25 Ways to Wear a Scarf

For all you scarf lovers out there....

I didn't even know there were 25 ways to wear a scarf! ;)

Summer Update

Yeesh, I've been in a blogging slump lately. I guess that's because we've just been so stinkin' busy!

We had an absolutely fanTASTic summer. I can't remember when the weather has last been this amazing, and the bugs so few - unheard of for our neck of the woods that's for sure!

Here's a quick rundown of our summer - more details and photos to come.

Literally, the day after school was over, we drove Sophia to camp for her first camping experience ever! (LOVED it!) She was there for 2 nights.

That Monday we started swimming lessons for 30 mins every morning for 2 weeks straight (not weekends). I somehow managed to find coordinating lessons times for all 4 kids that started within 5 minutes of each other - AND got them all in! An amazing feat, especially since I needed 2 spots for one class as Emma and Sophia were at the same level.

The following week was Emma's turn for camp - she went from Monday morning to Friday evening, also her first camp experience, also LOVED it, as I knew she would.

The next week all 3 girls went to our church's day camp (Olivia was so excited that she was finally old enough to go!). Each girl had at least one friend they were going with and they had an absolute blast.

The next week was nothing officially planned, so we went on a few outings.

The following week we took the kids to the States for swimming, shopping and eating - always good times.

The next two weeks were an amazing celebration time as Nathan's sister Deena and her husband Chris and their boys came out to visit from a few provinces over. Including Baret, whose miracle story I still need to share on this blog.

And that brought us to the last full week without school! Did some babysitting, some splashparking and just had fun enjoying my kids.

What a great summer!

Eurodam (Holland America) Cruise Review Photobook

I just realized that I never blogged about the cruise we took this past February! I also just realized that I had a Blurb Groupon that was about to expire. So, I combined the two, "quickly" made a photobook and did this post! Enjoy! (Click on the link below if you'd like to view a larger version)

MS Eurodam Holland America by February 4 - 12, 2011 | Make Your Own Book

A trip to be remembered

OK, for this story you're going to need to know some names and hopefully you can keep all the characters straight!

Hopefully our family you know already - Nathan & Tammy, Emma (9), Sophia (7), Olivia (5) & Jacob (3)

Nathan is the oldest and his parents are Edmer & Betty.
His younger sister lives in Alberta - Deena & Chris, Colter (5), Baret (3) & Hayden (1)
His youngest sister lives in a town close to us - Linsay & Shaun, Taylor (2)

First, a little background. Deena & Chris met and married in Alberta (yes, at bible bridal college). After a couple years they moved back here where Colter was born. I think they were pregnant with Baret when they moved back to Alberta. When they had been dating and newly married, Nathan and I went out to visit them at least once a year, sometimes twice. However, after they moved back, we told them in no uncertain terms that we were never driving all the way out there to visit them - at least not with the horrible passengers we'd managed to acquire in the meantime.

Never say never right?!

Mom & Dad, Shaun & Linsay have gone out to visit them before, and we've always steadfastly maintained our position, despite the wailings and pleadings of our offspring. I'm not sure what made this year different, but we gradually began to consider it. We finally consented to going out this Christmas, with numerous dire warnings to our children that their behaviour during the drive would be the deciding factor on if there were ever to be a repeat of this trip.

Turns out, the kids did fanTASTic on the drive - WAY better than expected.

Turns out that wasn't the problem. But there were problems, oh yes, there were problems.

We planned to drive caravan style. Mom & Dad would drive with Shaun & Linsay and we would lead the pack. We would come "pick them up" bright and early at 5am on the Wednesday after Christmas and book it out West.

*Note - people who do not like to read about other people getting sick, consider yourself warned.

At 4:45am we got a phone call. Linsay had been throwing up all night and they weren't sure what they were going to do. After some discussion it was decided that Nathan's parents would take all their luggage out of Shaun & Lin's vehicle and pack up their own car and head out with us. Shaun & Linsay would follow when they could, hopefully leaving at noon.

So, off we went. Now, I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, especially when it comes to stomach ailments, so by the time we got to Brandon where we stopped for breakfast, I was not feeling so hot. Things appeared to be going in the wrong direction during two bathroom breaks at the restaurant (Tim Horton's of course!), but I convinced myself it was all in my head and we were going to keep going. Worse case scenario, we'd stop in Regina if we had to.

Thankfully, it was just my hypochondria combined with lack of sleep. I napped between Brandon and Regina and every time I woke up I felt a bit better. Whew - bullet dodged. For now.

We filled up gas in Regina, stopped for lunch (Tim's again!) in Moose Jaw and kept on chugging. We stopped in Medicine Hat to fill up again and let the kids run off some steam at the local McDonald's which thankfully had an awesome play place (pictured left). Another 2 short hours (that seemed rather long!) and we were there! We enjoyed a homemade pizza supper and found out that it had been a good thing Shaun & Linsay had not started out with us, because around noon Shaun got sick and Taylor, who had been sick two days previous, got a bit sick again. They were all doing somewhat better by the evening, so they decided they would go to bed real early and try to be on the road by 4am the next morning (Thursday) to get to Alberta in time for our scheduled Christmas dinner (wrenikje and farmer sausage - woohoo!).

Did I mention they live in the middle of nowhere? This was the view out their front yard....

And who is this lovely couple?

Thankfully Shaun, Linsay & Taylor made it safe and sound (and not sick!) and we all had a wonderful Christmas dinner that Thursday, followed by the "program", gifts and we all vacationed happily ever after. Ok, not quite.

Mom & Dad slept in the guest room downstairs. Nathan and I slept in Colter & Baret's room (their bottom bunk is a double) with Jacob on the floor in our room. Shaun & Linsay slept in Hayden's room on a double mattress with Taylor in Hayden's crib. Hayden slept in a play pen in Chris & Deena's room. All the other kids were set up downstairs by the tv for a big cousin sleepover.

During the day Hayden had had some diarrhea, but we chalked it up to teething. Might have been wrong about that one. No sooner had we started getting the kids ready for bed that night then both Colter & Baret started throwing up (they had previously had one episode of "d" as well). Chris & Deena spent the next several hours playing Mexican Train with us, while taking breaks every 15 minutes or so to deal with one or two puking children whose beds had been moved up to the living room, while I stuck my fingers in my ears and tried to convince myself that everything would be fine.

Now, obviously Colter & Baret did not get this from Shaun & Linsay cause they had only been there for a couple hours. So, we had both the Manitoba and the Alberta germs going around full force - we never had a fighting chance.

About every 12 hrs or so, we went down like dominoes.

We had originally been planning to go to Brooks the next day (Friday) and swim at their amazing leisure center, but since it was an hour away, we decided it was too big of a risk. Good thing too because Emma started around noon - not as bad as the boys, only about 5 episodes. We kept all the healthy people playing outside as much as we could - very thankful for the awesome natural toboggan slide courtesy of Chris & Deena's amazing front yard (advantage of living way out in the boonies in hill country). Deena was not feeling fabulous and had diarrhea off and on all day, and yet still managed to be an amazing hostess - in fact, she was a fantastic hostess throughout this whole ordeal, can't imagine anyone doing a better job! I lost track of how many times she disinfected bathrooms (thankfully they had 3 of them!) that week.

Just before bedtime Olivia threw up, and let's just say no one will feel like eating cherry ice cream again any time soon. This was the first time in about 3 years that she had thrown up, so I knew she'd have no idea what was coming. We put her and Emma to bed in the living room and were expecting to be interrupted from Mexican Train numerous times to help Olivia, like Deena & Chris had been the night before. But amazingly, Olivia only had the one incident!

I got very little sleep that night. Every cough or sound Jacob made I thought he was about to get started. Thankfully everything was fine during the night.

Saturday Shaun & Linsay left for the day and night to go visit Shaun's mom and we all stayed home and played outside and recovered from this quick acting bug. Since it had moved from person to person so quickly, and no one had gotten sick in quite a while, we were crossing our fingers and hoping the rest of us would emerge unscathed. Did we not learn in elementary school that crossing your fingers does nothing?!

After a couple of days of this we decided we needed to get out, so we decided to go out for supper in a nearby town. There wasn't much open as it was New Year's Day, but we ate at a local restaurant and headed for home. Thankfully we had not gone too far - we had barely walked in the door when Nathan's mom was running for the washroom. She probably had the worst case yet, with both versions.

I went to bed that night expecting the worst, and hadn't slept a wink when Jacob starting throwing up around 1:30am. He had never been sick in his almost 3 years and he absolutely freaked out. He was screaming and trying to knock away the bucket that I was trying to force under his head and yelling "I don't want to!" in between episodes. Even though we had put a sheet across most of the bedroom floor, he still managed to hit the rug. Deena got up and helped us clean up the room and we bathed Jacob and got him ready for bed. One hour later we were doing it again. Thankfully not as messy this time as Nathan and I tag teamed him and literally forced him to puke in the bucket. Poor guy. By almost 5:30 I had just about convinced myself that he wouldn't be throwing up anymore and was finally ready to get some sleep..... when Sophia walked in our room with her puke bucket and we started all over again. Yup, all kids, sick or not, were sleeping with pails by their beds by this point - good thing!

Sophia probably got it the worst of the kids - I think 9 times. By 7 o'clock I was absolutely exhausted - hadn't slept even a minute all night with a very unrestful sleep the night before. Nathan had been up most of the times as well, but he had been able to sleep in between. So, he took over and I slept from 7 to 10. We had originally been planning to leave today (Sunday), but had already decided the previous day that we would stay an extra day - hoping to go to Brooks, or at the minimum, finish getting over all this sickness.

After lunch we decided we'd all have naps before going tobogganing again. I woke up at 4 and knew my hypochondrianism had become reality. Started with minor diarrhea and I took Peptobismol and Immodium in a futile attempt to ward off the inevitable. By 7pm I was in the washroom experiencing my first ever time of both episodes simultaneously and it was horrid. (hey, I warned you not to read!) Nathan took Jacob to sleep in the living room so I could hopefully get some sleep at night. But he went to bed early cause he could feel it coming on. At midnight he forced himself and an hour later he had to again. After that he was fine. After my own 3 major episodes, it took me awhile to get to sleep as I was quite concerned with making it to the bathroom in time, even though it was directly across the hall. This was bad stuff people. But eventually I feel asleep and all was well.

Nathan's parents left bright and early Monday morning to drive straight home all day. Taylor was up a little early, so Shaun & Linsay left a bit before us. We planned to stop in Regina with them to spend the night at a hotel (with a waterpark!) before heading home Tuesday. They planned to stop and visit friends in Swift Current quickly before joining us later on. They also were expecting it to take a bit longer because they were hauling a work trailer behind their SUV that they had picked up from Shaun's mom's the day before.

We got a phone call as we were eating breakfast (well, Nathan & I weren't eating anything, but the kids were). Their trailer had come unhooked while driving on the highway, had passed them on the highway, crossed the road and landed on a fence! Thankfully no one was hurt and this happened in a town about 45 minutes away, where Chris & Deena go to church. This was the last town Shaun & Lin would pass where they would still know anyone that could help - not a coincidence I'd say! Turned out that the man that Chris called to help them rescue their trailer was the owner of the fence it had landed on! AND he had the equipment and know-how to able to fix the trailer and get them back on their way. Amazing!

Now that they were behind us, they decided not to stop in Swift and were going to head straight to Regina. We were about 45 minutes ahead of them, and getting close to Regina when we got a phone from them. They ran out of gas. Yes, I'm serious. They were going through gas twice as fast due to the trailer they were pulling. They had planned to stop in a small town a bit off the highway to gas up, but as they were passing the service signs there was no sign for gas. They didn't want to risk running out of gas off the highway and were only 19 km from the next major town and the gas light had not come on yet. Surely they would make it. Nope, they ran out of gas 5 km away! It was dark and about -30 outside. So Shaun started walking. After about 1 km a farmer stopped to pick him up and gave him a ride. The farmer said he was on his way to Regina for a hernia surgery. When Lin heard this later she laughed and said there's no way - he was an angel and that was the story the angel came up with . ;) The farmer brought Shaun back to the SUV and they were finally on their way again.

We had driven all the way to Swift Current before stopping for lunch at McDonald's at around 2, which was 3 our time. Yup, McDonald's was the first meal I had after being sick. We had to give the kids a break! Nathan and I both ordered grilled chicken burgers and managed just fine.

Because we ate so late, none of us were hungry when we got to the hotel around 6:30, so Nathan took all the kids swimming (he rocks!) as I just didn't feel well enough for that yet and thankfully they had life jackets, so he could manage all 4. The Regina Travelodge has a really great waterslide area, and we managed to get adjoining rooms with Shaun & Linsay so it worked great!


We let the kids swim till we got the call that Shaun & Lin would be there around 8. They wanted to stop at Canadian Tire to get some stuff for the trailer, so Nathan took Jacob and went with them and brought some pizza back at about 8:45. I watched the girls swim till 8:30 and brought up to quickly shower and get into pj's and be ready to eat when the guys got back.

Taylor had had nothing to eat since noon, so she was really hungry and really tired. Linsay couldn't find milk in the hotel, but a very kind waitress at the restaurant managed to scrounge up some 2% and gave it to her for free - Linsay kinda lost it for this random act of kindness that was so appreciated on this day of all days! The lady must've thought she was nuts crying over free milk ;) Taylor ate about one bite of pizza and decided she needed sleep more. Lin put her to bed in their room while we all ate. Then, while the guys went to pick up our nightsnack from Tim Horton's we got our girls ready for bed in our room, moved a sleeping Taylor's crib into our room and took Jacob with us to their room (he had had 2 naps that day in the car and was not ready to sleep!) to visit and watch tv. When were ready for bed, we brought Taylor back to their room and Jacob to our room and all went to sleep. Perfect set up!

The guys had picked up muffins at Tim's for breakfast the next day (Tuesday), we swam in the morning, had lunch at Chili's and then we were off for home. We booked it all the way, only stopping for a quick bathroom pit stop at a hotel along the highway for Olivia, and got home by 7. Home sweet home!

The kids did amazingly well on the drive.

And, even though THIS was our Christmas reality, despite 14 out of 16 people getting sick,
we still managed to have a fabulous time!
See the guy in the back? That's Shaun and he's hiding a puzzle piece on us (anyone who knows Shaun knows this is very typical!) - and all caught on camera! ;)
It'll be trip to be remembered, that's for sure.

Girls weekend!

My MIL decided to celebrate her 60th birthday by taking her two daughters and her only favourite daughter-in-law on a girls shopping weekend to the City two hours South of us. She even flew out one of those daughters from out west - she paid for each of us to get to her house - I think she promised me a quarter, since we live in the same town. However, I have yet to see said quarter - LOL!

(apparently there was a bit of a belt theme going on)

In total, we left 8 children behind with their more than capable fathers (yes, we have half the grandchildren - for now!) and packed as light as we could, to leave room for all our purchases on the return trip.

(two more shirts and two pair of jeans)

We had an absolute blast!

It was also very successful from a shopping perspective. I think it's safe to say we've done our part to contribute to the US economy ;)

Last, but not least, a jacket and purse!
(Of course, I also bought stuff for my rockin' husband and precious children)

Halloween 2010

Emma was a pirate (apparently $14 Walmart costumes don't come with eyepatches or anything), Sophia was Miss Morticia, Olivia was a good witch and Jacob was a pirate as well (he looks very enthusiastic, doesn't he?!). And no, we do not suddenly have 5 children. The little cow is my niece Taylor. The guys took the kids trick or treating while us ladies were driving home from our girls weekend away - shopping pics to come tomorrow!

And, of course, our trick-or-treaters were the polite ones who yelled "Trick or treat!" at every house and said thank you for the candy. We followed all of my sister's excellent Trick or Treat etiquette advice before she even posted it. Cuz we're cool like that.

Friday Favourites - Union 28!

I think it was my friend Pam who first introduced me to the company Union28 and inspired me to purchase one of their products.

Union28 represents strong marriage and the pursuit thereof. They convey a positive image of marriage in a fun and stylish way.

I love their products and have purchased several of their t-shirts myself.

Directly from their website....

One of the great and wonderful mysteries of life is that loving each other in action--what we do and say--produces romance. Everything in our culture today teaches the opposite, that romance turns into love, but nothing could be further from the truth. Love is a choice and we decide how we're going to treat each other in the good and in the not-so-good times. What a hope-giving reality that a strong, loving, thriving relationship can be built, simply by changing how we interact with our spouse.

Marriage was created to be a blessing and a little kindness, selflessness, and respect goes a long way. Accept the fact that your spouse isn't perfect and then start taking notice of all the good things they bring to the table! Pretty soon you can train your mind to be grateful for who they are as opposed to feeling disappointed about who they are not. When you allow yourself to believe that your spouse rocks, you will free yourself from the downward spiral and temptation of self-pity, disappointment, and even despair. The fact is, your spouse is probably a greater blessing than you allow yourself to realize...so lay down your expectations and praise your spouse for his/her attributes. After all, the key is to change yourself! And you'll be surprised at the positive affect it has on the one you choose to love...and you!

Our Mission: It is our mission to encourage marriages and to honor the sacred covenant between a husband and his wife by communicating a positive image of marriage in a fun and stylish way. Formerly implementing the name From*me Tees, we wanted our company name to better reflect our passion - seeing marriages grow and thrive.

In order to grow and thrive, a marriage needs to be strong to compensate for the imperfect husband and wife involved. We wanted our new name to represent this idea of strong marriage and to be a visual reminder and encouragement of just that! So we took three aspects of a strong marriage and thus created Union28!
Union: Marriage is a sacred Union - two becoming one.
(Union - the act of uniting or an instance of being united in marriage; the state of matrimony; marriage: The act of uniting or joining two or more things into one; agreement and conjunction of mind, spirit, will, affections, or the like; harmony; concord.)
A man and a woman leave their single life, give up attachments to anyone else, and bind themselves to each other; the two now become one flesh as they join in physical union and commit to be on each other's team for life - loving, honoring, respecting, forgiving.
2: Marriage is an exclusive relationship between 2 - a husband and his wife.
The intimacy shared in marriage is holy and private. A husband and wife commit to offering the best of themselves (their time, emotional energy, affections, etc) to each other, not allowing any other earthly relationship, thought, or thing to come between them.

8: ("forever") Marriage is marked by covenant and steadfastness.
The marriage covenant is a binding promise, made between a husband and wife, to stick together and to remain through the good times and the not-so-good times.

(Life can be hard. Sometimes marriage feels even harder! Our mission at Union28 is not to judge or condemn; we know strong marriages don't just "happen" and sometimes people suffer from broken promises. Rather, we are about cheering on marriage, because we think marriage is worth it.)

I have the first four shirts pictured on this blog (click on the pictures to go directly to that item on their site) and I love wearing them! I have gotten way more compliments on any of these shirts than I ever have on any of my other clothes put together. Strangers come up and talk to me about these shirts!

And they have more than just shirts (both fitted and non-fitted) - they have shorts, pants, dresses, hats, a bag and even underwear! They have products for husbands, wives, fiances, and children.

So, I'd like to encourage you to check out their website and consider supporting this company and their mission by purchasing something to share your thoughts on marriage and, in particular, your spouse!

What's your favourite item?

I think I'm going to get one of these next!

Lunch Bags

Boy, have lunch bags come a long way since we were in school baby! Gone are the hard plastic containers with the thermos in the top half.

Before this year the girls had been using some really cute princess lunch bags that I had custom ordered with their names inscribed on the backs from Identity Direct. But the oldest two are starting to get a little old for princess stuff, so this year they wanted new lunch bags.

I was thrilled to spy these at our local fabric store, and they were on sale for just over $10! Aren't they beautiful?!

Emma's is the leopard print bag and Sophia's is the giraffe print bag. Olivia got a lunch bag when we were down in the States, but when we bought it I didn't realize it had two separate compartments, neither of which fit my super cool Tupperware banana keepers. Plus, I just found it annoying to have to pack stuff in two compartments. So, this week I went back to the fabric store hoping that they would have the zebra print in stock and they did! In fact, it was the only one they had left! (Though they may get more back in stock, in case anyone from my neck of the woods is wanting to go get one too). So, Olivia's is the zebra print bag.

Other than the insulated interior, they look like purses! And check out how roomy they are....
I've got a Tupperware sandwich keeper, a Tupperware banana keeper (they totally work to keep the banana from ripening in the lunch bag), a muffin and a juice box with a ton of room to spare! There are also side pockets on both sides which are ideal to throw their snack in.

After telling/showing my sister how awesome these lunch bags were, she went and picked some up too.

While at said fabric store, I also spotted some larger tote style bags and I thought it would be perfect for the church bag I always have to bring along to carry home all the kids' take home papers, as well as books and DVD's from the library. It's hard to tell how large it is from this picture, but it's pretty big. I wish it was a little bit smaller actually, but better too big than too small in this case.

Aren't we stylin'?!

Picture Day!

So today was Picture Day at school. Which means last night we were pouring over hairstyles trying to pick what we were going to do - has to be something that looks good from the front - it's Picture Day after all.

There are numerous hairstyle websites out there, but these two are my favourites...
The Story of a Princess and Her Hair is a fabulous blog. You can see their hairstyle gallery on Facebook and when you pick your favourite style there is a link back to the specific blog post with the tutorial on how to make it. Perfect!
Babes in Hairland is another great blog with lots of pictures and instructions.
Thankfully both blogs tag their posts so you can easily search for what you want - like for Picture Day, I picked "Mostly Down" and got some great ideas. And they had to be easy cause I didn't have time to practice - you know, since I left this to the night before - surprise, surprise!

Anyway, I think they turned out great!

Here's my oldest princess sporting this hairstyle....

The picture on the left was taken after school, and it was super windy today, which usually means frizz crazy hair for Emma, but it's actually looking pretty good still! And here is a view from the top - not so sure any of that will show on the pictures, but oh well - it looked super cute anyway!



Sophia wanted her hair the same way I did it for our fall family picture day - simply parted down the middle, with one braid on each side, and then bring the braids up and cross them and pin in place. Voila! Front and top profile pictures so you can see the details. Sophia looks less than impressed - she was in a hurry to get out the door this morning and I'm snapping pictures!



Olivia wanted hers to be the same as Emma's. At least Sophia picked a slightly less time consuming option. Weaving in hair ribbons is not something I do every day! Oh, and I used a crochet hook cause it was handy at the time! (crochet hat pictures to come shortly!) It turned out really cute, and I got at least one really amazed reaction at Costco today when I took her and Jacob shopping. The front profile picture is also from after school. Emma took Olivia's picture this morning, and let's just say it didn't turn out as cute as this one ;)


I'm reinspired to try cool hairdo's on the girl's hair after finding these blogs again after a long hiatus. And I have to do something in the girl's hair anyway. Their hair gets soooo tangly if it's just left down like this (not looking forward to combing it out tomorrow, let me tell you!). They usually have a ponytail or two, or a braid or two anyway. Probably wouldn't take much more to fancy it up a little. That would mean investing in a few cute flower clips and other hair accessories. And is it just me, or is there a black hole of hair accessories in your house too?! It seems like I'm always having to get more hair ties.

Anyway, I highly recommend checking out those hairstyle sites if you have girls. They've got holiday themed stuff and everything (love the Valentine's stuff in particular!). They also have some hair do's for girls with a bit shorter hair, and for babies. Be prepared to waste spend a lot of time browsing the sites!

10/10/10! Want a slurpee with that?

In case you didn't know - today is 10/10/10!

Which reminds me of a silly story.

Did you know that 7Eleven has a Slurpee Day? Guess what day it is? 7/11. Get it?! On July 11th (7/11) they hand out free slurpees to the first 1000 people at each location in Canada. And guess who emailed them with that idea before they ever started doing that?

Me!

I thought of it at some point when I was still working, before we had kids. The place I worked at had a 7 Eleven right across the street and I tell ya, they probably could've survived on our business alone - we were constantly running across the street for snacks and especially slurpees! Anyway, that's where I was working when I had the idea of them having a Slurpee Day on July 11th (7/11). Now, I'm likely not the only one who had that idea and I obviously didn't get credit for it, but I really did email them with that idea and they've been doing it for years now!

Feel free to thank me with a slurpee ;)

Mural Project

I took over the superintendant position of our Sunday School this past year. After a meeting with our pastor about wanting to revitalize the look of our kids ministry, we renamed it Adventureland (we want to teach our kids that living for Jesus is an adventure - hard work but the best plan for your life!) and dreamed up a great mural concept for one of our main kids rooms. We wanted to paint a huge mural of a Bible town - we figured it was a theme that wouldn't go out of date and therefore would not need to be redone anytime soon! There is a gentleman in our church who does this type of work and he agreed to do it.

However, because he is extremely talented, he is also extremely busy. Fast forward one year and it just hadn't happpened.

So, the 3-5yr old kids church leader, Charlene, and I decided that if we wanted to get it done, we'd have to do it ourselves! (Her kidz church takes place in this same room so that was her motivation). Charlene did some digging and found a mural she thought would work - from there I found their website, Creative for Kids, devoted to children's ministry with a huge array of options and we picked two different mural kits (Bible Town and Bible Story Vol 1) and combined them to create the look we wanted.

It was very simple to do - basically a gigantic paint by number scenario - but it was definitely time consuming.

First we had to prep the room - and that always takes longer than you think! We stripped the wallpaper border (thankfully it came off quite easily), washed down all the walls, got a painter to come patch the walls for us that first night, primed the dark wall, removed outlets, drawer handles and cabinet doors and then we were finally ready to get started! The murals are printed on transparencies so we enlarged them to the size that suited the room and penciled them in and then started painting as instructed. It was so exciting to see it start to develop! Once we were completely down painting we had to outline every single detail with a gigantic black Sharpie marked (Sharpie is the only name brand to get, let me tell you!). It's amazing how much that made the whole thing pop!

Though we were not able to get too many volunteers to help paint (bad time of year for that as most programs are just ending and everyone needs a breather), we did manage to find babysitters who volunteered their time almost every day that we painted. Unfortunately there was one day we just couldn't get anyone and we definitely didn't get as much done that day - we set the kids up in a large room off our room with baby gates to keep them out but so we could still see them. But Jacob is a momma's boy and if he can see me but not touch me, that's not a good combo. We managed to still get a decent amount done that day, overall it went better than I had anticipated.

A huge thank you to Lori, Kerilynn, Rachel, Alison who each babysat one or two days for us - it was so appreciated! Another huge thank you to those who did manage to sacrifice even a couple hours to come paint - Annette, Karoline, Mark & Victoria - as well as Robyn who came for 3 days at the end to help us finish it off! The church secretary, Faye, helped paint a couple hours and was a huge help in picking up miscellaneous supplies that we had forgotten to pick up, and our music pastor Dwight helped us put back up the cabinet doors (apparently we had taken them down by taking out a lot more screws than was necessary!!). Charlene and I were there for approximately 16 days and several evenings - it was a lot of work, but it was worth it.

And now, finally - before and after pictures for your viewing pleasure!

One of the entrances to the room has now been turned into the Sea of Galilee (not necessarily historically accurate!)

Going counter-clockwise around the room, the far right door in the top picture is the other entrance to the room, and the other two doors are classrooms. Now replaced by houses!

Again moving counter-clockwise, this shot has my office door right in the middle, and then the first or two doors on the left which open up into one large classroom - this was turned into the marketplace - notice the Tapestry Shop, Pottery, Carpentry and Fish Shop. You can see the start of the Inn on the left as well.

Continuing along the same wall we have the two doors that open up into that one large class - this is where the inn is and the beginning of our countryside scene - love the monkeys!

And the final, fourth wall was turned into the countryside.

Here are some of the hard workers!

Here are a few of the fun details!

We're going to get a painter to come in and clear coat the room to give it some protection. Once that's done we need to superglue some googly eyes on the crab - too cute!

We still want to order several Bible time people wall stickers for the final finishing touch - a mom and her baby between the inn and the marketplace, a boy with a fish running in the marketplace, a girl skipping on the path on the countryside, a little boy and his dog by one of the houses, maybe a girl running somewhere if we can squeeze her in.

I'm so happy with how it turned out - and it's even more impressive in person!!