Christian's Birthday is in 10 days!

Well our baby boy is turning 7 years old in just 10 days and as usual I was in a scramble to plan his party. Ugh, what to do, where to go, who to invite???  Something about entertaining a bunch of people I don't know just wasn't appealing to us.  Of course we have friends and they would come but they have children younger than Christian so we would need to invite his friends from school and sports.  Parties are always so stressful and tiresome.  And then there is the thought of bringing MORE toys! He does not need any more toys and boy where would I put them? Last Friday, I took 3 hours out of the day to reorganize the playroom where I took out all of the toys that they have outgrown.  Christian's teacher asked for small toys that she could use as prizes in class so I took out everything that I could find that she could use.  Granted some of those toys will make it back into my house but I sent a large bag filled with at least 50 toys so at least I will have rid our house of most of them.

So, yesterday Christian asked for a t.v. that he can watch in his room during the allotted time we give him per day. Normally he only gets 1 hour (after school and before dinner) while I prepare dinner each day.  But he has to take turns picking what to watch with Mia.  Well Christian is not at all interested in watching what his sister wants to watch. Understandable.  So after discussing this with him we decided that instead of throwing a birthday party we would ask for money in lieu of toys.  And he loved the idea! So if you are planning on sending him a gift please consider sending him money to go towards his new t.v. please :)

So now we are completely guilt free about not throwing a birthday party and he really wants what he will be getting. Win! Win! Of course we will be taking cupcakes and pizza to his classroom and he can pick anything he wants for dinner that night and we can still celebrate with him!

So here are some recent pictures

We've been having AT LEAST one Snow Day a week where they have no school.  So these end up being jammy days! Here are some pics from last week! And it looks like we will have another tomorrow.

Oh so messy and ready for her nap

Birthday Boy! 

Busy Busy Busy

Well as the title states we have been very busy around here.  Just wanted to quickly update with some cute pics.  Enjoy!

Cheering on the Bears! 

Isn't she cute?

Icy morning

The kids and I loved how the trees looked

I did lots of sewing with my new serger but will post pics next week.  In the meantime here is what the kids helped me work on for Valentine's Day. We made a TON of paper roses and glued them onto styrofoam. We had a great time with these for about 15 minutes and then they got bored and left the rest for me to do. This was really easy yet time consuming but no big deal since I just worked on them while watching t.v.  

And a little close up for fun! 

Spoiled Rotten!

Who may you ask is spoiled rotten?  Well that would be ME (Libby)!  I should really think hard about what I voice to Shawn when I want something because I am sure to get it.  For several months I kept asking for the new EVO phone because I kept seeing how much better it was than my Blackberrry.  And so of course he bought it for me as a Christmas gift.  Wow, that really made me happy and it has made things so much easier! I really had no idea a phone could really make life easier but this phone does it all!  Ok, maybe not all but it sure does a lot!

So one of my goals for this year is to get a lot more sewing done as I truly love doing it.  And of course, I started wishing for a serger!  So while looking for these (they are not cheap) I told Shawn that I wanted one for Valentine's Day/Anniversary/Birthday/Mother's Day and whatever holiday warranted a gift! Then I found one with great reviews on Amazon and less than half the cost of the one I originally wanted.  It is a beginner machine that doesn't do everything of course but would definitely work for me.  On Saturday, I took Shawn to the fabric store with me and showed him the machines and what they could do so that he would understand why I wanted this machine.  I don't know why I did this, maybe just to try to explain/justify why I wanted to take more money and dump it into another one of my crafts. LOL!  Well by Wednesday my new serger was delivered to the door!  I couldn't believe it! How lucky am I???  I went straight to the fabric store to purchase thread for the machine and got started on my first project.  This serger is awesome and allowed me to cut out steps that the sewing machine would need and cut my sewing time by half!

Ok, so enough gushing about my new toys but now want to reflect on the amazing gifts that God has given me.  After so many years of such heartache he blessed me with this AMAZING human being.  Someone who loves me so much that I truly feel it!  I even see it when he looks at me.  How does one get so lucky?  Not just because he buys me things but because he takes such good care of me.  He's not perfect and you have all heard my complaints about how I often feel like I have 5 children instead of 4 but really none of that matters when I think of everything great in my life because of him.  And I haven't even mentioned how great he is as a father! But you all already know all about that!  Wow....all I can say is WOW! We are truly blessed!

So you will be seeing lots of pics of my newly finished serged projects in the near future so stay tuned!  For now we will be getting ready for the big BEARS game on Sunday and will all be in our Bears gear so check back for a picture of us!  Oh how I hope they win cause Shawn will be really upset if they don't and this will be a sad household too.

Well until next time!

GO BEARS!!!

Here are some pictures from this week

Tea time under the dining room table

Gabriella on top of the table (her favorite place to be) 

And an older pic of the kids during a pajama jam session

SICK! SICK! SICK!

Well the Lafferty household has been filled with illness for the better part of two months now. It has been quite tiresome and boy is it difficult staying indoors everyday.  Earlier this week I decided I would continue to keep the kids away from other children as much as possible to help reduce contact and hopefully limit the amount of germs they are exposed too.  While I know this is not necessarily a 100% guarantee I feel as though it's at least worth a try.  Why such extremes? Well as I said, at least one person has been sick every day for TWO MONTHS!  Our poor babies have been fighting this with tons of tears.  And while I do feel that this all helps to build their little immune systems it is so tough to see them suffering.  So for this reason I am giving this a try for the entire month of January.  I can only hope that this helps.  For the first time this week, all three children have been well! No fever, no earache, no coughing and just happy!  But of course, I (Libby) got the worst head cold I think I have ever had!  It took me completely down for two whole days!  Shawn had to miss work both days to take care of the kids as I couldn't even get out of bed.  I hated him having to miss so much but I truly had no choice.  This morning I woke up feeling terrible thinking how am I going to do this? But my wonderful Shawn went in to work late to help me get Christian to school and promptly brought me pain meds to help me get a hold of the pain.  Once those worked through my system I was much better and able to handle the girls.  We have lots of great stuff planned for this weekend so I MUST get better!

So while I tried very hard to stay away from the kids it was very difficult! My girls took every opportunity to sneak upstairs to see me and boy did I love it.  I really hope they didn't catch any of this nasty cold but it was so nice having them in the bed with me.  I felt so blessed that they would rather lay in bed with me than to be playing with all of their toys.  Mia and I would play with her dolls or her new game Zingo, while Gabriella just liked to snuggle or unravel my yarn.  Try having two cute little monkeys snuggling with you and not kissing them a hundred times! It was so difficult! Christian too would come up just to give me a hug and tell me he loved me. Such perfect kids!

Yesterday, Christian got into his first altercation with another boy when they got off the bus.  I am usually outside waiting for him when he gets off but since I was ill this was not the case.  Shawn was home but had decided to get a quick shower in before Christian got home.  Well two of the mother's at the bus stop came and explained to me that they saw an older boy (8 yrs old) push and kick Christian then proceed to throw his lunch box down the street.  Ughhh!  Well thankfully Shawn was home and was able to go speak to the boys father.  All was taken care of and hopefully the boys are able to either stay away from each other or get along.  This morning Christian did not want to go to school so Shawn offered to drive him there.  But he still has to ride the bus home so I will be there to greet him when he gets off.  He seemed to feel better with going to school now.  Hopefully he has a good day despite being somewhat afraid of going on the bus.

So that is about it for the week! I leave you now with some not so great pictures I was able to take of my girls as they lay in bed taking care of mommy!

It's A New Year!

Well it's a New Year and we have lots of plans for this upcoming year.  With the kids growing so quickly we can't help but feel as though time is passing by and our goals are going unaccomplished! As with every year, Shawn and I try to set some goals both for our marriage and our family.  There are always ways we feel we can improve ourselves and make great efforts to change things that don't quite coincide with what we want in life.  Many of you have heard me say on several occasions that I go to bed every night and pray that I am a better wife and mother the next day.  Some days are better than others but normally I don't feel as accomplished as I want to be.  I'm ok with that, but will still strive to be better in any case!

With that said, one of our goals is to share more pictures and accomplishments with all of you!  Our family and close friends are very special to us and since we are so far away from all of you we are going to try very hard to keep you all up to date with what's going on with us!  So we are starting this blog! We will post lots of great pictures of our adventures with the kids as well as tell you a little about what is going on each week!  We hope that you will check back here often and please post your comments! Otherwise we will feel as though no one is interested and then the blog will slowly fade away :(   We don't want that to happen so be sure to create your blog account if you don't already have one and post away!  Look forward to hearing from you all!