Our Diningroom Art

I've always wanted to have a place for the kids to hang their artwork without it covering the fridge. Celeste used to use tape on the walls of her bedroom or door because she wanted to hang everything up. I've seen some homes with this idea before and knew that I wanted to do it. We have the space in our house now, so we went ahead and did it. We put the kids' names on the wall in vinyl and then Kyle put some wire up for each of them to use to hang their artwork up. I love that after they are done painting or coloring, they now have a place to hang their work. Gordon always brings home a coloring page from church as well, so he can hang it up for the the week if he wants to. They love it and I love that it's not cluttering the counters or fridge!

We also put their new piggy banks in the kitchen. I knew that putting them in the bedrooms would be a bad idea, so we put them up high enough that Eddie can't reach them, even on a chair. It may seem mean to them, but this way, when they get their allowance at the end of the week, I take the banks down and they put their money away and then I put them back, knowing they can't get into them without me. I LOVE IT! Before they were constantly getting into their money and loosing it or taking their siblings' money. They can't do that any more and I have more control over what they do with their money as well.

This is their corner in the diningroom. They love having a little piece of the kitchen and it actually looks nice as well.

Our next project is vinyl in the livingroom. We have a HUGE wall with nothing there, so those pictures will come later this week when the vinyl is up!

Valentine Weekend

This weekend we had a 50's dance at church for Valentine's weekend. It was so fun to get out for the first time without the kids. I was a little nervous because we still don't know people very well, but Celeste has made friends with some girls in the neighborhood. One girl is a year older than her and one is a year younger. They are sweet girls though and so far, haven't had any problem playing with Eddie and Gordon on occasion. So, Kyle asked their grandma who they use for babysitters and she said they would be happy to babysit for us. It was so nice of her to watch the kids for the evening. We had planned to feed them since we didn't have to leave until 6:45, but they ordered pizza and since the kids had been outside playing, just had them come in and eat with them. We offered to go in half on the pizza, but they refused. I know this summer will be fun though with lots of lunches and dinners to share with them, so I'm not at all worried about paying them back, we'll definitely get a chance!

The decorations were great. They were simple, but so fun for the theme.

These were the center pieces on the tables. They were great! I loved the ice cream sodas and all of the records were different, so we had to go to all of the tables to read them!

We didn't take pictures in the car, but you could get behind the car to take pictures.

They even finished off with ice cream sodas. I had cherry and Kyle had to try a few different flavors, so he had cherry the first time and then had to mix cherry and line the second time, just to try it out! We met some new people and danced with friends we have already made. We didn't stay the whole evening because church is so early and the kids weren't home in bed, but we really had a fun time. We have made a note to ourselves though! Being on time is being a half hour early! For some reason, everything is late here. Church even starts 5-10 minutes late on a semi regular basis. That's just the way it is here. Kyle and I will never get used to it. We still leave the house on Sunday morning with plenty of time to get there at least 10 minutes before church starts and that will never change. I will probably learn to relax on making it to play group right at 10:30 though because we just sit in the parking lot until someone else shows up when we get there that early!