Around Here...

I have been busy and have not blogged much lately.  Our days have been filled mostly with school, day to day life, and some home renovation projects.  We're currently converting one of our bathrooms into a bathroom AND laundry room.  It's been a pretty big job.

Some of the cousins were over recently and they played baseball together for hours.  They all had some Red Sox gear, so the key thought that was pretty exciting.  Evan's ears though.... He cracks me up ♡

Daniel has challenged himself with a new type of Rubiks Cube.  This has 12 sides. Within just a day or so he had figured out 6 sides.  One day after lunch I said it was time to get back to school and he said, "can't I keep working on my Rubiks Cube???"  I told him we needed to finish school and he looked at me and said, "afterall, it IS algorithms"....

He got me on that One! :)

Bailey is making improvements in reading.  Children with dyslexia can struggle in different variances.  Bailey has an attitude of wanting to read older things that her sisters can read, and her determination has helped her not to struggle so much this year.  She makes improvements often!

There has been a lot of wildlife in the back field recently.  We keep binoculars right at the window now because we almost always see animals out there.

My beautiful girl hard a work.

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I've got some more pictures to share and updates to make.  I hope to be able to get caught up  with blogging.  I get so busy and this takes a back seat.  But I wouldn't miss out on my kid's lives for anything.  I feel so blessed to be their mom 

Date Weekend

This past weekend my sister in law had the older two girls for the night and my mother and father in law had the youngest three for the night.  When Brandon got home from work I had made marinated sirloin tips, loaded cheese fries and salad.  After dinner we went to Bangor.  It was a nice time of getting some things we needed at Lowe's, running into Burlington Coat Factory to use a giftcard I had, Hobby Lobby, and then for dessert at Sweet Frogs.

The next morning I made us Berry-Banana Crepes for breakfast and we headed for the coast.

Our first stop was Elmer's Barn Antique Mall.  I was looking for two specific things (old books and wooden boxes)...of which I found both.  We did pretty good, we were in there less than an hour!

Not sure if he LOVED the antique shopping as much as I did, but we stopped at a Trading Post after that was on the way... so he enjoyed that :) 

See the beautiful box? I got two for under my new bench that my talented hubby made for me.  I got some old books I was looking for, and I also got that cute little gem for flowers!  You can make out pretty good if you have an idea ahead of time what you want to find!

From there we went to Moody's Diner...we were ready for lunch at 10:45.  Hubby got this enormous burger. I got fried haddock.  I cannot be near the coast and not have seafood!

While we were at Moody's we were texting with our friends, the Petermans.  We invited them to join us at the Prison Showroom store and then to the Breakwater.

Pastor Peterman is the Pastor at Breakwater Baptist Church, so it's more like they took US to the Breakwater....

The view was beautiful!

The weather...was horrible.

The lighthouse is almost a mile out.  We walked a mile in the freezing cold and I wanted to hind behind the lighthouse where there was no wind when we got out there.

(There's me in the back...brrrr!!!!)

That's exactly what we did for a little while.  And then it was time for the dreaded, brutally cold walk back to shore!

We plan to go again in July ;) and no sooner!

It was a special weekend and we thank our family for taking such good care of our children so we could enjoy eachother and have some time for a date.

♡♡♡♡♡

House Projects

What do you do when winter drags on through April?  We've been working on some refinishing, renovating projects around the house.  It started with designing a new entry way area in the livingroom and soon I was refinishing furniture and decorating my entire livingroom...

I normally would not have thought to paint this wood piece.  We've had it for many years and it was desperate for a makeover.  No knobs, a complete mess, scratches, and so on.  I decided to Chalk paint it and antique it with a dark antiquing wax.  It brought great balance to the room since I had just chalk painted the bench that hubby built for me.  We also matched the hardware on this to the hardware on the new shelf/hooks.

Currently I'm not 100% finished with the wall area.  I have a sign I'm making that needs to get hung right underneath the shelf.  Also, under the bench are some old wooden boxes that I LOVE, that I found at an antique shop!

The pallet with the cotton and purple flowers took me about an hour to make. It was easy peasy  (I already had the pallet wood from another project.  

Monday and Tuesday the weather was beautiful!  We got all of our porch furniture out of the shed and set up chairs, tables, etc.  I used some more old boxes and made a small shoe rack right next to the door.

Now that we've finished some house projects and spring seems to be showing up.... I'm planning the garden next!!

(As well as one more indoor renovation... it may take another month or so.  Pics soon!)

A Productive Week

This week in addition to everyday school we have begun getting things together and ideas on paper for a science fair that the kids will be involved in.  In May, Breakwater Baptist is having a science fair and the kids are really brainstorming about what they might like to present at the fair. 

We also got to the Library this week.  Brynn ended her last library book on Tuesday and had to painfully wait until Thursday to get to library for new reading books!  Thankfully, Wednesday evening at church Mrs.W brought in a book for Brynn to borrow, so she was quite happy about that!

I found a book at the library that I've been wanting to read for a while.  It just jumped out at me and I was so happy to see it there.  It's called, "Wheat Belly".  I know, sounds funny... but it's amazing and I recommend to anyone!

We finished learning about Pompeii on Monday, and Tuesday we started learning about the Boston Tea Party.  If you remember, Brynn specifically asked that we study something that's not so "devastating" next.  I put a few ideas out there to the kids and mostly everyone agreed that they wanted to learn more about the Boston Tea Party.  We really enjoy our History studies that we do together as a group.  The kids think it's fun because our history studying is very literature based and they always enjoy the read-alouds!

We are really craving SPRING weather here!  Tonight and tomorrow we are supposed to get another snow storm.  Tomorrow is April 1st and it feels like nice weather will never come.  We have many outdoor projects that need to get done, but the cooler weather is allowing us to finish up some indoor projects first... I cannot complain.

Tomorrow is our neice's birthday party and it will be nice to visit with family to close out another blessed week.  So thankful for the life God has given to me!! I'm blessed ♡

Blessings

Today was a very blessed day.  We started our day at the church at 9:30 doing a little bit of cleaning and putting up some new spring flower bouquets.  At 10:00 the men had prayer and the ladies chatted and prepared Sunday day school for the kids.  We had Sunday school, our morning service, and then fellowship lunch and an afternoon service at 3:00. 

We left the church around 4:15 to drive about 2 hours to New Vinyard, Maine to Gospel Light Baptist Church for their evening service.  Our friends, the Peterman's, also drove out there for the service.  Our kids sang a special together and it was sooooo good to see our friends that we used to go to church with in Unity.  I always love the view there in New Vinyard.  The mountains are absolutely stunning! 

After the service out in New Vinyard we all went over to Farmington to McDonald's so all the kids could have ice cream.  We got home about an hour ago (at 10:50 p.m.) ... what a FULL and busy day in service to the Lord.
Is there anything better?  It truly was a blessed day!

Antique Shopping

Last week we began a painting project.  We painted our living room and dining room, which is a large, open concept and we like it all one color.  We are building a bench that will go in the entryway in the livingroom, as well as a shelf.  So last week Jada and I went to Elmer's Barn on a mission to find a few things to decorate the new area with.

It was such a fun time.  I only regret not bundling up to go... it's really cold in the barn!!  But it was a blast.  Some days it just hits me how grown up Jada is becoming!  I am blessed that my daughter is one of my very best friends!  We had a good time together.

Jada saws this antique tin "thing" and kept telling me I needed to get it to put flowers in.  She was right. It was definitely a cute find!  We don't have the shelf finished yet, but it's currently on the piano and I love it!

She also found two old hymnals that she bought for herself...but we're currently using for decor :)

 I bought a book called, "The Last days of Pompeii".  I thought it was an amazing find, considering that we are still learning about Pompeii right now in school!  

My walls didn't turn out the color that I had wanted, but rather than paint the entire space all over again, I'm trying to just work with the color.  I'll post some before and after pictures when we finish the bench and shelf :)

Herd of Deer

The deer have been coming around a lot lately.  Weeks ago we were very excited to see a few deer at a time.  The most that had come around at one time, I believe, was 8.  They're so beautiful to watch.  A huge distraction if you have anything at all to get done!

Three evenings ago we saw SO many deer out back. It was more than 8...  we ended up counting 21 deer out there eating.  The hard part is I can't seem to get the entire field in one picture. I'd have to back up so much that you.wouldnt be able to see the deer very well.

The very next evening there were 35 deer running, playing and eating right behind our house.  It was amazing seeing that many deer all at once, all together.  The yard was just littered with them and although the all seem to look alike, they are all a little different!

The other day there were so many young ones.  Not spotted, but yearlings that were noticeably smaller than the rest of them.  They're especially adorable to watch.

Yesterday was a huge blizzard. Yep, in the middle of March.... just 6 days away from "Spring"... so I don't expect to see many deer until this snow disappears.  I believe we've gotten a good 20" here.  When it gets light out I'll have a better idea.  Hope the deer are finding plenty to eat :)