Holladay Updates One-by-One: Marcie

I've been pretty busy this spring and summer tackling some big projects. First in March I pulled out the big bushes in front of our house. Spencer was a huge help digging around them and being my support as I was also feeling at the peak of my morning sickness. In the end our neighbor came to our rescue and helped pull some out with his 4-wheeler. We planted azaleas and a rhododendron and some perennial flowers. It looks great now.

I spent late spring scrapbooking like crazy and getting all caught up. It was fun setting goals each day of what I could get done and having the kids encourage me. They love looking through them and reminiscing.

Most of June was spent tearing off wallpaper, plastering, sanding and finally painting the kitchen and 2 baths. It was an exhausting task, but the end result is worth it. We are getting new countertops on Monday for the kitchen and bathrooms and after those are installed I want to put in new pulls and knobs on all the drawers and cupboards and then touch up paint around the house. House and yard projects are never ending!

July I've spent a lot of time on lesson plans and figuring out what we're going to learn in each of our group subjects. We are starting school July 29 so that we can take time off for the baby and Thanksgiving and Christmas and still finish the semester by Christmas.

When I've needed a break from school plans I've done a lot of food preparation things: grinding wheat and making bread, grinding corn for cornmeal, making granola bi-monthly, picking blueberries or blackberries and making jam, harvesting tomatoes from our garden and chopping and freezing them or making salsa, cooking large batches of meat and freezing it, etc. One of my favorite things to do is de-junk and reorganize, so I've done a bit of that for breaks too.

The highlights for me were our trips. I took the kids to the Smoky Mountains for a few days around my birthday and loved the cool, fresh air and days of hiking and picnicking. At the end of May I took Kylie to a homeschool conference in Virginia and had a blast. I've never been on a trip like that with an older child and it was so much fun hanging out together, going to classes (she went to youth conference classes and I went to the parent ones), and not having any little ones to watch out for. It was a big break for me and my only regret is that we didn't stay longer!

I also loved the week my sister came and took my older kids to pageant practice. It was fun only having little ones and a quiet house. Then I enjoyed going down to Florida and having so many other adults to talk to all day and night. I loved watching my kids have a blast with their cousins and aunts and uncles.

The only picture of me I could find is this one where we went to Denny's after finding out the sex of the baby. A few weeks before the ultrasound we did the cake test and I cut into the blue side, so we were expecting a boy and it is a boy! I am officially due October 28, but I am hoping for an early November baby, just to be done with all the Halloween festivities. Spencer is hoping he will be born in October because his birthday is in October. We'll see!