Abbey Frances turns 3!!

My little Abbey turned 3!! We had her to the doctor yesterday. She weighs a whopping 23 pounds and was 36 inches tall. That puts Abbey in the 1% for her weight and the 25th% for her height. Our doctor asked if I was always small like I am now. I pretty much always was, and Trent is also very thin, so he was not concerned. He said that he did want to make us aware that if we are interested she could go to Hershey to have growth hormone shots. He said he doesn't really recommend it but he makes his patients aware of the option because he has had some people get very upset that they didn't know this was an option. I love each of my children just the way they are, and at this point in time, Abbey is small and that is just a part of who she is, and we love her just the way she is and wouldn't change her!

Abbey has learned a lot in the past year. She is excellent at memorizing and has memorized quite a bit of Scripture. We are also working on writing her name. I made the mistake of teaching Anne to write her name using all capital letters since they are easier to write. Now I am finding myself trying to re-teach her to write her name using the appropriate letters. To make things simpler on myself I am teaching Abbey the correct way to write her name. She can write "A-b-b..." but struggles with the lowercase e, but can sometimes do the y.

She obviously loves Annie, and when asked who her best friend is she answers, "Annie!" without hesitation.  Recently Abbey and Magdalena have become great chums. Sometimes Maggie is the first awake from naps and when I ask her who she wants to wake up first she answers, "Abbey!" Just last night Abbey and Maggie were hugging each other so tight they would fall over onto the floor and roll around laughing. They would get up and do it again. If Abbey is crying, Maggie will go over to her and hug her and comfort her.

It is a lot of fun for me to see the children getting along so well. Of course, this isn't always the case, but in general our girls get along great.

We are thankful to have a good prescription for Abbey. At her last check-up she was seeing 20-20. Sometimes when we put her glasses on her in the morning she will say, "There! Now I can see better!"

Abbey continues to enjoy puzzles. She also enjoys books, and owls. Her most recent obsession is picking flowers.

For her daddy-daughter birthday day they went for a wild morning out. You know, crazy things like taking the car to get the oil changed. While they waited inside she got to drink root beer and have a huge gum ball. Then they went through the car wash. They stopped at Toys-R-Us and she chose to buy a little toy puppy with her birthday money from Nana & Great-Grampa. She is so thoughtful and also wanted to buy one for Annie and Maggie. She was excited because it cost $3, and she is 3!! Then they went to Long's Park and she wanted Daddy to push her on the swings for awhile. They ate lunch at our favorite place in the city, Splits & Giggles. She had "gwilled cheese" and "weawwy chocowate ice cweam cone."

Abbey lives up to her name and brings joy into our home. We are so thankful for this little sweetie!

Home Pre-School

*Sisters-Best Friends*

Home Pre-School. I had been kicking around the idea of working with the girls some more with their letters (mainly Abbey since Anne already knows her alphabet), but thought I should probably do it on a more regular basis and have some new and creative ideas to put with them.

Thanks to Trent's cousin, Dana, who blogs at Growing by the Sea I was introduced to ABC Scripture Memory. I thought a simple thing to do would be to do a Letter of the Week (starting with A) and correlate the Scripture memory to go with it. I thought this would also give me a good idea if homeschooling while having toddlers and babies would even be feasible for me.

Well, I love it. I try to have fun craft to go with each letter. For "C" we colored an upper and lower case "C" to look like the spots on a cow. Then we went to our local dairy and looked at the cows. (We actually do this almost every week when we get milk, but we focused our time there that week with making the sound that "c" makes and looking for other words that start with the letter "c").

The children love it (even my crazy Magdalena!). Maggie likes to trace the letter of the week with her finger, the other girls have practice writing their letters, they have some activity books that they find really enjoyable. And, the best thing that I have found about teaching them at home is that we can go outside and have "Adventures for A", pick "Berries for B", go see the "Cows", we bought a "Dresser" on craigslist. So really, everywhere we go that week we focus on finding words that start with that letter. The children are really encouraging to one another. It's not uncommon to hear Anne tell Abbey, "Great job, Abbey! I didn't even think of that. Yeah, crow starts with "C"!!"

We still have about a year to decide what to do for school. After this brief trial run I think I could not only just homeschool, but I could love homeschooling the girls. Our local public school has Kindergarten just 1/2 day and provide busing in the morning and the late afternoon. So I would be responsible to either pick Anne up from school at 11:30 (toting all my other little kiddies with me right before lunch), or I would have to drop her off for afternoon kindergarten around 1:00 (you know, nap time). And I'm sure I could do this, even though it seems like a lot, but the other issue is that I would have to do this 3 years in a row.

So, we're still undecided at this point. Maybe I would just homeschool for Kindergarten. Although I'm sure it'll be hard to let her go after that. What can I say? I love being a Mama and a teacher.

Passing it Along

I somehow stumbled upon this wonderful blog "Big House in the Little Woods" written by a homeschooled high school girl.

Her post called Doors closed, Opened, and Indefinite is a must-read.

Trent and I have talked endlessly of whether we are following God's will or not for our lives, and how do we know?? Most recently these discussions take place because of how we have been feeling that God is leading us to foster care. But, is God really leading us there or did we lead ourselves there?

Right now we are in the paperwork part of foster care. We are waiting for some clearances to come back, Trent still needs to get his fingerprints done, and we are aiming to have our homestudy completed in June.

We have purchased things that we need to get our home ready for more children and we are praying that God will put the child or children in our home who need to be here. Will you pray that for us as well?

Completed Crafts

As promised, I am posting pictures of crafts I have recently completed. Obviously, some of them take more time than others, and I will attempt to be true and honest and give credit where credit is due. Many of these are not my own ideas or patterns and so, whenever possible, I will be linking to the source I used for directions but will insert any modifications I did to make it my own.

First up:
A cable-knit baby blanket. I found this pattern at LULUKNITS.


Some modifications that I made as opposed to the pattern she provided is that I used size 10 straight needles and the cable needles that look like safety pins. She used a thin yarn (that is beautiful) but i went with a chunky weight green called "After Dark". Since I went with a heavier yarn I did not pull from 2 balls. I did use 4 balls of yarn totaling about 400 yards. Her pattern created 8 cable patterns but since I used a chunky yarn I went with just 6. The finished blanket was about 24" wide and 36" long.


It definitely isn't perfect. I made a couple of mistakes that always seemed to happen when I was trying to talk and knit at the same time (as I said, I'm not super-skilled!). But, I think the end result was nice and I hope it'll be a nice soft blanket for my nephew who is to be born April 26! And, cable-knitting really wasn't as difficult as what I thought it would be!

Next: The Hallway Bench

This project originated from something I found on Pinterest. I must admit, I had quite an addiction to that site for awhile. Anyway, it led me to this gem of a project. When we moved to this big old farmhouse I decided it would be a good idea to have a hallway bench for the kids to sit on when they come in the door to take their shoes off right away. So I found this beauty on craiglist for $30. I also got lost trying to find the place and it took much longer to get there than it should have.


When I brought it home, I noticed this strange odor coming from the bench... Never a good sign. I wasn't a fan of the pattern on the bench anyway, and when Trent helped me carry the bench into the house the back started to come off.



I was fearless in my ambition regarding this smelly bench. I would reupholster it. Had I ever done that?? Of course not, but with Sabby in Suburbia as my guide, anything is possible right??


I had my trusty helpers sand down the legs once I got off all the disgusting old layers. (Is this child labor??)



I found the cause of the smell during this process. At some point in its existence the bench must have gotten soaking wet and the foam got moldy and nasty.



As you can see, I painted the legs what I deemed a country green.



Then upholstered it according to Sabby's directions. I chose not to put the back on the bench since I thought it would just hit against and scuff up the wall and make the whole project more difficult.




I also went with 2 inch foam from JoAnn's (50% off) then did the batting, then a lightweight cream colored fabric, and then finally the burlap top. I did the cream fabric below since burlap is see-through. I also chose not to do the button tufting since I thought that seemed like a great way for dirt and crumbs from the kiddos to collect on my pretty bench.



I did this whole thing while the kids napped. It was like running a marathon. If I were to do it again I would take my time with it so that I didn't feel so rushed. But anyway, I think the end result was real pretty and it suits its purpose. (Please note, this is NOT a cheap craft. I'm not positive, but it may be cheaper to just buy a pretty bench. You don't get the same satisfaction of creating your own, but if you're looking for an inexpensive craft, this is not the one for you.)

The signs:
The credit for these is two-fold. First Pinterest - specifically Down to Earth Style gave me the idea of the name sign with the year we were married. But my dear friend Angie has created many lovely signs with old barn boards, often putting Bible verses on them using hand-painted words in the style I used (long and narrow letters). So I borrowed the idea from both sources and I'm very pleased with how they turned out.

One is for me! I used an already painted & chipped board I found in our chicken coop.



Then I cleaned it up. I wanted a country green and only had a bright green, so I put my degree in elementary education to the test. Yellow + Blue = Green.

and painted our name on it.



I tried to match it to my country green on our bench and the sign now hangs above the bench. Eventually I'd like to get a large photo of our family to hang beneath the sign.


Then I made one as a gift for my sister. I did my sister's second and I do think the writing on her sign turned out prettier. Her house has more of a beach theme, and her board was completely unpainted. I went with a bright white for her background and then a dark blue for the lettering.



The flowers:


There really isn't much to say here. I just thought the combo of the forsythia and whatever these adorable little white flowers that grow on a bush are was lovely. Plunked them in a Mason jar and was done. (But I must say, the girls LOVE having flowers and weeds to pick. Abbey is her ever-diligent self in picking, picking, picking.)

The Key-holder:


I'm not sure who to credit this project to, other than my mom. She always loses her keys when she comes to my house, so I thought it would be appropriate to have somewhere to hang them. I found this piece of wood in the chicken coop and cleaned it up. Then I used some of the leftover spray paint from the bench (Valspar "Leafy Rise"). The star hooks I purchased from Kruenpeeper Creek Country Gifts. Since the wood was much darker than the legs of the bench the green looks a little different, but I like it. I also sanded it lightly to give it a distressed look.

I'll wait for another day to write about Preschool. All I will say for now is that we are having a lot of fun!!