rex was really hoping it'd start raining again during dinner last night.
and it did ....
our house was under this crazy dark rain cloud & jack thought we should turn off the lights & use candles.
rex invited me to his end of the table.
we put chad up at my spot so he could be a part of the family.
it was cheap spaghetti night. we added garlic bread & ceasar salad.
we sat together, hot food, pouring rain & candlelight and i thought take a picture ....
these are the moments you want to remember.

we'll remember.

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our week's been one long sick. right now i'm sitting on the couch with the little girls. its their turn to lay around moaning with fevers.

i thought our hours & hours of movie watching had ended with the chicken pox - but no : )
rex figured out how to rent movies straight from amazon on our tv, huge score. the favorite so far .... earl flynn's robin hood.
and if i thought we had pbs's schedule down before last week, its completely figured out now!

sick = movies around here. they don't know when this is finally over they won't be watching tv 'til high school.
or the summer olympics : )

i know it hardly looks like it ... but his spots really are clearing up.

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telling stories to his daddy -
and reading stories.

my favorite part is the diet of green bean gruel & weed juice : )

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this weeks ph0ne pictures -

 

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regan is going on her 6th or 7th hour of sleeping today, molly and i are watching veggie tales, the little drummer boy. (can you tell we've been through the movies since we're watching christmas ones : ) chady is spending his 11 week birthday sleeping in his crib in the boys room. everyone else is cutting out derby cars for this weeks awana derby.

i'm going to go marinate some steak & get the mail.
that & molly is asking about that time at christmas 'when we watched the ladies sing that song' .... so we'll probably be youtube-ing celtic women sing the little drummer boy!!!
: )

thanks for remembering with me .....

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beautiful miss val made me some communion bread .... and i'm eating it by the strip tonight. i'm also enjoying dove chocolate & peanut butter.

and i wonder why the scales aren't dropping : )

chad thinks its an all night buffet tonight.

i haven't worn make-up in 3 days.

which means i haven't left the house in that many days, either.

i'm realizing how lazy i'm becoming in my typing. obviously i'm lazy enough to not use CAPITAL letters here on my blog ... but typing texts on iphones that auto correct everything isn't helping : )

there are 116 new emails in my inbox - not 'cause we're that popular but because i just need to delete them .... i've missed the 2 day end at midnight sales from lisa leonard & old navy anyway.

jacky moaned how he just did not like at all nights like this .... ie. nights when rex is gone when he goes to bed.
he said it like it happens on a regular basis.
it doesn't.

we were going to go to the beach this week. instead we got sick. well most of the kids got sick.

so instead of sand, waves & clam chowder on the wharf, we've done fevers, headaches & throwing up.

that would explain my lack of make-up.

we all agree the beach would have been a better choice.

but we do have easter pictures to post tonight. or at least pictures of the kids after church. i'm really hoping to share with you sometime some pictures from our 2nd annual easter sunrise service we had here. until then, we'll post these .....

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the boys.
i realized i haven't taken too many of the boys, all 3 of them together.

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and the girls ~

they're so much more creative on their own .... its a little pointless asking them to just sit & smile : )

 

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these dresses begged to be twirled.

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they get their love affair with comic books from their dad

its saturday. i know right, you're welcome, you had no idea : )

the boys & i are here at the barber shop this morning. ben has been asking over & over for me to cut his hair.

it actually takes mad skills to cut hair .... and i don't have that set of mad skills, trust me i've tried ; )
so we're here at larry's. larry's got the mad skills & oldies music.

rex told the kids yesterday that there was a work day at our house this morning. jack asked who all was coming & he told them everyone that was invited.

sailor caught on quickly that they were the only ones invited : )
i've got a bit of spring cleaning fever & rex has graciously employed the troops to help out. he passes out jelly beans every so often as incentive to keep working.

so a journal of our week - its the last full week of rex being off.  it's officially over next wednesday.

2 year old little girls are beautiful - the way they carefully place hats on their baby dolls head & add this & that to their strollers, and then accessorize themselves, too. all to walk from the bedroom to the living room .... classic.

here's a little sister friend story - this is molly drawing a box w/ sidewalk chalk & telling regan she wasn't allowed in the said box.

here is regan's reaction to that comment.

and this is molly's reaction to regan's reaction.

i know, not funny .....
but funny at the same time : )

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rex, being a good dad.

molly taking our picture -

& regan wanted a go at the camera too - she got most of us : )

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this has pretty much been my week. chad got the pox & but good. this is my i want to remember what he looked like picture.

i guess looking back, why i thought he wouldn't get them after everyone else did was kind of crazy!

so his pictures this week are all full of spots.

happy 10 weeks, bud.

this morning rex has been calling him our speckled little easter egg. they're pretty much all scabbed over now. he's had quite a week. he's been held & loved a lot. some afternoons i just sat & rocked him while he slept. everyone else was good with that .... it meant either i'd read to them or they got major recesses : )

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speaking of eggs - 2 packages of 99 cent plastic eggs were a hit.

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talking to auntie amie -

on a walk with the family earlier in the week -

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a handful of this weeks phone pictures -

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our God's not dead, He's surely alive!

happy easter.
 

the kids missed singing 'the days or elijah' this morning, so tonight we youtubed it -

today we ....
were on time to church : )
let ben wear a brown checked shirt with a blue & green striped tie ....
opened a package of jelly beans
lite candles
had bacon on our 'burgers
played with cousins
kissed our baby
popped popcorn
are going to bed before midnight!

happy palm sunday.

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3 guesses where i am tonight & the first 2 don't count.

i really don't like guessing games, at all actually! so i'll just tell you.

i'm here in my new usual spot .... where i've been the past 2 months nearly every night.

the leather recliner in the living room.

side note one: leather recliner has such an old sounding ring to it.

i forget side note two ... there was one really.

chad eats his last meal of the night here & then i stay here awhile and just hold him. sometimes he gets kissed.

eventually i get up & put him to bed.

i was going to post earlier while i was waiting at sailor's piano lessons or when we were on the road, since rex was driving & i had traveling internet capabilities with me.

but here it is back to my usual time & spot.

that was a ridiculously long beginning of not really saying anything, wasn't it : )

we'll really start with this.

yesterday was the 28th & now he is 2 months old.

he weighs 10 pounds exactly. molly thought we should have muffins to celebrate him being two months, but she said my tummy would have to be full of muffins first : )

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their mix of soccer/kickball/chase -

reggy all proud of the way her blanket was folded up with her grapes & pacifier on top.

benny getting some help from his daddy during an object lesson from yesterday's history lesson.

dolly & her cheese smile.

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and here's a little something fun-

the first picture is regan - i found it last night scrolling through some old pictures.
we still have the same bedspread & little white socks, just another baby at 2 months old :  )

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time for bed.
and if you have suzuki violin music or i've got a dream from tangled stuck in your head try switching to this. it's worked for me : )

and thanks. for the kind wow schoolroom comments - i do know how incredible rex is ; )

tonight i blow dried ben's hair after his bath .... 'cause he asked me too. and i'm a sucker for those type of things. i comb it all out first and then turn on the blow dryer (after just typing that, all of the sudden it sounds weird - most people call them hair dryers, don't they? well, we obviously call it the blow dryer. just think hair dryer & you'll know what we're talking about) where were we .... turning it on. i turn it on and brush his hair over and over again. regan & molly came in after for their turns. tonight i held chad & the hair dryer in the same hand ... or hand & arm.

i also pulled sailor's tooth out. we did a happy dance afterwards. the last tooth that came out was pulled by the dentist. this was far less painful.

i've sat here twisting a bit of my hair around my finger till now its truly in a knot. i have great plans of big hair for easter : ) for the girls anyway!

i also googled 'how to heal an ear infection - w/o drugs'.

i'm wishing i would have taken rex up on his offer to make me a delicious dessert.

the arm of the chair i sit in every night when i feed chad is just big enough to balance my lap top, or a glass mason jar of cold water, or a steaming bowl full of tortellini & broccoli. 

i want to post about our new school room, but i can't decide which picture to start with. which will obviously be a mute point when you read this because you'll have already seen the picture. but for now its just a white screen.

little chad is making all sorts of little noises in his sleep right now.

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i seriously can not even believe that our old shed is now our school.

i really wish i had a true 'before' picture. when the old wooden door would not open all the way 'cause there was that much stuff blocking it, where transmission fluid was spilled & puddled on the ground. how there were shelves & shelves of totes. the lawnmower, old stroller & rototiller all piled in a heap. the rakes & shovels fallen over. the broken windows and the mice droppings .... 

it was our shed. rex could spend a saturday out there & it'd look like some neat nick old mans shed again - everything perfectly in its place, clean swept floor & a door that could open & shut.

but give it time & kids who had discovered the place where their mom & dad hid unwanted old toys and it would soon fall back into the 'shove the door open, step on and over things' old shed.

he tells me he suggested once turning it into a class room for the kids & i had some unfounded excuse how that wasn't necessary.

i believe him. and now can't for the life of me think why i didn't agree to the idea sooner??

but i came home one day a couple months back and was all 'hey we have a shed we could turn into a school room just like so&so did. we should do it!'

he's very good at not saying i told you so ; )

he was also very good at reorganizing his garage/shop to make room for what was in the shed to not be in the shed anymore.

he's also very good at making trips to the dump! we got rid a tons of junk.

so my pictures start after the shed had been cleaned out & emptied. it sat that way for quite awhile 'cause there were some loose ends to tie up before we actually committed to really doing the project. then it sat with sheets & sheets of sheet rock that were given to us.

it looked something like this - uneven cement floor, no ceiling, stud walls, sprinkler box, empty window ... you get the idea : )

now it looks like this : )

its the closest i have of a before & after shot facing the same direction.

so here's how it happened, in pictures.

school for the boys the past 3 weeks was shop class -

he had help hanging the sheet rock on the ceiling, everything else he did himself -

after the taping was done we spent a night having fun decorating ....

happy cows come from ....

molly's self taught version of her own name -

we've learned states & capitals and studied US geography this year - this is ben's free hand of the united states, with alaska & hawaii.  he can draw it better than i can.

later he used puzzle pieces to add some states -

they didn't want to leave chad out -

the next morning -

his first go at texturing -

and then it was time for primer & paint!

this picture is an illusion .... i don't paint -

i seriously don't : )

i take it back on he did everything else .... we did have the home depot guys come & lay the carpet. i was with the boys at violin lessons when they came. so we kinda jump ahead in this picture. he'd hung the door, set the windows, laid the fake tile, put in the base board & put the blinds up. it smelled like new carpet & that night we just went out and sat in the middle amazed at how we loved the color of the walls and it was actually done : )

and then we spent a rainy spring day here -

regan came on the 2nd trip -

we were waiting for rex to go get the car -

we pulled a couple of 2am nights building desks & deciding where to hang alphabet charts -

once the construction of the room was done, we put cardboard on the window of the door so the kids couldn't see the furnishing & decorating. we had an official open house & here they are seeing it for the first time. they walked in with their eyes closed : ) benny was in my arms - the chicken pox were here & he was the first hit.

the book case had some fun new surprises in it .... battleship is jack's favorite -

until dolly starts kindergarten, she & reggy have their own little table for 'school' -

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i honestly can't believe its ours. it still seems unreal to walk the 30 feet out our back door & into this room. i'm so crazy excited for the potential it holds - not because we want or expect geniuses .... we want them to love the Lord their God with all their minds & this room has been designed to help that happen

thanks babe ~

first off -

is that ^ not just genius!! he says i should be careful & not brag too much as the concept & idea of the shoe rack was not originally his : ) but!! oh my goodness, my closet is a happy place right now.

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we might just have a case of cabin fever ....

don't you think its kind of funny that we had chicken pot pie for dinner on the first night they had chicken pox?

well, maybe its just me then : )

they all got them. it started with ben - who was just covered. jack, sailor & regan were next. and then molly.

its hard to say who had the most or had it the worst.

i think its fascinating to see their personalities when they're sick. how they handle (or don't handle!) pain & discomfort. the way they cope & react.

tonight in the shower the little girls looked pretty pathetic - little red spots & scabs peppered all over and with their hair wet & flat you could see all the ones on their heads.

even with that, i'm not sure it justifies the one or two or 37 times molly overreacted about it.

'daddy says we all have goosey bumps but benny has the most & he's happy' - molly

'ben threw my star wars man in the tub. he's sick AND mean. i'm just so mad.' - jack

two of my favorite lines from the week : )

i'd like to tell you what else we've done this week ... but besides now knowing the pbs morning tv schedule & going through a tube of anti-itch cream there isn't much else : )

we've played mexican train, jack has beat rex soundly in ping-pong on the wii, the flower beds have been weeded & after the rain look nice and fresh. i had a doctors appointment - i spent more time with the nurse while she updated my i-hadn't-been-in-since-2007 charts than i did actually seeing the dr.

why was i there you'd like to ask .... but in politeness don't. i have gang green or leprosy or a really bad infection on my finger.  hopefully strong, the kill every thing in me antibiotics will take care of it.

rex & i have had a fabulous time together. right now he is actually reading a book & playing monopoly on his ipad. how do you do that at the same time?? ... its like you're being rude to yourself : ) he counters by saying i'm holding chad & typing & eating dinner & drinking water. like that's 4 things at once to his 2.

i'm not eating or drinking right now.

and some how my two things go together better than his two.

they think he's ready to hold & play with toys : ) in a little bit i'll put some pictures in that molly took when she & regan & chad were 'playing'.

i think they've actually missed him. not holding him & all. he .... i was going to say never .... he hasn't so far got any spots - which i'm wondering now if i wished he would've. yes - tuesday, wednesday & thursday were especially rough, but there is something to having it all at once & being done with it.

one of the perks of not feeling good .... getting to play ipad games.

their spot to hang out during the great closet clean out.

i know there's this funky haze .... from a blanket, i think .... but its about my favorite shot from the weekend.

with this i totally think we should sign her (&molly) up for ballet. just because i think it sounds like a fun & girly thing to do. and so i'm all to rex 'hey don't you think it'd be great, what do you think!' and he answers with something about time & money ....

so for now she's just a wanna be fairy - happily, not so gracefully, skipping down the road -

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we needed to get out .... but we weren't quite ready for the general public : ) so we went down the road.

the window sill in the kitchen is full of weed bouquets -

i'm sure by now you've noticed the wardrobe fashion going on here - with the kicker being jack's star wars pajamas! jeans are not required on sick days .... neither really is getting dressed at all.

just keepin' it real : )

 

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time for some chad goodness : )

he's actually quite the little talker, he's almost outgrown the little blue elephant 'jammies & his daddy bought him a new swing.

no, there was not a chad calvin - 7 weeks old picture .... he was at ikea that day. and while they do allow cameras in that wonderful place his mom & daddy were busy.busy shoppers. we were also buying his sister new clothes. apple juice+starbucks+car ride = one of thee worst car seat clean ups to date.

chad had a nice time, though!

one of the major perks of this 6 weeks .... having nothing better to do than to hang out with dad. who was right there to help when his head got heavy.

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molly's pictures - they put quite a few little rings over his wrists. he seemed ok with it 'til he realized he'd been left with his 2 & 4 year old sisters. they aren't exactly baby sitter quality yet : )

showing off his muscles -

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xanga ate my first go at this post. so its extra late & for the moment we have a strained relationship, it & i.
'night ....

more spots are showing up by the hour. we found more movies. we hauled out the girls mattress. we made a run for saltines & 7-up.

this is apparently how we'll be rolling : )

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i had a down vest & ugg boots on when i left the house this morning & i heard on the radio that today was the first day of spring.

suddenly i was too warm : )

it was beautiful today .... and it really did start cold.

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i realize it's been forever since i've posted ... or just 10 days, but who's counting. i like it when i log in & see all sorts of updated blogs to read. tonight though, i forced myself, forced is a strong word ... probably too strong. tonight i told myself i must post here before reading all of yours.

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we're in our third week of paid family leave. its the nice free sort of free vacation the state gives you for having a baby and time to bond afterwards. we've never done it before. this time around it just worked out ... or really God knew we needed it & put every detail into perfect place to make it happen.

i'm loving it even more than i thought i would : ) you know how it can be when you're used to one way of life where he is gone & working & comes home at night vs 24/7 living together .....
sometimes, just sometimes that can be challenging. so far there has been very little challenge & i'm trying to figure out how we could do this full time ???? be together all the time & still be able to buy groceries!

our days & especially nights have been spent turning our shed into a school room. i'll have pictures on that soon. i really can't believe it!

so the day after we finish it & the day before classes start .... boom, chicken pox.

: )

yep .... they're dropping like fly's around here.

and just like that - it's more vacation, baby. we need a fresh movie supply.

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and then there he is .... so far he's been a fan of all this family bonding.  except for now there's been a temporary ban on the closeness of the bonding as we'd reallyreally like to avoid him getting chicken pox!!

 

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they were off to do something great ....

until then we'll see how long it'll be before we can reenter society!

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i admit ... my phone pictures have increased & instagram is the latest rage. what can i say, it's fun : )

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did you know a dirty diaper will stay on your running board from one town to another down the freeway? it will.
in fact, it'll stay there until you throw it away.

i drove past mrs. boers house yesterday. well we drive past mrs. boers house a lot as her house is on the way into town. but yesterday i glanced down her long dirt driveway and missed buck. he really was a good dog. mrs. boers house was where he'd always go when he took off ... till the day he just didn't show up. isn't it crazy how silly old dogs can make you cry?

my dad & jack were out the other day and they saw a dog chasing a ball a guy was throwing for him. dad made some comment on how the dog was pretty fast & he said jack shook his head all solemn like and said not as fast as bucket was.  my dad is beautiful enough that he couldn't even tell the story back with out choking up and the tears are dripping off my chin typing this now.

ahh, deep breath : ) he was a good dog.

and so maybe the fact that the new mercy me song was playing when i drove past her house got me to thinking of dad all over again. he gave me this card once .. years ago ... that said 'in the amusement park of life ... you're my favorite ride'  - somehow its true both ways. mercy me songs, for whatever reason always make me thing of him anyway ....

feel free to youtube it, its called the hurt & the healer. 

and while you're youtubing there's one by the david crowder band called give us rest that's pretty good.

ok so this might just be my favorite picture from the whole week. i first saw it on the camera & just laughed. jack's face, benny, sailor's attempt at a cartwheel. she really can do them & all the ones i 'caught on film' were from the other direction & sister friend was wearing a skirt .... so you'll just have to trust me.

funny, yes? yes : )

another thing you'll just have to go with me on - i showed them how to stand on your head. i can do it - legs up in the air, stand on my head.

even rex was perfectly impressed. after i gracefully fell over i was all man! you should have taken a picture.

have you ever had an ant farm? i was a deprived child 'cause i never did : ) but my parents are making up for it & got the kids one for christmas. and wah lah the ant arrived. did you know there are federal regulations on queen ants ... for real?? so there are no queen ants in our farm. at max the notes said they'd live for 6 months - that was under ideal conditions. we'll see how long their conditions remain ideal!

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he made a hotel reservation for me - i loaded up every school book in the house almost, my laptop, i even brought my own copy machine. i brought carrot sticks & ghirardelli dark chocolates and i reworked the rest of our school year. it needed to be reworked!

two whole days! and when i came home the house was clean.
wow. yes. he is all that.

well, i wasn't totally alone -

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not that i'm ever gone or away much but i come home in love with them all over again.

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she doesn't get as much air time here sometimes - she is though, a huge part of real life here.

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daylight savings is rex's favorite day of the year. well, next to my birthday : )

joke. joke, that was a joke.

anyway i started this post this morning & now looking at the clock and then thinking its really an hour later than that ... ah i think we're already late for church! 

its saturday. he's still dreamy.

do you think he's grown .....

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oh just a few more! really, they're all just from this week.
 

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