Feb 23 to present - Construction on the front room

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Day 4

Day 5

Construction has begun! Matt tore down the wall between our front room and living room and is building a built-in entertainment center and a pantry. Then he divided the front room and is putting in a bedroom. It will be for Jileigh for now until baby #7 is older and will go into the present girls room and Angelique will go in with Jileigh. Then he is also extending the laundry out and building a loft above it. After all that is finished, he will turn the present pantry which is in Jileigh's new room into a bathroom. So in the end we will have 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and still have a front room.

Feb 19 - Mar 6 Jileigh's Science Fair Project

Jileigh decided for her science fair project that she would try different liquids to water some cabbage plants. She used Hawaiian punch, pineapple juice, tomato juice, and water. She and I both predicted that the juices and punch would kill off the plants, but they didn't. In fact, the one fed the juices look better than the ones that received just water. She had to hand in her pictures today in her science class.

Feb 20- 21 - Yard cleaning

I have spent the last month nesting. I was able to get all the bedrooms cleaned along with the rest of the house and maintain it for about 4 weeks and have loved it. So this weekend I took all the kids outside and cleaned up the front yard on Friday. Then on Saturday we filled in pot hole on our driveway. The kids insisted on leave a little pond and wouldn't help unless I agreed. So we compromised. Then we went into the backyard and stacked the wood and stacked the weeds and stacked the bark from cutting wood. It just looked a lot better that it was. Then Matt took the kids to Wendy's to get burgers and frosty's. I usually don't let them get the frosty's, but they worked really hard that weekend.

Beauchene was really cute how he had to insist on helping with every chore. He picked up rocks and pushed the wagon.

The kids made a swing and Talon was pushing Beau in it and having fun.

Feb 11 - Blue and Gold Banquet

Feb 2 was Talon's Blue and Gold Banquet. The theme was America so Matt and Talon put together a flag cake. They had a nice dinner with sloppy joes, green salad and potato salad.

They had some balloons there and one of the kids tied a balloon to Beau's button hole. It was cute.

Safia's 4th birthday!

Today Safia turned 4! I worked my buns off cleaning my house to get ready for our group family Family Home Evening. Our intent was to have dinner at 6pm and have everyone over at 7pm. Unfortunately, the ignitor plate in my oven cracked and I wasn't able to cook my dinner in my oven. I had to run it over to my visiting teacher's house. We ended up starting dinner at 7pm. Just before dinner I caught Safia and Beauchene in my linen closet. They had unloaded 3 full shelves of bath and hand towels, sheets, and blankets. It all got shoved into my bedroom and we went on with our evening. Nate and Candy didn't show up until about 7:15 and then Amanda and Jake didn't get there until about 7:25 as we were cleaning up from dinner. So, we had our FHE, then we sang Happy Birthday, then at our banana nut muffins with chocolate chips (yum!) and then Safia opened her present. It turned out to be a fun evening. After everyone left, Matt and I put the kids to bed and cleaned up another one of Safia's infamous messes. We finished just in time to watch the season premiere of "Medium." That's one of our favorites. (Side note: Matt was able to find a replacement part online to fix my oven.)

Ultrasound results - It's a Girl!!!

To our great delight, we are having a GIRL! Today was my ultrasound. My doctor does his own and his office is kiddie-corner to where Matt works, so I was able to pick him up and we could go together to my appointment. The doctor says everything looks good and normal. My projected due date is June 14th. He was a little concerned about my weight gain of 29 lbs already, but I told him that I just have to eat every 2 hours or my stomach aches with hunger and that I only eat good food.

Pictures have been removed. Sorry!

And she strikes again!

Reporting Safia's weekly disasters:

One night this week while I was making dinner, Safia found my only bottle of fingernail polish and hid in the bathroom with it. She proceeded to paint her own fingers and fingernails, toes and toenails. She also managed to drizzle it in my bathtub and on the bathroom floor. She tried to clean up the floor with toilet paper, but pretty much just smeared it around.

Then we discovered that she had been in the boys' closet again and dumped the clothes off the shelves. A couple of days later I finally took the time to clean it up, just to have her knock them down again yesterday.

Today, I was in a hurry to head to town for my ultrasound. As usual, Safia was being non-compliant. I needed her to eat her breakfast and get dressed so that we could go. Instead, she went outside to get a cat, Niki. She brought her in and set her on my clean laundry. I told her to take that cat back out and get ready! So then she took the cat and hid in the toy closet. She stuck the cat up high on one of my food storage shelves and the cat ended up knocking down a bottle of soy sauce. I ran to the toy closet and saw what had happened. Niki went back outside and Safia was sat down to her breakfast. Fortunately, she then complied and did as she was told. She knew I was mad.

This afternoon after we got home, I was posting my sonograms when Jaren came running to me telling me that Safia was peeing in a tire in the house! Apparently, she wheeled in one of the sand paddle tires for the 4-wheeler and decided that it would make a good toilet. What am I going to do with this child?!!!

Blog slump

I have been in a blog slump for the past 2 months, so I finally spent the day today getting caught up. I posted 15 new posts. Good for me! :-) (If you want to access all of them, you'll have to click on "older posts" at the bottom of the page.

Safia went from Beast to Tyrant

This time Safia hit a nerve with Matt. There was a bucket of ashes out in the garage that we forgot about. Safia found it. She proceeded to stuff all of Matt's tool bags with ashes. It was amazing how far she was able to make one little bucket of ashes go!!

Beauchene's love for animals

My little beau loves our animals. Some pictures are just too cute not to post. I can't help but laugh everytime I see these pictures. In the top left picture I told him to say "cheese", so he did - and tried to help the poor kitty say cheese too!

Kid fun and New Year's Eve

Matt brought home these two boxes from work. Kids had a ball with them and in them for hours and even days. They were up for our new years eve party. Matt's mom and Nate and Candy's family came over and spent new years eve with us. We played games and ate and ate and ate. We had jalapeno poppers, hot wings, chips, veggies, dips, cheese including Bree. We ate ourselves sick. We played a new game that we received for Christmas from one of Matt's co-workers called Sequence. I don't like to play games, but I enjoy this one.

The next morning at 4:35am, the phone rings. Candy has been having contractions every 5 minutes and is only 30 weeks and needs to go to the hospital. So went over there and stayed with her sleeping kids. They returned home about 9:30. They were able to stop the contractions and put her on bed rest. I went back there at 11:30am, picked up her kids, and brought them home to stay for the afternoon while their parents slept. She isn't on strict bed rest. She just needs to take it easy and stay hydrated.

After christmas adventure to the dunes

Something Matt likes to do with the kids is take them to the sand dunes. I am happy to stay behind and let that be a bonding thing for Dad and kids. The kids played in the sand while taking turns riding with Matt on the 4-wheeler. I was able to finish laundry and sweep and mop all the floors. (You can click on the picture to enlarge it. To get back to the blog, push the back button/arrow.)

Christmas evening

Another tradition we have is making a special Christmas dinner. We set out the fine China, nice flatware and goblets. Made a USDA choice prime rib roast (it was on a really good sale), mashed potatoes, steamed veggies, and biscuits. I forgot to buy some Martinelli's, so we just drank water. We all dressed up nice and the girls got to wear make-up. I guess I should have worn some make-up too. Then we had a little dance afterward. Jileigh thought it would be funny to take a picture of Matt and me kissing.

I took my scarf off and Safia decided to wear it as a dress. It was too cute not to add.

Christmas Morning!

One of the traditions we have for Christmas morning is that all the kids have to meet in our bedroom, not before 7am, and wake us up. Then we plug in the Christmas tree lights and get the camera ready as they line up. Beau wasn't about to budge awake, so he sadly missed the line up this year. Then they chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo up the hall and around the corner to the front room where the tree is. They happily enjoyed opening their presents and eating the orange and crackers and cheese in their stockings. The day was spent in PJs hanging out, napping, and watching movies until dinner time. Yes, Beau got a small push broom. He loves cleaning tools and has really enjoyed his broom and sweeping with mom.