Julie’s Journal

This week has flown by and we are back to our normal crazy schedule…I haven’t had any time to sit and draw or do anything fun.  I did catch a little American Idol yesterday.  That was too funny…the old guy, Larry…who sang “pants on the floor” just cracked me up!  I probably needed a good laugh.

I’ve been a little on edge this week.  I don’t really know why, I mean, I don’t really have a good reason.  It just seems like little things are stressing me out. Today I have been worried all day because I had no one to watch Jasmin tomorrow.  My babysitter is leaving tomorrow on a trip with her family, and I didn’t know about it till a couple of days ago.  I was really stressing out because I really didn’t want to take a day off, but wasn’t sure what else I could do when I had called everyone I could think of.  Finally I called my friend Angie, and she was totally willing to take her for the day.  Didn’t even hesitate!  How awesome is that?  I didn’t even need to worry about it…and won’t need to.  She’ll have a blast with her kids, I am sure.

My emotions have been all over the place…a friend/co-worker of mine passed away yesterday.  She has been battling cancer for over a year.  We knew it would happen soon.  It’s just hard to let her go.  I wasn’t super close to Randi, but just knowing she’s gone is so sad.  She was a great teacher and friend to all of us.  We have missed her…but the best thing is that we know she is with God in Heaven.

I was talking to Savannah the other day when I was tucking her in and she was telling me how one of her classmates keeps saying mean things about her and to her…she is devastated…she cried.  She has also been very scared lately about our house burning down.  We talked about how fear is from Satan and that God protects us and watches over us. Then I remembered that verse that she read in church a while back, and reminded her that if God cares for little birdies and lilies he will certainly take care of us.  I think I need to remind myself of that verse, once in a while, too.

Anyway, busy weekend…Savannah’s birthday…and a bunch of other stuff.

And, I still haven’t taken down any Christmas decorations!  This is the latest I have ever had them up!  Though, when I drove to Walmart tonight, I noticed at least 3 houses that still had lit up Christmas trees inside…so that made me feel better about it.  Maybe I can get to it this weekend.

Sam’s dad got us a new front loading washing machine for Christmas.  I think I am in love!!! It’s so quiet - and SO sparkly!  It even sings a little song when you turn it on!  I love that it uses SO MUCH LESS water and less soap.  I can even use fabric softener in every load because you can add it at the beginning.  Today when the guys brought it, we also had them haul out our chest freezer.  We have been wanting to get rid of it.  We just don’t use it enough to keep it.  We found someone who wanted it, so we had them haul it upstairs for us since they had the equipment and experience of hauling appliances up and down stairs.  I only got one little tiny scratch on my door.  We had them leave the box, so we could make a little fort for the kids.  I did 5 loads of laundry in my new washer yesterday…and while I was drawing this, a load finished and much to my surprise it played an entire little song.  I don’t know what the tune was, but it was so fun and made me smile.  And I just have to say that whoever thought of putting a happy little song on a washing machine was a genius…because now I actually love to do laundry…and hearing that little song makes it even better.  It’s fun to do mediocre chores like laundry when you have a washer that IS SO AWESOME!!!

This post was originally written in my journal on Dec. 30th.

Last night, we took the kids to see the Chipmunk movie, “Squeakuel”.  It was cute.  Jasmin was probably the best she’s ever been for a movie.  I’d say this may have been her 4th or 5th…but some of the earlier movies I wouldn’t even count because I spent most of the movie in the lobby with her because she couldn’t be quiet.

After the movie we went to Bob Evans for dinner.  We ended up having to wait like over 45 minutes for our food.  They took some of the cost of our bill off and we only had to pay $13 something.  Karson was so tired and wouldn’t order, and then fell asleep on the table.  I drew a picture of him on the back of my placemat with a purple crayon.  This drawing is one I drew from that.  I taped it in my journal, but it’s kind of big to scan.  I like how this drawing came out except I messed up the hair, which kind of sucks…but oh well.

Anyway the best thing about today was I took Savannah shopping for some new jeans.  I had to get rid of most of her pants because they are getting to small for her.  We tried on the next size up and they fit great!  We found 2 very cute pairs of jeans at Gap for $13.00 each!  I also dragged her into Gymboree because they had some great sales on some old lines that they may have had like last spring or something…anyway, we found a super cute pair of capris, some sandals, leggings, a swimsuit (for $4.00) and a ballerina skirt for Jazzy.  She just adores that skirt.  Ava brought over a little tutu one day and wore it around and Jasmin was so wanting to wear it too.  And much to her delight, Ava accidentally left it at our house, so Jasmin wore it to bed and most of the following day!  I had to get it for her and it was only like $5.oo!  Savannah also saw some cute charm bracelets at GAP that she mentioned she would like for her birthday.

I did this little sketch in my new journal…kind of a chaotic drawing, I know.

Hey guess what!? I actually did some drawings in a new journal I just started.  But, I don’t really feel like taking time right now to scan them.  It’s almost 3AM.  But I just uploaded our Christmas pics to our computer, so I thought that I would share a few.

One of our favorite Christmas traditions in our family is our Christmas Eve Jesus’ birthday party.  We go over to Nate and Cyndi’s…grandma and grandpa are with us too…and somehow the pajama elf always shows up there with pjs for all the kids…though we’ve never really seen him. And we have a birthday cake and sing happy birthday to Jesus.  I think we usually read a book, too.  But somehow we didn’t get a chance to do that this year.  But here is a picture of all the kids in their pjs and our Jesus’ birthday cake…with an animated candle thingy that played happy birthday…Sam had picked that up…it was a fun surprise!

The weekend before Christmas, we sent the kids to mom and dad’s so we could get some work done around the house and we wanted to redo/upgrade the playroom for the kids for Christmas.  We worked hard cleaning out a closet in the basement where we store tubs of stuff we have kept over the years.  Many tubs contain seasonal decorations, but there were several tubs of books, cds and maternity clothes that we needed to get rid of.  We also got rid of all Sam’s youth ministry stuff.  Here is a picture of all the bags…which are contractor bags, actually…lined up along the fence awaiting garbage collection day.

So after spending two days hauling garbage out of our house, we made a trip to IKEA and picked out some new things to help with storage and organization of the kids’ toys.  Then I got busy on the design and layout.  Jason came over and helped build a stage and by Christmas Eve night it was ready.  The kids came home on Monday, but we managed to keep them out of the basement the whole week, so it was a total surprise.  Here are some pictures of the room.  I know the paneling is not the most pleasant wall treatment, but we didn’t get the time to paint it…yet.  I’m thinking a light shade of blue would be a nice wall color…in the future, of course.

Here is what you see…

From IKEA: the play carpet, the Trofast storage units the Barnslig curtains, the green net thing hanging on the rod with all the dress up clothes, the very cool collapsible table and wooden stools, the picture frames (with our kids artwork) and magnetic board on the wall.

From Sam’s Club: three awesome and very soft pillows

And I made the letters that spell “PLAY” and the flag thingies and the paper circle curtain out of scrapbook paper.  The lights are old lights from the Christmas tree.  We already had the Trofast units that look like steps…and we love the tall ones combined with those, the whole wall is storage.  I have yet to label the tubs, but I do plan to do that with picture labels and velcro.  We also want to add a Kareoke machine and some better lighting…but we ran out of time and money.  But the kids were so surprised as you can see from Savannah’s face.  We have spent a lot of time down there and it’s great because I’ve been getting a lot of laundry done!  I can actually see the floor in my laundry room now! Awesome!

We’ve had a great break…spent lots of time at home hanging out, playing games, watching movies, building with (and sorting) Legos…we have all loved not being on a schedule.  It is kind of sad that it’s coming to an end.  But the kids are starting to complain of being bored and are fighting and so for that reason, I will be glad to be back to our regular routine…though, I have truly loved  spending time with my kids this Christmas.

This morning I loved being at church…singing Christmas hymns and just the overall atmosphere with the advent and communion.  I thought to myself, I really love my church this time of year.  It’s so pretty with all the decorations: lighted garland and ribbons around the entire balcony and all the Christmas trees and poinsettias…it’s just so festive.  I really wanted to take a picture with my phone, but decided it probably wasn’t a great idea.  Anyway, while I was listening, I grabbed a pencil and an encouragement card and sketched the…actually I don’t even know…does it have a name? I will just call it the envelope holder…on the back of the pew in front of me.

My kids draw on these all the time.  I have tried to provide pads of paper for them or get them the activity pages that are on the table for kids - to keep them busy during the service…but these are the favorites.  I don’t know why.  They make some pretty cute drawings on them sometimes.  I know, I need to teach them what they are really for, now that they can all write a sentence, maybe they could start encouraging people.  And I am no better, since I did it myself…but I will just say for the record, that this card already had a drawing on the other side that Karson had made before he left for Children’s Church.

We decorated our tree this weekend.  It was me and the kids.  I put it off…for a few days.  Last year, putting the tree up was disasterous…but this year, we actually had a lovely time.  Turned on Pandora and listened to some great Christmas music.  The kids all helped and Jasmin danced around saying “Ho, ho, Santa” in her little baby talk voice…so cute.  I think it turned out great.  We bought new lights, so hopefully this year we won’t be having lights burn out before Christmas as has happened the last two years!  We still have more decorations to get up, but the main stuff is done.  I think we will be able to finish it up tomorrow night.

Just about a week ago I started on a new project…painting the entry way…it’s a small room with dk. reddish carpet.  Here is a picture I found (after like 45 minutes of searching through albums on our computer) from last thanksgiving.

The room where the kids table is at…that’s the one I am working on.  We call it the red room (because of the carpet color). Notice the super ugly wallpaper…and border.  Just about every room in our house had wallpaper when we bought this place…slowly I have been stripping it down to repaint it.  It took the longest to get the walls prepped.  I did not enjoy that at all.  I also had to paint/repair the ceiling in this room as well.  So I was watching Color Splash on HGTV…and they did a striped pattern with two different paint sheens…same color… and I got to thinking…how cool would it be if I did that with freehand swirls all over…using the same color paint would keep the pattern from being too busy, and create a subtle whimsical effect.  It pretty much turned out exactly as I imagined it.  I love it.  Of course, like any project I ever start…it’s not finished.  But it will be, by next weekend.  Next weekend is the cookie party and I want it finished by then, at least that’s my goal! So what do you think?  It was hard to photograph…but what you are looking at is flat paint with the satin paint of the same color painted in a pattern of swirls.

Well…today was a day.  I kept Max home (he’s been fighting a cold the last couple of days…and just needed a day of rest) and I took the day off.  I got up at the regular time and got the rest of the kids off to school, then I worked like crazy getting the porch cleaned up and then totally emptied out 3 rooms - except for the large furniture.  We had a guy coming to clean our carpets today.  I am glad I worked so hard, because he showed up earlier than I expected.  Our carpets look much better…though not perfect.  Cream is a crazy color for dining room carpet…seriously…who ever thought of that… (actually I know who thought of it - and they never ate in the dining room).  It’s just not a good idea when you have 4 little kids.  Some day we will get it replaced or refinish the nice hard wood floor underneath…someday.  Anyway…after the carpet guy left, Sam came and got our Kirby and took it to get fixed.  There is definitely something seriously wrong with it.  I am hoping it will be an easy fix and we can get it back quick…because not having a vacuum…well let’s just say, the Durocher household requires a good vacuum.  I was worn out…Max played the Wii for a bit and I think I dozed off.  I made him go take a nap and then we went and picked up Karson and Savannah.  Jasmin got dropped off, and we hung out for a while and then went to church.  Max and I also tore down all the wallpaper in our entry way…we call it the “red room” (because it has red/burgandy carpet) Sam and I have been talking about redoing it, because all the wallpaper is peeling…or being peeled…off.  There isn’t a lot of wall space in this room, because it is full of doors…it opens to the living room, there’s a door to the mud room, french doors to the dining room, has a closet and french doors to the stairs.  I feel like it’s something I can tackle and finish in a week.  I had an idea for painting it with flat paint and then using a satin paint to freehand paint a swirl pattern all over it.  I think it will look awesome if it turns out anything like I imagine.  Anyway, tonight after church, the kids and I went to Walmart to get the paint.  On our way out we saw this display that stopped the kids in their tracks.  They thought it was awesome.  So I had them pose for a picture…taken with my iphone so it’s a little blurry…but so cute…thinking I could use this in my Christmas letter.

A note from Karson…

“Der Grandma   I love you.  I mis you so muTh.  I wl se you In HFin.”

There was a night recently that we had been talking about Grandma Penny.  The kids were kind of sad when they went to bed. We gave them their journals and told them to draw a picture of something they remembered about grandma Penny.  Karson wrote that on a 3 x 5 card.  Along with a picture of her and 3 crosses.  So sweet.

I have been thinking about Penny (my mother-in-law) a lot lately.  I really miss her.  A lot.