In love with her journal

Every week the kids attend Awanas and frequently earn enough points through their workbook and memorization of Bible verses which allow them to shop at the Awanas Store. The kids (without prompting from us) usually come home with gifts for each other and for Chris and I. We have really sweet kids! Last month Lydia chose for herself a Pink Journal and announced that she was going to write in it everyday. We smiled and pretty much figured we'd find it thrown in the toy room with pages riped out and it's interest would be lost in a matter of days. To our surprise she has faithfully written in it and often brings it along on car rides or to the gym daycare. She is in preschool and is starting to learn to write so a lot of her pages have her name and sometimes have other family members names in it. For the most part though she scribbles and then asks to read the story out loud to us or sings us the songs that she has written. Some pages even have pictures. I am so proud of her for taking an interest in writing at such a young age! I hope her book shelf holds many of these journals filled with her thoughts, stories and songs!

I'm sober but that is still a green horse!

Happy St. Patricks Day! Today our town had a St. Patty's Parade at noon so I was able to pick Lydia and Tyler up from preschool and head downtown to watch it. We found perfect parking, a great spot to watch the parade and had 70 something degree weather! Every family that had an Irish name had a float or car to ride in... lots of police cars and firemen... military... vets... government officials and schools... motorcycles (Patriot Guard) which were Tyler's favorite and of course Horses which were Lydia's favorite. Lots of candy and beads handed out and then it was over. We visited McDonald's and had shamrock shakes and then went home to enjoy the weather!

I told Lydia that she will probably miss next years parade like Calvin did this year and she asked why... I reminded her that she will be in Kindergarten. Ty asked if he would miss the parade next year too and I said no, he and I would get to come back. He wants to get a green motorcycle and ride it in the parade... I guess I could always hang a sign in honor of the Kelley blood that runs on my maternal side of the family!

Below is a picture of my Great Grandmother Emma Kelley (L) and her sister Mary Kelley (center) and their friend.

This next picture is of my Grandmother Nadine (Lydia was her birth name and it is also who my daughter is named after) as an infant and two of her older sisters. She was one of 8 girls!

So in honor of my Irish ancestors I raise a toast to all my blogger friends and say :

May the raindrops fall lightly on your brow.

May the soft winds freshen your spirit.

May the sunshine brighten your heart

May the burdens of the day rest lightly upon you.

And may God enfold you in the mantle of His love.

Yard Sale

Today was busy but fun kind of day! We woke up and the race was on! I left early to attend a sale and Chris and the boys took Lydia to her ballet class. After I spent a lot of money at the sale I picked Lydia up from class and then we drove over to the basketball game. It was Cal's last one for the season (Chris' too since he is the coach) and then wound up at the bowling alley for a pizza/cake end of season party for the team. Whew... came home, put some insulation up on a wall in a basement room that we're trying to finish and now I am blogging while Chris and the kids are at the park. I think dinner is going to be late and light tonight!

OK, back to the sale... It was called a 'Yard Sale'! Our local quilt store, aka Quilters Quarters, has moved to a new location and had many things that they didn't want to transfer. There was a huge sale to liquidate these items in Feb... unfortunately I didn't know about that but there was another sale today and I came away with yards and yards of material, a book, doll quilt kits, a small quilt (for my cat, Shiloh) and a cool Moda Flag bag and some fat quarters. Not bad for a 10 min shop and grab then wait in line for 40 minutes! Ahhhh... the smell of cotton fabric! I love it!

The quilt store will have their grand opening next Saturday... Guess who's going!!!!

Whooops!

I cant believe it's been over a week since I last posted! This is the last week for Cal's basketball season and I'd like to think that we're going to have a break but baseball is around the corner! Chris coached Cal's team and it looks like I am going to be the assistant coach when he coaches Cal's baseball team! That should be fun! Lydia is still doing acro and ballet and is excited about her costume for the recital in May... it's a mermaid outfit! Tyler is already showing me everything he wants for his birthday in June and has a dozen ideas about what theme he wants for his cake and party! He is totally excited right now because we found his skateboard in one of the boxes from our move this past July! I already caught him trying to wash it in the bathroom sink to get dirt off of it! He is in love with that board!
We have our next assignment and it will be at Ft. Carson Colorado! A big change from being told we were going to Ft. Bliss Texas! However, the kids and I are going to stay in our house in Kansas because Chris will be 'playing army' for a long time and I just don't want to put the kids through a major move and have them deal with Dad being gone. We have a wonderful church, gym and school and it will be best for the kids and I to have that sense of security. Once Chris gets back then we'll all move to CO and make that transition together. So... I have my to do list already and am trying to muster up the energy to get what needs to be done before he leaves. Time flies by fast.

I have had the chance to get some crafting done! I am participating in an egg swap but I cant post pictures until April... so you'll have to wait to hear about that! Quilting has been the craft for the past few months. Ladies from our church make quilts for the widows and I was able to participate in the last project. I was given a quilt top and asked to put a border on it. Luckily I was able to find matching fabric online and then added three different borders which I thought complimented the original top. The fabric was from Moda and the colors were a cream/dark plumb. It was sent off for machine quilting and then given back to me for the binding (since I enjoy doing that and nobody else really waned to). Over all I thought the quilt turned out really nice! The lady who received it is wonderful person who my kids enjoy seeing every week at Awanas. It was nice to help make something for someone so nice.

The next quilt was a new experience for me. It was a baby quilt but I decided to try out this minkee fabric and boy... that stuff is messy! I had the Dustbuster out and was constantly using it and then also had my nylon brush out to clean my machine! That blanket came out well too and luckily was the perfect colors for the nursery! Whew! I have a few more projects to complete (and in some cases, to start and complete) and then I hope to finish two quilts that I started a long time ago! Unfortunately I have a carpal tunnel problem and so I can't hand quilt for very long like I used to.

6-7 inches!

We woke up Saturday morning to 6-7 inches of snow!!! The kids were so happy to have snow to play in again. Cal quickly ate his breakfast and then ran out to our deck to measure how deep it was. He made his own ruler at school and hasn't had much opportunity to use it.

Lydia of course was dressed and ready for her ballet/acro class but had to go stand in the snow before leaving. Of course her class was cancelled and so was Cal's basketball game... so Cal went to a birthday party. His friend likes stars and the color purple so we put together a little bracelet for her as well as a Hannah Montana gift bought from the store.
Over all, even though it was very cold, we had a great weekend. We got a lot of shopping done (although I still have to get groceries) and had just as much family time. Church was great and the kids were finally able to sit through the service... we went out to lunch and got totally stuffed on Mexican food & dessert and again the kids were great! We couldn't have asked for a better weekend!