Wilderness at the Smokies

We planned this trip months ago, anticipating getting a break from gray Winter skies - it turned out to be a GORGEOUS week here in the mountains, but the change of scenery was still welcome!
We ventured to Tennessee to the Wilderness At The Smokies indoor waterpark. We stayed with 3 other homeschooling families, all sharing one gigantic hotel room. We love these mid-week Winter trips - very few hotel guests meant practically no lines to wait in, as well as discounted rates. Didn't get too many great photos since most of the fun at a water park is inside dark slides or in the water! The boys spent most of their time in the wave pool, and doing slides. I did snap some pictures of Reed doing the Surf Rider machine - he was a rock star!


The hotel room slept 15, had 3 bathrooms, a fireplace, and a FULL kitchen - so we had potluck-style meals and plenty of grown-up and kid time :)
Late-night UNO game:
Reed getting a little swing time on the climbing structure:
Here's hoping there's many more sunny days for the remainder of the Winter!

Weekend Projects

Just to catch up - this was the first quilt I made! I made it a couple weeks ago for my dear friend Melanie's birthday! I am consigning a bunch of vintage feedsacks for her on ebay. I used some that had too many flaws, cut patches out of them and made this wall hanging. Pretty cute!
Here's the biggest project for the weekend - which will most definitely stretch beyond the weekend! Bobby is painting the kitchen!! To say I'm happy is an understatement. The walls and shelf above the cabinets were such a dark brown they looked black. Primer for now even looks like an improvement.... I'm thinking of going orange for these walls :)
And my project for the weekend was to give a little more love to the baby! This is his/her changing table/clothes storage, etc. Needed a little somethin' - I think love was the answer :)

Beautiful Weekend

The weather was so lovely - I know it won't last, but it was a really nice break from all the gray skies! 2 days ago, I took the boys and their friend to Greenville to go ice skating and to a fun playground (okay, and so I could shop at Trader Joe's :). I've started using a program called swagbucks, where I got a great coupon to go ice skating, so it was super cheap! The kids had a blast, and I even got some skating time in!


Then we headed to the playground next to the zoo - it's a really fun playground, plus you randomly get to hear monkeys making a racket in the background :)


Yesterday we actually spent indoors at an indoor skate park birthday party. The boys, of course, had a great time!



I'm glad it's looking like another beautiful day today, as I have some outdoor projects I'd like to work on ... and I'd like to just soak up some sunshine before it disappears behind gray winter skies again!

31 Weeks!

Here I am at 31 weeks of plumpness. We're starting to get really excited to have our first homebirth! Looking very forward to having the baby in my own time, crawling into my own bed and not have nurses wake me up every couple hours to check my vitals.

I've been doing a lot of sewing lately, though my latest project was a birthday present that hasn't yet arrived to the birthday girl - so i'll have to post photos later on.

We've been busy getting ready for baby, planning Spring gardens, and getting things together to get ducks in the Spring. It's already shaping up to be a very busy year!

Love to all~

Snowy Day

The weirdest things happens in this part of the country - there is sunshine and precipitation at the same time... we don't mind :) On this sunny day, the snow keeps falling!

We went to the horse farm across the street to do some sledding where Reed proclaimed, "This is a Winter Wonderland!!!"
Clay dying to have a snowball fight:
Bear, the snow dog:
Reed eating snow off the weeping cherry... yum!
Stay warm everyone!
Love,
Julie

Connect The Pox

Finally the boys got chicken pox!! We choose not to vaccinate, so this is a big deal for the kids to get it & get their immunity to it before they become teens. We've tried to expose them several times, but it never took. They now got it from the homeschool supplement classes they attend once a week. They started showing spots right when they got home from the hotel with their grandparents. Both boys had relatively mild cases (compared to some of the horror stories I've heard!). Reed had about 2 sick feeling days, and is not still spotty, but feeling back to his usual crazy self. Clay was hit a bit harder than Reed, and had 3 days of feeling pretty lousy, and today is just taking it easy. Both boys were excited to get new DS games out of the deal :)

I attribute their mild cases of CP to having them go to acupuncture. Neither boy had done it before and I didn't think they would follow through - but we went an AWESOME local acupuncture clinic who was wonderful with the kids and they sat through it like champs! The acupuncturist sent us home with a chinese immune building tincture. Taking that along with a homemade essential oil lotion for the itches seemed to keep it manageable. We're all glad it's over and done with, and the boys still have some good spots to show for it...

Random

Here's a random shot Reed took of himself - I thought it was pretty darn cute, and that's my only excuse for posting it :)

The boys are with their Gram & Papoo staying in a hotel in Asheville for a couple days - a super special treat for them, as they love their grandparents, they love hotels, and they love to not have to drive out of town. I miss 'em of course, and am also savoring these last few times I'll have good chunks of no-kid time... Because in a couple months, even when the boys are gone, we'll have a new little squirmy lovey bundle in the house to keep up occupied!

Now if I can only get motivated to actually do something productive...

Edited ::: Thought I'd share the cute photo Gram just sent of the boys and Papoo in the hotel pool - nice!