thankful

Tomorrow we are heading out to be with family for Thanksgiving.  We have so many things to be thankful for. Thankful for God's love and provision in meeting every one of our needs, and growing and forming us on a regular (sometimes on an hourly) basis.  Thankful for the gift to fall more and more in love with my spouse with each passing day.  Thankful for our health,  our community and the ability to see Jesus in the ordinary.   Thankful for these babies that have changed our lives in such incredibly beautiful ways... Our hearts are so full!

We hope that you and your loved ones have a very Happy Thanksgiving! 

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Thanksgiving with friends

This past saturday night we had an early thanksgiving raclette party at our fiends house in San Clemente.  We were 8 adults and 10 kids so our friends decked out their garage to accommodate all of us for sit down meal.

The girls:

(Mae Joy Thrash to join us in early December!)

 We can't get a picture of Eden that she doesn't want to say cheese, the little ham, so these are very common photos at our house:

 The best shot we could get of all 11 kiddos:

 This gives a new definition to "kids table":

Jack, Hank, and Rdyer:

It was a wonderful evening of connecting and sharing life together!

We love this group. 12 adults, 11 kiddos with more coming and over 15 years of deep, intentional friendships.  We are thankful indeed♥...

rainy days

This is what it's been like here:

 So here is what we have been up to:

 Yep, that would be reading Fancy Nancy and building Lego guns.

(I bet you can guess who is doing what...♥)

I have just been trying to keep these kiddos occupied and happy!

The thing that has been our favorite indoor activity over the last few days has been creating games and races for our cars:

 We made obstacle courses and made "targets" for the cars to drive through.

 Even Eden was very into it.  I was thankful that something so simple could occupy us for over 2 hours!

We have  a full weekend of celebrating an early thanksgiving with our close friends from college and ALL of our kiddos.   We are excited to be together!  I hope you have a great weekend!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ps:  Have you had these?

 Man, I love these things!

Plus, Kit was SUPER excited that this is being sold in stores:

I love this guy

(I think my brother-in-law tommy would shutter just LOOKING at this photo...

creating: updates for Eden Marie's room part 2

We have been having some fun making some much needed updates to Eden's room. Here is another part of the transformation.  I found this vintage dresser on Craig's List and I fell in love with it:

It's a rough initial picture but the price was right, it was in good condition for a few updates, the drawers are cedar lined and it has the most perfect vintage glass nobs, which was what I wanted.

Plus the top drawer had these sweet dividers:

So this little dresser was sanded, primed and painted to match the book shelf.  Can I just say that projects like this, when you have little people that REALLY want to "help" make it such challenge.  I am realizing why I haven't done a painting project in awhile.

 Ryder insisted on watching me apply the spray primer, so he had to wear my paint mask:

We had decided that we were going to replace it for where the changing table armoire was.  Little Miss has gotten too long for it and it really only has two functional, daily use drawers.  We are storing some random items underneath, so we decided to move those things into her closet and get more drawers for her clothes and toy storage.  So in reality, we went from two small drawers to five.
To make the room feel a little bit bigger, we found this framed mirror that we painted the same yellow as the frames on her wall.
(How crazy is it that it was yellow?  It was meant to be♥.)

So the room went from this (before):

To this(after):

 

We are so pleased how it all came out.  The room feels fresh and clean, and it really feels bigger!  And the storage has been AMAZING!  We can't believe how fast our baby is growing up...

creating: clothespin snowflakes

Pinterest does it again!

I found this idea a few weeks ago and decided to make some for our tree this year.

They were so simple and easy to do!

(It takes 8 clothespins for one snowflake)

 I'm still not sure if I am going to leave them raw wood, or if I will spray paint them.  I can't wait to see how they go with the felt bow garland!

 They are also surprisingly sturdy too.  

Because it was all about using the hot glue GUN, Ryder wanted to help by handing me pieces to glue, but was sad that he couldn't do more.

I'm so excited to put them on our tree this year!

Time with Mia

We can't get enough of our Mia...

She came out yesterday on the train and we just had a great day of being together!
Reviewing the train schedule and map:

Legos: 

 A trip to Ikea:

 Snuggles:

We love you Mom!
Thank you so much for a WONDERFUL day!

creating: room changes for Eden Marie part 1

 We are slowly making some changes to the Little Lady's room for the transition from a nursery to a little girl's room.  It all started with needing some storage, which led to finding a dresser on Craig's list, to painting some of the existing furniture so that everything went together.  Here is the first part of the transformation which was definitely the easiest:

Her nursery before:

 After a little paint:

It's coming together even better than we thought it would.  When I had finished it and brought it into her room, Ryder came in, stood back, and said "Mom! It's beautiful in here for Baby!"  My sweet little affirmer♥.

I can't wait to show you the other part of the room