It's Official

I feel like I can say with confidence now that Riley is walking!!! The past couple of weeks he's been getting braver and braver and taking more and more steps on his own. The last few days he has been walking all on his own, multiple times a day, so I say that's official! I love it when my babies start walking; I much prefer it to them crawling all over dirty surfaces with their faces at ground level.

I will do my best to capture this adorable event on camera soon!

She's a thinker :)

Sophia's solution for storing her money for a trip to Walmart. I promise, she is not modeling anyone in this house!!! Really, I have no idea where she got this from. Sure made Jamie and me giggle though.

Self imposed rule

Not really a rule, so to speak, just something I'm going to start, or maybe stop, doing from now on. I just wanted to give all of you amazing readers of my little blog out there news that from now on I will not be posting on Sundays. I don't always post on Sundays, I don't even always post every day. But, I've been feeling like I need a "for sure" day off and so Sunday it is! Our family enjoys taking Sunday to worship God as a unit at our local church and then we usually nap/rest most of the rest of the day away. So, check back on Mondays and hopefully there will be some little nugget of news from our corner of the world for you to read. :)

Oh, and for all you sticklers out there, I'm writing this in advance and pre-posting it, so I'm not breaking my own rule before it's hardly started! :)

Thank you for visiting us at Hedged In so faithfully. I love this creative outlet I've found and I really do enjoy writing about our life. I'll see you tomorrow!

Project Number Two

This is a black frame I have hanging in my entry way.

This is another really nice frame I already owned, but it was brown. I wanted to hang this frame in my entry way as well, and I wanted it to match the one already hanging. Enter stage right - spray paint!

All it took was taking apart my brown frame (i.e. removing the back, the matte, the glass and the hangers) and over the course of a day or two applying black spray paint. I took it slow and easy so as to avoid drips. I think it turned out great! Funny thing is, I should say all it cost me was a can of spray paint, but it didn't even cost me that! My Dad was here a couple of weeks ago and was doing a project for us. Instead of replacing our entryway light fixture, I asked him to simply spray paint the base black. He did, it looks great, and all it cost him, was a can of spray paint... which, he left at our house and I took the liberty to use on my frame project! Thanks Dad! :)

Here the frames are next to each other. The newly painted one (all reassembled with loaded with pictures) actually still looks sort of brown in this shot, but I promise it's black!

And, the finished product, up on the wall... sort of. I don't have the proper size of nail, so it's actually not up on the wall yet. That's right, half-finished projects, that's how we roll around here.

I'm really happy with my free frame makeover. Spray paint is a wonderful way to make old things new, or just simply different!

Have you ever changed something with a simple coat or two of spray paint? Any other cost-effective "make-over" tips you'd like to share?

We like to call it the Banana Do

The baby sign for "all done" is sort of like taking your hands and waving them across your body. Riley knows this sign, though when he's "all done" at meal time, he likes to add a few moves (mostly because he is turning out to be quite the dramatic and is a wee bit impatient, which often leads to a bit of a temper tantrum...). Rather than simply waving his hands across his body, he sweeps them across his tray, at the same time depositing any uneaten food onto our lovely, carpeted, kitchen floor. [This is not just any carpet folks. It is thick, it is squishy, it is gross - gotta love dragging out the vaccum cleaner after every meal, well, that's what we should do. I mean, we certainly would never just leave food there, to dry up and get all crusty. That would be dirty and gross. I'm SO glad we're not like that.] I digress... The other thing that Riley's "all done" usually includes is wiping his dirty, slimy hands all over his face and all through his hair.

SO... when clean-up time comes, especially if Daddy is on duty, Riley gets his post-meal, slimy hair, gotta wipe his whole head to get is clean, thus let's take the opportunity to give him a fun hair-do look. Banana in the hair is especially helpful when looking to acheive not only softness and body, but height!

Is she really SO grown up?

This is our green-eyed beauty and today she was doing some writing. I am so proud of her! She will be five at the end of November, so she won't start kindergarten this year, but I know I'm going to have to stay on top of the homeschooling this year to keep her challanged and continually learning. The funny thing about Soph, which, interestingly enough is exactly like her Mommy as a little girl, is that you're never too sure what she's really capable of until she's ready to show you. She doesn't always like to sit and do "seat work," but when she does, wow! She can write all of our names! Who knew? :) So, here's her Mommy, doing a little bragging on her four year old.

We Are Here-We Are Here-We Are Here!!!

Do you know the story of Horton Hears a Who?? At the end the Whos have to all yell, in one accord, as loudly as they can, WE ARE HERE, WE ARE HERE, WE ARE HERE! See, Horton believes that the Whos exist, but the crazy Kangaroo doesn't, and she's out to destroy the "speck on a clover." Well, we're not really living on a speck on a clover, protected by a kind elephant, but since some of you may be wondering, I wanted to send out a loud, WE ARE HERE, WE ARE HERE, WE ARE HERE! I know it's been almost a week since I've posted, but we are here and we're doing fine. It's just a hectic time for us right now, and blogging hasn't made it on the priority list most days.

This past week, we've seen our first really hot summer weather. Usually we're well versed in the heat and humidity by August, so, it's been nice to have cool, mild weather most of this summer.

Riley has been showing his will more than ever this week. He's almost one, and I guess around this age babies start to realize they can make choices. He's still not walking, but Sophia did get him to take a few steps the other day when she tied all of his pacis to a ribbon and enticed him to follow her after them!

Sophia is doing great and continues to simply adore playing outside, especially if our neighbor's kids are out. She declared the other day that her dream was to play, play, play, all day and never have to stop for eating (I mean, seriously, what a boring task meals are when the great outdoors are calling!). I seem to remember another little girl with a similar philosphy... what was her name??? :)

Jamie is currently lying on the floor with heat on his back. He's not even sure how he hurt it. Getting old is rough. :) (Hopefully he won't read that, because I'm actually older than him and he'd be sure to remind me of it!)

Have a great day!

Project Number One

This past weekend, I spent some of my time doing a couple of projects. One was tackling the bulletin board in our dining room that was intended to display Sophia's artwork. It sort of became this aweful, messy place where instead of her artwork being displayed, it more like, came there to die.

So, we started with this.


Got to this. Ah! A clean slate!


Almost there! A few new features (like verse of the week, her responsibility chart, the calander she made me for Christmas, her choices cards [one of our discipline solutions], and a limited amount of space to hang her artwork!), and bright colors to boot!


Final result! I am very happy with how it turned out. Sophia will have to be more choosy about what goes up to be displayed, and when she's ready to change it, what's up will have to come down! I also like having her verse of the week and responsibility/discipline stuff all in one spot instead of scattered about like they were before.



Have you tackled any organization projects lately?? Or, better yet, what is a project you need to tackle?? I have many more where this one came from! :)

I'll Do It Myself, Thank You Very Much

Now that Riley's almost one, he gets a little moody at meal time if we try to feed him his food. So... even though I knew he would get really messy, I let him self-feed when we had lasagna the other night. The "mess factor" is usually my motivation for wanting to feed him certain meals, because, come on, who really wants to have to practically bathe their child three times a day?? Not I! Though, come to think of it... Riley adores the bath, so maybe that's what motivates him to act grumpy when we try to feed him, knowing if he gets us to give in and gets really messy he might score a bath... hmmmm... I mean, he did get a bath after the lasagna meal...

Happy Birthday to two special people

Today is my Grandpa's 83rd birthday. He's in heaven though, over two months now, so we'll be thinking of him a lot, missing him even more, and wishing we could be over at his house for a birthday party.

We still love and miss you like crazy Grandpa!

This picture was just one year ago...





We're celebrating the birth of another special person today, and the funny thing is, I just realized this past weekend that his birthday is the same as Grandpa's. That fact makes this little boy's life even more special to me. Meet Kannan. Well, not in visual form. Kannan is a little boy we sponsor. He lives in India and is turning nine today!!! We originally chose him because he has an August birthday, same as Riley. I was so excited to realize it was even more significant than that when I noticed his birthday was the same as Grandpa's- the other Riley in our life!

If you feel led to totally change a child's life, click on the Compassion International button on my left side-bar. It has been a great experience for us! We've already received two letters from Kannan and they are such a joy to read and receive. He has claimed us as his loving family, and we have claimed him as another son. Say a prayer for Kannan today, will you? I'm sure he won't get to celebrate anything like we do with our other kids, but I pray his day is special and that he mostly feels how loved he is, by Jesus and by us.

There's just nothing like it

Just playin' in the rain


Just playin' in the rain


What a glorious feelin', I'm happy again!

Oldie but Goodie

This week I checked out a book I've heard a fair amount about in the past. "Piercing the Darkness," by Frank E. Peretti was written back in 1989. So, if you are in my generation, there is a good chance you were too young to read this book back in it's hay-day. I'm pretty sure my Dad read it, and "This Present Darkness," which I think is actually the first book in the series. I haven't read that one though and I didn't find it hampered my experience one bit!

I really enjoyed this book. It would be very creepy to read if one wasn't saved, but I found myself relieved to know I was protected by the Holy Spirit and the Heavenly Hosts, even while reading this spiritually dark - yet uplifting, and moving story.

If you've never read either of these books, I would highly recommend it! The only things dating them were the mention of typewriters and "word processors," a few times. This book, about the classic fight of good vs. evil, centering that fight on the demons of Satan and the Angels of God, was very compelling and even convicting, for me, as a Christian.

You see, the biggest source of the Angels' strength were the prayers of all the believers. It made me wonder, how much do I empower Satan when I lack prayer in my life, and how much more protected am I, and those around me, when I am in frequent prayer?? Thoughts to ponder.

Have you ever read either of these books? What did you think of them??