Project 2013!

Our big project for 2013 is a biggie!  Step one was clearing a large area in our back yard.  Tim and the boys worked on this project for months with no end in sight.  I thought it would be a huge blessing to save up and pay for someone to come in and do the job for them, but after calling several people to come out and look at the job I realized I could not save up the amount they were asking for...they were just asking for to much that I could not in good conscious do it. 

One day a few weeks ago I was driving Justice to one of his daily appointments and there at the side of the road was a sign for cheap bobcat work.  I had Justice give them a call....just to see....and PRAISE THE LORD....his price was in my budget AND he got not only the area the guys were working on, but two extra jobs done as well.  What a blessing!!!!

Here is the area the guys had been working so hard on.  As you can see....this was a large project to be done by hand and would have taken who knows how long to finish.  The guys were so excited to see this done in one day!  Step one....done!  :)

Have shovels....ready for step two!

Step two....digging a ditch for storm drainage.  These guys did an amazing job on this ditch!

Step three....making small ditch for edging around the pool to keep the sand in and a another small ditch for the edging around the entire area to keep the rock in.  Great job boys!!!!

Step four....placing edging in place!

Jameson the water boy!  Precious little guy!!!

Step five....laying down ground fabric to keep weeds out!  Getting closer!!!!

Step six...laying the outer edging.  Love these guys!

Gabby keeping a watch over all the hard workers!

Step seven...and I think their favorite step....driving buckets of sand from the driveway down to the pool area.  This took many trips...but the boys and Tim did not mind all the trips.  :)

Tim and the boys toy. They take every opportunity to take this off into the mountains that they can.

Jensen pushing the buckets out of the truck for the older guys! 

These are some heavy buckets.  Driving them down was such a life saver for the gang.

End of day two!!!!

The girls and I were away in South Carolina this past Friday and Saturday while the guys were working.  We took Sunday and today off to enjoy as a family.  The guys were very willing to take the two days off the pool project.  :)  Work starts back up tomorrow!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Tutorial Tuesday

We have had a ton of fun sewing American Girl/18 inch doll clothes!  We made a lot of clothing for Christmas presents to give to friends, cousins, and of course little sister Holly and are continuing just for fun.  It is so much fun to create and just let your imagination run wild!  :) 

 Morgan usually is in charge of making matching jewelry for our outfits.  She made this beautiful glass bead, stretchy necklace to go with this gingerbread outfit we sold to a neighbor for her daughters doll.

Becca purchased this doll at our local Michael's store, using a 50% off coupon, for only $10.  I made this gingerbread tunic top and tshirt material leggings for around $1.  We've not tried out hands at shoes yet, but maybe someday, so Becca took another 50% off coupon and purchased these boots for $2.50.  Morgan made the necklace for free since all the beads and stretchy string were given to us as a gift a few years ago.  Becca sold this doll as she is pictured above for $40 to a neighbor to give her daughter as a gift for Christmas.  She spent around $13, sold it for $40 and walked away making a nice little profit!

 This was another 18 inch doll we purchased for $10 using a 50% off coupon.  We decided to not purchase another one like her for Holly (this one was gifted to a friend of ours) because the hair was really hard to work with and Holly tends to do damage to the poor dolls hair with all her beautiful hairdos! :)

I found sewing these little tiny sleeves was a challenge at first, but the end product was adorable!!!  This is an outfit that the girls and I worked on.  Morgan made the jean skirt using a pair of Holland's ruined jeans.  Becca used a 50% of coupon for Michael's....our FAVORITE store....to get these adorable purple shoes for only $2!!!  I made the tshirt, that velcros up the back, out of an old tshirt of one of my boys.  I used the bottom edge of the tshirt to be the bottom hem of the shirt which cut out one step in the sewing process I didn't have to do....yea me!!!!  I was checking out at Michael's and saw this display of little leather watch bands and thought with a little imagination I could turn it into a belt.  I spent maybe $.50 cents on it with a coupon....we love coupons!!!!  It took me a little bit to figure out what would work since it was a watch band and it would not fit around the dolls waist.  I did come up with an idea that worked perfectly.  I secured the clasp and cut the band in half at the back, then I sewed a tiny strip of elastic to each cut side.  The purple watch band became a very cute belt that slips on and of!!!!  What an adorable little finishing touch to this cute outfit!  All together with the doll, shoes, and outfit we spent under $15 for a beautiful birthday gift for Holly's friend. :)  I don't know about you, but I love homemade gifts so much!!!!

 I found a great scrap of snowflake material at JoAnn's for $.50 and it turned into an adorable little tunic for this 18 inch doll we purchased (from Michael's) to give my niece for a Christmas present.  I used the same tshirt I used for the white tshirt above to make these white leggings. These shoes were on sale for $1.50 and I cute a strip of ribbon and made a velcro clasp in back.  To finish the outfit Morgan made a cute glass bead necklace.  All together I spent around $13 for a gift that my niece absolutely adored!!!!

 I had quite a bit of snowflake material left over so I made this cute skirt and gave it to Holly to gift to her friend for Christmas!  I used the shirt, ribbon belt, and necklace from the outfit for my niece just so I could take a picture for Becca's book she is keeping with all the different outfits we make.

 Becca liked this snowflake skirt so much she asked me to make another one.  So since I had quite a bit of material left and this skirt really only takes minutes to make I whipped out another skirt for her.  I used up the rest of the white boys tshirt to make another shirt for her outfit.  Becca found these "converse" tennis shoes at Michael's and after using her coupon she ended up spending $3 for them I think.   Morgan made a cute double strand, glass necklace that turned out beautifully.  Becca ended up selling this doll and full outfit to a lady we know for a Christmas present.

I wanted to share the tutorials for the snowflake skirt I made. Here they are:  Part 1 and Part 2.  I found this youtube tutorial very easy to follow and the young lady did a good job walking viewers through each step in perfect details.  My girls and I have made quite a few skirts after watching this video.  They are easy and fun to make.  We have made some shorter and putting leggings under them and we have even made a few longer.  It's a great pattern to play around with and let your imagination run wild!  :)

Happy Sewing!!!!!

Adoption....

So, so, so true!

The 5 O'clock Club!

 

"Work as if you were to live a hundred years, pray as if you were to die tomorrow."       ~ Benjamin Franklin

Endless possibilities!

....all things are possible to him (her) that believeth! ~ Mark 9:23

Impossible or I'm Possible?  When I look at my life, all 13 years of it, I see so many moments that seemed impossible.  The key word there is seemed.  To me it seemed impossible....but to God...He makes the impossible....well....possible.  :)

I loved the quote above on my picture.  Impossible/I'm possible.  I'm possible = I am a girl who has great potential to become ALL that God has created me to be!!!  I'm possible = God has given me so many abilities/gifts and the strength/courage to accomplish great things for Him!!!

I. AM. POSSIBLE!!!!

When my family was in court so my parents could adopt me and my 9 siblings, many times I heard "this is impossible."  Many times I heard "there is no way."  It seemed more often then not I heard negatives from people, which was scary, but I remember when I told my mom about how I was feeling she introduced me to this song by Don Moen.   Here are the lyrics:

 God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength
For each new day
He will make a way
He will make a way
 

By a roadway in the wilderness
He'll lead me
And rivers in the desert will I see
Heaven and earth will fade
But His Word will still remain
He will do something new today

She told me to sing it anytime I felt that things were impossible, because she wanted me to remember that "He WILL make a way".   All things are possible with God!  What a great promise and comfort that is. :)    

Even though there were many "negative Nellies" in my life God did make a way and He turned what seemed impossible into OH SO POSSIBLE!!!!

I am 13 years old and I know that He has placed endless possibilities in front of me.  He turned the impossible in my life into the possible!  I pray that He help you see that no matter what is going on in your life, He will make a way and turn what seems impossible into totally possible!

I'm Possible....Are you?

 His girl, Becca Jean

 

							(This post and the picture with quote above were done by a special person in my life...my daughter Becca.  This post blessed me so much and I hope it blesses every person who happens by my blog and reads it.  Be blessed!)

Another day!

 

Jameson ~ 8 & Holly ~ 7

2013 seems like it is flying by.  We are out of the birthday rush (6 birthdays in 6 weeks) and heading into our end of the school year stretch (we school from September 1 to Mid-August).  2013 has been AMAZING and we are not even half way through it.  God has blessed us so much.

Too cute for words!

The kids were so excited to finally get their new birth certificates a while back and now their social security cards are done.  Thankfully social security cards were much smoothly attained then the birth certificates.  Now we move on to passports and drivers licenses and getting every legal thing that has the kids birth names on them switched over.  The older kids who are more affected (i.e. online high school program, driving, work, passports, etc.) have been extremely anxious for this day....the younger ones have not been affected by all the legal name changes and such.

Who loved spending a day with daddy?  We did!!!!

L.O.V.E!!!!

Excitement in the house!!!!

The house is overflowing with excitement!  Our annual 6 Flags tickets were just purchased and the older gang is on it's way to Atlanta this Friday.  Tim is taking our 5 teens and two of Morgans friends.  Fun times!!!!  They are eager to try the Dare Devil for the first time....hehe....Tim not so much.  I hope he can actually go on the rides.  He's still in a bit of pain from his bike accident this past Sunday.  

Maxwell ~ 15

I am staying home with the younger four and we will have fun of our own.   I'm thinking yummy breakfast, then a trip to swim at the YMCA, then lunch picnic style at a park, then a trip to the local kids play museum, and who knows what other mischief we can get ourselves into.  :)  Fun times!!!!

My hero Max!!!!

I ordered our new English today!!!!  I am super excited and nervous.  We are going from a student/parent curriculum to a parent/student curriculum.  I love the 3rd grade we have right now and am excited to have all the kids switch over.  Once we  receive the books I will try and get a post put together about it!  I also got the little guys their new Explode the Code books ordered.  They are LOVING EtC!!!!  Wish I had known about EtC when I started homeschooling.  

 Love this young man!!!!

Life has been happening!

 (Holly on the kids super awesome tire swing their daddy made them)

Life has been going full steam ahead and I have sat down many times to write something....anything....but ended up reading others blogs to tired to put sentences (no matter how grammatically wrong they might be) together.  We had a visit from relatives, a quick spur of the moment trip to Florida, back to Georgia to enter our birthday frenzy.  Six birthdays starting April 5th and ending with Morgan's birthday tomorrow.  It gets kind of hectic around here during this time of celebrating.

Holland ~ 7

Becca has taken a liking to photography and asked if she could borrow my new camera.  Yikes!  I of course allowed her to use it....telling her to be VERY careful with it...and she had a little photo session with Holly.  My camera made it back inside without incident and Becca took some great pictures of our littlest princess.

School has been going wonderfully.  We've been in the process of changing curriculum and so that of course adds little bumps in the road.  We are only doing one change at a time so as not to throw us all into a whirlwind of chaos.  Our first dip into the switching of curriculum was math.  We used ACE and Math U See (which we loved), but we had heard some amazing reviews from friends and others about Teaching Textbooks.  So Morgan who is in high school was struggling in her high school math course and I thought she would make a great "guinea pig".  I purchased one of the higher TT grades and gave the program to her.  She went to town on the program and came back with a great review and request to purchase the next grade....which of course we did and she is making her way through it as I type.  I have much more to say about this, but thought it would make a great post all by itself.  I will try and get on the ball and post about the rest of the kids and their transition to Teaching Textbooks!  All in all....great and smooth transition and my kids have been OVER THE MOON enthused to do their math.

The kids started the Mother's Day celebration Friday since Tim was home early.  They blessed me with a Kindle Fire HD and awesome Survivor cover for it.  We had purchased a Kindle Fire for Justice a few weeks ago for his birthday present and he raved so much about it that they decided to get one for me!  They are so nice!!!!  I of course received some new Willow Tree figurines which are my obsession and I love when the kids find one that they feel resembles them.  Handmade cards full of hugs and kisses, glue and glitter, and funny poems were the things I will cherish always!

Saturday morning we got up very early for a Saturday.  Tim was treating us all to Golden Corrals breakfast bar.  The kids were vibrating with excitement.  This was a first for them and they enjoyed it all.  :)  After that we headed to the bank so the kids could all cash their various checks from their various jobs.  They were happy to have their cash in hand.  Then as a surprise we stopped by Toys R Us to let the kids spend their birthday moneys and any moneys they had saved for spending at such a treat as a trip to TRU!  Legos were purchased for each child: Johnston ~ new Star Wars set, Davidson ~ LAST Dino set and he now owns the entire Lego Dino collection, Jensen ~ got his first construction Lego...he has decided he wants to collect the construction set now, Jameson stayed true to form and got some police sets, and Holly found some new Lego Friends sets that she didn't have yet.  They desperately wanted to get home to play!  Tim decided to get Max and Becca new bikes since their bikes were beyond fixing anymore.  It is prime biking weather and with their birthday's in December they have missed the daily bike adventures.  So Tim told them that he was buying their BIG birthday presents now and we will do something on the small side in December since it is so close to Christmas they always loose out.  This was a major WIN for them and they have put these new bikes to much use since Saturday.  We went ahead and gave Morgan her birthday present....a Kindle Fire...on Saturday since everyone else was getting special things.  She was excited to get it early!!!  Sunday we woke up to Tim and Johnston sneaking fresh Dunkin Donuts in the house!  It was yum!!!  We spent the day in our comfy clothing, played cards, watched a few things, and Tim took all the kids on a long bike ride which ended in a VERY bad accident.  This was an accident that would not have surprised me if it was Max or Becca (our two daredevils with two little ones creeping up closely to join their ranks)...but it was Tim.  Somehow he decided to come down our extremely steep driveway in the grass and when he went to switch on to our driveway his tire slipped flipping him over the handlebars face planting into the concrete.  He mutilated his knee, sprained both wrist, and dislocated his pinky horribly!!!!  His face took much of the fall....he looks like he has had a very bad botox lip job, his nose which is of generous kissing size already grew to much swollen size, he bite a nice size hole in the middle of his tongue and his eyebrows were scratched to shreds.  Thankfully he was wearing his glasses which the concrete destroyed the lens' with all the concrete scratches.  He was one hurt man.  He refused that he was truly hurt even though I told him after feeling his pinky that I thought it was dislocated and waiting was going to make it harder to relocate, but my love decided it was just jammed.  This morning he woke up to tell me he was driving himself to the doctor because his pinky kept him up all night.  Yes....the xray showed his pinky indeed was dislocated in a very bad way and no one could put it back in place so they had to send him to a specialist.  He is now home...in not as much pain....getting ready for work tomorrow.  I love this man!!!

All in all....I had a very memorable Mother's Day.  Full of love, laughing, snuggles, kisses, adventures and even an accident!  I am very blessed to have these young people in my life and they make my job as a momma so extraordinary.  I am thankful....so thankful.