Paying it Forward

My island friend, Anjeny, is having a Pay it Forward event on her blog. It's totally awesome...go check it out. And after that come back here and sign up to get totally cool homemade gifts from me!

The catch is that you must participate too. Before you leave your comment here, write up (or copy and paste) a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going. Then, come back, let me know you are going to play. Remember that only the FIRST FIVE comments will receive a gift from me, so be quick!

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantee that you will like what I make. But, I will try my best to make sure that you do.
2. It will be done this year (hopefully sooner than later).
3. You will have no clue what or when it will be.

Please be sure to leave your e-mail address too so I can get hold of you.

Lurking around every corner

This week has been a week from hell! It seems that everything that could go wrong did go wrong...well, maybe not everything but it sure felt that way. Both Al & I have had miserable weeks. One thing would happen and it seemed within no time another thing was falling apart. I sort of felt like we were under attack and did not know when the next bomb would fall.

On my way home from an Easter egg hunt this afternoon, I realized we have been under attack. The Adversary was really pounding us this week, he was lurking around every corner. I realized in the hustle and bustle of all I was trying to accomplish this week that I missed the most important part of the Easter holiday....JESUS! From Palm Sunday all through Holy Week, past Good Friday and right up to Easter, I've allowed myself to be so preoccupied with my day-to-day life and events that I completely missed opportunities to teach my children about the significant events that took place during this week. Of the tremendous gift bestowed upon us from Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ.

Every exploding bomb redirected my attention and kept me from sharing these important lessons with my children....hmmmm, maybe we did such a great job for Easter last year that Satan said, "No way, she's not going to do that again!" So he sent many obstacles our way. I'm sad that I missed opportunities this week, but I'm hopeful that things are heading in the right direction and I can enjoy Easter Sunday with my family and remember how thankful I am for the atonement of Jesus Christ and the wonderful love my Heavenly Father has for me and that I also have for Him.

Actually, this reminds me of something my mother-in-law sent me: "Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor in the morning Satan says, "Oh, crap. She's up!""

Baby Chase is growing!

The Toothless Wonder

Connor lost his two front teeth

Lillee's Easter Dress

In between conference sessions, I completed Lillee's dress!!!

And here are the girls together

Isabel stole the flower from our neighbor's yard...she got in trouble for it, but then we realized what a great prop it was :)

Makin' Babies!

No, not me....although I did pull a good April Fool's joke on my mother-in-law. Last year she was in Hawaii around late April - early May which is when I found out I was pregnant with Chase. I had been working outside every day with the kids cleaning the yard and pulling weeds in hope of putting in a large garden. Then the morning sickness struck. It was crippling...all day sickness! I had emailed my mother-in-law to tell her I was pregnant, but I sort of snuck it into the email like it was nothing. She reread the email several times before it sunk in that I really was pregnant. I remember her saying, "I kept reading, waiting to see if you were going to say, "I'm joking." "

So on April 1st I emailed her again saying, "Last year at this time, I emailed you saying I couldn't work in the yard anymore because I was so sick from being pregnant. Well this year, I did not even get a chance to start. I guess the garden will have to wait one more year after one more baby."

A few hours later I received a call....it took her awhile but she figured out it was an April Fool's joke :)

But this post was not really about ME makin' babies, it's actually to help benefit someone else making babies! I hope you'll take a few minutes and go support the Wilkerson's and their adventures through IVF. http://wilkersonivffund.blogspot.com/

Giveaway!
To qualify for this giveaway, you must:
1. Comment on this post so Lyndee can visit your blog to see if you fulfilled the requirements!
2. Copy and paste this post into a post on your blog.
3. Posts and comments must be received and submitted by April 10, 2009.
If you meet these requirements, your name will be entered into a drawing for a FREE hat of your choice! You pick the style, you pick the color!Thank you to everyone for participating and for helping the Wilkerson Family!http://wilkersonivffund.blogspot.com/2009/03/giveaway.html

Good luck Wilkersons....your hats are ADORABLE!!!

Repurposing

Late last summer I was looking for a dresser solution for the kids as they have lots of clothes but their dresser took up so much floor space they barely had room to play. So I was tooling around on craigslist one Friday night looking for a solution when I came across a yard sale advertisement offering 2 dressers and a toddler bed for $60! Al and I headed out early Saturday to get the dressers. They were really cute...white with soft, pastel knobs in multiple colors.

Little did I know that they were not only cheap in price, but also in construction. They quickly started falling apart under the abuse of a 3 & 4 year old. Drawers started breaking, rails were bending...it was sad. So we got rid of the first dresser, a tall 5-drawer dresser, but I snagged the knobs off of it because they were cute and I was certain I could use them on another dresser.

Then dresser #2 started falling apart. I was really upset to get rid of this one, I held onto it for nearly a month thinking we could fix it somehow. I knew we wouldn't fix it, though. So I decided to pull the face of each drawer off and use them to fix another storage problem!

The kids have so many light jackets, hoodies and bags, I figured we could make a place for them to hang things on the wall. We added 4 knobs to each drawer piece and I painted on them. Connor's isn't finished yet and we're waiting on my husband to bring a drill home to attach them to the walls. I'll add more pictures when they're on the wall, but here is what they look like

And as a bonus, I was able to tie in a lesson on recycling!!

We also pulled off some other pieces of the dresser and will be using those to glue on clothes pins and attach to their bedroom walls for hanging art work. Our refrigeratore is not big enough to hold all the coloring and painting sheets of 3 little ones :) This way it's in their room for them to enjoy and manage, instead of me deciding which ones are worth keeping on the fridge! I'll get pictures of those up soon, too. We've painted our clothes pins, we just need to get them attached to the board and on the wall.

Can a 4 year old have PMS?

Lillee, my 4 year old, is quite the moody little thing. She's definitely retribution for all I did to my mother while growing up. She's so much like me, including the moodiness.

This morning, like most mornings, she climbed into bed with us for snuggles. She seemed perfectly fine. Then Al asked her to switch sides of the bed so Chase could switch sides to nurse. For some reason this set her off. She jumped off the bed in a huff, found a spot on the floor and sat there for 20 minutes, pouting. When Al and I left the room, we told her she needed to leave as well. Did she? Of course not, Lillee is not the most obedient child. She's headstrong, independent and quite verbal in her insolence. This morning, though, she stood in silence behind my bedroom door, peeking through the crack.

As I made breakfast in the kitchen, I called her from my room once again...this time more forcefully and threatening (I'm good at that). She stomped out of the room as she realized she was getting herself deeper into trouble. She seemed to be fine at this point and walked to the kitchen to get some yogurt then off to the table to eat. I was also making oatmeal so I handed her a bowl of oatmeal. I rarely receive thank you's from her and today was no different. Instead of gratitude she tells me how it's not what she wants.

"I wanted the yellow bowl!"

Normally, she would want the red bowl she got (which was why I gave it to her) but she also tends to be contrary quite often. So I explained to her she needed to eat the oatmeal in the bowl she received. Her willfulness resulted in no more complaints but silent refusal to eat the oatmeal...see the power struggle :)

After breakfast, Connor was playing with a toy or a book or something (I can't even remember what it was now). Somehow, Lillee became upset and took off to her room, wailing like she had just received the worst news. I questioned Connor, he could not even tell me what set her off...he was as dumbfounded as I was.

Once she had stopped crying she emerged from her room and sauntered back to the living room. I called her over to come sit on my lap for some hugs and cuddles. This made her feel better and calm down. I asked why she was having such a hard morning and she had no explanation.

So I decided we needed to have a musical chick flick (Beauty & the Beast), cocoa & dark chocolate kisses. She perked right up, "I'll get the movie!" she exclaimed. I grabbed the cocoa and chocolate then we snuggled on the sofa munching our chocolate and watching our musical.

Does this sound a bit like PMS to you?