Think Before You Touch

Pin It Now! Prepare to be sicked out!!Mullin bought a Disgusting Science kit with his birthday $, and this is his first experiment.
We prepared petri dishes and took samples from various places. Then we watched what grew for about 12 days. Do you really want to know where the samples came from??

From left to right: bathroom sink, inside of mouth, coin, bottom of a shoe

The money and bottom of shoe started growing nasty stuff almost immediately! Nice to know that my cleaning efforts haven't gone completely to waste.

Hopefully my family can appreciate and respect our "no shoes on in the house" rule a little more after seeing this!! (Well, you can only wear "inside" shoes--it is a must on all tile floors)

I had thought of taking samples from a library book and Shiloh's passy but didn't think I would be able to bear the results. What you don't know can't hurt ya, right?

My Walls Are Making Me Hungry

Pin It Now! We finally started our first home improvement project. We have been carefully watching HGTV(the "G" does stand for garden, right?) for the past few months, and I think we are ready to tackle some decorating on our own. We'll see how it all comes together.

We started off with a Deep Mocha, but it looks more like chocolate fudge to me! I absolutely love the color, but all I can think about is chocolate. The color has me longing for cool, autumn weather (like we will get that here), book reading and hot cocoa.

Wow, look at how the bedroom furniture just pops off the walls now! Can't you just picture the young HG guy flipping his hands out and excitedly exclaiming that statement?!

All I have to say is, "These walls are delicious!" Oh, and I even painted, too. I have a blister on my hand to prove it. Sob, sob.

"Pic" of the Day

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Go ahead, laugh. You're not the one who has to try and keep her from eating it!

Am I cursed or blessed?

Pin It Now! The Lord's curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the righteous.
Proverbs 3:33

I'm so glad scripture is here to remind me that God truly wants to bless me. Not because of my own righteousness of course, but because He sees His Son when he looks at me.

Blinded by all of my trials and tribulations, I tend to think God has either forgotten me or put me on His naughty list and is out to get me. Blinded by the message that I deserve and should have all the comforts and pleasures this world has to offer, I forget that God cares more about making me holy than making me happy.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4


Blessings aren't necessarily material as my heart often desires for them to be. In fact they are a curse to many. I am sure if I had all of the worldly pleasures my heart desires, I'd be as wicked, selfish, and snobby as

Draco Malfoy!!

I just love that name. If I had a dog I'd name it Malfoy. Only problem is I don't want anymore messes around the house right now. Don't want to potty train a mutt and a toddler at the same time. The dog would probably get it down a whole heck of a lot faster than my toddler, though!!

Black Attack

Pin It Now! For the past few months our home has been invaded by a militia of little black water beetles. They are actually kind of cute and a bit smaller than a lady bug. The bugs have stirred up some long forgotten childhood memories. When I was about Mullin's age, I lived here in the desert, and every summer I would collect these same little water beetles. I would find one of those gallon ice cream buckets my mom had stashed away in the cupboard, fill it with dirt, sticks, leaves, grass and a small amount of water. Then I would find as many black bugs as I could and put them in their new home. I am sure they loved being there as much as I loved watching them be in there! Mullin and Lincoln don't seem to want to do the same thing, oh well. I have actually felt badly about having to flush some down the toilet lately. Sometimes I just throw them in the garbage unsmooshed, and that makes my conscience feel a little better.

I am getting a little tired of the black bugs coming into our home, but that is nothing compared to the invasion we experienced last week by a much larger, blacker and more evil creature.

I never thought a quarter-sized, venomous villain could make me feel so vulnerable, but when I noticed a thick web of steel creeping out from underneath my home school cabinet/hutch located in my kitchen, I knew what lurked there. I tried to tell myself no way, it just couldn't be, but when I slashed the web with a ruler and felt the strength of it, I couldn't lie to myself any longer. This was a job for hubby hero. I made him pull out the furniture to verify that it was in fact a wicked BLACK WIDOW, and it was. I shuddered the moment I laid my eyes on it because I always stick my arm under that piece of furniture to retrieve toys and such. I have seen Shiloh do the very same thing. Thank the good Lord we were never bitten!!!!!!! Needless to say this widow will never eat another mate ever again! I still get chills when I open our home school cabinets. EW!!

My Recipe for Homemade Sanity

Pin It Now! Here is my personal recipe for keeping my sanity as a stay-at-home, home school mom:

*2 cups of prayer in the morning

*handful of chocolate mid-morning

*1TBSP of sunshine and and cup of complete quiet in the afternoon

*handful of chocolate in the evening

*1 gallon of confession at night

A Very Harry Birthday

Pin It Now! Happy 8th Birthday Mullin!

Mullin's birthday menu: Cauldron cake and chocolate ice cream to eat, and Butter Beer and Pumpkin Juice to drink. The kids also made their very own edible pretzel wands.

The boys liked pulling out the juicy worms from the bubbly green potion, and gobbling them up.

Games: Guess the Potion, Guess the Bertie Botts Bean, and Harry Potter Scene It.

Watching their faces while eating the Bertie Botts Beans was so funny!!! Mullin won that game!


Mullin and the boys had a great time, and now it is time for Mommy and Daddy to rest!

Babysitting My Twin Nephews

Pin It Now! Tuesday, our second day of homeschooling, I lent a helping hand to my brother and sister-in-law by watching the twins. Ryan is in the green and navy stripes and Kenneth is the one in the light blue and green.

Kenneth loves to smile for the camera! Though the twins are very good babies, they were constantly on the move, and they had their cranky moments, especially Ryan, who refused to take a nap until 4pm!

That is why there are more pics of Ryan--it's not b/c I thought he was more cute! They are very much identical, but I can tell them apart pretty quickly now.

The boys thought they were big stuff helping to feed them their food, and Mullin got to help later with bottle feeding. Shiloh even tried to help entertain, but she needed lots of attention, too. I could not imagine having any more babies of my own!! It was such a treat to have the twins for a day, but then be able to say good-bye at the end of the day.

Having more kids would definitely help me stay skinny--I barely had time to eat!