Giveaway

There's a great giveaway going on over at Southern Homemaking. Click here to enter to win one of three L.L. Bean tote bags. These bags are wonderful and are practically indestructible!

Creativity

Abigail and Esther each received a skein of yarn and a crochet hook for Christmas. Since Peter arrived shortly thereafter I haven't had a chance to sit down and show them much more than how to do a chain stitch. They love to try to make things up on their own though, and this morning Abigail made two flowers! I do believe that she is more creative than I am. I'm pretty sure I can't make up a flower on my own. The one on the left in the picture below is quite original...I'm not sure what kind of stitches those are. :) She was very excited. I imagine we'll have many flowers to hang around the house and give away within a week or two!

Week in Pictures

Our internet has been out for about a week and I have (obviously!) not been blogging. I don't have the time for a substantial post right now, but I do have several posts planned in my head. Hopefully they will make it onto the blog soon! Here are some pictures for now.

Hannah does not have the longest attention span. She likes to flit from one thing to the next...unless she is holding Peter. She sat just like this for about half an hour the other day. :)

Peter getting some Papa snuggles

Joshua teaching Peter about helicopters.

Joseph being silly. Look at those blue eyes!

Sweet baby Peter. As you can tell from several of the pictures above, Peter snuggles are in high demand around here. One of the girls kept asking to hold him yesterday. I usually try to accommodate anytime they ask, but yesterday I decided to be selfish. I told her that I was holding him and that when she had her own baby she could hold him whenever she wanted to. :) She knew I was being funny though. I definitely like to encourage the children...especially the girls...to hold him, change his diapers, etc. I think it's great that I have so many willing volunteers!

Three of my wonderful little helpers!

Our Weekend

Our biggest boy turned 8 this weekend! When I was little I remember my parents talking about how fast time passes. I always thought that was strange because it seemed to pass slowly to me. I figured it was just something that "old" people said. Now that I'm an old person, I wholeheartedly agree that time just flies by! It's hard to believe that we have an 8 year-old!

Joshua is a very sweet, helpful, and thoughtful boy. He frequently asks what he can do to help me. He's really doing well with school this year and I'm so proud of him! He loves to read, play outside, wrestle with Noah, go to work with Papa, and do anything involving science, history, geography and the outdoors!

Adam had Guard duty this past weekend and the children and I drove to SC to visit my parents. My Aunt Candie and Uncle Jim were visiting them as well, which made it even more fun! We didn't get home until Sunday evening, at which point we ate dinner, had a short birthday celebration, and hit the hay. I don't have a single picture of Adam or me with the birthday boy. We'll have to take some in the next few days. Here are a few of the photos that I did get.

Grandma and Grandpa got this neat cake for Joshua and we had his requested birthday lunch....Corn Chowder, Biscuits, and Spinach Salad

Opening some birthday gifts with a (mostly) captive audience :)

Joshua is a great big brother!

Peter Edwin meets Grandpa Edwin

Peter snuggling with Grandma and one of the beautiful blankets that she made for him. See Noah snoozing in the background? :)

Sweet sleepy boy

Abigail reading to Aunt Candie. Unfortunately I neglected to get a picture of Uncle Jim.

Peter, Grandma, and the other beautiful blanket!

Grandpa said that we should call Peter "P. Edwin". I think it's kinda cute!

An Exciting Discovery!

My friend, Emily, recently sent me a link to a blog post that has several good tips for around the house. I was short on time, so I quickly glanced at the page and then bookmarked it thinking that I would probably use some of the ideas at some point in the future.

Fast forward a few days, and the girls show me a big, ugly scratch on the hardwood floors in our house, which we are renting. They were pushing Joseph around in a wooden basket, didn't realize the damage that they were doing, and were quite upset about it. I went to Walmart and paid $5 for one of those pens that is supposed to cover up scratches on wood. I used it on one little section of the floor, but the lightest pen left a rather dark line and we weren't thrilled with the results. Fast forward a few more days, and I click on the link to the blog post again to check out all of the great ideas.

Come to find out, one of the tips was rubbing a walnut on wood scratches to make them less noticeable. It sounds pretty unbelievable and I was skeptical, but I'm here to tell you that it works!! See the picture of the ugly scratch up there? Here is a picture of the same section of the floor after I rubbed a walnut on it. We couldn't believe it!

My girls are at this moment ecstatically rubbing walnuts on every little scratch that they can find. :) It appears that we won't be losing our security deposit over that little bit of damage anymore! Now if I could only fix the children's cracked bathroom sink with a walnut...

Blog Makeover!

I've been wanting to overhaul the blog for a little while now. I figured there's no better time than the present...new home, new year, new baby, new blog layout! I still have some work to do on it. The sidebars need some repair and updating, but that will have to wait for another day. Right now I have children to bathe, dinner to serve, laundry to fold, and a baby to feed!

1 Month

Peter turned one month last Thursday! I took him to the doctor on Friday, and he is up to 9lb 15oz. Yay for Mama milk!! I think that he is probably our "easiest" baby so far. He is very laid back and is happy most of the time. He was trying to smile at me yesterday, but I didn't have the camera handy to catch it. I'm sure I'll have plenty of other opportunities!

Peter is a great sleeper! He generally wakes up once at night to eat and usually goes right back to sleep for another 4 or 5 hour stretch. It's so nice to have a good sleeper! I enjoy the middle-of-the-night feedings, but I'm not a big fan of the middle-of-the-night parties! Actually, they'd be kind of fun if I didn't require much sleep in order to avoid being a grump during the day. :) Seriously though, forming healthy sleep patterns is important to us for the childrens' benefit as well as ours. Thankfully all of our children like their beds and are really good sleepers! Peter is great at being put down awake...

...and going to sleep on his own without so much as a little peep!

His big brothers and sisters think he's just the greatest!

Free Pancake Time!

I really look forward to IHOP's National Pancake Day every year! I like pancakes anyway, but free pancakes are especially hard to beat. On Tuesday, February 28th, IHOP will be offering a free short stack to everyone who walks through the door. They only ask that you consider donating to a local charity. For more information, click here.