closet

We have decided to refinance the house as the rates are so low right now.  We have to get a new appraisal, so we decided to put up a quick closet off of Isabelle's room, so it can officially be counted as a bedroom, bc right now it isn't considered one.  Plus putting the bathroom downstairs should give us a higher appraisal which will help with the loan of course.

Ryan took the door off that is there currently and flipped it around so it opens inside the room.  Right now it opens the other way and hits the venting duct work on the other side 

Gideon tried to help for a while.  then he got distracted, but the intention was there.  I kept calling him back asking if he was still helping or not

What was a weekend project took an extra day because Ryan used a sick day from house projects =)  He got really ill on sunday for some reason, but we finished it up on Monday instead

All of the sheet rock is up and putting on the light switch plate

Isabelle in her "finished" closet.  The hanging bar is to the left and will have a high bar and a shorter half bar so one side is for dresses and then shirts can go top and bottom.  Behind where Isa is standing now Ryan wants to put up shelving or a shoe rack type structure.  But for now that's all that's needed for the appraisal to consider it a useable closet which makes the room an official bedroom.  Mud, tape, paint, etc. will come later.  Probably after Isabelle goes to college.  because let's face it, it's just a basement closet right?

nice spring day

As we are on our trip, here is a nice backyard day we had at home before we left

picnic dinner in the grass

games (playing with sticks and dead leaves that are piled up and I'm ashamed to admit have been there since the fall)

and of course my plant hopefuls

DISNEY WORLD DAY!!!!

TODAY IS THE DAY WE LEAVE FOR DISNEY!I made these hats as a surprise for the kids.  I haven't shown them to them yet.  I'm trying to decide if I'll keep it as a surprise and give it to them when we get there or give it to them when we leave.  Ryan thinks I should give them to them to wear the last day of school, as they will get off of the bus, then get in the van and off we go!

Well, I chose to give them to them in the morning.  Conveniantly the kids told me that it was also hat day at school if they brought .50 so they could wear them all day!  I also have a Mickey mouse ball cap that Gideon has worn several times and he said he wanted to wear that one to school =(  No appreciation for my hard work!  oh well

They all fit though.  HURRAY

good morning Disney day mickey pancakes of course

These are some of our travel activities we're taking (beside bookoos of movies and electronics stuff).  I have several board games printed off and laminated and we're using magnet pieces attached to the back of the playing pieces to hold them onto a thin cookie sheet so the game pieces don't get dropped, you can pass them back and forth, and dice is in a small see through Tupperware so you can shake it in there.  Thank you Pinterest for these ideas!

Also I put the alphabet letters on the paper towel rolls and have stickers that I wrote the letters on and they have to match them up.  It's laminated so I thought the older kids could also use it to keep track of their letter when playing the alphabet game driving around and then reuse them next time they play.

Lastly, Isabelle's teacher said that pipe cleaners are a great activity in the car for kids to be really creative with and it's quiet!  As long as Gideon doesn't make a sword and poke his sisters I think it will work well =)

So we're off, and we'll have ubbers of pictures from Florida soon.  Probably not until we come back though

laundry

I got behind on laundry the other day and Ryan's brilliance took over.  he told me to dump the clean clothes on the floor and make the kids separate and fold their own clothes.  BRILLIANT!  I did help them though to cut down on the pout whining I did help them

Ryan bought me a ginormous peace lily the other day (on clearance of course) and it was so sad and droopy b/c the soil was completely dry.  he repotted it for me, with some miracle grow, and gave it a good solid watering and we could literally watch the leaves lifting over the hours that passed.  It was super cool!  they like humidity so the kids like to help mist it with the spray bottle (though I do it when they're not around sometimes so I get a chance once in a while)

This was just a sweet Piper and Sydney love moment

spelling bee and spring party

Isabelle won her way into the 3rd grade spelling bee.  there are 5 3rd grade classes competing against each other and only the top 3 from each grade made it this far.  Ryan even took time off of work.  It was more intense than I expected it to be, but she did get out, though she tied for 4th.  Not bad!

This is her good friend Adhira.  She's from India and apparently they spend all of their time together at school.  They were friends from class last year as well, so apparently the counselor is putting them in class together again next year!

When they were finished they went back to the classroom to have their spring party which Sydney and I stayed for.  Syd was a hit in the classroom.  All of the girls wanted to touch her hair or pick her up.  Isabelle was sharing all of her snacks and going to beg stuff off of the other parents to make sure Syd wasn't gypped out of anything good

They played pass the doughnut on a chopstick

and paddle the balloon

I loved Syd's action shot.  Can anyone see her future as a Missy Mae Trainer?!  I think I could hand Olympic volleyball as her career!

Mother's day

I'm not sure if this looks "off" to anybody else, but on Mother's day the kids decided Daddy needed a foot rub.

 He also got a couple hour nap.

In fairness though we did spend 5 hours on Sat and 2 hours Sun morning doing the mother's day breakfast for church so we were both tired.  I wasn't too tired to go to Lowes and buy half price flowers though!  Ryan tried to put me on a budget, which I politely refused, and then broke the bank with a whopping $8.50

Isabelle spent some one on one time with me picking the flowers out and helping to plant them so that was a nice activity for the day.  We ended it by Ryan and I buying a new Riff Trax to watch, which are super funny!

hail

Living in Kansas we all understand the joy of severe weather.  Nothing can be done in a mild manner, it all must be one extreme or another.  That's probably why Mary is comfortable living here.  Her and I love extremes =)

It broke our skylight, and if you look closely you can see the little ripples that the impact made

It also dented up our garden but the plants survived thankfully

Helpers

this is what happens when people try to help me cook

Tobie always volunteers to clean the floor

and Sydney is trying to help Piper up onto the stool so she can help us measure.  That didn't work well as you can see