One Big Happy Family!

This is my family. Huge. I know. And this is almost 3 years ago. Since then, add Taylor's Fiance, Christine, Paula's two girls, Maddie and Rosie, and Amber's baby girl, Lacie.  That makes 12 adults and 19 kids. Yep, I said 19 kids.

Children are a blessing and a gift from the Lord. Psalm 127:3 CEV

Guess what!? They are all invited for Thanksgiving! I think it's been since last Christmas that we were all under one roof. I can't wait! Yep, we're crazy, in terms of today's world anyway.

I know, I know, it's not even Halloween and I have Thanksgiving on the brain. Having 31 people over for dinner is a big deal. Thus, planning starts now. I have a good size house but we're still going to eat in shifts. This is actually a good thing. All the kids will eat together at 5:00. Then we can send them to the family room to play and watch a movie while the adults eat together in peace, hopefully ;). Any suggestions for a Thanksgiving movie? Other than Charlie Brown, I couldn't think of any.

Free Birds

Free Birds, a new animation about turkeys is coming to theaters November 1st. This would be great for next year. The kids already have it on their radar. Family night at the movies, coming soon.

I've also been thinking about the dinner table. I'm going to put out markers and crayons and cover it in brown craft paper for coloring (and easy clean up). I think Thanksgiving placemats would be fun too. Pinterest saved me once again. Here's three coloring placemats with activities I found for Thanksgiving.

(source: Confetti by Lexi  confetti.typepad.com)

I love the T H A N K F U L letters down the side. Reminds me of Grandma Marion, my mom's mom. She would write adjectives using our names in our birthday cards plus it gets kids thinking about being thankful.

(source: It's All Rainbows & Unicorns)

This is great! We could do this one each year to see how much they change.

(source: Modern HomeMakers)

There's something about word searches that kids love. My husband and I love them too. Whenever we go on a date we ask for two kids menus and race eachother. So much fun and free entertainment on a date.

As for food, that's easy. Potluck style is the way to go. Feeling like I have a great start already.

Hope you are enjoying the Fall and are busy planning for the holidays. 

Making Your Home a Haven

P.S. I am following Women Living Well's Making Your Home a Haven Challenge this fall. We're praying for peace in our homes. Visit www.womenlivingwell.org to jump in on the challenge. We can all use a little more peace in our homes especially before the holidays.

Peace. Out.

It's Blue!

It's blue! Well sort of. I dug out the leftover can of paint and in less than two hours my door is a beautiful grayish blue. More gray than blue, but I love it! I only did the outside of the door, but now that I see how great the color looks I am going to paint the other side too.

Fall is here! I decorated the front porch with pumpkins and mums and straw and gords. It gives me joy to decorate. I like the cozy feeling it gives my home.

♥ What I love Most about my HOME is who I share it with. ♥

Happy Fall! Hope you're finding ways to make your home cozy and inviting!

Mountains of Laundry

Does your laundry pile ever get like this? 

Five kids makes for huge piles of laundry. Lately I've been switching loads but not folding it until I have a huge mountain to deal with. It took me an hour to fold seven loads.

There's got to be a better way. We moved in July and I've been trying to get some routines down at our new house. At our first house I let mountains of laundry pile up in our dreary dark basement. I would haul it all upstairs and spend the afternoon folding and putting it away. And on really bad weeks I didn't do any at all and my sweet hubby did it out of frustration. After a few years of that I started switching atleast one load a day and folding the laundry as it was done. Much better system. Then we moved to Big Lake where I had a mudroom with the laundry and shoes and coats and powder room all coming together. I had to get creative. It was a small space but I made do.

Having the laundry on the main level made it easy to keep up on. Who wants guests walking thru your piled up laundryroom to get to the powder room? Not me. I kept up on my laundry doing 1-2 loads per day and folding it straight out of the dryer.

And this is my new laundry room. It's super tiny. Josh and my dad painted it. Yay! There's something about paint and making a room feel fresh and new. We installed a shelf above the washer/dryer so things won't fall behind and two long shelves that go from wall to wall. Can you say STORAGE!? Yay! What every Mom wants--a place for everything and everything in its place.

Each basket is labeled: stain fighters, softeners, socks, mending, clothes pins, rags, chair foot pads, 3m hooks, lightbulbs and vacuum bags. Whew! That's a lot of baskets but it's organized, just the way I like it.

My beautiful and brilliant mom came up with this amazing idea. Move the lockers and shoes to the garage and use the closet for sorting and all the folded clothes. The top shelf has a basket of beach towels. (We're lake people so I keep them close to the door.) Also on top is a large basket for Josh and my clean clothes. Then on the table and on the hooks above are five small rounds, one for each kid. Below the table are four sorting hampers: darks, lights, brights and linens. 

As you can see the kids' baskets are heaping full. The intent was for the kids to check their basket a couple times a week and put their laundry away when the basket was getting full. But I neglected the folding. Had a mountain. Folded it all at once. And now their baskets are overflowing. Yikes. This is real life people. 

I want to get back to my routine of folding right out of the dryer. It takes about seven minutes to fold a load and about an hour to fold seven loads. Seven minutes sounds much better! It's not so overwhelming. Back to the routine!

Here's the lockers in the garage. Yikes! More on that later.

What's your laundry routine? Do you feel buried by mountains of laundry or do you keep on top of it?

Blue

Pinterest projects. There's a bazillion ideas but how many do we actually do? This is one I can't wait to do!

I've been looking for ways to make my home more inviting. I want friends and family to feel at home when they visit. Last week I painted this sign for my front porch. My mission this week is to have a colorful front door. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue. There are so many beautiful colors. Do a search on Pinterest. You'll fall in love. My love....BLUE. I want a blue front door.

Blue is welcoming, calming and peaceful. I searched Pinterest for the perfect color. And this is what I found!

Source: http://www.maverickpaintingsandiego.com/painting-photos/exteriors/

Source: Pinterest.com (no link)

Source: Pinterest.com (no link)

This color is similar to the paint in my office. And I just might have enough paint left in the can for the front door. So excited! By the end of the week my door will be an new hue...BLUE!!

Stay tuned for before and afters.

What color is your front door?

HOME

New home, new sign. This summer we moved to a new home, so I've been wanting to paint a new sign for my new front porch. I haven't been able to get my hands on any barn wood for a while so I decided to paint the backside of my JOY sign. 2 for 1.


Here's the JOY sign. I'll use this side at Christmas.






















And this is my new sign. HOME. I absolutely love it. I found the font at dafont.com. It's called Shit Happens. So true, shit happens. But more importantly good shit happens. Getting a new home is good shit. We are blessed beyond words with our new home and hope all who visit, feel at home.