And the winner is...

Today I had the privilege to see Grace and Brian both get awarded at the Young Author's Ceremony at school! Grace illustrated a story named Baseball that a class mate wrote and Brian wrote a story about going to the beach. The school prints a book each year of the top two stories written all year in each class and presents it to the authors and illustrators that were chosen. It's a really nice book that the kids, well mom, gets to keep. Grace was awarded the authors award last year for her story of a cat so now I have two books! It make me proud to see them up on that stage. Grace is always writing books at home so it came as no surprise that she was chosen but Brian...well he would rather draw than write so that was a surprise for me. Becca felt a little left out this year but she has written several books at home that I have so I will have some thing ti show her when she is grown also. She did make honor roll for the first time this year so that was a huge deal for her. I am watching for her name in the paper any day now! I am so proud of my little one's...can you tell? haha

To dye or not to dye? That is the question.

As I sit here and collect my thought as to what I should write about tonight I can't help but think if we used enough green dye on Becca's shirt tonight. We couldn't find the right color green to match her kilt so we decided to make our own. The first try didn't come out dark enough so we are on round two. In addition to dying shirts we are also dying socks to match, well not match but they will be a light oatmeal color(I hope). They will look better than bleach white I think. I went on rit dye's web page to see what they suggested and found a page of design your own colors...wow! I had no idea you could do all that with 1/4 teaspoon of dye! Back to the socks, kilt hose are about $20 a pair so times that by 6 and you get the point. In John's talking with other kilted people on line he came across a man who told him to get soccer socks since they are long enough to come up to your knees. Soccer socks...who would have thunk it? The price wasn't half bad either at only $3.75 a pair, add to it the dye for about $2 and we are still spending less than 2 pair of kilt hose. We have about 1o people from church that are joining us for the games. I don't if it's the extreme sports, the wonderful sound of the bagpipes, or the fact that John will be in a kilt that has them coming but I think it will be a fun time of fellowship for all.

Tomorrow morning I am headed to the school for the Young Authors and Illustrator's Awards. Brian and Grace will be getting an award, though I am still not sure for what, I will find out in the morning and let you all know. After that is off to the library for story time and singing for Faith and Dlyan. Yes another busy day in the Miles' house but to us this is life and we love it!

Check! One thing is off my list of things to do!

Well today was the day of the Huge Multi Family Garage Sale as the paper said. Things went well. We sold a lot but still have a lot left over. I didn't realize five families could have that much stuff! Things that were left are going to Blessingdale's, they run a house for unwed pregnant women and are a great ministry to them. They will be glad when we pull up this week! The rain did hold off until we started to clean up. We quickly covered it all with tarps and prayed it would end soon and it did. I'm glad to check one more thing off my list of things to do. Now I only have a few more to do...that I know of!

The kids are getting ready for summer break, yes already. May 23rd is their last day and they are counting it down. I don't know what all we will do this summer. VBS will take up 2 weeks so we only have 6 more to fill. I don't want to stay to busy but just enough so I don't hear I'm bored all summer. We are thinking about getting a pool! That would be nice. Not a big one but big enough for us.

The kilt accessories are coming along...slowly but surely. I need to ask my sis in law how to put pictures on here so I post some of my clan next weekend. They are so excited!! Tomorrow it is off to church and then I think the flea market to look for thin belts for the kids. Who knows what else we might find. We got rid of stuff today so we have room for more...just kidding!

So much to do...so little time!

There are some days where there seems to be less hours in the day than I need. This week has been like that! With the games next weekend, a craft order to fill, and a garage sale this Saturday I find myself doing to many things at one time. I'm not good at multi-tasking but yet I still try to. When that happens though something goes wrong. I need to focus on one thing at a time. Tomorrow...clean out the toys in the bed rooms to see what they play with and what they don't. We asked the kids if they had anything they wanted to sell; one said "No I play with all my stuff" and another said "Sell it all so I don't have to clean my room". We have to find that happy medium between the two (or I can go through their rooms while they are at school and they will never know what I took) I think John is going to start working on the pond again this weekend. They want to get it pumped down low enough to dig it out some more over the next few weeks. Hopefully we will get the big playground up soon so the kids will have it this summer! Well I am returning to garage sale world, or maybe crafts, who knows! No I better make it dream world, it's late!

My Kilted Clan

So I mentioned earlier that we have kilts, well everyone but me so far. John has been wanting one for a while now and he finally ordered one. The kids loved it so much he ordered them one also. He showed them the different tartans they could chose from. Becca liked the Black Watch, Grace the MacLauren, Brian picked the Irish National Tartan, Faith liked the bright colors in the Buchanan, and Dylan went with the classic Royal Stewart. John and I are making them sporrans and flashes to complete their outfit. John is a quick learner when it comes to sewing the only problem is that his hands are so big and the machine parts are little. They can't wait until the Scottish Games the first weekend in May. We wanted the kids first time out in public to be a place where they wouldn't get picked on for wearing their kilt. After that if they want to wear it to the store go for it. Brian wanted to wear his to school on a non-uniform day last week, but I didn't think the school would like it! Talk about a distraction in class. I will try to get pictures up of the "Miles Clan" after the games. Well I am going to join John in the sewing/exercise room. Good night!

CRCT Maddness

Mondays mornings are usually wonderful in the Miles household. Back to work, school and getting up early. John is up at 5:30 and I usually get the kids up around 6:00, we leave for school around 7:00. Well this morning was a little different here. See today the CRCT test started which means standardized testing for the girls all week!! To top it off, the school makes sure the kids know that if you don't pass it in 3rd grade you don't go to 4th grade. Talk about undue stress on the kids. So need less to say Becca didn't want to go to school today. "What if I fail?" she kept asking. I have no fear of her failing, I mean she just made all A's on her report card a few weeks ago. Still though she is so concerned about this test. All weekend she would ask me to quiz her on stuff and wanted to go get the CRCT test practice book. They have been practicing for a month now at school every day I was not about to have her cram all weekend, she needs to have fun, you know be a kid! OK so maybe I'm a little upset about this test. I understand they need to make sure kids are learning but do they need to make suck a big deal about this test? Do they need to build it up so much? They even had a pep rally Friday at school for it. Owell! Just pray that the girls (and I) will get through this week and back to normal next week.

We did it!

That's right, we succeeded in doing all we had planned today! We got up early and went to a garage sale. I say a garage sale but it was a whole neighborhood. We ended up buying a few flower vases for a craft I'm doing, two life vest for the kids, and a kilt pin for Brian. (yes they have kilts...that's another post) From there we came back out to Effingham and went to a birthday party for one of Becca's friends. The kids, and John and I, liked the animals. They had baby chicks, mice(ewww), lizards, bunnies, and a baby joey! Dylan loved holding the chicks and did quite well I may add. After cake and ice cream we loaded everyone in the van and went to the Old Effingham Days Festival. They had exhibits showing how life was in the 1800's. Becca got to see how they washed clothes and was thankful we had a washing machine, not as thankful as me though ;) Though today was busy a good time was had by all. Now we are home, the kids are bathed and in bed and all is quiet. Tomorrow we are off to church then there is no telling where we will end up. Each day is an adventure for us.

Sleeping Peacefully

Well here it is almost 11:00 at night and I find myself online! I had to check just one more time for a cute flip flop design I ordered for my embroidery machine. It was going to be emailed to me and to my surprise it was there already!! It will look so cute on the beach towel I'm doing for a birthday party Becca's going to tomorrow. Saturday is going to busy for us. Garage sale in the morning(not having one but shopping at a huge one), birthday party with a traveling petting zoo in the afternoon(last year they had a baby kangaroo), and the Old Effingham Days celebration at night. That is if everyone is feeling better. Grace is sleeping well and I haven't seen her dinner but one time so that is a plus. John is sleeping soundly also so we will see what the morning brings. Talking about garage sale, we are having one next week at Margie's and I need to get ready for it. Nothing like waiting till the last minute huh? O well...I will start tomorrow!

Sunshine and Sickness

It's a beautiful Friday morning, the sun is up, the birds are singing and sickness has struck the Miles house. :( Grace woke up with a stomach bug so she is home from school today and John is feeling not so great but yet he still went to work...what a man! I thought we were doing good. Faith had tubes put in her ears and her tonsils and "add a noise" taken out a week ago today and is doing great. We still don't know what Dylan ate Tuesday to cause him to break out in hives but he is better also. Man, when you read that we have had a busy week!! Life usually isn't this busy but it does come in spurts like that. It is times that these though that I am reminded that God is there and is in complete control. I take great comfort knowing that He is always there. I look outside my window and see flowers starting to bloom and know that He has timed the very moment they will blossom.

Here we are!

With life going full spead ahead I find it hard to catch my breath sometimes let alone find time to call family far away to say I love you! I thought maybe this would be one way to do that. At night when the kids are in bed is my quiet time but it seams to late to call anyone so I will retreat here and put my thought into words for you all to read. I have one disclaimer though...I will try to stay current but can not promise daily updates. Welcome to the crazy, eventful, blessed life of the Miles Crew!