Lovin' the Last Frontier

Days Gone By

2011-09-10T19:01:00.002-05:00

I cannot believe how quickly our summer went by. I mean, I've lived here before...I knew it would happen like this...but still. Crazy quick. We had a fairly cool, wet summer. Thankfully, we still found time to hang out with our friends, go to the beach, etc. It was a good summer. I didn't realize how much daylight we had lost until I happened to notice the sunrise/sunset times on my daily weather channel check on my phone. Sunrise is at about 7am, sunset is about 8:30pm. Darkness is coming folks...quicker than we realize.
Benjamin and I took a trip to Seattle last month for a doctor appointment. Isn't it weird that we have to travel so far to see a doctor? To be fair, we do have doctors here in the Last Frontier. Just not a lot of specialists. Benjamin and I were fortunate enough to be able to stay with family, see some friends we haven't seen in years, and visit the Space Needle! We really did have a good time. It's a good thing, 'cause we get to do it again in a couple of weeks for surgery #4 on that stinkin' ear.
We just completed Week 3 of homeschooling. So far, things are going well. Our days are crazy busy. I really don't think I've ever been busier in my life than I am right now. I haven't decided if that's a good thing or not. I have all five kids at home this year. Devin is busy with work and learning to play the guitar, the girls are all continuing with their piano lessons, Benjamin is taking up the violin, plus various other classes including rock climbing, ASL, Creative Dance, Ice-Skating, etc. Fun times, fun times.
I'm trying to find more time to knit. I barely knit a stitch since May, and I don't like it one bit. I'm working on a rainbow colored poncho for Liberty right now. Pictures will come later. I've begun my knitting list for Christmas, but it's short. There just isn't enough time for me to accomplish much.
Mike has been gone for nearly 5 months. Five, longggg months. We are still 4 months or so away from a visit. Seems like forever since we've seen him, but I know the wait will be worth it. I'm thankful God has given me a man worth missing.
Oh yes, I witnessed a baby BIRTHday this summer. I'll share that story another time.

Food for Thought

2011-07-20T11:06:00.002-05:00

I read this on the Good Morning Girls blog this morning. I'm posting it here, so I can find it later. I seriously need to ponder this list some more.

1. Be the type of wife you’d want your son to be married to.

2. Smile at him.

3. Be forgiving.

4. Be direct……but kindly. Men can’t read minds and neither can we.

5. Be excited to see him when he comes home.

6. Allow him to have alone time.

7. Be an encourager.

8. Don’t nag…honestly it doesn’t work and only hurts the relationship.

9. Give him grace, you aren’t the perfect wife and he isn’t the perfect husband.

10. Pray for him and allow God to work in his life.

11. Remember you are not his Holy Spirit

12. There is only one “Prince Charming” and his name is Jesus…release your husband from the burden of fulfilling all your needs…..he can’t. Only Jesus can.

The person who wrote this list was thinking back over the 12 years she had been married to her husband and made a list of things she had learned. Some of these I am doing fairly well, most not. I also liked this quote:

Our life isn’t perfect and neither are we, but I love seeing where God started us, where He has taken us and I look eagerly to the future with my Lord, my husband and my children.

Baking Day

2011-07-20T00:09:00.002-05:00

The past few days have been pretty cool. Today was in the low to mid-60s. It's supposed to get into the 70s again though, so I figured I had better use today to bake. I didn't accomplish everything I had planned to make, but I did make at least accomplish something. That's saying a lot considering I had to get up at 6:45am for a doctor appointment that was canceled!!! Oh well. We rescheduled for tomorrow, meaning I'll be up at 6:45am two days in a row. Imagine that! :-) Anyway, here's what I made:
One regular sized loaf of Whole Wheat bread, 4 mini-loaves, that were still pretty large, Pepperoni Rolls, Cinnamon Rolls and French Bread.

You'll notice there is a mini-loaf of bread missing. We ate it for dinner. I grabbed it off the cooling rack before I snapped a picture.
Someday, I'll have nice pretty counter tops to photograph my good eats on, but alas, that day is not today.
Here is my French bread...

Please don't laugh. It's flat, that I know. I think I should have added a bit more flour to it. It was the first time I had used this recipe. I'm sure MrsMamaHen makes it MUCH better than I do. We're still going to eat it though. I think it'll work nicely for some stuffed bread? The real point of this picture though, was the pan. Don't you just LOVE that super cute French Bread pan? I've had it for a few weeks now, and just now got around to trying it out. It makes a really nice crust on the loaf, that is for sure.
The mini bread loaves were a test run. I think the kids are going to LOVE them. They fit in the toaster perfectly. My larger loaves are too tall. Plus, it'll be much easier for the kids to cut the mini-loaves as well. I think I'll still do a couple of regular sized loaves, but the mini-loaves might be my go to size for a while. Plus, they just look so cute made up as a sandwich!

DISCLAIMER: No, that is NOT fresh lettuce and tomatoes from my garden. We are making progress, but still no edible veggies as of yet. I might have seen a baby zuchini the last time I looked. The jury is still out.

My Birthday Present

2011-07-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

In March, when I went to a scrapbooking retreat in Healy, AK, I found out Trace Adkins was coming to Fairbanks for a concert. I called Mike, who was home with the kids, and told him I would like to go. Within an hour, he had bought me 2 tickets. Not just two tickets, but two floor seats!!! He's good like that, eh? :-) It was a TON of fun. I wish Mike could have come with me, he totally would have enjoyed it, but I know he takes great satisfaction in the fact that he was able to send me and my friend Heidi. This concert was just a few days after Mr. Adkins house burnt down. There was a little bit of worry as to whether or not the concert was going to take place, but thankfully it did. It was a fun night out!

Not a great pic, but I couldn't resist...arms are kind of my thing...

Garden Progress

2011-07-09T14:02:00.002-05:00

When we moved into this house, the people who lived here before us left TONS of garbage for us to deal with. However, they left a few things we were pretty excited about. Four things in fact. Raised beds....

Pay no attention to the dirt and weeds underneath the bed. Our backyard is a nightmare. Anyway, we kept two beds, and I loaned 2 to a friend of mine to try out. I actually only planted one, 'cause I am a bit of a procrastinator. Plus, I really didn't know what I was doing. I planted broccoli and a couple of different kinds of lettuce. The broccoli is actually doing pretty well, considering we started it from seed. The lettuce needs some sun. We've had so much rain, it's kind of stunted its growth.

Here is my sad tomatoes and one good looking pepper plant. Something seems to be eating my tomato leaves, but I can't figure out what it is. I can't find any bugs or caterpillars. I think I'm going to have to get something to sprinkle on the leaves lest they be eaten all gone!

I also planted cucumbers and zucchini, which was a total experiment. I think the cukes will be an epic fail, because the zucchinis are monsters!!!!!

This is a total experiment year for us. I have no idea what I'm doing, and Mike is gone. Next summer, when he is here and we have a little more growing experience under our belts, I totally plan to fill all 4 raised beds. After all...I'll have the resident farming expert back home with me!!!!

Bosch, baby, Bosch!!

2011-06-14T23:13:00.002-05:00

A few times over the last few months Mike and I have talked about whether or not we should get a Bosch Universal Plus Mixer. I've wavered back and forth. Yes, I want it...no it's too expensive...yes, I need it...no, it's a frivolous purchase. I've went to two bread classes through Holy Living since Mike has been gone. I took Katie with me the first time, Mikayla the second. We've all enjoyed them! Of course, the teachers both have Bosch Mixers. Last Monday was the second bread class I attended. Shortly after I got home, Mike called me on the phone. I was telling him about the class, talking to him about my mixer dilemma, etc. He was very stealthy in asking questions, apparently asking what he needed to know to be sure he didn't order the wrong one!!!!! Within ten minutes of hanging up the phone, he had went on-line and ordered me one. Not only did he order the Mixer, he bought the stainless bowl, the cookie paddles, AND the wire wisks to go with it! I CANNOT believe it!!!!! It came today. Pretty swiftly if I might add AND with free shipping to Alaska!!! Most people won't care to see these pictures, but I wanted Mike to be able to see me open the box.
I should put in a disclaimer in case you look...please don't mind my cluttered house. I've been sick. Plus, this house is a wee bit small for a family of 7, so it always looks cluttered. :-)

I will say, I was sad to take my KitchenAid Professional machine off the counter today. I'm not going to get rid of it yet, just in case you know, but I'm pretty sure I'll love the Beast. Did you know the Bosch Mixer can make 5 loaves of bread at one time? It can mix something like 20 cups of flour!!!! If you have the meat grinding attachment, it can grind 4 lbs. of meat per minute. Amazing. I just mixed up this recipe of hamburger buns. I think I added a bit too much flour, but we will see. I need to remember that the dough gets less sticky as it kneads. Anyway, I'm still totally in awe that my husband bought this for me. He's currently saving for a down payment on a truck, something he has wanted for many years now. He's been driving the same car for almost 15 years. So, his money is precious to him. Yet he still spent a good portion of his money on me. I love that man.

Birdie Anyone?

2011-06-05T08:00:00.001-05:00

I promised a sewing post some time ago. I've got an obsession. An obsession with Amy Butler's Birdie Sling. I LOVE this bag, way more than I thought I would. So far, I've made one for myself to use as a knitting bag. One can never have too many knitting bags, right? I've also made 2 for my Mom. One for knitting, and one for everyday use.

The pattern doesn't call for piping, but I really think it adds a lot to the bag. It's not terribly difficult to add, so it's totally worth it.

When Mom got here, I gave her the knitting bag for an early birthday gift. The next day she promptly went to the fabric store and picked out some more fabric for me to make her another one. This is what we ended up with:

I did alter the inside pockets this time. Instead of two smaller pockets, I added 4 pockets. I also used a magnetic button to hold the bag closed.

Here's a close up of the pleating detail, the piping and the button.

I have a particular teenage girl waiting for a neon green and hot pink bag. The fabric may or may not have already been bought. :p I need to make another one for myself as well. I'm thinking I could fit an awful lot of candy to sneak into the movie theater in this bag. Ya think? :p

5K Family Fun Run/Walk

2011-06-04T22:28:00.003-05:00

Today, Katie, Benjamin and I ran/walked a 5K. This was both mine and Katie's second race, and Benjamin's first. They did great! Let's just say, Benjamin is not a runner. He's a football player...he plays defense. That says a lot, eh? ;-) He said, "I don't know why they call this a FUN run...it's not very fun." HA! But, by the time it was finished, he was ready to race again. This might have something to do with why....

Katie one first place in her age group, and Benjamin won third!!!! This race had a small turn-out, which was probably why they won. Lord knows we weren't super fast. But, this was a GREAT confidence booster for them! They're already looking forward to the next one, which is an ice-cream skedaddle in July.

Time Out!!!

2011-05-24T02:22:00.002-05:00

I know I've promised you some sewing posts, but we're taking a time out from our regularly scheduled programming. We have visitors!!!!!! My parents flew in last week to spend the next 10 or so days with us. We're planning a trip to Valdez tomorrow. I can't wait!!! The kids aren't overly impressed with the long drive we'll be making. I truly don't believe any of us have recovered from the nearly 5000 mile trek up here to the great state of AK yet. We've had a great time together so far! Mother Daughter Tea, Pioneer Park, the Pipeline, various shopping expeditions, walks to the park, etc. Fun times, good memories.

Don't worry...there really WILL be a crafty post coming soon. I've been so buy sewing I haven't had time to blog! :p I have two words for you...Birdie Sling.

New Toy!!!

2011-04-28T16:08:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, we brought a new toy home with us.

Yup, that is a Nutrimill. Mike and I have been talking about getting one for a while. He had no qualms with it, even though it is a bit spendy. His goal is for us to one day be self-sufficient. A Nutrimill is a step in that direction. HA! We did have trouble finding the kinds of wheat we were looking for in this little town. Thankfully, there are several places we can order from. For now, I will just have to deal with the Hard Red Wheat. Towards the middle of May I should have some Hard and Soft White Wheat.

The kids were wondering what exactly do wheat berries look like?

Pay no attention the the clutter in my kitchen. I do not have near enough counter space in this house.

I just ground a little flour to begin with, since I had no idea how much flour the amount of wheat berries I put in there would actually make.

Not bad for my first loaf of bread with freshly milled flour!

It was a little dry for my liking. The kids didn't mind. They ate half of the loaf for dinner! I've pretty much decided it's not worth my time to make only one loaf. I have to do at least two at a time. If you have a 100% whole wheat recipe that you love, please do share it with me!

A Little Easter Fun!

2011-04-27T07:00:00.001-05:00

Easter was pretty low key around here this year. We did baskets, but they were pretty small. We are attempting at cutting back at holidays. I've went overboard for too many years. We are now paying the consequences. I hadn't planned on making a dinner on Easter since we made it the weekend before while Mike was still here. We were invited to our friends house for dinner, which was VERY enjoyable!!!! No family pictures were taken that day. This is all there is...

I should tell you, I've been sewing. You may see a sewing post within the next couple of days. :-)

Edited to fix the photo link!

Spring in Alaska

2011-04-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

There are many different things that remind people Spring is on its way. Possibly flowers blooming, seedling starting, trees budding, snow melting, mud puddles, etc. For me, one of the most prevalent things that let me know Spring is on its way is the honking of geese! They pretty much honk over-head all night. I hear them when I'm laying in bed getting ready to go to sleep, and I hear them before I'm even out of bed in the morning. We enjoy going to Creamers Field to view the different water fowl species. We saw a couple of swans this visit through the binoculars, but weren't able to get a good picture with the camera.

I just love this picture of Benjamin...

Prom

2011-04-26T00:12:00.002-05:00

Devin went to prom Saturday evening. He said he had a good time, although he wasn't very forth-coming with information. :p None-the-less, he cleaned up pretty well. I can't believe my oldest kid is old enough to go to Junior prom!

Is Your Day Well Planned?

2011-04-14T11:29:00.001-05:00

Two years ago, I stumbled upon the Well Planned Day. The publisher was offering a sale at that time, so I decided to place an order. I had tried Homeschool Tracker Plus, as well as countless other attempts at planning our day, but hadn't found anything that worked the way I wanted it to. Can I just say that I LOVE the Well Planned Day?

Well Planned Day 2011-2012 Preview

There are pages for listing curriculum we're using, pages for keeping track of what books we're reading, what field trips we're planning, etc. There are even spaces for keeping track of budgets!!! Each planner can track up to 4 kids worth of homeschooling info. You can use it to keep track of attendance as well as grades. I like that there are articles and verses throughout the book. On each weekly pages, there is a space for meal planning, weekly activities and weekend activities. Have I told you how much I love this planner? I just received next years planner in the mail. I'll actually have to change things up a bit next year, as we'll be back to homeschooling 5 kids again, but I'll figure something out. I've never seen the high school planners, but more than likely one will be showing up on my doorstep soon. Happy Planning!!!!!

Trudging Along

2011-04-01T13:37:00.002-05:00

It's been a couple of weeks since I've blogged, which doesn't please me. I don't want to go back to my old blogging habits. :p We've been busy lately, although I'm not exactly sure what has been taking up so much of our time. I did get a dishwasher installed, thanks to my husband! He did a GREAT job! He had never installed an appliance like that before, so I'm very proud of him! It is so nice to be able to start the dishwasher at night and waken to clean dishes!! My two biggest kids appreciate it as well. It sure does make their job easier! HA!
I have been doing a little knitting here and there, but not a ton. I was sick this week, which hasn't helped. I did read a book though. Heaven is for Real. If you haven't read it, do it. It'll certainly give you lots to think about!

Spring Break Fun!!!!

2011-03-21T00:48:00.002-05:00

Mike's block leave coincided with Spring Break this year. How convenient! :-) We didn't really go anywhere, but did more of a "staycation" type of thing. We had a great week! Mike and I were able to get away for a night by ourselves, which we enjoyed immensely. Chena Hot Springs was our destination.

We didn't do any of the extra stuff the "Resort" has to offer, but we sure did have a great time. Some time, we want to tour the Ice Hotel. Can you believe they are able to keep this standing year round? Even in the summer time! Amazing!

You can spend the night in the hotel for a measly $600 a night!!!!
The next day, we took the kids to the Ice Park. Absolutely beautiful! The kids had a great time on the ice slides and viewing the sculptures!

I might of sort of played with a little bit of photo editing there. I'm not very good, but it is fun.

Next on the agenda was The Knotty Shop. We hadn't been there since we lived here almost 10 years ago. We used to drive all the way down there just to get ice-cream. Which is precisely what we did this week. Fun times. I didn't get any photos of us eating ice cream, but I did get this interesting shot...

Yesterday, we pretty much stayed home. Devin had soccer practice and we had a parent meeting, plus we had about 7 trips to Lowes. Why so many trips you might ask? Because my rockin' husband installed a dishwasher for me!!!!!! He had never done anything like this before, so I am so proud of him for doing it with only verbal help from a friend!!!! YouTube may have helped as well. :p No pics yet though. He still has to finish closing it in. He says that will happen tomorrow.
Today, we had planned to go tubing at Birch Hill. It was Family Day, which meant a discounted rate. It also meant a 1.5-2 hour wait. Not happening. So, we drove over to the ice-park and let the kids play some more on the ice slides. They also skated on their first outdoor ice rink! They had a blast!

I'm still hoping for one more visit to the ice park. Preferably at night. The sculptures are so pretty when they're all lit up!
Mike has one more week off from work. We're planning a couple of fun things, but mostly back to the old grind. Skating lessons, piano, school, etc. Fun times ahead!!

20+ Degrees? Yes, Please!

2011-03-08T21:45:00.003-05:00

What happens when it's 20 above zero in Alaska? This....

This was the first time we had went tubing at Birch Hill as a family. Fun times, I tell ya. I wasn't feeling particularly hot, so I stood at the bottom of the hill and observed. Next time, I'm tubing man. It looked so much FUN! After we spent a couple of hours at the tubing hill, we went to view this...

That's the Pipeline! Pretty neat. However, the kids were more excited to play in the deep snow we've got!

Near Record Snow

2011-02-24T01:37:00.002-05:00

I read on the Fairbanks Daily Newsminer web-site that our most recent snow storm produced near record snow fall for the Fairbanks area...18" of snow. I'm not sure we got quite that much at my house, but quite possibly. I know we had at least a foot. This was the view when I opened my door Monday morning.

The view from my garage...

Our street before it was plowed...

Our driveway...thankfully it's not very big...

Pure cuteness...

Nothing to See Here

2011-02-23T00:10:00.003-05:00

I found a a couple of new recipes I want to try, as well as one I've been looking for. To hopefully prevent me from losing them or forgetting about them, I'm posting the links here.

Orange Chicken This looks YUMMY! Not healthy, but yummy none-the-less.

These really ARE the best dinner rolls EVAH! I had tried another recipe a week or so ago that claimed to be the best rolls ever, but alas, they were NOT. Try these rolls. I promise, you will not be disappointed!

Homemade Marshmallows. Must try. First, I have to acquire a candy thermometer!

Chicken Taquitos. My family is a lover of all things Mexican.

We're getting ready to attempt to cover a cake with Fondant. Most fondant I've had taste like...well, nasty. Except for the fondant at the Sandals resort in the Bahamas. That was yummy! I'm hoping this Fondant recipe will taste just as yummy!

Marshmallow fondant

Ingredients

* 1/4 cup or less of crisco
16 oz mini marshmallows (Kraft)
1 tsp clear vanilla
1 tsp butter flavor (extract) (I never put this in)
2 tbsp water
2lb bag of powdered sugar (sifted)

Instructions

1. Grease inside of microwaveable safe bowl with Crisco

2. Put marshmallows, flavorings, and water into bowl.

3. Microwave on high for 60 seconds. If not completely melted, stir and microwave at 30 sec intervals.

4. Put powdered sugar into large mixer bowl. (Fit stand mixer with dough hook) I use a wooden spoon. I don’t like how my kitchen aide mixer does.

5. Mix until well incorporated.

6. Prepare work surface with sifted powdered sugar.

7. Turn fondant out onto work surface. Knead fondant into loaf. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap for at least 1 hour before using.

8. To store fondant: Wrap in plastic wrap, and then put into resealable plastic bag. Squeeze out as much air as possible. Fondant will keep very well in fridge for weeks.

Here's another recipe I found on the WTM forums. Sounds yummy, but who can tell? I wanna try it...

Sweet Potato Tortilla Pie
(original recipe is from Vegetarian Planet)

Cube 2-3 sweet potatoes. Toss in olive oil and minced garlic and cumin. Bake for ~20 min at 425 until potatoes are just tender. Let cool. I often have more cubed potato than I need for the pie, but I love sweet potatoes, so I eat them for lunch the next day.

Mix:
1-1/2 cups milk
3 eggs
Salt & pepper

Butter a pie plate. Layer 4-5 corn tortillas in the pie plate, overlapping, to form the "crust". Put the cubed cooked sweet potatoes on top of the tortillas. Sprinkle ~3/4-1 cup cheese over the potatoes. (I use a combo--jack or pepper jack and cheddar.) Pour the milk/egg mixture over the top. It's ok if it runs under the tortilla. Bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes, until the custard is set. Serve with salsa and sour cream.

You can make this basic recipe with just about anything you'd put into a quiche. We like yellow potatoes and diced bacon with cheddar, swiss or goat cheese and no cumin (maybe add a touch of nutmeg). Sometimes I make one of each--A spicy sweet potato version with pepper jack cheese and a milder yellow potato and cheddar version--then we have the leftovers for leftover night or breakfast.

That's it! Soon, I'll share pictures of the rockin' snow storm we had this weekend! All I can say is, snow is a lot more fun when you don't have to shovel it!

Finished!!!

2011-02-20T02:02:00.006-05:00

I told you I would have some finished objects for you soon! I finally went to the post office and mailed a package to our friends in KY. Their baby just turned a month old, so I wasn't too late. I made the Baby Boy Vest from Sock Yarn One Skein Wonders. I loved this pattern. I used Dream In Color Classy, which is my most favorite yarn ever. I wish I could afford to knit every project with this yarn. Sadly, I'm too poor. :-) I do have a few more skeins of this yarn in my stash though, so for that I am grateful. I do realize this isn't the best picture, but it's all I've got on this camera card. I think I took pictures on my other camera, but that one isn't as easy to upload pictures from.

I also made this adorable 6x6 photo album. I printed all papers and images on my Cricut Imagine using the Nursery Tails Cartridge. The months of the year were stamped with a set of Close To My Heart stamps.

My intent is for the recipient to put a picture of the baby taken each month of the first year of his life on the intended pages. I included enough journaling boxes for her to journal if she chooses, or she can place another photo on that page. Hopefully she likes it. It was fun to make! I also made invitations for Mikayla's birthday party. I do realize her birthday was last month, but we had just moved into this house. So, I told her she would have to wait until February to actually have her birthday. We don't have parties every year for each child. They usually take turns. Last year Liberty had a big party, so this year will be low-key for her. Mikayla hasn't had a party for friends in a couple of years, hence the party at the skating rink. She is looking forward to it!

Valentine's Day

2011-02-16T00:45:00.004-05:00

Valentine's Day is pretty low key around here. We do something to make it fun for the kids, occasionally do something together, but not always. More often than not, the Army has taken Mike somewhere, which would be the case this year. And next, but we won't discuss that right now. I got some flowers from my BFF! Aren't they purdy?

We usually get heart shaped pizzas from Papa Murphys. Wouldn't you know it, they don't make heart shaped pizzas up here in he frozen tundra. So, we're improvised. We made our own!!!

The kids also got a token gift as well as some candy.

Notice those cute little Ladybug boxes? They were one of the projects I worked on last week. They were so fun to make! I'll share a completed knitting project in my next blog post. Stay tuned...

Blogging to Myself

2011-02-11T02:39:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I think I'm just blogging to myself. I probably am. I'm OK with that. My husband wanted me to start blogging again so he could keep up with our goings on when he's gone, which he is right now, but just for a short time. So, don't come stalking me or anything. I have two dogs...they're very scary. Maybe not as scary as the five kids I have though. :p Anyway, I have some new recipes I want to try out. I'm going to post the links here so I don't forget. Raspberry Breakfast Bars. Peanut Butter Crispy Bars. Homemade Pop Tarts That's it. For now. I'm currently lusting after a nice big Kitchen Aid Food Processor. Maybe I'll ask for it as a Mother's Day/Birthday gift in May?
I do have a Graduation Present coming on Saturday. Betcha didn't know I'm a college graduate now, did ya? I worked hard for this accomplishment. I'm pretty proud of myself. Of course, I couldn't have done it if it weren't for the Lord giving me strength, and my awesome family being so understanding. However, my husband did ask me to take a little break before I continue after my Bachelors degree. HA! Anyway, my parents got me a Nook Color!!!!! I can't WAIT to get it! Let's not mention the fact that they got me a regular Nook for Christmas. I might kind of be just a little bit spoiled? Just a lil' bit. I'm trying to convince Mike to take my Nook to the Stan with him. I'm not sure if I'm doing a good convincing job or not. Time will tell.
We've had quite a bit of sibling strife going on lately. I knew I needed to do something about it, and fast. So, last night we drew names out of a hat. I added my name in there as well, 'cause I wanted in on the fun!!! Everyday between now and Monday, we're to do something nice for the person whose name we picked. So far, I've seen someone pouring a bowl of cereal for someone else and leaving it on the counter as a surprise (minus the milk), someone else made a lunch for someone and put it in the fridge for them to take to school tomorrow, someone's bed was miraculously made, etc. It's been fun to watch! I'm trying not to get my hopes up, as I knew my teenagers wouldn't be as excited about this as my littles are. But, I'm hoping they at least put forth a bit of an effort. Monday night during our Valentine's Day dinner, we'll reveal who we chose. Fun times!!!!
I really will be sharing photos of finished object. For real.

No Completed Projects

2011-02-06T23:45:00.002-05:00

I feel like I don't complete anything lately. I've come so close to finishing so many things, I just don't actually complete them. This is actually a recurring problem in my life, but that's a post for a different day. So, no pictures today. :sad face:
There was some paper crafting this weekend, along with knitting, and cooking/baking. I feel like all I did all weekend was cook! I made homemade pizza Friday night, like always. Yesterday, I didn't make anything special, just regular meals. Actually, I didn't even cook dinner last night. It was Yo-Yo night. You know what Yo-Yo night is, right? "Your On Your Own" buddie!!! Many of us had cereal. No harm in that, eh? At least it was Life cereal!!!! Today, I made a batch of Blueberry/Walnut granola bars, baked macaroni and cheese, Banana Pudding, Oatmeal Jam Bars (thanks Melissa!), Best Dinner Rolls Ever and Buffalo Chicken Dip. Now, I don't know if these rolls really ARE the best dinner rolls ever. My regular recipe for the best rolls evah is missing. Sniff, sniff. So, I'm trying these. They're currently in the oven. I had planned to make a batch of Baked Oatmeal but I'm out of steam. Maybe tomorrow night.
What's for dinner tomorrow night? I sometimes grow weary of figuring out what we're going to eat. Menus help me, but my husband is gone. I'm not always motivated to cook when he's gone. However, I do know what we're having tomorrow night. These. In fact, that's why I made the Best Dinner Rolls Ever! Our local Walmart didn't have the Hawaiian Rolls, and I didn't want to go to another store to look. So, we'll see how they turn out.
I started a new knitting project this weekend. It's with my FAVORITE yarn ever! Dream in Color Classy! I wish I could afford to knit every worsted, super wash project with DIC. Tomorrow starts a busy next few months of ice-skating lessons, but hopefully I'll have pictures of finished projects and newly started projects to share with you!
Just in case you're wondering, I have two new loves in my life. This and slushy Pepsi. Our entry way is cold enough that it turns my Pepsi into the perfect slushy every time!

Blog Headers

2011-02-04T14:13:00.002-05:00

Thanks to my good friend Melissa, I know how hot to create Blog headers! Woohoo! Go me! I need a little more practice, but I'm getting there. I'm posting a link so I don't forget where the tutorial is located at. Clover Lane has a very easy tutorial posted. If you don't already have Picasa, you must get it. It's very lovely!!! :-)
I sent my man off for a month long vacation to the Mojave desert today. It's been a long time since he's left me for more than a night or two. I guess it's my turn, eh? Anyway, I have many projects planned for the next month. I may have a few finished projects to show you either today or tomorrow. I have several that just need a couple of little things done to them, then they'll move to the finished pile!!!
Before I sign off to do some school with some kids, I must share a lovely thing my three younger kids did for me this morning. Breakfast in bed, complete with COFFEE made with the Keurig! The nicest part though, was the "I love you just because" handmade card they gave me. I love my kids!

Oh the People We Will Meet

2011-01-26T02:48:00.004-05:00

We were shopping at Fred Meyer yesterday when something a wee bit exciting happened. We were in line to check out when a cashier approached us and asked us if we would rather move to the Express Lane. Of course we would, so she walked us to the correct lane and told us there was a film crew from Ice Road Truckers in the store filming a segment. She said we were welcome to take pictures if we desired. After we checked out, I asked the kids if they wanted to try and get a picture of Lisa. Sure! We followed a ways behind her for a couple of minutes trying to get a good shot. Of course, we couldn't. Once we saw her and her crew stop filming and chat for a few moments, we knew that was our golden opportunity. We walked a bit faster to try and get a couple of aisles ahead of the crew so we could approach her from the front and snap a picture. Imagine my surprise when as soon as we popped out of the aisle, she said to me, "Where did you get your jacket. I need it." HA! I went ahead and told her where I bought it and how to get there. Then, I asked if we could take a picture. I think she was a little bit embarrassed, but was very nice about it. Exciting things happening in Fairbanks these days. :-)

Tales of the Fridge and the Frozen Pipes

2011-01-21T04:18:00.002-05:00

When we moved into this rental house, it didn't take long for us to discover that the previous tenant didn't do anything to maintain the house or its contents in any way. It was dirty. Very dirty. Many things were broken. Many. It was -40 degrees the day we moved in and there were several windows in the house that weren't even closed all the way. Of course, there were several inches of ice on the inside of the windows, so we couldn't shut them. Thankfully, it warmed up enough to melt the ice and Mike was able to take care of the problem. Not so surprisingly, we're able to maintain a constant temperature in the house now!!! Whodathunkit? Anyway, one of the things we noticed was broken was the fridge. It's a smallish fridge to begin with, certainly not made for a family of 7. However, the fact that every single one of the shelves on the door are broken was enough to send me over the edge. That means that I have to cram everything onto just the interior shelves, piling things on top of each other, etc. I can only fit one gallon of milk in there at a time. Did I mention we're a family of 7? The other night while I was talking to my Dad on the phone, I opened the fridge to get something and eight items fell out onto the floor. That was not a good night. Even though we've been in this house for nearly a month, we still haven't bought a new refrigerator. We've looked. And looked. And looked some more. Finally, today, it was time to buy. We looked at Lowes last night, came up with a couple of options, but decided to check Sears just in case they had a better deal. Which, they did...however, I would have had to wait until mid-February to get it. That just wouldn't work. Back to Lowes we went. Only to discover that even though they had told us last night that they had the one we were looking at in stock was a lie. A big, fat lie. So, sadly, we paid for a new refrigerator, but I won't have it until February 4th. Unless it comes in sooner. Please pray that it does. I am not one who waits for this kind of thing very well. You are probably wondering why WE bought a new one and not our landlord? Cause I'm taking this baby with me when we leave this house! I'm tired of dealing with rinky dink refrigerators. While this isn't exactly the style we wanted, it will work perfectly for now. We do have to move a cabinet up a few inches, but that's not a big deal. This is very similar to what we ended up with. Freezer on the bottom, it had to be. We're tall. I'm tired of bending down to look at the top shelf in the fridge. Hopefully this will alleviate the problem. I can't wait to get it. This is the first appliance we've ever bought besides a washer and dryer. I feel like such a grown-up!!! :-)
Frozen pipes? Did you know it's possible for them to freeze two days in a row? I'm praying they're not frozen a third. Yesterday, we had a thawing company come out and...well, thaw them. HA! Today, I decided to take matters into my own hands and hit them with the hottest setting on my blow dryer. Thankfully, it worked. It took about 10 minutes, but it did work. I guess frozen pipes are common in -40 degree temps in a house built in 1950, but I digress. Please don't let me awake to frozen pipes tomorrow! I do plan to run a small space heater under the sink tonight. Maybe that will work. I'm pretty sure it will impact my sleep though...I'll be wondering all night if it's going to catch fire! Is it May yet?????

Long Weekend

2011-01-18T03:28:00.002-05:00

This is the first long weekend our family has had in quite some time. Since Mike spent the last 2 years as a Drill Sgt., he worked 7 days most weeks, including federal holidays. Yuck. We enjoyed a nice, mostly relaxing weekend at home. We were planning to go tubing at the local sledding hill on Sunday afternoon, but it was closed due to the fact that the temps were colder than negative 20! Bummer! Today was a bit colder than that, but the kids still went out to play. Only in Alaska, that's for sure! :-)
Saturday, Mikayla and I went to a baby shower. That meant I had to knit a baby gift. 'Cause, you know, we couldn't just drive to the store and buy one!!!! Since I was short on time, I knit another Easy Baby Cardigan. I've knit that little sweater so many times! I'll share a picture once I upload photos. I'm currently working on a little sweater vest from Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders. If you don't have that book, you really do need to go buy it right now. It has so many fun to knit patterns in it!
This week will be a busy week. Tomorrow, we're planning to go skating. Have I mentioned how much my kids love skating? :p I'm also busy planning school stuff. We NEED to get back into a regular routine, which means I need to order new books! I should be able to order this week. My kids were enjoying their time off...until I told them this might just have to be our summer vacation. HA!

Snack Time

2011-01-15T00:24:00.002-05:00

I don't know about your kids, but my kids live for snack time. We have a rule in our house. You may not have a snack until 3pm. The kids watch the clock. Their bodies are in tune with this rule. Sometimes when we're out and about, they'll start complaining of hunger. I'll look at the clock, and sho'nuff, it's 3:00. I made something this week that they absolutely love. So much so that a certainly teenage boy who lives with me brought two in his lunch...one for lunch, one for a snack at school. I thought maybe I would share the recipe, since I don't have a ton of exciting stuff to blog about this week.

Chewy Granola Bars

4 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2/3 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease one 9x13 inch pan.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the oats, flour, baking soda, vanilla, butter, honey and brown sugar. Stir in the two cups of chocolate chips.
Lightly press mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool for 10 minutes, then cut into bars. Let bars cool completely before removing from pan.

After the bars were cooled, I wrapped them individually in saran wrap. This made for easy transport in lunches, or in my purse if we were running errands. As for add-ins, I think you can use any combination of fruits/nuts/chocolate you choose. I bought some walnuts and dried blueberries today. I plan to try that sometime this next week. Enjoy!

It's all coming back to me now....

2011-01-11T03:24:00.002-05:00

Seems as though I had forgotten some things about Alaska. I shall make a list...

1. Bread is expensive up here. That's not the worst of it though. It's stale the day you buy it! It's terrible! I bought a loaf of 100% Whole Wheat three days ago. I used the last slice for a pb&j sandwich for Liberty tonight. She said, "Mommy, is this bread bad?" Nice.

2. Chips and soda are very spendy. Nearly double the price. I know, I know...they're bad for you AND they're expensive. Why not just quit buying them? Because my kids think they need to have chips with their sandwich every day! Soda, we can do without. Apparently chips are necessary.

3. It's cold. To be quite honest, it's not that bad right now. However, I'm always chilly. I think it's because this is the first time we have had to pay our own utilities in y.e.a.r.s. We tend to be rather cheap. We've been keeping the heat on 68. Have I mentioned that the house we're renting was built in 1950? I'm pretty sure we're working with the original windows as well. We have put plastic on many of them, and mini-blinds on some. Because, you know, the people who rented this house before us didn't think mini-blinds were necessary! It took three 39" mini-blinds to cover our one window in the living room. We live in town. Without mini-blinds, everyone who drives by could look right in! Terrible! Someone turned the heat up to 69 degrees tonight. Guess what? I'm not cold! Who knew there was such a difference between 68 and 69?

4. It's dark in the winter, and I do mean dark. The darkness never bothered me the last time we lived here. I do realize that I was 10 years younger then, that probably makes a huge lotta difference. I'm just finally now feeling like I'm functioning with more than half a brain. The first two weeks we were here, I'm pretty sure I was a walking zombie. We are gaining daylight though. About 4 minutes per day, which adds up by the end of the week! Today, I was resting on the couch for a bit at 4:00 and said, "Hey kids! It's not dark yet!"

5. FRG units are much more active up here than they are in the places we've been in the lower 48. Interesting. I'm not sure if it's because AK is so remote, relatively speaking, or what. The jury is still out as to whether or not an active FRG is a good thing.

6. The roads are slick. All the time. I don't remember slip sliding around nearly as much the last time as we do this time. Not so much in the Suburban, it's 4x4. However, Mike's car (which we had the last time we were here as well) slides all over the place! Crazy stuff! Devin is wanting to drive so badly. He can legally get his license any time now. This mama is scared to death to let him drive!

7. You can see Denali from Fairbanks! How could I forget that? A friend showed me a picture on her iPhone today. She saw it as she was driving in to town. Absolutely beautiful!

8. Walmart is apparently THE place to be at 10pm on a Friday night. Now, in my defense, there was not a Walmart here the last time we lived here. But, who knew Walmart would be so busy on a Friday night? Geez Louise!

We really do love it here. Liberty told me the other day that Alaska is the most beautiful place in the entire world. Warmed my heart, I tell ya. I chose not to think about the fact that she hasn't really seen much of the world yet. ;-) Lord willing, we will never leave this place again. Six years at one duty station is a possibility, right?

And There Was Cake

2011-01-07T14:10:00.007-05:00

Yesterday, we celebrated Mikayla's 12th birthday (how on earth can she be 12?). She's having a party next month (after we get more settled) with her friends. She wants a fancy, 2 or 3 layer wedding type cake complete with fondant and who knows what else. So, for her family party, I insisted on something a bit more simplistic. This is what we ended up with...Can you say chocolate overload??? It was yummy though, I will say that much. A two layer marble cake with two cans of chocolate frosting, covered with Kit Kats and M&Ms! Yummmm-0! I know, I know...homemade frosting would have been so much better. The cake she makes for her party with her friends will have homemade frosting, I promise. ;-)
What is a birthday without the gifts???I just realized she didn't get dressed yesterday. Well, half of her was dressed...the other half wore pajama pants all day. I guess I should have had her put a pair of jeans on for pictures? Oh well...the benefits of homeschooling I guess...staying in your jammies all day!!!!!!!
I can't resist...I have to share some of the silliness that was going on during Mikayla's gift opening session.
There was some sweetness too...

Boxes, boxes and more boxes

2011-01-06T02:55:00.002-05:00

We accepted delivery of our household goods on Thursday of last week. It was crazy. I'm quite certain it would take several posts for me to tell you everything that happened that day, but I'll spare you the details. However, I will tell you that they dropped my beautiful, RED, front loading washer down the STAIRS!!!!! I had to close my eyes. I couldn't look. Thankfully, it still works, although the back is dented. We've discovered a lot of broken items/keepsakes as we've emptied boxes. Katie was excited this evening because we found the box that housed her collection of snow globes. Imagine her disappointment when she discovered that 4 had been broken. :-( I don't think the movers in KY packed our stuff with enough padding to sustain the -40 degree temperatures we had when our stuff got here.
One more thing I must tell you about delivery day. We had a very strange moving guy. He was addicted to Crest Mouthwash. He carried it all over the house with him. He swished at least every 10 minutes. At one point, he came out of one of the bedrooms swishing, and panicked because someone was in the bathroom and he couldn't spit! How weird is that?
We've been in the midst of a heat wave and it has been FABULOUS! It's been in the 20s, maybe even 30s the last several days! It seems to have run its course, as I think it's hovering right around zero now, maybe even a couple of degrees below, but we've been loving it. I ran to Barnes and Noble the other day to get help with my Nook, and I didn't even wear a jacket! Imagine that! Alaska, in the middle of winter, with NO JACKET!!!!! I have told the kids several times though, not to get used it it. Fifty below is coming, I'm certain of it.
The two big kids started school this last week. It'll be an adjustment for them, that's for sure. Their schedule is very strange. Some days they have all 6 classes, some they have 4, weird. There have been some bus stop issues, but as of Monday, it'll be all worked out. For now, I have to drive them in the morning, all though they can ride the bus home. I am ready to get back into a regular routine with the other kids. I need to finish unpacking their school books, as well as order some new material for them to work on.
I'm still trying to get back into the habit of blogging, but I do admit it hasn't been an easy habit to get in to. I'm a list maker. I have lists everywhere. I need to write REMEMBER TO BLOG on my list, as I'm kind of hoping to use this as a type of "scrapbook" of our time in Alaska, however long that may be.

Alaska Fun

2010-12-21T03:10:00.004-05:00

We took the kids to Christmas In Ice two weekends ago. It was FRIGID, but so much fun! We went with my friend and her 3 girls. The kids had so much fun trying out the ice slides. Those were quite possibly the fastest slides I've ever seen. Mike tried it with one of kids and said it was painful. He banged his forearms and elbows off the sides of the ice slide. That was enough for me to know that I wasn't going to attempt it. :pMike actually took the kids this last weekend as well. It was free day for Military, I was going to a friend's house to do laundry, he wanted to get the kids out of the hotel for a little while. The ice festival was the perfect thing to do! Plus, it was much warmer than when we went the first time. I think it was a balmy 15 below zero!
Some of my kids have a new found passion....

Yes, they are ice-skating. One of Mikayla's friends asked her to go skating with her when we first got here, and she's been hooked ever since. Actually, the addiction started in Edmonton. We went to the West Edmonton Mall on our way to Alaska. We had planned to take the kids to Glow-in-the dark mini-golf. Until the saw the indoor ice-rink in the middle of the mall. They skated for a little over an hour, and that was it. They were hooked. Liberty actually gave up the cone shortly after this picture was taken. She asked me to guard it for her while she did another lap, just to make sure she didn't need it. Between holding Devin's hand, and holding onto the wall, she made it. The cone was not necessary any longer. Mikayla asks me to take her skating every other day or so. It's a sickness, I say. I'm planning to get the three younger kids in a learn to skate program after the first of the year. Fun times ahead.

The Last Frontier!!!!!

2010-12-15T04:24:00.002-05:00

So, you may or may not have noticed I've taken quite the blogging hiatus. Once I started attempting to keep up with Facebook, I just didn't have the time to keep up with my blog as well. There may be other reasons for letting the blog go by the wayside, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
See that sign up there? Welcome to Alaska! We drove nearly 4,000 miles in 8 days, with a two night stop in Edmonton, Alberta. Might I mention there were seven people, two dogs AND a hamster in one Suburban? Yeah, I was done. D.O.N.E with that drive. Thank the Lord, we made it safely with one mishap. A flat tire. The Lord allowed us to drive 200 miles on that flat tire before we reached a town with tire fixing capabilities.
We are currently living in a 2 bedroom suite hotel. It's the Hotel North Pole, in case you're interested. It's nice and fairly spacious...if we were a family of 4! But alas, it will suffice. The Army had no housing for us, and wouldn't have any for 4-6 months. Thankfully, we were able to find a 5 bedroom house off-post to rent. It'll be available at the end of the month. That means we'll be having Christmas in this hotel. Fun? Maybe, maybe not? We'll at least be together, that's for sure.

Baby Hoodie Times Two

2009-04-13T16:50:00.002-05:00

I won't bother sharing the picture of the second hoodie (which was really the first) again, just scroll down to see it in the post before this one. I love these little hoodies. I suppose they are cardigans, but doesn't hoodie sound more hip? My kids have informed me I'm a walking blast from the past, so I need all the help I can get. :p

Specs:

Pattern: Easy Baby Cardigan

Yarn: Knit Picks Cotlin, 1 skeins. The sweater in my previous post is Kramer Yarns Little Lehigh in the It's a Boy colorway. Let me just say, I much prefer the KP Cotlin. One thing about the red though, it bleeds....a lot. Rinse it realllly well when blocking.

Needles: Size 7

Yardage: I barely used anything from the 2nds skein of Kramer Yarns. Cotlin, takes about a skein and a half to knit the 6 months size.

Modifications: None, other than the fact that I picked up stitches and knit I-cord ties rather than crocheted or twisted ties.

I would definitely knit these sweaters again. They're great mindless knitting, which, let's face it...we all need mindless knitting sometimes. ;-)

Tomorrow, I pick my Mom up from the airport. We're going here on the way home. I can't wait.....

Up From the Grave He Arose!

2009-04-12T14:39:00.004-05:00

Sharing a bit of Easter goodness with you....

And, a finished knitting project. Details to come....

Happenings

2009-03-31T21:06:00.008-05:00

Lots of happenings going on around here during the month of March. Liberty broke her ankle. Such a freak thing really. She fell. That's it. Nothing spectacular, she just fell. Of course, she cried. Me being the fantabulous mother that I am, told her to just get in bed and quit crying. Really, I thought it was no big deal. Until she got up the next morning and couldn't walk. That's when I knew we had a problem. Thankfully, Mike was able to take her to the ER. Of course it happened on a day when I had a gazillion things to do because we were having company for dinner that night! The ER doctors didn't think she would need a cast, but apparently she did. This picture serves a two-fold purpose. See that green stuff Liberty is sitting in? She declared the day we got grass as the "best day of her life." Too funny. Atleast we can let the dogs back there now.

Devin had his JROTC ball on Saturday. He had a blast. I think the most fun event of the evening maybe have been going into the basement because the tornado sirens went off. Fun stuff, let me tell 'ya. He didn't bring a date, even though he would have liked to. He had to buy his ticket at the end of January. Since he had only been attending the school for a couple of weeks, he didn't know anyone well enough to ask them to go with them. However, he did inform me that he danced with a few girls. Yee-gads.

Last by not least, Mike got a promotion!!!!!!!! I am so proud of him. If you speak "Army," he went from E-5 to E-7 in five years, AND he was a reclass! Of course, as soon as his ceremony was over, he was already talking about E-8. Silly guy. :-) Not the greatest picture in the world, but atleast it's something. Mike's friend Brian drove to Knox from Campbell for the ceremony. He ripped the old rank off so I could stick the new rank on. Can I just say, pinning rank isn't the same now that it's VELCRO!!!!!!!!!!!

Poison Vinnlands

2009-03-20T23:40:00.000-05:00

I am so glad to be done with these socks. They were a joy to knit, but I'm quite ashamed they took me so long. I probably shouldn't even admit it...they took 11 months!!! They were a bit out of my comfort zone...I had never knit with a 16 row chart before. I never did memorize the pattern. HA! I guess the reason they took me so long is because I was knitting other things at the same time. I'm not a very good multi-tasker when it comes to knitting I suppose.

Project Specs...

Wollmeise Poison Number 5 (LOVE this yarn...would love it more if it wasn't so stinkin' hard to get!)

Needles...Knit Picks 2.5mm

Pattern...Vinnland

I knit them toe-up, with Becca's Toe-up Heel Flap formula. Easy-peasy...you should try it.

Stash Enhancing

2009-03-03T16:36:00.006-05:00

I've done a bit of stash enhancing lately. I don't really have much of a yarn stash. I've outgrown one rubbermaid tote, which really isn't much at all. I do think I'm going to have to quit buying yarn until I can get some more of it knitted up though. I really am more comfortable staying within the one rubbermaid tote. :p I figured I would share some of the yummy new yarn that has recently come into my life.

First, we have Dream in Color Classy in the Good Luck Jade colorway. I'm planning to make a sweater for myself, but am not 100% sure on the pattern. I'm thinking this, #257.

Next, we have Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Iris Garden. This yarn was a surprised from The Loopy Ewe when I became a groupie. I love it! Iris' are one of my favorite flowers, and purple is my favorite color!

I scored this from someone on Ravelry hoping to destash it. I had a bit of help from Becca, because I never find cool destashes on my own. I absolutely adore this yarn, and can't wait to knit it up. It's a Wee Skein Sock Kit by Knitterly Things. The 4 colors are Oh Lollipop, Verbina, Muddy Waters and Sweet Summer Sky. Yumm-o.

Next, I'll show you something I think is a little fun. I don't have a particular plan for it, but I couldn't resist. It's a Sock Turtle Kit! She also sells Sock Monkey kits, I think there is a giraffe kit, lots of fun stuff. Check it out!One last thing, lest you think I don't actually knit with the yarn that I buy. Although, I do feel quite happy with my knitting progress as of late. ;-)

Another pair of Mitered Mittens in Noro Silk Garden. I wish they were a bit more matchy-matchy, but I didn't have enough yarn. I used nearly a full two skeins for the mitts! I think next time I'll shorten the cuff. I had lengthened it when I made Katie's mitts, which works well for kids (no snow in there coat sleeves) but not so much for me. In all honesty, I'm not really going to be trampsing around in the snow enough to actually get snow in my coat sleeves, eh? ;-) I do love them though. Mikayla is already asking me for a pair for her. Our winter is nearly over here in KY, so I'll shoot for next winter for her.

I finished a baby sweater a couple of days ago and have already cast on for another. There are lots of people having babies these days! As soon as the finished sweater is blocked, I'll share it. :-)

Sweethearts

2009-02-16T16:18:00.008-05:00

Valentines Day is a pretty low key holiday around here. I would much prefer to be shown love for the other 364 days of the year, rather than just one day. Rather than focus on the "holiday" ourselves, we (I should really say, "I" since the other person who makes it "we" isn't home enough to have a say these days) decided to do some fun stuff with the kids. I picked up dinner from Papa Murphys....

Heart shaped pizzas. They were rather yummy. I'll be ordering from Papa Murphys again, that is for sure.

I stayed up late Friday night making some little trinket candy holders for the kids, as well as Mike. This is what I came up with....

Here is the card I made for Mike.

The inside:

We snuggled on the couches after dinner and watched Igor. Dare I say, that movie was d.u.m.b. I might have a different opinion of it had I been able to stay awake, but I digress. Atleast the kids liked it. :p

Someone finished a couple of knitting projects this week....

She actually finished 2 of them. One for me, one for my Mom. She has plans to knit me a dish towel next. She's chomping at the bit to start it. We purchased the yarn, I just need to get a new printer so I can print out the pattern for her. Sadly, the movers didn't pack the power cord to my existing printer in the same box as the actual printer. We are unable to find the power cord. Ugh. Sam's Club has a printer on sale for cheap. I'm going to buy it hopefully tonight while the kids are at BJJ and TKD.

February Lady in February

2009-02-13T23:17:00.003-05:00

The February Lady Sweater is FINALLY finished. I'm ashamed about how long it took me to complete, but it is what it is. I mailed it to my Mom yesterday. I'm hoping she'll get it tomorrow, but the mail is ever so slow when you live in Podunkville. :p I absolutely love this sweater. I really wanted to keep it for myself. So much so that I dared not even try it on, lest I couldn't help myself. I'm hoping Mom will send me a picture of her wearing it, but I'm not holding my breath.

The Objects of my Affection

2009-02-11T00:29:00.007-05:00

I've been a very bad blogger. I'll not spare you with all of the boring details (we moved to KY, brought my mother-in-law with us...she stayed for almost a month...we had an awful ice storm that left us without power or heat for a few days, etc.). I dare say, we are finally settling in. We're trying to discover our new normal, since Mike works all.the.time. Did you know there is no such thing as a weekend in Drill Sgt. land? He was home by 6pm tonight. That would mean it's been his shortest day yet, well except for Sundays when he only works a half day. Today, he only worked 13 hours. He has worked as many as 17, twice. Fun stuff, let me tell ya. Other than the ridiculous hours, he doesn't seem to be minding it too much. Anyway, on to more important business. Check these babies out....

The washer is a GE 4 cu. ft. Front-Load Washer with HydroHeater™ Internal Heater for Cleaning Tough Stains, and of course, the matching dryer. I *heart* these babies. They're so pretty! And so quiet! I feel like I should display them in the living room for all to see! If I had guests, I would wisk them to my laundry room to have a little look see. Maybe it's a good thing I don't have guests? :p I agonized over which brand to buy. Samsung, LG, GE, no how about Whirlpool, no, LG....no, Samsung...GE? Mike was every so grateful when I decided on the GEs. I was interested in the Samsungs because they have noise reducing technology or something like that. The LGs were interesting because the salesman at HHGregg was going to give us an awesome deal. Sadly, when we went to purchase them, the deal wasn't as great as originally offered. The GEs though, we got a great deal on them. No pedestals as of yet. I'm trying them without to see if I can justify the extra $400. Really, the pedestals are just storage drawers...spendy ones at that! My laundry room is pretty small. I'm not even sure how well they would fit with pedestals. It would be nice not to have to bend down to rotate the laundry though. Amazingly enough, I've been caught up on my laundry since these were delivered. :-)

Next...this isn't a great picture, but my new sofa and loveseat...

Please excuse the messy TV stand. I cleaned it today, so it's much tidier now, thank you very much. :p The sofa reclines. Very comfy. Very, very comfy. I sleep on it nearly every morning. 'Cause you know, I'm not a fan of mornings, so when I get up to send Devin to school (really all I do it tell him good-bye...sending him off to school would require me getting up more than 5 minutes before he has to leave the house), I crash on the couch for another hour or so before I get up to start the day. We had our hearts set on red, reclining sofas. They were not to be had. Well, I take that back. We could have had them for double what we wanted to pay, and I would have had to wait 5 weeks to get them. Those of you who know me know waiting isn't my strong point. So, chocolate brown it is. I LOVE them. We're mean though...we don't let the kids recline them without permission. Could you imagine? Five rough, tough kids yanking on the reclining mechanism all the time? Nope, these couches need to last me a few years, thank you very much. They don't complain about it too much, and I'm grateful.
Here's a little Valentine craft I worked on this week. 'Cause you know, I'm bored out of my mind since my husband works all the time. HA! It's a banner that I hung on the wall. The rectangles are 4x6, so it's pretty good sized.

Here's a close-up of my favorite square...

I should probably mention that this wasn't my idea. I stole it from my copy-cat sister. heehee

I have been knitting. Quite a bit, actually. Here's a sneak peak of a Loopy Ewe package I got in the mail the other day. It was like Chirstmas, I'm telling ya.....

Catch Up

2008-12-03T13:16:00.000-05:00

I hope you had a very happy Thanksgiving! We enjoyed our time in SC. It was only the 2nd time in 6 years that we've been able to spend Thanksgiving together as a family. Usually, Mike is gone somewhere. He actually was gone, but we met at his Dad's house. lol. I had hoped to post my holiday baking pictures before we left, but it didn't happen. I swear, traveling with 5 kids gets harder the older they get. It shouldn't be that way though, should it? I digress. Here is the best pumpkin bread you've ever tasted. It's not healthy, but it is super yummy. We added wal-nuts and chocolate chips to the mini-loaves. Definitely will be doing that again.

Benjamin was my helper with the pumpkin bread. I think he likes to help me bake only so he can lick the beater.

Next, we have rolls. Oh my goodness. These are delish! I made a test batch a couple of days before we left, the kids scarfed them down like there was no tomorrow. I'll be making these again for sure. Here's the recipe, just in case you would like to try them.

Anne’s Sunbeam Rolls
Cooking Time 12-15 minutes Preheat oven to 375Makes 24 rolls
Ingredients:
1 Cup milk1/2 Cup butter3 eggs1 tsp salt1/3 cup sugar41/2-5 Cups flour4 1/2 tsp yeast (2 pkgs)
Scald milk. Melt butter in hot milk. Let cool to room temp. Dissolve yeast and sugar in a small amount of water. Add the yeast -sugar mixture to the cooled milk mixture. Add eggs and flour. Mix thouroughly. This makes a wet dough. Knead until shiny, adding flour if necessary. Oil the dough. Cover and put in a warm place to rise until doubled. (About 1 hour) Punch down. Divide dough into three pieces. Roll, with a rolling pin, each piece into a circle (about 10 in. diameter.) Cut circle into 8 wedges. Pull off one wedge. Starting form wide end towards the point roll into a crescent. Place on a greased cookie sheet in 3 rows. Cover and put in a warm place to rise until double in size. Brush with butter.( Optional sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds)Bake about 12 minutes until golden brown.
**These rolls can also be made into hamburger buns with delicious results.

We also made an apple walnut bread. This was good, but I don't know that we'll make it again. Much healthier than the pumpkin, but no where near as good. Mikayla was the kitchen helper this go around.

I finally got around to taking a little better photo of the February Lady Sweater. I started the sleeves tonight. I really need to hurry up. I have so many other things to complete before we leave. Atleast this picture shows the color a little better. It really is heathered. ;-) I do love this sweater. I'm thinking I"ll make one for myself at some point.

We did a photo shoot at Heritage Park in downtown Columbus a few weeks ago. I'll share more photos later, but for not, here's a picture to get you in the holiday spirit.

Current Projects

2008-11-20T20:24:00.004-05:00

I've been busy. My to-do list is a mile long. I am quite certain I won't complete it all before it's time for us to move. However, I'm going to try my darndest.
Here's some gift tags I made using my Cricut. This was such a fun project to work on. Hopefully the recipients will appreciate them.

These are gift card holders. They're super easy to make. If anyone is interested in the directions, just post in the comments and I'll write up the directions. These were super fun to make too. Since we're moving right before Christmas, most of our extended family will be getting gift cards. I know, I know...it's the easy way out. I don't usually give gift cards. Sometimes you've just got to though. ;-)

Last but not least, proof that I really do knit. My Mom asks me what I've been knitting nearly every night. I lie and tell her socks. In all honesty, I am knitting on a pair of socks, just not as much as I've been knitting on the February Lady Sweater. This is a horrid picture. The sun was sooooo bright on my deck this afternoon. I'll do a retake soon. I just needed ya'll to have some proof that I really have been knitting. HA! I've got 2 or 3 more repeats on the body, then it's on to the sleeves. I do believe I"ll finish this in time!

We're traveling to SC for Thanksgiving. I can't wait. We'll get to see the in-laws and Mike! We haven't seen him since the beginning of October, so I am excited. We've got some fun plans. We're going to take the kids to the Greenville Zoo. We've been before, but not in a couple of years. Of course, a trip to Greenville wouldn't be complete unless we ate at our favorite restaurant, Sticky Fingers. I saved ya'll a possibly scary google search and provided the link. ;-) We're contemplating a trip to the movies too. Bolt comes out on Thursday. I'm sure my two big kids would much rather see Twilight though. Silly kids.

Civic Duty

2008-11-04T10:11:00.002-05:00

GO VOTE!!!!!!

Please make sure you vote today. I would love to tell you who to vote for, but I won't. :-) I just want you to vote. Once you've voted, take your "I voted" sticker to Ben and Jerry's for a free ice-cream scoop. Ice-cream isn't your thing? How about coffee? Take your sticker to Starbucks and get a free tall coffee! What? Coffee isn't your thing either? How about donuts? Mmmmm...who doesn't like donuts? Krispy Kreme is giving away free patriotic star shaped donuts. Don't like donuts? How about chicken? Take your sticker to Chick-fil-a and get a free chicken sandwich! I did hear that Chick-fil-a will take your sticker though, so make sure you get your other freebies first. ;-)

Fun with Photoshop

2008-11-02T18:54:00.005-05:00

I've had Photoshop 5.0 on my computer for quite some time. Quuuuiiiitttteeeee some time. I've used it to make a digital brag book or two, but that's about it. I really should take the time to learn it, because it's so much fun! Trying to get good pictures of five kids is nuts. I've pretty much given up. Not to mention the fact that they never match. ;-) Anyway, I played around a bit today, converting them to black and white and then changing the pumpkin back to orange. Here is a result of my efforts:

I didn't Photoshop this next photo at all. It's not a fantastic picture...it's hard to get fantastic pictures when it's pitch black outside and you don't want to use a flash. I should have dug out the tri-pod, but I didn't. I do like the shadows in this picture though.

Soon...soon you'll get a picture of the Lady.

Festive Projects

2008-10-30T07:48:00.006-05:00

I've been sewing. Nothing major, just a couple of quick projects. I have my next sewing project planned out, but I cannot find the stinkin' pattern. I dug through all of my sewing stuff last night and it's no where to be found. I guess I'll just have to buy it again. I'll look through everything once more before I do that though. Grrrrr.

Placemats that are supposed to look like Christmas Ornaments and a little fabric basket. I told you it was nothing too exciting. :p I just love that little fabric basket. It's quick and easy. It would make a great gift filled with some baked goods, don'tcha think? Wanna make one yourself? Here's how.

I snapped a few pictures of Liberty jumping on the trampoline. She loves to jump. She seriously needs a hair-cut. I just love her hair though. She's 4.5 and has never had a hair-cut. We keep saying we're going to do it, but I just can't make myself get it done! The current plan is to get it done when we're in NY for Christmas. The stylist who cut Mikayla and Benjamin's hair is there, so we might as well stick with tradition, eh? We'll see. I still have time to change my mind. :p

While I was snapping photos, I should have taken a picture of the February Lady Sweater. It's going quite well! The thing I'm struggling with now is, how long do I make it? Since it's not for me, I can't just try it on. Mom is a few inches shorter than I am. So, anyone who has made a size large and is about 5'4" care to tell me how long they made the body before blocking?

Shhhhh....it's a secret

2008-10-24T18:50:00.002-05:00

I am 90% finished with my Christmas shopping. Since we're moving three days before Christmas, I've been stressing over shopping. It's been the last thing on my mind when I have went to bed, and the first thing on my mind when I wake up. I hate that. I know it's just been because I have so little control over much of my life right now, but I'm glad I don't have to think about it anymore. I have a few little things to pick up for the kids, some gift certificates for extended family, and that's it. My Mom will be getting several boxes delivered to her house next week. It will be so weird not going shopping in the stores this year, but alas, it is what it is. :-) I do have a few things I'm planning to make, so I'll have plenty to keep my busy between now and then. Even though we're down to less than 2 months until we move, I know it is going to go by so quickly. After five years at the same duty station, I am ready to go. I'll miss my friends here, but geez louise, I've had itchy feet for a couple of years now! ;-)

Paper Crafting

2008-10-21T16:36:00.009-05:00

I've been knitting, but still haven't taken a picture of my current work in progress. I'll try and get that done later this week. The project is coming along nicely, but there's one problem. My Mom has been shrinking. She's lost about 20 pounds in maybe 4 weeks? It's sickening. Then there's me...takes me over 2 months to lose 20 pounds. Geez Louise. Anyway, here's what I've been doing lots since Mike left...paper crafting.

That may or not be my Christmas card for this year. So, if you usually get one from me, pretend you didn't see this. :p I signed up for a Christmas Card swap with my private swap group. Hopefully the other ladies like it. I kind of wonder how I ever scrapped or made cards before I got my Cricut Expressions? HA!

Next...a mini-album made with the Close To My Heart File Folios. Really, they're just a 12x12 file folder. So, if you've got one of those laying around, you could easily replicate this little book. This is actually the second one I made. The first, I sent to Mike for his birthday last week. He likes sentimental stuff like this, so he was pleased to get a little surprise in the mail. When he was in Iraq, I sent him an album that went everywhere with him. Even out on missions. ;-) Anyway, this one, I mailed to my Mom today. She'll appreciate it, as she says I don't mail her pictures anymore, I just e-mail 'em. Does anyone mail pictures anymore???? This is the album closed:

This is the album open, showing the little tags that pull out:

This is another little album I made. I haven't added pictures yet though. I'm thinking some black and whites of the kids would be super cute. I'm planning to make several as gifts. We give most of our extended family gift cards for Christmas. We haven't always done this, but it gets too hard to know what to buy for people we hardly see. Plus, it costs a lot to ship all of that stuff. So, my mother-in-law, father-in-law, sister-in-law and my brother will be getting these little albums full of pictures of the kids, along with a gift card for Christmas. I'll probably give one to my Mom too, 'cause she'll have a cow if I don't. :p

Closed:

Open:
Each envelope has a tag that pulls out to hold a photo too. Super fun, super cute, and super quick!

For those of you American Girl fans looking to start your shopping a bit early, here's a code for you. It's $10 off a $30 purchase. You can use it as many times as you want. So, you can purchase $30 worth, submit your order and repeat! Code: 159926 Don't forget to check the sale section! They don't have much for the 18" dolls, but they have some cute stuff for the Bitty Baby/Bitty Twins!

Yee-Gads

2008-10-08T10:32:00.007-05:00

I've been a bad blogger. Very sporadic. Geez Louise. My dh is gone again, so hopefully I'll have time to blog more faithfully. Although, I'm not sure I'm interesting enough to blog more than once per week. :p

We took a couple of field trips over the last couple of weeks. One to the Columbus Museum, and one to the Montgomery Zoo. We've been to the zoo lots of times, but the kids still love it. We're planning to go again in December, as soon as Mike gets home. It'll be the last time we go before we move. Atleast there will be a zoo closer to our house once we move...no more driving nearly 2 hours just to see some animals.

Katie also celebrated her 12th birthday. We started the day with presents, then took her to get her hair cut. She had been growing her hair for months...maybe even a couple of years? She wanted to donate it to Locks of Love. She really hated her hair long, so she was so glad to get it cut. She looks so much more grown up with her shorter hair-do.

Before:

After:

I really should take another picture of her. I like it much better the way she styles it rather than the way the hair-dresser styled it.

In knitting news, I've started a new project. I was hoping to share some photos of it with you today, but it's raining outside. In order to get the true effect of the heathers, I think it needs to be photographed with natural light. So, maybe in a day or two.

I'll share a couple of my favorite photos from the zoo...

Pretty in Pink

2008-09-15T14:04:00.004-05:00

I'm sharing another finished knitting project with you today. Can you believe it? I'm getting quite a bit of knitting time in lately. You know what that means, right? I'm not scrapbooking at all. Seems I can't find a happy medium, but for now, I'll either just knit, or just scrap. My cousin is having her first baby in February. Or maybe it'll be January? I want to knit her a sweater, but she's one of those people who won't find out if they'll be welcoming a little girl or a little boy into their family until the birth. Geez louise. Can you imagine? ;-) I don't want to knit a green or yellow sweater. I was thinking of using some Dream in Color yarn, but I only have a purple colorway. If you have any color ideas, share 'em with me. I also wasn't sure which size needles I should use or which gauge or yarn! So, I did a test knit. With some stash yarn bought way back when I first started knitting and didn't know what "nice" yarn was. This yarn wasn't too bad, but it didn't take me long to remember why I don't much knit with acrylic. Someone at our church had a baby girl a couple of weeks ago, so I'll gift this sweater to her on Wednesday night.

Specs:

Yarn is Paton Astra Pretty in Pink Ombre

Pattern is Baby Sweater on Two Needles from the Knitters Almanac

Size 5 needles

Sweater size 6-12 months

One thing I loved the most about this pattern is, there are no seams to sew up when you're finished. Well, I suppose if I followed the pattern to a "t" I would have had to sew up the arm seams, but I knitted them in the round. That's a huge plus for me because I much prefer the knitting process to the finishing process. It about killed me to sew the buttons on. I chose plain jane buttons. I just don't do cutesy buttons. The fact that our button selection here in Columbus leaves something to be desired might have something to do with it. I loved knitting this sweater so much, that I'm considering knitting an adult size for my mother for Christmas!

Half-Pipe

2008-09-07T15:28:00.004-05:00

I finished knitting this hat a week or so ago, I just needed to sew in the brim. I don't know why i waited to do it, it took all of maybe 5 minutes? I think these hats are so cute. I'll be making a few more of them, I'm sure. I tried to get my dh to model for me, but that was a no-go. :p I think Benjamin makes a pretty cute model though.....

Project Specs....
You can find the pattern in this book.
Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Yarn
Size 8 needles
I had hoped to have another finished object to share with you. However, I am still short a sleeve. I may finish tonight, but I'm sure I won't have time to blog about it before my surgery in the am. Have I mentioned how hungry I am? I haven't eaten anything since Friday at dinner!!!!!!!!!!

Evangeline

2008-09-04T14:41:00.007-05:00

I am finally sharing some finished knitting project photos with you. They've been done for quite some time now, I just haven't gotten around to taking pics and uploading them. I've started my "we need hats and mittens for everyone" project. So far, I've got these two pairs of fingerless gloves for the 2 older girls and a pair of mittens for Liberty. I'll share those soon. I've got a nearly complete hat for Benjamin or Devin, whomever it fits better, that you'll get to see soon too. I need to order some more yarn before I can knit anymore. I have the hat pattern picked out for the girls, but have no chunky yarn in my stash. I dont' really have much of a stash...one rubbermaid tote. Most times, I don't mind. Now is one of those times when I'm wishing I had a closet full of stash. :p I can't seem to find the pattern link anymore. However, if you're a Ravelry member, you can search for it quite easily. These were both knitting with Cascade 220.

I absolutely love the cables in this pattern. Looks complicated, but is relatively easy.

I'm hoping to share some more photos with you by the end of the weekend. I'm having surgery on Monday, so I'm kind of in finish it up mode. I'm not sure how I'll be feeling after my surgery. It's a minor surgery, I'm actually quite excited about it, but you never can tell how you'll feel afterwards.

Lastly, I'll share a photo that is sweet to me. I figure ya'll have seen many pictures of Liberty's "crazy" side, you need to see a photo of her "sweet" side too....

My Baby is Growing Up.

2008-08-12T13:15:00.004-05:00

She can write her name. We've been working on it for about a week. I don't think she can do it from memory yet, but geez louise...that didn't take long at all! She can even make the e!!!!!

Where has the time gone?

First Day of School

2008-08-08T08:33:00.007-05:00

I know, it seems awfully early to be back to school already. The public schools here in the south start super early compared to the northeast. Growing up in NY, we didn't start school until after Labor Day. Here, they started on Tuesday. We had our first day on Monday. We had one horrid day this week...yesterday. The rest went surprisingly well! Here is my pre-schooler:
She is so excited to have school books this year! She's currently learning to write her name, although she's not too thrilled with that. It's easier to just have an older sibling write it for her. :p Her stack of books include:
Get Ready For the Code
Get Set For School (Handwriting Without Tears)
Kumon workbooks (currently mazes...she rocks at mazes)
Various other worksheets that I find

Here is my 1st grader:
He was very excited to be starting first grade this year. Until he actually started it. Then he decided it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He had to stand in the corner on the first day of school. I was amazed at how little he forgot over the summer. We did virtually no work this summer, so I had figured they would forget everything. He totally surprised me! His stack of books for this year include:
BJU Math 1 (I bought the Review books this year for extra reinforcement)
Explode the Code 2 (I have 2.5 and 3 ready for when he finished 2)
My Printing Book (Handwriting Without Tears)
BJU Phonics and English 1
Various things like Sight Word cards, etc.
First Language Lessons (we haven't started this yet. I'm waiting until he can write a bit better)
Apologia Zoology 1 (we didn't finish this last year, so we're still working on it)

Here is the 4th grader:
I can't believe she's a 4th grader. She gets to change Sunday School classes this year, she is very excited about that. Currently in her pile of books:
Explode the Code (she needed reinforcement, so we're reviewing)
FLL 2 (finishing from last year)
BJU Heritage Studies
Apologia Zoology 1
BJU Math 4
HWT Cursive
Sequential Spelling
Various Readers from the Sonlight catalog
Studying God's Word A
The Complete Book of Animals (workbook from Sam's Club - great for reading comprehension)

Here's the 7th grader:

We didn't realize she is considered a junior high student until Tuesday. She asked us what kinds of privileges junior high students get. As if. :p I can't believe she's a 7th grader now. She gets to join the youth group at church, which excites her very much. . Not so much her older brother, 'cause now he'll have someone to tattle on him when he acts obnoxiously. HA! Currently in her stack of books:

Alpha Omega History

AO SOS Story of the Constitution

Mind Benders

Saxon 7/6 Math (She'll start Pre-Algebra in January or so. Maybe Teaching Textbooks?)

BJU English 7

Apologia General Science

Abeka Of People (Literature)

BJU Bible Truths B

Maps and Geography (workbook from Sam's Club)

Various Readers from the Sonlight reading list

Getting Started with Latin

Last but not least, the Highschooler:

Ninth grader made Devin super nervous. We've been talking to him all summer about how he was going to really have to buckle down once he was in high school. He even told all of his friends that he wasn't going to have time to go outside and play once school started. He had one day this week where he did school until 4:00, but the other days were great. He finished by 11:30 one day, which was a miracle. ;-) Four more years with this boy, then he's off to college. First off, I'm wondering how on earth I could be old enough to have a ninth grader? Secondly, holy cow...4 more years and he'll move out...there is still so much we want to do with him, yet it is overwhelming to think about how little time we have left. Here's his stack of books:

BJU Literature 9

Algebra 1 (Math Relief...with the exception of yesterday, he loves it. :p)

Apologia Biology

Mind Benders

AO SOS Story of the Constitution

Streams of Civilization 2

BJU Grammar/Writing (I might switch his writing to WriteShop)

Rosetta Stone Arabic

Various Readers from the Sonlight reading list

Wordly Wise

BJU Bible Truths B

I'm hoping we have a great year this year. Our goals? Writing ON the lines, doing our best work the first time and time management. They might be lofty goals, but I'm hoping we can accomplish them. It's going to be a good year.

Hip in Hemp 2

2008-08-07T06:15:00.003-05:00

I am finally finished with Liberty's skirt. These aren't very good pictures, but they'll have to do. It was soooooo sunny out, it was hard to get a good shot. Liberty wore her skirt to church last night. She looks so cute. ;-) Now, Mikayla is requesting a skirt. I told her to just wait a year and she can have Katie's. HA! I'm not sure I've got it in me to knit another one. Although, I might like one for myself once all of this extra baggage I'm carrying is gone! ;-) Next on the knitting schedule....Evangalines. I couldn't get the pattern page to come up, but there's some pretty pics of them on that blog site.

We started school this week. So far, it's going well. It still seems too early to me to be starting school, but I digress. I'll share some first day of school photos in my next blog post.

Back to the Real Real World

2008-07-21T08:58:00.002-05:00

Dh went back to work on Friday. He hasn't worked since May. Holy cow, that was a long vacation. It was mostly good. I think we're both ready for some type of a routine again though. Although, I'm not sure how much of a routine it'll really be. My parents are flying in tomorrow. I'm excited about that. Surprisingly, my Dad decided to come. He doesn't do hot weather. Of course, he decided to come a few weeks after Mom had bought her ticket, so he had to pay $300 more than her's cost. I guess that's the price he paid for procrastinating? :p We're planning a trip to Stone Mountain while they're here. We've never been, so I'm kind of excited to go there. We got free tickets through Mike's work, otherwise we could never afford to go. That place is spendy!
We'll be starting school the week of the 4th. That seems so awfully early to me, but that's when the public schools are starting back up! Summer vacation is so short in the south. I'm not even remotely ready to start school again. I bought a fancy planning program to use this year. It takes hours to load all fo the lesson plans on to the computer. I know once it's done it'll be worth it, but geez louise. I'll be spending some late nights inputting info once my parents leave. I can't believe I"m the parent of a freshman now! Yee-gads!
Hold on to your computer chair, but I've been knitting. I'm trying to finish up the Hip in Hemp skirt for Liberty. I could be done now, but since I've got some extra yarn, I'm going to add another striping repeat. So, maybe in a couple of weeks I'll have a finished project to share with you! Every night that I knit, Mike keeps telling me to hurry up and finish the skirt. He seems to think I need to knit the kids hats and mittens for this winter. It'll be cold where we're moving, but not THAT cold. :p

Big and Rich

2008-07-11T20:39:00.003-05:00

I've been absent from blog land for quite some time now. I would promise to do better, but I can't promise much of anything these days.

Mike was out running on the Riverwalk Thursday morning. They're building the new Infantry Museum out that way, and some old guy stopped Mike to talk to him for a minute. He was telling Mike that Big and Rich was coming for the ground breaking ceremony for the 173rd Airborn Memorial. If you've heard any of Big and Rich's music, you would know they wrote a song a couple of years ago or so called the "8th of November." That song is about the 173rd. They've since done a benefit concert to raise money for the memorial. Since the 173rd used to be stationed at Benning, the new Infantry Museum was chosen as the location for the Memorial. Mike was a little leary when that guy told him B&R was coming, since there was absolutely no advertising done at all. BUT, according to the B&R web-site, they indeed were planning to be at Benning on the 11th. So, off we went, into the swealtering heat and humidity, to the ground breaking ceremony. There were maybe 60 people there? After B&R sang their song and did their thing with the media, we were able to chat with them for a few minutes and have our photos taken. Mike enjoyed talking with John Rich about this season of Nashville Star. John is one of the judges, so it was actually pretty comical. Big Kenny doesn't talk much...we were surprised about that, but it appears that John Rich is the more outgoing of the two. We do think there is more behind that story though. :p

SC pics

2008-06-19T17:17:00.006-05:00

Here are a few pics from our trip to SC. We had a blast. I didn't die of smoke inhalation, which I was seriously concerned about. :p

Mike and Devin are hiking the AT in North GA this week. Next week, it's just Mike and I off to Disney. I can't wait...........

Busy

2008-06-02T20:18:00.007-05:00

So, it's been a while since I've posted. It seems as though I've barely had time to come up for air since Mike has been home. I've not knitted an single thing since he returned, can you believe it? Here's a what we've been doing lately.

Shopping....

That's a 42" LCD HD Vizio TV. We love it. The night we bought it, we watched National Treasure 2...turned the volume way up, kept the lights off and all crammed into the living room. Felt like we were at the movie theater. :p

Riding bikes....not me in particular, but everyone else has been riding a ton.

Silly things...Mike and Devin are going to do some hiking next month. We ventured to two different REIs in Atlanta to purchase their equipment. Of course, they didn't have the particular tent Mike wanted, but Ebay did. :-) Mike and Liberty tried it out in the living room the night it arrived.
Swimming. It's HOT, HOT, HOT in GA right now. We've all had the sun burns to prove it too.

Wednesday, we're headed to Greenville to spend some time with Mike's Dad. We're hoping to hike a bit, take the kids to the local water park and eat at Sticky Fingers. Oh, and Mike is planning to play a round of golf with his Dad. That ought to be a riot.

HE'S HERE!

2008-05-08T16:50:00.003-05:00

After a VERY long night, he is finally here. We got to the airfield aroune 10:30, and didn't get home until almost 2:30am. I had forgotten Benjamin had Kindergarten graduation practice today, so we had to be up by 8am to get there in time. Good thing we're running on adrenaline right now. :-) Thanks so much to everyone who prayed for his safe return. It is finished!

Denial

2008-05-03T21:20:00.001-05:00

I think I'm in denial. My husband will be home in less days than there are fingers on one hand, and I havent' done a thing. I have a laundry room FULL of laundry. I have an entire house that needs to be vacumned. I have a Suburban that needs to be cleaned out lest it's rightful owner blow a gasket. ;-) I have counters that need to be cleaned off, as I suffer from Flat Surface Syndrome. What did I spend my Saturday doing? Taking a nearly 2 hour bubble bath and reading two Beverly Lewis books. Lord help me.

KAL anyone?

2008-04-18T20:22:00.002-05:00

One of my knitting goals for this year was to knit something for a charity. I knew I wouldn't be able to knit oodles and oodles of hats, but this I might be able to do. A toddler sized sweater in thick yarn. ;-) If you're interested in following along, here's the blog address. Jean knits a ton of sweaters/mittens for charity, and knits them rather quickly! This particular pattern is her own, and I can't wait to start it.

Delays

2008-04-17T19:46:00.003-05:00

The time for my husband to return is drawing near. I should expect delays, right? AirTran, the commercial airline who contracts for the Army, went bankrupt last week. It wasn't supposed to affect our guys coming home. Surprise, surprise, it has. The advance party was due home this week. Now they won't be home until next week. Dh says my birthday may come and go, and he won't be home. The delays are expected to be 48 hours to 9 days. Yee-haw. Mike did tell me that he'll bring me to any yarn store I want to go to in either Atlanta, SC or NC and he'll buy me whatever luxurious yarn I want, as much as I want. I think I'll keep him.

ETA: Apparently it wasn't AirTrain, it's ATA. I don't care enough to research it more. A delay is a delay, no matter which airline it happens to be.

Finished At Last

2008-04-13T14:33:00.004-05:00

I have finally finished the Striped Noro Socks. I do love them, but geez louise, I am glad I'm done. I worked on them while at the YH event in Atlanta last weekend. I nearly threw in the towel while I was there. Knots. Lots of 'em. I guess I should call them tangles, 'cause they weren't really knots. The yarn is so sticky, it gets stuck on itself. Every time I would pull some from the cake, a whole tangled mess would come out. They were fun to knit though. I have enough to do another pair, but I'm in no rush. ;-) Here's what I'm working on now.....

The pattern doesn't show up nearly as much as I was hoping it would, and the yarn is doing some sort of weird spiral striping, but I do love them. More details another time. ;-)

The other day, Liberty woke up from her nap and said, "Would you like to make oatmeal cookies with me?" Oatmeal cookies (aka No-Bake Cookies) are her absolute favorite. She even eats them for breakfast. They are oatmeal you know. ;-) I had to snap this picuture of her.

Let's Party!

2008-04-05T22:43:00.003-05:00

I cannot WAIT to go to Atlanta tomorrow. Why you might ask? I.need.to.get.out.of.here. I am feeling as though I have no adult interaction lately, even though it's totally not true. I went with my friend Kris and several other ladies to dinner last night. It was fabulous. I even scored a free meal thanks to crunchy noodles! Tonight, I went to a surprise birthday party for one of our neighborhood guys. So, there is plenty of interaction going on. Maybe it's because we're nearing the end of the deployment and I'm nearly going stir crazy? None-the-less, I'm going to see the YARN HARLOT again! Becca and I are leaving here as soon as I can get the kids dropped off at church and drive to her house. We've got our day all planned out. I.cannot.wait.

Sooooo, did you know that I sew?

2008-03-25T21:44:00.003-05:00

OK, I guess I should say I USED to sew. ;-) I actually used to sew a lot for my girls....when I only had 2. Something happened when I had a third girl, I'm not sure what it was. Mike would say it was my discovery of knitting that ended my sewing career, but I don't think that's true. I would say it was probably a high needs baby and a way too small house, but I digress. Anyway, Wednesday, I got the bright idea to make Easter dresses for my girls. I suppose I shouldn't really call them Easter dresses, as there is nothing eastery about them, but they did wear them for the first time on Easter Sunday. I had bought the fabric for Liberty's dress a couple of months ago. I even cut it out. Then I let it sit on the counter and collect dust for several weeks. I dug the sewing machine out Thursday afternoon during Liberty's nap-time and whipped up her jumper. She was so excited when she woke up. She said, "Oh, you made me a dress! Thank you so much Mommy! I can't make dresses because I don't know how to knit." I explained to her that I didn't knit her dress, I sewed it. She replied, "You sewed it? What's that?" I attempted to explain the sewing process to her, which included showing her the sewing machine. She asked all kinds of questions, including, "Is it hot?" Silly girl. I nearly busted a gut laughing, but I felt bad at the same time. Poor girl. She's 4, and didn't even know it was possible to sew a dress!!!!! Since I didn't have any fabric for Katie's dress, and I needed a pattern, we ran to Hobby Lobby Thursday morning. Imagine my surprise when she chose the same fabric as Liberty's dress. I was even more surprised over the fact that they still had it in stock after all this time! Sadly, there wasn't enough fabric for me to make a dress for Mikayla. I didn't want to buy fabric for her dress anyway until I finished Katie's dress. I didn't know if I would have the movitation or time to finish three dresses before Sunday, plus do all of the Easter festivities with the kids. Thursday night, I stayed up until the wee hours of the night sewing Katie's dress. You're supposed to finish sewing dresses all in one sitting you know. Friday, we went back to Hobby Lobby to purchase fabric and a pattern for Mikayla's dress. Guess what? They had an entire bolt of the fabric we were looking for, so we ended up with THREE matching dresses! They were all simple dresses, but they did come out nicely. I am actually itching to sew for Liberty a little more, but I have other things on my plate right now.

Knitting content

2008-03-21T11:01:00.006-05:00

So, finally, I have some knitting content to share with ya'll. First, I'll share some yarn that has made it's way into my smallish stash. Duet Middy in Mulberry Hill.

Next? I'll give you a hint. It's very yummy, and nearly impossible to get. Thanks to Becca, for sitting at the computer waiting for a shop update. ;-)

If your guess was Wollmeise, you would be correct! The blue is Gewittterhimmel, the green is Farn, both are the 80/20. I love them both, but the Gewitterhimmel? Oh my, it's beautiful. I haven't quite figured out what to knit with them yet. Socks, of course. ;-) One more knitting picture to share. Here, we have Hip In Hemp Part Deux.

I don't absolutely love the orange in this skirt, but there weren't any other color choices where I bought it. I knew I didn't want to go with black again. It about killed me to pick up all of those stitches on the waste band with black. Yee-gads. I probably should have striped my colors differently, but I've already done enough to not want to rip it out. So, the way it is, that's the way it'll stay. I must say, this skirt in size 6 goes much faster than size 12. ;-)

Here's something silly we did for St. Patrick's Day.

That's toast, green pancakes and green eggs and ham you see there. Benjamin was scared of the green eggs. After he tasted them, he thanked me for making them taste normal. HA!

A Big Woo-Hoo!

2008-03-13T21:03:00.003-05:00

The E-7 list leaked today. My dh is on it! I am so proud of him. When he re-joined the Army, he reclassed from the Engineer world into the Armor world. Hugely different. (is hugely a word? lol) He made the E-7 list in less than five years, which is pretty darn good as far as I am concerned. It'll be close to a year or so before he actually pins his new rank on, but that's OK. Atleast he knows it'll happen in the near future. Woo-hoo for my dh!!!!!!

The End of the Cycle

2008-03-06T23:52:00.004-05:00

We have officially passed the last birthday Mike will miss during this deployment. Next is mine, and he assures me he'll be home before it. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, even though he keeps telling me it'll happen. Today, we celebrated Liberty's birthday. Let's not tell her it was really Tuesday, but since her Mom obviously had no concept of time, we didn't celebrate it until today. Thankfully, none of the kids told her today really wasn't her birthday. I don't think she was any worse for the wear. Most of my other kids show no emotions when opening gifts. Liberty? Not so much.
I think it really hit me as I was uploading Liberty's 4th birthday pictures. My baby, really isn't a baby anymore. For a split second, there was a hint of baby fever, but trust me when I say, for a split second. Happy Birthday Liberty!!!!

NY

2008-03-03T21:27:00.004-05:00

Snow. Snow, snow and more snow. The snowbanks were very high. As high as the shed next to my parents house. The kids sledded nearly every day. Dad surprised them with snowmobile rides. I even squished my non-svelt body into the caboose thingie. You have to be Bo Duke to get out of it. ;-) The highlight of the trip for Devin was driving the snowmobile. By himself. With no one watching. He loved it. My brother and I were driving often by ourselves when we were 14, so I should have expected Dad to let Devin try it out. It's a whole different ball game when your own kids do the things you did when you were younger though. It was a good trip, but there's no place like home.

Ho-hum

2008-02-25T12:51:00.002-05:00

That's my mood today. Ho-hum. I won't feel like doing anything. My kids have been fighting non-stop today. I grounded one in particular from the computer for three days, which means she can't go on Webkinz. She's afraid her plants are going to die 'cause she can't water them. Cry me a river. So now I'll have to listen to her whine and pout for the rest of the day, because she can't go on the computer. I finally sent her to bed. She whined, "I'll never be a princess!" Ho hum.
We're supposed to go back to GA on Saturday. Of course, it's supposed to snow Friday night and Saturday morning. Oh well. We're leaving anyway. I am ready to go home. I miss my bed. It has been a great visit for the kids, but there is so much drama here, I'm ready to go home. I will have some super fun pictures of the kids to share once I'm home. Actually, they're on Mom's laptop. Maybe I'll head over there later and post some.

Frozen

2008-02-21T00:03:00.002-05:00

It.is.cold. I had nearly forgotten what single digits felt like. I was quickly reminded tonight as I stepped out onto the porch to let a dog out. Thankfully, he hurried up and did his business. Poor Liberty went out onto the porch with bare feet last night. Her jaw hit the floor and she ran for a carpet as soon as she could. ;-) The kids are enjoying the NY snow though. They've played outside every afternoon for a couple of hours, and they're sleeping great at night! They're hoping for a fresh snow storm though. It had warned up to above freezing the first day we were here, then cooled right back down again. So, there is a thick layer of ice all over everything. Makes for some fast sledding hills, but no so great snowmen.
I'm almost finished with the gusset increases on the camo socks for Benjamin. He giggled every time I had him try them on, so I know he will love them. Don't tell him, but I would rather be working on my Noro socks. HA!

On the Road Again

2008-02-15T23:05:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow we're leaving for NY. I probably shouldn't have just typed that for all the world to see, eh? I know I should be looking forward to this trip, but honestly, I am totally dreading it. Maybe it's the 2 loads of laundry I still need to do before I can finish packing. Maybe it's the fact that I have to drive 1200 miles with 5 kids and 2 dogs. Maybe it's the fact a snow storm is supposed to blow in on Sunday. Or maybe, just maybe, it's the fact that my brother lives there again? Hmph. I certainly hope my kids have a good time and show me some gratitude. ;-)

I finished one of the Noro socks. I LOVE it. Even though it's scratchy to knit with, it feels just fine once it's on the foot! I adore the way the colors are striping as well. I know you're dying to see a photo, so I won't keep you waiting any longer.

I started the toe of the other sock last night, but only finished a couple of rows. I'm hoping to have it finished by time I come back from NY though. I've got plenty of knitting packed. We'll see how much I get done. Here's a sneak peek of another pair of socks I'm working. The yarn is Thank Ewe, which might possibly be the softest yarn ever, pattern is Roza or is it Rosa? I'll clarify that later.

It's Roza. I just checked. ;-) I believe the pattern is in the Spring 2007 issues of Interweave Knits. I also have a pair of Camo socks for Benjamin started, but no pictures. I must work on them while in NY. He's feeling a big neglected because I set the socks aside. The poor deprived boy that he is. :-) Wanna know a secret? By time I come back from NY, we'll be very near the two month mark. I cannot wait!!!!!!

Never-ending...

2008-02-12T21:03:00.000-05:00

Whoever it is that keeps bringing their laundry over to my house and dumping it in my laundry room, please stop. I am sick of doing laundry. I used to be able to get by doing a load a day. Not so much anymore. I have to do two loads a day several times a week. Who on earth wears all of these clothes? I don't think any of my kids are capable of turning their clothes right side out or unballing their socks either. I'm about to dish the laundry chore out to someone else. I'm over it. We're leaving for NY on Saturday, the laundry must get done or else we won't have anything to wear! Calgon take me away!!!!!!!!!
I have nearly finished a Noro sock. I may finish it tonight while watching The Biggest Loser. However, if I want to give the kids something for Valentine's Day, I had better get busy making them. I bought some Hershey's Nuggets and plan to make Nugget Boxes. You can google Nugget Boxes if you must know what they are. I'm too lazy to link it right now. We don't normally give the kids anything for V-day, after all, it is a holiday for lovers. However, since Mike is gone, I suppose I'm feeling a little guilty. So, maybe, just maybe, I'll finish the boxes in time to give them to my kids. ;-)
I got to snuggle with a super sweet beautiful little baby today! For a second, I thought to myself how nice if would be to have another little bundle of joy, but trust me when I tell you it only lasted a second. HA!

Could it be?

2008-02-09T17:22:00.000-05:00

I FINALLY finished these Garter Rib socks. I started them when Becca and I went to see the Yarn Harlot in September. I enjoyed knitting them, I just couldn't get the mojo I needed to finish them. Details:
Plain foot, Garter Rib (Sensational Knitted Socks) cuff
Cherry Tree Hill yarn, I have on idea which color-way. If I find the label, I'll update ya'll.
KP circs, I believe in 2.5 size.
Toe-up
Becca's Heel Flap formula.
Now that the socks are done, maybe I could look for the remote that's missing?

American Girl Bistro

2008-02-08T08:40:00.000-05:00

We had a blast at the Bistro on Tuesday. Who knew we could spend so much money in such a short amount of time? Liberty had decided she wanted to get a new pair of shoes for her Bitty Baby. She even picked a pair as soon as we got there. All was good. Until she saw the Diaper Bag. Who knew you can spend more on a diaper bag for a doll than you would for a diaper bag for your own flesh and blood? Yee-gads! So, back went the shoes, and off the shelf went the diaper bag. She enjoyed the Bistro much more than I thought she would. Liberty is a mix of Katie and Mikayla, that's for sure. Katie even enjoyed the store. I had taken her to the American Girl Place in NYC when Mike was deployed the first time, so she already had an idea of what the Bistro would be like. She hadn't planned to buy anything, but ended up with the Irish Dance Outfit. She is a little freaked out by the wig it comes with though. She has decided that she doesn't want to get rid of it, but her doll won't wear it. HA! Mikayla....oh Mikayla. She was in heaven, that's for sure. However, it was a bit of decision overload for her. She knew she could get two outfits, after all...it was part of her birthday present! Two outfits was too hard to choose when there were about 30 she wanted! I don't know how many outfits she took off the shelf and then put back on when she found something else she wanted. She even said, "Mommy, will you promise to buy me these other two outfits for Christmas if I don't get them today?" Sorry chickie...doesn't work that way. heehee. She actually ended up with three outfits, because one she chose was a two-in-one outfit. She seems pleased with her decision though. Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.....

We did go to an awesome yarn store too. I'll post about that later. :-) You can also read about our trip over at Becca's. We had some issues finding a place to eat, but it all ended well. We really did have a great time. Liberty talked to Mike about it this morning. He asked her if she got some new stuff. She said, "Yes, but not enough. I wanted to get more." Little stinker.

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

2008-02-04T21:05:00.000-05:00

A while back, I won some Addi-Turbo Lace Needles off e-bay. I didn't pay much, less than retail including shipping. I had heard/read great things about these Addi-Turbos. Two nights ago, I case on for a new pair of socks. Toe-up, two at a time done magic loop. As soon as I opened the Turbos, I noticed one of the needles was bent. A bad omen maybe? ;-) I attempted to bend it more straight. I'm not sure that I succeeded, but it's atleast usable. I cast on the socks, using some ThankEwe yarn I bought off Etsy a while back. I totally love the yarn. Even like the pattern. What I don't like is, picking up a yarn over and a slipped stitch at the same time with the Turbos. Compared to the Knit Picks circulars, they are dull. Very dull. I wish I had just stuck with the KP circs. I guess I should be of the "If it ain't broke don't fix it" camp, eh? I will have a finished pair of socks to show you in the next day or two. No, not the socks I just cast on. The socks I started in September when I went to see the Yarn Harlot. We're off to the American Girl Bistro in Atlanta tomorrow. Should be great fun!

Too pretty to use?

2008-02-01T23:39:00.000-05:00

I was so excited when I came home today and saw 3 boxes sitting on my front porch step. One was new Perler Beads for the kids, another was school stuff from Rainbow Resource, and the third was my lovely project bag from White Willow. I absolutely adore it. She was such a pleasure to work with. I was able to order the fabric I wanted on-line and have it shipped directly to her. I love, love, love the clip that allows me to hook it to my belt loop, etc. I think this bag is almost too pretty to use! It's sitting on my counter right now, so I can admire it every time I walk by. :-)

Dream in Color

2008-01-29T20:12:00.000-05:00

I absolutely loved knitting with this yarn. It's perfectly smooshy, soft, vibrant, you name it. I totally underestimated my knitting time for this project. Not that it took a long time to make, just that I thought I would knit more than I did. Atleast that's the excuse I'm using. :-) I knew Amy's due date was in February. What I didn't know, was her baby shower would be a good couple of weeks before her due date. I was thinking it would be after she had the baby. Let's just say I was very surprised when I opened the church bulletin and saw the announcement for her shower in TWO WEEKS! I think I cast-on for the sweater that night. :-) We won't mention the fact that I was 20 minutes late for the shower because I was weaving in ends and then I had to take it home with me to block it. She was a good sport about it though. I did bring it to church on Sunday to give it back to her, but by time I got it out of the truck, she was gone! So, I'll get it back to her tomorrow night. Sorry Amy! :-)

This is where I ordered the kit. They were super friendly, and shipped promptly! I made the smallest size, but probably should have made the next size up. I guess it's a good thing that our winters are short here in GA, so her baby won't need it long anyway. :-)

I'll have a super cute project bag to show you very soon. I can't WAIT!

Time flies...

2008-01-28T00:30:00.001-05:00

See that boy? He turned 14 today. How on earth did that happen? I can't even remember what my life was like before he was born, yet it seems like just yesterday that I was in the hospital delivering him. My how time has flown. It scares me to think that I only have 4 more years with him at home before he goes off to college. I hope my dh doesn't notice that part. We aren't to talk about things like that you know. :-) I'll tell you a little something funny he said just before he went to bed. He came to give me a hug before he went down to his room. I asked him if he had a fabulous birthday. He said, "Well...it was awesome." I was a little astonished that he would say that, as he got some great gifts and had a great birthday dinner. So, I asked him what made it not fabulous. His response..."Only boys who kiss boys use works like fabulous. It was an awesome birthday." Heehee. Gotta love a 14 year olds sense of humor. I should have probably corrected him on that, but quite honestly, I was speechless. :-)

Rock On!

2008-01-26T21:34:00.000-05:00

The kids got Guitar Hero III yesterday for their Wii. They have had a BLAST playing it. The guitar is a little difficult for Benjamin to hold, but he's figured out a way to prop it up on the couch and play. I tried once....fun, but I would never make it as a guitar player. :-) I've been pretty lax this weekend on their playing time, as we have to send the Wii in for repairs on Monday.

Mikayla getting a little bit of big brother instruction:

Now, I must go block a sweater and bake a birthday cake....

Delightfully Yummy Yarn

2008-01-24T10:13:00.000-05:00

So, I have some new yarn. My yarn stash is pretty small. It all fits in one Rubbermaid Tote. I know, I know....that's like the ultimate sin for a knitter. In all honesty, I can't have a huge yarn stash because I have a huge scrapbooking stash. I'm rather certain my dh would kill me if my yarn stash was as big as my scrapping stash. That being said, I needed some new yarn. I'm totally over this deployment, ready for my dh to come home. He's only been back from R&R for just about a month, and it already seems like he's been gone forever. So, some new yarn was just the thing I needed to make me feel better. :-) I've been trying to catch a sneak up at TLE for months now. Sheri carries some awesome yarn over there. BUT, it's nearly impossible to get the good stuff. I've been lusting after some Wollmeise for quite some time now, but can never catch it in stock. Becca was fortunate enough to catch a skein of it before it sold out. Me? Not so much. I did get to fondle her skein though, the colors are absolutely fabulous. I can't wait until I can finally get some. Me? I got this. The colorway I got isn't listed anymore. I would share a picture, but it's a dreary day outside, and I'm having a hard time capturing a picture in the true color. So, maybe I'll share that another time. What I am most excited about though, is this....

It's Yarn Nerd 1500 MHz Merino in the Mustard Wine colorway. That picture isn't real true to color, it's a bit more of a wine color, and I love it. It's been sitting on my computer desk for a couple of days. I keep reaching over to fondle it. It's very yummy. Apparently the 1500MHz if hard for him to keep in-stock. I'm not even sure if he'll be able to carry it anymore. What I really want, is his Tour de France colorway. He's hoping to be able to take custom orders at the end of February. TLE is keeping him pretty busy right now.

I'm almost finished with that particular project I'm working on. Actually, it MUST be done by Saturday. I have one sleeve left, and a little bit of applied i-cord. Friday is park day, even though we're not meeting at the park. So, I may have a finished pair of socks to show pretty soon too. I've been scrapping a lot this month. I've done about 30 pages since the beginning of the year, which is a record for me. :-) For those of you who scrap, I'll share one of my most favorite pages.....

Shhhhhhhh.....

2008-01-17T11:01:00.000-05:00

It's a secret....I'm knitting something absolutely awesome. It's for my friend Amy, well not her so much, but the little person she's carrying inside of her. I'll show pictures soon....hopefully she'll forget to check my blog for a little while. :-) I love the project I'm knitting so much, I'm planning to order the kit to make one for Liberty very soon!

Happy Birthday Mikayla!

2008-01-06T22:37:00.000-05:00

How on earth did my middle child grow to be 9 years old? Geesh. It seems like just yesterday I was holding her in my arms, yet I can't remember what my life was like without her. :-) She was so sweet today. She came into my room this morning to tell me she couldn't sleep. Apparently she didn't notice what time it was....10:15am...that's why she couldn't sleep. HA! She put on a dress, and her Cinderella dress-up shoes from Disneyworld. Too funny. I let her open her presents as soon as she woke up. We don't normally do that, but since her Dad is gone, it's not a traditional birthday anyway. First, she opened the presents from us...clothes and the High School Musical game for her Nintendo DS.

Becca and I are taking the girls to the new American Girl Bistro store in Atlanta, so she'll also get a couple of outfits for her dolls. The big gift of the day came from my parents. She absolutely LOVES it. She came inside several times today telling me how awesome it is.

She was absolutely awesome about sharing it today. Our rule is, if you get a gift, you don't have to share it for the first 24 hours you have it. They're quick to remind each other of that too. She was great though, and let each of her siblings take a turn or two around the loop. Since Liberty is too little, she let her stand on it with the kick-stand down. HA! She came to me several times today to thank me for everything, and to tell me she loved all of her presents. She had a fashion shoot with all of her new clothes so we can show all of her presents to Daddy. This girl LOVES clothes. When she was little, like 2 or 3, if we went to the mall, she would ask for a new outfit or a new pair of shoes. She didn't want toys, she wanted clothes. Crazy. She's the absolute opposite of her older sister, although Katie is starting to like clothes a little more than she has in the past. :-)

We don't spend a lot of money on cakes in this family. With the exception of a few times, I make all of the cakes. Mikayla wanted a princess cake. I don't know how to make Cinderella, but I can cut one with my Cricut Expressions machine. So, this is what we came up with. She was thrilled. Already has plans for either an Ariel or a Sleeping Beauty next year. The Cinderella and Prince Charming are stuck in the cake with a popsicle stick. She was happy, which is all that matters to me. :-) I have three weeks to plan the next birthday. Yee-gads.

Knitting news....I still need to knit the leg of the second sock. I started a top-down hat last night. So far, it's going great. I modified the pattern just a bit. It's written for double pointed needles, which I hate. So, I'm magic looping it. Devin is anxious for me to finish it. A few more days.

Amen to that!!!!!

2008-01-04T20:28:00.000-05:00

Benjamin's surgery is FINALLY over. Amen to that! Dr. Lane said the hole in his ear drum was relatively easy to repair. We decided to remove his adenoids as well, since he was already under. Turned out to be a good decision, as they were pretty large. Benjamin was g.r.u.m.p.y. as he woke up. The first time I saw him, it kind of freaked me out. How come no one told me they look dead when they're in such a deep sleep? Devin never looked like that when he had his tonsils out. He was awake almost as soon as we got to the recovery room. Benjamin? Not so much. He.was.out. He developed a little bit of strider, which was pretty scary to me. He would alternate wheezing with holding his breath. Yee-gads. Freaked me out. I nearly lost it in the recovery room. I decided it's not much fun to have a child go through surgery when your husband isn't there to help.
I didn't get as much knitting done today as I would have hoped. I did re-knit the heel, so that's done. Wanna know why I didn't get much done? I forgot the stinkin' book at home! I brought More Sensational Knitted Socks, when I really needed to bring Sensational Knitted Socks. Hmph. My next pair of socks will be knitting 2 at a time on Addi Turbo's. I just need to decide on my pattern. Any suggestions? Oh, before I cast on for anymore socks, I MUST knit Devin a hat. Hold me accountable.
School....school, school, school. We had our ups and downs this week. The fact that it wasn't a normal week didn't help things. We ended the week on two good notes. Mikayla scored a 90% on her spelling test. Spelling is not her strong point, and she was really going down hill on her spelling tests before our break. So, for her to score a 90%, that really boosted her confidence. I added some things to her spelling workload...writing her words three times each, and choosing three words to use in a sentence. That was brutal for her, but I'm hoping it gets easier each week that she does it. The second good note? DEVIN SCORED A 97% ON HIS PRE-ALGEBRA TEST! I told him on Monday that he really needs to focus on making less careless errors. He did pretty well on each lesson. I should add, he completed an entire BJU Math chapter in ONE WEEK! So, for him to score a 97%, that's fabulous for him. I told him I think it's his highest math score all year. He quickly reminded me that he made a 100% on his first math test this week. HA! I rewarded his good work with a new book. Just a little something special so he knows I'm proud of him.
I exercised four times this week. Devin and I walked at 7am twice...when it was bone chllin' cold out. Remember, the term "bone chillin'" is a relative term. Heehee. Yesterday, the wind chill made it feel like 5 degrees. Boy Howdy. I plan to walk tomorrow as well, but it'll be much warmer out. Having to be at the hospital at 6am screwed my walking up, but I did jump on the mini-trampoline tonight.

Back to the Old Grind

2007-12-31T19:41:00.000-05:00

Today was our first day back at school since before Thanksgiving. I would like to say it went smoothly, but it did not. Benjamin is having surgery this week, and we had pre-op stuff at 9am. I tried to make sure the kids knew exactly what they were supposed to do while I was gone, but apparently they didn't. Mikayla has forgotten how to subtract, but she did remember what a verb was. :-) Devin had way too much free time after he was done with his work. Me thinks I need to schedule more. Katie thought that doing everything but write a thank you note and read was acceptable. In her defense, she did ponder the lay-out of the thank-you note. Benjamin came home and declared he didn't have to do school because he went to the doctors. He did complete handwriting and two math pages. Atleast we made some progress, eh? I don't imagine we'll be back into the full swing of things until next week.
I've done much thinking about what I want 2008 to be like for us. I can honestly say, good riddance to 2007. Not that some wonderful things haven't happened to our family this year, I'm just glad it's done. It'll be nice to not have to say that it'll be next YEAR before my dh comes home again. :-) I want this to be the year of the Happy House. I remember my Grandmother telling me she loved the house my parents used to live in so much, because it was the "Happy House" to her. She said that was the only time all of her kids got along. Of course, if you ask my Dad, he says it's because they were all toddlers/babies when they lived there. heehee. Anyway, I want this to be the year of the "Happy House." I'm tired of fighting kids all.the.time. I'm tired of no one talking nicely to each other. I'm tired of the selfishness. I guess I'm just plain tired. So, in order to get the changes I want, I need to focus on Character Training. I'm including myself in this, because I can see where I definitely need some character training. This is the book I'm thinking of purchasing. I'm waiting for dh to check it out before I order it. Knowing him, he'll say, "It looks fine Babe." :-) One more thing I'm going to do is put a lot more focus on Bible work in our homeschool. I'm currently trying to design a Bible Notebook that'll work for us. Stay tuned on that. :-) Of course, I've got the ever popular "lose weight" goals too. Who wants to hear about those though. lol.
Knitting....I have started the heel on the second sock, finally. I will be spending about 6 hours at the hospital on Friday, so maybe I'll have a nearly finished or completely finished sock by then! I have a couple of larger items I would like to knit this year, but I'll save that for another post.

Hallelujah, it's over.

2007-12-26T15:14:00.000-05:00

This may sound horrid, but after two Christmas celebrations, I'm glad it's over. It was fun while it lasted, but bring on 2008. :-) The kids had a fabulous day though. They enjoyed all of their gifts, loved hearing the Christmas story, decorated cookies, made gingerbread houses and all of that fun jazz. Speaking of gingerbread houses, we are finished with kits. We had such a hard time getting our houses to stay together this year. Next year, we're either doing graham cracker houses or a lincoln log house. :-) Liberty was so excited to finally get her Dora's Talking Kitchen. This morning, she was sitting on the couch watching TV and said, "Dora's Talking Kitchen here I come!" Silly little girl.
Mike has finally made it back to his FOB. He sat at Baghdad International Airport from Saturday until yesterday. Nice, eh? He's getting back into the swing of things. They already shipped him out to the out-post. He wouldn't have it any other way though. Sitting in his room would drive him crazy.
I'm anxious to start a new knitting project, but first I have to convince myself to turn the heel on the socks I've been working on. Also, in order to start the new project, I have to do a guage swatch. I loathe having to swatch. It'll be worth it though, as I totally LOVE the new project I'm going to start. :-)

Bring Him Home Santa

2007-12-22T23:15:00.001-05:00

I'm not fit for human conversing right now, but here's a song that brought a tear to my eye. OK, it brought more than one tear. Go have a listen.

Merry Christmas?

2007-12-17T22:58:00.000-05:00

Today was Christmas at our house! Dh is leaving on Thursday, so we celebrated Christ's birth early! We had a fabulous day. We played games with the kids, I made a yummy ham dinner, complete with the Pioneer Woman's squash, much to my children's dismay. However, Mikayla loves it, which is why I requested it. I figure if my 8 year old requests squash, I must oblige her, eh? :-) We have lots of ham left-overs, so I doubt I'll have to cook tomorrow.

We let Devin sweat a bit. We're horribly mean. His gift cost over $200. With 5 kids, our Christmas budget has to be kept under control. So, we couldn't afford to spend anymore $$ on him. The other kids had opened a few gifts each, and he was starting to get fidgety. He said, "I wonder if I have any gifts under there?" HA! Finally, we gave it to him. He was in total awe that he got a Sony PSP. He didn't think there was any way he was getting one. It's nice to give Devin gifts...he wears his emotions in his shirt sleeve, so you always know how he's feeling. He is often emotional over gifts, which is nice...makes you feel like he really appreciates them. Some of my other kids are non-responsive about gifts. Namely Benjamin and Katie. You can never tell if they liked what they got or not. lol. Anyway, the bad thing about celebrating Christmas early? I am itching to take the tree down like nobody's business. But, I can't. The kids are opening gifts from family members on the 25th, so I have to keep it up until atleast then. I'm guessing I will be ripping it out of the living room on the 26th.

I have been knitting. I finally bound off the sock I started when I went to see the Yarn Harlot, and cast on for the match. I'm nearly ready to start the heel. Something tells me I'll be knitting lots by the end of the week.

Welcome Home!!!!!

2007-12-09T15:31:00.000-05:00

So, as most of you know, my dh is home. He's sitting on the couch watching football, America's favorite past-time. :-) We picked him up at the airport last Saturday. His flight landed around 6:45am, we finally saw him around 7:45. Thankfully, I didn't get to the airport until 7:30ish, so we didn't wait long. I made sure to tell the kids just because they say someone in ACUs, they shouldn't assume it was Daddy. I was afraid one of the kids would go nuts and have it be a complete stranger. HA! Mike doesn't like to draw attention to himself, so as soon as we saw him, he wanted to get the heck out of dodge. I was able to snap a couple of cute pics though.

After we left the air-port, we headed to Cracker Barrel. We were all starving. Imagine our surprise when we went to pay our bill, and someone had already taken care of it! :-) After breakfast, we drove another 2 hours north to Greenville. It was Mike's Step-Mom's 60th Birthday. It was a pretty big deal. Lori flew in from Vegas, the boys drove up from Atlanta, etc. So, how could we miss it? Many thought we were crazy, including myself, but we went anyway. lol.

This week has been great. It's been so nice to talk to Mike in real life, not on the Yahoo IM. I'm so thankful we are able to have internet communications while he's gone, but the real thing is much better. :-) So far, he's taught a certain 3 year old to ride her bike, he's hung Christmas lights, he's played Army Men and we've went to the Zoo. He's also done a boat load of laundry, but that's no fun, so you'll see no pictures of that. Oh, I forgot we celebrated a birthday too! My baby boy is six now!

So, there's our week in pictures. That picture of dh with his feet sticking out of the window cracks me up. He didn't end up hanging any lights up there, as we had no idea how the heck I would get them down once he left. But, I had to snap this picture. It reminds me of the Pooh-bear episode where Pooh gets stuck climbing out of the hole and they have to push him out. HA! Tomorrow, we're taking a little trip. I can't wait. I had better pack something, eh?

The time has come

2007-11-30T22:50:00.001-05:00

I'll be leaving for the airport in a few short hours. I'm hoping I can sleep. Anticipation does me in every time. :-) We are all so excited. He called me a few hours ago from Germany. Yee-gads! He's almost here! :-)

Funny three year old

2007-11-26T00:13:00.000-05:00

Liberty is hilarious. She cracks me up all the time. I always say there is never a dull moment if you live with a Liberty or a Benjamin. :-) Yesterday, my Dad took a nap with Liberty upstairs. I forgot to warn him how she lets us know she's awake....he tried to slip out of bed while she was sleeping without waking her, which is nearly impossible. He got to the top of the stairs when she started...."Wahhhh, wahhhhh, wahhhh." He went back to the bedroom to ask her what that racket was. She replied, "That's my people caller." Too funny.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-22T23:32:00.000-05:00

It's not over yet, right? :-) We had a great day! My parents plane was delayed a bit, but they still got to Columbus in time to eat our Thanksgiving feast! The food was all awesome. If you're looking for a great squash recipe, head over to the Pioneer Woman Cooks blog and check out her recipe. It.is.yummy. I should probably link you to it, eh? There ya go. Oh, and she's right, you MUST puree it. Yumm-o! :-) I cooked enough food for an army. Guess I won't be cooking much the rest of my parents visit, eh? In my defense, I was expecting 4 more guests, but three of them couldn't come because their Mom was visiting the Bradley Center. :-( I'm not really planning on doing much shopping tomorrow. I did pick up a nifty little gadget from bestbuy.com this morning. A TomTom One Navigation system! Yesterday, I explained to my dh why I needed one, he promptly told me to buy it. He's awesome, isn't he? :-) I told him I'll wait for him to get home before I open it though. So, he's off the hook...he doesn't have to shop for me for Christmas, even though I know he won't listen to me and will shop anyway. Men. :-) I have a few crafty projects planned to do with Mom this weekend. We may have to run to Michaels tomorrow to get the supplies, since I didn't think to pick them up before they got here. Until next time...........

Thanksgiving Frenzy

2007-11-20T11:20:00.000-05:00

Please tell me I'm not the only one who has a to-do list a mile long and no motivation to do it? Ugh. I put the pumpkin bread in the oven a few minutes ago, so that's done. I need to get to the grocery store this afternoon. I would rather go today than tomorrow. I have to do the usual "the parents are visiting" cleaning. Actually, it's not too bad, but I need to mop, finish the laundry, wash the bed sheets, clean off some clutter areas, etc. Plus, the kids have their regular Wednesday chores to do tomorrow. Oh, and we have church tonight. I have nursery....again. Nursery duty is a blessing to someone, right? ;-)
Knitting news....I FINISHED THE CLAPOTIS! Well, not really. I still have ends to weave in. Maybe tonight. We'll see. I've been sick, so I haven't felt like doing anything after the kids get to bed.
I'll have to share my latest drama incident with you later. It involved 8 MPs and 2 CID agents. Lots of fun. :-)

Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My

2007-11-13T21:04:00.001-05:00

I am a multi-crafter. I don't just knit. I scrap. Sometimes it's hard for me to decide which I'm more passionate about. It's hard for me to find the time to do both. I think they serve different purposes for me. I wouldn't want to be forced to choose just one. When we moved into this house, the kids were so excited that they would have their own bathroom. Actually, they have a couple of bathrooms. :-) Of course, with 4 kids using one bathroom, they couldn't decide on a theme. Katie wanted SpongeBob, Mikayla wanted Princess. We compromised with this:
Katie adores anything monkey. Liberty loves lions, and Mikayla loves Giraffes. Benjamin was just thrilled not to have anything pink! :-) We've got the elephant toothbrush holder, a few brown towels, and a purple bath rug. We're still working on the minor details of the decor. lol. They want the lion trash can but whew, that thing is spendy. I think they'll just keep the Madagascar trash can they have now. Hey, it's animals, right? Anyway, here's what I came up with for a couple of picture frames to hang on the wall. The frames are 12x12. I cut the animals/leaves/grass on my Cricut Expressions machine. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this machine. It seems as though I use it for every scrapping project I've done lately. The kids have made some Christmas ornaments with it, they've used it for school projects. If you're a scrapper, and you don't have one of these machines, get one. You won't be sorry. :-) Anyway, without further delay, here's what I made.....

Anyway, the kids love 'em. Mom is bringing me another frame when she comes next week. I think I'll call her and ask her to bring me two more. That way I can do a monkey and a lion to hang right above these! Until next time...........

In Honor of Veterans Day

2007-11-11T20:04:00.000-05:00

In honor of Veteran's Day, here is a picture of my favorite Veteran! Short...his time is getting short. :-)

Watch very soon for a picture of my completed Clapotis. I WILL finish it this week. I'm working on the decrease section, which I'm hoping will go very fast. I have a list of Christmas knitting I need to finish. I guess in order to finish it, I would need to start it, eh? Nothing major, just a few little things. I don't know if I'll get them all done. I never do. However, since my dh will soon be here, I'll be able to knit while he drives! :-)

I had totally planned to do school with the kids tomorrow. Until Katie was invited to a friends house to spend the night. How could I say no? :-) So, I guess tomorrow will be an off day. I'll have the kids do a couple of short lessons, but that's it. We all need a free day every now and then, right?

My house is coming together. I emptied a couple of more boxes today, hung a few more pictures, etc. I still have quite a bit to do before my parents come, but I'm not going to stress over it if it doesn't all get done. They won't mind, I'm sure. :-) I just realized what my kids are watching on TV. Santa Clause. We just decorated some sugar cookies with fall colored sprinkles. You mean, we could have made Christmas cookies today? Yee-gads! Until next time....................

House

2007-11-10T01:28:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures of my house! We are finally getting settled. Katie told me the other day it's starting to feel like home! I still have some boxes in the garage to sort through, but not too many. Maybe 8 or so? I really need to work on the garage this next week. It needs to be done so I can actually park a car in there! :-) Plus, I don't think my neat freak of a husband would like to see it in it's current state. HA! So, there you have it....pictures of my new house. :-) Until next time.............

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List

2007-11-09T17:12:00.000-05:00

I read this on a message board today, and had to blog it. If you're a homeschooler, you'll understand. :-) If you're not, please know I posted this in jest...mostly. :-)

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List
From Secular Homeschooling Magazine, Issue #1
1 Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?

2 Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of both concepts.

3 Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.

4 Don't assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.

5 If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on the news or on a "reality" show, the above goes double.

6 Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away.

7 We don't look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they're in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we're doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.

8 Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious.

9 Stop assuming that if we're religious, we must be homeschooling for religious reasons.

10 We didn't go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions.

11 Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school.

12 If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.

13 Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house. We're the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky.

14 Stop assuming that because the word "school" is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even if we're into the "school" side of education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don't have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.

15 Stop asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even if the idea that my kid might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don't get to go to the Prom. For all you know, I'm one of them. I might still be bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else.

16 Don't ask my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.

17 Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Even if you think it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're horrified. One of these days, I won't bother disagreeing with you any more.

18 If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn't possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.

19 Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.

20 Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.

21 Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.

22 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.

23 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.

24 Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won't get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.

25 Here's a thought: If you can't say something nice about homeschooling, shut up!

****Here's my disclaimer....I have never read nor intend to read Secular Homeschooling Magazine.****

I hope you chuckled a bit while reading this, I know I sure did. :-) Someone was asking me when I'm going to post pictures of my new house! I will do that soon. I've tried about 5 times, but each time I try, I'm either having internet issues or blogger issues. I'll try again this weekend. :-) Until next time............

Heat

2007-11-07T09:25:00.000-05:00

It was chilly last night. I don't know the exact temperature, but it was supposed to get into the low 30s. So, I turned the heat on before I went to bed, lest my kids freeze to death. Imagine my surprise when I was awakened by a raging smoke alarm at 6am. I was not happy. Liberty told me this morning that she heard a really loud noise and she covered her ears and went under the covers so she couldn't hear it, but it didn't work. :-) The heater is pretty smelly too. I've called in a work order. Let's see how long it takes them to come fix it! Never a dull moment I tell ya. Until next time...........

November Fun

2007-11-03T16:41:00.000-05:00

November is going to fly right by, and I am so glad. I'm hosting an FRG function here at my house, so I'll be super busy with that very soon, we're going to the Millers for Thanksgiving dinner on the 17th (which we are excited about....we always get exposed to some new southern food, so I can't wait to see what she cooks up for T-day heehee), my parents are coming for Thanksgiving, and my dear sweet husband leaves his FOB before the end of the month! Did I say my parents are coming? Most times news of them coming is fine, but this time, for some reason, I'm super stoked. Maybe it's because it'll be the first holiday I host in my new house? Who knows, but I can't wait. They're actually flying in on Thanksgiving, and leaving the Tuesday after. It was about $600 cheaper to fly on Thursday vs. Wednesday, so they went for it. They fly into Atlanta at 10:30, so barring any delays, will get here just in time for dinner. Although, we may wait until Friday to have our turkey dinner, we haven't decided yet. Then, once I send my parents home, it'll be not very many days at all until I'll see my husband!!!!!!!! It's been a longgggggg nearly 8 months since we've seen each other. We have lots of fun things planned for him, but you'll have to hear about those later.
Knitting news....Clapotis.....oh how I'm sick of working on the Clapotis. It really is a fun knit, and I do love it, but it feels like I've been knitting on it forever and a day! Soon....soon....I'll start the decrease rows. I ordered a fun little knit the other day. As soon as the kit comes in the mail, I'll show it to you. Oh, I need to bring my camera to church tomorrow. My friend Amy crocheted the cutest sock! She showed it to me on Wednesday night, but I didn't have my camera to photograph it. I can't wait to post a picture of it here! She did an awesome job! I bet she'll have the match finished by time I see here tomorrow! :-) Until next time.........