We're Moving!!

According to Andrew, "We are going to be our own landlord!"

We get the keys on Friday. We are so excited. I am still in awe and can't believe that it's real. We weren't even really looking and then a house on our street came up for sale. We took one look and fell in love. It all happened so fast-- it was only on the market for 5 days. Although we hadn't been actively looking to buy a house the Lord had been preparing us so when it all of a sudden came up it was easier for us to say, "This is the place-- we'll take it!" The kids are way excited to have a basement-- according to them they just "love" basements. Derek is excited to have a home of his own and likes the idea of being able to do whatever he wants to it. He can't wait to stock up on home improvement books. Me-- I am excited to have some room. We will be moving up from 1800 square feet to 3200. I can't wait!! Now to just make it through the move. Why do we always move when I am pregnant?!

It's FINALLY done!!!

It's official-- Derek's thesis is FINALLY done, handed in, and signed off on!! It has taken three years to get to this point. It has been a LONG process with many sacrifices and numerous sleepless nights. We've had to jump through many hoops to get here-- but, we're here!! We are so excited! Now we can spend our weekends together as a family again. :) Official graduation is on July 29th. Now Derek will have is master's degree in Strategic Intelligence. Woo-hoo!!!

Derek with his finished thesis:

Being silly!!

This is the acknowledgement Derek wrote to go with his thesis. It melts my heart every time I read it. :)

"To my wife Jodi and our children; Brian, Andrew, Timothy, Kylie, and Philip who had to

forego many family activities because daddy had to “work on his thesis,” thank you for your love and patience. Additional thanks to friends and co-workers who continued to support and

encourage me throughout the process. Lastly, a most humble and heartfelt thank you to Dusty

Stewart and John Davidson, two of the greatest in-laws I am blessed to call family."

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us/Derek all this time. We know it truly helped!! We feel very blessed to have been given the opportunity to make it to this point and to achieve this accomplishment. :)

Blogging from phone

Figured I ought to try out this blogger app since I've had it on my phone for months.  Currently I'm on the Metro heading in to work to finish my thesis on the 4th of July.  Hopefully this truly is my independence day from this paper.

Have to try and add a picture too.

Why I've Been Away

I know, I haven't posted anything in a long time. It's not like I don't have anything to post, in fact at this point, I have too much to ever catch up. There is never a shortage of excitement at our house. :) Anyway, I thought I would at least let you know what has been keeping me so busy. My sewing machine and I have been spending A LOT of time together lately. Here are a few photos of what I have been working on.

My sister got married this month and we wanted all 15 of the grandchildren to match. So this is where most of my time was spent-- making these 7 dresses and 8 bowties:

Here they are on the grandkids:

All 7 of the little girls:

All 8 of the little boys (they aren't as photogenic as the girls):

We did it not only because it was cute but so my parents could have a picture like this:

In between making all the stuff for the wedding I also found time to make Kylie this Easter dress (Philip wanted in the picture too):

I also made Kylie and me these matching skirts to wear on Mother's Day:

I made two more skirts for the wedding like the ones above and a special white dress for my niece who got baptized the week before my sister's wedding. I also made Timothy new curtains for his bedroom and new curtains for my living room that have jabots and festoons. And lastly, I am half way done with a blessing dress for my sister's new little baby girl. It would be all the way done but Kylie decided she wanted to help. Too bad it wasn't really so helpful. After I had the lace sewed on around the bottom she snipped slits all over in it all across the front. Someone ran off with my seam ripper at some point so that project is on hold for a moment. Did I mention that she cut her bangs while she was helping me too. As I said, there is never a shortage of excitement at our house. :) Oh, and I wanted to add that I sewed all these things in just over two months time. Like I said, my sewing machine and I are really close right now.

Happiness

Happiness means different things to different people at different times. Today we find our definition of happiness in Psalms 127: 3-5, which says:

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. . ."

We are happy to add to our already full quiver!!

Expected arrival for this little arrow is October 19, 2011.

Medicine Anyone?

How many bottles of Amoxicillin do you have in your refrigerator?

We have 6!

Plus all this in the cupboard too:

As you can guess it's not been a fun two weeks at our house. In 10 days time we have had 8 visits to the doctor and 7 to the pharmacy. Most of the trips to the pharmacy took an hour or more. Gotta love military pharmacies! :)
Derek is the only one in the family who hasn't been sick but since he escorted most of us to the doctor he has actually "seen" more doctors than any of us. (Ha! Ha!) Anyway, Andrew, Brian, and I all had strep throat, Kylie had double ear infections, Philip had bronchitis, and Timothy had an upper respiratory infection. Andrew also had an allergic reaction to his Amoxicillin and was covered in a rash from head to toe. Poor kid-- just another thing to add to his already long list of allergens. So, we have had lots of fevers, sore throats, coughing and some itching at our house. We have gone through two whole bottles of children's Tylenol. Since we all started our medicine everyone is on the mend and appears to be getting better. Now we are just hoping that Derek won't ever have his turn. Here's to hoping!!

Timothy Strikes Again!!

Timothy and the babies were entertaining themselves and all was quiet (well, as quiet as it gets at our house) so I stepped out of the room for a moment to check my email. After a few minutes Kylie came in and wanted to crawl up on my lap. When I looked down at her this is what I saw:

Yep, Timothy snipped off her piggy-tails with the scissors. They were a couple inches long and now they are just stubs about 1/2 inch long. When I questioned Timothy about why he did it, he looked up me all sad and said, "I want to be good, and I'm trying to be good, but my body just does it." Ah. . . the natural man we all have to learn to fight. I also discovered later that he had also cut a hole right in the middle of the front of his Seahawks jersey and in his pants. Man he got a lot done in a few minutes! There is a reason I usually never let him use scissors. Why I did this day I'm still not sure.

To add to the day, he later used a toilet plunger to pull the door off the cabinet that Kylie is standing in front of in the pictures.

Pinewood Derby

We had Brian's first Pinewood Derby last week. He had lots of fun making his car and even more fun racing it. We must have done pretty well for our first try since he won 3rd place in his den. His den had the most entries too, there were 12-15 other cars. Andrew and Timothy can hardly wait until it's their turn. They already have their cars all designed. :)

There was a Saturday activity where the boys and their dads met at one of the leader's houses to cut out their cars. Since the only tools we own are screwdrivers, hammers, and a drill, that was great for us. Derek is now thinking he needs a band saw-- whatever!! I don't have pictures of them cutting out the car (although I wish I did since I would love to have watched them do it since I think I have used our only power tool more than Derek-- he!he!) but I have pictures of the rest of the process.

Sanding the car:

Andrew wanted to help so bad

Drilling holes in the bottom to add weight:

Painting (of course he painted it blue, his favorite):

Adding the racing stripe:

The final product:

Checking in at the race (this is the most organized Pinewood Derby I have ever been to. It was all done on computer):

Setting his car (notice the guy with the lap top-- he was managing all the races):

Set to go:

Racing:

Winning (don't get confused-- it's a different race than the above pictures, I couldn't be at the top and the bottom of the track at the same time and the car obviously made it to the end of the track before I did):

Receiving his trophy and ribbon:

3rd place in the Wolf Den:

(Now that's it's all over and done with I am way glad that clear back when I was in Young Women's we had a combined activity with the Young Men that was a pinewood derby. And I'm glad that although he helped me, my brother insisted that I do all the work on my own car. At the time, I hated sanding that silly thing but all these years later it totally paid off as now I know how to make one. Who knew that all these years later I would have a whole house full of boys with at least 12 pinewood derbys to look forward to. :) Thanks Bro!!)

Chocolate Dipping & Christmas

I had hoped to get this posted before the end of the year but alas it didn't get done. But at least it's before Valentine's Day. I am doing a little better. :)

Chocolate Dipping:
Here are some photos from our traditional chocolate dipping event. (In Derek's family spanning back for 5 generations from our children the family gathers together, usually the Saturday after Thanksgiving, for Chocolate dipping. They dip and make "real" chocolates to enjoy throughout the holiday season. We have adapted it for our family and instead of making "real" chocolates we "dip" in a chocolate fountain.)

Dipping:

Eating:

Showing off their chocolatey faces:

Christmas Eve:

The last couple of years we have tried to do something special on Christmas Eve day. This year we went to Mt Vernon. We have been there several times this year already but Christmas is the only time of year that they have the third floor of the mansion open for tours. So we went to see the third floor. We also got to see a camel which is always brought to the estate for Christmas. Apparently Washington would bring one for entertainment even in his day. The turkey that was pardonded by President Obama on Thanksgiving was also there. We had an enjoyable time.

The camel:

Looking at the camel:

The camel saying, "Hi" to the babies:

Standing by a tree that was planted by George Washington:

Christmas Morning:

We kept telling the kids we weren't sure if Santa was going to stop at our house this year and if he did he would probably just leave coal. But thank goodness Santa is very forgiving and he made a stop anyway. :)

Opening Presents:

Kylie loved her baby doll so much she had to have it out of the box immediately.

She wrapped it in her new pillowcase

Philip was most entertained by the box of Clementine oranges

The kids with their loot:

Christmas Evening:

We took some time in the evening on Christmas Day to go see the lights at the Washington D.C. temple. As always-- they were beautiful. It made for a nice end to the day. (We have a picture of our family in this same spot every year since we moved here.)

We hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas. We sure did!!