Hand-me-down Heaven

Can I just say, people are SO GENEROUS!
I remember as a young girl every once in awhile we would receive big black garbage bags full of clothes a cousin or neighbor had out-grown. It was like Christmas! My sister and I would sort through the clothes (fighting over who got what) so thrilled with our new wardrobe.

We LOVED hand-me-downs.
Recently our family have been the recipients of lots of hand-me-down treasures from dear friends and neighbors and I just wanted to share my gratitude on our blog.

These are just a few of the fun new-to-us treasures.

Thank you my friend. Thank you my friend.

Thank you my friend and my other friend. Thank you my friend.

Thank you my friend.

How blessed am I to have such generous friends! THANK YOU!
Don't you just love hand-me-downs?!

We've got grubs in our garden!

I don't know why but Campbell loves this patch of long grass in our flowerbed. He runs outside and sits on it like it's his throne.

I try not to think about the spiders and bugs that live inside the grass patch.

Creativity Blog

Okay, I started this blog awhile ago and I told my sister and a few friends about it so we could share ideas and show each other what projects we are doing.

Anyway, I think I'm ready to tell others about it but just be warned that it is nothing special, just a bunch of "stuff" I like to do.



You can click here or the link is on my left sidebar - "nannygoat"




Also, I'd love to hear about your thoughts on my projects and about your projects/ ideas too so leave a comment on my craft blog if you like. If we put all of our heads together we could really come up with some fun stuff!

Balloon Glow

My friend has been telling me about the Louisville Balloon Glow since we moved here over a year ago. Trevor worked so I probably wouldn't have braved it with 3 kids if Melissa hadn't have been here.
It was so amazing.

We got there early and the kids had a blast going down the blow-up slides and even walking into a hot air balloon.

Campbell was amazed by the balloons (he is the blur at the bottom of the picture on the right, he is a blur in most pictures... busy, busy boy).

When the sun started going down they started blowing up the balloons which was so fun to watch. We were just feet away from the big birthday cake balloon. Unfortunately it was a little windy so that balloon didn't stay up for very long.


When all of the balloons were blown up they "lit" them. It was so beautiful!

We will definitely be doing this again next year! (Hopefully Trevor will be able to come too.)

Melissa and Jeff come to visit

What a great present to have my sis and her hubby here for my birthday! Melissa and I are due ONE DAY apart, we couldn't have planned it better (and we definitely didn't plan it !). She is having a baby girl (it's their 1st child) and I am having a little boy (if you've lost count this is our 4TH!!!).
How fun to be pregnant together and have our babies so close in age.

We really enjoyed their visit! Here are some highlights:

Yummy birthday lunch at the Olive Garden.

Melissa and Jeff went to the Slugger Museum where Jeff got his own genuine Louisville Slugger bat (his name engraved and all).

I love this pic of my girls snuggling with Melissa. They love their aunt Melissa so much.

Jeff got tickets to the Ryder Cup and had a great time watching his favorite sport just feet away from his golf idols. Unfortunately he couldn't take a camera in but Melissa has a fun post about his experience here.

We visited the Louisville Temple (just a few miles down the road from our house) for a photo opportunity.
We love to head out to the Ohio River to play at the park and eat at the family friendly restaurant on the river.

We played lot's of games. Ticket to Ride is a favorite. I even won...twice! (You are only impressed with that if you have actually played Ticket to Ride with Melissa and Jeff, they are insane!)

Operation (without the batteries because it gives my girls an anxiety attack if the little buzzer goes off) and Othello where the favorites of Hallie and Megan.

No trip to Kentucky is complete without a drive up to Cinci to visit the GAP clearance center... oh, I love that place.

Melissa and I love to be crafty and we did some fun projects (I will post them on my creative blog soon) we also re-did her blog template, made "thank-you" cards, visited some fun fabric/craft stores, and created baby shower invites on photoshop... so fun.

We also went to the Balloon Glow... that experience deserves it's own post so I'll get to that soon.

Gettin' it done!

Taping and mudding and mudding and sanding and mudding again and sanding again.

The dust, oh the dust... it's everywhere!

But, it's worth it!
Texturizing and priming.

We were letting the primer dry when I heard Trevor walk in the room and yell, "Oh, Crap!"

I came running up the stairs to find that Campbell had snuck

in the room and done a little painting himself. Little stinker!

He wasn't too happy about being caught.

Ike winds hit Kentucky

(above pictures courtesy WHAS11 news)

Wow, we had a crazy windstorm Sunday from Hurricane Ike. Winds up to 75mph! Hundreds of thousands are without power in the area and the newest update is they may not get power for up to 2 weeks! Even most hospitals are running off of generators. Unfortunately Louisville sent over 200 power company people down to Texas to help with the Hurricane and now they are trying to get them back.

Lot's of stores are closed including some gas stations so that the stations that are open have long lines. Schools are closed and the report yesterday was that 130 roads were closed because they are blocked by trees and other debris. Power lines are down all over the place. We drove under one today and I was just praying it wouldn't fall on us.

It's crazy around here but we are some of the few lucky ones who still have power and it has been so neat to see everyone out in the neighborhood helping other neighbors clean up the mess.

These are a few pictures of the damage at our house... luckily nothing serious. Mostly just a mess of debris and a few trees and fences down. Our grill has seen better days .

It has also been a good reminder to fill any holes I have in my food storage/ emergency preparedness and I'm finding I have a lot of holes!

Notes from Megan

Yesterday everyone in our family received a "card" from Megan. They are so precious I wanted to share them.

Trevor's card

"Dad I love you I love you Dad Your mi best frad Dad (heart)"



My card

"I love you mom I love you Mom your mi best mom you mak thin betr"



Hallie's card

"Hallie I love you Hallie Your wan av my best frenz your wan av mi best sister"



Campbell's card

" I love you Caml your mi best fred"



New baby's card

" Noo babe I love you I kat wat tel you kam"


Oh, the simple rewards of motherhood.

May I pick your brain...please?

So I have some questions I've been pondering and I thought maybe someone out there could help me ... if you don't mind... please :)

* I bought some used Harry Potter books today. Do you think Hallie (7 years-old) is too little for Harry Potter? Do you think it would be too confusing or too scary for a 7 year-old? What if I read them to her?

* Toddler bed or twin? Campbell is still in the crib but with the baby coming in November I'm thinking I need to get him out of the crib by February so the baby can have it. I'm just debating if I should get a toddler bed (anybody getting rid of theirs?) or go straight to the twin. With my girls I put them right into a twin bed but they were older. It would be nice to do a toddler bed because it wouldn't take up much room since they will be sharing a bedroom and I think Campbell would adjust to it better but I don't want to spend money on a bed that he will outgrow so quickly (the mattress is the same size as a crib mattress). Any opinions?

*Finally, how the heck do you discipline a 18month old crazy little boy? Seriously? Nothing is working, what do (or did) you do that works? Help!!! (I'm begging you on this one)