Wow...

I cannot believe how long it's been since I have blogged!  I think that was my longest stretch of not blogging.  We are busy, busy...as you can probably imagine with 5 small children!

We are enjoying this season of life much though.  Manning just turned 6 and is learning to read.  Tapestry is almost 5 and is constantly taking care of her baby dolls.  Cherish is 3 and mostly plays babies with Tapestry.  Liberty just turned 2 and is talking, talking talking.  Jubilee is 8 months old and scooting around.

Jubilee's name certainly suits her well.  She has been an extremely happy baby.  She mostly smiles and laughs, she rarely cries.  She is very easily entertained, and she is certainly never bored as all of her siblings scrap over who gets to play with her at any given moment.  We all think Jubilee is the cutest little thing!  And who would've thought, she's turned out to be a blondey like Tapestry.  And Tapestry is happy about that for sure.

And...I am pregnant!  About 6 weeks I think.  I have not been to the doctor yet.  I am quite nauseous this time, I think more than any other.  That has us wondering if there might be 2 turkeys in here.

We did get moved and settled, and we are loving our new house.  Ideally, I would love to post some before and after pictures at some point.  It was a beautiful transformation executed by my dad and a couple of his cousins.

Hope you are well!  And I hope to check in more often again!

what's up...

The blogging has been sparse, I know.  I Facebook far more than I blog, so feel free to look me up there if you'd like:  Kristin Stegent.

Baby Jubilee is doing great.  She is such a sweet and happy thing.  I think she is just so darn precious.  I stare at her and take lots of pictures with my iPhone everyday.

Manning, Tapestry, Cherish and Liberty have adjusted well.  They all love Jubilee.  And Jubilee seems to love them as well.

It is a busy season of life for us with a new baby, fixing up a new house and getting ready to move here in the next couple weeks.  Thankfully my Dad and some of his guys are doing most of the fixing up at the new house!

Our new house is really turning out to be quite beautiful.  Far more than I was hoping for or expecting. It is really exciting for Ryan and I.  And the kids love the new place too.

Also, I am homeschooling Manning this year for Kindergarten.  We are starting in October as typical school starting fell at the incredibly busy time for us.

That's what's up in our lives right now.  Hoping to blog more frequently again in the future! :)

Jubilee Hope

Jubilee Hope Stegent

July 30, 2012

7 pounds 7 ounces

20 1/4 inches

precious and beautiful

We just adore our new baby girl!

HUGE SALE...

I am having a huge sale at Vintage Rummage.  All necklaces and earrings are marked at $10 or under.  Over 50 pieces.  Check it out if you'd like. :)

busy days...

Quite the lack of blogging, I know!  We have had lots of busy days around here.

We bought a new house.  We have casually looked at houses for about a year.  We weren't determined to move.  We didn't have our house on the market.  We just enjoy looking, and we thought we may find a gem that was meant to be ours.  And we feel that we did.

We found a great house just a couple miles out of town.  Not too much in the country, as I am not much of a country girl and Ryan is not much of a country boy.  It's about 2500 square feet and sits on a couple acres. (We currently live in a 1600 square foot house.)  Some things we love about the new house are the shaded back yard (I love the palm trees!), lots of flat concrete for the kids to ride bikes and such, open floor plan, sunshine beaming in, good amount of space for hosting small groups or get togethers, mostly one story...just one big loft room upstairs, an extra bathroom, and it has 2 garages.  One 2 car garage is attached to the house, and then there is an additional 2 car garage with extra rooms in it detached.  Lots of growing room for us!  The house is in great shape, just outdated in cosmetics.  We thought we'd replace floor up front and paint...and then we'd just update other things along the way.  Well, my dad surprised us with wanting to help us fix up the house up front, and he has also enabled us to be able to stay in our current house while the new one is being renovated.  My dad is a contractor, so construction is what he does.  So we are currently fixing up the new house, and I am amazed by how beautiful I think it's actually going to be.  I have had so much fun picking things like backsplash, flooring and paint colors.  I love that kind of stuff!

We are so thankful...we feel like God orchestrated this whole thing for us, and we are very thankful for my parents and all they are doing to help us in this process!

Here is a before picture of the kitchen.

And here is a picture of the updating in progress.

We closed in the attached garage and are converting it into living space.  I am so excited because I am going to have a big laundry room/family closet and it's going to cut laundry time down quite a bit for me I think.  Also, the kids are going to have a playroom.  A house is a house, a material thing that will fade away, but it is a neat part of life here and I am thankful.

AND...I am 39 weeks pregnant and can hardly wait to go into labor.  I was trying to "hope" it on myself this morning.  I am so very excited about meeting our new baby girl!!! :D

So, this may be the last picture of our little family of 6. :)

Hope you are well, and that you know how very loved you are!

summer days...

Not a lot changes for us when Summer hits, as I already stay home with our kids and none of them are yet school age.  Though, I will be attempting to homeschool Manning for Kindergarten this coming Fall.

Summer is just a fun season though, regardless of whether or not you have been in school the rest of the year.

I have a feeling we are going to have lots of days like this...

Life in it's purest and sweetest form with kids. :)

Tapestry's 4th birthday party...

Tapestry had a rainbow party this year.  I thought it was such a cute party theme.

Can you believe how big my "babies" are getting?!

Trix krispie treats, rainbow fruit tray, different colors of Gatorade, cookie cake.

Tapestry always has less people show to her parties than any of our other kids because it's smack in the middle of graduations and school ending.  She didn't seem to notice and was super happy to have her siblings, a couple cousins and our neighbors as far as kids.

I sat out a bunch of pipe cleaners for crafts.  The kids twisted them into rainbows, lollipops, animals, whatever.

Tapestry and Cherish ate together.  They are becoming such good friends.  So sweet.

It is SO windy in our backyard that it is almost impossible to decorate cute for a party.  And the candles never stay lit, so we moved inside just to blow out candles.

Our kids LOVE sweets and treats, so they were in heaven with the cookie cake and trix krispie treats.  They aren't deprived or anything, but we don't do treats everyday so they think it's super awesome when we do.

Liberty learned how to ride the little four-wheeler by herself during the party.  She was so excited and it was precious!

Tapestry is so cute when she opens presents!  She says stuff like, "Awww!  So cute!  Little bitty tiny frog purse.  I love it!"  Pretty sure that's just like me.  Haha. ;)

Tapestry seemed to feel super special, and I think she had a great time at her rainbow party.  Yay! :)