Crafting with Nana and Papa

When my parents left us last in the beginning of September the plan was not to see them again until Christmas. I however thought that they would not be able to go 4 whole months without seeing their favorite grand-kids. I was correct, they couldn't stay away, and although they only came to see us for a day and a half my kids got their Nana and Papa time and Nana and Papa got their fill of grand-kid time. 

Nana stepped up to the plate and brought some fabulous Halloween crafts that provided lots of entertainment. Spiders and pumpkins, you can't go wrong with crafts around here these days.

 Rex and his spider.

 Myla and her, "scary, scary spider."

 Quinton working hard.

Everyone made two spiders. Papa hung them up over our table. If you look on the sliding doors behind the spiders you will see the pumpkins that they made as well. Oh that Nana, so thoughtful and creative. She talked about crafting at Christmas as well, she better remember that because I know they will. The spiders were the perfect thing for my bug AND craft loving children. Combining two of their favorite things!

 They still love the shadows that they make on the walls at night!

We painted our little pumpkins earlier in the week. Paint and glitter in their underwear, what could be better? We always love a chance to get messy.

Dan's parents grew pumpkins in their garden and we attempted to carve the big one. Our children, however, quickly lost interest, didn't love the gooey inside, and we threw it away only a few days after carving it because it was getting moldy. Maybe in a few years they will enjoy carving their own. They did enjoy bringing it inside and lighting it in the dark. It was, "So scary," according to Myla.

Now I'm fairly certain that we won't be seeing my parents again until Christmas. They are not big fans of the cold weather (I cannot blame them) and they will be coming to visit in January or February when #5 arrives (I hope!). I am so glad that they can't stay away long, we love our Nana and Papa time. We are looking forward to a week in Arkansas for Christmas with Aunt Kelly, Aunt Dana, Uncle Ry, Nana, Papa and my Aunt Mary Ann. Excited for all the holiday festivities!

Leaf Jumping

The fall is upon us, which only means one thing...winter is next.

I'm not dreading it as much as I usually do. I love all the holidays. I cannot wait to decorate for Christmas with my kids. It always makes the house magical and extra cheery. Then after the holidays I get to meet and snuggle my forever baby. I have a feeling that Wee #5 will make the rest of winter a little more bearable. If I am forced to stay inside because of the cold and snow I will have a precious little guy to hold.

Back to fall. I cannot seem to get my kids out of their shorts. No matter the weather my boys constantly want to wear their basketball shorts, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them. Maybe the snow will force them into pants. They are obviously warm, sweaty boys like their Daddy. Myla and I will be, "So chilly," and they will be only in their basketball shorts running around the house. It could be that they are constantly on the move. I'll keep you posted what happens when the snow comes, I have a feeling that unless they we are leaving the house they will be in shorts. Often times they sport tall socks and their shorts. I'm not raising fashion models. I have officially given up the shorts battle and realized there are many more important things to care about.

We still have been getting outside and enjoying the weather any chance that we get. We have no trees in our front yard but our wonderful neighbors lent us their leaves for the necessary jumping in.

 

Those same wonderful neighbors house was almost considered a "total loss" to a house fire a week and a half ago. They are our favorite neighbors, Dave and Jeff. They have a sweet little dog, Jetta, and have been so kind to us since the day that we moved in, they live right next door to us. About a week and a half ago (it was a Thursday so Dan was off) we were sitting in our living room about 8am and it was cold and rainy outside. I commented to my kids to look at the fog outside, a few minutes later there was another big wave of fog. Dan opened the front door to see if the fog was from something only to discover smoke pouring from the front of their house. I ran to our deck and the entire back of their house was up with flames, coming through their roof. The fire chief (who we know) pulled up at the same time so we were left with no one to call but Dave and Jeff. In tears I urgently called them. Four fire departments later, and unimaginable amount of smoke (I could not see anything across the street), lots of tears and chaos their house was considered almost a total loss. It was said to have started from something electrical. It is hard to see two grown men cry, and go through their memories, and realize all that was lost. I cannot even imagine that feeling. 

On a lighter note, we are thankful that they are rebuilding and in about 6 months will be able to move back in again. 

My sweet big boys (I'm realizing that Q is not in shorts, but believe me, that is all he wants to wear).

Mid-air jump from Quinton.

Rex simply adores his big brother. Anytime we are going somewhere to see friends I will ask my kids who they are excited to see or play with. Rex' response is always, "I'm excited to play with Quinn." And that is what he does. He gladly interacts with all the other kids as long as his big brother is close by. It's a sweet relationship.

We would often tell Myla that she was, "firey" or that she was, "On fire" on the days when she is extra sassy. We can no longer use those terms after our neighbor's house fire, our kids have a whole new understanding of, "on fire."

Spunky little girl.

She wanted her own time to jump in the leaves without the boys.

Gotta love my little girl.

So lots going on here.
I'm blessed to spend my life for these 5 precious kids.

Crazy Pregnancy

Spray paint and a glue gun.
Two things that I never never owned until recently. I am NOT crafty. I'm totally placing complete blame on Wee #5. He is making do crazy things even before he is born. Between my children's love of crafts and my new found love of spray painting and gluing anything I can get my hands on, nothing in this house stands a chance. Wee #5 won't stand a chance, he is sure to be painted on, glued to, and completely decorated. But again, I'm blaming him. I have no idea what's coming over me.

Pinterest has not only allowed me to become crafty with my kids but it has made me believe that I, Yes I, can be crafty as well. Everyone makes everything look so easy and do-able and I'm left with no choice but to try it. I have had some success stories with crafting as well as some failures. I'm still learning that I need to be more patient with spray painting, I tend to get anxious and spray too much too fast. I may or may not have made ruined a few odds and ends around our house. Lucky for me I married a man who never gets upset over me taking chances and screwing up. He was out of town this whole last week and before he left he smiled, hugged me and said, "I wonder what you will have spray painted when I get home?" Gotta love a man who doesn't sweat the small stuff like drips of spray paint and a crafts gone bad.

One of my favorite new creations is this,

My less than $10 craft. I had an old canvas that I didn't like the picture on it. Bought enough fabric to cover it, some self stick letters with my 40% off coupon at hobby lobby, had a little bit of white paint at home and pulled out my hot glue gun. Glued the fabric around the canvas, carefully placed my sticky letters on where I wanted them (pressing down all over each letter to prevent paint getting under them), and carefully painted away several layers of white paint. Let it dry, put a fan on it because I'm terribly impatient when it comes to seeing the final product, and then carefully peeled back the letters.

I was so excited by the final product. Thinking I might just have to try this again with another saying.

 Another easy (for the most part) and inexpensive product was my wreath.

I liked how easy the flowers were. That is what always kept me from trying a wreath before and these were literally circles of fabric cut out and hot glued. Did I mention I really like my glue gun?

I spray painted our Lightening McQueen chairs white and moved my parents old coffee table into my kitchen for my kids table instead of the red Lightening McQueen table. It provides a little more sitting room. Titan likes to pretend that he is a "big kid" and sit at the table with them. Depending on what we are eating I don't always let him sit there but he desperately wants to just be part of the gang and sitting at the big kid table makes him one happy guy. If you notice, whoever sits next to him has to maintain their distance so as not to lose any of their food. He's a sneaky little guy.

The rest of the pictures are all just from my phone camera, capturing a little bit of our life.

This next picture is one of my favorite candid pictures ever. Quite regularly throughout the day I ask Quinton to help entertain Titan. Quinton has become quite the reader, and if he is unsure of the words, quite the story teller, and he LOVES to read to his siblings. The adoration between Titan and Quinton is mutual. It is such a sweet relationship to see and this picture simply captures a little moment between them. Oh it warms my heart.

Probably about two weeks ago I caught this Katydid. A special thank you to Jed Johnson for telling us the name of this bug, we just called it a leaf bug. We were all amazed by this little guy, I even allowed them to bring their bug jar in the house so that he would stay alive for longer. Loved him to death. Kept his amazing little body to share with everyone who stopped by. God's creation is so cool!

Like I mentioned earlier, Dan left last Monday morning before we woke up and spent the week in California at a conference arriving home at bed time on Friday. We had a great week with extra friend time but of course missed our favorite guy a lot! Taking a little picture for Danny.

 Quinton showing off his penmanship writing a letter to Daddy.

The other morning while it was just Rex and I awake we were talking about Wee #5 and Rex looked at me and said, "I think our new baby will have curly hair." Well 3/4 have the crazy curls. We will just have to wait and see what #5's hair will look like, but Titan got the curls.

So there you have it, another week in our crazy house, sharing with you all that I have officially gone crazy. Between running after 4, growing #5, and my new found love of spray paint and my glue gun I'm keeping busy.

It's a good thing that Wee #5 is our last baby. With another pregnancy I might be bitten with the cooking or baking bug and completely ruin my cereal and yogurt for dinner loving children. Oh the joys of carrying a sweet little boy in my belly. 

Highlight that I'm looking forward to this week, Thursday afternoon and evening date with the love of my life. I CAN'T WAIT!

Crafty

Something has come over me. 

I'm not sure if it's the pregnancy or the fact that I am asked daily, "Can we do a craft?" But I am learning, slowly but surely with the help of pinterest and a few different blogs to come up with crafts for my sweet children. 

They love crafts. 

They love getting messy, painting, glue, markers, trying new things, slimy, sticky, crazy crafts. And as the blessed mother of my children I am responsible for coming up with crafts. I have gotten into the habit of saving every toilet paper roll that is empty, racking my brain for possible uses of a sauce jar or a cereal box. I have to stay on top of these things because in order to do a craft I must have at least three of whatever I need. Sometimes all I need to do is provide them with the tools and they come up with something creative to make or they just pile a whole bunch of glue and glitter and keep themselves happy. 

When I'm really on my game I can tie a great learning moment into the craft. Those are the days when I walk around with a big head for a while because I'm so thrilled with myself and my ability to be crafty and smart! 

This particular craft was a big success.

We read through the story of Noah's Ark in the Jesus Storybook Bible, a must for families with young kids, wonderful stories, great pictures and the best message. We talked about how and why God made a rainbow for Noah. And then things got sweet and delicious.

I was forced to buy fruit loops for this craft. We don't normally have them on hand but oh they are delicious. Everyone started with a pile, munched on a few and sorted their colors. I particularly love crafts that take a good chunk of time and sorting fruit loops did just that.

One thing that I have noticed over the last month or so of intense crafting at the Rude house is how different each of my kids will do each craft. It's fascinating to see their little minds at work and how The Lord made each of them different in how they think and do things.

Myla seems to be more organized and slow in her crafting. She wants to make sure that everything is perfect.

 Quinton, taste the rainbow.

Rex seems less concerned about the organization of the fruit loops and more concerned about just enjoying himself.

After the fruit loops we added cotton balls for clouds, drew a sun and put their names on it.

 Voila! A sweet beautiful craft.

 Titan woke up midway through this craft and got to enjoy some fruit loops as well!

We've tried glitter and glue crafts several times and are still working on perfecting the outcome. But they love the process.

And when you're not sure what else to do pull out the paints, throw my old Starbucks aprons on them, hand them a paint brush and let them go to town.

 Rex painting Rex the dinosaur.

 Myla usually has her tongue out while she's crafting. She's always concentrating very hard.

 The whole gang.

 My big grown up 4 year old.

 Rex onto his second picture...

He decided on orange. He used almost the whole paint jar. I timed him and for over 7 minutes he painted orange and orange and orange some more. That's just Rex for you. I love this boy.

 Myla was still working on her first picture.

 Quinton working on staying in the lines.

 And when Titan wakes up he just wants to party...

 And party he does...

Oh it's just another day at the Rude house, crafts, climbing, craziness. How I adore these children and the smiles they bring to my face every day. I'm always looking for new and exciting craft ideas if you have any suggestions.