The Handmade Dress

By last night I was in desprate need of a quick craft project. The de-stressing kind where you don't think too much you just DO. I did this little sign.... And when I got done I hung that sucker above my front door! Mama is done with sick, and she's taking a stand.  xo, Sam

Hey friends. We are still sick. Or we were better for a few days, and then it hit again. I'm done. I'm not going to bore you with all of the sick details. Let's just say that all three girls are on antibiotics, for different reasons, and yesterday I had 4 loads of "sick laundry" along with my regular laundry. Only the men of the house have been spared so far. Ben says (jokingly of course) that it's their "superior immune system", well lets just pray that lasts! So lets talk about happier things! Like Easter! Or second Easter, as it happened. It was a really great day and all of the kids wore their Easter clothes again for us so that we could get our pictures. I finished sewing Saturday night, of course, I got a whole extra week and I still wait for the last second! Let me introduce you to everyone. :) Here we have my four Caffee children, my sister's four Caffee children (in case you didn't know my sister married my husbands br

This has always been one of my favorite stages of homeschooling. The phonetic spelling phase. Maddie is just finishing up kindergarten and the sweet notes have started to show up everywhere! This one showed up on my ironing board while I was sewing. It came just after breaking up an argument between her and Tim. I always write the translation, the date, and the child's name on them and file them away. :) I imagine myself one day having an empty nest (oh my!) and going through these little bits of life to remember, well, all of the life that happened here...and be glad that I got to witness every moment of it. EVEN if it was as hard as it could be sometimes!  Isn't it funny that there are parts of this war-zone-that-is-having-small-children that you feel can't pass fast enough, like the sleepless nights, the moments that they are in pain, or very upset, or inconsolable; then there are those moments like the one above that you just never want to forget and you want to

 WOW! We have received A LOT of email. :) We hear you. We are working on plans and detailed pictures, and as soon as possible we will have them ready for you guys! We are so flattered that so many of you like the beds! Give us a few days and we will hook you up. :) We finished up the roll guards on the boy beds today and painted all of the wall supports. We are DONE! Woot woot! Plans coming soon friends. :) xo, Sam EDITED TO ADD: Plans are now available for PDF download. You can find the PDF on our "free downloads" page HERE . I will try to email everyone that asked for plans, but could you help us spread the word too? Thanks friends! Oh, and if any of you make beds using these plans could you send us a picture? We would love to see your take on it! xo, Sam Edited to add: With the increased interest in these plans there is no way that I can email them to everyone. I'm sorry! But you are more than welcome to follow the link and download them for

 Hey friends! I thought that it was about time that I check in, I can't believe it has been over a week! My sweet baby has been sick with a SEVEN DAY tummy bug. She came down with it Tuesday, so we still have a few days to go. :( I started out the week in denial trying to get Easter sewing done while she slept (instead of catching up on sleep myself), stressing about how it was all going to get done with a sick babe that only wanted mama, snuggling and nursing my babe every moment that she was awake just WILLING her to feel better faster than the other family that had this bug first, and trying to keep my laundry caught up while washing 2-3 extra loads of "sick" laundry a day. Today...I called it! I think I just got to that point of pure exhaustion that it didn't matter anymore. Ahhh the sweet relief that followed! I called all of our family who were expecting us to bring food and told them that we would not be there. I told the kids that we will celebrate Easte