Painting and gardening... how FUN!

This is just going to be a fun post highlighting the past few days in my life.

First off, bright and early on Tuesday morning my mom walks into the room and says, "Meli, how about we paint your room today?" I was like, "Sure!" We had been talking about it for awhile now and had been planning to do it this Spring/Summer but the day had come where mom just felt like we needed to get it done. So we started by moving all the the furniture that was in my room, out.

Here is a 'before' shot. Don't you just love the color schemes?

Beginning our work. It's already starting to look better!

Mom had the job of going around the edge of the whole ceiling. She did fantastic!

The last little bit of green is almost GONE! For good! Yippy! :)

And now the last little bit of pink is almost gone for good as well!

Okay, so sometimes music just gets to me. It's either that or the smelling of paint all day long... you decide. :)

Almost done with the whole room.

My happy little painters were amazing! And I could not have done this without them.

The next morning all the paint had dried so we started to clean my room before redecorating it.

My bed frame, Hope Chest, night stand, and vanity shown here.

Moving box springs is not always very easy. But my brothers did an amazing job and didn't break anything!

It helps to have brothers who can lift all the heavy stuff.

This piece of furniture, that my mom and sister are lifting, and the rocking chair are the only two things that don't belong to me. Everything else is mine as an heirloom from my great-grandmother.

The finished product!!! I am SOOOOoooo very happy with how it all turned out!

*sigh* Isn't it just lovely? :) A HUGE 'thank you' to my family for helping me!!

Now these shots are from today. Daddy decided he wanted to start planting the garden before it gets too hot out here. Here are a few pictures to see what they were doing today...

The man who can do it all: My daddy! :D

It's starting to look really nice. Now all they have to do is put down the seeds.

I love jumping shots. So here I will leave you with a quick peek into what the girls were doing all day while the boys worked in the garden.

Answer: PLAYING!!!!! :)

God bless each and everyone one of y'all! Have a wonderful rest of your week!

~Meli

Happy birthday to the Man of the house

This past Sunday was the birthday of our amazing father! He isn't perfect but he is the perfect daddy to all of us kids and he is the perfect husband for our mother. Our Dad has had to put up with a lot because of having 14 children. But through it all he has stayed faithful to his Father in heaven and he has loved us all even though at times we didn't deserve it. He is an amazing man of God and we are all so very thankful to have him in our lives.

Happy 49th birthday, Daddy!!!

May God continue to shine His face upon you, my amazing daddy! And my you always seek His will in your life.

Love you so very much!!!
~Meli

Liberty Day 2010

Liberty Day has come and gone again. I cannot believe that this past time on March 20th was my families third time celebrating Liberty Day up in near Chicago. We had a wonderful time listening to the speakers and visiting with friends. All thanks goes to the Lord who saw fit to allow us to get all the costumes ready in plenty of time for the celebration. :) Without His help (and some help from my mom) I would have never been able to finish all these costumes in three weeks.

Here are some pictures from the amazing time we had... Enjoy!

Dr. Paul Jehle speaking on Perversion of Equality. He is an amazing speaker and I really enjoy the way he explains things. He makes history come alive with the stories he tells.

After listening to two different sessions by Mr. Herbert Titus and Dr. Paul Jehle, we went down to the gym to eat the yummy food we had brought for lunch.

This is me feeding Jess while Elaina just smiles. :)

Mr. Herbert Titus teaching us.

Before the last session was over Tiffany needed us all to come to the gym to practice all three of the songs we will be performing for her wedding. Since most of the instrumental quartet lives up there close to Chicago we decided it would be a perfect opportunity for all of us to get some practicing in.

Here Adrianna and Elaina are waiting their turn to sing.

Dad's going over the words again just to make sure he has got it down. While Mom looks so beautiful, staring at her hands. :)

The sweetest little girl that is always full of smiles.

The AMAZING quartet, and let me say that again just so you realize how truly AMAZING they really are!!! Here the amazing quartet is getting ready to play for the first group of singers.

Ahhhh.... **happy sigh** Beautiful music accompanied by beautiful voices.

Now it's our turn! :) Again, the quartet did wonderful while we needed a little practice actually singing with them.

After practicing we were all really happy with how it turned out.

Here Jess, Becca, I are getting a picture together and since Natalie cannot be separated from me for more than a moment, she hopped in the picture too. :D

Here Mom and Dad might look like they are ready for a fight but let me assure you they are just having a good time talking with Mrs. Price and Mrs. Vest.

After practice was dinner and let me tell you all these boxes were a wonderful sight to see! Pizza for everyone! :)

Something I can't decide: are the pizza's out of place with the Colonel dressed people. Or are the people out of place because they are eating pizza? And did they even have pizza back in the Colonel days?

After dinner I took Peace for awhile so that Whitney could eat her dinner. Peace didn't like all the noise in the room so here I am singing softly into her ear. She loved it and calmed down after awhile.

I am not sure what to say on this picture. Except that Peter looks pretty normal and Ashton... Um... well, not so much. :)

Mommy listening to Elaina tell some amazing story from what happened that day.

And the day sadly had to come to a close. But first was the night festivities! There was music and laughter simultaneously filling the room.

A rather strange shot of Nathan, Peter, and Mom. They look happy!

The Erberantey's accompanied by Heirs of Baird. It was great fun to listen to!!

And oh my! What is this? Is that Mr. Sanford standing up there for the 2nd Virginia Convention? Indeed yes it is! Joshua Erber/Patrick Henry was losing his voice and he wanted to make sure he had enough left for the famous speech. So the behind the scenes crew came up with a lovely idea! They had my daddy read the two opposing propositions to the audience. And might I say he did a WONDERFUL job as did all the people in the play!!!!

They even made my dad wear a real white wig. Ain't he cute?

The 2nd Virginia Convention taking place...

"Give me Liberty!!!!"

"...Or give me death!!!"

Here we all are in our costumes for the day. I must say they turned out even better then I had expected.

My amazing parents that I love so much!!

And thus ends our post about Liberty Day. It was a wonderful day had by all and we cannot wait for next year to come!!! If you missed out on this years you should definitely try to make it to next years. It is well worth it. Oh and just in case you were wondering... next year? Everyone in my family is wearing the same costumes! *grin*

God bless y'all! Have a wonderful rest of the week!

~Meli