Graduation Day!

I cried...what a sap!

What's it going to be like when he graduates from High School! :( I think I'll keep him home with me forever!

A "Thank You" for our Teachers

Friday is the last day of school here for 4 of our 5 boys...one was lucky enough to get out last week.

I've been trying to decide what to get for the little boys' teachers as end-of-year gifts...both of them have had AMAZING teachers, paras and speech pathologist this year. We are so lucky and very greatful that they were able to get into the Early Childhood Education program that they were in this year and I really wanted to show our appreciation to them.

But I'm still undecided on what to give them!

I did decide that I would take a picture of the boys holding up a 'Thank You' sign to add to a card for each teacher. Individual ones of them for their teachers (since they have different ones) and one of them together for their van drivers...Miss Sue and "Miss" Cliff. :) A little thank you to them for getting the boys to and from school safe each day.

This is the picture for their drivers:

Tomorrow after noon Christian will 'graduate' from preschool! :) He's very excited and we get to go to his class tomorrow morning for his graduation...and then next year he's off to Kindergarten...I can hardly believe it!

Noah will get to spend one more year in his preschool, and he'll even have the same teacher and most of the same students. He will really enjoy that and I love that he is able to stay with the same group of teachers and students for one more year. I know he will really benefit from that and hopefully it will help us make a decision on whether or not he will be ready to start Kindergarten the following year. With a September Birthday it has been hard to deside if he should start that fall while still 4 yrs old. Here he would be considered 'school aged' and would not be able to return to his current preschool...we'd have to move him to another one for a year until he went to Kindergarten..and I'm not sure I like that idea. With the HUGE improvement he's made in his speech and comprehension this past year, I think he'll be ready next fall for Kindergarten after another year at his preschool and we don't want to hold him back because of his age...he'll be 5 within a month of starting school and if the teachers give the go ahead, he'll be right behind Christian in school. I'm excited for them to be together again already!

Tees Please

May I bring your attention to the new 'button' on the right of my page?

Wild Olive Tees.

These lovely ladies visited The Ranch a few months back and that's where I first heard of them and their T-shirt website and I've been really wanting to buy something from them. I think they've found a unique way of speading the word, so to speak. To put in on clothing? That gets my attention.

The second time I ran across them was just this morning. They have teamed up with McMama to design a new shirt with her to raise money for a charity called Until Journey's End. The t-shirt is really cute, the saying on back even better. I've been trying to decide for awhile which one I might like to buy..but I'm thinking this new design is the winner.


“He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
- Philippians 1:6

Almost Famous

Remember my picture I posted and submitted for Stellan's Name Gallery? Well, another blog friend of McMama's name Carrie created a book using some of the photos that were submitted by other readers, and my picture was used for the title page! :) I'm a little bit excited about that! ;)

As Promised...After Pics

Finally...Here are some of the 'after' photos of the livingroom. Some pics the room still looks a bit green...some tan. I still think in person it looks very much the color of the first picture.

I broke down and bought the pillow from Wal-Mart...I like it sooo much, and for $12 I couldn't pass it up...now I just spend all day telling kids not to touch it with their grubby little hands. :)

While I was there, I also decided to try out some black canvas curtains to see how they looked, and I think they are a great addition to the room. $15 for two 84 x 118 panels. Not bad. I did have to send the husband back for another set though...2 were just not long enough for the window, so we needed four. This caused a bit of a problem because I wasn't able to just pull them to the side like our other curtains were before. So I decided to do this:

Don't mind the random toys, sippy cups and books on the floor....Other than those things, I think it turned out looking very classy. I bought a $3.99 roll of fabricy ribbon at Hobby Lobby, 50% off, and used that to tie the curtains together. It's Toile if you can't tell. Probably should have gotten a closer picture. Oh Well.

Also, C & N got new beds....Lord help me.

Yes, my child is sucking his toe in that picture..not sure what that's all about. :) Thanks to my friend Mandy for letting me know about a girl selling these babies on Craigslist! They are perfect! And she was only asking $150 for them! We paid an extra $50 for the mattresses...which I was a bit weird about buying used mattresses from someone, but come to find out they had only been slept on a few times. The beds were bought for the ladies step-daughters who moved way with their mom shortly after they were purchased and now this lady and her husband are also moving away and didn't want to have to bring these with. They were a steal! And the boys love them!

I had originally wanted to keep the beds unbunked...didn't think the boys were ready for bunks..but of course the room is way too small to fit both beds apart, so we had to bunk them up. That required a little bit of rearranging....God forbid one of them can't see the TV in the room....and also required the removal of the blades of the ceiling fan. :) Didn't want to even chance that!

C was a bit nervous I think to sleep on top...kept getting down after we put them to bed, but finally fell asleep and that was that. I'm just nervous for the first time he wakes up in the middle of the night and forgets he's up high. :( Hopefully that doesn't happen!

Praying for Stellan

I'm praying for Stellan! If you haven't come across MckMama's blog, you can read about her baby Stellan and their story here.

One of her readers started up a Stellan Name Gallery back when Stellan was still in womb and struggling with his heart condition...they've started it back up again as a way to show support for MckMama and Stellan as they are going through a difficult time again.

Here is my Name I created for Stellan! And here is a link to the rest of the name gallery entries:

Home Improvements

I hope to have some pics up tonight to show you, but we have been busy doing some 'minor' home improvements the past two weeks. Mostly involving paint!

Let me tell ya, a new paint color on the walls makes a world of difference.

We decided to paint our upstairs this color:

Sherwin Williams - Avenue Tan.

but don't let the word "TAN" fool you...After it was all said and done I had a bit of a panic attack because the color looked a whole lot less tan and a whole lot more like this:

Sherwin Williams - Downing Stone

GREEN! :( But I should have known...the small swatch I painted on our bedroom wall did look a bit too green to me, and I should have went with my gut and looked for something that looked more tan, but I didn't...I decided to go with the flow. And I instantly hated it once the entire upstairs living area was done but I think that mostly had to do with the fact that it didn't seem to go as well with our couch and curtain colors as I had hoped.

Our upstairs formerly was yellow...and so I had alot of red and yellow in the room...pillows on the olive colored couches..red curtains with yellow and olive colored flowers..

Here's a few pictures I could find that show the before color of the walls...I have the photos back up on the wall too..so I will show those as well with the new wall color ASAP!





Here's a pic that sorta shows the couch color with the pillows...don't mind my goofy looking kids in the pic!

Here's the curtains we currently have:

Not the best picture, but they looked GREAT with the yellow walls...but now that the walls are 'green', I'm not so sure.

So here's what I'm thinking...and let me know what your thoughts are as well:

- Live with the 'green' wall color (its actually starting to grow on me)

- Stick with the 'green' couch/chair (don't really have a choice there)

- Keep the red throw pillows

- Replace the yellow patterned throw pillow with these:

Saw these pillows at Wal-Mart and I'm in love with them! We have the B&W picture wall right behind the couch just like in the picture above...I think these will go well in the room because of all the black/white accents. What do you think?

I could probably get maybe a good week or two out of them before they have chocolate or kool-aid stains on them...but I think they are worth it!

Now what to do with the curtains. I still really like them...just don't know how well they go now. Should I try to find some solid red ones? Or black?

I'll try and get the new room pictures uploaded tonight and then you can see the room as is and then help me decide! I don't have the B&W pillows yet, but I'm thinking they would be a good addition!

Oh yeah! We also bought the bed set I blogged about here! LOVE IT!!!!! It actually looks half way decent with ugly green carpet too! I'll post some pics of that as well! The bedroom is next on the list for a new paint job. Here is the color we picked for that!

Sherwin Williams - Sticks & Stones

I think that room is going to look super sharp when all is said and done! I'm so excited about it!