Sewing Project--Baby Bibs

A few weeks ago, I was able to celebrate the arrival of a sweet baby girl into our church family.  She is the first girl born from within our church family in two years.  Since that time we've had NINE baby boys born.  So as you can imagine a baby shower with pink and flowers was a welcome change from the marathon of blue and dump trucks that we had going for nearly two years.  Oh don't get me wrong, all our boys are wonderful and they will surely enjoy many fun father-son camping trips in the future, but a little sugar and spice is always nice.

Happy Birthday, Big Boy!

I recently noticed that of the four categories that I sometimes label my posts with, the recipes category has an overwhelming lead.  (Those four categories are listed in the right side barof my home page.)  So I guess that means I better get busy with posting in the other three categories.  I'm planning to add to the other categories a bit over the next few posts.  To start things off, I've got a post on a recent celebration to share with you.

Just a few weeks ago, our Little Man celebrated his 4th birthday.  We all had a great time hosting a party for his friends from Bible class.  I usually don't like to have party themes centered around tv characters, but sometimes it happens.  This time, however, we came up with something that we were confident we'd both be happy with.

Remember this photo from June?

Something I ran across on a  party planning website, made me think of this picture and our Little Man's love for camping.  A few weeks before his birthday he had started frequently asking me a series of questions.  This is usually how our nearly daily conversation went...

LM: Momma, when did we move to this house?

Me: Before you were born.

LM: Wow, our house is getting old. We need to move to a cabin, because the cabins are really nice.

 

Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread

This blog post has been sitting in my drafts folder for four days now, so it's definitely time to get it submitted into blogland.  We have been so busy the past few days.  Over the weekend we sponsored, chaperoned, and led devotionals for our church's youth group on our annual fall retreat.  It was fun, but a lot of work.  I was pretty wiped out when it was all said and done. 

Then yesterday, was Alaska Day.  A day we Alaskans celebrate the transfer of ownership of our state from Russia to The United States back in 1867.  The actual transfer was done in Sitka and we visited the historical park this past June when we went to Sitka to celebrate our 10th anniversary.  Our little family celebrated Alaska Day with a hearty pot of Alaskan Beef Chili--also know as moose chili. :-)

Tots and Trucks

A few weeks ago now, Juneau had a city wide day of play.  There were tons of organized FREE activities for families to take part in at just about every facility operated by our city's parks and rec department.  We literally could have spent all day hoping from one event to another. 

But I try to keep our Saturday's as calm as possible.  In many ways it feels like the only day the kids can relax and play without worrying about a schedule.  It's generally a work day for my hubby so staying home as much as possible also means we get to maximize our family time.  And since everyone else in town seems to hit the big shopping stores on Saturday's, it doesn't seem crazy at all in my mind to run my errands on other days.  Of course, we don't always have a clear schedule on Saturday's.  In fact, aside from the usual soccer game on Saturday, we only have a free and clear day about half of the time.

So anyway, we had a day of play back in September and I didn't feel like fighting the crowds for the free hour of swimming at the new pool and some of the activities conflicted with either the little babe's nap or the afternoon college football game I didn't want to miss.  So I settled on the Tots and Trucks event.  It was scheduled for after the start of the little babe's nap but after Shawn would be up for the day, and would end just before kick off.  Plus it was happening close to our house.  Perfect!  So daddy stayed home to wipe the sleep out of his eyes while the little babe slept and I took the older two yahoos out for a surprise outing.  They were pretty excited when we pulled into the high school parking lot to find it filled with all kinds of city vehicles: buses, snow plows, dump trucks, fire trucks, and even a helicopter!

Legos in Your Jammies

The past few days have been challenging around here.  Momma's been sick so everyone has been fending for themselves.  Since yesterday afternoon I've been gradually feeling better and able to do a few more things between naps and breaks on the couch.  Today I'm trying to pretend things are back to normal without over extending myself. 

Shawn has done a great job holding down the fort, keeping the kids fed, changing diapers, getting the little miss off to school, and keeping the peace during playtime.  I'm glad my illness has coincided with his weekend, but feel bad too since I know he had hopes of accomplishing other things this weekend.