So Glad It's Monday!

I know, that's so counter cultural, but if you knew the kind of weekend we had, you'd be happy too!  I'm about to clue you in on how this weekend wend down at the Stout house but before I do, I want to warn you that it involves lots of throw up and bugs.....this is not for the faint hearted, so if that's you, turn away now and ask me for the censored version later :]

Alright, here we go...

Friday in our home is pizza picnic Friday.  We always watch a  movie and we either make pizza or purchase it to be eaten in our living room on our picnic blanket during the movie. This week was no different except we added a little something special...we decided to make some home made cookies after the food was done!  I got a lot of comments and likes on this picture of little Sammy making sure the cookies were cooking correctly...

We played with the kids after 2 cookies each then put them to bed!  Johnny and I watched the movie Hugo...if you haven't seen it, you should!  It was really good...our kids are a little young for it even though it's PG and I'm glad we decided to wait till they went to be to watch...I won't spoil it for you :]

 Once our movie was done, Johnny and I decided to watch a couple episodes of the Big Bang Theory...we love that show!

Anywho, around midnight, we decided to head to bed...Johnny decided to check on the kids while I went to brush my teeth.  I hear him call for me and he tells me to stay out of the kids room.  Turns out Sammy is asleep on her tummy with puke all around her {I don't do well with puke smell}.  It was on her sheets, on the wall, on the floor, on her...it was everywhere and she was ASLEEP....how long had she been asleep in her own puke??  HOw did we not hear her get sick? Why didn't Joey come get us {they share a room}?  We felt so guilty!!

Johnny stripped Sam, put her in the bath and got most of the nasty off of her then handed the bath duties off to me....I bathed her and washed her hair out while Johnny stripped the sheets and moved Joey into the boys room so she could continue to sleep and get out of the smelly room!  We got Sammy dressed and set up the Stout infirmary down stairs.  The Infirmary consists of our love seat covered in every beach towel we own along with a puke bucket and a blankie.  We get a few jammie shirts and washrags anticipating that she will get sick again, which she did :[

I tried to calm her down and get her to go back to sleep in the infirmary all the while, Johnny is upstairs with the Lysol, Resolve and elbow grease! The washing machine started up and little did we know, it wasn't going to get a rest this entire weekend...more on that later!

Sammy got sick again and then around 2am, she fell asleep and Johnny was done cleaning {I need to take a moment to say I have the best husband EVER!!!}.  He came downstairs and sent me upstairs to get some sleep {I had a headache all day :[ and it wasn't getting any better!}.  Again, best hubby ever!!

Around 4am I get a tap on the shoulder..."Babe, I need you to go downstairs, the smoke detector is beeping and we don't have any 9 volt batteries...I need to run to WalMart."  I get up and head downstairs and dose in and out...next thing I know, I wake up to go get my own pillow from my bed and Johnny was home and upstairs...he traded places with me and I got to sleep in the bed while he took couch and puke duty.

We all woke up on Saturday and had a lazy day...Sammy threw up for the last time at 8am.  We missed Isaiah's bday party, but we got to snuggle and watch movies all day while Sammy fell in and out of sleep...

Sammy was up and asleep and up and asleep...finally she woke up hungry!  She wasn't too excited that we limited her water and food intake...sorry Sammy :[

 

Like I sad, we took Saturday easy...Joey and I did get out of the house for a quick trip to Hobby Lobby and Walmart {Jo has had a little cough for the past few days so we went to get some Tussin :]}.

Later that night, we bathed the girls and got them ready for bed...we read stories and I looked over and Joey was really scratching her head.  I looked into her hair and discovered moving BUGS....GROSSSSSSSS!!!  This time I was calling Johnny.."Babe, look in her hair and tell me that's not lice.".  Johnny responded with an affirmative on the lice front and I got up and left the room...didn't say a word, just left to go to the store for some lice shampoo.

We got through treating the girls around 9:30pm.  While I was gone, Johnny did more laundry...not only the girls bed linens, but the boys since Joey had slept there on Friday night, and ours just in case.  We had to crank the heat on our washer and dryer in order to kill all bugs and eggs that might be lurking in our house!

After the second time we got the girls ready for bed, Johnny treated my hair.  That's love people!  When you spend your Saturday night de lousing your wife, you are AMAZING!!!  Later he said he never saw anything in my hair, but better safe than sorry!!!

We finished up the weekend by watching church from our couch.  I'm so glad we can do that!  If you ever need to, just click on http://www.christfellowshiponline.tv and join us!  Anyway, we were in no state to get out of the house, so we stayed in!

 

Johnny's mom had us over for dinner on Sunday!  What a blessing that was!  Then we headed up to the church for Financial Peace University with our Life Group!  

So.....The Stouts are glad it's Monday! I hope you had a better weekend than we did, and if you made it to the end of this story, you rock!  I mainly wanted to jot this down for my own recollection :]

Labor Day 2012

This past Labor Day we decided to head down to Richardson {sounds like it's far right?!?  Only 30 minutes tops :]} to see my parents!  Johnny had tons of work to do for school, so I packed up the girls and we made it a mommy daughters day!  We got to Nonny and Dedecek's around 10a and chatted with Great Mother {this is what my kids call my mom, Bigman and Grandmother}!

 Bigman pulled out the sprinkler so the girls could run around for a minute and cool off.  Joey was having a moment and only wanted to go in after Sammy was almost done :] { I love you Joey, but let's face it, you don't like change sweet girl and when I told you we left our sprinkler at home and were going to use Nonny and Dedecek's, you kinda went sour :[}  They had a blast...I mean who doesn't running through water on a hot day?

 

  

 

After sprinkler time, we loaded up the car once more and went to Chili's for lunch :]  Yummy!!!  At Chili's they are doing their fundraiser for St. Jude Hospital.  The girls could color a chili pepper to be hung if we made a donation.  Joey was all about it an colored her chili....only when it was time to hand the pic over, she decided maybe we should just give the money and she would keep the picture for herself :]

After lunch it was daddy daughter craft time!  I saw this idea on some website and decided my dad and I could make this for way less than $44.95!  Bigman and I went to Home Depot and got some wood, came home and sketched it out! 

Now it's time to cut it out!  Not sure how he does it, but Bigman is handy with the tools and cut all this detail out in no time!

Bam!  Finished product!  Our last name is Stout and this letter will be hanging on our door or on a wall in our home very soon!  I actually waiting so long to get this post done because I wanted a finished pic for the post, but I have not gotten around to it just yet, so I'll post that as an update later!

While Bigman and I were outside cutting the S out {OK, so Bigman cut, I watched and offered bottled water and words of encouragement :]} mom took the girls inside for some rest time which means they watched some Dora and layed on the couch :]

Once Bigman and I were done with our craft project, I rounded up the girls to head home!  Obviously they had fun because they were zonked out in the backseat before I got out of the neighborhood!  For Sammy that's not a big deal...the kid can fall asleep in a car, but for Joey who never falls asleep in the car, this was huge :]

 

So how was your labor day?  Did you do anything fun?  Did you stay in?  Can you even remember back 2 weeks ago??  Stay tuned for a post on the final S project!  Hopefully coming soon :]

1st Day of School 2012-2013

Well, after 2 weeks of school, things have finally settled down long enough for me to write about the girls 1st day of school :]  Both Joey and Sammy are attending Our Savior Lutheran in McKinney and they are both loving it!

For the first day of school, I got up with the girls and made them yummy waffles, got them dressed and we were out the door in record time!

 We let the girls pick out their cloths everyday and this is what they came up with!  Perfect!!

I decided to get a little crazy and in hindsight, this probably wasn't the best idea, but I interviewed the girls on the way to school...yes, I was driving...yes, I know I shouldn't have, but it's cute, so I'm posting it :]

I felt like a crazy lady carrying all their gear...school supplies, rest mats, back packs, kids...they actually carried their own bags and they walked, but my hands were full.

I dropped Joey off first and we got all her supplies in her locker, put her snack and drink on top of the locker and she sat down at her table ready to color...no worries, not a tear, just a "bye mom, bye sis".  I do love that about our kids!  When all the other kids are crying and ours just walk in and tell us "bye" it makes me feel good.

Next was Sammy's drop off...her class is on the other end of the school and she is SLOW, but we eventually got there.  We got all her stuff in her hallway cubby and I knocked on the locked door to her class room {all doors are locked on the outside so people can't come in and steal your kids :]}.  The door was opened by her teacher Miss Beth and in went Sammy....I asked if they needed anything else and Miss Beth who was blocking the door so that 3 screaming children wouldn't escape said "nope, see you at 2:15" and closed the door.  It was at this moment I was glad to not be "one of those parents" who was shedding tears as their little ones toddled into their class.  Since Sammy snuck past, I didn't get a hug or kiss...nothin!  Oh well, such is life and I would have been blocking in those kids too, so kudos to Miss Beth :]

Anyway, I went to work and came back to get the girls.  There is a playground on the property of their school, so I took the girls over there since their teachers said they had a great day!

We played, we sweated and we left :]  When we got home, I decided to do our annual first day of school interviews...

Joey went first...

Joey 4 

 Sammy went second...

Sammy 2 

If you want to check out Joey's previous years, you can go here for 2 years old and here for 3 years old.  It's fun to look back and see how much Joey has changed and how different she and Sammy are :]

We are praying for a blessed year at OSL and are excited to see what the girls are going to learn!

Time to Break the Silence :]

So it's been a while, and a lot has gone on.  I don't think I'll try and go back to fill in the gaps, but who knows, I might get motivated and let y'all in on all that's been going on!  I wanted to write today so that I wouldn't forget where we are at this moment.  Here are a few things going on at Casa De Stout...

• Joey and Sammy start preschool tomorrow....Joey's 3rd year and Sammy's 1st year.  I'm excited to see how the girls do at their new school.  Sammy is crazy and it will be fun to see how they handle that action :]
• We are sooooooo close to being certified foster parents I can't even stand it!  All we are waiting on is our home study and that can't get here soon enough.  We have a room prepared for 2 boys and we are hoping that they will be ages 5 and younger.  If you are the praying type, please pray we can get our home study done soon so we can fill the room with our future kiddos.
• Johnny and I stepped down as Life Group leaders for a time.  We have so much going on right now that it really doesn't make sense for us to be doing everything.  This is really hard for me...the whole saying "no" thing, but thankfully the Lord he doth provide!  Our long time friends Kelli and Brian will be taking over the group and we will be making a seamless transition starting tonight actually :]
• We are about to go through Financial Peace University at church.  I can't wait to see what we learn and to find out how we can be better stewards with what God has blessed us with.
• We rearraged the garage :]
• We just made our own laundry soap today....I know, we are dorks
• Showered With Love is doing well and we are about to launch a whole slue of products!

OK, so those are the highlights...more to come soon, I just had to start with this to break the silence....More Stout family goodness coming your way soon!

Craft Night :]

So I wanted to get the girls together for a little crafting, wine, food and fun mainly because I had some stuff to get done and needed a little friend motivation!  We all had our projects that we wanted to do, so everyone came over and we got em done!  There was some learning curve and even a surprise along the way!

Here's Liz getting ready to sew Willa a new dress.....  

Amanda was making stuff for Madison's party on her Cricut....

 Kristen took a chance and learned how to sew!  She came with 2 projects in mind...reveal later :]

 Kelli was ready to learn how to sew as well, and since the machine was giving us some troubles, she had to hand sew some ribbons on her project....

 Make sure to measure twice and cut once :]  

Craft night was going great, we were sewing, cutting and having a great time chatting!  All of a sudden I realized we hadn't even cracked open the wine yet!  Now Kelli's on a diet, Kristen doesn't drink, and Liz brought some white wine {yuck} so I looked to Amanda to share my red.  I asked if she wanted a glass and she said something like "no thanks".  I said "why not?????". And she innocently said "I'm pregnant".

Jaws drop and screaming commence!  Liz said "how can I even sew after that?".  Check out the faces of our reaction to the great news.....

I can't tell you how excited I am for you Amanda!!!!  What a blessing baby #4 will be!  I know you weren't expecting this and we know God laughs at your timing and plans all the time, but I also know that God is in control and his blessing will rain down on you and this new baby!!!  I can't wait to meet him or her :]

Here's the first Baby Bump pic!!!!!

That was the surprise, now back to craft night.....

Check out that technique :]

 I had to get in on that cricut action making some stuff for my friend Tonya's baby shower!

Here's some of the finished products......

Kristen and baby Luedke #4 modeling the bubble skirt Kristen made for Sophie!

Here's the dress Liz made for Willa Bean :]

 Love this lady!!!

Kelli modeling her crib teething pads for Brewer's crib!

 And Kristen with project #2....a nursing cover for her friend's baby shower :]

The girls stayed over until about Midnight and we had tons of fun!  Our next craft night is coming in May and I can't wait to create more fun things!  I wonder if there will be any fun announcements made in May?

Brewer is 1!!

Brewer's farm was in full swing for his 1st bday and we were glad to be there to celebrate with the little cowboy!  Here's our motley crew dressed up in our gear :]

Here's the bday boy in deep thought about his 1st year :]

Kelli had lots of cute things for the kids to do!  This was Joey's attempt at making a pig balloon.....not quite sure if you would have guessed that on your own though :]  She really is smart, but somehow that doesn't translate to balloons and stickers :]

We also played pin the tail on the donkey :]  Even the adults got in on the fun!!!  Go Louis :]

Kristen looks thrilled to be playing :]

Then it was time to head outside to find the animals that escaped from the barn!  They were lost in the hay!

Nothing like a good old fashioned bean bag toss people :]

Pretty sure Isaiah beat us all, but he did have some help :]

The Robinson's were obviously having fun :]

The finale was some yummy cake!!!!  It was the cutest thing and tasted so yummy!!!

Happy Birthday Brewer!  We are so glad we know you and can't wait to see what a fun young man you grow up to be!  

Kelli and Brian...way to keep him going for an entire year!!! Congrats you two :]

Silly Girls!