Playhouse Updated...

Remember this project:
http://tonyanddanalewis.blogspot.com/search/label/playhouse
It's finally cooled off enough that we are back at work. It's all finished now except for the inside dividing wall and the painting!! What? You don't believe me? -gasp- You wanna see pics?! :-)
Here ya go!!

Side view. The lattice is to allow for a breeze. It's pretty hot here, ya know!
Front View
Back
Putting lattice on the back
Elijah is a great helper!
See?!
Wrangling a 4x8 takes all of us!

Front
Luke
Sam
Caleb
typical ten year old... LUKE

Caleb framed out the window by himself.
right front side, the front door
All done except for the front door.
Working on the door
Voila!

Told ya! It's all ready for the dividing wall (the playhouse has two rooms) and paint. MaryVance, Elijah and Isaac got to pick the paint colors... red, blue and green!!!

Who knows when the painting will get done though? Hopefully we'll have a baby soon!!

Our Little Firefighters

AREN'T THEY CUTE?! :-)

Sam... I guess he would be the "driver", right?
Firefighter Ike, using his snake....errrr... firehose to put out the fire!
Looks like Joseph is just waiting for word from the command post.
Off to another fire!
Setting up their cones and stands so no one comes near the fire while they are working!

Chief Joseph, checking out the situation.

Driver Sam is taking a much-deserved rest whilst the crew fights the fire!

Elijah's Artwork

ROAR! Are you scared?
Fly away Butterfly

mmmm.... Bread!

Guess what I did yesterday?

mmm... it's been so long since I've made homemade bread. Freshly ground wheat, local honey... smells so good!

Here's Joseph enjoying a slice of 'fresh from the oven' bread with butter!

Don't you wish you could smell it? :-)

Storing Cloth Dipes

Adrienne asked how we store cloth dipes so I took a pic for her. This is just a dresser that I've converted to a changing station. I made a pad from 2 inch thick foam and covered it with white poly PUL turned laminated side out.

I made it long enough for Joseph. I made 'fitted sheet' - style covers for it. I think it's working nicely!

Rainbow...

Molly took this the other day. The rainbow looks upside down, doesn't it?

Nehemiah is Almost Done!

4o weeks 1 day

:-)

And a comparison shot...

40 weeks 4 days with Joseph

Tiny Toad

Sam and the Tiny Toad

By popular demand...

I added the recipe to the post below "Molly's Been Baking"... Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Enjoy!!

Dipes for Nehemiah

One dozen newborn size dipes for our little one! The inners are the same color as the snaps on most of them.
Here's one of my favorites... the inner is a light celery green color -- love the monkeys!!
Another favorite... light ocean color with penguins on the inner!

What's for Lunch? Pizza Rolls here!

They may not look Pretty but they were were good!!

Dana's Pizza Rolls

In a medium bowl combine:

2 c flour

1 t salt

1 T baking powder

1/4 t baking soda

2 t basil *

2 t garlic powder*

1/4 c oil

3/4 ish cup milk

Mix drys. Add wets. You are making a basic biscuit here. (On the items with *... well, ya got me. No, you know I didn't measure those -- I just dumped in some till it looked right -wink-)

Plop onto floured surface and roll thin. How thin? hhhmmm... between 1/4 and 1/2 inch. Yes, that sounds about right.

Cover lightly with pizza sauce (your choice... if you want a recipe, just holler!) Too much sauce and it all squishes out when you roll it up. Yes, I said "roll it up"... Pizza Rolls are like Cinnamon Rolls...only totally different.

Cover with your choice of pizza toppings. I, obviously, used turkey pepperoni. Then sprinkle with mozzarella (or your choice of cheese/s).

Begin rolling from the edge away from you toward you. Gently. It will fall apart but that just makes it taste better. Neat food doesn't taste nearly as good as messy food!

Cut as for cinnamon rolls, in about one inch slices. Remember it will kinda fall apart and that's okay. We're not going for pretty here.

Place one inch apart on baking sheet (I always use parchment paper to make an easy clean-up). Sprinkle generously with parmesan cheese.

Bake at 450 for 12 minutes (give or take, depending on the thickness of your slices, your oven's mood, etc...)

Heat any leftover sauce for dipping.

mmmm......

mmmm...Molly's Been Baking Again!

mmm... don't you wish you could smell 'em!! Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies!!!

Molly's Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 c butter

1 c peanut butter

Mix well, Add:

1 c flour

1 c sugar

1 c brown sugar

2 eggs

1 t baking soda

1 t baking powder

1 t vanilla

Beat till throughly combined, add:

1 1/2 c flour

Mix well.

Stir in:

1 bag of milk chocolate chips

Drop by rounded spoonfuls or cookie scoops. Bake 375' for 7-9 minutes. Yield: 72ish

Our New Son's Name... and the Story Behind It

Y’all know we’ve been pondering and pondering the right name for our son. We were down to Daniel, David, Nathan, Nehemiah and Peter. We talked and talked and just couldn’t exactly put our finger on the right name. As those were all men of strong character, we began looking at meanings for the names:
Daniel - God is my judge
David - beloved
Nathan - gift
Nehemiah - comforter
Peter - rock
Nothing was clicking. I liked the meanings of all the names except Nehemiah. “Comforter“. That just seemed odd to me.

One afternoon I was sitting around talking with Caleb, Molly and Sam and one of them asked about names again. We began going through the list discussing the merits of each name when we came to Nehemiah. “Comforter”. It just felt funny to me…

Then I had a flashback… I saw myself sitting at Luke’s bedside (when he was in the hospital after his accident). He was just laying there, looking almost not alive… But from the first moment I got to the hospital, and the entire time we were there, the baby was moving. Moving, moving, moving. He was so incredibly active. His activity level went from normal to *wow* almost instantly. I was sitting there rubbing my belly, talking to the baby, looking at Luke. It was so bittersweet.
Later I was telling Jaynie how odd it was to me that the baby became suddenly so overwhelmingly active while we were in the hospital (and his activity level returned to normal as soon as we left) and she said “I think he was trying to comfort you… “

Wow.

It just all came in a flash and the children were looking at me wondering where my mind was. I told them the thoughts that I had just had and they all smiled and nodded in agreement that Nehemiah must be his name. It was just such an intense moment and everything clicked. When Tony came in I shared what we had just experienced and he had the same feelings. It was such a confirmation.

Luke’s accident changed all of us. Life will never be exactly the same. God is teaching/has taught us so much from this. It’s very fitting that this child have a name reflective of that time in our lives.

Nehemiah. Yes.

Our chick named itself today...

He/She was chirping so sweetly I wanted to capture it on video to share with all of you. :-)

Sorry for all the background noise.

Can you guess what he/she named him/herself today?

Here are a few more pics. Squirt will be five weeks old tomorrow.

Our Beautiful Molly is 14

Happy Birthday Molly!

What a sweet, excited smile!
Who else would be so excited and surprised by an alarm clock?! :-)
A fun game she learned to play at the S's in Missouri!
What? One last surprise! Something from her Daddy! I think she likes it... what do you think?!
Our sweet Molly. You are such a joy to us. We are so thankful to the Lord for putting you in our family! Thank you for being such a great big sister and a wonderful daughter!

We love you!

Happy Second Birthday Joseph

Blow!
The only way to eat a cupcake... I mean, honestly, do you expect him to get his hands dirty?! LOL

Oh... like this!?

Joseph LOVES his new ride!

Happy birthday sweetie! We love you!

A Praise to share with you all!

Joseph was nursing 5 or 6 times per 24 hour period when Luke had his accident. I am one of those 'prone' to mastitis if I go 12 hours without nursing. This was, of course, a huge concern when I was at the hospital with Luke. The last thing I needed was mastitis.

The accident was Monday late afternoon. Joseph had nursed around noon. That night, around midnight, the nurses brought me an electric double pump to use. I pumped for 20 minutes and got Not A Drop of milk. My milk was gone. Poof. Just like *that*. Tried everything, hot shower, hand expressing, everything. There was just nothing there. Not a drop.

Really an answer to prayer.

We got out of the hospital on Thursday. Joseph nursed just about as soon as we got back to the S's house. Man did it hurt. Nursing while completely empty is very painful to me. There was no milk there. None. I continued to allow him to nurse when he asked but made the sessions very short as I was very teary with pain at each session.

By Sunday my milk was starting to come back. By Tuesday it was back in full-force.Isn't God so good! I know Joseph doesn't *need* to nurse and I was resolved with him weaning and very much at peace with the whole thing. Then God restored my milk ... what an extra special blessing this is to me. Nursing is so dear to me and I am so thankful!

Our newest family picture

Our precious "niece" Lauren took this picture last week.

Welcome to our Home ~ The Playroom

Welcome to our Home! I've been meaning to show you around for a while so let's start with the Playroom. Here's the right side of the room (if you are standing in the dining room). Those double windows face east. The canvas bins hold Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Playmobile, etc...

Here's the left side of the room. First is the children's computer area and the large cupboards. The first cupboard holds art supplies and extra school books and supplies. The second cupboard holds bins with sorted toys, dinosaurs, horses, doll house furniture, etc... The door to your right opens into our living room.
The end wall, the one you are facing has a long narrow closet. This is what MaryVance uses for her 'nursery' and 'kitchen'.

This is the backside of the shelves holding the canvas bins. I finally took the time to organize the books!
The tall shelf has chapter books on the top shelf. The other shelves are fiction books sorted by author's last name. The spines are all labeled.

These shorter shelves are organized as follows:

"Bible" books and Bible-related books are labeled with a red sticker.

"Animal", "Science", "History", "Geography" have a green sticker.

The baby board books are not labeled (bottom shelf left and part of right) and the remaining bottom right shelf are "Other" and labeled with an orange sticker.

I did the alphabetizing for fiction because I wanted an easy way for the little ones to reshelf books and I thought it would be a good way to reinforce alphabetizing. I decided to do general categories for the others for ease in reshelfing.

At the top of the photo you can see our dining room. This is where we do the majority of our schoolwork. See our giant dry erase board!

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into our home. I'll try to post one room a week. (For those of you who have been to our home before -- this is the room on the front of the house that was originally our library and most recently our sewing room:-) )

"Thank you" seems so inadequate...

but I don't know what else to say.

Thank you all so much for your prayers. They were really felt.

We got home last night and are still in 'vacation recovery mode' today.

I hope to get a complete update written soon but I did want to post to tell you all how much your prayers meant to all of us.

Luke is fine. He is 100% back to his sweet self. Thank you Lord!

Thank you all so much. You are all so dear to me!
Dana

My Husband...

I was talking to my friend several weeks ago about my husband. I was telling her how much I love him and what a good husband, father and provider he is. I was telling her how proud I am of him and how he is so quick to make changes when he feels led to do so.

And I realized I need to tell him those same things too.

So, my sweet husband, I want to tell you how much I love you. You are a good provider for us, you are a thoughtful and loving husband and a very involved father. There are many things I love and respect about you but the biggest is this: When you feel convicted to make a change in your life You Just Do It. I don't know how you do. I'm not wired that way. But you do. You just make the changes and move on. That is one of the aspects of your personality that really inspires and motivates me. I want to be like you in that area.

I want to thank you for loving me when I'm not very lovable ;) and I want to thank you for the commitment you have to our marriage.

I love you!