From Jonestown, With Love

Our dear friend, Paula Kissinger, created these one-of-a-kind gifts for our children this year.  Thank you so much, Paula, for your love and creativity!  These photos are for you!

Christmas 2013, Part 1

It's hard to believe that we are at the end of 2013 already!  I have been a neglectful blogger this year...but I have plans for this blog in the new year, so stay tuned!

This Christmas was a blessed one, yet again.  For the second year in a row Dave is unemployed at the end of the year, yet we have seen God's grace so clearly and freely given to us.  Every gift under our tree was given to us by a friend, family member, or total stranger this year.  I bought the items that filled their stockings, as is our tradition, but the gifts were blessings from God given through others.  As I mentioned on Facebook on Christmas day, the lessons learned through our times of unemployment could not have been learned any other way, and the blessings from those lessons are worth more then any job.  Praise the Lord!  God has been working in our lives in very specific ways this year (which is a blog post unto itself!) and we are so thankful!

One of our special friends is Nancy.  We met at church and she just adopted our family as her own.  She has been such a blessing to us in so many ways.  When Nathaniel said he wanted to make cut out cookies and gingerbread men this Christmas, I knew Nancy, as a former home economics teacher, would love to help us out.  We enjoyed a fun morning together, and Nathaniel was in his glory.  We might have a future chef on our hands!

My Little Angel

Last Sunday, Sophia's class made these really neat angel wings out of paper plates.  They actually have elastics where the arms go through so they can be worn for dressing up.  Of course, Sophia wasn't really into them at all, but Nathaniel was!  He wanted to try them on right away, so I took some photos by our Christmas tree of our little angel.  Enjoy!

I just can't get enough of those baby blues!!

Flying...

My little angel!

English Muffin Pizzas

We have been sans internet at home for a little bit, so I haven't been able to post in awhile...but a lot has been happening in the Fisher house!  Last week we had the privilege of having Aunt Sharon Metzger with us for the week.  She was such a huge blessing and help with the kids while Dave was away!  One day for lunch we made English muffin pizzas.  They turned out really yummy, and Benjamin and Nathaniel did all the work!  Here's the proof:

First the sauce...

and more sauce...

then the cheese...

and finally, the pepperoni...yum!

Handmade Doilies by Brenda - New Adoption Fundraiser!

Are you looking for a unique, handmade gift for that special occasion coming up? Well I have just the idea for you, and I can bet that no one else will give the same gift! My mother-in-law, Brenda, makes beautiful, handmade, crocheted name doilies. She is offering her talents as a fundraiser to help us bring Sophia home from Taiwan.


Now for the details...these unique doilies are available in white or ecru/tan, horizontal or vertical, with a lacy shell or pointed edge border. They are beautiful matted and framed, or as a pillow top, and are usually ready in 1-4 weeks. They make great holiday, graduation, wedding, birthday, teacher or baby shower gifts and are excellent for first and/or last names, nicknames, slogans or favorite sports teams. The doilies cost $25 for up to 5 letters and $3 for each additional letter. You choose the color, edging, and of course, the personalization. This is a fundraiser for our little Sophia with a minimum of $10 per doily being donated to Sophia’s adoption...and you get a unique, personalized keepsake for yourself or to give as a gift!

We are taking orders on a first-come, first-served basis, so get your holiday orders in as soon as possible! To place an order, e-mail me at tfisher83@myexcel.com with your desired color, edging, and personalization. I will then send you an invoice via Paypal. As soon as I receive your payment, your order will be processed and filled! (For those orders requiring shipping, an additional charge of $5.00 will be added to cover priority shipping costs.) Please help us pass the word around about this fundraiser, and thanks for supporting our family and helping us bring our daughter home from Taiwan!

Paint Colors

Here are the photos of the two paint colors we used recently in our home...I know some of my friends wanted to see them.  They didn't photograph really well, but you can get the idea.  They are both from Sherwin Williams...a very helpful place, I might add!  (And, no, I'm not getting paid to say that!)  Thanks again to my friend Tiffany who helped me paint...I wouldn't have been able to do it without her!  At least one summer project was accomplished this year!

"cay" in my craft room

"lighthearted pink" in Sophia's room

Painting Frenzy

I don't have any photos for this post, but I will take photos of the end result...I promise!  Yesterday my good friend, Tiffany, came to help me paint my craft room and Sophia's room.  What a job!  I am no house painter, so I naively thought it wouldn't take too long and we could get it all done in one day...well that didn't happen!  We were able to primer Sophia's room (it was a very bright yellow for Nathaniel) and get the first coat on in the craft room.  The taping and cutting in really takes awhile, I found out!  (That, and managing the scuffles of six children at the same time...)  But Tiffany is a self-proclaimed perfectionist when it comes to painting, and a good teacher.  She is making our rooms look great!  We were going to continue today, but one of my boys wasn't feeling well, so we are postponing to next week.  We should be done in one or two more days...I'll post photos of the finished project!  THANKS, TIFFANY!

Keeping Busy...Little Boy Style

When it's stinkin' hot outside and there's no extra money for "paid entertainment", what are little boys to do?  Well if they are my little boys, plenty!  Here are this week's top two ways to keep entertained in the heat and on a budget!

What's more fun than building a really long train track?

They were especially proud of this one!

Now if they would only share the train cars nicely...

Big brother helped them build this really cool fort in the basement with lots of hidden doors and storage areas

Lots of room for everyone!

Will You Be My Roomie?

We have been working on some rearranging of room assignments at our home this summer in anticipation of Sophia's arrival.  The first big change occurred a week ago when Nathaniel moved into Benjamin's room and the two little boys became roommates!  Benjamin moved to the top bunk and Nathaniel now occupies the bottom bunk, so both kiddos have had some adjustments to make.  Dave thought it would take a week to adjust, but Nathaniel is still enjoying his new found freedom of getting out of bed, turning on the light, and climbing up to join Benjamin at least once a night.  Both boys are getting less sleep than they were used to, but maybe that's not a bad thing.  I'm sure eventually they will settle down...just in time for a new schedule when school starts!

Benjamin's room is painted bright yellow with other primary colors as accents, so we decided to repurpose Nathaniel's old changing table/dresser by painting it red and using it as his permanent dresser.  Last week, while Sabastian was camp, Jonathan helped me sand it down, and I painted it.  We started with spray paint, which Dave applied, but that didn't work too well.  But the final effect is pretty cool...almost looks distressed without being distressed...people pay big bucks for that!  You can see the process and final product in the photos below...

This is what the finish looked like before it was sanded

Jonathan hard at work sanding the drawers...he did an awesome job!

The main piece after being sanded...the brown that remains added to the distressed look in the end!

Dave surveying his spray painting...and not liking what he was seeing!

The final product...doesn't it look cool against that yellow wall?

Nathaniel likes it!

The next step in the room switcheroo is to move the remainder of my craft stuff upstairs to our guest bedroom/back room.  It used to be up there originally, then I moved to the basement, and now I'm moving back up...go figure!  Before I move completely I am painting that room, so currently I have four shades of blue on the wall in an attempt to decide what color I want in there.  Hopefully I'll get that painted with the help of a friend, and then I can move the remainder of my stuff up and get settled again.  That will open up the downstairs area outside of the younger kids' rooms as a playroom, which will be nice.  There will be lots of space for a play kitchen area which I can't wait to have for Sophia and her brothers to use!

The final project is Sophia's room.  I'm SO excited to be decorating a little girl's room finally.  Of course, it will be pink, with brown as the accent color.  I already have a lot of decorations picked out or made.  I'm enjoying collecting items from Etsy and other places, and also making and repurposing items.  I am going to paint the crib white and turn it into a toddler bed (hopefully...we can't find the directions!) and paint a current dresser that we have white and give it some new knobs.  I have already spray painted a grapevine wreath white and have pink and brown ribbon to decorate it with, and I have fabric that will be incorporated into a quilt for her bed.  Little sparrow birdies and plum/cherry blossoms are going to be the motif.  It's going to look really cool!  I'll show photos as I go along...I'm very excited, but need to get the other projects done first!

So, there you have it.  The summer is a good time to do all this movin' and groovin' indoors, especially on days like today when it's a bloomin' 100 degrees outside in the shade!  I hope you're keeping cool in your little corner of the world!

A Rainbow Walk - Green

It sure is taking us awhile to get our entire Rainbow Walk (click on link to see our previous walks) adventure accomplished, but as my dear education professor always said, "It's about the process, not the product!" Today we ventured out to look for green. We wanted to find other things besides the obvious green plants and such, and I think we did well. We headed for our neighborhood cemetery, which is always an interesting walk. Here's what we found:

moss on a tree trunk

a green fish...was litter on the side of the road

a hosta plant...or as Benjamin used to say, "pasta!"

a street sign

an evergreen tree

Sabastian's shorts (totally unplanned!)

Benjamin's shirt (also unplanned!)

an interesting bush next to a tombstone

an old water pump in the cemetery

a fence post

a mailbox

wildflowers

a trash barrel

a medal indicating a US war veteran's burial spot

an old grave marker