Friday Family Fun Night!

We got a ton done on the school room today.  Finished painting the room and trim.  Got the room clear of everything that we could move out and got the floor cleaned, prepped and ready to get the floor done.  Super excited!!!  I'm not sure if we will finished it this weekend, but we are sure going to try.  

(Played with my camera and photo program for a bit.  Had Becca pose with the cute Tinkerbell!)

I finished helping the little boys organize all their Lego's and toys in their room.  It looks so nice and they have a lot of space to play in their room now.  They love having everything cleaned up and organized.  I decided to give each boy a personal box that they are allowed to keep whatever they want in.  This way we won't find tons and tons of treasures all over the house and their bedroom.  They are very excited about their boxes and have already started to fill them up.

Since we are doing the 21 day fast with Free Chapel we have been trying some new soups and veggie cuisine.  Today the kids asked me if they could 'create' something so I left them to it.  Becca made the soup base (2 bottles of V8, apple cider vinegar, and chicken broth) and cut up the onions, Johnston washed cut the potatoes, Jameson washed the celery and Jensen cut them up (he was super excited at his first time cutting up veggies), and Davidson washed and cut up the carrots.  It turned out AMAZING!!!!  The flavor was perfect and the veggies cooked to the perfect texture.  I am so proud of them.  When we went into the kitchen to do dishes after dinner I found it perfectly cleaned up.  Becca and Johnston cleaned up the kitchen as they went along so all we had to do were a few dishes.  What a blessing they are.  

For Friday family fun night we played a few boards games and watched a new movie I found on Amazon instant watch. 

 

I had never heard of this one before tonight.  It was a great find!  If you are looking for a fun music filled movie to watch with your family....look no farther.  We've been on a classical and musical movie run right now.  This was a great addition to our list of likes.  

Living 2013 to it's fullest!!!!  Praying you are too!!!!

We love to play games!

We got our book work done pretty quickly today so we could work on decluttering the boys stuff that we took out of their room. We filled a trash bag to give to CASA of toys that are in good shape, but that our kids are not playing with anymore.  We also filled a bag of trash!!! I love

 organizing, decluttering, purging our house of stuff that we just do not need.  It really is good for the soul!

Tim was home early to help the boys get the garbage taken to the compactor.  With us getting sick we fell behind in that department.  My hubs is such an awesome dad.  The boys were so relieved to get that enormous chore done and it is such a help to have dad and little bro's get in there with ya.  Having people behind you sometimes is all you need to climb a mountain and take it down!!!  

Took Tim to pick up the "Green Machine" from the mechanics then he took Johnston to his basketball game and I took Max and Becca to their basketball practices. This basketball season has been pretty interesting.  All three kids have had practices at the same time in different locations and games on same days different locations.  We've had to call in the family calvary a few times to cover games.  I know the kids are enjoying this basketball season and want to do another season, but we will make that decision when the time comes.  It's been fun though, I am looking forward to that free space back on our calender.

Decided to let the littlest four Jeffries stay up and play a few board games with me.  We truly love to play board games, card games, video games (even though we don't play those as often) whenever we get a chance.  I got to play a couple rounds of Sequence for Kids with them, then Blokus Junior.  

If you haven't played this game you should.  It is a great game that actually forces you to play strategically.  The kids received Blokus Jr and the adult version for Christmas and we have worn the slap out of them in the last two weeks. 

Davidson was a worthy opponent, but I won this round.  I decided to let him try his hand at the adult version with Morgan, Justice and myself before bed tonight, but he isn't quite ready for that one yet. Morgan and I protected him from Justice so he did okay, but on his own it wouldn't have been a long game for him.  Still he enjoyed playing with us and that's what's important.

 

Jensen, my freckly impish friend, said he was happy to finally be able to play a worthy opponent after only playing with the other little kids.  He has such confidence this little man.  He also lost this round, but he did play well.  

Johnston didn't win his game, but he is getting better and had fun which is all we really care about.  Becca's first game is this Saturday and I look forward to seeing how well she does.  I'm also looking forward to getting our school room done this weekend...cross your fingers for us friends!!!!  

Terrific Tuesday!

Yes...the title might be cheesy, but we had a TERRIFIC TUESDAY!  School went well, we even played a couple games that we are hooked on right now.  (Blokus and Phase 10 Mod)  We didn't get any work done on the school room project, but that is okay.  2013 is a year of just letting each day happen and what get's done get's done and what doesn't, will not cause us to stress out.  :)

We did however get a ton of work done on the upstairs boys room done.  New shelves in the closet and their clothing all folded and reorganized.  Stripped and washed all their bedding, and organized all their beds again.  Cleared off all their shelves and are in the process of reorganizing their Legos.  They have this love of making their Lego creations and then displaying them which is great except four boys with Lego creations...space goes quickly.  They all (7 kiddos) got new Legos for Christmas so we took all the displays down and put them back in their bins.  The only thing we have left to do is get bins for their new Legos and get their shelves all organized! They are so loving their new 2013 fresh start in their room!

Tim came home early and grabbed Johnston and Max for basketball practice.  He decided to make it his guy's night for the week.  After practice they went and picked up some stuff for the school room floor from Lowe's, then they had dinner at IHOP.  All you can eat pancakes....yeah....that made my boys happy!

Becca, Max and Johnston have so enjoyed this basketball season!  I'm not sure we will do another season, but they want to as of right now.  It has been a fun adventure and we have tons of new memories. 

Since the boys had their guy's night the older girls and I had girl's night.  We had Chinese food and watched a movie and talked, talked, talked!  It was a great night with my girls!  So...today in my book was a terrific Tuesday!

Monday Night = Date Night!

Today was back to school after a three week break from book work.  We did fun school stuff up until the Thursday before Christmas, and since we were going to Florida we pretty much packed it all away until after the New Year. We did not anticipate one of the kiddos contacting the sickies that had been going around and we had up until that moment avoided.  Well, we took it on our vacation and it did it's damage while we were there. Everyone (minus Justice, Becca, Johnston and myself) including my parents came down with this very yucky bug.  Jameson ran fevers up to 105.  It was not nice.  When my parents woke up Thursday morning and went to the doctor because they were not feeling well I knew I had to pack up my crew and bring them home.  I figured up until this time I was the only driver and if I were to get sick we would all be there sick...together. So I rallied the gang and we were on the rode within three hours, home in our own beds that night.  We were all so happy to be in our own beds.  There is just something so nice about the comfort of your own bed when you are sick.  It turned out that I had made the perfect choice, because Friday Becca and Justice woke up sick.  It was quite a holiday season, BUT we were together and we had so much fun.  Tim was off until January 2nd so we had five days at home together literally in our pajamas watching movies and playing games with a comfy fire.  It was wonderful!

Holly got a new baby ~ Bella Noelle (All her other babies are missing hands and feed thanks to Becca's dog Thumbalina!) So Holly was super excited to get a new baby girl! Someone asked me about the clothes that our girls baby dolls wear and how lifelike they are.  Well, the secret to that is they are real baby clothing from either any store that has them on clearance for a steal or thrift stores in good shape.  This onsie (size newborn) I got on clearance after Christmas last year for $1 from Walmart.  I like that they are washable, durable, and cute!  We make sure to get babies that are big enough to wear the Preemie/Newborn sizes. The girls also have a real infant car seat, stroller, bottles and diaper bag.  We actually spend less on the real items then the doll items...and they love it!

Davidson has been collecting these Imaginex dinosaurs for the past two years.  For Christmas he got the large Trex.  He was so excited.  There are only a one or two more dinosaurs to the set and he will be done with this collection.  He sure loves dinosaurs!

I got of topic...I was talking about how we started back to school today.  I gave the kids the rest of last week of for extra time to get feeling 100% better.  So we really just played a ton of new games the kids received for Christmas.  Today everyone got right in and got their work done.  Morgan and I were able to run into town to get the weeks groceries.  Always fun to shop with my Mo.  The cashier was shocked at how much food (healthy food) we got for so little. As a little reward we went and had a small Orange Julius at Dairy Queen.   

When we got home I found out that Becca has been a busy blessing.  She cleaned my room, changed my sheets and all, cleaned my bathroom and got everything set up for Tim and I to have a "date in the bedroom".  The older kids ended up getting the little kids to bed on time, cooked Tim and I dinner and served us dinner in bed. They ate dinner and played games together while Tim and I enjoyed four hours of complete alone time.  We had time to order the flooring for the school room project, talk about a few things we had been needing to discuss, snuggled and watched two episodes of a new series on Netflix.  It was so nice.  The kids enjoyed doing this for us just as much as we ourselves enjoyed having it done for us.   We have heard rumors that it might happen again in a couple weeks.  I look forward to finding out!

 Blessed and enjoying 2013!!!

Lazy Saturday's!

Tim got up and at 'em this morning.  Max and Johnston had basketball games and Becca had basketball practice all at the same time!  It's been a crazy basketball season for sure.  Most days two out of the three have practice or games at the same time.  Tim dropped Justice off with Becca at her practice and then he took the boys to their games.  Luckily the boys actually had games at the same school so he was able to just watch both games without running all over Gainesville.  Max's team won their games, while Johnston's team did a great job trying. 

Morgan and I got to sleep in with the little's which was super nice.  Morgan made us waffles and homemade hot cocoa and we watched a cartoon together.  Then Holly and Jameson wanted to put up their tents that they received for Christmas and we couldn't say no to such cuties.

I mean...look at these faces!  Precious!  These tents were so easy that Davidson and Jensen were able to put them together by themselves.

 Jameson Joe ~ 7

Jolly Holly ~ 6

Oh...I have the funniest kids!  Jameson is a nut!

The four munchkins took these two tents to the girls room and piled every blanket, pillow, and stuffed animal that they owned.  For the next four hours they played and played and PLAYED in that room.  Morgan and I played games and watched a few episodes of our most recent series that we are watching at the moment.  It was a wonderful lazy Saturday.

Tim and the gang got back and we had a nice family night!  Spaghetti and games!  Love family nights!  2013...it's off to a wonderful start people!

Becca Jean is 13!!!

Today my precious Becca Jean turned 13.  She is such a fantastic person.  Bubbly, passionate about life, energetic beyond belief, artistic, flamboyant, outgoing, oh...I could go on and on about this girl.  When God placed her in our lives He couldn't have placed a more kindred soul in my life.  We have some of the best times together.  We had a great day today celebrating her life.  We even slipped away for a bit to take some pictures. 

WE LOVE YOU BECCA JEAN SO SO SO MUCH!!!!

Max is 15!!!!

Today Max turned 15! I can't believe how fast these years  have flown by.   I was looking back at pictures I took almost four years ago of him when he first came to live with us.  He was this small 11 year old boy thirsty for love.  He has gone thru so much in his short life, yet he has come through with such strength.  I admire him so much.  I see the man he is becoming, just around the bend it's approaching, and I am so proud of him. Each day I see him becoming more responsible, more compassionate, more rooted in his relationship with God.  I can truly say I respect this young man.  He is my precious boy and I just love him so extremely much.  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAXWELL!  This next year is going to ROCK!!!