Munsinger Gardens and Splash Pad

We made our annual summer trip to St. Cloud to visit the Munsinger/Clemens Gardens last week. The kids love strolling through the beautifully manicured gardens, splashing in the fountains, visiting the peacocks, and throwing crackers to the ducks in the river. My friend's 9-year-old son offered to take a picture of me with the kids, and I think it is the first one I have of me with all five of them. 

Now for a silly one:

After the gardens, we visited the Lake George Splash Pad & playground. While we were there, an ice cream truck showed up. The kids had never seen one before. They watched it with amazement, but not one of them asked if they could have some. They probably just assumed I would say no. Imagine their surprise when I suggested a treat! They were beside themselves. Silas got a Spider Man treat that stained his hands and face red and blue. I thought the girls would be more adventurous with so many options, but they all stuck to what they knew. 

House Progress

The railing is done and the walls are painted. We moved the furniture up yesterday, but I think we may need to trade these for a big sectional to make it work right. There's nothing on the walls yet, and I need to add some color somewhere, but we're getting there!

Note: the wall color is more gray in real life than these photos are showing. These are cell phone photos, so pardon the quality...and the goofy kids. :)

Picking Out Paint Colors

Turns out I hate picking out paint colors. I was going nuts! I had 17 different samples scattered across my walks and none of them seemed right. Finally I reached out to my friend's mom, who is an interior decorator. The very first color she suggested was a winner. Lesson learned! Out kitchen and living area will soon be Benjamin Moore's Sandy Hook Gray. 

Mini Remodel Project

JP had a great idea the other day to take out the wall between our kitchen and the lofted living room. The idea is to open up the space and make it feel more like one big room instead of two separate ones.  He put up a railing, and it looks great. We are in the process of picking out paint colors, and that will make a big impact, as well.

We plan to move our living area (which is currently downstairs) up to the lofted area and make the downstairs the new homeschool room. We may even switch bedrooms with the girls to make the whole downstairs area a "kid" zone.

Contains Fragile Material

The other day, Ruby & Rosie declared they wanted me to mail them to their friend Shiloh's house. So, I got a large box, put them inside with some crackers and water, plus the bags they had packed, and we taped them up. Rae addressed the box, and together we dragged them out to the mailbox. Hilariously, Ruby & Rosie thought the whole thing was real! After a few minutes by the mailbox, their excitement started to turn into nervousness. I told them it was illegal to mail children, so they'd need to be very quiet so as not to be discovered. They finally decided they didn't want to break the law, and we released them. 

I felt badly after the fact because Rosie actually got pretty emotional and admitted she was scared. I assured them I would never, ever do anything like that in real life, and we all had a good chuckle over it after the fact. 

Kelley Farm

I have been wanting to take the kids to the Historic Kelley Farm for some time now, and the opportunity finally presented itself. The farm was holding an event called children's day, during which kids could participate in daily farm chores, demonstrations, games and activities. Silas could have pumped water at the well all day; Ruby was chasing kittens all afternoon; Rosie stayed near the horses, and Rae kept herself busy (and got soaked) hauling buckets of water from the well to the horses and gardens. 

This was a great educational trip, and I would highly recommend it! It coincided nicely with our Little House on the Prairie history theme this year. 

I was drooling over this beautiful house!

Father's Day 2015

We are so thankful for the fathers in our lives. Each one of them plays a vital role in helping mold and shape us into the people God purposes is and our children to be. 

While we were not able to see all of our dads this Father's Day, we took advantage of Missy & the kids being in town to join my family at Big Marine Park Reserve for a picnic and playground fun. 

We planned to swim, but signage warning of swimmer's itch deterred us. Luckily, my dad noticed a hose near our picnic site, and the kids had a blast spraying each other all afternoon. 

Good Quote

"We must return to viewing our lives through the filter of the scripture rather than viewing the scripture through the filter of society."

-Vern Peltz

Ice Cream and Cousins

My monster-in-law Margie brought Ava, Vinnie & Florie out to our house for a visit tonight. We played in the yard and the pool, then went to our favorite pizza and ice cream parlor for dinner. I wish these kids got to play together more often. I can't believe how big they all are! The twins will be 7 next week. 

Thanks for the fun night, Gammy! 

Simeon & Grandpa

Simeon is 7 weeks old already! He has outgrown his tiny newborn clothes and is getting to be more interactive. He's fairly generous with his smiles now and is sleeping about 7 hours at night on average. I am already sad that the "newborn" phase is ending. 

In other news, Missy and the kids came to MN for a visit this past week. We had fun soaking in as much play time as we could. On Thursday, JP watched the kids so I could go to dinner with my mom and sisters for a triple birthday celebration. 

The Boys

They're going to be best buds! 

Simeon is 7 weeks old now and a pure joy to our family. He is starting to coo and smile more, and he definitely keeps an eye on mama at all times. 😊

Facebook Shutdown

Welcome Facebook friends!

In an effort to use my time more wisely, I've decided to shut down my Facebook account. I'm going to transfer family updates, photos and tidbits to this blog so that friends and family can still keep up with what's going on in our world, as well as so that these memories will be documented and archived. Searching Facebook for old posts is nearly impossible, but with the blog, everything is recorded and archived by date, making it easy to search. 

I'm sure this will prove to be an interesting experiment since I've always enjoyed Facebook and keeping up with people in that way. 

Here goes nothin'! 😳

Simeon James

We are thrilled to announce the birth of our son, Simeon James Charlebois!

Simeon was born on May 7, 2015 at 5:54 pm. He weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs, 10 oz (my biggest baby yet!) and measured 21 1/2". 

We are so blessed and amazed by God's mercy and goodness toward us, that He would reward us with FIVE HEALTHY children. Really, when I think about it, it boggles my mind and brings me to my knees in tears of gratefulness. 

Simeon's name means, "hears and obeys" or "hears with acceptance." We came across it in our readings together and it stuck out to us as being very meaningful and prophetic for the phase of life we have been in as a family (especially during his pregnancy), as well as our heart cry for our future lives and our children's lives.  

We also joke that since Silas's name means "bear man from the woods" -- and that's what we got -- maybe Simeon will be a little easier to train up. 😉

Simeon's labor and delivery was a little wacky. We decided to induce because at my last doctor appointment I was already 4 cm dilated. The doctor was concerned that since I was strep B positive, the baby would come so fast that there would not be time for antibiotics. Plus I just wanted him in my arms! So we went ahead with the induction.

On Thursday, May 7, my doctor broke my water around 12:30 PM. We thought that would start things up on their own, but after an hour nothing had happened. So the nurse started a Pitocin drip. Literally within minutes, my body went from doing barely anything at all to major, intense contractions two minutes apart. It happened so fast, and I was very overwhelmed and in a lot of pain. After 20 minutes we turned the Pitocin drip off and called for the anesthesiologist to do an epidural. 

After about 20 minutes, the anesthesiologist arrived and began the epidural process. Everything was going well, except my right side was not taking to the epidural as well as my left. So they gave me an extra boost to cover the right side. Unfortunately, that extra boost was too much, and the epidural ended up taking two strongly in. I was now I'm all the way up to my armpits, and parts of my face were starting to go numb. Worst of all, my blood pressure dropped, which caused Simeon's heart rate to drop significantly. We turned off the epidural and twisted and turned me and all sorts of different positions to do our best to get his heart rate back up. Eventually he was fine, and I continued labor with the epidural off and fading away. 

The last of it wore off right as I was about to start pushing, so that part was pretty intense! But I didn't need to push long, and my big boy was born and in my arms for the first time.

We went home the next day, and my little dude has been nothing but a rockstar. He eats, sleeps, and poops like a champ. The kids all adore him, even Silas.

We thank God for this amazing blessing in our lives, and covet your prayers as we adjust to a family of seven!