2nd pack mtg.

For scouts this Wednesday nite, the boys were challenged to all stand on this stool. After some foot placement and balancing, they got it right.

Their pack leader showed them how to tie a square knot. Then they competed to see which boy could tie a square knot, accurately, the fastest. Josh won 3rd place. Josh will LOVE learning to tie knots. This is will be his thing.

Here the fellas are trying to all stand on the stool. The scout to the left, was the leader in figuring out how this worked. They all worked hard and we had a chuckle @ their expense. Good job fellas!

The cub scouts put on a skit for us all. It is hard to hear, but it was cute to watch. I hope that you enjoy it! (again for some of us...)

cub scout skit

lemonade program

Josh was in a program @ school last night. It was adorable with loads of costumes and singing. Josh was a bit nervous, but such a good sport. Erin had graciously volunteered to keep Penny home for me, but I thought it would be nice to support Josh as a family. Erin was less than thrilled. Penny was cranky and spilt a lemonade on the gym floor. I made Libby angry because we weren't going into the book fair after the program. (Reality check...large group of people with other small children + keeping up with my Wardlings and their wondering, touching hands = trouble and a sure no go.) The night was very successful for Joshua and I am glad that even though the Wardlings were less than thrilled with me, we still loved seeing Josh up on the stage in his school performance. Good job buddy!

get your lemonade

darn it!

I love these shoes! Clyde bought me a black pair for my birthday last year. The black ones are oh so comfy. They were completely broken in, right out of the box. I actually bought another pair of the Keens, because I liked the first pair so much. Unfortunately, one pair of the Keens' fabric started to buckle on the inside and it would rub my toes. I didn't like that. Thanks to the REI membership return policy, I took the buckled pair back in and exchanged them for the same shoe, just in seal brown. The store was closing so I had to hurry and only tried on one shoe. They fit, we exchanged, and then we left. When we got home, I proudly put on the shoes and the left shoe was too tight. I took them back the next day and learned that they didn't have another pair in my size, but their Raleigh store did. So we made the order and they came the very next day. Turns out that they killed my feet. I am so bummed. Aren't they adorable?? I guess that the seal brown Keen Calistoga's and I aren't meant to be. Darn it! (I returned them again and just got my money back.)

On the brighter side, Erin got new glasses this week. She saw these fabulous-o red frames back in December and fell in love. When she was out of school last week for her orthodontist appointment, we ordered them. We are so blessed! The place that we went for glasses doesn't accept our insurance. (The nearest place that does is in Raleigh,because her Opthamologist is @ Duke. different story.) The eye Dr. was so nice because he didn't charge me full price for the lenses and threw in the no glare. Then for a mere $12 more they threw in transition lenses. We are so very blessed! Plus-She is so cute!

anniversary date

Thanks everyone for the lovely anniversary wishes. We had a most fabulous time! We had our recommends renewed, we went out to eat, and did a bit of shopping. My kinda date! I love my husband! The past 13 years have just flown by. I read on a friend's blog (LL) that her grandmother had told her, that "as we age- time goes by faster." How true is that?! It doesn't seem like 13 years have past and if we didn't have a 12 year old daughter (along with 4 more beauties) to confirm that it had gone by, then I wouldn't believe it. I simply adore my husband!

Speaking of weddings...guess who eloped last week?

That is correct, our Maylee is now a Mrs.!! Weird story is that I knew her new husband when I was 14. (Technically I was 13. My parents allowed me to go to my first dance the night before my 14th birthday. shhh...) We met at a tri-stake dance, here in the Emerald City. So, when Maylee called to tell me she met this guy names Jared, from the motor speedway city, I knew who it was. Then she told him, her brother married a girl named Ashley, from the Emerald City, he remembered me too. Weird how small the church world is. You always know somebody, who knows somebody that you know.
Congratulations to Maylee and Jared!! :)

lucky 13

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary! It is just as cold outside today as it was Washington DC. The weather was ultra windy that day. I didn't seem to notice it either. I am very thankful for my awesome husband. He is my perfect fit. We are peas and carrots. "I Will" always love you! (note the playlist on the side of the blog...) Happy lucky 13th sweetheart!

finished!! (finally)

The red room is now finished. Here are a few pictures of the after.

Jacob helped me paint on day 2 of painting. I was a bit selfish in my painting and didn't want to share. I really wanted to do this myself. I told my Wardlings that when their rooms are clean, then they can help me paint their rooms. (note- I said help ME paint.)

My fabric stash all organized. I thought I did good, organizing it by color and by fabric type. I sorted it and even gave some away. Then this evening I was hunting my drill charger in the garage, which is still MIA, and found 2 more boxes of fabric. Time to sort and give more away.

I need to hide all those cords. hmmm... We also changed the light fixture. Since the red room was the official dining room, it had a silver chandelier. Clyde was always hitting his head on it and out of habit, walked into the room ducking his head. We had my Dad's plumbers from Cecil Plumbing over this week to fix a pipe and they installed the fan for me. Thanks!!

One room down...several more to go!

paint fume high

I have caught the painting bug. It has grabbed a hold of me and I don't think that I will stop until the rest of my house is completely finished. In hopes of organizing our house, Clyde and I wanted to decorate too, while adding storage. This week I have been painting our red room. I like red, but it just made our office/sewing room to dark and glum. I wanted something light and happy. Yellow. That's right the perfect shade of yellow. I know my living room is also yellow. I wanted the house to flow together. As I am painting, I can't help from smiling. (Then again, it could be the paint fumes. I have been painting for the past 3 days.) I had to prime the walls, which took 2 coats, then paint the walls, which is taking 2 coats and then trimming it all out. I am excited for it to be put back together.

ward family valentine's

We wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day on Friday this year. To be honest, we usually do not celebrate valentine's day as a family. I think it is a made up retail holiday. We picked up Erin from Bubbie's house and headed back to the Emerald City to go to BestBuy. BestBuy is to Clyde, what JoAnn's is to me. Clyde knew exactly what he wanted and got it. We stopped @ the guitar hero setup for some quick Wardling play time. We have people stop us all the time to ask us about our children. If they don't talk to us, then we catch them counting or staring. (note the slideshow below.) Penny got into the fun, but when it was time to share, she had a complete meltdown. The funniest part of the guitar hero was Josh's gaping mouth. He couldn't play the guitar unless his mouth was wide open. We laughed and laughed!! :)
Clyde wanted to take us to one of my favorite places to eat...Cracker Barrel. Boy do I love that place. I love the feel of it. I think it is the country girl in me. As a treat we have a small tradition where we let the Wardlings each pick a small treat. Clyde's treat were those wax candy soda bottle things. (Nearly hands down THE WORST candy ever! besides the horehound candy that we had as kids. do you know about that candy?) He played it up as the best stuff ever. I was totally grossed out and ruined his surprise for the Wardlings. sorry honey! We did have a fun family date night for Valentine's day. I love my family!!

family valentine's date

saturday

Saturday was a blur...still is, that is why it has taken me to Tuesday to finally blog about it. We started Saturday with a baptism. It was a very sweet baptism. Erin had a basketball game @ church and thanks to Cheryl, she was able to attend and get a ride home. Thanks Cheryl!! Then the wee Wardlings and I were off to go to a birthday party. We had an arrangement to take our plus one with us and we were oft. Penny was such the party pooper! She didn't want to participate in any of the birthday games or fun. Jacob kept disappearing into the birthday girl's house to play with her brother's toys. We hung out long enough for the pinata to break, ate a cupcake, and we left; with Penny screaming in my ear. I felt rude because we didn't even say goodbye. We just got in the van, kicking and screaming, and left. The birthday girl and dad walked out to the van to wave bye and that's when I realized my rudeness for just leaving.
Once home, I put the wee Wardlings down for a nap and had to cool off. I did some cleaning and then within an hour or so, Clyde took me on a date to get some things for our house. I have really found a fondness for getting my house stuff. I have an organizational bug and boy it is going to hit the brown house hard! We went our for lunch too! I had so much fun with Clyde!
Once we got home our wonderful home teachers and families arrived to help us with a home improvement project. (Clyde asked that I not post pictures of them working on it.) We are all excited and grateful for their help!!
All in a Saturday right?

party pooper

rapunzel fairy tale gone bad

Penny's speech school has been having their book fair this past week. It has been quite entertaining to read all the books that were on the shelf and not buy them. oh wait...the library does that too... Anyway, today Jacob was book shopping picking up all sorts of different books. I read him, 'A Bear must have Eaten it' 3 times and ended up purchasing it for him. After reading that book, he brought me Rapunzel. In my 2nd grade year of school, my teacher, Mrs. Cox had Rapunzel on record (you remember records, record players right??) and during my center time, I would go over and listen to the story Rapunzel, while following along in the book. Rapunzel, in the 2nd grade, was my favorite story. I was heartbroken each time I heard that Rapunzel's parents had to give her up, while thinking that those must be some tasty turnips to eat in exchange for their baby. I was also saddened each time when the prince fell into the thicket of thorns scratching his eyes out. But yet so happy that they found each other and their true love, and that they lived happily ever after.
Today's Rapunzel was a bit different. It was an ethnic Rapunzel. The characters all had cornrows. Anyway, the story was kinda the same with the Mom being pregnant and craving turnips and the Dad sneaking into the witches garden and snatching them for his pregnant wife to Rapunzel's extremely long hair and the witch (& prince for that matter) climbing up the tower using Rapunzel's hair. The difference in the story that I read today, was that the prince visited her everyday for a month, before the witch caught wind of it, grew jealous, cutting Rapunzel's hair and making her live in the dessert. And since it was all magic, Rapunzel gave birth to twin boys, whilest in her banishment and it was a year and a half before the prince found her singing in some village. WHAT?? What type of magic is that?? Obviously there was more happening in that tower than singing and gayly gazing into one another's eyes. {wink, wink}

time to pay up

Duke lost Wednesday night, dang it! Libby had a bet with her principal...if Carolina lost then she would buy Libby an ice cream. If Duke lost, then Libby would have to buy Ms. S a diet Pepsi. Today was the day to pay up.

Yesterday, I had to take Erin to school. We debated on going to the zoo, but Jacob and Penny voted 2-1 for going to Bubbie's house instead. They love their Bubbie and Pop Pop. There is this really pretty dam by my folks' house and the water was rushing over it. I turned the van around to show our wee Wardlings.

After the science fair Wednesday night, Clyde took the Wardlings to the pet store in the mall. Jacob said, "We need a wabbit!"

county science fair

Wednesday was our county science fair. Since Libby won 1st place for the 5th grade @ school, she then went to compete here. We had to be there and set up by 9am. Libby was so adorably nervous. Penny and I accompanied her to the mall where the competition took place. We were there with time to spare and waited for others to show up.
Theses were her fellow students, from school, that also competed. Libby won 1st place, then there was the runner up, the honorary mention, and the winner for the 4th grade.

We did add a few pictures to her project and re-glued the papers down for the competition.

Libby is pacing here, getting her thoughts together to answer any questions the judges may ask her. She was to be interviewed next.

I tried my hardest no to be the 'pageant mom' and stay out of her way. I just couldn't help myself and had to grab a shot of her being interviewed.

back to the show

Later Wednesday nite, we had to go back to the mall for the awards ceremony. However, it was Erin's first New Beginnings program in young women's. Clyde and I had to split up to get both the girls in the places that they needed to be. It was really busy Wednesday.

Unfortunately, Libby did not win the Science Fair. She did earn a certificate for participation.:) We are all so very proud of Libby and Erin for their hard work, determination and for all their accomplishments.

awards ceremony

painting the field

Clyde volunteered to paint his school's soccer field again this year. Yesterday was the first day of painting, so he had to measure out everything. Erin was his super-dooper helper. The paint is still on their hands and arms in spots.

Isn't it beautiful?!

70* weather in february

What a beautiful day it was today. Once I heard about the weather, there was no way that we were going to stay inside. I thought it would be fun to play @ the park. We also thought that it would be fun to have some friends, those who live close by, to come and join us.

It was alot of fun to see these little ones play together. There weren't any arguments or troubles.

Who knew that having 70* weather in February could be so much fun! Of course it it supposed to rain tomorrow and return back to the 50's... At least we had today.

a wonderful fella

I love my husband! Saturday he surprised me with these beautiful tulips. I have many favorites when it comes to flowers and tulips are at the top. They are simple yet beautiful. Clyde is always doing sweet things like this for me. What a wonderful fella! I love you Clyde!

peek-a-boo, we see you...Jacob! :)

manager erin

Erin is now the official manager to our ward's YW's basketball team. She was such a good helper! Today was the first game that she helped in and I think that she had a blast. Our girls team won their game, but I must say that I wasn't too sure of one of the ref's. (I think she was a bit biased to our team. She even called a technical for no reason.)

barefoot in the park

After Erin's game today, we ate lunch and headed over to the park. It was a beautiful day, 65*, and we wanted to take advantage of it. The Wardlings all had a fun time...well until Jacob fell off of some of the equipment. He shook it off after a few minutes and got back to playing. While playing, a youth group approached us and said that they were on a scavenger hunt and needed to take a picture of 5 people's bare feet. Boy were they in luck! I called the Wardlings over and asked them to take their shoes and socks off. We really enjoyed the nice weather today!

barefoot in the park pt.2

A/B honor roll

Friday morning was the A/B Honor Roll breakfast for grades 3-5 @ our elementary school. We hurried out the door early to be sure to get there on time. This was the best photo I could get of Libby. The other ones had something of a smirk on a face, which makes me think that I may take too many pictures. After the breakfast, the wee Wardlings and I headed out to Lowes to get some tile board cut up for Clyde's classroom. Being @ a hardware store early is the best. I love walking into the hardware store and smelling the lumber. Jacob couldn't understand why we were @ Lowes nor my enthusiasm to walk around. After explaining to Jacob that Lowes was a store that helped make ideas and dreams a reality, he simply wanted to know if there were skittles @ the check-out counter. Who doesn't love the hardware store? or a fabric store? (which BTW when I tell Jacob that we are going to the fabric store he 1- rolls his eyes, 2- lets out a deep sigh and c- wants to know if he can bring his gameboy into the store.)

The cutting of the tile board was really loud. Penny doesn't like really loud things.

white dress

A friend from church asked me last week if I would help her in making an 'after baptism' dress for her daughter. I was thrilled to help out. We discussed the pattern on Wednesday night @ church and she brought over fabric, with the pattern on Thursday night. I immediately got to work cutting out the fabric, realizing that she didn't buy enough. Friday morning, I ran out to run an errand for Clyde and stopped in @ JoAnns. Once we got home, I began the job. The dress was nearly done by early evening. Here it is...
The fabric they chose was beautiful! It was a bit tough to sew through the flowers that were on it. I think that the dress turned out great. I hope that they like it.

To add some poofiness, I made a crenolin. I used the left over scraps to help poof the dress out. The little girl could use this as just a skirt when it is all over.

penny's pneumonia

Penny is feeling a bit better today. She is still coughing and hacking up crud from her chest, not to mention the loveliness that comes out of her nose. Her fever has gone away and that is good. She has been more tired these past few days. Right now, even as I blog, she is signing 'bed.' A nurse from our Pediatrician's office called yesterday to check on Penny. She gave us some signs to look for...dehydration, wheezing etc. If Penny began to wheeze @ all we were to call them asap. She didn't wheeze yesterday, though she still sounds raspy. This morning, she was close to my head and I could hear some serious wheezing. I gave her a hit of her albuterol and it took care of the wheezing, but not the raspies. I called the dr.s office and they wanted to see if she was still wheezing right after lunch and if so, then we'll have to take her back in to be checked out. This has hit our Penny hard. We all hope that she feels better soon!

**update on Sat. Feb.7th**
Penny is doing better. I didn't have to take her in to see the pediatrician again. She isn't running a fever, but still has the cruddy cough. She still has the runny nose and a smidge of the wheezing and raspies. I am so thankful for the albuterol! She still tires out easily and has been ready for her morning nap by 10am, which is earlier than normal. I even think that a few of us have managed to get a bit of the junkies too. yeah for us! ugh :(

for my friend marie

This is what it looked like this morning outside our window. My friend Marie, who doesn't live by us, has said that they got something like 18 inches of snow and most of the time school isn't cancelled. Marie-this picture is for you and BTW...school was cancelled.

our poor baby!

After running a 103* fever for the past few days, I took her in to see the dr., early this afternoon. Pneumonia...again. She not only looks miserable she feels miserable too!

We were given a Rx for antibiotic and an inhaler to help her breathe. She is pitiful! We all hope that she feels better soon. She didn't sleep well @ all last night and can't seem to get comfy today. I don't think that Clyde or I got a solid 30 minutes of rest with her last night, which meant that she didn't sleep well either. Clyde was super helpful today as he stayed here and took over Mommy duty with the other Wardlings while I took care of Penny. About the time that the alarm would have gone off this morning was the time that Penny finally fell asleep. We gave her another dose of ibuprofen and Clyde gave her a blessing as well. Her fever did break, but only for a few hours, which was long enough for her to rest. He got the other Wardlings up, dressed, fed, to school and taken care of all day. He was my hero today!

superbowl, smoosherbowl

Since the Superbowl is on, I thought that my time would be best spent blogging. :) I know it is exciting...men of all ethnicities coming together to smash, tackle, and grab each other in those yummy tight pants. Go football players! Really aren't we really watching the game for the wicked, awesomely, hilariously, funny commercials? (and those tight pants.)

Back to our program...
Today was Erin's 1st Sunday in YW's. As I mentioned before, my folks got her this beautiful dress and sweater for her birthday. Isn't she simply beautiful??!!
Clyde and I got her the shoes and the grown-up fishnet nylons for her birthday. She looks all grown up.

Clyde's folks came into town this weekend for a visit. We loved spending time with them. This was the only picture that I got of this weekend.

Our poor Penny wasn't feeling well and thus stayed home from church today. She is running a 103 degree fever along with a nasty raspy cough. I think the cough is due to some post nasal drip. She just looks miserable. She has the sick weak eyes as well. I really hope that she gets to feeling better. Libby said this morning that when she got up to use the bathroom, Penny was sitting in the tub. I wonder if she wasn't just too hot and the bathtub was cool and it helped her feel better. Odd huh? Penny then came in our room and snuggled up with Clyde and I.

After Papa Ed and Grammy Becki headed out to visit other family members and friends, our good pal Jessup called to tell us that he and Clyde were in today's Sunday paper. How sweet is this?
Now...time to finish my knitting.