Happy Mothers Day!

My Mothers day gift from Papa :) 

Oldest & Youngest: Chore Helper.

J is 9 and Papa has decided that he can stay up later, around until 10:30 and help me with the evening  chores. He fetches this and packs that and makes my job a whole lot easier. 

There are several ways to help Momma with the evening chores.

 Holding and patting a tired baby to sleep is one of them. Bonus: he gets to stay up later, I get to go to bed sooner, he gets to read his book, and I don't have to worry about the baby!!

Momma and Me.

Papa snapped this picture with my ipad a couple of hours after S was born.. 

I love it. 

And I love so very few pictures of me I thought it was worth posting :) 

Birthday Flowers

Yup I had another birthday :) 

I got spoiled too!!

Breakfast in bed, 

flowers,

cards from all the kids 

and Papa, 

ice cream cake with the house church,

and they sang Happy Birthday too!!

Peach and apple cake and timbits with my mom and sisters,

and their kids :) 

Amazingly enough the cup still looks almost like this on my counter right now, and it's been a while since my birthday :), Only the red flowers died so far so I'm really enjoying these flowers!!

Normally flowers see me and decided to die... just as easy as 1 2 3.. but these are still doing really well!! YAY!! When they do finally die I'll have a new cup to remember them by :) 

Big Girls Quilts FINISHED!!!

Two little girls enjoying their new quilt covers during a recent movie night! 

They love their new quilts and they are much warmer then their old blankets which helps their little fat free bodies stay warm at night! 

As G's quilt was sort of an extra idea and she still has lots of blankets that fit her small size I've decided to finish her quilt as I have time this spring and, if that doesn't happen, next winter. The top is done but I still need to do the back and then sandwich the 3 layers together and either stitch it together myself or get the local place to do it for me, and then the binding. Several hours of work yet. :) Maybe G's quilt will be my 9th month project :) as I'm almost done Baby S's afghan.  

Quilt Tops :)

E's is the purple and R's is the pink :) 

G's is on the list for tomorrow :) 

Backs are also on the list for tomorrow. 

They are laying on the wool blankets they will be covering, and have some room to spare.. 

Perfect :) 

Baby Pigtails! G!

Hee hee I'm so cute!! 

Pigtails!!

 Mom is so unused to putting in baby pigtails in baby hair that she couldn't get them even and could only get one in a picture at a time... until she got a shot from the top! 

Window Frames, Walls done!!! :)

 The two front windows!! Frames and walls are DONE!! This will be the kitchen/dining room. The kitchen window is the one Midnight the cat is inspecting. Yesterday the cat was quite a intense inspection agent. He sniffed the whole thing over, climbed all over it and tested several new napping spots. Today Papa will stuff insulation on the tops of the bales and around the window frames. He's also building a ramp for easier access to the house for us and the stucco supplies. 

This is what I did yesterday.. well on the house :).. it's metal lathe that will hold the shape of the corners and allow us to have the nice rounded corners straw bale houses are known for. It also allows us to stucco over the wood. Every stick of wood that will be stuccoed will have metal lathe on it. It's a LONG process. Sewing through bales with a bale needle and tying the ends of the lathe to each other through the bale.  This side is finished. 

This side is in process. I tie the strings to the outside of the lathe before I staple the lathe up to the pole and then 'sew' them through the bales to the inside and tie them off on this side of the lathe keeping it tight so the lathe retains the shape of the corner. 

Some ends will be a two person job. Like this one below. It takes two people working one on each side to get a hole like that filled and properly rounded. These doorways will eventually go from the bedrooms/bathroom/ to the hallway. 

By the time we are done with the lathe we'll be ready to stucco which makes working with this poky, sharp, rough lathe 100% worth it :) Every section of lathe makes stuccoing easier!! 

Thankful Thursday Feb 14th :)

Yup it's Valentines day :)

Today I'm thankful for Papa. This morning after our family devotions we muddled through the years to figure out how long we've been married (13 years, 14 in Sept) how old I am, (You wish :P) and how long we've been together as a couple. 16 years, 17 this August 12th.

Yesterday Papa surprised me, after leaving here in the morning for work, and showed up 45 minutes later with a vase of red roses, and 3 boxes of chocolate.. one box of my very favorites!! And two boxes to share with the kids ;) I did share by the way!! They've all had several, much reading of box tops and thinking and asking questions about this sort or that big one or (in E's case) which ones don't have nuts. I'm sorry to say I can't put pictures up just yet as I have none.. the camera is still gone and I've got to have nice light to take good pictures with the ipad.. I will get some yet though.

I put the roses in my room on the dresser. I like to see them there. The table is much too busy of a place to hold flowers :)

ANYWAY!! Back to thankful Thursdays!! I'm thankful for Papa because he is an amazing man of God, father, husband, teacher, worker, cook, provider and so much more!! I actually wrote out a mushy sort of list and decided that it was our business :) not yours.

Suffice it to say I LOVE MY MAN!!! Thank you for all you do :)


I hope you have someone who loves you like I love him and he loves me. He is my other half and I'm his. Together we are complete. One.

And if you don't I hope you find him/her who is your other half :)

Birth Junkie :)

Yay!! I'm so excited!! Papa picked up the mail on his way to work and brought me a package with my 5 week formula in it from Birth Junkie!! I can't wait to try it and see if MAYBE just MAYBE I'll actually go into labor without having to be induced. Wouldn't that be fantastic!?! Hey and maybe I'll have a baby before I hit 42 weeks :) or 43 ;)

She also has a GREAT list of pregnancy birthing books on her website that she recommends. I love the list and have read several of them and I'm hoping to read several more before this baby comes.

 I'm a birth junkie too :) Are you??

The Littlest Griggs :)

Here is our newest family member :) 

Papa and I headed to the city to our ultrasound appointment on Monday and got some pictures and some other great information on the littlest Griggs :) 

The baby is healthy, whole, wiggly and looks pretty perfect :) 

Papa and I both guessed the sex of the baby wrong!! I'm always wrong but I was surprised Papa was. 

The kids all guessed right as did 3/4 of the other people who guessed!! 

********Disclaimer. Do NOT look below if you do NOT want to know the sex of the Baby or what we have named the baby. The picture on the bottom is the same as the one on top.*****************

The newest littlest Griggs is A BOY :) and his name will be Samuel :) We will tell you his middle names (2) when he's born :) But for now meet Samuel Griggs :)

T-Shirt Chairs

A friend of ours gave us a set of chairs a year or two ago and I finally got tired of looking that the worn tops.. 

So I did something about it. 

The first one I did lasted only a few weeks. I took an old T-shirt and slipped it over the cushion and stapled it on. It had a few issues from the start. The shirt had a TINY hole.. and it soon grew and grew! Before long it looked worse then before. 

First I took Papa's little drill and removed the cushions from the chair.. 4 easy screws. No problems! 

This time I decided to use the shirt doubled up and make sure there were no holes!! 

I lay the shirt back side down on the table, put the cushion in the middle right side down. Then I  pulled the two layers over the back of the cushion and stapled it to the back of the cushion. You have to make sure you have both layers and that you do it so that it is tight all the way around. These were 100% cotton so they stretched pretty good. I did not have any trouble getting the whole front covered. Fold the corners over in a neat tuck before you staple them. Gives it a nice corner. 

Tools of the trade :) I stapled it like crazy!! 

When your all done stapling just screw them back on to the chairs!! 

I also ran my hands over the staples to get any that were at all loose out.. I don't want the baby finding them. The only thing I will do differently next time is mark the cushion so I know which way is the front of the chair. It would make them easier to put them back on. 

Finished!! I'm leaving the backs alone.. they are in good shape yet and I'm not that sure I can do BOTH sides nicely. I did 3 different colors on purpose :) and I'm glad I did!! I love them!! They brighten up the kitchen and the kids love to rotate chairs. 

Oh and by the way I just used old shirts of mine. The green ones ribbing on the neck and arms was worn out but the shirt was fine. The blue one had a picture on the front but it was SO worn it didn't look like a picture anymore. And the red one had a couple of burn holes in the front and was a bit too small on me. 

The whole project took me about 30 minutes :) a drill, industrial stapler and 3 shirts :) Totally worth it. It's been about 10 days now and they still look great. I can't see these wearing out any time soon! 

Pretties ~ Flowers~

Mrs B and I got together one day early this spring and she helped me plan these flower planters for the front of the house. It took them a little bit but they have finally taken off. The little pots of flowers in between the big ones are the bachelor buttons the kids planted. They survived and are blooming. If you know me at all you know I have a fairly black thumb. Papa's is worse! Papa is quite impressed that I've yet to kill these pretty flowers. I guess I can learn new tricks. 

I don't know what it is about marigolds but I love them.. I try and keep some around every summer.. they just seem so cheerful even if they smell funny :) 

Bales~ House Building :)

I recently spent an afternoon, while the baby was asleep, building the bottom two layers of bale walls on the new project. It was quick and easy and the only longer part was halving a few bales for those walls which needed them. I'd forgotten how sore your fingers get tightening up bale string :) 

Here is a view of the back part of the new floor. This will be master bedroom (very back), two bathrooms and another bedroom and then a pantry (I'm standing in the pantry in the picture.) before the dinning area and kitchen off the front. I should take a new picture. The bales in this one show about where the walls will be but these walls will not be bale walls and I've been building more with these bales so I have 4x4's laid out on the floor to show the floor plan. Papa and I recently took an entire Saturday and planned the house! We are  going to be using the floor plan as a guide not a written in stone tablet. But at least now we know where the windows should go! Which is what Papa is working on now; window frames and door locations. We've also priced windows and doors and walked around in the rooms to see if we like the sizes.

A Fun Sunday! ~And A Picture of Me For Aunt Linda~

The wonderful Ladies we home church with :) Cindy, Me, Sarah, Christine, and Rachel.

Between these 5 ladies there are 19 children :) 

Three are missing.. Aubree and Deb and Colette. 

All the children in the church group number 23 and another on the way! 

We are standing on the trampoline! 

We all traveled out to Sarah and her family's new place in a nearby town to Church together 

and had a BLAST!! 

What a wonderful day.

I did not take my camera and I snagged this picture off FB for Aunt Linda. :) This was taken on the 10th Aunt Linda :) 

Wonderful friends, wonderful fellowship, wonderful food, wonderful games, wonderful time.

Momma's New Maid.. A Mixer :)

Papa got a nice bonus from work this spring... This spring it was really nice as he wasn't going to school and his bonus didn't just get thrown into the 'surviving while going to school' pot. Instead he picked out some beer stuff he WANTED not needed.. er.. as much as anyone NEEDS beer making stuff. :) Just kidding honey.. I know I know beer is your chocolate :) *blog about beer stuff coming soon :)

ANYWAY.. he also picked out a mixer for me! He's been wanting to get me one for quite some time and I've been not letting him.. why, now that I have it, I'll never know.
I LOVE IT!! Makes my life ten time easier.



Mine has cookie paddles that make great chocolate chip cookies and clean butter like nothing else!! It's got a dough hook and a large enough bowl that can make my bread recipe THREE TIMES!! Which means I can do less bread making and more other stuff! It makes wonderful ice cream too! He also got a slicing thingie to go with it but I haven't used it yet. I imagine I'll be using that a lot more in the fall for canning etc.

As I've been typing this out J's has been getting everything we need for chocolate chip cookies ready by the mixer.. I love how he can read the recipe and get everything out and all I have to do it throw it all in the mixer (J could do that already too! But a momma gets to have some fun!) and then I let him turn it on and wait for it.... all of 20 seconds and we have the. best. cookie dough. EVER!!! See ya!

Do You Know How Much God Wants You Here?

Papa and I recently decided to visit a house church that we first heard about over a year ago.. We've been looking for a house church for quite a while since ours sort of melted :) Different people going different ways with no hard feelings. We've tried several of the churches in town but haven't found a fit. We've always house churched, for reasons I'm not going to get into in this post, and really wanted a house church. So I facebooked one of the ladies in my home school group who I knew went to this house church and asked her if we could visit their home church. That was Thursday. She fb-ed me that night and said sure, gave me the time and directions and told me they pot lucked after. She also offered to feed us when we visited but we eat a lot so I fb her back and said Thanks but I'd bring some food too ;) I also asked, I'm a bit nervous about meeting new people, if we knew anyone in the group. I did!! Of the 4 couples she named we knew 3 of them1! Super exciting! I called Papa at work, about something else, and mentioned it and he surprised me by saying.. Fb her.. we are going! That was Saturday night. I made a meal to take along, showered all the kids and checked and restocked my diaper bag.

Sunday Morning we inhaled breakfast, early mornings are not our norm, got everyone dressed and headed out the door.. Yes..we get dressed AFTER breakfast when we are going out.. then you don't get breakfast on your to town clothes. Papa and I both grabbed our coffee cups, the food, the kids, diaper bag, Bibles, and E's puffer bag and headed out! I'd written down the address and we knew where the road was so when we got to it we were super surprised to find it shorter and emptier then it should be... there were no house numbers and really truly it was really only someones very long driveway. At the end of the road there was a padlocked gate and a sign.. "Trespasser's will be shot... survivors will be shot again!!" UM.. we KNEW the couple who's house we were going to was a pastor and his wife. We also knew this could NOT be where they lived!! So we headed back down the road back to the main road and we were just talking about trying another road with a similar name when we spotted a white car!! HEY we knew that car.. it was a couple from the list.. The B family!! I laughed and told Papa.. Follow that car!! They spotted us too, and unknown to us, knew we were joining them for church and stayed in sight and let us follow them.

We enjoyed the fellowship and the potluck and after lunch another friend of ours Mr. C came up to Papa and asked him.. "Do you know how much God wanted you here today??" Papa laughed a little and said he thought he did.. and told him about getting mixed up and following B's to find the place. Mr.C laughed too.. and then told us how much God really did want us there.

The Story really started on Wednesday.. A full day before Papa and I decided to fb Mrs.M. The men of the, recently started, house church get together on Wednesday nights for a men's Bible study and prayer time. After their study they talked a bit about whether or not they were ready to invited people to their house church. They decided they were ready.. and Mr. C told the group that we, the Griggs, had been on his mind and he was going to invite us.

Thursday I fb-ed Mrs. M. Saturday we decided to go. Sunday we went and Sunday afternoon Papa asked if we could join the group. We haven't even met all the couples that go yet, but we will :)

UPDATE! We've gone twice now and have meet all the couples that regularly attend. We are both really enjoying the group and fellowship. Three or four of the men take turns speaking and singing. We've heard two and are looking forward to hearing the others. We've also both started a Bible study with the group.. Papa with the men and me with the ladies :) Amazingly BOTH studies work as they are on Papa's days off. I know the men changed theirs so Papa could go. What a great bunch of people :) We are a bit out numbered though!! There are 14 adults and 25 children :) And two of the ladies are expecting :)

What a MIGHTY GOD we serve!!

Valentines Day 2012 :)

Papa likes to surprise me a day early with Valentines day stuff :) This year the kids and I got 3 boxes of chocolates to share and I got these lovely flowers in a mug!! Perfect fit for me as I love mugs ;) and the red rose in the bunch is fake and will not die on me like so many of my flowers do. Also I love daisies :) as they remind me that summer will come again.. even when winter seems amazingly long as it does every year in the north. The message on the mug puts a smile on my face every time I see it.

For supper on February 14th we had a snack night and for dessert we had chocolate fondue.. with out the fondue?? So maybe we should call it fruit drizzled in chocolate! Very yummy! 

LOOK it's a J3 fondue!! 

 I think he liked it! :) I know the rest of us did! :) 

THAT STUFF MUST GO!!

The kids have a cute Berenstain bears movie where Papa Bear is trying to get rid of a stump in the yard and he keeps saying.. "That STUMP must GO!!" Well I've been going through the kids clothes, the back bathroom (also know as a catchall for all things), closets and the whole general house and bagging it up in black garbage bags and hauling it to the second hand store. I'm not nearly done yet but I'm getting there. I took 9 black garbage bags, so far, and probably 10+ boxes of stuff out of our house so far.  The boxes went on to the floor.. some of jars, clothes that will still be needed for the younger children. It's amazing how much more ROOM we have now..

You might be wondering why I'm getting rid of all this stuff.. some of it simply doesn't fit in the house anymore.. those cute foam chairs J and L used to have out in the living room to watch movies in just simply not longer FIT in the living room.. E and I are both allergic to polyester and I can't even wear clothes washed with fuzzy polyester so we are getting rid of TONS of polyester clothing, blankets and all. I plan on going through all the totes of kids clothes on the floor and culling...eventually :) SO if anyone is interested in going through some of these bags before I send them off to the thrift store.. let me know what your looking for and when I clean out those sizes I'll let you know and we'll set it up.

12 Years!!

Better Late Then Never :) 

Beautiful aren't they??  Papa surprised me with them on our 12th Wedding Anniversary!!
My mom took the kids for the night and Papa and I went out to our favorite local place for a special supper out. Papa had shrimp for his appy and another one for his dessert!! I had cheese cake for dessert and stuffed mushrooms for my appy!! YUM!!!
We had a great time together and talked over memories, parenting ideas, hopes and dreams and enjoyed our time out together :)