Rethinking Christmas

We came across this short film from another blog Chris frequents by Justin Taylor. We'd encourage you to take the 10 minutes to watch and consider!

That's Christmas (Short Film) HD from St Helen’s Church on Vimeo.

Further, here are a couple links about. . .yup! You guessed it. . .Santa Claus!

Santa Claus with the Baby in Bethlehem (part 1)

Santa Claus with the Baby in Bethlehem (part 2)

All sewn out!

I feel like all I've been doing for the last two months is sewing, sewing, and more sewing. It's been fun, but amidst all the other happenings of life, it has been a lot. I had two craft shows--one here in Louisville and one in Michigan and many other orders as well. It was very exciting to see all of the inventory I had slowly start to dissipate and make a few bucks in the process. In fact, I made enough to buy myself a KitchenAid stand mixer, which I have wanted for a long time and am so excited to use! I have a few more projects to do for Christmas and then I think I will take a break for a little while. Don't tell the boys, but I am going to be attempting to make them some superhero capes for Christmas. I'll try to post some pictures if they turn out okay. I'll leave you with a couple of pictures from my show here in Louisville. Thanks to all the ladies who purchased things from me!

This first picture is of my dear friend Bonnie who hosted my show in Louisville!

These next two picture are just a few of my products.

Snow Day!!!

This past Monday Chris had school cancelled because we got about an inch of snow! Being from Michigan, this still amazes us, but we don't doubt that the roads out by his school were pretty icy! Of course the boys view any snow as a chance to make a snowman and were just itching to get outside and play. Since the temps were only around 10 degrees or so with the windchill around 0 degrees, Chris and I had no desire to join them! They weren't successful in making a snowman, but had fun nonetheless. Here are a few pics documenting their adventures.

Give Me One Minute

Here is the hip-hop performance of the year (at least in our home) where Chris and the boys show us how it's done. . .or something! These make for precious moments spent as a family during the evening of our first blistery, snow filled day of the 2010 winter. Though my boys are not as polished as, say, Lecrae or Flame (I've put a sample of their music below as well), and our videography is a bit on the fuzzled side, I do thank God for the heart of worship shown here. Enjoy! (feel free to watch closely and listen intently more than once)




Lecrae comes with high accolades from my husband. Here is a sample!

Flame is another Gospel beating hip-hopper. . .he also goes to our church (that's fun!). Enjoy!

a little update...

It has been a month since I have posted anything and a lot has happened in the Rairick home and I promise I have good reasons...

The first and biggest reason is that we are expecting our fourth child come early June. I have easily been the most tired and the most nauseous this time around. I'm sure it has nothing to do with my three other boys! :)

The Louisville Zoo has a Halloween Party on the weekend nights during the month of October. While we don't usually do anything for Halloween, we decided to try this out. We went in mid-October and they had all sorts of characters dressed up throughout the zoo and the kids got a few pieces of candy each. The boys had a great time and even Elliot walked the entire zoo despite the stroller we had brought along. He was really cute! Here's a picture from the night.


Chris had a week off of school for fall break. It was so refreshing to have him home for a week, which was probably one of my worst weeks for nausea. Owen also had outpatient surgery that week from which he has recovered well. Despite the surgery, we were still able to do some fun things that week. We went to the park and took some family pictures. We went to Huber's Orchard and picked pumpkins with my mom who came into town the last part of the week to help with the other boys during Owen's surgery.


My friend Bonnie is hosting a show for me and display/sell some of my homemade products in a couple of weeks. I am hoping to post some pictures of the different products as I get them completed. Needless to say, the tiredness/nausea has effected my sewing as well!

room time

Every day Caeden has room time while I do Owen's lessons and while Elliot naps. This helps to keep Owen focused during school and to give me a rest in the afternoon. Here is what Caeden came up a couple of weeks ago during his room time:

tree tales

Once again I am back to tell a funny story about Caeden. This past Saturday, Chris took Owen and Caeden to the park for Owen's art lesson. His lesson had him drawing things from nature. So, Owen and Caeden would run off and find some things (like acorns, seeds, tree branches, etc.) and bring them back to Chris so Owen could draw them on his paper. The lesson also had Owen find an interesting tree to draw. Well, at one point, Owen found such a tree and yelled this back to his Daddy, and Caeden quickly replied, "Yeah, but I can't pick it up and bring it to you!" Chris assured him that it was okay to not pick up an entire tree! The things 3 year olds say!

is it fall yet???

I love fall. My first 26 years were spent in Michigan where the colors are beautiful, the temperatures mild, and no snow! I don't care a ton for hot weather so fall is a welcome relief from the suppressing heat, especially here in Louisville. As I write this it is 95 degrees! 95 degrees at the end of September! So needless to say, I decorated my house for fall a few days ago in the hopes the that temperatures will start reflecting my decorations soon!!

Here is my fall wreath. It is actually a Christmas wreath and I just add fall berries to it to make it look like a fall wreath. There is no way I am buying a wreath for all seasons!

And here is my table runner (that I made) and some pumpkins with berry wreaths candles (that I made)! I love this decoration but it never makes it to my table because my table is never clear enough or not being used by crazy boys to have decorations on it! Oh well, maybe some day!

This year I made a couple of these paper circle garlands!

This is my fall banner. I have made these for every season/holiday.

bunk bed boys!!!

This past weekend my parents came to town with bunk beds in tow! Owen and Caeden are absolutely loving their new bunk beds! We've only had a couple of falls off the ladders :) We are so thankful to have them! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Michigan for driving them down, helping to get the mattresses, and putting them together!

a little sewing...

I took a sewing class my very last semester of college. I honestly left there every time with an atrocious headache. I think I spent more time ripping seams than sewing them, but I am so thankful now that I had an opportunity to learn the basics. I love trying my hand at new things so this past summer I made myself a purse and some other fun things to go in it!

Here is the purse. I will probably never be making these to sell but it was fun. I was able to find fabric in my favorite color combination orange/turquoise!

Here is a wallet and checkbook cover as well. I have a stack of fabric to make checkbook covers with to sell but once again, I am not so sure about the wallet. It was a fun challenge but I made some mistakes and I 'm not sure it would ever look good enough to actually charge people for it!
Here is a picture of the inside of the wallet and the beauty of all my mistakes! The zipper is crooked and the credit card pouches are not quite right! One side is a little big and one side a little small!
Here is a picture of some zippered pouches that I have in my purse. One is for gift cards/coupons, another is for receipts and the last is for miscellaneous stuff that I don't want floating around my purse like chap stick and a pen and so on!

And here are a couple of pictures of some zippered pouches that I have for sale! Each one measures about 5" by 7". They would make a great make-up bag or change purse or one of the uses I mentioned above.

Each pouch is fully lined, has a coordinating ruffle in the front, and has a square bottom so it stands up. I am charging $8 each. Any questions please email me at crbuttons@hotmail.com.

happy birthday!

We celebrated Chris's 30th birthday on Tuesday!

This is a picture from our vacation (just the two of us!!!) to the Red River Gorge back in May for my 30th birthday. We had a great date Tuesday night out to P.F. Changs! Thanks Matthew and Annie for watching the boys!!! We had also had a family party over the weekend with Chris's mom (who was in town for the weekend) and his brother's family.

I am so grateful to God for my husband who loves me and our boys so well! I love you babe! Below is a picture of Chris and the boys taken last fall and is probably one of my most favorite pictures of all my "boys" ever!

If I were bacon...

This is Caeden and he has been known to say some of the funniest things. The other day I was cooking some bacon to go with a meal. I was standing a little bit away from the stove but the bacon suddenly popped and grease literally "flew" straight into my eye. Of course I screamed in pain. But Caeden with a very serious face says, "Mommy, if I were bacon, I wouldn't do that!" How sweet is he?

Homeschool Update

Well, we have been offically homeschooling for a month now so I thought I would take a minute and do a little update. Overall, Owen is doing great and enjoying learning and our schedule seems to be working out well with the other boys as well! Praise the Lord!

Phonics/Reading

We have been working on phonics for about a year and a half now and Owen seems to be making some good progress. In general, he is able to read faster even though he is still at the point of sounding out letter by letter. This month in particular he has learned some digraphs (i.e. "th" sound, "sh" sound and "ch" sound) as well as continuing to review consonant blends. We will be getting into long vowel sounds this next month so we will see how that goes!

Math

This is Owen's first time really studying math and he is doing great! We did a very little amount last year for his preschool. Before we started he could count to 10 well and then got all jumbled up with the teen numbers. Today he counted to 100 with practically no help from me at all! He has really enjoyed the hands-on aspect of math and I think it is helping him to grasp it more easily. He can also write all his numbers now and knows the days of the week and can distinguish between his left and his right, which I have found to be so helpful!

Handwriting

We are working through a workbook which is teaching him the correct way to make his letters, which he is doing well with, but I am trying to make that transfer to when he writes all the time and not just during his handwriting lesson which has a tendency to be a little more difficult.

Art

Chris is doing art lessons with Owen once a week, because he is artistic and I am really not! (Owen has had a love for art/drawing since he was probably around 3 and spends the majority of his free time drawing or coloring.) They have done two lessons and I was hoping to scan them and post them, but my husband needs to teach me how to work our scanner, because I can't seem to figure it out! So hopefully I can post them soon! Owen has really enjoyed his lessons and I think he loves having that special time with Daddy!

In addition to these official subjects, we try to have a individual Bible time every day as well as read through a book series called the "Book of Life" which is a summary of the whole Bible. We also to a read-aloud time before Elliot's nap. Right now we are reading the Chronicles of Narnia and we are on book #4 Prince Caspian. Yes, our days are full but it has been a joy for me to be teaching and instructing our sons, not only in school but also and more importantly in the Word of God and how that speaks into their lives as boys who will, Lord-willing, one day grow into young men!

Superhero Monday

Last night the boys had a great time wrestling with their Daddy and being superheroes. They are boys through and through and love anything that involves their "big" muscles, attacking bad guys, and pretend "weapons" of any sort. The pictures are just too cute not to share!

Here is Spiderman (Owen) and Captain America (Caeden) and Elliot James who doesn't have a costume to fit him yet but he doesn't let that keep him from getting in on the action!

Spidey and Captain America taking a break from crime-fighting to pose for a picture.

Captain America showing us his fierce superhero face!

Persistence and Pleasure

The days of dodging parked cars, moving cars, drainage gates and uneven parking lot pavement within our apartment complex may have come to an end. Over the last year and a half, or so, Chris has sought to teach Owen and Caeden to ride a bike. However, he has been met with little interest and the aforementioned dodgings. Until recently! I recommended that he take the boys to a nearby school for a change. And, well, we've been pleasantly surprised by our boys' persistent pleadings to "go ride our bikes!" and our own pleasures in seeing our sons "fly" off into the adventures of boyhood. Hope you enjoy!

realistic expectations

When I started this blog, I had the expectation of posting around 3-5 times/week, but this has not been a reality for a couple of reasons. As this is primarily a family/sewing blog:

1. In order to get all of Owen's schooling in, we stay home every day and do the same not real exciting things every day, thus not much to blog about.

2. I am so tired by the end of the day that I haven't gotten nearly as much sewing done as I was hoping I would be able to, thus no products to post.

All that said, we did manage to get out of the house on Friday since Owen's school schedule is not quite as full, and went to the Louisville Zoo. We love the zoo and have had a membership since we moved here. Even though the boys have been there dozens of times, they still really enjoy it.

Here is Owen and Caeden riding a tortoise statue:

And here is all 3 boys on the rhinoceros statue. Elliot is barely holding on but I had to get him out of the stroller for at least one picture:

Oh, and I did have a chance to sew a little over the weekend so hopefully those will be up soon!

a good weekend

We had a good and full weekend. Our highlight was by far going to an Andrew Peterson concert on Saturday! Do y'all know Andrew Peterson's music? We absolutely love it! A local church was hosting a FREE concert, which is also great and so we took the whole family, along with some friends from our care group! I'd post pictures, but well, we didn't take any because we were so busy trying to keep our little wiggle worms from wiggling and we were trying to listen to the music too. Really the boys did quite well considering we were there from 6-9pm and their bedtime is at 8:00, and they love Andrew Peterson's music as much as us! He just came out with a new album and has this sweet video on his website (scroll down a little on his homepage and play the video). So I'll leave you with a picture from earlier this summer just because they're cute:

millions of peaches!!!

Last Friday was Chris's last day of summer break before school started up again so we took advantage of it and went to Huber's Orchard and picked some delicious peaches. Here are Caeden and Owen with their cheesy smiles trying to pretend that it wasn't super hot and they weren't super itchy because of the peach skins!

And here is Elliot who didn't really want to pick anything except for the rotten peaches off the ground. Otherwise, my sweet boy just wanted his mama to hold him.

And here is the fruit (no pun intended) of all our labors. We picked a lot, and I mean a lot, of peaches. I had decided to try my hand at canning so we now have 12 quart size jars of peaches to enjoy this winter as well as 4 quart size bags of frozen peaches to enjoy in our smoothies. Yum!

Covered Journals!!!

Consider this the unveiling of my first product! I started making these covered journals a few months back after seeing them on another blog! I am hoping to open an etsy shop at some point, but for now I am going to try to sell products via email, since y'all know me anyway! Here is the stack of the ones I have already pre-made:

Here is an up-close look at the front of one of them. Each journal is fully-lined and has a ruffle of coordinating fabric(s) down the front, as well as a button and elastic closure:

The inside front has a pocket for holding pens/pencils. Each journal cover is made to form-fit a standard composition notebook, so when one composition notebook is full just get a new one and insert into the journal cover.

I am selling them for $15 each. If you are outside of Louisville, KY, it is around $5 for shipping. Please feel free to email me with questions or interests or I can send you more pictures at crbuttons@hotmail.com.

Fun Summer Memories

Since summer is drawing to a close and I just started this blog, I thought I would write about a couple cute summer memories that we had as a family!

Owen attended VBS this summer for the first time and loved it! They had an astronaut theme and what little boy doesn't love rockets!? He did great at memorizing the verses and we even got to take a couple of boys that live upstairs with him! Well, the week after VBS was over Owen announced at the breakfast table that his favorite song from the week was the "Yellow Bean" song. Chris and I looked at each other quite perplexed because we knew that all the songs were about Jesus. As Owen sang a little bit more of the song, we realized that it was actually a song called "Only Elohim" (L-O-HEEM). We all had quite a laugh over that one!

Our middle son Caeden isn't known for his ravenous appetite. In fact, every meal is quite a challenge getting him to eat his food, but for some reason the kid loves peaches, so here are a couple of pictures of Caeden and his peaches. We had a short video of him and his peaches but I couldn't get it to upload! So I hope you enjoy his pictures!

I am hoping to get some pictures of my products posted soon!

First Post & First day of School!

Well, I have decided to embark on this ship of blogging for mainly two reasons: to keep our family and friends in touch with our family as life seems to be getting more and more busy and also to use this as a means to sell some homemade products of mine.

So, as I was trying to think of what would make a good first post, I realized that a big part of this week for me has been getting Owen (5) started on his school officially. He is a kindergartner now, which means that I need to be organized and have us on a daily schedule so that his schooling actually gets accomplished. Two days into it and I am feeling pretty good. Owen is doing well and Caeden (3) and Elliot (19 mos.) are cooperative for the most part! Yeah!

So, here is a picture of the big kindergartner sporting his homemade pirate gear!

P.S. CRButtons is the name that Chris came up with for my products. What do you think?