Micah being silly!

Neil put Micah's shirt like this and Micah thought it was hilarious!

Uncle Austin's backpack was sitting on the floor and Micah kept wanting to put the straps on.

Mother's Day

When I woke up Sunday morning, Micah had flowers waiting for my by the door to his bedroom. Here they are on the table


Here's his card/note he gave me. It was so sweet!



Neil took me to The Palomino downtown to eat, it was delicious!

Austin had just gotten back from school that weekend so he came and spent the night Sat. night and went to lunch with us before heading to IL to celebrate with mom.

It was a great memorable Mother's Day! Neil is so good about making this special for me and surprising me!

Curtain mania

For the past almost year, I have been inspired by a friend here, named Lindsay to make my own curtains for my house. Previously I had just bought the cheap stuff from Target or Kmart just to have something up and they did not look good or follow a theme. Several years ago my mom made me curtians, actually Roman shades for our bedroom that were room darkening and would match our bedding. I really liked those but never thought I would make my own. Well, since Lindsay moved here about a year and a half ago, she's been making her own curtians for her house and is really gifted in sewing. She basically taught herself how to sew and so I thought, she's young and can learn how to do it, so can I! Especially if I had her help whenever I needed it. So I went to JoAnn fabrics last fall and bought my first book on how to make curtains. Then, I picked out which windows I wanted to do and picked out fabrics I liked. I got Lindsay's opinions about everything and then had Neil come and look to make sure he liked it as well. Lindsay helped me figure everything out so I would know how much fabric to buy.
I started with doing a cornice board over the sliding glass window in my kitchen. Before, it just had those blinds that you see but you could see where that was screwed into the wall and the top of it. So, I bought matching fabric for the cornice board and for a window treatment over my kitchen sink. It's a dark plum color with a pattern in it. One of the walls in my kitchen is plum so I wanted it to go with that. Below is the final product of both. My dad actually made the wood frame for the cornice and then my mom and I covered it.

This is the one that I kind of made up. I saw the idea in my curtian book and then went from there. I actually got finials that are supposed to go on the end of a curtian rod to hang it. I put button holes in the fabric where I wanted it to hang from. Neil rigged the finials so they would stick out from the wall for me. He's so good at coming up with stuff like that! Oh and I think it only cost about $50 to buy fabric for both of these windows!

These curtians I actually didn't make but I added all the extras to them. We bought them at Target, they were blackout curtians which we needed for our theater room upstairs. I'm glad we bought them because I was looking into making them and I needed three panels that would be 96" long and they needed to be thick material with a blackout lining. So, it would have cost quite a bit of money to make these. I bought all the trim, tassels, and cording needed for all three panels for $30 at JoAnn's. They have half off all their decorator fabrics and their trim and tassels every so often so that's how I got it. Then I just hotglued it on and it was done! It added a lot to the look of the curtains and now we have a way to tie them back when we're not watching a movie too.


Just a closer look at the trim.


I couldn't take a pic of the whole window, it was too bright.

These are Micah's curtains in his room. Again, I didn't make these, I had bought them for cheap at Target before I got into making curtains. They were just plain tab-top beige canvas curtains. But then I decided that I had some extra material from when my mom made Micah's quilt that I could add to the bottom and replace the tabs. So, that's what I did!

Here you can see how it matches his quilt.

This is is my latest project that my mom helped with about 3 weeks ago. The above is the before pic. The below is the after. I am so happy with how they turned out!

Here's a close-up of the fabric which I bought at the same time I bought the fabric for the kitchen. I did this because it matched well and I wanted to get it while they still had it. So, even though I did kitchen windows in the fall, I just did the family room windows a few weeks ago but had the fabric already. I think it was about $100 for this fabric and then about another $25 for the lining I put on them. You don't always have to do lining but they hang nicer, don't fade as easily and look professional. The rod is a double rod I bought over Christmas at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for like $20 on clearance and I already had the shears. I've had those up by themselves for the past several years and decided not to waste them.

So, anyway, those are some of the projects I've been doing lately. I've officially finished everything I had planned to do but I think the next project will be the spare bedroom/Micah's window when we move him to that room and figure out our theme for in there. Also, sometime I will need to redo the curtians in our room because we purchased new bedding this past Jan. and the Roman shades don't match anymore! But, those curtains will have to be like the family room curtains and so they will be expensive and time consuming so I'll wait a while to do those.

Kane's B-day weekend and bike riding!

We went to IL two weeks ago to celebrate Kane's 6th birthday! It was a good time and we got to see family. We also hit up a garage sale or two and found a bike seat for Micah! We've been having fun with that this week!

At the Blue Dog Inn in Lincoln for lunch. Cindy wouldn't open her eyes for any of like 7 pictures!

Cyd, Micah, and Isabel in the tub together! They had a good time!

Playing with toys, in order of age, oldest to the left.

Easter!

We had a good Easter this year. We dyed Easter eggs on Saturday and made egg-shaped sugar cookies and iced them. Sunday we went to church and had service and then went with the Hessel's to both of their families for their celebrations. It was a long day but fun to see their families. They are our 2nd families. This is the 3rd year we've spent Easter with them and we've spent a Thanksgiving with them as well when I was pregnant with Micah and didn't want to travel too close to my due date.

Dying Easter Eggs


He's so proud of the "ball" as he called it.

Kisses

Giving Micah his Easter basket on Sunday morning before church.

He got some "ball darts" that he loved!

Spring Break with the High School Kids-March

So this year we went on the spring break trip to Panama City, FL with the high school kids again. I thought it might be easier since Micah was 15 months old and walking this year as opposed to 4 months old and needing me to carry him everywhere! Well, I was right in some ways, but in most ways it was more tiring and harder! This year, he was very opinionated about what he did and didn't want to do. He started saying "down" that week when I would be holding him and he wanted to get down and walk. His obsession with balls began this week also. The high school boys were always throwing around a football or something and Micah would see it and say "Ball! Ball! Ball!" Then he would whine when he wouldn't get it and arch his back and all that. Also, I couldn't really take him to worship with me because he wouldn't sit still in there and he wanted to be walking around but he would go bother the kids while they were trying to worship or be really loud! Aside from all that was being in the early stages of pregnancy where I was REALLY tired a lot and some nights I went to bed at 8:00! In addition to that, it was horrible weather! It rained almost EVERY day we were there and some days it rained the entire day without letting up. The courtyard was flooded and we couldn't leave our rooms. So, that made it harder too because I couldn't really get Micah outside to expend energy. Anyway, it was a really good trip and we like to be able to support Neil and be with him even if we don't get to really spend quality time with him. Well, here's some pics.

We had theme nights for dinner so above is the sports night. Micah has a headband on that has a goal post and a velcro football attached. He loved it!

This was country night so we had our cowboy hats on and of course Micah has a ball in his hand.

We went mini golfing one night and this was one of the holes

The mini golf course

Micah really enjoyed picking up seashells and putting them in the bucket.

This was one of the nicest days we had

My best friend Kelly and Micah and I

Hawaiian night, but it was cold so I had on a sweatshirt, no coconut bra for me! :)

This is where I bathed Micah, in a blow-up rubber ducky bath. He loved it and kept giving the ducky kisses while he was bathing!

Micah in my cowboy hat. He loves wearing hats now and is obsessed with any hat he finds!

Daddy shaved a really funny fu-man-shu the first day we got there with some of the other guy leaders to be funny for when the kids got there.