Sharing

**I accidentally deleted this post from 5/17/13, but was able to retrieve and repost it**


IMG_8584, a photo by RachSal on Flickr.


So a few weeks ago we moved Elizabeth and all her stuff into Jason's room.  It is a huge bedroom and thankfully even with all of their toys everything fits in there!  It used to be Jason's train themed room, but we are going with a more gender neutral star theme with some trains thrown in.


 

My biggest concern with all this was how would the kids do sleeping together and honestly they have taken it pretty well.  They do sometimes keep each other up later than we would like, but most of the time they are respectful and quiet when the other one is sleeping.  It was a huge change for Elizabeth because this was also her transition to a big girl bed.  When I put them to bed each night after stories and prayer and as I'm turning off the lights I normally tell them, "go to sleep, no chitter chatter."   Lately Elizabeth has been reminding me as she is going to sleep saying to me "no chitter chatter" in her sweet little girl way.  It doesn't mean she actually follows through, but she tries to be good.  They do seem to both like having a buddy near by at night and I think it has helped Elizabeth not be such a light sleeper.


So what's happening with Elizabeth's old room you might ask:  We are actually turning it into a craft room for me and guest room when needed.  Originally I think Jeff was planning on me doing scrapbooking in there and I probably will, but I recently got the urge to get out my Mother in law's old Singer and try sewing again.  I have tried a couple of times and never go very far before I got frustrated and gave up.  For some reason most things worked this time (there was still a little operator error) and my first project was this simple skirt.  Then I couldn't find the right containers to put Jason's quiet boxes and the light dawned that I could make bags, and I did!  I am using every project as a learning experience.  I am really keeping it very simple for right now and maybe one day I'll be able to do the more complicated things.

my very simple skirt


Jason with the plate he made me for Mother's day


The whole family on Mother's day

We have a lot of fun things planned for this summer and I will, as always, try to keep the blog updated with them!

Start of Summer

I'm sorry it has been a while since I have written.  It isn't that we haven't been doing anything to write about, I just haven't felt that inspired.  We have been keeping busy though, first Jason had his last day of preschool.  They had a graduation for the older kids in the class going off to Kindergarten and it even made me tear up a bit with how much quickly he is growing up.  Here was his first day of school and here he is after the last one:





For Memorial day weekend we headed way down to South Padre Island to play on the beach and we surprised the kids by going to Schlitterbahn water park there.  The kids had a blast, but we didn't get many photos.  I blame the lack of photos for part of the reason I don't feel as compelled to write the stories behind the photos. While we were at the beach we also went on a pirate ship and Jeff and I took a sandcastle building class.

 

Since we have returned I have been making a real effort to be engaged as a mom.  I admit that I had been phoning it in a bit the last month of so, but I have vowed for the kids to have a fun summer.  To accomplish that I made a schedule for our days and a pinterest inspired summer bucket list. 

 

We have been playing hide and seek

reading

sitting in boxes

hauling dirt

building rocket ships

flying rocket ships

and reading to little sister.

 

At the end of May Jeff and I celebrated our 8 year wedding anniversary.  I was so surprised when I found this gift waiting for me!  He got me a beautiful Coach purse!  I don't think I matched him with just a new grill, but I also cleaned his truck. We are looking forward to many more anniversaries to come.

 



 

We are looking forward to fun and visits this summer so keep checking back!

Happy Mother's Day!

In celebration of Mother's day I was looking through photos of my mom and I and realized I don't have many at all!  We will have to work on that the next time we see each other!  Here are the few I do have, one from my wedding


One from late 2008 when I was pregnant with Jason


And a throw back one from when she was the age I am now and pregnant with my little brother.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms and in particular my wonderful Mother!

Camping and training

On Thursday night we told the kids we were going camping this weekend and they were STOKED!  Jason was especially excited and stayed up an hour past bedtime talking about going camping, he could not wait!  Jeff was supposed to be home around noon and it was especially hard for Jason to wait until he got home around 3:30 and we finally got on the road.  We went to Mission Tejas State Park, the site of the first mission in Texas and set up the camper.  That evening we cooked steaks over the campfire and had s'mores, Elizabeth's first time and she was a fan!  The park had a few really neat buildings we checked out the next morning.  After that we took the kids on adventure: we went to Rusk to ride Texas State Railroad and to say that the kids were excited is an understatement!

We got to explore the engine

This is one excited little boy

Little engineers!


A family photo on the train thanks to the conductor

The kids with Daddy, who knows why Elizabeth was yelling

That afternoon after a bit of a nap we took the kids to play at the playground at the camp site




The kids loved going camping and we had some beautiful weather for it this weekend.  It was a bit cold so we were happy that our camper has a heater, but I'm so happy we got to go before it was too hot.

Composition

For Christmas my wonderful sister in law, Michelle, gave me a group on for an online photo class from Flying Photo School and I finally got a chance to redeem it for this month.  After much consideration I decided to take the Creative Composition class to make my photos more dynamic and interesting.  I have been learning lots about:

Leading lines


Rule of thirds




Framing:


Silhouettes:


Reflection:


Macro:


And quite a few other concepts.  I was a little disappointed that week 4 ended up being mostly review, but I did get the tip to use a telephoto lens to get good photos of them without stopping the action.  I would like to take more online photography classes so if you have heard of any good ones I would love to hear about it.

Cast removal

I have to apologize, it seems that every time the kids have surgeries I stop writing in the blog almost completely.  I'm afraid it is mostly because we tend to lay low during the three weeks the kids have casts on and don't do much.  Yesterday the kids had their casts removed and we can do fun things again!  Jason was excited, but nervous going into the hospital to get his cast off.  He kept asking if it was going to hurt and if he was going to have a scab.  It didn't hurt and he didn't even have much of a scab.  I had forgotten that the Doctor had put a pin in his finger to try to straighten it out during his surgery.  When Jason found it he tried to pull it out himself and had to be restrained until a nurse was available to take it out for him.  Unfortunately, Jason inherited his mother's tendency to pick and has happily made it his hobby to pick the dry old skin off his hand and arm.  I just hope he doesn't make it raw.

Elizabeth was much more easy going and let us take off her cast without too much angst.  She had a much more extensive surgery and had much more scabbing than Jason.  She is very willing to show everyone her fingers though.  She even gave a high five with her new fingers to one of the nurses.  She certainly has her own little issues though, we had to go through a couple of hard nights when we told her she didn't need any more medicine.  I think she likes the taste and asks for it even when she isn't hurting.  Both kids have been tentative to use their new hands, but from past experience that is normal and will wear off in a few days.  Hopefully I will have some more interesting things to post in the next few weeks.

In other news I have been taking an online photography class (more on that towards the end of the month) and sometimes I take photos that don't show the principle we are working on, but I love none the less.  I figured I would share some of those with you guys.

Birthday and Easter

IMG_8010, a photo by RachSal on Flickr
My we had a busy week!  Here is a photo recap of Elizabeth's birthday and Easter, ready go!