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Music to the Triplets’ Ears – Birthday Surprises

September 8, 2009 By Laura 4 Comments

There are things our kids / triplets can always count on for their birthday: birthday number pancakes, a whole day or few together, just spent having major family quality time, cake of their choice, lots of love and stories about their birth, and the flying of time.

But they don’t often ask for anything, or expect gifts that we can tell. While we’ve always told them you should never EXPECT gifts from anyone, we’ve always given them something for their birthday! So if they are expecting anything, they are good at hiding it! lol.

So they seemed excitedly surprised when we told them we had a little something for them before lunch, their cake choices, and heading out for an overnight surprise trip.

I love the expressions!

{S} guessed out loud, “A BlackBerry?”, to which I laughed out loud and spontaneously replied with,

…..”YEAH RIGHT!!”

Then {O} said, “They’re I-Pods!”

Well, MP3 players of another brand. Close enough. ; )

Then their big sister had a surprise of her own for them….

$5.00 each to I-Tunes! Cool!

We did think ahead though, to load some music on to the players, the night before, and put their initials on them as well. Because we knew they would have been persistent in asking us to do so, if they couldn’t use them right away.

I just knew these little doo-dads were going to prove to be a BRILLIANT little idea.

They were THRILLED to have one of their own. Even with the strict volume rules. ; )

And I’m telling you, it was the QUIETEST…..

….LUNCH…..

EVER!!!

There is quite a bit more on their birthday celebrations coming up here, there, and who knows when.

We feel so blessed and full of thanks, and that’s always worth celebrating. A LOT!

P.S. Do you have any song suggestions for 7 year olds? So far we’ve uploaded their VBS CD, and a few other choice songs. I’ve started a list of appropriate and positive/happy songs as I hear them. (Singles by Martina McBride, Bob Marley, and anything Christian/worship music…). Stuff with good messages, etc. If you have ANY song suggestions for them we can load on these, we’d love to hear them! When I get a longer list of ideas and suggestions, I’d be happy to share it here if everyone would like that. After all, appropriate/positive/happy songs are great for ALL ages! : )

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Happy 7th Birthday to Our Triplets!!

August 31, 2009 By Laura 12 Comments

7 years ago today, our triplets were born. OH!, what memories!

Of course, they got birthday pancakes. Yes, 7-7-7. The lucky number.

**But LUCK has NOTHIN’ to do with it!**

Stay tuned in the days ahead, for more on the celebrations of each one of these 3!

~ The Richard Family

XOXO

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Our Home Transformation Reveal! – Our Dream: Final Part

August 2, 2009 By Laura 7 Comments

If you’re just joining us, and would like to see the story of our dramatic home transformation, you are welcome to check out the previous parts of the story at the following links:
Part I
Part II
Part III

Some rain came that late afternoon, as the guys hurriedly tried to get the house covered. Most of the second floor was completed at this point, with the exception of {A}’s room and the stairwell.

The next morning the crew showed up, took the tarps off and got back to work. They started on the new cathedral ceiling, and the walls and roof of {A}’s room.

As the day wore on, more rain was coming. The guys got plywood on the new roofs and tar-papered it. At the end of the work day, they re-tarped the completed second floor.

But the rain came that night, REALLY hard. A RAIN STORM. The house was really not sealed in a 100%, with gaps still between plywood and open walls. At one point early in the night, Michael ran over from the beach house we were staying in next door, to see if things were staying protected, and became really overwhelmed with the drips all over the place. He was putting pots and pans all over the house, trying to catch the water coming in, some of which was even running off the tarps edges. There was water coming down from behind the moldings of the doorways, gushing down walls, even filling pockets of water behind the paint of our existing walls. I called Michael at one point, worried he had been gone so long, and he was literally so discouraged he was about to cry. He had run ouf containers, and was running low on hope and high on worry. At one point, where it was 1:00 on the morning, and he was on the roof in the rain, trying to adjust the tarps to save our home. It was one of those situations that really felt like a nightmare, with no one there to help. I felt SO helpless, having to stay with the kids, and he was there for hours, emptying pots, pans and pitchers only to be filled again. It was one of those situations where, we know we have always live a very simple, non-materialistic life. Expanding on our home was the most extravagant thing we had ever done, out of necessity. We had been living in a home the size of the little beach vacation homes in our neighborhood, and it was enough. Even once the babies were born, we remained living in such tiny quarters until they were 4 years old! That is when we started this project. We knew they were going to need bedrooms, so we could have ours back! Even ourt dining room table was at the end of our living room….as there was no dining room and the kitchen was way too small for even a chair. So…..as the rain poured down our existing walls, and even started leaking into on top of the rooms in our basement, we FELT like we were losing even what little we had before we even started construction. It was a long, devastating night.

By the time the crew showed up the next morning, with Stephen (aka Bob the Builder), the rain had stopped. What had happened was not their fault. The weather forecast had not warned of us of THAT much rain, and we all had every reason to believe the house would be protected. So there was really nothing anyone could do. The guys continued on with their work, and they promised they would have the house weather-tight, structurally, for sure by the end of the day. And they did. But in the course of the day, they had to check for proper venting through the roof, on the front most low ceiling of our house-which was existing. As they did, the inside ceiling plaster/sheet rock just started falling to the floor. Turns out the provious owner did a make-shift-do-it-himself job when he possibly enclosed a front porch. We’re just speculating but, whatever was done, was obviously not done properly, and until that day we had no problem and never knew it. SOOOO….there was even MORE house inside to be re-d0ne, that we had never planned to be touched.

From there on out, things went smoothly and really quickly. The sun room was built.

The roofers came. The roofing company, Falcone Roofing Company, is owned by Michael’s brother-in-law. They are real pros, with John (BIL) having high standards of his work and expectations of his crews. They banged it all out in a day, and even installed 3 skylights. It was a beautiful, impeccable job done.

As you can see, all of the windows had been installed too. We were nearing completion.

Now this all may have seemed like forever to you, and it felt that way to us too!! But the truth of the matter is, ALL of this construction was done in a matter of 15 consecutive work days, excluding Sundays. We were really amazed with how fast it all happened, as well as the quality of the work.

A couple of weeks later, after the vinyl siding was installed, it looked like a completely different house…

BEFORE

AFTER

see home transformation remodeling

The house looked like it was ready to be moved right into!! And we did… to plywood floors and insulation, even in rooms that weren’t supposed to be touched at all. We were doing all of the finishing inside, ourselves. Sheet-rocking, plastering, flooring, priming and painting, finish trim on windows and doors. That process happened s l o w l y, and has been going on for 3 years TODAY. To date, the first floor is completely done, (minus the new couch I want, and a few other furniture pieces I dreamed up that Michael can build.) The upstairs is getting there now. But we enjoy the process. The more work we put into our home ourselves, the more we love it. As you can see….the yard has some real needs too. : ) Soon, we’ll be sharing the building and creations of our gardens over this spring and summer. There is LOADS of projects to be done all over our homestead….inside and out. But that’s o.k…..we’ll get it all done over time. It doesn’t all need to be completely done, for us to have that feeling that we really, really love where we are, together: Home Sweet Home.

We hope you enjoyed this 4 part episode of our Extreme Home Makeover. : )

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Our Home Transformation – Our Dream: Part III

July 29, 2009 By Laura 4 Comments

If you’re just joining us, we’ve been sharing the progressive story of our dramatic home transformation, so you are welcome to check out the previous parts of the story at the following links:
Part I
Part II
Before we move on to some real ‘action’, we wanted to take you back inside for a minute….

……re-posting this image, because we want to draw your attention to the ladder you see on the left. (Something happened to the quality of the image but, it’s not worth going back to get the original or fixing. You get the idea, I am sure. ) Now, as you know by now, we had had this little 2 bedroom home, and found ourselves in the very blessed but unexpected position, of triplets joining our family. So, we made do – made the most with what we had – did whatever worked. So we (Michael & I), gave up our bedroom. That became the triplets room for the time being. We actually had our bed in the main living area, for awhile. It worked out nicely for me, with feeding the babies and all. : ) But it was a TAD awkward when the in-laws came to visit. ; ) lol. Anyway, once the babies were weaned, and sleeping through the night pretty well, we were desperate to get the bed out of the main room there. So, being the creative problem-solvers that we are…..we took to bed in the crawl loft!! We put our queen size mattress up there, bedding and all, and that’s where we slept! It was literally a crawl area…..open and overlooking the living space, with pier like ropes that went from one vertical beam to the next. And it had this beautiful, heavy-duty, rustic ladder, to get up there. We always loved that ladder, and our loft! But who knew it would ever become what we came to call, ‘The Love Loft.” : ) It’s funny, because when I was little, I was always a little envious of Laura and Mary Ingalls, getting to go up that ladder to their bedroom in the loft every night. Might be why I found myself looking for our first home with a loft!! But I swear, I never had ANY intentions or plans of sleeping up there! Ours…..there was no way you could stand. There was room to crawl across our mattress, and that was it. The highest point, which was the opening to the living space cathedral ceiling, was about 4 feet, and the ceiling just tapered down to about 2 feet. Michael slept on the inside. : ) But I most always headed up the ladder to bed before Michael, and I loved to say, “Come along, Charles. You need your rest.” Sometimes, if Michael was in the mood to play along, he would respond, “I’ll be right up, Caroline.”….just to make me happy. And it did. : )

I just had to tell you all that. Thanks for amusing me. : ) Oh….and the piece of plywood you see over the front of the ladder, covered the first 2 steps. It was hinged and hook-locked. That was a safety measure to prevent the babies from climbing the ladder. Yes…..we slept in the loft for a LONG time. Until the babies COULD have climbed the ladder. But I’m telling you…I loved it! The skylights were over a few feet from us, and on summer nights, it was awesome.

Well, there’s a little peek for you into our love loft, with the roof ripped off. They needed the school room at least rough framed, so they could rip the roof off and start building the second floor.

Since our loft was literally gone, we were now sleeping on the living room floor. The cathedral ceiling you see, with the skylights I mentioned, were planned to stay. But after a couple of nights and days, the contracted builder decided that it wasn’t that structurally safe for us to be living there, and being there, through this point of the construction. Furthermore, they decided that the cathedral ceiling and peek of the roof as it was, was really more in the way. They wanted to remove it all because they needed to run a main support beam from the left side of the house, to the right. (30 feet long). This beam would be at the lowest end of the pitch you see, off the photo to the left.

Bottom line was, the roof had to go so they could do their work correctly, and so do we!!

We had a matter of an hour or so to get what we needed, and get out. I’m one of those stress packers, especially when it comes to wanting to be sure my kids will have all they need, and I’m a stress-mess when I have a few days to get it all together. But I had an hour. We didn’t even know where we were going!!

We ended up at a hotel with townhouses, not far up the street. We live in a tourist, historical town, so there are plenty of places to stay. Just not plenty of places to stay, affordabley. Well, with the expenses we had going on, $5 wouldn’t have been considered affordable. lol. This place was very comfortable and had all we needed. It was actually 2 floors, lots of beds, and fully equipped kitchen. For only…..$189.00 a night. <gulp> We had no idea how long before we could go home! Well, I think we were there for 3 or 4 nights, when I had a brilliant idea, in my place I have so many of my brilliant ideas……..the shower. You know….white noise….no kids…..I can think in there. Start to finish. I am sure SOMEONE out there can relate. So anyway……it occurred to me, ……. we have an empty beach house right next door to our house! Michael was actually the property manager for it. So I thought….maybe he could call the owner, and we could get some really cheap rent for a week or 2? The idea was still something we could NOT afford at all, but it HAD to be cheaper than $189 a night!!

So Michael called, and the owner told him there was no bookings, and we could stay there as long as we needed. FOR NOTHING.

<Ok…I just need a moment so I can cry again over this unbelievable blessing from God.>

Was someone taking care of us, or what?? It was amazingly generous for the owner to let us stay there for free. Such a GIFT, and one we needed so badly. But then, the fact that it was right next door to our house under construction was too good to be true!! First of all, talk about convenience for anything we needed or forgot. (We could run in our house, if needed, with warning.) But also, just to be able to watch the progress of our dream home being built. I loved that the KIDS could watch it all! Talk about teachable moments!! Do you see the bay window on the right side of the house? That faces our home, where we could see almost everything going on, at all times. One of our boys loved big trucks and construction equipment. They all thought our contractor was “Bob the Builder”. Forgive me, but there was a little bit of resemblance.

So construction continued, and we were enjoying every bit of it from a clean and comfortable space.

The roof was off of a good portion of the house. The living room was open to the sky, there was an open second story on over the kitchen, new school room, {A}’s room, the bathroom and 1/2 of the triplets room.

Looking down into living room. Also visible on upper part of photo is the beam that needed to be installed.

View from second story, former Love Loft, into side sun room.

So the house is pretty much open…..unprotected.

Rain was in the forecast, heading our way. Bad, bad timing. So the crew covered the house with these tarps.

But it was to be a 3 day rain storm, and the tarps were seriously not working well enough…………….

(To be continued…..Here, Final Part)

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A Wild Animal Education for Trio – Elementary Homeschooling

July 28, 2009 By Laura 2 Comments

When I was out shopping for {A}’s birthday, and found those great cookbooks on the bargain shelves at Border’s Book Store, I also scored this HUGE wild animal education book. {O} was with me shopping that day, and she spotted it first. She said “Mama, LOOK at this BIG giraffe book! You love giraffes!” I do….I really do. And all of my kids know it. The book was on the bottom extended shelf, so I turned it to take a look inside, and couldn’t believe how heavy the thing was! It was a big book to manage, 17″ x 24″, but OHHH the gorgeous photos inside! Wild animals of ALL kinds. Beautiful photography, and lots and lots of information about these amazing creatures.

I’m indecisive in stores. I don’t like spending money, really. I wasn’t there for THAT, and it wasn’t the trio’s birthday yet. But man, would they ever love that book! I was pretty sure they would LOVE it. {O} loved it. But I hemmed and hawed for a really long time, anyway. I was getting it, then I wasn’t, then I was, and wasn’t again. It was cheap. Really, really discounted. But would the kids be able to manage a book so big? Would they be able to turn the pages without ruining them? Where would we keep it?

In the end, I got it. And I am SO glad I did!

It has been such a big hit!! I didn’t give it to them right away. I put it away for a couple of weeks, actually. And {O} kept the secret the whole time. But when I did decide to give it to them, I asked them all to sit on the rug, because I was kind of afraid if I let one of them take it, they might drop it on their toe! It would definitely break a toe, or 2. Plus, the only way to look at it was on the floor or table.

Their faces, looking at these photos of these animals, SO big on the pages in front of them, was proof that it was a good purchase.

They were all over it, looking at all of the pages and photos at first, and chatting up a storm.

They talked a lot about the inside of the crocodile’s mouth being yellow. And such a weird yellow too. Why was it yellow, they wondered?

They kept looking through it again and again, taking turns turning the pages. They just couldn’t get enough of seeing all of these animals, and wanted to look through again and again.

But then they started reading some – which I had hoped and figured they would. I mean….the book is a wealth of information on so many very interesting animals! They love reading, and they usually ate this stuff up, so that was my real push in buying it.

Did you know that until recently, it was believed that there were only 2 species of elephants? African elephants, and Asian elephants. But genetic testing has proven there is actually a 3rd species, the African Forest elephant.

Did you know, that if you shave a tiger down to it’s skin, their stripes would still be there?

They spent a really long time, sharing the book that first day.

There’s my giraffes. I haven’t got on the floor myself, YET, to read all about them, but I will! You can bet on it.

The kids have already taken in so many facts. Is a vast knowledge about wild animals really going to be super useful in their lives? Probably not, unless they go into some wild animal field of work. But this book is so valuable and educational in so many other ways. First of all, it continues fostering the fun in their learning. They are definitely exercising their reading skills, which is already very fluent. They read like little adults. But what’s more, when they come to a new word, they will always ask me what it means. They do that reading any book. Because they want to know, in the context of that sentence, before they read on. So their vocabulary is really growing too.

Once they looked at it 4 or 5 times together, and took turns reading parts of different pages together too, they decided they should each have a turn having it all to themselves.

At some point in every day since, every one of the kids has taken this book out and got back down on the rug with it for awhile. They love to read it, and share whatever it is they are fascinated with, with whoever is around that will listen.

For now, the book is leaning against the wall by my desk here. I have had the joy of seeing the little excited expression on their faces, a few of the times they have come to get it, and I happen to be sitting here at the time. It just re-enforces to me what a wise little investment it was.

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7 years ago today, our triplets were born. OH!, what memories!

Of course, they got birthday pancakes. Yes, 7-7-7. The lucky number.

But LUCK has NOTHIN’ to do with it!

Stay tuned in the days ahead, for more on the celebrations of each one of these 3!

Amazon Affiliates

**But LUCK has NOTHIN’ to do with it!**