Good Sharers

I have some great 'sharers' in my house!  These two were sharing an ice cream sundae..that was Kinsey's. Ephram shared some of his the day before at the ice cream place. LOVE the sharing.

buds

These two have a great time together! Winston spent the day at our house and the boys played while I did school with the other kids. They had fun outside, playing super heroes, building with Legos, and playing doggies.

Kitchen Reveal

 We were going to move...but things didn't work out that way. It wasn't God's plan for us at this point. But we ended up switching around pretty much the WHOLE house!  Turns out it works perfectly for us now and we didn't even need to move. This is the kitchen reveal...which overall wasn't as terrible as I expected it to be (especially since I was the GM and found out at the last minute).  There were hard times along the way...and I would NEVER want to do that for a living...but it turned out exactly like we wanted it and works so MUCH better for our family.

 All of our appliances were already there.

 but farewell to the soffits...farewell to the tiny pantry...and farewell to appliances all over the counter:) I LOVE the appliance garage. I was pretty specific with my wants for this kitchen...I mean...we were only going to do it once.

 and I just had to have a chandelier over the sink. Oh the sink...turns out I LOVE that too!  It's black composite granite and really deep.

 another sink view....and I wanted a giant basin instead of a separated sink.

 before there were no cabinets above the fridge and just a small wall and door pantry. we had all of that ripped out to add more cabinets and a pantry with pull outs and TONS of storage.

 Now this idea came straight from my friend Molly's kitchen and actually wasn't in the original plans because I had never seen it! But I LOVE the kitchen aid lift!  It stays plugged in and is super easy to store (out of sight). I've never loved having the counters crowded with appliances.

 The pull out spice rack wasn't something we asked for (or new we'd want) but there was just enough space for it so we either would have had an empty space or a spice pull out rack. Turns out we really like it!

 AHHHH...the appliance garage!  LOVE.IT. Keeps my blender, Coffee maker (which we only use
when there is company), and food processor hidden away)

 pull out trash and recycling...LOVE that it's hidden away

 We have mostly drawers for storage on the bottom now and it has made tupperware storage much easier.

 The sink drawer. I don't like drawers that don't open...ever. And most sink drawers DON'T open. That was a change I had to make with this new kitchen...not a necessity for sure, but I'm glad it opens:)

 We have TONS of room in our drawers (and even had a few empty ones for a while)

 The island. Originally we asked them to remove the island because we thought the kitchen would be too crowded with it. Boy and I glad that didn't work out!  We would've had to replace all of the downstairs flooring if we removed it and that wasn't in the plans...so we just used the existing floor plan and replaced it. We are SO VERY glad it worked out that we kept it!  The kitchen isn't crowded at all. And it's cherry..my favorite. I went back and forth about cherry cabinets or white ones for a while. Other than the tile that was my hardest decision. In the end we picked white since they would now be going all the way to the ceiling and we didn't want it to be super dark. BUT we chose cherry for the island because I love it so much...and it turned out gorgeous!

 view from the hall. that window to the right of the cabinets is new. It used to be a full length window and we shortened it to make room for the peninsula. hard to believe the kitchen used to end where the first set of upper cabinets are! 

 other end of the kitchen from the hall

 we added TONS of light to the kitchen with pot lights, three pendants, and under cabinet lighting. it's especially great on cloudy days:). Oh...and our under cabinet lighting acts a great heat lamp:)

 view from the homeschool room

 inside of pantry

 cute cowboy who didn't understand why I was taking so many pictures of the kitchen and decided he needed one too:)

 cute kiddos who LOVE their new peninsula

all in all once the cabinets came in it took three weeks from start to finish.

Backyard Science

 Watching a cicada come out of it's old exoskeleton.  We watched this from the time his tiny green head was popping out until it was completely out.  It was SO neat!

One day while the Keel's were over and playing in the backyard. Abby pointed out that we had HUNDREDS (possibly thousands) of caterpillars all over our leaves. The kids thought it was cool...I thought it was creepy. I mean, the entire tree had three to four caterpillars lined up along the veins of the leaves.  I didn't think it was good...but was assured that it wasn't a big deal.

 

Yeah...a few days later we went out to check them and our leaves were gone!  The veins were the only things left. If this happens again next year I'm afraid the catepillars are gonna have to find another home. SO crazy!

Saturday Mornings

 Braden was at a sleepover...but these three were quietly playing together downstairs. It was a sweet moment of silence and sibling love.

My favorite thing to see has always been one of my kiddos reading to another

This girl.

It's been super cold this fall...then normal, then cold again. Kinsey doesn't care what the weather is..no matter how cold it is she's gonna wear flip flops.  This happened to be a cold night and we went to pick something up at the mall. She had a thick winter coat, long sleeves, and flip flops. I've decided to not fight this battle as it amuses me. Silly girl!

sad can

We were cleaning out and organizing can goods recently and found this beauty. Yup...it was picture worthy. Apparently we brought it down from when we lived in MA...over 10 years ago!  This can EXPIRED in August of 2002 (When Cailey was born) which means it's probably from 2000.  We had a 13 year old can good in our house. It was cream of chicken soup and we did NOT open it. Craziness.

Route 56 Retreat

 Cailey went on to the Route 56 retreat at The Summit. She was hoping to get on the blue team (especially since she had on all blue!) and did!  She had super sweet leaders and their team ended up winning.

Eating dinner with Averie, Kiley, and Abby before the Retreat

Bennett Place

 We went on a field trip to Bennett Place where it was broken down into two tours, an older group and a younger group so what they learned was age appropriate.  I went along with the kiddos while they were outside (then they watched a video and switched).

 Ephram was fascinated by the Civil War soldier and pointed him out long before the other kids saw him coming. He shared about what the soldiers did during the long winters, what they ate, and how to care for a rifle.

 The whole crew from co op that was at the trip

 It's fun to be able to learn more North Carolina History and visit these historical sites with friends.
The kids researched and wrote a paper about Bennett place before our field trip.

Lego Exhibit

 

While we were in Alamance we heard about an amazing Lego Exhibit near by and just had to take the kiddos. It was certainly mind boggling..and extraordinary!   We took a quick walk through to look at everything but you weren't allowed to touch ANYthing (not just the Legos, but anything) so it was hard for our kiddos. The older ones did a scavenger hunt trying to find certain things.

We saw SO many amazing designs!

Ice Skating!

 We tried out the homeschool ice skating that happens once a month and the kids had a blast. It took a while for them to figure it out but all four wanted to stay for the whole time (two hours).

 Ephram held on to a bucket most of the time and would take breaks to hang out with me but then he'd go back out on the rink.  A few times he even skated without the bucket.

 At the end they had sled races which the kids thought was super fun.

 We will definitely be going back to homeschool ice skating since the kids loved it so much! Thankfully we remembered to pack gloves, etc. because they were cold!

History Museum/ Legislative Field Trip

 We went on a field trip to downtown Raleigh with our co op. It was at the History museum and Legislative building.

 The kids were learning about North Carolina History

 some of the early tools

Next up we went to the Legislative building to see where the congress and senate meet