We have so much fun with our cousins around here! Last Thursday we were so glad for the safe arrival of Eliza Grace King! We all were holding our breath at soccer practice on Thursday. Michelle had a pretty rough c-section the last time around, and this time we knew it would be tricky. It was (I won’t go into the details here), but Dr. Beck did an AMAZING job, and we are so happy Michelle and cute little Eliza are both doing pretty well. A huge thanks to Dr. Beck. Eliza really is precious!

On Friday morning we got James for the night! We were so excited and we played hard with him. After he arrived here, we dropped the girls off at Lori’s and he, Jackson, and I went to Krispie Kreme for a little tour of the donut making machines, etc. It was neat and Of course we had to buy some of those delicious donuts and eat them! It was a fun outing. We went and got the girls, went home, got lunch, and Jackson was so thrilled to have a buddy to play video games with him! James may have asked 10 times to go swim in the pool, but I didn’t want him to get wet right before we went to pick up McKay, so I held him off ’til after that. Finally, I let them go swimming, and they all loved it! It was pretty hilarious to watch them freeze their buns off, but they swam for a good 45 minutes. Lacey and James were the crazies who stayed in the water for the longest!  I could barely get them to come out.

On Saturday morning we started building rockets then had Jackson’s last soccer game ( where he scored the goal for his team) and went straight from that to this awesome train museum. It really was neat – we’ll have to go back again sometime. We were able to walk through a few cars that were from the 1930’s, and one that was over 100 yrs old. We also got to get up in at an old engine and ring the bell. McKay and James, with a little help from Jackson and Lacey, jumped that old coal engine over a broken bridge. We weren’t sure if we would make it, but the boys did a phenomenal job bringing us to safety ;o) I wish I would have caught more of that on video! There was an awesome story they were making up as they went along.

Next on our list of things was to get Jackson to a b-day party for a friend of his. Lacey and Chelle were pretty tired, but we sent Micah and the boys to the park to launch the rockets they had made. Then when everyone came back they wanted to jump in the pool again! Really? It was so cold, but again it was fun to watch them! After the “Antarctica” swim we made dinner and warmed up and Robyn and Devan came to pick up the boys.

Jackson and Lacey have both gone through some withdrawals! They keep asking when we are getting James and Kay Kay back! I’m sure it wasn’t quite as fun for the big boys as it was for us, but we hope they’ll come stay with us again sometime!!!

Yes, birthday season is upon the Stubblefield home. Only one not so lucky member of this family has his birthday not within the 26 days between Feb. 28 and March 25. We’ve had quite a bit of fun celebrating and planning for our birthdays this year. My birthday is Feb 28th (which was a Monday this year) and Rachelle’s is March 1st, so we decided for her first b-day we would invite family over for FHE and celebrate our b-days together… that was the plan until she woke up Monday morning throwing up! Darn! The party was off .  But we still needed to figure out the rest of the day because I had planned a little fire station field trip for Jackson’s preschool class and other things that I wasn’t going to take a poor little sick girl to.  Micah saved the day – he took some time off work and it  turned out to be a really nice day! I was able to go on the little outing with Jackson and Lacey and then we relaxed at home for most of the day. It was like a holiday! Micah had taken Jackson and Lacey to help him get some gifts for me on Saturday and they were so excited to see me open these gifts they picked out. It was so fun. I had made our cakes the night before, but I put Chelle’s in the freezer until she was ready to celebrate. We ended up having Score bar cake that night for dessert and for several nights after!  Yum! I had several visitors come by including my sisters and a few friends and it really ended up being such a nice day (minus poor little Chelle  feeling horrible all day, but she slept a lot!).

We ended up letting Chelle open her presents on her b-day. She was still not feeling great, but it was cute to see her get a little smile on her face while she opened her presents. The older kids loved helping her open and play with her toys! She seemed to get a little better throughout the day and after a really good sleep that night we decided the next day after dinner we would sing to her and let her have her cake. She wasn’t really into it, besides the frosting flower on top (the pictures were taken after a little encouragement and examples from Lacey and Jackson). I had a really cute cake that I was planning to do, but I just couldn’t get myself to start the marshmallow fondant. So Rachelle got this cake instead. That night she got the gift from Grandma, and that has been a huge hit with everyone here. It wasn’t the b-day celebration I wanted for her, but I guess life happens. It was fun to celebrate our sweet little girl! Every day she is more animated and funny. She loves her brother and sister. She loves to be held. She doesn’t walk yet, although she’s taken about 4 steps by herself and I’m sure she can walk  if she just decides she wants to.  She loves to cuddle with me and daddy – I love that.  I finally put her hair in a tiny pony tail the other day – so cute! We love our baby (or not so baby) Chelle! The time has flown by!

Kids make everything so much more exciting… even my birthday! On Saturday after the soccer game and other fun we came home and put Chelle down for a nap. Then Micah, Jackson, and Lacey left for a little while. I pulled weeds and got ready to meet Michelle for a pedicure (which is a great story for another time). Then they came home and my sweet little children were bursting with secrets! I love that. I left for my pedicure – which was awesome (Thanks Mich) and when I returned, Lacey yelled, “a-prize! its your birthday!” and pointed to these cute flowers. Jackson came running into the kitchen because he was so excited to show me the flowers and tell me that they had picked them out together especially for me. The looks on their faces of excitement and pride were the best!

Just looking at them makes me smile!

I’ve had a few little crafty things on my to do list for a while and I finally decided to quit thinking about it and just get some done. I’ve been in this weird mood where all day I can’t wait to get to a project but then after I get the kids to bed, the last few things picked up and dishes done for the day I can’t convince myself that its worth getting everything out to work on it. I finally just decided to do it no matter how late it was. Well, here are the things I/ we’ve been working on…

First up – the bathroom cabinets. I’ve been wanting to do something to our bathrooms since we moved in. I really wasn’t a fan of the whitewashed wood look. I haven’t done anything with them up until now because I’m not really the type to replace something that works and looks ok  just because its not my favorite (and I guess I’m just cheap).

So anyway, I was blog surfing and was inspired by this blog http://hisugarplum.blogspot.com/2010/08/guest-bath-part-2.html and after getting over the “I don’t know how”s and the “I’m nervous to try, what if I don’t like it”s  one Saturday I woke up and told Micah I was sick of thinking about it and we were going to do it. We started with the kids bathroom since the vanity is smaller, and lets face it, the whole bathroom is already a piece of junk so I wouldn’t care so much if it looked bad. Then we liked it and Micah asked me to do our bathroom. Here is our finally finished master bathroom cabinets:

I’m liking the change!

Next  – I’ve been wanting to get my poor old Rachel doll (the cabbage patch doll I had when I was growing up) some clothes. When I was young I guess I threw away her cute little dress and tried to make my own. Well, that dress fell apart, so the doll was sitting unclothed for a while. Finally I found this free pattern for a little doll dress and changed it a little so I could add sleeves. Here’s the final product:

Its not exactly what I was thinking, but I like it. I also made some cute little hair things for her to wear (that I borrowed for Chelle’s hair today).

Next up… a fun little valentine’s day treat for my visiting teaching sisters – it was so easy, cute and quick:

I just used some old flavored syrup and an olive oil bottle, cleaned them out really well and put m&m’s in. I grabbed some labels here and here and Wa-lah! I was happy to have something decent done for friends.

Our last… well, wasn’t necessarily a project, but  cute V-day cards for preschool and family:

I don’t remember which blogs I saw these on, but they definitely were not my own ideas! We glued a snickers on to Lacey’s to make it look like Lacey was holding a snickers in her hand.  The kids in Jackson’s class thought his mustache was hilarious and he was quite thrilled with it!

Now just for fun (and because I want to make this an extra long blog post ;o),

Micah brought me these flowers the other day before he went on one of his camp outs – It was so nice of him.

and we’ve had a few big days around here where Lacey’s been letting me do her hair (see in the pictures below – cute little pigtails, even in cute hair ties?). This particular day, the girls were having so much fun playing together – I love moments like this – they are both about to crack up at each other in this picture. Lacey also finally finished her chore sticker chart and chose this cute little $1.50 baby and bottle for her prize. She LOVES it and takes good care of it. As for the potty training though… this week has been another slump in that loooooooooooooong road – Darn! She sure is a cute little CHARACTER though!!!

but going to the park with cousins is WAY more fun! We love to have family around that will play with us! Today we went to the park with the Woods and had a blast – Jackson, Lacey, and Rachelle love any chance we get to hang out with them. I just happened to have the camera with me today, so here are some pictures from the park:

We’ve officially decided we aren’t going to Ohio with Micah’s job… now what? We’re not totally sure about that. I guess we’ll find out soon enough! We are happy to be staying near family!