The triplets are going rogue!

For the last 8 years, Wes and I have made all decisions for the girls.

What they wear, what they do, what they eat, where they go... it was all decided by us.

Well, maybe mostly me. Wes doesn't really care about what they wear... or what they eat... or what they do. Ok, he helps decide where they go. Sometimes.

Ever since they were little babies, I have matched them. Not because I am a control freak but because it makes it easier for me.

And really, isn't that what it's all about?

Every self-respecting, EXPERIENCED, mother of multiples knows the reasons for this:

1. I can spot them easily in a crowd. And count... 1,2,3. 1,2 uh-oh... where is 3. It's always 3!

2. I know if there is an outfit missing when it comes to laundry. I am in the habit of counting articles of clothing as I put them in the washer. "One purple shirt, two purple shirts... Girls, I am missing a purple shirt." "Here it is mom, I found it in the Lego box." (Don't ask, it just happens!)

3. There is less fighting that way. Nothing to fight over... Oh really, you don't like green? Too bad, the other 2 dresses are green too!

We have a rhythm. We have a flow. We have a pecking order.

UNTIL...

Kennedy decided to cut her hair and McLaine and Andie decided not to.

WHAT? I was in a panic... We can't have 1 with short hair and 2 with long?

The earth will stop spinning on its axis. Time will stand still. This will affect so many lives!!

But as the supportive, non control-freak parent that I am... I simply said "Ok." Although I was secretly hoping the other 2 would change their minds.

I kept suggesting it, encouraging it.

But they didn't.

And now... we have started a downhill spiral.

Everybody is wanting their own voice. They have found independence! AGHHHH!

McLaine has decided she wants to play baseball. Alone.

Kennedy wants to cheer and do a bake sale.

Andie is holding out for basketball. (She found out there is no bowling league in our little town) Phew, did we luck out there!

There is complete pandemonium breaking out in the Seagraves household and I have to stop this train!

I want to go back to when they were little and just wanted "juice pweese".

I want to go back to the matching outfits.

I want to go back to stifling their creativity.

I am afraid... I am very afraid.

Hallway plank-a-poolza

I love wood planked walls.

I love wood planked ceilings.

I love wood planked anything.

They make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

There is something about them that speaks to my very soul... casual, informal, cozy, laid-back, imperfect, vintage, cottage-y. (Is that a word?)

I have been pulling inspiration pictures out of magazines and putting them in my little book of "House Ideas" for future use.

Well... the future is here.

Our side door and hallway serve as the main highway in our house. I am tired of tripping over shoes as I walk in the door. The kids are tired of hearing me yell.

I am tired of looking at Rmax insulation and unfinished walls.

And we are all tired of looking for Wesley's cell phone, wallet and car keys!!

So we decided to knock down the wall between our bedroom and hallway and moved it back into the bedroom 18 inches. This will allow us to hang cabinets for storage and build a bench for shoes underneath.

Hopefully ~HOPEFULLY this will make us a little more organized... hopefully.

Goodbye, ugly wall...

Hellooooo, new cabinets!

Madison, future home-builder and/or renovator, helped Wes put in the cabinets. She knows more than most adults about DIY projects. She will never have to buy a $60 door at Home Depot and pay them $243 dollars to have it installed! Our homeschooling math is paying off!

We added 1x4 wood planks to the walls and a stained glass window above the door



Made at least 27 trips to Home Depot



Picked out paint colors from the 684 paint swatches that I collected



and bought Wes some Head and Shoulders shampoo.



Here is a current picture. We still have to add hardware to the cabinets, put another coat of paint on the trim, put down the wood floors and the best part... DECORATE!






I am holding off until I go to Round Top the first weekend in April. I am sure to find a ton of treasures that I can add to my walls.

Like maybe:
a blackboard
paint-chipped shutters
old frames
a vase
some iron hooks
maybe a different entry table that I can put a lamp on

The possibilities are endless....

I will post the final pictures in April.

The house

For those of you who don't know, we are building our house.

If you didn't know this, I wonder how you could have missed it?

You see, I have a tendency to "think" about things... out loud. Over and over. And by "thinking" I mean talking.

And what's worse is that I am NOT a good decision maker so I change my mind ...a lot and then want to talk about my new idea. Wes calls it indecisive and annoying.

I like to think I am just being cautious and methodical!

Either way, I have decided to start including our house projects on this blog for those of you who WANT to know what we are working on.

There are two good reasons for doing this:

One~ I want to give you a "bird's eye" view into our lives. Just in case you ever thought about having 5 children and trying to educate them at home all while building your own house. This blog will forever change your mind and save you a world of trouble.

Two~ I am HOPING this will stop the question that we get every day... ARE YOU FINISHED WITH YOUR HOUSE???? Maybe you will see the pictures and know not to ask for at least 10 years!

Soooo, here is a little history of this adventure thus far...

We bought a little cabin on some property in Coldspring. It was a tiny one bedroom house that we knew we would have to add on to. But we had VISION... We figured we would add on a huge bedroom for the kids and live in it for a year while we decided how we wanted to add on.



We knew we would have to get new flooring and do some "sprucing up" of the place before we moved in. Wes was off for the summer so he went up to get started while the kids and I stayed home.


Wasn't he being so neat and clean with the trash. Don't mind that stove laying out in the yard. Obviously, we were not planning on using that!

I wondered why Wes always wanted to go alone. He said it was too dangerous for the kids but we insisted on going up to see the progress.


"Ummmmm, Honey? There is a HUGE hole in the house. Are you going to fix that?"

Now I knew why he didn't want us coming up there!

Ok, it looks like we are going to do a little more work then we originally thought. Doesn't it always work out that way? Well, maybe we can save the door at least!


Well, let's make that a lot more work then we thought. "Honey? Are you sure we can fix THIS?" Maybe it's just me but in this picture doesn't the roof look a little un-level.

Hey, watch out for my door!!

The floor ended up being rotted out and the electrical was put in by Moses so it needed to be redone. And the plumbing, and the sheetrock and, and, and... So it looks like we are starting over. A fresh slate! (trying to be positive here!)

We went to Home Depot, had lumber delivered and got to work... Wes claimed we would be in by late August. 2 months? Maybe it was possible. Maybe?? I can still hear my brother laughing hysterically when he came down to visit.


We hired some great workers. They worked cheap, all they asked for was Whataburger or McDonald's on the way to work!

Finally, we had what was beginning to look like a house. We missed our August deadline by a LONG shot!

The work never stops. Here we are putting up the Hardy plank. The house is really tall and I don't like heights but when you are trying to save money there is nothing I am not willing to do. Well, except for the time Wes fell off the roof and I saved him from plummeting to his death. Thank God I was holding that rope. There was no way he was leaving me here to finish the house AND raise the children! But that is a story for another day! We did decide to hire a roofer after that. So, I guess we do have some limits!

We moved into the house in March of 2009. It was unfinished. By unfinished I mean, we could walk through the walls. The kids loved it. They felt sorry for their friends who had real walls. They didn't even have to knock on the bathroom door to see if someone was in there... they could just look!

We had all the important things that one needs to live:

We had a roof

we had sub-flooring (which is the flooring under your "nice" flooring)

we had indoor plumbing with a tub and toilets

we had doors and windows

we had electricity

we had each other

and most importantly we had a dream. To work on this house and love each other through the process.

A stove came a month later. Cooking for 7 with a crock pot, grill and an electric skillet got interesting. The first night we used the new stove Madison said, "Mom, it's a blessing to have a stove. There are people out there who never have one!" I hope if nothing else, they learn to appreciate the things that we used to take for granted!

A month after that we had our central air and heat put in. Praise God because it gets really hot in Texas!

We all slept in the downstairs bedroom for the first year. It was like a permanent sleepover. At night we would lay in our beds, all lined up on the wall, and talk. Wes would make animal shadows on the wall and we would laugh and tell stories. We sounded like the Walton's, "Goodnight Madison, Goodnight Jake, Goodnight girls... Goodnight John boy"

The house still isn't finished although we have come a long way. We still work on it (all the time) and God has blessed us tremendously. Home Depot has become our home away from home, I have become quite the nurse from all of Wes' injuries and we are still able to laugh together.

I think we have lived in the chaos for so long we don't know any other way!

I will do more updates on the house in the next few weeks.

For now, pray for us as we continue our journey of craziness.

I am back

I am back...

I took a little break from blogging.

I don't know what happened. I think I got a little busy with Christmas projects and all.

You know Wes and I... we just can't be NoRmAl. Why can't we just go to Toys-R-Us like the millions of other parents out there?

Why can't we just buy toys that require no extra work on our part?

Like stuffed animals. Those are nice, right? You just buy it, stick it in a box and wrap it. Wala~ you are DONE... no batteries, nothing to put together, no little plastic twist ties to cut your fingers on.

Nooooooooooooo, we had to add animals to the farm this year. This was the year of the "gifts that just keep on giving"! I have a manure pile to prove it. They just keep giving and giving.

Madison started all of this. She wanted a horse, not a fish or a hamster... a horse. What 13 year old girl doesn't dream of riding into the sunset on her best friend?

She is such a huge help to us, I just couldn't deny her. Plus, truth be told, this was my childhood dream.

I begged my parents for a horse. When I couldn't have that, I begged for horseback riding lessons. I spent many days riding my pretend horse around my neighborhood with my best friend, Andreea. We were expert riders, we jumped creeks and everything. For the record... my sister, Heather, was given horse back riding lessons after I moved out of the house. ( That reminds me, I need to make another appointment with my therapist)

Anyway, now you can understand why I wanted to give her this gift. I begged Wes, I pleaded, I promised things that I knew I couldn't keep.

We bought a horse. Now... we needed to have a place to keep it. Just so you know, horses don't just hang around the porch like a dog or a cat. You actually have to fence them in. Fencing, I found out, is very expensive!

That started a trend, we then bought a pot-belly pig for Jake and rabbits for the girls. Now we had to have shelter for all these things!

Long story short, we spent most of the Christmas break building fencing and shelters for all the new animals. It was trial and error. Some things worked, some things didn't work... We had animals escaping out of cages and fences everywhere.

Hami, the pig, had to live inside the house for a few days. A pig... in the house! Ey-yi-yi!

The rabbits were inside in a laundry basket... we had to have a funeral for 2 of them on Christmas Day. Long story... don't ask!

And the horse... Oh the horse, we should have named her Houdini... she kept getting out of the fence and wandering over to neighbors. We didn't WANT to but we HAD to turn the electric fence on. Now ~Willow happily resides INSIDE the fence! Animals, like kids, just want us to establish boundaries. She was a quick learner...

So, that should bring you up to date on the farm.

We currently have: 3 dogs, 1 cat, 1 rabbit, 1 horse, 5 chickens and 1 pot-belly pig.

Oh, and we still have all 5 of the kids...we are still working on cages and fencing for them!