Monday morning i volunteered to watch a group of 6th graders in the computer lab as they did some research on a project. the group included Margaret and a few other girls, the "higher performing" students that didn't need as much TAKS preparation as the rest of the class. i'm signed up to do the same Monday thru Wednesday of the next two weeks. some of the girls actually did what they were supposed to, looking up info for an assignment about mountains and volcanoes, but others just surfed the internet, reading the latest celebrity gossip. i never like being the bad guy and stepping into to tell them to get back to work. i left them alone and decided to tell their teacher about it. i'm a wimp.

i worked around the house after that, cleaning, gardening, other home duties. my garden has been slow to take off, but it's finally showing some progress, and we ate a salad from it last night.

tomorrow Brian and i are going for a tour of Lamar Middle School. it's one of the ones we're considering for Margaret. it's really hard to believe that she'll be in 7th grade next year. and then aftrer that, just one year left before high school! we have so few years left with our kids under our roof! the time really does just fly away. i have to remind myself of this daily because it's so easy to get frustrated with the kids and wish for some kind of break from them. it'll come all too soon.

while i was there in the in the computer lab with the 6th graders, i got a call from the art teacher saying that she was having trouble with Samuel. Samuel struggles with all his special areas. i think it has something to do with transitioning from one class to the next. he tends to not be very cooperative. his hardest class is music, and he's probably the only kid in the school who Mr. Marks has ever given a C to in music. it's just that Samuel shuts down and refuses to participate. sometimes we can get him to offer an explanation as to what is going on inside him, but sometimes he doesn't know. Samuel is a mystery to us. he's all or nothing. when he's ON, everything is great, but when he's OFF, nothing you do or say will move him. he's made much progress socially and other than his periodic crying episodes, he acts like a normal kid, and all the kids in his class love him. he tells me he's one of the "cool kids" now.  haha. that's one thing that is very precious about him. he doesn't know there are certain things you just don't say. but he still has lots of trouble controlling his temper and emotions. a lot of it can be attributed to the Aspergers, but some is just sin. for Brian and i, knowing how to handle it is so difficult.

i also got a call from the school yesterday saying that John had wet his pants. it was after 2 when i saw the message, so there wasn't a point in me bringing him some new clothes. he didn't want to put on the clothes that Ms. Monica in the office offered him. he just cried to me on the phone and said he wanted me to come get him. poor guy! i think he was tired and embarrassed, and didn't want to go back to class and have everyone ask him why he'd been in the office.

the weather here has been so nice. i wish i could bottle it up and save it for those frigid days come January.

another installment in my home tour.

here's the hall bath, or the kid bath. we also sometimes call it our Aggie bath because of the maroon and gray tile.

 when we first decided to work on the bathrooms, the plan was to gut them and start over. but the more we looked at options and got opinions, the more attached we became to the old bathrooms. most of the money went to replacing plumbing, things you can't see. we replaced some fixtures, hardware and the door, regrouted, rebuilt a cabinet, and repainted. we're pleased with the results, and it stays in character with the rest of the house.

we left the large original mirror above the counter, but removed the medicine cabinet above the sink, and instead put in a mirror, not really needing or caring for medicine cabinets.

initially i wanted to decorate all in white, but then my mom and i found this shower curtain at World Market, and it had all the right colors, so i went with it and kind of worked everything around it. i also got the rug at World Market to echo the round mirror. it seemed like the room needed some roundness since everything is so square and rectangular. i made the simple, almost sheer curtains, which are identical to the ones in our bathroom, as is the paint color, a pale gray.

i think the best thing we did in this bathroom was take out the regular door and put in this pocket door. the frosted glass lets in a good amount of light to our cavernous hallway. and you can't see through it unless you're pressed right up against it.

this picture shows how much it needs to be cleaned.

this bathroom is rather plain, but i think it works best that way since i gets so much traffic.

kitchen.

here's our little kitchen. there isn't much to it.

the walls are gray and the cabinets are some light shade of green. can't remember the name at the moment.

 
it's small, but it serves its purpose. the only thing that is original anymore is the window. everything else was gutted. the granite was a something my dad brought over one day and we made it work somehow. the flooring was also something he picked up somewhere. the hardware on the cabinets were value packs from Target. my dad built the cabinets at his house and brought them over. the measurements were a little off, but with our neighbor Clay's help, they were trimmed down a little and squished in.

i got some stencil letters recently and have kind of gone wild with them, adding words and phrases everywhere. at least i can paint over them if i regret it later.

another room tour

here's our bedroom. it's my favorite room, maybe because it feels so comfy and soothing. like my own little sanctuary.

  it's a hodge-podge of hand-me-down furtniture, heirlooms, estate sales, and thirft store finds.

the bed was my grandmother's great aunt and uncles. the chair was one i bought at a thrift store and painted and recovered. the three prints in the wall are art nouveau that i scored at a estate sale. i'm a big fan of art deco and art nouveau period things.

pardon the crookedness of the pics. when you have lots of kids in a small house all the pictures tend to hand crooked on the walls.

the ivy on the back of the house just about covers our bedroom and bathroom windows and makes the room feel extra cool in the summer.

the door to our little bathroom. we put in pocket doors when we did the work in the bathrooms recently. and that's the collection of books by my side of the bed that i'm currently working my way through.

and every room in my house has plants. because i'm a plant lover.

our bathroom is really tiny, but i love it. it has a shower stall that you can't see in the pic. the tile is a green and the walls are a very pale shade of gray.

 those are roses from our awsome neighbor, Clay's rose bush.

the view from the toilet. you can sit there are admire the dust floating in the air.

theses pics don't include the other end of the room and the 60's era french provincial dresser and vanity that were a hand me down from my aunt Sharon. at first i thought we'd use them in Margaret's room, but i grew to like the funkiness of the set. it is painted with green and yellow flowers and sort of just tied together the whole cottage look of the bedroom.

i asked Brian if the femininity of our room bothered him, and he said not in the least. he didn't figure it was too feminine since it has a hook with baseball caps, a collection of boots, and a beer poster on the wall. hehe.

the color of the room is called celery sprig, and doesn't show up as much in the pictures as in real life. some adjustments i want to make in the near future is to paint the bed (probably white) and to paint the frame on the picture above the bed (a brushed up silver).

so that's our room.

Thursday, April 7

it's 3:45 am. i got up a little awhile ago because i didn't want to wake Brian with my tossing and turning. this pregnancy has been harder on me than any of the others. i've been struggling with nausea and weariness and insomnia. but it's really hard to complain, because i know there's a reason for it all, and that makes it so bearable! 

this week is flying by for me. i worked my last day for Classical Conversations on tuesday. despite all the struggle i had with people at the beginning, i'm so glad i stuck with it and finished out the year. i met some wonderful ladies and really enjoyed working with the kiddos. i just really enjoy working with kids. i'm thinking i'll go back to work for them at the beginning of the fall semester until the baby is born. the money helps and it would be nice to have the interaction with other moms. as a thank you, the toddler moms chipped in and bought me a $65 Target gift card. that was totally unexpected! what a blessing! i was in Target the day before and ended up putting some things back that i had intended to buy.

i had another thing happen to me this week that just reminded me how much God cares for me. i've been searching all over for this one library book, the Bearnstain Bears book about teasing. i tore up the camper looking for it, cleaned the boys room from top to bottom last week looking for it, looked through all our bookshelves, but couldn't find it anywhere. on Monday i was at it again, looking through the boys' room for that book. i had been praying as i cleaned, and just asked God to show me where it was. not ten seconds later i looked under William and Samuel's bunk bed, where i had looked countless times, and there was the book! God is good. i don't know why i ever doubt.

i spent yesterday sewing and cooking and thrifting. i found some great odds and ends for the house yesterday as well as a bunch of shirts for Samuel. i am proud to report that i did not go walk my four miles. i always feel good about myself when i break out of routines like that and realize that i won't die because i didn't do my usual ______. i did not die and it was good for me to take a rest. such is the life of an OCD person.

Friday, April 8

here's the first little installment of home pics. here's the room we did over recently. it's still not finished. the book shelves need a maple stain to match the mantle, but little projects like that tend to hang over for a long time, so we decided to go ahead and fill the shelves with books and stuff.

i'm kind of crazy for color and action so there are patterns and colors everywhere in my house. if you knew this room before the face lift, you'll remember that there was a large accordion door separating this room from the rest of the house. we removed that and shrunk the opening by a couple of feet and put in these french doors. in hindsight, we wish we'd have put in pocket doors like we put in the bathroom as they have a more MCM feel, but i guess that'll be fore the next remodel.

by the time we finished the room and got to the floor we were coming the bottom of our cash and decided to paint the floor instead of staining, saving us close to 1K. we had previously painted it a reddish color. this is a dark brown, but when it scratches, the red shows through giving it a kind of cool look. but it does show up the dirt like nothing else. sheesh.

i've got a love/hate relationship with this fireplace. i DO NOT like the look of it. it was added in the 70's and the limestone is hideous. would have much rather had the red sandstone that is on the outside of the house used on it. but we sure love the functionality of it!

my favorite part of the room is the new set of windows! it allows me to watch the garden grow. and look at all the toys the kids drag out in the yard. and when it's cool enough out i can crank them open and enjoy some fresh air.

there is so little wall space in this room, but what there is i've covered with my kiddos artwork (except the crooked-hanging  fabric wall art next to the books shelf - a bargain from Target).

and lastly, here's the computer desk and the back door. this door used to be the door from the utility room to the side yard, but we replaced that with a window, not needing a door there, and put the door here. the wall this door is on used to be taken up with the world largest sliding glass door. we were so happy to see that go.

this room used to be the most despised one in the house, but since working it over a bit, we've grown to really enjoy it.

****

last night i took William and John to baseball. Leah brought Patrick (he plays on the same team), so she and i got to catch up with each other. it's been so long since we've spent time together. after practice i invited her over and we sat around yacking and watching the shocking episode of American Idol where Pia got sent home.

i shelved books at the library this morning. i haven't told Ms. Cobb that i'm pregnant, but i was feeling so sick i wondered if i looked green to her. i think this baby is making up for all the morning sickness i didn't have with my others. between the nausea, the bone tiredness and the insomnia, it's been a hard few weeks.

since the weather is so nice, tonight we're planning on going over to CM after dinner to hear Rattle Tree Marimba. so happy to resume this friday night tradition!

tomorrow Mama is coming to take the kids away for the rest of the weekend. Brian and i have been looking forward to a date for weeks (months).

well, i have lots i need to get done before i need to pick up my dear ones from school. have a blessed weekend, y'all.

9 week tummy(less) pic

i really am pregnant. it's just not showing much in my middle yet - though it is getting harder to keep the tummy sucked in. other places on me are definitely pregnant already. ha.

this is my little drapery skirt i made. i bought some drapes at Texas Thrift the other day and ripped out the thick lining to make a springy skirt. i have my longhorn boots on with it, because here in Texas you can wear cowboy boots no matter what the season.

a little bit of life

yesterday i worked in the school library for awhile shelving books. thankfully there weren't as many books as there usually are because i was feeling pretty nauseous. i thought nobody at school knew about me being pregnant, but apparently Margaret has spread the word. i'm glad she's excited.

on the way to school yesterday morning the kids suddenly decided that baby should be named Ivy if it is a girl. we've always used family names, loving the idea of honoring our ancestors, but maybe we'll have to break from tradition and let them pick one of baby's names. i've been flipping through the notebooks of family genealogy for both sides, looking for ideas. i can come up with lots of good male names, not so many female names.

i spent most of yesterday cleaning house and doing yard work. in other words, it was a perfect day. my garden is coming along splendidly and we've already has some of the green leaf lettuce and arugula in a salad. my asparagus didn't produce a whole lot, but i'm letting it go to seed, and hopefully next winter, early spring i'll have even more. one shoot every couple of days just won't cut it for a soon-to-be family of 7.

i'm ready this book i picked up at the thrift store called Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. i've found it very interesting. it's a political history, not one about his personal life, and it's written by people who were in his cabinet, so it's quite positive of the late president. and quite negative of Lyndon Johnson. i've read quite a bit about Johnson, feeling somewhat obligated since he was born and raised here, and most of that was written by LBJ insiders who tried their best to honor the man. it's been enlightening to read what those outside of Texas thought of LBJ.

last night Brian and the boys escaped the house to make room for the girl scouts. i made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and we ordered pizza. it was such fun to gad with women folk for a few hours.

not the most flattering shot of some of the ladies, but here's a snap shot for posterity sake of the girls and moms doing meal planning for the upcoming trip to the GS cabin in Fredericksburg.

as i was cleaning house yesterday, i got this idea to do a tour of our house for my blog. so be looking for that some time in the near future.

last night being our free night, the night we don't have baseball practice or some other scheduled event, we went over to the park and some played basketball, others played make believe we're on an African safari, and others walked. actually i was the sole walker. i was so very tired when we first met up at the park that i almost decided not to walk, but i knew in the end i'd be glad i pushed through, and so i did.

this morning i woke up before the alarm (before 5) and made some banana muffins for the kids' breakfast. i've sort of had my goal to make most of everything we eat this week, and i've almost succeeded. that means 72? meals so far. i think we'll get something out tonight. Brian has some planning group he meets with periodically for a happy hour discussion time, and they're meeting tonight, so he'll be home late.

Margaret's girl scout troop will be having their meeting here tomorrow night. that'll be fun. we haven't met together since the beginning of cookie sales which was way back in January.

today i suddenly notice that i have a little hard spot in my lower abdomen. i read last night that my uterus was that size of a tennis ball. it is so exciting to think about all the growing going on inside me right now!

this morning after Brian took the kids to school, i went over to Mueller and walked 4 miles before heading off to work at the church. while working, i had to change two poopy diapers and just about lost it. i've always had a high tolerance for grossness, i mean, like i never get grossed out by sights and smells. not anymore. i'm sure i was green faced.

well, i've gottta go over to Brian's work and swap out cars.