :)

Sitting with Charis on the sofa during devotions "singing" from a book, really getting in to dancing to a song, lollipops and baby dolls are fun, and I am a big kid now and want to do everything C & C does...it can tire Mommy out. We were at our Science Museum and she wanted to make sure and do it all. :)

Mercy, our big baby girl with her (of course, unclad) "Mercy" doll as we call it on the way home from church. Let me just say car rides are very loud, she decides whether she wants to say Momma or Dadda and just kind says/sings it very loud the whole time! It is an area we are working on with her to sit quietly in the car. ;)

Tagged :)

2009-04-06T19:54:00.003-04:00

So, I was tagged to list 7 things I love... I think some of them take no thought...

1. I love the Lord and am so thankful for Jesus Christ and how he strengthens, guides and protects me and my family.

2. I love my husband! I am grateful for how he challenges me to grow (although I might not be so grateful during the time than after ;) )and how he consistently leads, loves and provides for his family.

3. I love my children. I can't imagine life without them and am grateful for each and everyone that God has seen fit to send our way! And I pray that He will continue to send us many more. :)

4. I love my family and am thankful to be close to them. I am grateful for their support and love the fellowship that we can have together. It is also special that my children can play with and enjoy time with their aunts and uncles. :)

5. I love baking and cooking and have so much fun trying and creating new things (especially desserts!) in the kitchen. I also derive great pleasure doing wedding cakes and such. So fun to be a part of such a special event.

6. I love sewing and now smocking as well. I enjoy clothing and such much better than other projects but I have a heap of stuff I need to finish right now!

7. I love babies, baby showers, births and birth stories. Everything about a new life is so exciting and it is such a blessing coming upon this Easter season knowing that Christ died and rose again that we might have new life in him!

I'm supposed to tag people but I don't have many I can...I'll "tag" Rebecah, Allie and Ruth Ann...if you read it and feel like doing it. :) RA, you can leave it in the comments section if you feel like it. :)

Selling our car

2009-04-03T18:56:00.005-04:00

Well, with baby #4 soon to be arriving we will no longer fit in our car and have just moved up to a larger vehicle.

I know it seems odd to post this here but if anyone knows of someone looking for a nice car please send them here. :)

It's a 1999 Oldsmobile Cutlass, we are asking $2200 and below are it's specs:

Mileage: 159,000
Engine: V6 3.1 Liter
Transmission: Automatic
Drivetrain: FWD

Equipment:
Air Conditioning
Tilt Wheel
Dual Front Air Bags
Power Steering
Cruise Control
ABS (4-Wheel)
Power Door Locks
AM/FM Stereo
Power Windows
Leather
Single Compact Disc
Power Seat

The driver's seat leather has a few cracks in it from wear. It can be used as it is or you could get a cover for it.

The trunk is huge, I loved how much I could fit in it!

And there is a scrape on the passenger side back fender. Other than that is in very good condition and ready for a new home!

Sweet

2009-04-03T18:51:00.000-04:00

There's nothing much sweeter than a cute baby girl in a pink dress with her watermelon lollipop...
at least, that's what I think. ;)

Curls

2009-04-01T11:19:00.005-04:00

I just love my little girlies curls and had to take a few shots of them the other day. Of course there are days when they are not so curly and are frizzy fuzzyheads like their momma! ;) And the spring flowers are starting to bloom, we got our first yellow rose a few days ago and some of the other plants are about to burst into bloom. :)

Miss Mercy

& Miss Charis

The 3 Stooges, I mean, Musketeers, er kiddoes. :)

Charis "helping" everyone look at me.

Caleb cracks me up as he has seen his daddy do this too many times, this is exactly how Charles smiles for the camera when I ask him to smile. Kids pick up on the good things right?!

I'm so thankful for my giggly gang. We're enjoying spring and hope you are as well! :)

Mercy's Birth

2009-03-25T17:20:00.002-04:00

As this baby's birth approached I made it a point to finally get the pictures of Mercy's birth that our midwife took. I had some of my own (right now they are stuck on an old computer and I can't get to them) but I had always wanted to see the ones she took. So she sent them to me a couple days ago and I enjoyed looking at them.

This was right after Mercy was born (in our tub at home!) The fourth picture was me looking and finding out that we had just had another girl and then the last ones are her daddy cutting her cord. :)

Here Nama and Aunt Dee are holding her right after birth while I was getting dried off. Mercy peeked around and said, "Where am I?" :)
I love looking at Caleb & Charis' faces of excitement and the fourth pic is Caleb exclaiming his surprise at her "dark hair!".
I can't believe how little they both looked.

Caleb had waited to hold her so long and then he was like, "she's heavy!".
Mercy getting weighed and measured, Caleb and Aunt Cee watching.
Aunt Dee helping Hope do her footprints and midwife Sharon swaddling her into a little glow worm. :)

Good friend and midwife, Sharon, with Mercy.

The family with the newest addition with our midwife Sharon (and then student midwife but now licensed midwife) Hope. :)

My mom took the cutest video of C & C while they ate their breakfast right after she was born. It is stuck on that other computer right now but when I get it off I'm going to have to post it because they were just too funny!

Until next time...

Ready for a New Home!

2009-03-23T14:44:00.007-04:00

My sister's Shih Tzu Puppies are ready for adoption, e-mail Amanda at mooluvspooh@gmail.com and mention you saw it here on my blog to get a special price of $350 male and $450 female. They are AKC registered with worming, shots and health certificates. There are 4 of each and if you are interested you would want to reserve one soon as they can go home as early as next week! Enjoy. :)

PS to all our friends down in Williston, if you could pass this news around in case you know someone who may be interested we'll find a way to get a puppy down there if there is a home to go to. Thanks!

Snooze Time

I'm cute...

Come and take us home!

Pick me! :)

We have names! And how we chose them for our baby :)

2009-03-18T10:58:00.004-04:00

To preface this, Charles and I both like old-fashioned and traditional names so these might seem a bit strange but we like them. :)

If it's a boy his name will be ~ Isaac Morris Charles

Isaac is a name we have liked since I was pregnant with Charis and Charles is of course, after Charles. :) His father and grandfather are both named Morris Michael and although we used Michael as Caleb's middle name Charles really wanted to use Morris for his dad and pap pap. So if we have a little man this time we are going to slide Morris in the middle there. :) And I really do love the name.

If it's a girl her name will be ~ Julia Kathryn

Kathryn was a definite middle name to go with whatever first name was chosen since it is Charles' grandmother's name and he really wanted to use it. The first name however had us stumped. We had a list of about 7 names and we were constantly going through them trying to decide. One reason I really liked Julia is because it begins with a "J", and while I have no intentions of naming any of my daughter's Jenifer I thought having one that started with a "J" would be nice. But none of the 7 girl names had any difference in why we should really use it first (as we liked all of them)...until Sunday night.

A little background is since Charles' mom left him at age 13 and his dad lives 900 miles away our pastor and his wife have been Charles' adopted parents for many years and they are very special. We had thought that we would like to use their names somehow in naming our children someday. We've got our pastor's name ready in another boy name but we couldn't figure out how to use his wife's name. Her name, we thought, was Mary Judy. While Mary is okay it wasn't a favorite of ours and Judy is just hard to put it with another name. I had made up girl name slips to help us visualize them easier and they were in my purse Sunday night. Mercy was playing with them on the pew after the service and my sister snagged them and went through them and picked out the ones she liked. Julia Kathryn was one of them and our pastor's wife was sitting there and when she looked at them she said, "Why, that's my name! My name is Mary Julia." I think my jaw hit the floor as I had no idea that was what her name was as she goes by Judy. Needless to say, I told Charles about it and that kind of settled it. I just thought it was so super neat. :)

And so now, we have both a boy and a girl name picked out. I think this is the earliest we have had names decided on (I'm about 30 wks). And although it would be kind of nice to have another little guy this go round I am just excited that we actually were able to decide on a name if it is a little girl. And that the name is special and for a purpose.

So that's my little story and I just thought I'd share seeing how I was a bit excited. :)

A favorite recipe

2009-03-14T10:06:00.001-04:00

Pumpkin Cheesecake

This is my grandmother's recipe that my family has used for years, after a trip to Olive Garden last fall I modified ours a little bit. And of course, I try and use organic ingredients but I won't list them as such. :)

Ingredients:

1 package Pound cake mix ( I used Whole Foods 365 name brand organic mix)

3 eggs

2 Tbsp butter, softened

4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice ( I just mix cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger together)

1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened (neufchatel works fine)

1 (14oz) can sweetened condensed milk (WF sells a natural or organic brand named Santini)

1(15oz) can pumpkin

1/2 tsp. salt

1 (8oz) heavy whipping cream

1 tsp sugar

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

caramel syrup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl combine HALF of the cake mix, 1 egg, butter and 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice with a pastry cutter until crumbly. Press into the bottom of a lightly greased 8" springform pan. (You will have half the cake mix to use on your next cheesecake ;P )

In another bowl, with electric mixer beat cream cheese til fluffy and add sweetened condensed milk. Then add remaining 2 eggs, 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice, pumkin and salt. Mix well and pour over crust. Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until knife inserted comes out clean.Let cool in pan, run metal spatula around edges and then open pan. Transfer to another plate, can run metal spatula under crust to help separate from springform bottom. (You may not have a problem with this as my pan is old.) Chill, preferably overnight, but at least 2-4 hours until cold.

In a cold bowl whip whipping cream with sugar until stiff. Spread over the top of cheesecake. Chop nuts very finely and sprinkle over top of whipped cream. Drizzle caramel syrup over nuts.Keep chilled until time to serve.

Enjoy! :)

First trip to the beach

2009-03-11T13:04:00.006-04:00

Yesterday afternoon was so beautiful outside I asked Charles if we could spur of the moment make a trip to the beach. He actually said yes! We didn't get there until 5pm so it was still warm but beginning to cool off. The water is still a bit chilly but Caleb & Charis didn't care. Charles and I were happy with just getting our feet wet and Mercy decided to content herself with playing in the sand and watching birds and dogs. :)

Charles had the camera so I wasn't sure what kind of pictures I would be getting but I just loved this one of Charis with her reflection in the sand.

Walking out to feel the water together

Happy girl

Happy boy

Mercy was not happy that the waves were coming towards her and would not smile even as I was tickling her, of course Charles caught me with my mouth wide open. ;)

Finding shells and writing in the sand

You can't tell she had a good time can you? She was the one who got wet the most!

do de do

The distance each of them kept from the water. :)

Cute little people

I have a picture of C & C sitting here when we went to the beach while I was pregnant with Mercy. I love having one of all them now. :)

Just a reminder...

2009-03-07T16:42:00.000-05:00

...that if you want to enter the bow giveaway the deadline is tomorrow night. All you have to do is leave a comment on their blog. :)

Hope you are all having a lovely day!

Hairbows

2009-03-04T10:18:00.004-05:00

So at a baby shower I was at recently I was able to chat with some twins that I knew back in middle school. They recently started their own Etsy shop making and selling hairbows. I know how much most of us enjoy having cute bows to put on our little girlies so I thought I would share the link to their blog. They are having a free giveaway and said they will mail anywhere in the US if you happen to win.

Hope you stop by and enjoy the fun chance for some cute hairbows. :)

BOWquet Giveaway!

It is our first official GIVEAWAY! We are so excited!!! We are giving away 5 of our custom made, unique bows. It's so easy to enter the giveaway! You will have many chances to win.You can enter as many ways as you would like, but only 1 entry per type.

1. Leave a comment to this post

2. Blog about our contest (leave a comment here with a link to the post for verification)

3. Write about our contest on Twitter, Facebook, Etsy Forum, or more (leave a comment here with a link to the post for verification)

4. Purchases from our shop

5. Be a follower of our blog

6. Send your friends on over!

But hurry, our contest ends on March 8, 2009 at midnight

Prayer for the Lockwood Family

2009-03-02T20:20:00.003-05:00

Awhile back I asked for prayer for the mother in the Lockwood family down in Mexico. Please continue to keep Jaynee in your prayers as she has now been admitted to a hospital in California. The details of her condition are kind of complicated to explain but you can read more about it on their blog . She has reached 31 weeks and prays that the Lord will allow their little boy to remain in the womb for at least a few more weeks longer. Here are the specific requests she listed if you don't have time to go over and read them yourself:

*Pray for our little baby that he will continue to do well inside me and that the Lord will continue to keep him there as long as possible.

*Pray that my bleeding and contractions will remain calm

*Pray for Daniel as he is managing the home and 11 children right now; I know how hard it is with his concern for me, wanting to be up here, yet having to make sure the children are cared for.

*Pray for wisdom in all the decisions needed to be made in the days ahead for both Daniel and I and the doctors Thanks for praying!

A Smocked Baby Bonnet

2009-02-27T16:08:00.000-05:00

So a friend of mine is having her first, a little girl, and I thought I would try my hand at a smocked bonnet. So we got out mom's new machine and christened it with pleating this bonnet as it's first project. I took a bunch of shots just cause I couldn't tell what would turn out. I tried getting some up close shots of the detail work. Mom suggested doing the white on white design so I did. Since I wasn't doing a dress for her making it mainly white would help it go with more outfits. I used the baby doll as my model, lol. :) And I still had some of those lavender ribbon roses that I got back when Charis was born so I used those in place of a ribbon rosette at the neck ribbons. My friend's favorite color is green so I made the drawstring ribbon in the back green and she absolutely loved it!

Well, I hope you all have a lovely weekend! And if you're in FL I hope you are enjoying this gorgeous weather as much as we are! :)

Multi-tasking

2009-02-23T10:05:00.002-05:00

So I didn't do to great with my multi-tasking Friday night. I was making dinner and doing a couple other things at the same time (of course!). Well, it was tacos and I cooked the hard shells in the oven and then turned the oven off...but I did not remove the shells from the oven. Oops! :) They were not burnt beyond eating, in fact, they weren't black just a nice brown color. So Caleb at the dinner table pipes up and says, "Why do these things change color?" :) Well, it gave me and Charles a good laugh then and then later that night as we were going to bed Charles just starts dying laughing over the incident all over again and told me I had to post it on the blog. You would have had to have been there to have gotten the full effect but I'm sure we all have moments like these around our homes. Have a nice Monday...I'm off to clean my dirty house!

Success! My First Video Upload....LOL :)

2009-02-19T10:52:00.002-05:00

Yay! For the computer illiterate me this is a big deal. I actually got a movie to upload!!!

I happened to have my camera with me on Sunday night when Emily was letting Mercy play with Titus. I love her giving him a kiss and then when they said good-bye she was like, I'll take him with me and looks like she's gonna pull his arms off! :)

Oh, and I started taking the movie with the camera vertical and realized what I was doing since we haven't figured out how to rotate a movie. So sorry you have to see part of it sideways but at least I realized what I was doing and corrected it!

Enjoy ~ :)

AH!

2009-02-18T11:37:00.000-05:00

Oh, it's just Charis...she got a hold of the camera again. ;) I guess I should try and give her a little more direction. :)

The Letter "J"

2009-02-16T09:18:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I am a sucker for these silly things! But I thought I could at least use it as an easy post for when I didn't have any news pics to share. :) "J" definitely made me get to thinking and I kind of had to be creative. Enjoy ~

The Letter "J":

Rules:

It's harder than it looks!

Copy to your own note, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag 10 people.

Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions.

They have to be real. . .nothing made up!

If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers.

You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

Have Fun!!

1. What is your name: Jenifer

2. A four Letter Word: joke

3. A boy's Name: Joseph

4. A girl's Name: Jessica

5. An occupation: Jewelry Salesperson

6. A color: jade (does that count?)

7. Something you wear: jumper

8. A food: jello

9. Something found in the bathroom: Jasmine perfume oil (I had to go look in my bathroom to find something!)

10. A place: Jacksonville

11. A reason for being late: juicing grapefruits

12. Something you shout: Jiminy Cricket! ( I could think of 2 other things but they weren't appropriate)

13. A movie title: Journey to the Center of the Earth

14. Something you drink: juice

15. A musical group: Jars of Clay (I had to google to find one since I don't listen to much!)

16. An animal: jaguar

17. A street name: Jammes Road

18. A type of car: Jeep

19. A song title: Jesus Lover of My Soul

20. A verb: jump

Fun Puppy Pics

2009-02-11T17:22:00.000-05:00

So my brother Will, all alone by himself while my family is in SD, has really been enjoying giving the puppies some "Daddy time" as he calls it. ;)

Here is the runt, a little girl named Iris and the pig of the litter, a boy named Beric. He is almost double her size!

Look at his head size!

Emy put Ivy in a shoe...

and put Briton in a boot. :)

All the sweet girl puppies...

Who were much better behaved and cooperative than their brothers...

who wouldn't hold still for nothing...

...although they were still cute...

...Emy couldn't get them to quit moving.

They finally decided they liked sleeping on top big brother best. :)

Little Boys and Frogs

2009-02-09T15:14:00.000-05:00

You would think that I would be used to it by now but it still made me jump when my 5 year old brought a frog he found outside when he was playing inside the house and it jumped into my lap!

Yeah, let's go take him back outside! ;)

Caleb is 5!

2009-02-09T13:34:00.000-05:00

I am still in disbelief that my little boy has turned 5! With my parents being out of town we thought about having the Crane's over for dinner but Travis has a hard time with our cat and I have to disinfect the house from top to bottom...not fun. So since we needed to take care of the new puppies and do some prep work for a funeral we were having Saturday we decided to crash my parents house and have a birthday party dinner there where we could do everything! It was great. :)

I only have a few pics as we were busy doing stuff but this little guy was anticipating cake and he was looking forward to blowing "off" the candles. ;)

He started blowing them out before we could get a picture...

Smoke, that's really neat...

My big, little guy. I love you Caleb!

My Sister's Puppies

2009-02-07T20:26:00.000-05:00

So life around here has been really busy lately and interesting. It is partially because of the below 2 doggies. :P You see my sister has been trying to breed them for 2 years and to no avail. They thought about going on vacation but her dog was in heat so they waited to see if she might get pregnant. When she showed no symptoms half-way through they decided to finalize their plans for their trip to SD. So, about a week or two before they were to leave Jasmine (or Jazzy as she goes by) got enormous and we realized that finally the long awaited event would probably take place while my sister was gone!

Here are the parents a couple days before the birth, Jasmine & Kenric aka Jazzy & Rikki.

On Tuesday, February 3rd she had a litter of 10 puppies! Which is relatively unheard of for a Shih Tzu. We kept her at mom & dad's house since it would have disturbed her too much to move her to a strange place to give birth. So Emily and I took turns checking on her. Well, Will and Emily went to Tom's worksite around 2pm that afternoon and then I stopped by to check on her a little after 3:30pm. I walked in and there were puppies everywhere and she was still giving birth! She had a total of 10, 5 girls and 5 boys (isn't that a hoot?!) but the first one didn't make it as she didn't take it's sack off and we couldn't revive him. :( But below if the very tired mommy with her new brood. :)

Since the mommy is named Jasmine, Emily and I gave all the girls flower names and we used G.A. Henty names for the boys to go with their daddy's name, Kenric. We just did it to have fun telling them apart instead of just A, B, C etc. but Mandie says she likes the names. :)

Puppy pile, we have to weigh them every day to make sure they are gaining weight and we are actually giving 3 of them a supplement as well.

Too cute!

Jazzy making sure Caleb is taking good care of her baby. :)

Charis loves holding the puppies. :)

Puppy!

Hmmm

We are, of course, taking lots of pics so I'll probably post more soon. :)

25 Random Things

2009-01-27T17:10:00.003-05:00

I did this 25 Random Things list for my facebook page but thought I would post it here. Since typing it up I've thought of quite a few other random things about me but you probably don't want to know that much about me. :)

1) I am 5' 8" in case you were wondering...

2) Since I have had children I am addicted to chocolate, it wasn't like that before.

3) I love to wear hats.

4) I love to bake! Experimenting, making things I see in pictures and changing them to organic is a favorite past time.

5) I love to sew, all sorts of things.

6) I love making wedding cakes. Each one is unique and fun!

7) I play the flute and piano but not very well.

8) I love listening to my husband play his trumpet.

9) I am the only blue eyed child in my family. But all my children have blue eyes, it helps their Daddy has blue eyes too.

10) I think I have ugly feet.

11) I hardly ever wear flip flops, partially because the aforementioned comment.

12) I love shoes and have way too many pairs but I do make sure to wear all of them and I have been a good girl and have not bought myself a new pair in almost a year.

13) I love having friends over for dinner or going over for dinner.

14) I freaked out when my husband had me drive the company box truck somewhere but then it didn't turn out to be as bad as I had feared.

15) I think I would cry if I was ever pulled over by a policeman.

16) When I am not pregnant I still consider myself overweight.

17) I can't stand the way my husband reads news stories, watches youtube clips or movies. I am grateful we don't have TV or he would be a channel surfer and it would drive me nuts!

18) Even if it's a stupid news story or movie I have to see the whole thing, I can't watch just part of it. I have gotten better though where I don't have to see the whole thing at once .

19) Blue is my favorite color.

20) I have had all my children at home and hope to have many more.

21) With the Lord's strength I hope to greatly improve in the wife and mothering department where I am lacking so much.

22) The Air Force Base where I was born in Homestead, FL was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

23) Everything about dogs is stinky, dirty, yucky, etc. Multiple that by my 115lb menstrating English Mastiff and you get how I feel. I "love" her because I know she is such good protection but cats are so much cleaner. :)

24) I have worn contacts for 14 years and glasses for another 4 before that.

25) I think it would be neat to have twins (shhh don't tell Sharon) I don't how that would work out. My parents didn't have any and they were the generation that should have had them since my grandmother is a twin.

Have I mentioned...

2009-01-24T13:03:00.000-05:00

...that I extrememely dislike the fact that new corningware cannot be put on the stove? Growing up all my mother's collection could and when Charles and I got married he had some older ones too. We received some new ones too as wedding gifts and they all got mixed together. I did not remember to check if this was a new one or an old before I put it on the stove...makes heating up leftovers for lunch a little more complicated when you go to pick it up off the burner to serve it up and the top pulls off in your hand and you have to pop the base off the burner with a metal spatula. Oh well, life is full of little happenings like these, isn't it? Or am I the only one who experiences them?! ;)

oops

guess I need to learn how to read...

Random Pics from December

2009-01-14T16:36:00.005-05:00

Not anything too blog worthy to post about recently so I thought I would just put a few odd pics just to have an update. :)

My big blue-eyed baby girl...

...loves to dress up.

And often has the assistance of siblings to stay dressed up. :)

Before bathtime one day, Mercy has been really enjoying books, this is where she snuck off to.

Charis having fun in one of our little red cars, don't ask how many we've collected.

This was before I was even showing that she did this. ;)

Devotion time with daddy one night.

My little sharpshooter.

Smile!

Totally bumming around the house and picking up or putting on whatever she found.

Totally awesome dude...or should I say dudette? ;)

Hope your weeks are all going well. Ta ta for now! :)

A visit

2009-01-03T15:41:00.008-05:00

During Christmas time the Schmidt's came up and visited us one afternoon. Mercy was a little anti-social but the other children did great. I only grabbed a couple of pics and my camera was doing weird stuff too.

Ella & Mercy, "Why are you taking our picture?"

"We are ready for food!"

Can we get a picture of 6 little munchkins on the couch?

They are definitely silly little monkeys...

Okay, smile...

I think they actually all looked at the camera! :)

We're a cute bunch.

Wonder when they are going to let us get down. ;)

Suzanna & Charis

I LOVE this picture. :)

The babies for now.

Ella couldn't figure out why Mercy was fussing.

What do they want us to do?

Charis wanted to give Ella a hug. :)

Hi, we're the same size. :)

We had such a fun time, thank y'all for coming!

Christmas Pictures of the Children

2008-12-27T15:14:00.007-05:00

So I thought I would post a few of my favorite pictures of the children. They did pretty well although I didn't get the "perfect" shot I was hoping for, does anyone really I wonder?

Here are my sweet C & C. :)

That's right, just all look at Aunt Cee, at least you are all smiling!

Sweet Charis

My little man

Charis insisted on sitting sideways in the chair. :)

I was surprised and delighted when Mercy understood me when I said, "Kiss Bubba". Then I just had to get the two of them to do it at the same time and make it a long kiss. He really enjoyed it as you can tell. ;)

I just love this one...

Playing peek-a-boo with the camera.

One of the first shots which got me pretty discouraged...

Mercy taking a break with the teddy bear. :)

Caleb told me to take this pic cause he said it would be sweet, I think it is!

This is who I intended to wear my hat...

....this is who picked it up and put it on instead. ;)

This is how I felt like all the pictures went, Mercy trying to get the jellybean out of the box, Charis being distracted and Caleb being goofy!

New dresses

My serious little guy, yeah right!

I thank God for my sweet little blessings! Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Mercy's One Year Old Pictures

2008-12-18T16:28:00.003-05:00

When Mercy turned 1 over 2 months ago I was so busy doing multiple baby showers and other things that I put off getting Mercy's pictures taken as I wasn't sure what I wanted to do and was thinking about making her a dress etc.

Well, you know you are overdue when your husband (who normally could care less about getting pictures taken) walks by the spot in the hallway where the children's 1 year old shots hang and ask why Mercy's isn't there...oops. :)

Then I was trying to decide what to do and since last year we paid for a 2 year portrait membership at JCPenneys we finally decided to just run up there with a coupon and be done. It was close by and we wanted it to match C & C's pics. Then my usually could care less husband did want Mercy wearing the same dress Charis wore for her pictures and requested that Mercy wear this.

I took Gracie along for an extra set of hands and she can normally make Mercy crack great smiles. Well, Mercy had different ideas and would not smile for 1 single picture. She would not smile for me, Gracie, or much less the two photographers. I guess they turned out all right but C & C were total hams for their one year old pics. My dad said that's what I get for putting off having them taken. :P

What are you going to do to me?

I don't think I'm too sure about this...

Definitely don't make me sit down.

Am I pitiful or what?

Thank goodness for profile pics, I remember it saving at least one of my siblings crying photo sessions by having this shot.

The "eyelash" pose taken while she was sitting in my lap.

They threw me in the pictures to see if that would make her happy, I was wearing brown and purple and I didn't want a picture of me!

The final attempt to get a picture of herself after sliding her off my lap. Ha!

Meanness...I guess inherited :)

2008-12-10T17:52:00.001-05:00

I really don't know what overtook me last night but when we got home from a Christmas Party I took the girls hairbows out. Well, the cat was just sitting there...and well, something inside me just couldn't resist. ;) They didn't hurt her, I promise. But she does have that, "I am going to kill you" look on her. hehe :)

Baby in a basket

2008-12-09T17:05:00.000-05:00

I actually took these a few weeks ago but thought I would post them after looking through them again. Mercy just loves the kitty cat and when she saw Honey in the basket she decided to join her. She is typically such a smiley baby and I could just eat her all up! :)

Titus Update

2008-12-01T15:06:00.005-05:00

Well, Titus has turned one month old and he is growing soooo fast. He is chunking up really good and is awfully cute. ;)

Tom sent me these pics the other day and so I thought I would share a few.

Arm wrestling with Dad, this gave me a chuckle :)

I'm precious...

Picture taking does not impress me...YAWN!!

Acting sweet for Mommy

They should be called the "barefoot" family, this is quite a true picture :)

Daddy foot...baby foot

Tom, Emily & "Tiny Moe" ;)

Unusual Thanksgiving Documentation ;)

2008-11-29T21:57:00.001-05:00

So I woke up Thanksgiving morning and pretty much the first words out of my 4 year olds mouth were, "Mommy, I want to take pictures at Aunt Michele's house today." I thought, well, that would be really interesting memories. So I decided to let him have a try at it. As soon as he was done with his food he ran up to me asking for the camera. So I gave it to him and he got to work. I think Aunt Dee, GiGi, and Grandpa Smith were the fortunate ones to escape his enthusiasm and as for the others, well, what kind of faces would you make at the camera if a 4 year old was the photographer? You'll see.... ;)

Brother Robert

Poor Aunt Michele, he took 2 of her and she had her eyes closed in both.

Beloved Daddy

Uncle Tom sure is tall...

Aunt Cee with Titus

The Nama

The Sister

Aunt Emily (who thought he had NOT gotten her head in the shot ;) )

Uncle Will, who got quite a few flashes right in his eyes and got pretty tired of it :)

Uncle Charles, returning the favor

Aunt Meg Peg Fuzzyhead

Uncle Robbie...nice

Aunt Rosie Tosie...am I really related to these people? ;)

The Papa

His only picture of Rutt Bone was of him on my aunt's karaoke player...let me tell you it was an interesting *sounding* Thanksgiving. :)

My lovely snapshot

Self-portrait with dessert all over his face

He even took a picture of his favorite...the lemon meringue pie

Titus was of course, a person of interest this Thanksgiving. I was holding him and Mercy saw me and she motioned to me to bring that baby here I want to hold him look.

So I took him over and let her hold him, boy was she happy, but then...

Charis wanted to hold him too and so I went to give her a turn and Mercy became very upset :)

After lunch and dessert we all watched an old black and white movie called _You Can't Take It With You_ and Mercy kind crashed on the sofa between us.

She said a nap sounded like a better idea :)

After that my aunt had all the children decorate her miniature Christmas tree. They had a blast and I thought that it would be a really cute opportunity to get a few shots of my 3 in front of a Christmas tree that was more their size.

Ha! That was a funny idea... :)

Yeah, these are my sisters...

And the baby who would not stand or sit still

My little monkeys...or should I say turkeys? We hope you all had a very blessed Thanksgiving!

More of Charis' work

2008-11-21T12:15:00.002-05:00

Here is Charis' work of self portraits. :)

Really, I find quite a bit of amusing things when I download pictures now! ;)

Enjoy!

PS I did not crop these, they are exactly how she took them. Gotta love the nose shot, eh? ;)

A bag o' crumbs

2008-11-19T16:47:00.001-05:00

I really have to watch my camera closely now or it gets filled up with pictures like this. Charis likes to get a hold of the camera and have fun with it. She actually took these several weeks ago but I thought it was too funny not to share. Somehow Mercy got the bag of chip crumbs (they were veggie chips and pulvarized into teeny tiny pieces so not a threat to her health) and went to town with them. Her sister decided to well document the event with many pictures, I'll have to share more of Charis' artistic abilities in later posts. (And no, really, my baby is NOT eating crumbs off the floor that she split, really. ;) )

PS If you click on the collage it should enlarge it so you can see her expressions, chip crumbs, mmm, good! :)

Practice

2008-11-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

So here is an updated picture of the cousins. My camera battery was dying and Titus wanted his dinner so it turned out rather blurry.

Caleb and Charis both got to hold him which they greatly enjoyed. And it was good practice for them as they are going to need it!

That's right a new baby Terrizzi is on it's way and we all feel very blessed and excited. :)

Charis

2008-11-07T16:47:00.000-05:00

Charis got hiccups a few days a go and she came up and said, "Mommy, I've got cupcakes!"
Or something like that, right? I got a chuckle out of it. ;)

Our visit to the Maritime Museum

2008-11-03T19:29:00.000-05:00

About a month we were going to go to our Museum of Science and History. But when pulling into the parking lot and seeing 4 bus loads of school kids were there already we had second thoughts. So we decided to walk along the river for awhile and then I remembered this museum I had gone to probably 13 years ago. It is right on the river, it was free, and no one was there...very nice. :)

This older gentlemen reminded me so much of my grandfather that passed away last year. He used to be captain of a ship and was a very nice tour guide.

Wish this had turned out better but I was juggling Mercy in the other hand. They had really neat models everywhere.

Looking at some sort of fishing device with a crab. :)

This instrument is used to tell you if you are "level" in the water. If the ship was tossing to and fro it would show you the degree of which it was tilting.

The Titantic is near the wall in this pic.

Charis & Mercy loved stuff being down low where they could see. :)

This was really neat, it was lifting the same 30lb block with different block and tackle's. I believe the more tackle's you have running through the block makes the load easier to lift. Caleb could hardly get the first one off the ground.

The second one he did surprisingly well but on the third one he could do it with one hand. Neat!

Heave Ho!

Even Charis could do it. :)

A huge replica of an aircraft carrier.

Here we posed at a "helm".

Caleb grabbed hold of it and lifted Charis off the ground! It was rather humorous. :)

Anyhoo, we had a nice trip and this post has actually been sitting waiting for me to publish it for about a month now...I know...I haven't been very faithful to my blog lately, sorry! ;)

Just a verse

2008-10-22T16:25:00.004-04:00

"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

II Timothy 1:9

Praying for others

2008-10-15T14:53:00.004-04:00

The past week and a half have been SO hectic. So many things went "wrong", so many things were a headache to try and fix. So many things were scary, concerning etc and it can sometimes get you to where you just focus on yourself. Even in the midst of my own trials I can look at others and see how gracious and merciful God has been to me. And praying for others is probably one of the best things we can ever do! I have been following the story of this couple since right after their daughter was born. They are about my age so it kind of hits closer to home about what exactly they are facing in life right now. They just got some discouraging news yesterday so please go and read about them and pray for them for awhile...you may need a box of tissues.

Also the missionary family down in Mexico is experiencing some new trials. So if you would remember to lift up the Lockwood's as well.

Whenever we have days where we are pretty much flat on our back from all that's come our way, it puts us in a very good position as we are looking up...where we should be looking all the time. :)

My Baby Turned One

2008-10-13T16:19:00.006-04:00

We celebrated end of the year birthdays a week ago and my baby was one of them...she is now a whole year old...wow! I had saved these birthday hats from Charis' 1st birthday, Rush remembered from pictures what people had done with the hats then and he wanted to re-enact it. :)

Actually, several people modeled the hats. ;)

Part of the fam,

More of the fam, tradition says birthday people have to sit on the couch. :)

The 4 year old cheesy smile!!

The 35 year old's refusal to smile. ;)

Daddy showing off his new shirts.

Emily made him his all time favorite, a yellow box cake mix with milk chocolate canister icing. It even had chocolate chips as decoration just to show how ancient he is...oops...did I say that? :)

Aunt Michele had a birthday, she liked her Neiman Marcus lamp!

I got a new light fixture for my dining room...yay!

Rush will be turning 7 and he got this medieval lego set, Caleb told me they were scary people. :)

Mercy's turn, the BIG 1, she enjoyed opening gifts.

She had lots of helpers too. (Timothy is getting tickled to death by my Dad)

Oooh, a new cup. :)

I love my new baby doll and bath toys...

What am I supposed to be doing???

Here is one of the little lego men, I thought they were pretty cool looking.

Yummmm homemade peanut butter ice cream. :)

Modeling my new dress Aunt Emily made me and my new riding/walking toy from Gigi.

I like it!

Daddy modeling his new clothes. ;)

Me & Amelia :)

A typical day at my house

2008-10-07T15:46:00.001-04:00

This was a day at my house last week, it was quite typical of how life normally goes. :)

Here the baby saw that the cat had climbed under my sewing table so she decided to go after it and try and get the cat.

One night after dinner and devotions Charis promptly got down and picked up this exercise ball pump tube popped it in her mouth, plopped down on the floor and started wiggling on her belly.

That's right, she said she was scuba diving and she even found a shark's tooth they had previously dumped on the floor to boot!

Caleb had craft time, he loves inventing things. He said he made these teddy bears "masks" out of the tape. Charles and I about died laughing cause these poor bears looked like they were being held hostage by terrorists awaiting execution or something.

Well, thus ends my crazy post about life at my house which is pretty much crazy. ;)

Check this out...

2008-10-03T16:03:00.004-04:00

I have been following the blog of this family since about March, right before they had their 11th child. They are mid 30's, their oldest turns 12 on the 9th of this month and they are pregnant with #12 due the beginning of May! :) What a blessing and encouragement it is to read their blog! And on top of that they are missionaries to Mexico. Wow. :)

My purpose for this post, aside from sharing with everyone a place to go for edification, is to let you know about a ministry opportunity they are asking for people to participate in. They would like to see if anyone would like to put together a Christmas box for the children in their town. They will pass out the boxes they receive at Christmas and use it as a witnessing tool to spread the gospel. Jaynee, the wife, did post a few more specifics on the Christmas boxes here.

I went around the house and just gathered a few "practice" items to get an idea of what a box might weigh. It looked like roughly 1lb 4oz might be a good guess, then I went to USPS website and it shows that to mail a package of that weight to Mexico would roughly be $20 for International Priority which gets there in 6-10 business days or about $10 if you mailed it First Class Internationally. That is always the most economic way to mail things but it also takes the longest. So if that was the option of choice I would say to mail them within the next 2 weeks if choosing this method!

Anyhoo, even if you can't participate in the Christmas box ministry I know you'll enjoy reading this blog and who knows...some of you may already know them! :)

PS I've included some hyperlinks in this post to help you be able to check things out easier. I don't know why Blogger is keeping all the words the same color though. If you scroll over, "this family", "Christmas box", "here" & "Mexico" it will highlight the hyperlinks. Oh well, I've still got a lot to learn. ;)

Matching is Fun

2008-10-03T13:17:00.000-04:00

Matching outfits are always a lot of fun in my opinion. Ruth Ann made this little dress for Mercy and when I brought her to church that night to get a picture of Ruth Ann & Mercy together Ruth Ann had unintentionally come dressed coordinating. :)

This is Hope, she just turned 4 and we made her a birthday outfit. She and Charis love to match.

Hope-e and Charis, sweet little friends. :)

Amelia had a birthday back in May and we had made her a birthday dress, I had enough left over for Charis to have a little skirt. Charis is growing like a weed so we had to coordinate at church and get pics before she totally outgrew her skirt.

Charis & Mrs. "Cwane". :)

My sweet little girls wearing matching dresses at the Duggar/Keller wedding.

Precious Mercy...

...growing up so fast. :)

Charis with her Daddy, the composition of this pic is great Ruth Ann! Thank you for these pics from the wedding. :)

Goofy

2008-09-30T15:50:00.001-04:00

Now just what exactly would you say if you saw this coming towards you in your own house? :)

Hmmm, now there's something to think about! ;)

Building a Mailbox

2008-09-30T10:58:00.005-04:00

Long story about what happened to the old mailbox (no I didn't run it over!) but we needed a new one. I was originally going to do it by myself with Caleb as I had it "all in my head". We were going to use stuff from around the house etc. But I am sooooo grateful that Charles decided he wanted to build it with Caleb because it was broiling outside the days they worked on it. It just took a little bit to be able to get all the plans "out of my head" to where Charles could understand what I had in mind. It was all so clear to me, sometimes it hard to understand why guys can't make sense of what's going on in our lovely female brains! *grin*

So anyhoo, here are my diligent men...

...and no, my husband isn't Japanese (with the socks & flip flops) he just isn't into fashion. ;)

Mixing mortar and smiling for mommy. :)

Caleb was having a blast! Once I told him that we were going to build a mailbox he was asking me non-stop when we were going to begin.

It was HOT! He was so cute taking a drink.

And our munchkins modeling the final product. Family projects are fun!!!

The Hose

2008-09-29T15:49:00.000-04:00

Last week the kids had some fun with the hose again. I was sitting at the computer and was able to catch a few shots through the window. As you can see Caleb had to figure out how to unwrap himself from around the tree. :)

He was a good shot though once he got that straightened out and Charis was greatly enjoying it. :)

But then he caught sight of me and tried to soak me through the open window...yikes!!!

Charis had a turn spraying Caleb too, he was quick though, but he liked getting wet. But here he is being a typical brother trying to get her to look inside the hose which he has kinked...ahhh brotherly love. ;)

Early Riser

2008-09-19T09:45:00.002-04:00

Charis is normally my first one up for the day (actually Mercy still wakes up at 6 nurses and goes back to sleep) but this morning I was folding clothes on my bedroom floor and Charis decided she would pick out all the baby washcloths and fold them for me. :)

Folding diapers is C & C's normal job besides helping load the washer, cycle from washer to dryer and take out dry clothes. She was so cute when she asked me if she could do the washcloths and made sure I handed her every one. I didn't show her how and she did all the first ones correctly, then I think she got confused and she started folding them like prefold diapers...in thirds! :)

After she was done folding she said, "Take a picture Mommy, it looks like a mountain!" :)

Such a sweet little helper. Oh, and I don't know what happened to her head, she didn't come crying to me about it but it appeared after she had played outside with her brother. And yes, as you can tell, my bedroom still does not have baseboards... ;)

Little Miss Curly

2008-09-16T16:07:00.001-04:00

The masking tape was to do "surgery" on a china doll that had a broken leg. ;) I pulled out the camera to snap of few pics of her hair...when she's fresh out of the bath tub it's just sooo perfectly curly! Well, she decided to peek at me. :)

My baby who had no hair...

...now such pretty little boingy (is that a word!) curls. :)

And therefore she is Little Miss Curly. :)

But like I said, it looks the best right after a bath. After life and stuff it gets a bit more fuzzified like her Mommy, therefore Daddy calls her...Fuzzalina von Curlytop. ;)

My Sweet Husband

2008-09-12T16:04:00.006-04:00

My sweet husband just bought me a new computer for in the house. This way when no one is in the office and he needs me to do something I can actually do it from the house instead of running back to the office to do it on the faster computers!

The catch is: when it arrived yesterday he excitedly unplugged my old one and installed the new one pronto. Well, until I can transfer all my files and pictures off the old computer or upload some new pics from my camera this blog is going to be pretty dull. ;)
Or maybe I should say duller since I'm so bad at updating! :)

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

A Smile to Brighten Your Day...

2008-09-06T11:06:00.003-04:00

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday I turned 11 months old! Mommy can hardly believe it. I am now the proud owner of 4 pearly whites and I am an expert radio wooden horse rider. I can mount and dismount all by myself and go 90 to nothing on the hardwood floor. WHEEEEEEEEEEE I love it! I am always saying & waving "hi" & "bye" to everyone and I love saying "Dadda"! Instead of trying to say "Momma" I have decided to try "more" as my next word. ;) And since everyone has been telling me that my brother & sister walked during their 11th month I have decided to venture 1-2 shaky steps. I'm still not convinced since I can crawl anywhere lickety split. The status of that opinion may have to be updated in my 1st Birthday post. :) Well, I hope all of my faithful blog readers are having a lovely weekend! I know y'all probably stop by here often just to see pictures of me. *grin*

Love ~ Mercy

Living in Florida

2008-09-03T11:12:00.006-04:00

I've grown up living in Florida, I know it's hot and has lots of bugs, hurricanes etc. (which other places evidently don't have) but I love it anyway.

With Tropical Storm Fay a little while ago we enjoyed/endured many hours without electricity. One day it was out from 2pm-10pm! Charles has a small generator from when he did new construction and so he plugged it in when the power still hadn't come back on so we could plug in the refrigerator and a crockpot to heat up some canned soup. We had dinner by the light of an oil lamp.

Old Jedidiah Terrizzi

I think having no electricity can make you act a little crazy! ;)

Who says plastic spoons can't be fun? :)

It fell off before Charles could take the picture...

After we unplugged the crock pot Charles plugged in the tv and the kids watched the animated version of Ben Hur. We knew it was a bit risky to plug electronics into a generator but we figured our tv was already on it's last leg anyhoo and it was something fun to do in the dark with no air conditioning!

Thankfully, it looks like Hurricane Hanna might pass us by but the weather men really don't anything so we'll just have to wait, watch and be ready!

Playin' in the Rain

2008-08-20T20:33:00.007-04:00

So it's summer in Florida and we've had our fair share of thunderstorms and just rainstorms as well. In the wake of this tropical storm it made me remember to go and pull out these photos from a couple weeks ago. :)

It was a hot muggy day and C & C were playing outside, Caleb comes in and requests that I come outside and spray him and his sister down with the hose (all of our sprinklers are broken! how does that always seem to happen?). Anyways I told him I'd be out shortly. So, not long afterward I take Mercy outside and we get to work. After a short 5 minutes the clouds have rolled in and it starts drizzling. And then it started pouring! The children had actually already had their umbrellas out to shield themselves from Mommy spraying them with the hose and since there wasn't any thunder and lightening I let them know that God had taken over for mommy and they could play in the rain. Boy were they ever excited about that! :)

"I'm singin' in the rain, just singin' in the rain, what a wonderful feelin' I'm happy again!" Oops! Did I just say that? heehee ;)

Caleb was doing some funny jigs...he was having a ball!

Ready or not...

...here I go!

Charis was having a blast as well but occasionally she got this look on her face of, "You know what? I think I'm really wet!"

I just loved the sopping, drenched hair-do. ;)

One very happy little boy. :)

And Mercy and I enjoyed watching and taking pictures from the cover of the front porch, although the memories of running around in the rain as a kid almost drew me out there. It was just a little too much for the baby. ;)

Some faces I see...

2008-08-19T18:49:00.000-04:00

No, really, I wasn't in the refrigerator. :)

Who you calling monkey girl?!

Not quite sure what caption to put with this...he was thrilled to find these in a bunch of stuff I was cleaning. ;)
Some days I feel as though this is what I look like!

How old IS Daddy?

2008-08-16T12:59:00.007-04:00

Caleb was looking through my wallet last night and examining some of the bills. (I know, amazing I actually had some cash ;) )
I was in the kitchen doing dishes and looked over into the living room when I heard Caleb ask his daddy if he knew George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Charles just replied, "Well, I know of them but I never knew them." You had to be there to get the full effect but it sure was funny! ;)

The Other Day...

2008-08-14T12:06:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the absence. :) With the help of my sisters I have been going through all of our clothes storage bins and reorganizing and scaling down what we have. Big job, haven't turned on the computer for days!! Anyway...the other day while C & C were playing on the front porch I grabbed Mercy and the camera and headed to the front yard. Mercy hair is starting to flip on the sides, it doesn't do it everyday and not always on both sides. I had been trying to get a picture of it where it showed up really well but had not been successful...until this picture! I was so excited to get it. :)

She turned 10 months last week which is so hard to believe! Only 2 months more and she will be 1 Lordwilling. She loves to stand up and scoot around the furniture.

I sat her in the chair...

but she was more interested in talking to the dog who was out on her tether. :)

She absolutely loves Charlotte and Honey (who is our cat) and gets super excited every time she sees them. She starts squealing and clapping her hands. And when the cat is in the kitchen eating she likes to crawl up behind her and grab her! Honey has now learned to exit when she sees Mercy coming since she isn't the fondest of having her tail pulled. ;)

Still trying to get that grass though...

"I've had enough pictures! I'm outta here." :)

"Heehee, I'm cute!"

"You can't catch me!"

"Hmmm...how do you stand up?"

Sweet baby girl. Now every time she hears the door open at our house she starts saying, "Dadda! Dadda!" and crawls off looking for him. :)

Pig Tails

2008-08-01T21:24:00.002-04:00

Now don't get me wrong here, each of my babies have been a blessing and such a joy. God made them each so special, an individual and different in their own little ways. But coming from a family where bald babies are the norm it was an especially fun and unexpected treat for God to send us a baby that had hair this time. :)

I have been enjoying it and a few days ago actually put it up in pig tails!

Granted it wasn't all her hair up but it sure was fun.

And it gave me quite a chuckle to watch her trying to figure out where I had put the pony tails and bows. She is used to the one I normally put up top and has gotten in the habit of trying to pull it out. So when she realized she had something in her hair she reached up to pull it out and got this puzzled look on her face when it wasn't "there". It just made you grin. ;)

Blueberry Picking

2008-08-01T10:59:00.000-04:00

It has already been a month since we went blueberry picking. Time really does fly by! Charis had to be watched closely so that she wouldn't deplete our supply as fast as we were picking them. :)

Rosie doesn't like blueberries at all, not fresh, frozen or baked in anything. Without this motivation of yummy foods to eat later on really has an effect on your picking abilities. ;) But this turned out to be a blessing as she fed Mercy some yogurt and kept her occupied while everyone else picked. She found a tiny little grasshopper while she was sitting in the grass.

He was trying to convince me that he really was picking more than he was eating...

which he was a very motivated picker...

but they were caught red-handed! :)

We had a good time working together.

Aunt Dee was there picking too...

Aunt Margaret was a busy bee.

Aunt Cee kept us moving.

Mercy tried a blueberry...

not bad! :)

That evening they got to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Since mom wanted blueberries too we picked for about 2- 2½ hours and came up with a grand total of 37 pounds. I think Caleb ate so many while we were picking and later at night that he probably ingested a pound of berries himself! :)

For Papa

2008-07-31T20:44:00.000-04:00

So Daddy, here is a joke for you...I'm sure you are the only one who will get it. ;)

No Pictures...

2008-07-30T15:31:00.003-04:00

Blogger isn't cooperating today and so I can't post any new pics. :(

So I figured I would pull out my little notepad that I try to scribble down cute things the children say and share a few. :)

Awhile back Caleb announced at the dinner table that he was going to get married...to Charis! Not too surprising, I know, since most children think that at one time or another but it is still cute when you explain to them that they can't and then they ask you who are they going to marry?! And then Caleb ended it off saying he was going pray for a wife. ;)

Our midwife has been a family friend for many years and is more than just a midwife. Each month she has a little meeting for moms. I hadn't been in awhile but I went recently. C & C are both aware of who "Mrs. Sharon" is and what her vocation is in life. Charis saw me leaving she asked me where I was going. When I told her that I was going to see Mrs. Sharon she said, "Ooooh!! And will you bring back a boy baby?!" (Something they have been starting to ask for. ;) I tell them they have to pray and ask God for one. )

Caleb saw a bird on the ground and informed me that, "That bird has a beak on it's nose and it just beaked the ground." :)

Lately as we are out walking or driving if Charis catches sight of a VW bug she says, "Oh Mommy! That's a pretty car." or "I like that car!" :) I had told Charles this and he replied with his mechanical thinking process of how that is the worst car for breaking down, having problems, etc... So now every time Caleb hears Charis say that he kindly informs her that she shouldn't like that car cause it breaks. :)

Caleb got a bug catcher a little while ago and has been having a great time. It came with a little pair of orange plastic tweezers which he misplaced one day. He came and asked me if I knew where his "pinchers" were. I was like, "Oh, you want your tweezers." He replied, "No Mommy, I want my pinchers. Tweezers are for getting hair out of your ears." Ha! Guess he's seen mommy at work on daddy one too many times... :)

During devotions we will do catechisms sometimes with the children. When we were working on "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Charis made her answer into a concise and emphatic, "No god!" So now, almost every day whether we are doing catechism or not. If Charles even looks at her during devotion she thinks he is asking her a question and says, "No god!" You really have to be there to get the full effect. :)

Before we got the truck painted and lettered Charles got a sample of paint and did a trial run on a old truck door we had. Caleb was with him and helped him as he printed out the logo and stuff and put it on the door to see if we liked it. Well, after we got the truck painted and it was at the shop getting lettered Caleb wanted to know where it was at. I explained to him that now that it was painted we were getting it lettered. He was kind of upset about it being gone and told me that he and daddy could just glue the letters on themselves like they did on the door!

I hope everyone is doing well, I gotta run and get dinner before church tonight!

I'm 3

2008-07-20T00:23:00.001-04:00

We were getting ready to go blueberry picking in June and it's already 80 something degrees outside at 7:30 in the morning and Charis goes and puts a jacket on, gets her glasses and wants you to take a picture of her...you just had to smile. :)

She just loves her kitty cat Honey and tries to carry her as often as she doesn't run away from her!

I had a coupon for $20 worth of free stuff at TCP and Charis was in need of jammies so I used it to get some for her. When we got home she realized that it had a hair scrunchie with it. She said, "Oh!! For my hair?!" I told her, "Yes, it's for you." Then she said, "Now I'll be a mommy!" I wear them all the time but she obviously has never worn one since she really doesn't have enough hair. :) So it's been cute seeing her going around with her hair pulled up in a scrunchie being a "mommy". ;)

And her Daddy thought she was funny and told me to take a picture...anyone else's children ever act like this?! :)

Charlotte

2008-07-20T00:01:00.001-04:00

My husband mentioned the other day that I hadn't posted pictures of his beloved mastiff recently. So here are a few...he loves it when she stretches out like this. :)

As you can see...she has grown...

she only gets to sit in her Daddy's lap on rare occasions...

And if I ever sit down on the floor, as I was while putting together my new school cabinet, she thinks I'm down there to pay attention to her and so she came over and laid in my lap trying to get some petting. :)

Oh, and don't let her step on your foot...it hurts! ;)

Old Pics

2008-07-19T22:59:00.003-04:00

The Sunday after July 4th we all dressed patriotic for church. After the evening service I tried to grab a shot of the children together. They were not cooperative!

I wasn't able to get one shot where they were all looking. :)

At me at least, although Caleb was doing a pretty good job even while he was holding on to Mercy who was trying so hard to get down. :)

Charis has been enjoying getting good use out of her umbrella, especially on Sunday afternoons when it's been pouring.

Mercy was much happier when we got home from church. She is so happy with herself that she can crawl over to furniture and pull up. Once she's up she does this happy, bouncy jig thing and wants to let go. Agh!