Oh where, oh where has Katie gone???

Enjoying some truly gorgeous fall weather in Michigan!

Oh man friends!  I seem to have disappeared again after a pretty good streak of regular posts.  Well, we are in the eye of the hurricane around here, otherwise known as fall soccer season!  

I am SO glad that Miss V is sporting those yarn braids right now, because we just have not had time for hair.  A few weekends ago I did change the piggyback braids in the front into more box braids, but it was a pretty quick process thankfully.

Here are a few pictures to show you what life has been like the last few weeks:

The Young Man on his club soccer team

The Young Man on his Middle School soccer team

Miss B on her club soccer team

Little E working on her soccer moves!

Let's throw in some hair pics.  I thought V's yarn braids looked great with this red headband, and Miss V (for reasons unknown) LOVES to wear headbands!

And here is a pic after we took out the piggy back braids.  The front is pulled back in a half pony, but you can kind of see the new braids.

We still have a week and a half until I take out the yarn braids and put in something new.  I have a bunch of cool ideas spinning in my head!  So if you can be a bit patient with me, I promise I will be back to posting when the hurricane has died down.

Katie

Back to School 2011

My kids went back to school today!  Last night I was giddy with excitement, like a kid on Christmas Eve.  Don't get me wrong, I loved having my kids around for most of the summer.  Family time is to be cherished, and we had a lot of it this year.  But for the last week or so we have all been needing a little space!  Not only am I ready for some peace and quiet, but I thrive on structure and schedules.  While I do enjoy a break in the summer, and I take full advantage of sleeping in almost every morning, I got a whole lot of pleasure over the amount of things I accomplished this morning ALL before I normally would have rolled out of bed!  I also LOVE when I can tidy up the house in the morning and it actually stays that way for a good 8 hours!

The funny thing is, as eager as I was to shoo them away today I had to choke back tears as I pulled out of the school parking lot!  I guess no matter how much they drive you C-R-A-Z-Y, you are still crazy about your kids!

Don't they look cute?  Who wouldn't be proud?

Little E starts preschool next week and I am seriously choked up about that one!  But as difficult as it will be to let go of my quickly growing baby, I am super excited to watch her with this new experience!  She is super shy and a big time mama's girl so I am expecting some tears on her end as well.  But I think after a few weeks of getting used to things she is going to LOVE it!

You are able to get a glimpse of B and V's hair in these pics.  There is nothing newly earth shattering about either style but they look sure do look pretty!  I will be posting detailed pics of V's yarn braids tomorrow and B's style on Thursday.

I know we are about the last schools in the country to go back for the fall, but for everyone else who had a "first day" today, I hope it was as wonderful as ours!

Katie

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

Hello my neglected on-line friends!  Yes, the summer madness goes on!  But I am here today with a cute post about my daughter B.  I also want to warn you to watch closely, because in spite of my bloggy neglect, we have TWO giveaways coming at you soon!

So here is the story - During the last week of school B's grade was hosting a Marketplace for two of the younger grades.  They were given free reign to choose whether they wanted to sell a good or a service.  Many kids chose to sell trinkets and food items, but not my B.  She was dead set on having a Hair Styling Booth!  I just find this adorable.  And as my title suggests, I find it very flattering that my daughter would want to do something that she sees me spend SO MANY HOURS doing!  And this isn't the first time in the last few months that she has shown an interest in hair styling.  I noticed on a school paper awhile back that she stated she wanted to be a hair stylist when she grows up!  Isn't that cute!

We used V's buddy Miss A (a frequent after school guest who has made an appearance here before.) as a hair model.  B chose 4 different hair styles and took pictures of them to put on a poster.  I picked up a few packs of cheap combs and hair things at the dollar store, and anyone who got their hair done was able to keep the comb!

These are the hairstyles she was offering:

This one B came up with on her own.  I think it is cute!  It is a pigtail style if you couldn't tell.  

This was a suggestion from me, also pigtails.

This was B's idea and her most popular seller.

Another idea from me.  This one is a twist into a ponytail.

Unfortunately for B, her booth wasn't the most frequently visited.  It is pretty hard to compete with Root Beer Floats when you are selling to 6-9 year olds!  As a matter of fact, B's own sister didn't even visit her booth, but she did buy 2 root beer floats!  Oh that girl!  Overall, B had a good time with this experience and I think she could definitely have a future in hair!

Happy Independence Day!!!!!!

Katie

Katie's Family - Easter 2011

Picture Post!

{Painting Easter Eggs}

{The Kiddos}

 {Family Picture Attempt #1}

{Attempt #2}

{Attempt #3}

Hope your Easter was as Blessed as ours!

Katie

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know?????

We are moving?  Of course you do, I have only mentioned it like 10 times.  Which seems crazy because this has all happened relatively fast and yet I feel like the actual MOVE day has taken ages to get here?  weird?  Anyway, I spent the last 4 days working on getting the kids bedrooms ready to move in.  The colors in the rooms previously were awful and I really wanted to do something fun for the kids since we haven't ever really personalized their rooms before.

All 3 of our girls share a room.  I wanted them all to feel involved in the process of decorating the room, but that can be hard to do with many differing opinions.  Not to mention that I am a control freak.  So in true controlling mommy style.... I scoured the internet for room decal stickers, looked at hundreds of them, and then showed the girls the 5 choices I liked best and convinced them that my favorite one was the best choice!  Guess what?  It worked!  ALL 3 of them agreed on it!  And they were super excited about it too!  So these are the stickers we chose:

The picture of the flower decals I found showed them on a green wall and everyone liked that too, so as you can see, we went with it.  But I didn't want the whole room green because I knew Young Man C would want a green room.  So I told the girls we would just do the flower wall green and pick a different color for the other 3 walls.  I brought home 2 blue and 1 purple swatch, and again, amazingly they all agreed on a blue one!  So what do you think?

I think it turned out really great!  I can't wait for the girls to start living in it!  I'm pretty proud of this room as it involved many hours of painting and then the application of 70 stems, 70 flowers, 10 grass sections and 15 butterflies!  Yes, Yes, hand over my mother of the year award please!  Little E was hanging out with me today while I did more work on C's room.  She likes it.

The Young Man's favorite color has been green since the day I met him, so it is no surprise he requested a green room.  He asked for it to be the color of his school soccer team sweatshirt.  It is a bright, cheery green so I obliged.  His room wasn't really photo ready today, but I wanted to share it with you anyway:

You can see the blue painters tape hasn't come off yet, I still have a tiny bit of touching up to do.  But don't both rooms just make you feel happy inside?  They do for me and it helps to keep me excited about this move even though it's a LOT of work!

***I MUST take a moment to give a shout out to my wonderful sister and brother-in-law who gave up their Saturday to help me paint!  Couldn't have done it without you two!  I also have to give HUGE props to my hubby who has been holding down the fort and taking care of all the kiddies while I have been MIA.  Love you babe!***

Anybody have any fun kids bedroom pics they want to share on our facebook page?  We would love to see them!

Katie

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know??????


That Katie's family just celebrated their 5th Family Birthday!

I can hardly believe how much time has passed since that day in December 2005 when we first met our C, B and V!  They have grown and changed and blossomed so much!  On the other hand, it seems like far more than 5 years has passed.  Like we have been a family for as long as I can remember.  I certainly couldn't imagine my life without them!

That's us in Liberia 5 years ago.  Getting ready to fly home and celebrate our 1st Christmas together!  Now we are about to celebrate our 6th Christmas.

I LOVE Family Birthday!  I never did like the term "Gotcha Day."  It just rubs me the wrong way.  For us, the day we met our kids was truly the birth of our family.  That was the day that a young couple went from being a "just the two of us," to a family of 5!  As the first anniversary of bringing our children home approached Camera Guy and I knew that we wanted to make it a BIG CELEBRATION!  We always want our kids to know what a blessing they are to us.  We want them to know that they day we met them was one of the most important days of our whole lives and that we love them, love our family, and love the way that God has brought us together!

So every year we do it up big!  And this year we had a blast as usual.  We went to the Kalahari resort in Sandusky, Ohio to the biggest indoor water park in the country!  Here are a few pics of us enjoying our getaway together...

How do you celebrate your adoption day?

Katie

C-R-A-Z-Y Hair Day!

I know I keep saying this, but life has been so hurry, hurry, hurry around here lately that I have now missed a few good photo opportunities.  So you will have to forgive the gaps in this post, but do read on, because I did get pics of some of it!!!

It was C-R-A-Z-Y Hair Day at the kids school yesterday, as you might have guessed from the title of this post and that CRAZY looking girl in the picture!  As you know, V currently has yarn braids, so there was really only so much I could do with her hair.  I started by taking the twisty bangs she had and cornrowing them from the sides up to the middle.  When they both reached the middle I braided them together and added beads.  V actually thinks this is a good style and doesn't want me to take that part out!

Then I took the Criss Cross Cornrows from the top (they were all together in a half ponytail) and I split them into pigtails and looped them through some hair things.

Then with all of the hanging box braids in the back I made two arched cornrows.  Which looked super crazy because the ends with the beads were sticking out of the cornrows all over the place.

The End Result:  In BACK

In FRONT

A little later I was thinking that adding a bunch of different colored sidewinders might spice it up a bit more and I thought it would help make the loopy braids on top stick up more.  It did make the style look even busier, but didn't have quite the effect I was looking for.  But all in all V was pleased.

V's style was nuts and all over the place, but I really liked my idea for B even better.  But guess what?  NO PICS!  SORRY!!!!!!

Maybe you can visualize it....  I put 6 large cornrows from the nape of her neck to her forehead.  In the front where the tail ends of the braids were hanging down across her face I made bantu knots, which I secured with different brightly colored terry cloth hair ties.  I thought it was clever.  I will have to recreate it some day and take pics for you.  

On a separate note:

I am going to do a really proud mom bragging moment.  My oh so talented son, Young Man C had an amazing soccer game last night!  His middle school soccer team went totally undefeated this whole season and they were in the championship game last night.  It was super intense and I was crazy nervous the whole game.  C had an awesome goal and then scored on a penalty kick for a 3-1 win!!!!!!!!  It was super exciting!  (Also, his club soccer team is currently undefeated this season!)  Excuse me for a moment while I brag!  I took a few pics at the game, but then my battery died before I could get pics of the end of game celebration!  Here are a few:

Right after a header!

Taking a penalty kick

Can you see it?  Buried in the Net!  

Katie

It's Little E's birthday!

Wishing a Happy Birthday to my sweet and spunky Little E today!  

Why do birthday's have to come around so quickly?  It doesn't seem that long ago that I was lamenting her 2nd birthday and now she is 3!  Don't get me wrong, I love watching my kids learn and grow.  There are many exciting new things for children to experience at each age.

I love all of the fun things I can do with my three older kids.  Watching them become active in sports and school activities.  Discovering themselves and all of their very own interests and hobbies.  Watching their God given talents unfold.  It's a beautiful thing.  They are now old enough to play more challenging board games and card games with me and even watch some of my favorite movies (ie: Little Women!)  But is it wrong of me to want to enjoy those things with my older kids and still keep E a baby forever?  Maybe I just need a new baby!

Miss E was SO excited for this birthday!  Her three big siblings all have birthday's in the spring - bing, bang, boom - in a row.  E kept wondering when it was going to be her turn!  She has been waiting ALL summer for this special day.  She commemorated her big girl status bright and early this morning by waking me up because she had to go potty!  (we have been struggling to get her potty trained and even though she stays dry all day she still wears a diaper at night.  I couldn't believe she woke herself up to go pee this morning!)

For a special treat today we invited one of E's favorite people in the whole world, her cousin LL, to come over and play!  LL is a year younger than Little E but E is crazy about her.  After a busy morning of playing they are now both napping peacefully while I eagerly wait for the big kids to get home from school so that we can give E her presents!

Using her ASL "3" to tell us how old she is!

Aren't they the cutest?

Were you wondering how we did E's hair for her birthday?  

Well, I was in a HUGE hurry this morning so we went with some beads to be festive, but they style is pretty sloppy

Have a FABULOUS day!
Katie

BTW - Do you all mind if I keep calling her "Little" E?  After all, she is a very small girl :)