Abounding Blessings

Saying Goodbye to a Sweet Little Friend

2011-03-21T16:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we lost our sweet rat, Ruby. I'm not sure what happened to her. She had always been smaller than her sister, Mina, but I just thought she was naturally a small girl. She seemed fine and was playing on Saturday. Sunday morning Isaac mentioned to me that she didn't come out of her hammock when he went to say hi to them but I didn't think much of it.

A few hours later, he ran upstairs sobbing, and told me that Ruby died. I went to see what was going on and Russ was holding her. She was still with us, but barely. She wasn't moving, blinking and you could barely tell she was breathing. We held her, loved her and kept her warm for about an hour and a half and then she passed away in Russ's hands.

Isaac took it very hard. He cried and cried, locked himself in the bathroom for awhile and said he never wanted another pet again, it was just too hard to lose them. We eventually convinced him to come out and he went and sat with Ruby until she died. After we all said our goodbyes and let Mina see her and say goodbye, we made up a box for her. We lined it with layers of fleece, put in some eggs noodles which were a favorite treat, a toilet paper roll that she loved to chew and we covered her with another fleece blanket and an old sock-another favorite bedding of hers. We picked a special spot in our yard to bury her and will plant flowers there this spring.

Ruby will be greatly missed. She was such a sweet, fun, outgoing and feisty little rat and we loved her to bits. Goodbye sweet Rubester.

He Makes Me Laugh

2010-02-08T11:49:00.000-08:00

Isaac's DS had been missing for a couple of days and we were all going crazy looking for it. The loss was especially hard because he had gotten a new game and hadn't had a chance to play it yet. As with most anything that gets lost around here, the blame fell on Sam.

After, yet another, day of looking with no luck I went to tuck Isaac in for the night. He was lying in bed watching an Elmo dvd. As I went to give him a kiss, he said "I figured watching Elmo and thinking like a baby would help me to figure out where Sam put my DS." Gotta love his logic!

Thankfully I finally found it last night. : )

The Force is With Him

2010-01-09T10:38:00.000-08:00

For the past couple weeks, whenever I'd go to put Isaac's laundry away, this is what I'd find in his closet...

Today he happened to be in his room as I was hanging up his clothes. I told him that he needed to stop pulling all of his shirts off their hangers when he got dressed and just take off the one he was going to wear. His response?

"Sorry. I guess I must be watching too much Star Wars. I think I have the Force so I pull on every shirt and the one that falls down is the one I'm supposed to wear."

Sick Days

2010-01-07T12:12:00.000-08:00

SamSam is still feeling under the weather so today's activities have consisted of a lot of temperature taking, hugging, kissing and snuggling.
His temp got up to about 103.5 during the night and has hung right around 100.5-101 most of the day. All he wants to do is snuggle on the couch on my lap and anyone who knows Sam, knows that sitting still is not something he usually enjoys doing. That tells you how icky he's feeling.

He tried to go about his normal business and play at first this morning, but that only lasted about 10 minutes before he was climbing up in my lap again.

Thankfully he has big brothers who love to take care of him and give him lots of get better kisses. Daddy even came home from work for a quick break to give me a chance to grab something to eat.

As much as I hate him being sick, I'm savoring all of the cuddling I'm getting to do with him today. But I sure hope my little sweetie-pea is up and running very soon!

2010-01-06T19:20:00.000-08:00

I was planning on posting tonight about a very cool project I'm going to do, but alas, it didn't happen. My sweet Sammy is sick tonight and only wanted to be held until he fell asleep. I have a hard time focusing on much when my babies are sick, I get too preoccupied with how they're doing, so I wasn't in the mood for crafting.

SO....instead I'll share what turned out to be a big hit. I went treasure hunting at the Goodwill this afternoon as the decorating bug has bit me big time lately. I didn't have a ton of luck on that end (although I did find a cool lamp I'm going to paint for only 2.99) but I did find a present for Russ. They had new-in-the-box conditioning vests that hold 20lbs. I had never heard of such a thing before but, since it had to do with working out, I figured Russ might like it so I bought it for a little surprise gift.

He's never mentioned wanting one so I thought I might end up returning it but no siree! He was totally excited to get it! Apparently, he's wanted one for quite some time and has even put one in his shopping cart before but could never bring himself to spend the $50 that they usually cost. Yep...$50!! And just guess how much I spent on it? If you guessed $9.99 you're absolutely right! Even better is the fact that he's worn it all night and keeps saying how excited he is to finally have one and how much he loves it. Now that's what I call a great deal.

Sorry for the crappy picture, my camera wasn't liking the reflective strips. Oh, and wave hi to Diego there in the background!

Quick Sand

2010-01-05T15:32:00.000-08:00

Isaac got a quicksand science kit for Christmas and has been very anxious to do it. I put it in one of his workboxes today and we had fun playing with goopy, messy, sloppy quicksand. I have to say, it was pretty awesome! Is it just me, or does anyone else get traumatic flashbacks to the horse scene in Neverending Story when they think of quicksand?

Workboxes

2010-01-04T09:11:00.001-08:00

Today we started a new way of doing school using the Workbox System developed by Sue Patrick. I spent the past couple of weeks reading blogs and taking what I wanted from how each person did their system. Since we're just trying it out, I also did not want to invest a lot of money until I saw how it worked for us so I'm using what we already had for now.

I'm using a toy bin organizer that was in our play room for Isaac's boxes-worked out perfectly since there were 12 bins. For Elijah, I used a small bookshelf that we already had and bought a few cheap bins at Walmart. He's starting with 6 instead of 12.

To number their boxes I made laminated sheets with each of their names and the numbers 1-14. The Workbox System just calls for 12 but I added a couple extra in case I wanted/needed them at any time. I also made a few extra cirlces that said "Snack", "10 minute break", "play outside for 20 minutes", etc.

The numbers are velcroed on to their sheets. I plan on putting velcro on their bins as well but ran out so for now, I just toss the number into the correct box. So the night before, I set up their box by putting in the work along with the number tag. As they finish their box, they put the number back on their sheet and when all of the numbers are replaced and boxes are empty-they're done!

I've seen many people put a pencil in each bin that it's needed, crayons in each bin, and so on but I'm using an idea from an online friend of mine instead. You can see how she does her system here. We're doing totes with all of their supplies. I bought small scrapbooking organizers at Walmart (they were $6 each) and filled them with crayons, pencils, pencil sharpeners, colored pencils, rulers, scissors, glue sticks, their "I need help" cards and Isaac's has a chapter book to read for when he's waiting for me to help him. This way they can take their totes with them wherever they choose to work.
It's only been our first day of doing workboxes but so far, so good! They both really enjoyed going through their boxes and the fun things mixed in gives them the motivation to finish the things they consider not-so-fun. Eventually I really want to get this system from IKEA but that will have to wait until funds allow.

365 Days

2010-01-04T07:42:00.000-08:00

The fact that I signed on to this blog today to still see my 4th of July layout goes to show how good I've been at keeping up with it. Oops. But that's all about to change! A friend of mine is doing a new blog where she does a post with a photo every day for the year. I'm borrowing her idea and doing the same because, you know, I really need something to add to my daily to do list. ; ) But I think it will help keep me accountable. And since it's already January 4th, it'll technically be 361 days but who's counting?

I'll start with a quick recap of the holidays. We had a great Christmas and New Year's despite having one of the largest Christmas snowstorms in history. It snowed for (I think) 4 days and we got close to 20 inches. Because of the weather, Ryan and Emily weren't able to come up for Christmas Eve but my Dad still came and we had a nice, relaxing couple of days snowed in the house.

Christmas Day we celebrated Elijah's birthday-my little boy is 4 years old now. He got to pick the meals for the day and we had cinnamon rolls, fruit salad and oatmeal for breakfast, mac and cheese for lunch and mac and cheese bake for dinner. Kid loves his mac and cheese! We had fun decorating a Christmas tree cake for him with all kinds of yummy candy.

On New Year's Eve we had a family party at home. I'm not into going out and driving around on New Year's with all of the drunk people out and, besides, there's no one else I'd rather bring in the year with than my 4 favorite boys! We got pizza, played the Wii and watched the ball drop with noisemakers. Isaac decided we should dress up for the party so we all chose some fancy outfits to wear. Eli, who loves to be naked, compromised with a tie "but no shrit!" I'll take what I can get!

I didn't think he'd make it, but Elijah stayed up until the end (just barely) and we toasted to a happy 2010 with some kid wine.

Here's to a fantastic year full of blog updates!

A Giveaway!

2009-08-04T06:52:00.001-07:00

My friend is having a giveaway on her blog. Be sure to visit and check it out for a chance to win!

2009-06-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

It's been about a month since I planted my first garden and it's not doing too bad! The kids and I enjoy checking on it daily and seeing how much our seedlings have grown.

The peas are doing really well.
The tomatoes are getting big too. I need to stake them.
My eggplant is doing well and you can see a watermelon plant beside it. That's still a little small, but maybe it's right where it should be? At least it's still alive!

And my lone zucchini plant is growing too. The one that Goober plucked didn't make it. I was bummed since that's my favorite and the one I was hoping to get the most harvest from, but hopefully my remaining one will produce well.Drama King finally had a spot to put his Garden Spider home so now he's anxiously waiting for a spider to take up residence and watch some web spinning. I'm not sure how excited I am to have a spider so close to where I'll be gardening but I guess I'll grin and bear it for the sake of learning. Besides, the box said spiders were good at keeping away garden pests.

2009-06-21T14:36:00.001-07:00

Getting a head start on my Monday Treasure post.

I found a couple great things at sales this week. The Teen is off of school now so she came along to hunt down bargains and help me with the boys. Oh my, what a difference having her extra set of hands makes! We had a very fun morning together and each and every one of us found some treasures.

My big finds were this shelf that I'm going to hang in the bathroom whenever that gets painted~not sure when that'll be since I despise painting bathrooms and have been putting it off for 2 years now but maybe the shelf will be my motivation?
This plate rack is something I've been searching sales for and was so excited to find it, at $1 no less! Now I'm on the hunt for some pretty plates to use on it.
I almost didn't get this picture as it was going to take almost all the cash I had on me but decided to at the last minute and I'm so glad I did. It has all the colors of my house in it and it just makes me happy to look at it.

And finally, one of my favorite finds~this pretty paisley oil bottle that I put dish soap in. It's nothing big, but just having such a pretty bottle to use when I do dishes makes the job a bit more enjoyable. It's the simple things that make a big difference.
Shelf-$2
Plate Rack-$1
Picture-$4
Oil Bottle-$1

Grand total-$8!

Be sure to check out the treasures others found over at Rhoda's.

Today's Thrifty Treasures

2009-06-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

Monday, time for another Thrifty Treasure day over at Rhoda's! Make sure to head over to see what everyone else found.

On Thursday the boys and I headed out to a neighborhood just a mile up the road that was having their annual neighborhood sales. I was so looking forward to a good day of garage-saling and being able to just put the kiddos in the sling and stroller and walk. Like every year, we had a lot of good luck.

The former model home must have been sold fully furnished because the new owners were selling all of the things that used to be in it. They had a darling western/cowboy themed bedroom in there and all of that was for sale. Goober no longer has a cowboy room, but man, I drooled over that stuff when it was in the model! I did find two plate server thingies, pretty sure that's the technical name, at the sale for $3 each. I'll hang those on my dining room wall when they're not being used. The little yellow dip bowl came from another sale and cost me $1.
At another sale I found this candle holder for .75 to hold our citronella candle out on the patio table. I was too lazy to go out in the cold rain to bring it in for a picture. I got this wall hanger for .50 that I plan to spray paint black.

I also found a walker toy for BabyCakes for $1 and a pair of shorts for him for .10 at the same house.

One of my favorite finds were these vases from Pottery Barn. They were $3 for the pair.
I found this super cute coupon and grocery list holder for .50 and these baskets as well. The larger one was $1 and I think I'll paint it. The other one was .50.
I also found several tops for myself and some clothes for all 4 kids but didn't take photos of those. We were out shopping from 9am-2pm so a long, but successful day!

2009-06-08T08:59:00.001-07:00

Last week I tried a new recipe~Beef Chilaquiles Verde. I found it on a Target recipe card and it looked quick and easy, right up my alley. Of course, I had to make a few alterations as usual.

Beef Chilaquiles Verde:

1 lb ground beef (we used turkey)
Coarsely crushed white corn tortilla chips
Shredded Cheddar or Colby Jack cheese
1 10oz can green enchilada sauce (I don't like the added MSG in these sauces so I made my own. I took a can of tomato paste, mixed water in until it was the consistency I wanted, then just kept adding salt, sugar, chili powder and cumin until it tasted right)

Heat oven to 350. Brown ground beef (or turkey), stir in enchilada sauce.
Layer crushed chips on the bottom of a 2 Qt casserole dish.
Top with half the beef mixture and top with half the shredded cheese.
Repeat layers one more time, finishing with cheese.
Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese is melted.
Top with cilantro (skipped since we didn't have any) and top with any of your favorite taco toppings.

We served it with sour cream but next time I think I'm going to add some chopped tomato and olives to mine. Everyone liked it, even the notoriously picky Drama King ate it and said it's was really good "for having meat in it". I consider that a success.

2009-06-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

My darling husband has a not so darling subwoofer that he simply loves and will not get rid of. I think it's what makes the house shake when he turns the surround sound on, I'm not sure. All I know is that it's a big ugly black box-quite large-that takes up a whole corner of the family room. I've lived with that thing being a decorating thorn in my side for years now.

Recently, I got the idea to find a short, square table to set it on, then cover them both with a tablecloth to disguise it so off the the Goodwill I went. What I found was even better. It's like it was custom made for ugly subwoofers. And being that it was only $5, I snatched it right up, hoping the dimensions were right. I also found a scrap of pink plaid fabric for .99 to layer on top.

After the Goodwill trip, the hubby and I stopped off at Wal-Mart where I found some cheap fabric for the rest of the tablecloth and we headed home to try it out. Huge success! The woofer fit perfectly inside and this looks much prettier than an ugly black box, don't you think?
The black box hidden in there, I even have space on top for some baby floor blankets...

I found the white vases and bowls at the Salvation Army and wanted to fill them with succulants but am having a hard time finding them. Home Depot had some fairly sorry looking ones for $8 a pop so my bowls still sit empty. And I didn't even hem (or glue since I don't sew) the fabric either but, like Nester says, "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful". Gosh, I love that motto!

Let's Get Growing!

2009-06-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

For years I've been wanting to try my hand at gardening. I never yet have since I seem to kill most of the plants I try to take care of. With the exception of some potted annuals on the porch, I've never had luck with green things.

A friend of mine gave me a window plant set for a hostess gift a couple of months ago and the boys and I planted them one day. I've managed to keep them alive and growing and that's given me the confidence to take on bigger things. In talking with my fellow homeschooling Mommy friends at our weekly park date, I picked up a bunch of tips and pointers and was ready to give this gardening thing a try.

One of them does lasagna gardening, which is basically laying down some cardboard or layers of newspaper and then layering compost materials and soil. I was going to give that a try but then found that I'd need a truck or trailer to haul the topsoil I'd need, neither of which we have. So on Friday, Rick came out with his tools and buckets of compost for me and we worked all morning on tilling our pure clay with compost, peat moss, sand, more compost, and more peat moss until we had a fairly decent soil mix.
Drama King enjoyed helping with each task for about 30 seconds, then would declare himself in charge of a new, more fun looking task. He posed well for pictures though so it appears that he was hard at work. ; )Goober wasn't interested in helping much at all. In fact, I had to force him to be outside with us. In a rare event, Drama King was willing to share his DS with him so that's ALL he wanted to do. Mean mom that I am, I made him join us outside in the beautiful weather.
And BabyCakes helped in his usual BabyCakes way. He sampled a handful of soil, played some lovely music for us with a plastic shovel and bucket lid, and just looked cute. I did discover that he loves dirt! He really enjoyed playing in both the dirt and sandbox. I think he just may be my boy with worms in his pockets.On Saturday the Teen and I planted our seeds; green beans, wax beans, peas and cantelope. This morning, the boys and I planted the starter plants I bought; watermelon, tomato, eggplant and zucchini. I'm thinking at least one of my zucchini plants won't make it as Goober, in his attempt to help, pulled out the seedling from it's root. I planted it anyway, hoping for a miraculous recovery but I'm not too hopeful. So if anyone has an extra zucchini plant, I'd be willing to take it off your hands.
I'm really hoping this is successful. I have vision of going out to the garden and grabbing some of our own, homegrown, fresh produce this summer. Yum!

Monday's Treasures

2009-06-01T08:10:00.000-07:00

Rhonda, over at Southern Hospitality, one of the blogs I frequent, has a link party called "Thrifty Treasure's". I anxiously await reading what everyone has found over the weekend and getting so many great ideas. This week, I finally get to join in myself!

The kids and I hit the road for some sales on Thursday. There were some advertised neighborhood sales in a city about a half hour away that said "50+" sales. I was debating driving all the way there, but we ended up close to it in our quest for sales so figured what the heck. It's much easier taking 3 kids out of the car and being able to walk to a bunch of sales than getting them in and out every couple of miles again, and again, and again. (Sale-ing was so much easier with 1)

So we headed over to the supposedly huge sales and it was a bust. Yes, 50 sales, but what the ad neglected to mention was that they were spread out over a huge area with no more than 2 sales next to each other in the whole thing. Needless to say, we didn't hit many. Not much luck for me either but the kids found a couple more bags of small toys for .10-.25 and you know how much we were needing those! ; )

Saturday morning I headed out by my glorious self for an hour or so. Had a bit better luck this time. I included the previous week's finds in my picture because I got a couple things I love that week.Here's what I got;
The large empty frame-Free
*not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. I'm thinking maybe painted with and hanging it around some rub on wall words

The ugly-for-now wood upholstered bench-$1.50
*I plan on painting it and recovering it in a pretty fabric, maybe toile, for the bedroom.

The small hallway table-.50
*again, paint (black I think) and putting it in a little nook in our front hall

Stone candle holder-.25

Chandelier that I just love-$5
*this came with all the glass bowls for the lights but I'm going to find some pretty fabric shades for it and replace the standard builder light fixture in our dining room

Couple of books for me-$3 total

Brand new set of wood stringing beads for the boys-$1.50

A Gymboree onesie for BabyCakes-.25

A Mini Boden shirt for BabyCakes-$4
*that is way more than I usually ever spend on garage sale clothes but, hey, it's Mini Boden! I just couldn't pass it up.
Grand total for all: $16 in the 2 weeks of sales. Not too shabby!

2009-05-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

Another room I've been working on a lot lately is our living room. About 6 months ago I painted it a green that I just love, I call it my happy color, moved the hutch into the dining room, and then found curtains that look great in it. Again, I had a big wall that needed something done with it. I had a small IKEA cabinet on it but it was too small for the wall so I shopped my house and took a dresser from our entry way. I then shopped the dollar store and bought a bunch of frames, spray painted them the same color, and made a photo wall.

Here's how the room looked before, the color doesn't translate well over the computer but it's Village Green from Menard's-a bright cheery green with almost yellowish undertones.
And after...

My PSA for the day: be careful when opening frames from the dollar store! I was putting my wall together and taking the back off a stubborn frame and it slipped and took a chunck out of my thumb-YOUCH! It has healed back together but I think I did bone or nerve damage because the darn thing still hurts. And to add injury to insult, I got a burn from the oven right on top of it.

Beware of frames!

I also put together a cute little picture wall. The top is a hand tinted antique photo that Russ and I bought in Hawaii when we were there for our wedding, the toile I found at an occasional sale in a nearby town for $6 (a bit more than I would have like to pay but I couldn't leave empty-handed), and the little strawberry print I found at the Salvation Army for .99. You can also see my pretty pink checked curtains.Things are coming together and I'm finally feeling more at home in this house after living here for 2 years. The little touches really do make a big impact!

2009-05-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to make our house pretty and personalized without spending much money. Like I mentioned, I get a TON of inspiration from some great blogs out there. Here are some of my recent projects...

This was your typical natural wood barstool that you can find at any big box store. I had a pair of them that were looking pretty sorry. They had been ladders for painting jobs and had the splatters to prove it and just weren't cute. I read a comment about decoupaging barstools on a blog and thought "Hmmm....maybe....." So after going through my scrapbooking stash, picking out a pretty pattern, and using some paint leftover from our family room, here is the final result. Total cost: $6 for the decoupage medium which I will also use for many more projects.

A couple of months ago we also painted our dining room and made it back into an actual dining room after having been a classroom and playroom in it's former lives. I had a big, long blank wall to fill and was having a hard time finding what to fill it with. While playing outside with the kids one day a couple of weeks ago, I saw this frame that I had bought for $1 at a garage sale probably 5 years ago. For 5 years, and 2 moves, it's been languishing in the garage. I've thought about getting rid of it several times but liked it too much and knew it had potential. One glance and I knew it would be perfect. I was originally going to repaint it but decided the roughed up look was perfect with my rustic looking table (found on Craigslist for $15) so left it as is. I just bought some chalkboard spray paint and sprayed that directly on the already there plywood backing. I got a little on the frame when my newspaper blew off but like one of my favorite bloggers, The Nester, says "It Doesn't Have To Be Perfect to Be Beautiful".I love it!!

The butterfly garland hanging on it was a birthday gift from one of my very good friends. I absolutely love it. Almost 2 years ago we each got our first tatoos together and part of mine was a butterfly which has double meaning for me. It reminds me of my faith, being born-again and a new creation in Christ, and also of my mom's new life in Heaven. She said she thought of me when she saw it and it's just beautiful.
There's a few more things I've done in the past couple of weeks but these floors aren't vacuuming themselves and BabyCakes is finding too many "snacks" on them so the rest will have to wait.

Getting Started

2009-05-26T08:41:00.000-07:00

This is not my first attempt at keeping a blog. It's not even my second. I've started blogs for various reasons but always had them specific to one thing; homeschooling, family activities, etc. I'm a stickler for sticking with the theme so wouldn't feel right posting about our trip to the park on a homeschooling blog or my personal thoughts on our family blog and there were many things that, therefore, went unshared.

I've recently discovered the wonderful world of home decorating blogs and have fallen in love. I could spend hours (notice I said "could", what mom of 4 has hours to spend perusing blogs??) reading through all of them and getting inspiration for my own home. There are so many talented and creative women out there with gorgeous homes! So I considered making a decorating blog of my own but then I'd run in to my same problem as before.

So, while trying to decide what to do, I came across this old blog I created years ago but never did anything with and felt it would be perfect! Abounding Blessings can cover anything and everything from the amazing blessings that are my children, to my thoughts on faith and family, to the blessing of finding a treasure at a garage sale and the added blessing of seeing what said treasure looks like transformed with a little creativity.

My goal for today? Take some pictures of my recent finds and decorating projects to share. More to come (hopefully!)....