New House Pics!

Finally! I have time to post some new house pictures.. here are some from 3 rooms of our new house.. more pics will come! I just LOVE having it all set up,. and it is soooo fun to see!!!

Our "Green" Room - 1st Guest Room/Office

Double Bed with quilt

Bookshelf from our "Blue" room - 2nd Guest Room/Sewing Room

Beautiful window

Double Bed with quilt

Our Dining Room .. painted alternating walls of Cream and Blue

Our Kitchen... newly painted Red!

Our life these past months..

Wow! It has been a long time since I updated! Due to my computer issue, it is hard to put pictures up on the computer I regret.. so an update will have to do! :)

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June went by like a flash due to our 2 family weddings. Hannah & Adam were married June 12th, followed by James & Savannah on June 27th. (both Josh's siblings) It was a blast to have things to celebrate and we are so happy for both of them as they begin their new lives together!

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For James's wedding, we had the entire Helweg family (plus 3 GA relatives) staying in our house, which was a BLAST! It was amazing to have the space to host everyone! It was so fun.. hard to see everyone go.

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Speaking of our house :)... we completed the painting, furniture organizing and cleaning on our entire house, with the exception of the basement family room and our Master Bedroom. We are just starting on our basement room this week, we will be sheetrocking, putting in a ceiling and painting down there.. it will be sooooooo nice! I am super excited! ;) The house has "our own touches" now, and is perfect! I just have to decide where I want the pictures hung on the main level.. ;) haha

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We got our garden in late this year, due to weddings, but it quickly caught up! I am so glad it is doing well.. I had doubts about our new plot, but it is proving to be VERY nice! :) I cant wait to start picking fresh veggies!

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Also new, is that I cut my hair last week! I cut off 8 inches and have a nice, short bob.. it is soooooooo cute! Plus very easy to take care of, and I LOVE it! :) Nothing like a new haircut to kick off the summer.

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We enjoyed our 4th of July weekend, and Rebekah's first fireworks. We all had a blast getting to see them last night in town.. it was great! ;) The Parade was fun today as well.. Leah LOVED the firetrucks and the candy of course. :)

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Well, what a summer we have had so far! I miss updating my blog, and will try to get pictures up soon, but am so far behind now it is sad! :) Hope all of you are well and we see you soon!

Adam & Hannah's Wedding

I have so many great pictures from Adam & Hannah's wedding.. it was a blast! But due to my computer issue, those of you who don't have facebook can see them by clicking here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=101220&id=644981352&l=402bc892ed

It was such a fun weekend in Warroad, and am so happy for Hannah & Adam in their new life!

Wedding Fun!

Well, Josh's sister Hannah is now officially no longer a Helweg! It was a GREAT Wedding/reception/dance on Friday and a very fun, eventful day! I will admit, having both Josh, Leah and I in the wedding party was a bit hard to handle with everything else going on.. but all in all it was a great day!!!!! I am so excited we could share in their day!

(Bridesmaids MaryGrace, myself, Flower girl Leah and our baby Bekah!)

Also.... I will be blogging more about my new HOUSE! Yes, we are finally moved and settled in.. these last few weeks we have been turning our house inside out and cleaning everything!! It is so fun to watch my house come together! I am soooo excited! Watch for pics soon! :)

New Camera fun!

I have been having so much fun with my new camera! Here are some fun pics taken the last couple weeks!

Bekah and her new "Cheesy" smile whenever I bring out the camera!

Our sweetie!

Another cheese shot

Cute matching dresses from Gma Tracy

Isaac & Bekah are great buds

Leah can now trace all her letters on her placemat! WOW!

We are so proud of her! What a smart girl!

Puppies!

Right after we got back from our GA Vacation, we found new puppies in my parent's house! Belle had her litter of pups, 5 boys 1 girl. They are all spoken for already! Bekah had never seen puppes so we went to say hello. It was fun!

Belle & Babies

(They are 2 weeks old in this picture, but are 5 weeks now)

Leah LOVES them!

Wow.. a puppy!

I love it too!

Moving update

Just a quick note to let you all know we are getting there!

Last night the Living Room moved over, and now we have just an empty room. Hopefully the rest of the house will be going today! I have been frantically cleaning and wiping down walls, after the movers, trying to keep some level of clean-ness to the house! (But am thankful I saved my spring-cleaning until now!) ;)

Also, we are hoping to paint the living room, kitchen, and dining room while they are empty, but it was not in the original plan. I hadn't decided on colors yet! So, I am trying to make up my mind and see if I can borrow a steam cleaner for the carpets. :) So, in a word, I am BUSY but HAPPY! :)

So excited to finally be getting my house!

Anna's Grad Party

May 8th, my little sister Anna graduated summa cum laude from BSU with her Bachelor of Science degree! (In Nursing) WOW!

She had a small Open House at her home afterwards, and it was a blast! Lots of great food, friends and family! We are so proud of you, Anna!

The graduates coming in

Yeah.. that's my sister!!

College Graduate!

Anna and her cake.. yes, I designed the wording! lol

Pretty decorations

Guests at her Open House

Her "traveling" table.. this girl has been so many places in the last year!

Dad & Bekah hang out at the party

Task Oriented vs People Oriented Parenting

Today I want to open an issue I have greatly been struggling with in the past year. And I am greatly curious to know if any of you do as well. Some days I feel very alone in this issue!

First of all, there are bascially 2 kinds of people. Task Oriented and People Oriented. You know the types. ( and I might be stereotyping, but this is just what I have seen from observing)

Task Oriented: These people are usually terrific organizers, have amazing talent at work, can get LOTS of things done in a day, and feel proud on looking over their accomplishments. They have interaction with people, but don't consider themselves "amazingly social" If given a choice of surveying various people on their opinions about certain products, or accomplishing a detailed organizing project at work un-interrupted, they would most likely choose the latter.

People Oriented: These people are usually un-organized, cluttered and messy, but always have time for hospitality, friends and family. They spend hours visiting and catching up on people's lives. They take a deep interest in others. They are good at jobs which involve contact with customers. They feel neglected when arequired to work alone, and love the interaction of daily habits. They are always ready to push aside tasks for quality time with the ones they love.

Now aside from some stereotypes, are you following me so far? I think we can agree we are usually one of the two.

My question is this: "How can a Task-Oriented person become a better Mother, when she'd rather accomplish a chore then spend time with her kids?"

Do any other task-oriented Mothers out there understand what I am talking about? About how guilt creeps up on you when you get a greater feeling of accomplishment from doing all your laundry, dishes and cleaning than from taking time to walk outside, read books or just play toys with your kids?

But, because I apporach life from a Task-Oriented perspective (I get accomplishment from doing things) How can I suddenly switch gears to gain accomplishment from just doing nothing with my kids? Quality time is important to them I know, but everytime I sit down and read or play with toys, my mind keep lingering on the pile of dishes yet to do, or the laundry waiting to be folded. And I gain no feeling of accomplishment until I do them.

I am at war with myself. Can anyone relate?

Until now I have been trying to get a good balance of the doing tasks and spending time with my kids. But I still feel guilty sometimes about doing one and not the other. I struggle with this a great deal.. anyone have some great advice for a mom looking to mean the world to her kids, while at the same time wanting to keep her sense of worth & accomplishment during the day?

Our new Nephew!

Congratulations to my beautiful sister-in-law Michelle, husband Allen, and children; Luke, Anna and Amber on their precious new blessing!!! We are sooooo excited he is here!!!!! (And I can hardly stand to wait until this weekend to meet him!!!!!)

~Nathanael John~

9 lbs 3 oz

20 in long

14" head cir

1:45 am

Wow.. time flies!

Wow! Time sure has gone on since I last did an update!

Our adjustment from vacation life in GA was hard.. spring was not yet here in MN as it was in Atlanta. But we became busy with routine things here.

I celebrated my 25th birthday on April 29th and recieved the best present from Josh, a new digital camera! Ours was slowly dying and had a long life of 4 years! The new Olympus Stylus 2010 I got is amazing! I love it!
My birthday present to myself this year was finally getting into a workout routing of getting up early every other morning and biking (or jogging 1 mile). It is sooooo refreshing and I feel great to be getting into shape! Plus I have lost 5 lbs! :) Yay!

Josh jumped right into work at our house, dragging our driveay, making it smooth, roto-tilling our new garden area, and tearing down old dilapitated buildings on the property. The yard looks amazing! He took 2 useless, old, eyesore buldings off our land and it is MUCH nicer to look at! :) ( I just finished helping clear the debris from one building last night)

We are getting EXCITED for Moving Day on the 19th.. I am anxiously putting all my projects in order, getting ready to jump-start them once my parents have moved all their stuff out. I will be re-painting our Blue Guest Room, setting up furniture in all 5 rooms, painting the kitchen, spring cleaning and of course moving all my stuff that has been in storage 1 1/2 years in our HOUSE! Yay! 2 weeks and counting.. :)

Leah & Bekah have been loving the warm outdoor weather! Leah especially begs to go outside on walks and play in her sandbox! It is so fun to finally be outside! Our lawn is greening up very nicely, we have our garden area getting ready, and lots of projects accomplished and many more to come! :)

Hope all is well with your lives!

No More Internet

Josh & I have decided that when we hook up our new phone line later this week, we will no longer be getting internet.

We may decide later (I hope!) to add it back to our account, but money is a bit tight right now, so we will have to see when we can get it back at our house.

But I have plenty in mind to keep blogging about and will try to schedule as many posts ahead of time as I can.. but will not be blogging near as much in future. I do however LOVE free internet at our library!

Just to let you all know!