Art

This is Chloe's version of Helaman's 2000 Stripling Warriors. We had a FHE lesson on it the other week, and then one day she brought this to me and explained what it was. Pretty good!

We told the girls during Conference to listen to what is being said and either write down what you hear or draw a picture of it. Isabelle and Lily drew these:

I also wanted to add this picture Lily drew a while ago. We had the missionaries over for supper and the next day she drew a picture of them!

She LOVES to read

Lately she loves to look through books and point at the pictures, and have me read them to her. This book, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?" is one of her favourites. She will point to the page with the teacher on it, a woman with short brown hair and glasses, and say, "Momma." It is so cute.

They've learned to play together...

..when the older two go to school! Olivia loves to do whatever Chloe is doing, and Chloe loves to be the leader and the one in charge for once. It is so fun to watch them!

Summer Campout August 2010

I meant to blog about this a while ago, but never did, so I will now! The first weekend in August Ben had a backyard campout with the older three girls. They had a blast! I was so surprised at how quickly they all fell asleep, and that they didn't get cold. It was strange for me to sleep alone in the house with just Olivia. Anyway, it is something we'll definitely do again next summer!

Recent Projects

So I finally got around to completing some projects around the house that I have been meaning to do for quite some time now.


Chloe and Olivia's Room

I took the back part of Olivia's bedskirt (that nobody ever sees) and transformed it into a window valance. It was something so easy and simple, yet it makes a huge difference to me in their room:



Chloe's little nook:




The whole room. Gotta make the most of that little space!





Isabelle and Lily's Room

In the last month, I have done the following:

-painted the bunkbed white
-painted Izzy's dresser and the nightstand white and the handles black
-covered the inside of the back of their stuffies shelf
-painted the dress-up trunk pink
-painted the hat lamp pink too
-ordered Ben to hang the curtains. What a guy!

Now they have a very pink room, which they love and so do I:

The new dress-up trunk. The old one was cream with gold trim and all scuffed up and fairly ugly.

Isabelle's dresser. It was also originally cream with gold trim and very scuffed up.

The new hat lamp:

The old hat lamp, which was nice, but just didn't go:

The stuffie shelf:

Here is Ben's dresser that I repainted about 3 or 4 months ago. It was originally his Grandma Bell's, and is about 30 years old. It is a good, solid, sturdy dresser. It was just brown wood before, with a short mirror on it. Ben and I could see about up to our stomach's with it! His grandma was a very small lady, and Ben and I are anything but small. So we removed the small mirror and bought this one for $5 at a garage sale, and painted it to match:

This chair I got for free at a garage sale too. I recovered it, and spray painted it black. I plan to use it with a dressing table I am currently working on.

Olivia Walks On Her Own

First Day of Kindergarten and Grade 2!

So today Lily had her first day of kindergarten, and Isabelle had her first day of grade 2. I can hardly believe it! They were both so excited to start school. Lily has been wanting to go to kindergarten for about a whole year now, and so she was just so happy today. I asked her if she felt a little nervous and she said, "Nope! Not even a little bit! I am so excited to have a new teacher, make new friends, wear my new clothes, wear my new shoes, and have a new backpack!"


Here they are showing off their new backpacks. (Take note of Olivia in the background...yes, she's walking!!!!)

At school

Isabelle found her name. She was so happy to be in the same class as many of her friends from last year.

This was on the way to Lily's kindergarten. Her backpack is a Tinkerbell one that has this little skirt that attaches to the front with velcro. She LOVES it.

Here Lily is running out after her kindergarten orientation was over. One of her teachers is actually Isabelle's old grade one teacher from last year! It is nice to have someone who already knows our family a little bit.

Here is Isabelle going in to her class for the first time.

Ben was able to have the day off to join us!

Chloe playing on the long hopscotch. Only a couple of more years and she'll be going to school too!