Holiday Traditions

I love holiday traditions!  I believe traditions are a great way to establish family memories which the kids can look forward to with anticipation.
It seems every year I pick up some sort of new tradition to try from someone.  There are so many things we do as a family for holidays every year that we might not even know at the time that we have started a tradition.  Christmas is probably the holiday with the most traditions for us.  To name a few of the traditions our family does during the Christmas season is our family baking day, cousin cookie exchange for the adults, and a paper chain countdown to Christmas that the kids make each year out of construction paper.

I have picked up a few more traditions for other holidays like the cupcake tradition for Valentine's Day from my cousin.  The beginning of every February, every family member writes down compliments for everyone everyday until Valentines day.  Each slip of paper is put into a ceramic cupcake and then read on Valentine's Day.  My husband and I help the younger ones write their compliment and then help them read theirs.  I think it makes each one of us feel special to hear the compliments that are being read.

Another tradition that I just started this Thanksgiving was given to my by my sister-in-law.  I bought a king sized sheet and sharpies and had all of the guests sign the sheet.  I think it will be a neat way to look back each year to see who my guests were and what they wrote and how they signed their name on the sheet!

Hopefully, these traditions and all of the other ones we add in years to come will be passed down for generations, which then they can always start a new holiday tradition.
What are your family's traditions?

Shoes...you can't live with them, you can't live with out them!

As long as I can remember, we have always had a shoe problem.  The more kids we have the bigger of a shoe problem we have.  The bigger their feet are, the bigger the shoes are, which means the bigger the space we need to store the shoes.  The older they get, the more activities they are in, the more shoes they need.  Their shoes were so much easier to contain when they were little.  Our piles were getting higher and higher, and the more we were digging in the piles to find a match.  I had tried shoe shelves, several smaller shoe racks, seperate shoe bins for every kid, but it always ended up in a big shoe mess.

So...my crafty hubby, which I thought I would never say the two words crafty and hubby in the same sentence, built us a big, big shoe rack!  Yes, I said built and he did a very good job at it.  I am so proud!  It made for a fun Saturday project for the kids since they were in charge of painting the rack.  The shoes more than likely will still end up on the floor, but at least they all have their spot.  Right now they are all organized and the kids know to put their shoes back on the shelf when they are not wearing their shoes.  There is nothing I love more than to be nice and organized!

#4 working so hard her tongue is even out!

                                                          

The finished project!

 

I'm back!

I can't believe I have not blogged in 3 months...exactly 3 months to the day!  It's not like I just forgot, I did think about blogging quite a bit, about this and that but, I literally felt like I couldn't...I had morning sickness for the first 3 months of my pregnancy and complete exhaustion!  I literally wanted to sleep my day away.  I had to muster up any sort of energy I could find to keep my household and daycare up and running.  But, that all goes with it, and here I am...I survived and now enjoying my life again and feel back to my normal self and enjoying my pregnancy to the fullest!!
A lot has happened in the last 3 months, one big thing is our house is finally done and is beautiful, more beautiful than we ever imagined!  The day we moved in, I walked in and literally cried!  I had never imagined ourselves in the position to build a house.  God indeed has blessed us! 
We are all loving our space, the kids all have their own rooms and have the space to go when they want to get away.  I love it for the fact that fighting levels have gone way down!  I love watching the little ones play in their own room and using their imaginations.

We also found out that we are having another boy.  I will have boy bookends...to keep the 3 girls in line!  We are all thrilled and ready for another little boy.  It wouldn't have bothered me at all to have another little girl, but I'm looking forward to all of the boy things...the cute little boy overalls, tractors, cars and simple hair do's!  We have all agreed on a name and call him by it all of the time...baby Aiden!  #4 asks almost everyday, "When is baby Aiden coming out of your tummy Mommy?"

Baby Aiden is another step in life to look forward to as was our house being built.  Looking back, it didn't take long at all for our house to be built and my pregnancy is going fast...too fast!
So enough rambling...till next time...I promise I will not let my blogging get away from me!

Back to School

Three backpacks, 3 pairs of tennis shoes and a pair of football cleats, 6 pairs of uniforms pants, 8 uniforms shirts (4-navy blue polos, 4-white polos) from Old Navy, one uniform skirt (#3 absolutely can not wait to wear), 2 white cardigans (just in case their classrooms are cold), jeans, other shirts, socks, underwear, undershirts, notebooks, folders, binders (can't believe they still make Trapper Keepers!), pencils, pens, erasers, glue, markers, scissors, calculators, and lots and lots of others things including the finishing touches (headbands, necklaces) to put a big SMILE on their cute little faces...PRICELESS!!!!!

In-floor heating

Last week we laid down in-floor heating.  Maybe I shouldn't phrase it "we", Hubby, Grandpa, Uncle Darrell, and Jaime, who is a family friend, plus little helpers and one of their friends all helped out.  I was the runner... whenever someone needed something, I was off to get it (I prefer it that way).  They got all of the pipes down and tied up, ready for the plumber to come the next day.  The next time I looked at it, it was all covered up with cement.  My thought was...I hope everything works properly, there is no turning back...

I keep on hearing how nice this is to have in the winter months.  I also heard how some days it could be used as a main heating source, which means more money in our pockets.  I can't wait to test it out!
Thank you everyone who helped us out!

This is how the two little ones helped out, decorating Grandpa's pickup and playing in the dirt!

The carpenter's pencil!

This past weekend we traveled to Fargo for a little get away.  While we were on this two day trip, we shopped for school clothes for the kids, and looked for different ideas for our house.  We stopped by Home Depot, which we do not have back home, to look at lighting.  It was customer appreciation days and #2 wanted to enter a drawing for a contest.  If she signed her name up she received a carpenter's pencil which she wanted to get for Grandpa. I thought it was so sweet for her to think of her Grandpa, so I let her, knowing she was not 18 and thinking to myself that she would never win anyways.  To my surprise, two days later, we got a call from Home Depot that #2 had won a surprise.  In my head, I was thinking...a hat, a t-shirt, a mug.  Nope, she had won a Torro push mower!!  I about fell off of my chair!!   We were all so excited for #2 that she had won the grand prize!  She was thrilled even if it was a mower!  Hubby was ecstatic!  After I got off of the phone with Home Depot, pretending to be #2, we had to find someone to pick this mower up, since we lived 5 hours away.
My father in law, who works for a funeral company in town, had a co-worker that needed to go down to Fargo the next day for work. (I couldn't believe how this all worked out!)  So the very next day we had our beautiful, shiny, red and not to mention FREE mower delivered to us on top of a Expedition.  There was a reason it was tied down to the top of the vehicle.  Remember, my father in law works for a funeral company...I'm thinking you might know what was inside!!  So thanks to #2 for thinking of Grandpa and his carpenter's pencil!!  I think I might know who will be using the mower first!! And next week, I'm letting her by me a lottery ticket!

#2-The lucky girl!

#2's mower strapped on to the vehicle

House slowly transforming!

We now have cement walls and forms done and soon to be flooring. Small step but exciting how this is all transforming! 

Meanwhile, while all of this is slowly progressing, we have picked out all of our flooring, appliances, plumbing fixtures, light fixtures, and now in the process of picking out our stone for our fireplace and the front of our house and paint for our walls.  Overall, things have gone smoothly.  I'm so glad that hubby and I agree on MOST things!!

For appliances we decided to go with all Kenmore Elite.  We loved all of the space in the refrigerator...it is huge!! I fell in love with the double wall oven.  My first thought of the oven was the annual holiday baking with the family!!  Plumbing fixtures and light fixtures were picked out mostly by hubby.  When suffering with morning sickness, I tend to agree much easier!!  We will see how I like them in the end!