Online shopping ROCKS... Except for when....

you order your daughter a tea set...

and a Nintendo DSi starter kit comes instead...

I'm pretty sure my 14 month old daughter won't appreciate this gift...

and I'm pretty sure all the kids getting a Nintendo DSi for Christmas won't appreciate the tea set.

I think it's a funny mistake. :)

Thankful... (and You Capture: Food)

It's funny that this weeks You Capture was food... because all 5 kids wrote that they were thankful for FOOD on their "I'm Thankful for..." lists. They were also thankful for God, family, our house and... doors(?).

{ today we made pumpkin pie cake... i love the smell of pumpkin and spices baking}

{with cream cheese icing}

{so good!}

And, I am so very thankful for my five beautiful children, my amazing husband, my merciful God and the fact I find so much joy in the day to day that is my life.

Be blessed this Thanksgiving, friends!

more You Capture here.

Our 'little' weekend project... that isn't so little or weekend-y anymore...

So. Remember when I posted about our "little weekend project"?? The project that took place November 6th, 7th and 8th? The one that was supposed to only last those three days? Yes?

Weeeellllll.....

As you know, we bought Traffic Master's Allure Cherry flooring... (side note: if you are looking for a 100% durable, waterproof floor THIS is it!) Anyway. with only 500 ish square feet left to finish the job and with 1000 square feet already installed we came upon a leeetle hiccup. Oh Hai! the last 500 square feet of flooring we bought doesn't match the rest!

{current cherry floors}

{cherry floor that doesn't look like the rest... ummm. oops?}

Installation was halted as we contacted Traffic Master to try to get 500ish sq feet of the RIGHT color. FINALLY, SEVENTEEN days later (which seems like AT LEAST FIFTY! days when your house is torn up and your trying to homeschool in the chaos... but who's keeping track??) New floor has been ordered. Traffic Master can't match what we have so we are starting over. A huge bummer because of the work that has already been put in and because we really love the original Cherry floors we picked out ... but a huge blessing because we were actually able to upgrade the flooring (for FREE) to Mellow Wood (LOVE!) during this mess.

{Mellow Wood}

Huge shout out to Home Depot for making sure things were made right with the flooring! Seriously, they have been AWESOME to work with! (We have also bought supplies & flooring stuff from Menards and Lumber Liquidators - and they are GREAT! too)

Now, we wait some more for the new flooring to get here... my question - do I start decorating for Christmas (AFTER Thanksgiving) or do I wait until the floors are done? I hate to get MORE stuff out when the house is already chaotic, ya know? But... who knows how long it will be before the floors are here and my poor husband has to uninstall and reinstall everything. What would you do?

life lessons that never even crossed my mind, because why would they?

Like... for example, VASELINE IN YOUR HAIR.

Now... really? WHY would I need to know how to get vaseline out of someone's hair? WHO would DO THAT??

Oh. Right.

My daughter would.

We don't call her 'The Tornado' for nothin' folks.

I stepped out of the house with the three oldest boys for a few minutes. LIKE TWO MINUTES. And when I came back I found Elijah and Keziah lovingly patting each others heads in the corner of the living room. How cute. I thought, as I started to turn into the kitchen to start dinner... but then I noticed something... they were patting lotion? water? what DO they have?? As I got closer to them I realized it was vaseline. I didn't even know there was vaseline in the diaper basket. (which is where they got it, and by THEY, I mean Keziah... Elijah never thinks to do things like that - but once she does, he's all for it.)

Oh my goodness, it was EVERYWHERE. I put them in the tub, called Isaiah in to watch them and began a mad google search/ plea for help on twitter.

The advice started pouring in, and I tried every single suggestion made: corn starch, baby oil, peanut butter, dawn soap... - nothing worked.

{Elijah's all... ummmm why iz you pouring powder on myz head?}

Finally Tim got home and talked me off the ledge. He took the kids out of the tub, helped me get dinner ready and told me to try again tomorrow.

{keziah end of day 1...}

I actually had a dream that my children were coated in vaseline the rest of their lives... I'm not even kidding.

After two baths the next day with dawn dish soap it was finally out.

{end of day 2... back to normal}

And that is how I learned how to get vaseline out of hair.

Little Sister...

Not a day goes by that Keziah isn't 'fought' over by four very cute boys.

I love how they are always thinking of her... the other day we were doing our monthly grocery shopping trip and as a reward for being good each of the boys got to pick a 99 cent hotwheels car. They each picked a car and then they spotted a pink car... "ohhh, Keziah was a good girl! can we get her a car too?? please!!" How could we say no to that? Plus, that girl can race a hotwheels car through the house with the best of them... she even has that "vrooom" sound down pat.

And while she can race with her brothers she also is SUCH A GIRL. When we went to the toy section to get the cars we took a little detour through the baby doll isle... MY baby girl sat straight up in the cart (with a cover on it so she can't lick it!) and started pointing and saying "baby, baby. baby!!" I LOVE it!

she likes to take naps with her "baby's"...

playing trucks & dolls with great grandma...

You Capture... Real Life.

This is my real life... laundry & diapers & school projects & cheerios & little pirate boys & {my favorite} ... 10 feet running all over the place.

(scroll over the images to make them larger)

more Real Life You Capture here!!

our 'little' weekend project...

The Goal: to remove ALL the old flooring from our dining/school room, living room and kitchen AND install new flooring.

The Timeline: Friday morning - Sunday Night.

The Crew:

We started strong. But it wasn't long before we discovered that the parquet floors were not just glued down... but super glued down. It took TWO DAYS of hard scraping to get them up...

since I wasn't a huge help in the demolition due to the SUPERHUMAN glue... my job was 'SHOP-VAC GIRL' ... Let me just back up here for a minute to say that, while I have used the shop vac in the past to do things like vacuum out the van, I have never used it for an extended amount of time...

Do you guys know what it can do?? SHOP VAC's ARE AH-MAY-ZING!! They can vacuum up anything... ANYTHING!! Big ol' chunk of wood? No Problem! Big rusty nails? Bring em on! Socks n Underwear? Easy Peasy!

From now on, when I see my mother in law pulling in my driveway unannounced I'll just whip out the shop vac and get rid of all the mess!

And while I was lovin' on the shop vac all the boys were STILL working hard at pulling up the old parquet floors super glued down...

"worker hands"...

This is how much we got done... about 30%. Partly because we ran out of time and partly because 60% of the flooring we got was the wrong color, and we are trying to track down the right run numbers...

we have half the dining room done, the living room did not get done, and most of the kitchen did not get done...

so. no. we did not finish our 'little' weekend project... but at least we have a place to do school work today...

and, until we can get the right flooring... this is where all our school supplies are... lovely.

I really hope we can get the right flooring very SOON!

You Capture... Beauty.

more you capture here:

Love Notes...

found taped to the door when I got home from an evening out with friends...

i luv u mom

mom, have a good nite sleep.

i luv u varee, varee, varee much!

- malachi