Happy New Year

We are so grateful for all that God has done in our family in 2011. Blessings to all of you as we begin 2012.

Sick Days

I was commenting recently about how healthy we have been this year, and then we all fell hard to several sicknesses in February. Aiden was wiped out by croup. Austin and I quickly followed with bronchitis and Bobby got some version of the virus.








Two weeks later,I was hit with a stomach bug that also took out Austin and Aiden the following day. It was a short but violent virus.









Andrew took the opportunity to spend hours building airplanes and watching instructional videos on YouTube about wing shape and air flow. He's a funny kid. : )

16 Years!

Wow! Sixteen years! Bobby brought me this beautiful vase of flowers to celebrate the day that we got engaged 16 years ago. Doesn't seem like it could have been that long ago . . . : )

I'm so grateful for the man that God gave me to marry. He is perfect for me and we are unbelievably happy. God continues to amaze me with His mercy and grace.

Ta - Da!

Austin and Aiden's fabulous room.

Ta-Da!!

Andrew's awesome room of his very own.

Extreme Makeover meets Design on a Dime, The Designer

As I mentioned in a previous post, I adore my sister-in-law. She is a wonderful wife, mom and homemaker. She is incredibly talented at decorating and making things look nice, even on a small budget.

I've never really spent any energy on my house except to make it more functional or organized, but I'm learning there is more to making a home. My family appreciates our house feeling comfortable and pleasant as well. This summer Bobby gave me some money to decorate the kids bedrooms and rearrange things to make room for a GIRL. : )

Teri drew up plans to make some awesome rooms for the boys. She knows them so well and did a very good job of listening to her little clients. Andrew talked us into giving him his own room for the first time. Austin was excited to be the big brother for Aiden, so they are sharing a room. We have four bedrooms so that leaves one extra room for a new nursery.

Extreme Makeover meets Design on a Dime, The Engineer

Teri and I realized early on that our plans were going to need a lot of man power and almost all of that man power fell on Uncle Todd. His "to do" list was much longer than mine ever was. Since we started all of this in earnest at the beginning of January, he has spent almost all of his evenings and weekends working on our projects. I'm so grateful for his willingness to help and make his wife's plans become a reality.

Extreme Makeover meets Design on a Dime, The Bed

We really should have realized that building a bed was a HUGE project in itself and could not be rushed . . . but we did not. There were several engineers on the design team that put in many hours on the project. Todd and Paul drew up the plans with help from Papa. Bobby and Andrew helped when they could with labor. Paul came up with a plan to include a secret, locked compartment into the headboard design. So cool!

We did consider buying a bed, especially after we were knee deep in the mess, but I'm so glad we didn't. It is such an awesome creation and something that Andrew was able to help build.

Extreme Makeover meets Design on a Dime, Reinforcements

We enlisted some out-of-state help in my friend Jen, who I convinced to come help for a weekend. I promised her we would have fun . . . and we did. That weekend just turned out to be a little more stressful than I expected. We painted diaper boxes, took pictures of toys and printed them, made marble magnets, laminated alphabets . . . lots of good stuff.







We have been using empty Target diaper boxes to organize toys in the closet for years, not the prettiest organizational tool. Teri had the idea to paint the boxes and then cover them with contact paper. We added pictures as labels -trains, cars, dinosaurs, blocks, and dress up/weapons (I have boys : ). I think they turned out cute.






This magnet board is one of my favorite things that we created. Did you know there was such a thing as magnetic paint?? It even works! We painted this part of the wall with magnetic paint and then covered it with the blue paint that we wanted as the border. Then we trimmed it with green trim board. The laminated maps do add a little bit more resistance for the magnets than just the wall itself so we had to use super strength magnets for our marbles. I love how the marble magnets turned out! We made a marble for each of the kids and hope to make more later. The boys have played with it so much already, which makes me happy.



The night before our last court date Austin came to talk to me after everyone was in bed. "What time tomorrow will we hear about our court date?" I answered that I wasn't sure. "I flew Desta's magnet all the way from Ethiopia to our house. I can't wait to hold her and snuggle with her." He's such a sweet little guy.

Balloon Fiesta

Our fabulous friends came to visit us for a few days in October. These our the Buy Shoes Save Lives friends that are involved with some incredible work in the middle east.

We had a great time catching up and were able to go to the balloon fiesta while they were here. The famous balloon fiesta has several hundred balloons lifting off every morning for a week.

More Snow!

Unbelievable! More snow! This time it was nice and slushy, perfect for snowmen and snowball fights! Aiden LOVED it!

Backpacking

Over Labor Day, Bobby went on a three day backpacking trip in the Gila with college students.














Before he left, the boys wanted to try on the 50 pound pack.


















Austin weighs 50 pounds. : )



















Daddy's always cracking us up!

Pictures

I've been looking for my camera cord for several weeks now. I finally borrowed one to dump my pictures off. So let's catch up!

My monkeys are always looking for a good tree to climb! This great one is in our Auntie's front yard.

Alpine Slide/Bungee Trampoline

During the summer, Durango Mountain Resort has an Alpine Slide, Bungee Trampoline, Climbing Wall, and a few other attractions open. Based on their screaming, the bungee was quite a thrill! Austin and Andrew were so light weight the workers could really launch them. They kept going back for more so I think it must have been fun!

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