building walls.

i got to help the other night. my wonderful soon to be neighbor jody offered to feed us dinner monday night and then watch all the kids for a couple of hours so i could work with dave.
i basically just handed the guys studs while they put the walls together and ran and got whatever tools they needed. it was so much fun to watch it all coming together and to finally start to see the rooms we spent so much time designing.

then as it started to get dark dave had me take his sawzall around and cut the 2x4 plates out of the doorways.
it went a lot faster once i realized that the blade was in upside down.
remember it was getting dark....












shaeya sure loves that kitty. they are inseparable.

while i'm thinking of shaeya....i forgot to mention a pretty funny story from our camping trip.

i took the 3 girls to the bathroom at the campground to shower them before bed.
and as shaeya was trying to get dressed, tekoa opened the door to the shower stall. shaeya yelled at tekoa to shut the door because she was still changing, and i told her not to yell. i said it was okay because it was a girl's bathroom, and there were only girls in there.

then shaeya looked at me and said, "so you're telling me that it's okay for girls see other girls' WIENERS!!?!??"

i'm doing the best i can, all right?? obviously i still have some work to do.

here are some pictures from "camera day" at gymnastics. so cute.





if you look close on this one, you can see koa's perfect landing after her dismount :)









and now for wren's newly discovered talent....



and one last video of tekoa. she learned ty and shaeya's bible verse with them. :)
ephesians 2:1&2

so camping.....
actually was a lot of fun. i had a great time with my kids and with a whole lot of my cousins.

the beach was beautiful and despite some off and on rain we played sand volleyball and had campfires.

i would love to go back with dave sometime.....actually dave would say doesn't really like to camp, but i'm convinced that he just hasn't done it enough.
sometimes it takes quite a few times of trying something out before you can really even know if you like it or not......right??
right, dave???
(i think he has heard this same speech from me a time or 2 before in the 10 years of our marriage....i think.)











the rest of these pictures have been stolen from my picture taking aunt rachel.
thanks rach :)

















if you look in the middle of this last one, you will see my graceful son. see him?? he gets his gracefulness from me.



as for the house- seems like ages since i've been out to see it, and from what dave tells me there's a lot that has changed. i'm hoping to get out there soon.

but tonight is the beginning of the teamkid program at my church that i do the music for.
and i'm on my own this year with getting all of us fed and dressed and there- and then i have to figure out what i'm doing with tekoa and wren during it all.
should be interesting.
and especially interesting tonight with me having this annoying, lingering soar throat and cough that has left me a voice that no one will want to hear.

then friday and saturday my sister and i are having our girl cousins out to the lake for an overnight stay. with no kids.
it's kind of an annual thing and it will be a lot of fun.

here's a picture of shaeya on picture day. tyden was already in the car and we were running late so i don't have one of him.



and lastly-
....sometimes little girls wear the same dresses because we think it's cute when they match.
and sometimes they wear the same dresses cause they both pee in their clothes at target. :)

looking a bit better....





i don't think wren is ever going to get hair. not that i need anymore hair to do.....it will just be nice when people quit calling her a he.



she's always crossing her fingers. i think it's really cute.



i forgot to start taking my pictures of the house last night until it was almost too dark. i think you can kinda see, but i had to take them pretty close up. i will do better next time.

this is the front door.



this is the great room and the dining room (they are open to each other)



master bedroom



stairs to the basement



today was picture day for tekoa. i hope the photographer had better luck than i did this morning. it is impossible to get that girl to hold still for a picture and to not make goofy faces....these were the best of about 30.







she'd much rather pose like this....




and now, here is a recap of my day- since there's no one else to tell. i know the details get very boring so feel free to skim (or skip.)

got everyone ready for school and sent them down for breakfast.
when i came down a few short minutes later i was greeted with "we had a milk EXPLOSION!!"

after getting all 3 of the kids off to school i picked up some coffee for breakfast and then picked up my sister so she could get her oil changed.
we came back to my place with the 2 babies and had our first real conversation in months. it was nice. then i packed lunch, my guitar and poster boards, and some school work i've been working on for ty and shaeya's teacher.
i dropped my sister off, picked up tekoa and headed to the school where i helped monitor the lunch hour (i've noticed before that the other lunch monitors were better at keeping the noise level down, i think it just takes me longer to notice it for some reason.)
then we had music.
and i only had to stop music about 7 times to take care of issues with koa and wren. better than last week.
wren has discovered the joy of standing up on the desks. it gets her lots of attention.

after music the kids had recess and i battled with the copy machine to copy spelling pages out of the books. i was fighting the copy machine and chasing after wren...pulling markers out of her hands and pulling her off desks, and stuffing kleenexes back into the boxes from which she was pulling them out.

i finished up then loaded up all my stuff and got my kids out after a few slight disruptions to the afternoon lessons, only to have the wind blow all of the papers out of my hands.

got home, put the girls to bed, and went for a nice, long jog. got about 3 miles in before ty and shaeya came home.

we started right in on homework and re-packing lunches and then tekoa woke up soaked in pee.
i bathed her and washed her bedding while continuously running back and forth to the kitchen table everytime the 2 older kids yelled for help on their homework.
once i finished, i sent the kids to the living room to get in some reading time for their reading charts and i did dishes, started the dishwasher, and then started dinner.
only took about 15 minutes to realize i was melting something in the dishwasher and the house filled up with that lovely burnt plastic smell.
so we had dinner outside.

which was going smoothly until tekoa dumped her water all over shaeya's food....
more clean up after dinner, more dishes. a bit more homework.
time to lay out clothes for shaeya and ty's picture day tomorrow.

bedtime routine. during which wren got into the toilet and then climbed into the shower and got into the soap.
lots of tears from tekoa who has changed her mind about that big bed and begs every night for her little one back. she throws the pillows off right away and has resumed the head banging.

ty and shaeya wouldn't settle down and they kept fighting over the kitten so i had to take her away. more tears.
and then finally sleep.

and now i am wasting my free time on this blog and this long boring post so i will sign off. but i feel better for sharing....

tomorrow starts another day.
and i might be crazy, but i let my family talk me into taking the kids camping in indiana this weekend.
me and my sister will be sharing a camper with our 7 children.
i will be sure to let you know how that goes...

big news.
after our weekend at the lake- during which tekoa slept in a bunk bed and used a pillow for the first time- tekoa decided she was done with her toddler bed.
she had been sleeping in that bed for about a year and a half, and that mattress has gone with us on every vacation- because of the whole head banging thing.

but praise Jesus, we are moving on. she gave me the okay, so i hauled a mattress up from the basement (where most of our stuff is being stored) and set up a bed for her. with pillows and all.

i have only seen her bang her head 1 time in the last 6 days. it used to be every time she went to sleep.
good to know she won't be made fun of at slumber parties, and that maybe she can share a room with shaeya someday after all.
(shaeya has always said she "will never share a room with koa cause she bangs her head and it's very annoying.")



here are some pictures of the house from saturday.
thanks to all the guys who came out to help put on that beautiful sub floor. very exciting.







i was a little jealous of tekoa that day when she got to take a nap in the woods.
you do what you gotta do, right?





and here is my very pathetic group of pictures from our weekend at the lake....

one of wren falling asleep on my sister's dog,



and some of shaeya after a fall on her face.







which now looks more like this...



she was so worried on tuesday that the kids at school were going to laugh at how she looked. i tried to tell her that black-eyes were cool and that it made her look tough, but she wasn't really buying it.



when she got home, she said, "nobody laughed, but why does everyone have to ask me what happened to my eye??"

she had her first homework assignment last night. i was trying to help her plus do a million other things, and i gave her the wrong instructions for one part.
when i realized that it was wrong, i told her, and she said, "all right, but you need to write a note to my teacher on this page that says, 'this is all my fault' from michelle."

still makes me laugh a little......
and so does the memory of the diaper leakage all over my dad's lap at his office today. that still makes me laugh too.

and now, here is the house as of last night.







yesterday was tyden's 9th birthday, so i burnt- i mean baked- a cake and took it out to the house so we could celebrate and then continue on with putting up those walls.



and now life continues on.....remember the girl who wanted the schedule? i don't know what she was thinking.
birthday treats and parties, music at school, volunteering at the school, preschool, doing girls' hair- feels like i'm constantly doing hair, dropping kids off and picking them up on time, teething, leaky diapers, fevers and allergies, running all around to find uniforms and gym shoes and birthday presents, waking kids from naps to pick up the older ones from school, homework, housework, taking kids to the lot, bringing them home at night very dirty and tired, lots of baths and laundry, trying to get them to bed at a decent time, trying to make decisions for the house.....

everywhere i look there are things that need to be done and demands on my time-
and i feel like everything gets a half-way job. it's driving me crazy.

i'm sure i'll adjust- it just takes time, right?