What a weekend!

What do you mean it's only just begun?  The last couple days have been SO busy my brain is just totally fried right now.  On the PRAISE GOD front, the plumbers finished up giving us all new gas pipes yesterday.  We were a week without hot water, but now we're back up and running.  All things considered, we didn't get very far behind.  Like I said before, we actually really enjoyed handwashing the dishes and the diapers with hot water from the coffee pot.  There is something very calming about doing what you have to do.  Of course, now that I've been able to use my dishwasher and my washing machine for the diapers, I've been extra sure to shoot up thanks over and over for how blessed our lives are.  Here's how the house looked for a few days:

Keepin' muh boy outta there?  Not fun.

We were really a little nervous about the bill, but he had given us a slight fore-warning and God pressed on someone's heart to help us (I would love to get into details, but I won't for our angels' sakes...if they give permission I will tell the story publicly) so we were mostly just praying that it wouldn't be more than the amount he quoted us.  We braced ourselves, though, because the workers were here an extra day and had to replace all the upstairs piping, too.  They didn't think they would have to.  So suffice it to say, as the supervisor came up my walk this morning, my spirit was a little oppressed.  But he handed me the bill and it was $50 less than what he had quoted me!  PRAISE GOD!



Everything was put together again just in the knick of time because this weekend is the annual historic district garage sale in our town.  We usually go all out (I used to coupon and would have tons of stockpile stuff to sell with my friend Amy) but this year we toned it down.  I set up today, but only with the leftover bows from our Haiti fundraiser and the cupcakes in a jar I'm making to sell at Farmer's Market tomorrow, too.  All the money raised will go to send the 3rd missionary to Haiti.  I updated the ticker above and will update it again after tomorrow.

These are the S'more flavor with marshmallows rolled in cinnamon, graham crackers and the cupcake crumbs.

I made S'more, Mocha-ccino and Lemonade Angel Cake this time.  If they sell well this weekend, I'll make other flavors later on. 

And then of course there's the usual busy-ness of Saturdays with taking the dog to training.  Gracie-Rayne is ever the lucky one and gets to go to Hawaiian Falls with the other kids from church because she volunteered to help with a banquet earlier in the year.  She is super stoked.  We also plan to drop off about 4 huge boxes of books to Hastings to see if we can sell them.  As usual we're on a mission to down-size even more.  Someday we'll have a house with nothing in it but beds. (and diapers...LOTS of diapers.  HA!)

I had a great laugh today when Vi and little man were running into the kitchen begging for bites of cold turkey.  Violet took a bite and said, "DUH-LISH-US!"  Most of the time when she speaks you have to be *really* listening to her to understand.  She is incredibly intelligent and understands everything you say, right down to inflection...she even uses phrases you'd never imagine would come out of a 3-year-old's mouth, but she mumbles a lot.  Lately, though, she's been popping up with words that sound more like they came out of the 6-year-old's mouth, and you can't help but smile when you turn around and realize who it was.  Anyway, she said it so much (I was getting her to say it so Hubbs could hear!) that little man started saying "ISH-USH"  (Cue: AWWWWW!)  It was so sweet!

They light up my life!

Unfortunately I don't have anything amazingly witty or insightful tonight.  Like my mom would say, "not everything has to be dramatic."  I do have a couple more pictures to share, though, because he's just about the most precious creature on planet earth.  (Just about...we have 3 others)

We might have problems with this kid one day...WOO-HEE!

For the record, the t-shirt slung around his shoulders was totally his own idea.  That's  his idea of fashion.

 See the eye shape??  That is ALL Maynard.  None of my kids have ANYTHING of mine (uhhh....except my witty charm) except Corbin who is 99.9% Daddy--BUT THAT EYE SHAPE!  Oh yeah!  I snuck something in there somewhere.  I bet when we get to heaven and meet those 2 babies we lost, they will look just like their Momma.  But if not, that's okay, cuz they come out pretty darned precious lookin' like Hubbs ;)