Sarah and the A Team

WOOOOOW it's been a long time. Again. :-|

2011-02-23T07:42:00.001-08:00

So... uhhh..... hi! I'm not even sure if anyone really checks in on my sad excuse for a blog anymore and I can't say that I don't blame you!

I've got a few updates:

I haven't written up any patterns lately, so sorry if anyone was actually looking forward to any of that. :(

John and I are getting married!

We are having another baby!

And so, as if I needed anything more to do in my life, i've decided to kind of center my blog around those last two updates for awhile.

First things first: The kids are great. :) Asher is working on getting ready for kindergarten- he'll start next year :-O, Annabelle has successfully pulled through our in-home speech therapy; her last day was today. We'll miss our time with Corinne, her therapist. I sent her off with a crocheted bookmark, figuring she probably does a lot of reading;) Aristotle is taking the family by storm and is a little terror. I thought Asher was a crazy kid but this little dude takes the cake!

The deets on the wedding and the baby: we're getting married at the mountain's community clubhouse on 11-11-11:) Unexpected and totally not planned Baby-to-be will be here about a month before that date. Yeehaw! Ii'm crafting a lot of the wedding and we already have a ton of support from our friends and family. :) This should be fairly interesting!

On a little side note: hopefully I can keep up with the blog amongst the rest of my responsibilities. As a board member for our little civic association on the mountain I've accepted the task of taking over our website as well, so between the family, baby prepping, wedding planning (and wedding website creating!), website designing and updating... well... i might be fairly scarce but I really do hope to have an outlet here to show off the fun and exciting things going on in our life up here on the 'mountain'. :) Of course only time will tell.....!

Much love

Sarah and the A Team (plus daddy johnjohn and xena;)

A few ingredients every SAHM/WAHM should have on hand

2010-05-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

perhaps even buy in bulk. There are so, so many easy, fun crafts you can do at home with your kiddos using ingredients you probably already have in the house!

Food Coloring... natural or the food grade stuff you find in the baking aisle

Cream of Tartar

Table Salt

All Purpose Flour ("APF")

Mineral Oil -food grade. (you can find it in the stool softener section of your grocery's pharmacy section....i'm not kidding. and please don't ask me why I had to buy the stuff in the first place....)

Vegetable Oil

Wax or Freezer Paper

Acrylic Paints/Puff Paints, glitter (if you a really brave, anyway! hahaha)

What can you make with all this?? The possibilities are endless... but here's a couple we've done ourselves;)

Playdoh!

1C APF (all purpose flour)

1C water, plus any food coloring you may want. the more drops, the more intense the color.

1/2C table salt

2 TBS cream of tartar

1TBS veggie oil

Mix ingredients in a non-stick saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat when dough becomes one large lump and is NOT tacky (sticking to the spoon or sides of the pan).

Dump out onto a clean, dry cookie sheet an allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before kneading with your hands.

If it's too dry (cracking, crumbly) wet your hands a bit and knead the water from your hands into the dough, repeat as necessary until you have the desired consistency.

If it is too tacky/sticky, stick in a microwavable bowl and heat on 30 second intervals, using a wooden spoon to 'knead' as necessary in between heatings until the dough is the desired (non-tacky) consistency. Store in an airtight container.

Salt Dough!

1/2C Table Salt

3/4C APF

2TBS Mineral Oil

2tsp Cream of Tartar

1/2C water

in a large mixing bowl, combine salt, flour and cream of tartar. use fingers to combine, then add oil, water and any food coloring. initially i like to use a wooden spoon to get things mixed and then knead with my hands after the tackiness is gone.

you can now use this dough in a number of ways: halve the dough and form two balls, roll out to about 3/4" thickness and put your kids' hand prints on there

-or-

roll it out like you would roll out cookie dough and use cookie cutters to cut out ornaments. \

If you want to hang them you will need to ensure room somewhere on the ornament to poke a hole (i use a straw) for stringing.

Allow to air dry 3-4 days (i stick mine up on top of my fridge so they are out of the way) and decorate as desired with paints, glitter, jewels, etc.

below are the hand print ornaments we made today; Asher's are in green, Annabelle is in pink and Aristotle is in orange. :)

Whoever had the bright idea to use snaps on toddler girl's clothing...

2010-05-13T07:22:00.001-07:00

should be SHOT.

i mean seriously??? this is the age at which they tear their dressers and closets apart... putting on and taking off and putting on clothing, 'just because'... and the idiots put SNAPS on the thing that m y 2 year old hasn't mastered yet unless you count being able to UNsnap them.. so that cute little polo shirt that has 6 -yeah, that's right... count 'em- SIX snaps up the front is actually a modern day parental torture device.

this is what we sound like....

A2: "PEEEEEEZ? PEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ?!"
Me: "Annabelle. no. i am not snapping those for you. stop UNsnapping them!"
A2: PEEEEEEEEEEEZ!!!!!!!"
Me: "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"
A2: (comes over and hugs my leg and plants a kiss on my knee) "peez?"
Me: (SIGH, mumbling obscenities under my breath and vowing, for the fiftieth time, to take the shirt and burn it later) "FINE." (snaps buttons) "DO NOT unsnap those things, annabelle. DO NOT. i am not going to snap them again. "

(YEAH, right. )

replay this about 5 or 6 times until i take the shirt away from a screaming, heartbroken annabelle in a fit of unprecedented frustration.

upcoming tut's

2010-02-12T11:28:00.000-08:00

So i've had a few projects in the works and i will hopefully have patterns up for a felted belt bag, tube tote and a couple of coffee cozies. :)

I'm still working on those progress bars for my own personal projects; i actually am not really having any real luck on that. lol.

projects on my list to finish-

Annabelle's afghan- about 90-95% finished

Asher's afghan- about 25% finished. I will have to o buy about 10 more balls of yarn in each color to finish it...

Filet Bistro curtains for the Kitchen- not started as i am trying to finish A2's blanket first.

Filet Bistro curtains for the master bath window. - Will start after completing Asher's blanket.

Also on my list, as of last night. newsboy or cloche caps for my grandmother as she has decided to undergo chemotherapy to hopefully get rid of the extremely aggressive angiosarcoma she is suffering from.

wish me luck, and i'll get those patterns up soon, i hope!!

Snow, snow and more snow!

2010-02-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

in fact, we got about 36 inches of it. yikes!! Unfortunately for me, Annabelle broke our camera this very morning so I won't really be able to get any decent pics of the kids playing in the white stuff. I did grab a couple using john's cell phone so these will have to do for now.

Brownies are in the oven, i'm playing catch up on my crochet projects and at some point today i'd really like to figure out how to get one of those progress widget things to add to my blog. hmmm. I suppose now would be a good time to get an early start on spring cleaning, eh? Truth is I already have boxes and bags of stuff already waiting to be taken to the new Salvation Army building in Manassas... If i gather up any more I'll have to make two trips...!

anyway, here's the pics! so far it looks like a neighbor has started to plow the main road leading up to our road but i'm not anticipating being able to leave our driveway until monday late afternoon at the very earliest. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, we're all suffering from some serious cabin fever!

WOW it has been a LONG time.

2010-02-01T09:32:00.001-08:00

So i got caught up (up to my eyeballs) in making about 12 dozen snowflakes to sell and give as gifts since i last posted. yikes.

And in that time i had another behbeh! Aristotle Graham was born 4 days late on November 3rd, sunny side up weighing in at 10 pounds 5.6 ounces and 22 inches long. He was a biggun'! I'm not sure if i even posted about becoming pregnant with him... which is horrible.

Needless to say, my life has become slightly busier since I last posted. hahahaa. I do hope to put up a few more tut's i've created but for now I'm just checking in and saying hello.

Here's a pic of the three kids- A3 is about 2 weeks old in this pic.

(Annabelle, Aristotle and Asher, holidays 2009)

Hope to see everyone more often here soon!

Classic Simple Snowflake Pattern

2009-07-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

As you can see, I am on a very BIG thread crochet kick lately! Here is another pattern i came up with while playing passenger on saturday during our usual errand running (J does all the driving, which is nice because i absolutely hate driving!! haha)

Enjoy, and as usual please feel free to use my pattern to make and sell items. Just remember that this is my own original pattern, and if you would like to post my pattern elsewhere please make sure you also link back to my blog and include this information somehow on the items you sell. thanks again!

with size 7 steel hook and #10 thread:

Ch8, join with sl st

Round 1:
In loop- Ch3, DC, ch2, 2DC *2DC, Ch2* repeat from * to * 5 times more for

a total of 6 ch2 spaces. Join with sl st to top of 3rd Ch in the beginning

Ch3.

Round 2:
Sl st over to first Ch2 space, Ch 3 and DC, Ch2, 2DC in same space

(creating shell over shell, or "SOS"). Ch5, sl st in 3rd ch from hook, Ch

2, SOS in next Ch 2 space (2DC, Ch 2, 2DC), repeat around for 6 SOS's and

6 picot chains, Join with sl st to top of 1st ch3.

Round 3:
Sl st over to first ch 2 space, Ch 3 and DC, Ch2, 2 DC in same space

(creating SOS), Ch 7, sl st in 3rd Ch from hook, Ch 4, SOS in next ch 2

space, repeat around for 6 SOS's and 6 picot chains. Join with sl st to

top of 1st Ch 3.

Round 4:
Sl st over to first ch 2 space,
Ch 3 and DC,
Ch7, sl st in 3rd ch from hook,
Ch 8, sl st in 5th Ch from hook,
Ch 10, sl st in 7th ch from hook,
Ch 9, sl st in 9th ch from hook.
Ch 7, sl st in 7th ch from hook and base of first 7ch picot, sl st down 3

stitches,
ch 5, sl st in 5th ch from hook and base of ch5 picot, sl st down 3

stitches,
ch3, sl st in 3rd ch from hook and base of ch 3 picot, sl st down 3 st,

and ch1, 2DC in same ch2 space.
Ch 9, sl st in 3rd ch from hook, ch6, repeat SOS/picot and picot chain for

6 points and 6 picot chains. Join with sl st to top of 1st Ch3.

Sarah's One-Round Snowflake Pattern

2009-07-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

Hello?? anyone home??

I know, i know. I haven't been here in awhile. I have a lot of updating to do!!

In the meantime whilst you eagerly await all that mess (hahahaa), here is a pattern for a snowflake i created today while adding to my piles and piles of holiday crafting that i've been working on for the past week or so:)

using a size 7 hook and #10 thread:

Ch 8, sl st to join.

SC in ring; *Ch 6, sl st in 3rd Ch from hook,
Ch 5, sl st in 5th Ch from hook,
Ch 7, sl st in 7th Ch from hook,
Ch 9, sl st in 9th Ch from hook,
Ch 7, sl st in 7th Ch from hook and base of 1st Ch7 picot,
Ch 5, sl st in 5th Ch from hook and base of 1st Ch 5 picot,
Ch 3, sl st in 3rd Ch from hook and base of 1st Ch 3 picot,
Sl st down 3 Ch,
SC in loop, Ch 6, sl st in 3rd Ch from hook, Ch 3, SC in loop*

repeat from * to * to create 6 points of each (large and small) type, sl st into first SC, fasten off.

Use your preferred stiffening method to block and allow to dry.

*** Feel free to use this pattern to make and gift/sell items. Please note that this pattern belongs to Me, Sarah Craig. If you plan to use this pattern to make items to sell please be courteous enough to include my blog address and name so as to continue to share the availability of the pattern. Please also link back to my blog if you choose to post this pattern elsewhere. It's a simple little pattern but it's one *I* designed and I would appreciate the recognition.

if you have any questions PLEASE do leave me a comment!
Happy crafting, honeys!

A look into the Journey

2009-05-18T13:23:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a combination of the natural method, backcombing, and twisting and ripping...and i know that dreads don't just up and lock up overnight. But every time i wash my hair most of it just falls out again! I use a veggie glycerin soap- which i just found out has added saponified coconut oil (someone on another board i joined mentioned that saponified coconut oil is another name for sodium laureth sulfate- the stuff that helps keep your hair "shiny" in regular shampoos)... i'm really mad at myself for not catching that, and i'll be going to a regular ol' clear glycerin bar shortly...

but until then i'm becoming more and more disheartened. I know this is a looonnnnng process but i almost believe my hair will never lock up naturally on its' own, or even by using the methods i've already tried. Every time i wash my hir about 90% of my efforts are lost. I do wash it every day, or every other day, depending, so i know that in and of itself isn't helping things along. It's fine, very very very straight, super slippery (naturally) hair. And it is a bit onthe short side, the shortest lengths are just about to my chin now, i think, undreaded.

As it is right now i've got a few fairly decent mats in my hair but i can see it's going to be pretty painful to separate them so i don't have just a bunch of matted hair. I've separated a few of the mats but they keep trying to rejoin and i haven't quite found a solution for that yet. John (who had dreads using the neglect method for 4-5 years) keeps telling me to just leave my head alone and once a month he'll help me separate what needs to be separated. talk about a test of my WILL. lol

i just can't seem to make my mind up about what to do. I definitely am not quitting... i just can't decide if i should try to seek out someone to assist me (i'm most interested in the crocheting method) or just... let it be. lol. I'd love to just let it be...

and maybe i should, i definitely need a strong lesson in patience and to learn to curb my impulsive side. *sigh* i guess this was more of a "i'm talking just to talk, don't mind me" post... It's definitely opening my eyes to a lot of things in my life. How in the hell does dreading ones hair become such a life-changing thing? you ask... it just does. I can't describe or really get into details here right now, but it is definitely forcing me to see alot of stuff about myself and my life that most of the time i refuse to see because its not a pleasant aspect of me or my life.

hmmm.

Updates updates updates!

2009-05-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

So the dreading is coming along... well... slowly. LOL. i had to take matters into my own hands and help things along a bit because i'm kind of impatient and honestly, i don't thing truly neglecting my hair will ever cause it to dread... ever. So i backcombed here and there and will continue to do so over the weeks to get things moving. Here are a few progression shots:

last week:

as of this morning (after washing it last night and sleeping on it slightly damp... lol)
you can bet your bottom dollar i hide that mess under a hat or bandana when i'm out in public;)

In other news....

I am currently working on stock for my etsy shop. I know i have been slacking but sales have been nowhere to be had so I kind of just let things go.

However... i have had a sudden surge of interest and demand and am now on a supercharged creative streak. I will admit; it will be at least 2-3 weeks before i have anything ready to be listed for sale- i simply cannot keep up with making one thing, listing it, having it sell and then trying to scramble to make another to take its' place.

Therefore i am working on building up stock. In addition to my shop i have two other potential sales-related things to create items for that are needed like yesterday. So i WILL NOT be able to do custom orders for at least the next two months. If i am able to catch a break sooner than the 2 month time frame i've blocked off i will let people know:)

here are some of the things i've been working on:

scrubbies! great for your body, your dishes, your bathrooms... anything that needs a good yet ohso gentle scrub. i of course would recommend buying one for each of those different uses if you wanted to use one for all of the above. scrubbing your body with something that you also used to scrub your toilet is not very... hygenic. I will have an assortment of colors to choose from. Made from 100% cotton yarn and tulle netting. washable, dryable, reuseable.

Hats and Tams! since my current obsession with dreadlocks has started i have also discovered a need to hide my rats nest until its actually formed into sweet little dreads. So using that as inspriation i've made a few tams. Two in a chunky acrylic/wool blend- sooo soft, easy to (hand) wash, and pretty damn warm. Of course, these wouldn't be too appealing on those 90+ degree days with 85 % humidity but keep them in mind when winter rolls around! I also have some skull caps and mesh-style hats and tams that are easily wearable in the summer when you need to keep your hair under wraps but hate baseball caps. These will be cotton, cotton/acrylic blends, etc for easy wash and wear.

And weebitties! I've been working on these for the past two days. I will be attaching them to hair clips and headbands when i complete enough of them to make full sets.

Also planned for the shop:
*mesh market bags
*felted coffee cozies (these are still great to use in the summer when you have an ice cold drink 'sweating' all over the place!) in a few sizes/types
*infant and kids felted slippers- great stocking stuffers!

i'm workin' hard!! stay tuned:)

A new Journey

2009-04-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

After about a year of debate (with myself) i have decided to finally take the plunge and dread my hair. For most of you who've known me for awhile you know I am no stranger to adventure when it comes to my hair. Black, blonde, hot pink, shaved, platinum, shaved, hennaed.... it's been awesome. So much to try, so little time to do it, especially when your hair takes forever to grow.

After a bunch of research... and then some more research... and with John's expertise... I have come to the final decision of letting my hair dread naturally. Why naturally? well, for a few reasons.

In my initial research I found quite a few 'tried and true' methods for (almost) instant dreads. It involved hours and hours and hours of time, backcombing, palmrolling, and lots of wax. First of all, when am I going to have a block of 8 hours of free time to sit and rat and roll my hair myself? I don't have anyone locally to help me do this, nor do I have anyone who would help me take care of the kids when my arms feel like jello from all the backcombing, ripping and rolling i'd have done for the past 6 hours by myself.

J, in his typical bratty fashion (i love you, honey:)! ) had a fit and did some more research for me, insisting that the method i was going to use was not going to work, and most of all, was CHEATING.

SO, after looking at the links he found i've decided that yes, this is a 'journey' and not some instant gratification. Now, don't get me wrong... i'm not dissing the people who HAVE seen the knottyboy and dreadheadhq sites and followed their tips and tricks... i've seen some faaaabulous dreads on their 'pics' pages and i'm quite envious of their beautiful outcomes. But in my case i think that allowing nature to take its course and gradually ending up with some knotty goodness of my own will be the best choice for moi:)

Let's get it goin'! here's my head as of last night. I washed my hair, no conditioner, let it air dry (can you see how utterly stick straight, fine, and thin my hair is?? this is going to take FOR-EV-ER). I did start one dread on my own using the ratting/rolling method. As of now, though, i have made the commitment to leave my hair alone. I will be continuing with my 'no poo' regimen: baking soda rinses, and leave out the ACV conditioning... air dry, and wrapping my hair during the day (once it's dried, of course) to encourage it to knot up.

I'm wondering if uing certain essential oils in m baking soda rinse will help alleviate the potential scalp itchies without providing that 'conditioning' factor. I know TTO may be ok to use but i'm not very fond of the scent of it itself. peppermint, maybe? I've heard rosemary is a good one to use for scalp irritation, i just dunno what it smells like. I'm off to research that as well, though if anyone has any recs or tips please feel free to add yours in my comment section!!

anyway.

Keepin' warm when it's cold

2009-04-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

We needed a level place to keep our garbage cans and recycling bins, so john built that...

then he decided the laundry room needed a little something to keep stuff from falling behind the machines...

(yeah, sorry that one is sideways...) We also needed to keep little hands out of the potting soil. works quite well and is a great way to recycle larger cardboard boxes!

Planted our seedlings! (our chamomile is already sprouting!)

Also built by john (designed in his head nonetheless!):
* 3 planter boxes for our kiwis and hops
* a huge firewood 'keeper' (as tall as me!) to keep firewood near the house when it's too cold to tromp down the hill to get an armload
* a fireplace mantle (or at least we hope it will be if it cures well enough) that he hewed (is that a word??) from one of the very large trees we cut down in the front yard,
*our compost cage
*repaired the sandbox he made for asher after one of the trees we cut down fell on it.
*hauled a hot tub down from MD and sloooowwwly got it on the back porch under the deck
*replaced the struts on his car
*replaced a lot of junk in my jeep
*built asher a computer
*put up another shelf in the kitchen for me :)

in addition to all of that he takes care of all the miscellaneous repairs around the house. What a handy guy! I think i'll keep him, eh? ;)

We be brewin'

2009-03-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

SO john is working on his fourth batch of beer. So far he's done an American Pale Ale, Yellow Dog Ale, Brutal Bitter (which we have yet to try!) and his most recent kit is a Simcoe IPA (yummmm this one should be goood!)

He knows much much more about it than I do. It all started a few months ago. He was browsing craigslist and noticed an ad for a ton of free stuff at a place just down the road. So among other things, he came away with a beer brewing kit, complete with bottles, caps, and pony kegs. Shortly thereafter he bought the book The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, Fully revised and Updated, 3rd edition.

After reading much of the first half of the book, researching online and checking out numerous home brewing forums J decided on his first basic batch of beer. He went down to our LHBS (local home brew shop) and bought the ingredients for a kit and a few extra items- such as the 20 qt stock pot and stirring paddle (verrrry handy).

A few things I should mention: when you brew at home( and assuming you can follow directions and have absolutely everything you need) your beer should come out just like the stuff you buy at the store. The longer you let it set, the better. Our first batch of beer tasted MUUUCH better a few months *after* we bottled it.

Sure, you have to wait for it, but for most of the kits we've purchased, 35-40 dollars gets us 5 GALLONS of beer. That's 2 cases and a six pack of beer for at most (for us, so far) $40.00. If you want to factor in time and effort, be my guest but in my opinion it's completely worth it.

For the first three batches J brewed in the kitchen. Brewing is stinky. It smells nothing like your finished project. My entire house smelled like wort for two days after he brewed his first batch. I suggest opening a window or two and turning on a fan if you have a sensitive nose. The smell of boiling wort isn't extremely unpleasant but is an 'aqcuired scent', much like beer is an acquired taste.

For this last batch (Simcoe IPA) he borrowed his brother in law's propane burner for his turkey fryer, which meant he was doing this on a grill mat on our back deck. I (as usual) helped him with minor tasks, like stirring while he poured in the malt, stirring when he added the sugars, watching the timer, etc. We don't yet have a coil system or anything super fancy yet but our setup gets the job done. The process generally (and keep in mind, this is a very loose overview of the actual process) goes like this:

30 min prep: this includes setting up all your gear, making sure everything has been sterilized, all your ingredients are there and ready.

Steep: once the water in your stockpot hits 155-170 degrees F you steep your barley grains for 15 minutes. your grains are contained in a very loose knit muslin sack, like a giant tea bag. Once steeping is done you simply remove the grain bag from the pot, let it drain a bit and discard the bag of grains.

Add: your malt extract

Boiling: keep up a raging boil for 60 minutes. Add the hops called for in your kit recipe at the times indicated. Using the propane burner on this last batch was freakin' awesome. Trying to bring a 20 quart pot just to a gentle boil on a glasstop stove is a huge PITA- and once we got to the rolling boil we had major boilovers because the controls weren't as reactive as we needed. It would take too long to come down a few degrees. The propane burner was so much easier to handle, and we had no boilover issues.

Cooldown: Remove pot from burner. The goal is to get the liquid to 70 degrees F. A few hours ahead of brewing we empty our automatic ice maker and keep the ice in a bowl in the freezer to allow the ice maker to make another container full of ice. Before pulling the pot we fill our sink (luckily its a big, deep sink- big enough to hold a 20 quart stock pot) with the ice. We stick the pot in the ice bath and monitor the temperature. Once it hits 70 degrees, you top up the pot to the 5 gallon mark and 'pitch' (add) your yeast.

The final step is to siphon, ferment and then bottle. Ater siphoning the mix into your fermenting container (in our case a food grade 5 gallon bucked with an airlock in the lid) you will simply wait and watch. Fermenting generally takes about 2 weeks, and you can gauge progress by watching the bubbles coming up through your airlock.

If you are bottling you add more sugar to the fermented brew prior to the actual bottling step. called "finishing sugar", this step helps provide carbonation to your brew (it's all one big chemical reaction, i tell ya.) If you are kegging you will not use the finishing sugar because your keg will be joined up with a CO2 line to provide carbonation.

Again, the above outline is a very general, loosely written guide to basic homebrewing. Any kit you buy will have specific instructions. We've made a few mistakes here and there and luckily the beer turned out alright... it wasn't perfect but it was drinkable and it was good! It's a learning process.

AND NOW, for some pictures of in action.

the setup, and john removing the bag of grains after steeping

adding the malt extract

adding the sugar

watching dog and daughter keep an eye on the commotion outside. daughter recently discovered the sliding glass door and has decided it's delicious, hence the window-licking. don't worry, i'd cleaned it earlier that day and i use a vinegar and water solution to clean everything with. Mmmmm, TANGY!

And a brief update: we cracked open a bottle of the brutal bitter (we brewed this superbowl weekend, for reference) and while it's definitely NOT like the actual Rogue beer you can buy in the store we know exactly were we screwed up in the brewing process. The beer itself is still very good... more of a mild pale ale than a truly bitter ale. Had we not made the mistakes we made i'm positive it would have come out exactly like store-bought Brutal Bitter. Ah, we brew, we learn!

You sound like your mother...

2009-03-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

Ah, we all hear this once we become parents. It's inevitable. It's cliche. It's TRUE.

for instance:

"I (don't) know..."

Asher says that every time we ask him what he's doing. We usually ask him that if he's gone out of sight and is suddenly very quite. his answer, every time?

"I (don't) know..." (for some reason he omits the word "don't" when he says this, so it's actually "I know", but he *means* "i don't know")

sometimes he isn't actually doing anything bad at all though most of the time he is. It's SO ANNOYING though when he says it! I finally started telling him "Asher, 'I don't know' is not an answer. Tell me what you are doing, right. now."

it's worked so far. lol.

this totally reminds me of the rampages my dad would go on about his 4th kid, "NotMe".

I love you mom. I love you dad. I'm *REALLY* sorry....

HAHAHAHAHA!

A giveaway from Fashion, Evolved!

2009-03-12T09:19:00.000-07:00

The wonderfulness that is Fashion, Evolved has been given Allay relief kits to give away. She has a few more left, so hurry on over to see how you can get yours!

An excerpt from F,E's site:
The Allay relief patch is a revolutionary, drug-free treatment for the pain and discomfort associated with menstruation. The product utilizes advanced state-of-the-art, battery operated microchip technology to deliver continuous electromagnetic therapy that quickly relieves edema, inflammation, pain and discomfort. The unit consists of a control module that contains the computerized microchip and battery, which is connected to a flexible loop that bends to meet the contours of a woman’s body. The control unit and loop are contained within a soft, hypoallergenic biodegradable sleeve that comfortably worn against the skin at the site of menstrual pain, cramping and discomfort. The technology on which the Allay Relief Patch is based is well proven in hundreds of scientific studies and papers.

you can use THIS LINK to enter!

Grandpa's Visit

2009-03-07T19:32:00.000-08:00

We had a good time! John and my dad worked on my J(h)eep most of the time he was here; My dad actually packed his favorite pair of work gloves. For those who do not know my dad: he's worked on cars... big cars, little cars, fast cars, diesels, tractors, lawnmowers... you name it. if it has an engine or motor (or are those the same? sorry dad, i should know that!! and once again, my inner blonde is showing through...), he's probably worked on it.

So Grandpa met A2 for the very first time, and saw A1 for the first time in almost 3 years! He was a hit, of course. After A2's birthday party on saturday we headed to the Udvar-Hazy (btw, that's pronounced "Oodvahr- Hahz-ee", not "Uhdvarr- Hayzee") Air and Space museum and spent HOURS there. My dad is a military buff (expected, considering he is retired USMC and his father served a few tours in a war or two in the Air Force)

Monday's flight was cancelled due to the crazy snow that started falling sunday evening. I drove under 25 miles an hour there and back. I'm sure i pissed off plenty of idiots who had death wishes along with their 50MPH hunks of metal on wheels... yeah. my jeep has 4WD but i was still slipping all over the place. Luckily i only had to make one major turn. My dad's rescheduled flight was kept on schedule and he got home in one piece:)

And here are a few pics!

time for... the HIPPYMOM BLOGROLL!

2009-03-07T17:41:00.000-08:00

Find a moment of rest and peace with The Inside Life's interior journey, Of Wings and Stones.

Join the Movement! Support National Thrift Store Month with Fashion, Evolved.

A Hippy Chick ponders the way her Attachment Parenting will change as her son grows.

In My Crazy Life ponders what she really likes.

BunnyGlitter's Interesting Person of the Week is: Shopping Golightly!

Gray Gaia is ready for spring gardening!

Pink dolphins, radioactive pedophiles and a nose bra...it's Ten Things from The Q Speaks!

From a Window on the Rez is shocked at the racially charged assignment given in a Brunswick fourth grade class.

Melia Lore has a weiner winner for her condom giveaway.

Aurora Hope is excited to participate in the March for Babies walk this year!

Grabba Cuppa Joe has BIRTHDAY PARTY PICTURES!

And finally, without further ado....

2009-03-06T19:35:00.000-08:00

birthday party pics!

My honeybunnymuffinbunssweetiepie is officially ONE.

A view of the decorations: tissue paper poms, handpainted banner, MLP cutouts:)
The birthday girl in her little tutu! (awwwww!)

Birthday girl and cousin S., wearing one of the fascinators made as party favors

Grandpa and Asher getting ready for takeoff, wearing the masks i made for the boys:)

Cake face! (GrandC. made our birthday cake- yummy chocolate with chocolate chocolate chip icing and red writing! lol)A great time was had by all:)

Dear Zachary

2009-02-25T11:07:00.000-08:00

hands down the most heart-wrenching film i have ever seen, and probably will ever see.

I honestly haven't been that moved in a long, long time. I honestly have never stopped to think the thoughts it provoked before seeing this movie. I'm glad I watched it, as sorrowful as it was.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

Will the Real Sarah C Please Stand Up?

2009-02-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

the following is an excerpt from an actual conversation John and I had today. I am the star of MANY moments like this. Just ask him about the Bearcows, or when Cinco De Mayo is!

hawtmamah: hey just popped into my head. weren't we going to try to go to some town hall meeting?
john: huh? when?
john: oh you wanted to go to a zoning thing i think
john: was it the bees? or chickens?
hawtmamah: OHHH yeah thats right
hawtmamah: bees, i think
john: yea i wanted to get started on that project
john: me likes honey
hawtmamah: me too, and i'e never even had BEE honey
hawtmamah: just clover honey
john: uhhhhh
hawtmamah: is clover honey bee hone?
john: yes lol
hawtmamah: oh
john: it comes from bees near cloverfields though
hawtmamah: well hell, i thought they made it from clovers or some shit.

Coming to an end

2009-02-23T09:59:00.001-08:00

well... i knew this day would come. in one way i'm relieved but mostly i'm sad.

Annabelle and i have come to the mutual decision to stop breastfeeding, just a couple weeks shy of whole year. She has 12 teeth and counting now, and can't seem to stop biting during nursing sessions. I've tried every trick and remedy there is, she just won't stop doing it. She is much more interested in doing things herself instead of being stuck in mommy's lap for meal times. I was really really hoping we would make it to at least 18 months or more.

As of last friday we have stopped nursing altogether. My supply has pretty much disappeared. We can't nurse at night which has been the roughest adjustment. We were up a lot over the weekend. Thankfully I think she's getting used to it, she was only up twice last night and didn't get hysterical after not getting a boob in her face at all. We simply rocked for about 20 minutes. The second time she woke up she was able to soothe herself back to sleep. The goal is not to get her to sleep through the night, if she needs a bottle in the night i'm more than happy to give her one... i just don't want her to freak when she can't have a boob, which she has been doing over the last weekend.

I knew this would be hard... but it's much harder in many more ways than I thought. I miss having her little body huddled up next to mine, needing me for more than just snuggles; i'm jealous of other nursing mothers. Breastfeeding really is an intimate thing. It can be stressful at times, yes, but all in all I have always enjoyed it.

I know that many people would disagree with me, that she isn't really ready to be weaned. The problem is i don't have the mental stamina to keep up with the biting, the fighting, and then the screaming when she can't make up her mind. I think i did what is best for Annabelle and I in the here and now. We've nursed for a year. All good things must come to an end, i suppose. Doesn't mean i have to be happy about it...

A change up

2009-02-17T06:41:00.001-08:00

So as you can see I've changed the layout and color scheme of my blog. It will be changing again soon, this was simply a template i chose from one of the (very few) options blogger offers. It might get hairy but i promise i will try to keep the ruckus down to a minimum. ;)

Making it work

2009-02-15T20:34:00.000-08:00

So i am actually pretty damn proud of myself. I guesstimate that I have been able to create many of the "things" i wanted to have for A2's 1st birthday for under $20.00.

Using a few online tutorials, materials i already had or those i could get for a small price, and my own imagination i do believe i've finally completed the prepping stage of her party.

I am going with the typical girly theme- Pink, frilly, princesses and ponies. No, she won't remember a daggone thing but like i stated in a previous post... i believe i'm making up for a lack of these things in my childhood through her. I've never really been a girly girl yet i am somehow obsessed with making sure my little girl has a sweet 1st birthdday party.

For decoration:
Tissue paper hanging pom poms, via Martha Stewart's tutorial HERE- cost: 2.00 for tissue paper for the pompoms and thin yellow ribbon i already had in my craft supplies.

My Little Pony wall decorations, via printable coloring pages i googled, printed out and colored myself. Simply type in the keyword you may be searching for (spiderman? Dora or Diego? The Backyardigans? you can find *almost* everything through google!)

Happy Birthday Banner, using a roll of craft paper commonly used for children's art easels. Thanks to John's BIL we have a huge roll of this paper that we use for coloring on when we have a rainy day inside. crayons, markers, paints, decoupage, stickers... just get creative. It doesn't have to be perfect! I did the same thing for Asher's 2nd and 3rd birthdays.

Party favors:
Miniature fascinators, using a tutorial I found few months ago on Burda Style, HERE. For the little girls who are attending (three of them ranging in age from almost 3 to almost 6). In order to make them a little easier to wear I will be hot gluing them to slim headbands- perfect for the party and a great dress-up accessory after

Masks for the boys in attendance... 3, not including Asher. Using Asher as a reference since the boys are for the most part within the same range of head size, i came up with an eye mask. He was more than happy to let me use his head and face to create a template for the masks...haha! I used red felt I also already had in my craft stash; I have yards of it but if i had to guess i would say i could make 4 masks from 2.5 "sheets" of felt you can purchase from your local craft store for at most .79c a sheet. I decorated the masks Using glittery puff paints I had on hand from writing names on the christmas stockings i crocheted last year.

Tulle treat bags- using scrap pieces of tulle i had leftover from the tutu i will mention later in this post i made very small treat bags... and i didn't even have to buy the candy. Bags of unopened halloween candy served as the treats- place on a small square of tulle and tie it all up with ribbon already on hand and voila! treat bags!

Homemade Playdoh- i whipped up a quick batch of purple playdoh about a week ago to include in the favor tins. My favorite recipe is HERE. After cooling the playdoh and making sure it wasn't too tacky i portioned it into small balls and sealed them up in sandwich baggies.

I also found miniature tin "lunchpails" on clearance at Michaels last year for .39 cents each. I'd originally purchased them to use for Asher's 3d birthday but ended up with more kids attending than i had tins for so I set them aside for another time. Luckily the number i have on hand works perfectly for Annabelle's party.

And for the birthday girl I made a cute little tutu using the tutorial found HERE using tulle purchased at a fabric store totaling no more than $12 dollars including the elastic. She will be wearing tights i was graciously gifted when she was born and a pink onesie i found for $3 at walmart. (not my favorite place to shop but i was unable to find ONE single plain white or pink onesie anywhere else, long or short sleeved.)

I will of course have pictures once we have the party (2 weeks to go!)

throwing a party does not have to cost an arm and a leg, and honestly- even if you aren't the most creative or crafty person these small projects can be accomplished with a little time and effort by anyone willing to try!

Countdown

2009-02-12T18:18:00.000-08:00

Annabelle's birthday is in 16 days. My cleaning list never seems to end! I swear my house is not a pigsty... but trying to clean when you have a 3 year old who makes messes as you clean another one up and an almost 1 year old who has taken to feeding herself and refusing the pureed foods i make her.. well... it's hard to keep up sometimes.

SO far i have finished the birthday tutu, bought a pink onesie, whipped up3 fascinators, the tissue paper pom poms, My Little Pony wall decorations (thank you printable coloring pages!) and the party favor tins for the kiddos. I still have to work on the masks i decided to make for the boys and i need headbands for the fascinators, otherwise i'm pretty much done in that department!

My dad will be flying in on the 26th, which is the day before *my* birthday. He won't fly in until 3, so up until then i'll be baking some banana bread and touching up the cleaning list one last time. Friday the 27th we'll be going to Udvar Air and Space museum just for something to do that morning or afternoon- Asher and my dad should both get a great kick out of it. John also has plans to ask daddio if he can give him some pointers on putting new struts on my jeep (which is in dire need of some tlc right now!)

At least with all this cleaning i've been able to start a big storage bag and rubbermaid full of stuff to try to sell at the spring/summer flea market our local mom and pop gas station/convenience store does... at least i hope they do it this year! i need a place to get rid of all this stuff and get a little cash in my hands.

This last weekend we also took down the last tree in the front yard. Unfortunately (well, kinda sorta.. it would have been bad if it happened mid-chop down!) the chainsaw quit and the tree is still for the most part sitting in our driveway, still intact. We'll be renting a saw this weekend to get it sectioned up and hopefully start splitting it sunday. We could definitely use the firewood, that's for sure!

anywho, that's pretty much all we've been up to as of late.

a quick kiddo update:

Annabelle is rolling everywhere. she tends to follow me around the house this way. it's pretty funny to watch! She finally got over her double ear infection and will have alot of shots to make up when she goes in for her 12 month appointment in March. She shakes her head no and means in, claps her hands and even though i didn't think it was possible, has become even more vocal. ay yi yi!

Asher is truckin' along. John bought him a sesame street preschool game for PCs and taught him how to use a mouse... he hasn't looked back. a few days after buying the game john downloaded tuxpaint, a linux paint program and asher can't get enough of it. He;s also become quite the backtalker and repeats *everything*. what 3 year old doesn't?? LOL

so we are all good! i hope everyone out there is well and happy, or on their way to it. Love and miss you all!!

Annabelle's birthday gift from Mommy and Daddy

2009-01-30T18:52:00.000-08:00

Josef Originals Unicorn

Somehow during my first marriage and eventual divorce my entire collection of unicorn figurines was lost. The figurine linked above was one of the pieces of my collection. I found it online today and was so stoked to find it! I IM'd john and work and gave him the short story version of the situation and he ordered it this afternoon.

My plan is to buy each child something to add to their collections each birthday. I've decided Asher will be getting sea otter figurines, and annabelle (obviously) unicorns

As if i needed any more....

2009-01-28T10:13:00.001-08:00

As bogged down with projects (started and not) as I am I decided I needed to put together a list of things I most definitely want and NEED to make. So! here we go!

Clothing

Infinity Dress (A la rostitchery)
Pillowcase Dress (from A Room Somewhere)
Kid's Beach Pants from old t-shirts! (thank you to Luckybeans)
Sweaterpants for kids (tutorial at Green Kitchen)
Awesome Wrap Pants (whipped up at Laupre)

Household
Pillowcase totebags (from creative kismet)
Silhouette Portraits of the fam (via morewaystowastetime)
Filet crochet cafe-style curtains for the kitchen. I just haven't found a pattern i like.
throw pillows for our basement couch
beanbag chairs for the kiddos

i had planned on a longer list but this page has been up on my computer all day! i'll have to finish it up tomorrow if i get a chance:)

I might be making up for something....

2009-01-27T21:20:00.000-08:00

Tulle? pom poms? My little pony? Unicorns?!

Ok, ok... so i'll admit it. I had a unicorn collection as a kid.

Aside from that... i can't recall being super girly. No tiaras, no princess dresses...

so where in the world is this coming from??

well. for Annabelle's first birthday next month i'm going all out.

here's her birthday tutu! (action shots will be taken at her birthday party;) )
i followed the tutorial HERE

I have some leftover tulle i'll be using for some kind of party favor, i just haven't quite figured it out yet.

also, i'll be making giant tissue paper pom poms using this tutorial- i may even take some glittery hairspray to them... bwahahahaa!!!

And for her birthday cake i'll be baking a large cake (box mix, of course. let's not fool ourselves and pretend that Sarah can bake a cake from scratch... hahaha!) for the partygoers and a smash cake for Annabelle. I have 2 My Little Pony dolls (thank you McDonalds Happy Meals and Gramma Nana! ) that will be 'cake toppers'...

what else can i possibly come up with??

Snow days

2009-01-27T10:52:00.000-08:00

SO, we went to the Inauguration. It was cold, it was crowded, it was AWESOME (though John would tell you otherwise). You can view a small set of pictures HERE.

John and A2 have both been fighting off ear infections. Asher and I have been pretty good, thankfully. Annabelle is on her 3rd antibiotic after breaking out in the rash after her first dose of Amoxicillin. If this current antibiotic doesn't work her Ped says there aren't any more out there we can give her until we determine whether or not she actually has an allergy to 'cillins'.

We all went out this morning to enjoy the snow:) I went down on the sled with A2- i honestly cannot remember the last time i ever used a sled. It had to have been sometime in elementary school. A2 wasn't too impressed.

here's some pics:)

Xena has a complete blast, and A1 discovered he could throw alot more snow using his garden shovel... that's when mommy decided it would be a good idea to take A2 back inside for her nap. hahaha:)

Once A2 was down for her nap and the boys were inside watching TV and warming up I set out to multitask like a mad woman: start a load of laundry, make lunch (sausage and rice!), make A2 some baby food and give myself a quick, natural facial. woohoo!

So it went down like this.
-Get A1 settled in on the laptop using his new preschool program.
-Run back upstairs to gather all the dirty laundry; haul it back downstairs and start a load
-Run back upstairs and start the sausage and rice.
-While lunch is getting started, halve two avocados and mash up in a tupperware,reserve 2 heaping tablespoons of the mush in a small condiment bowl, put large bowl in fridge for A2.
-stir rice/flip sausage, put a few dishes away in the sink.
-In second condiment bowl mix 4 heaping TBS sugar with a tiny dash of extra virgin olive oil, add lemon juice until you have a thick but still very grainy sugar mixture.
-stir lunch again!
-in the avocado bowl add a small drizzle of honey,mix, set bowl aside.
-leaning over the sink (after making sure lunch isn't burning) use the sugar scrub on your face in gentle circular motions. Rinse with warm water.
-Check lunch, run downstairs to switch laundry.
-Run back upstairs to was face with your favorite complexion bar.
-Head back out to the kitchen, check on lunch ( i have to do this often, i am horrible in the kitchen and usually end up burning any food i am attempting to make). Take avocado/honey mixture and apply it to face, like so:

-walk around and scare the pants off your kid when you go back downstairs to let the guys know lunch is just about ready. Your kid will look at you at first in horror, then disgusted curiosity, ask about a million questions about what happened to your face, and then tell you "wash it off- it's yucky, mommy!"
-Go back upstairs, wash the offending (yet oh so nice!) avocado and honey mask, dish up lunch and go about your day!

a lazy kinda day

2009-01-15T08:13:00.000-08:00

Well, annabelle had another visit with the Ped yesterday. She seems to be doing lots better than yesterday- she slept most of the day. And, in a small moment of TMI, had a hugely massive poopie diaper after not having gone for a little over a week. I think she was so relieved that it spurred her day-long nap-a-thon.

So the Doc doesn't think it's a viral rash and prescribed a new antibiotic. However, once she's healed up and feeling better he wants to do a blood draw to determine if she really does have an allergy to amoxicillin- right now, since we're playing it safe, it cuts waaay back on the types of medicines she can get to help her. Once we determine an allergy (or none, hopefully) we'll be able to treat her accordingly in the future.

Asher is his usual self, and he's 'addicted' to his "medicine honey". Who wouldn't be? honey is awesome. lol.

Speaking of Asher, John and i have been discussing what a stubborn kid he can be, and J did some research on it. He found a book, Setting Limits With Your Strong Willed Child , it looks pretty much like a good solution, or the start to one. Asher is most definitely a push the limits kind of kid and it's incredibly frustrating. Just like the author of this book states within the first few pages of his book, I often wonder if there something 'wrong' with him, or with me, or some kind of disconnect between us that i'm totally missing. It's been an interesting read so far, though i'm only 11 pages into it right now.

So today is a quiet, reflective, get work done as i can kind of day. hope ya'll have (had) a good one!

updates updates updates

2009-01-13T19:22:00.000-08:00

Xena is as well as she can be right now. She's still in good spirits, and still a sweetheart.

We are all sick. John stayed home from work today, and Annabelle is fighting her first ear infection and is totally, utterly, completely MISERABLE. She really looks just pitiful. We were given an Rx for Amoxicillin and I gave her 2 doses before i noticed a rash on her torso. Called her ped, who wasn't as quick to jump to "allergic reaction" as i was and said it could be viral. The main reason I jumped to the allergic reaction conclusion is because I myself am allergic to it. So to be on the safe side, she hasn't had any more and we're going back to the Ped tomorrow to get her checked out again. Asher, luckily, hasn't had a fever with this bout though he has a nasty cough that sends him into gagging fits when he really gets going. Luckily he loves taking his "medicine C" and "medicine honey" (medicine C is chewable vitamin c).

I've been feeling a little adventurous.. I want to start making food from scratch and figured i'd start with bread. Thanks to this wonderful blog: http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2007/12/stockpiling-groceries-101.html i have found an excellent beginner's recipe... and then found so much more. This lovely lady is truly inspiring!

For upcoming events, John and i will be going to DC for the inauguration. WOOHOO! John is less than thrilled, of course. i know there are going to be meeeelions of people there and it's going to be on the chaotic side but seriously... we live 40 miles away... why on earth wouldn't we go? John plans to buy long johns 'specially for the big day. haha!

Also in upcoming events, Annabelle's 1st birthday party will be sat, Feb 28th here at our place. For purely selfish reasons I am going with a My Little Pony theme, making her a tutu and baking and decorating her cake. Even better is the fact that my Dad will be in town. He hasn't yet met Annabelle and hasn't seen Asher since he was about 6 months old. (and it's been the same amount of time since *i've* seen him) So needless to say I'm pretty excited:)

well, the hour is late, i'm sure Annabelle will be up shortly and morphed into her demon spawn mode that she always goes into when she's sick, so i'll be up for a few more hours trying to get her back to sleep. yeeehawww....

love and miss you all!

one big all-inclusive....

2009-01-05T18:54:00.000-08:00

Ready? here we go!

Xena:

she has her good days and her bad days. She has vomited blood once, we figure she probably has ulcers. Her appetite has returned, and is on a daily regimen of benadryl. Unfortunately she has developed more of the tumors, mostly on her head and neck and a few on her hind quarters. Overall she seems to be in good spirits for now. The benadryl definitely makes her tired We have not been able to get her to an oncologist as of yet to check on her liver. We will update when we get that taken care of. At this point, though, John thinks we should be preparing for her death. We will be putting her next to Mingo's grave in our back yard.

Annabelle, Xena and Daddy cuddling:

Asher and Xena

Xena wearing my Wonder Woman shirt. We put her in my 'baby tees' to keep her from opening the tumor/scab on her shoulder. She's stylin', huh?

Asher and Annabelle:

The kiddos are doing well. Asher is in total sponge mode, repeating everything and anything, learning all kinds of things. He also has become VERY stubborn and angry as he constantly tests his boundaries with us. Terible twos? HA. Aint nothin' compared to Three.

Annabelle is coming along... and then some. She has definitely taken her time in becoming mobile. She started sitting up on her own only over the last 2 months and has been able to pull herself to sit up on her own just this week. She started rolling as well, and has only this last week or so figured out that rolling can get her places. This evening she rolled around the perimeter of the basement living room, babbling away. It was quite a sight:)

In between the craziness of the holidays i was able to do a few crafty things... made annabelle a pair of fleece pants, cleaned some old jewelery, sewed up a travel tissue cozy and made some headway on reorganizing my craft room. At the moment i am still trying to catch up on all the cleaning i neglected while John was on vacation these last 2.5 weeks. I don't see the end in sight right now.... *sigh*....
Annabelle in the pants i made (don;t mind her goofy expression... she must get that from her dad...teeheehee!)

anyway. That's all she wrote (for now!). I've gotta toddle off to bed... annabelle is back to waking up every 2 hours at night now and mommy is becoming more and more sleep deprived by the night! love and miss you all!

Still here... still there... still everywhere!

2009-01-05T10:00:00.001-08:00

alas, not a word on my blog as of late. sorry peeps!

I promise i will get a Xena Upate, Crafting Update, Kid Update and miscellaneous stuff up later this evening. :) We are still trying to recover from all the holiday craziness and my housecleaning has kinda sorta gone untouched until today.

I have plenty of pictures to upload and share and yes, i know i haven't updated picasa. I'm still trying to decide if i am going to delete more albums and reorganize pictures, upload in whole new albums, or what. Picasa doesn't allow you to organize *between* albums which is what i would really like to do but can't. i swear one of these days i will get to it:)

Merry Ho Ho! and lookie!

2008-12-25T21:46:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday today:) The fam spent their first real family christmas at home together; john has had to work the last 3 christmases we've been together so we decided to stay home this year and enjoy ourselves. Mom came out for dinner (thanks for cooking and cleaning... especially the cooking since that is definitely not my forte!! haha!)

Asher went home with GrammaNana this evening, so i took the opportunity to try out my sewing machine for real tonight and i have to say i am pretty damn proud of myself! i made Annabelle some fleece soakers for her cloth diapers. they are a tad wonky but completely wearable. I'll get 'action' shots up tomorrow:)

i already have a TON of things i want to make on my mind and i can't wait to get started!!

Resolution

2008-12-17T19:21:00.000-08:00

I don't normally do New Years resolutions. Mainly because i have never kept up with them. ha! but this year I definitely NEED to do it.

SO.

We'll start with crafting, because right now that is what is stressing me the most.

1: I will finish up all my WIPS ASAP
2: I will not start a new project until all my obligations are completed
3: Because I have a pretty decent sized stash of bargain yarns I will save up any money/funds/whathaveyou to buy 'better' yarns and fabrics to work with to keep my project lists down
4: (most important) I will FINISH WHAT I START BEFORE BEGINNING A NEW PROJECT OF THE SAME GENRE.

so. think i can do it?

i kinda have to!

Xena

2008-12-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

Is not looking much better.

in fact, she seems to slowly be getting worse.

She is not keeping any food down- not her dog food, not the plain rice and chicken we've cooked up for her... she's had diarrhea, and i'll bet you anything if you popped her on a scale she'd have lost 5 pounds in the last week. It's not obvious yet, but i can tell she's starting to look a little skinnier than normal.

She has also broken out in more of the MTC tumors/sores all over her body- her chin, neck, the top of her head, on her rib cage and at the base of her tail. they are small, you could almost mistake them for warts, except that she can't stop itching them.

I am currently looking for remedies for her vomiting- because she's been throwing up everything we feed her she isn't keeping her antibiotics or antihistamines down.

all in all, things are not looking good for our sweetheart:(

Busy Busy Busy!

2008-12-13T19:50:00.000-08:00

We picked up a tree last night and Asher and I just finished putting the final ornaments on the thing. *whew*. It's a quaint little thing. I've (luckily) made a bunch of ornaments (the snowflakes, stockings, gingerbread applesauce ornaments) to give it a much more home-y feel:) Asher has gone totally bonkers over the anticipation of finally getting to put the "omanets" on the tree- it's been interesting. Annabelle on the other hand wonders why in the hell we put a live tree in the middle of the living room. HAHA!

today we bought Asher's 'big gift'- a bicycle with training wheels and a helmet and elbow pad set. John is so excited. We had to go find more lights for the tree, so after striking out at Lowes and Home Depot we headed to walmart. Of course, at Walmart, the christmas stuff is literally right across the aisle from the toy section, and that's when J saw it- the huffy Rock-It for 42 bucks. He plopped asher down on the bike to see if he'd be big enough for it, and while i distracted Asher and Annabelle by looking at helmets and then to go find out if our free picture with Santa had printed, John paid for the bike and stuck it in the jeep. His first BIKE! They boy is getting too big, too fast.

Speaking of too big too fast- Can you believe Annabelle is almost 10 months old?! yes... it's true. And in 2.5 more months she will be a year. Little Miss Priss has no interest in crawling... or rolling... or anything right now. HA! fine with me, one less little person to keep off the christmas tree!

And now that our tree is up I can get back to the mad crafting i've been doing. After I get asher to bed. He was allowed to stay up late tonight to help decorate the tree but he just toddled back into the living room with his favorite blankie in tow and has curled up on the couch. awwww. Hope everyone is well! I am going to try to update my picasa albums very soon, i promise!!

holiday Crafting Crunch

2008-12-09T13:22:00.000-08:00

So i have a ton of crochet projects i have to finish by christmas. (Sean, Steven, your gifts will be mailed probably a few days before christmas, depending, so you won't get them until after the holidays... sorry! )

For a small break I decided to make cinnamon applesauce ornaments for our tree. They are so easy to make and safe for kids to help with!

I found the recipe online but i'll post it here for ya'll to try:

1/2 cup applesauce (storebought is preferable as home made sauce is too watery)
1/2 cup cinnamon

add allspice, cloves, ginger, etc to your liking by the teaspoon. I added all of the above:)

mix ingredients into a stiff dough- it will be 'grainy', and it's definitely not like playdough or cookiedough... i've found the easiest way to handle the cookie cutter part is to use a silicone baking mat

roll out your dough to 1/8 inch thick on the baking mat, cut out your shapes and wiggle the cookie cutter around a bit when you make the impression to make a definite separation between the shape and the rest of the dough

carefully remove the 'scrap' portion of the dough from around the shapes and set the ball of scrap dough aside to reuse.

gently pick up your mat and slowly pry the shape from the mat lik eyou would remove a sticker from a sheet of stickers. The dough will not hold together well so you have to handle these very carefully.

once you have removed the shape from the mat, place on wax paper or a non-stick cookie sheet to dry. Be sure to poke a hole somewhere on the shape to string with some thread to hang- i use a straw

let dry and then hang on your tree! they smell wonderfully and are a great activity to do with the kids on a wintery day:)

buy handmade

2008-12-09T11:16:00.001-08:00

Odds and Ends. And the possible beginning of a sad end?

2008-12-09T07:20:00.000-08:00

Well, it was an eventful weekend for the C/E household.

The kids and I went with GrammaNana down to NC to visit our cousins. We had a great time, except for those hours on sunday that Asher started a random puking rampage. No fever, no other issues, and by noon he was totally fine! This has happened 2 other times in the past. I'm not sure what it is, why it happens or anything... but it is always the same. Wake up, puke for a few hours, and by noon he is back to normal. talking, backtalking, and running around like a little heathen.

Annabelle cut her 8th tooth. The little ish-head decided my nipples would be the absolute, most perfect, awesomest, kick ass teething toy in the WORLD. And she would clamp those 7 other teeth she already has down on my poor boobie and then not let go. I had to stick my fingers between those gummy little jaws of boobie-death to get her to open her daggone mouth. I woke up Linda with the first bite-scream. Sorry, linda!

We have recieved some bad news. When we first took Xena in back in january she had been treated for what we were told was an ingrown hair on her shoulder. It was basically a big lump under her skin and we found that if we kept the area shaved it seemed to lessen the irritation and swelling of the bump. This month, however, we noticed she had developed 3 more spots, and the original sore and one of the newer ones on her neck were irritating her. She scratched them until they bled and this weekend the original sore became much worse. While the kids and mom and I were driving home yesterday John took Xena to the vet to get checked out.

The vet did bloodwork and a needle aspiration biopsy and let John know that basically the sore on her shoulder is a Mast Cell Tumor (linked). It needs to be removed, and in that process we will find out what stage the tumor is, though the vet thinks it is on the bad side as Xena's liver seemed to be enlarged. That would mean the tumor may have spread to her liver and if that is the case she will essentially be untreatable.

For now she is on an antibiotic twice a day and on Benadryl twice a day to take her histamine levels down (which are what caused the bumps in the first place). John and I are still discussing our plan of action as far as Xena is concerned. The vet recommended taking her to an Oncologist, and quoted $1400.00 to remove the tumor and 3 other bumps, or $600.00 to remove the main one. That is alot of money we don't have, so we are unsure as to what we will do right now.

If you could just spare some good thoughts for our sweet girl we would greatly appreciate it.

A warning: Nutro pet foods

2008-12-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

About two or three weeks ago we decided to replace Xena's glucosamine tablet-form supplements with treats that had extra glucosamine in them. We figured if she's getting treats and she is on a weight management diet the treats may as well be beneficial to her, right?

So we bought Nutro Natural Choice Senior Dog Biscuits as they had the same amount of glucosamine as her supplements.

Everything was fine up until a week later when she suddenly became very fatigued, and just sad looking. Definitely not her normal self. She also started vomiting, mainly in the morning. We were starting to get really worried. I did some research to see if anyone else's pets had experienced this type of behavior since feeding them Nutro food and found plenty of blogs, articles and sites quoting issues as recent as April of this year. Apparently Nutro refuses to acknowledge the fact that its foods are making animals sick, so I'm writing this out as a warning- please watch what you are feeding your pets!

Note: After a tried and true diet of plain chicken and white rice Xena is back to her normal self. We stopped giving her the treats this week and she has already stopped vomiting and is back to her normal self.

new stuff!

2008-12-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

Well, i've been crocheting my butt off the last week. I have finished a bunch of coffee cozies and a poncho, all of which went up on my etsy shop (linked at right). I have also been working on our christmas stockings. I've finished John's and Asher's, and have most of Annabelle's done. The main thing i need to think about for those is if, how and what to decorate them with. Initials? Names? snowflakes, gingerbread people, holly, bells...? the list goes on. I really can't decide!

I have a bunch of other projects to work on as well. A shrug, 2 hat and scarf sets, a bolero... and no, i haven't finished the kid's blankets yet. lol. I'll get them finished eventually... i have to!!

Things have been busy, as expected with the holidays drawing near. The kiddos are doin well, though Asher is having some serious hysterical meltdowns more often lately. mostly when he's super tired, of course. Annabelle hass been babbling and being her usual cheerful self. John and I have been up to our usual... projects around the house!

The kids and I will be travelling with GrandmaNana this weekend to see our cousins Linda, her husband Alan and their daughter Andrea. Good times! We're all excited. John has to stay behind to be with xena and he wasn't able to get time off work. Luckily he has two weeks of vacation coming up starting the week of christmas, so that will be excellent!

I have to go get a certain ornery young man to bed, so g'night!

It is with a saddened heart...

2008-11-25T11:05:00.000-08:00

I am simply copying and pasting a link to a fellow EM blogger, whose words are far better than my own.

Baby Casey Hope.

Sweet, sweet angel, Please rest in peace. We all take comfort in the knowledge that you left this world loved, and helped three other babies live in your sorrowful parting. To Brandy, Jon and Juniper, we send you all our love.

Crafting with kids

2008-11-24T11:25:00.000-08:00

It's do-able!

Alot of people wonder how in the world i have time to craft. Well, it's simple. I'm a SAHM. I take the time to do it whenever i want, really! If i have an extra few minutes, i'll sit down and do a few rows. When annabelle is napping i get alot more done- Asher can have TV time (to keep things quiet, since he doesn't nap anymore) and I either spend this time cleaning or crafting. And when the kids are in bed i spend the evening hanging out with JOhn in the basement, watching tv and crocheting. It's even cozier in front of a good fire! Also, if you aren't prone to motion sickness, crocheting or knitting in the car is an excellent time-killer and WIP reducer! In fact, i'd say about 75% of my crocheting gets done in the car when we go out to run errands on the weekends. (John does all the driving)

Anyway. Here's another method. John got this shot last night. I was working on a coffee 'sleeve', and annabelle wanted some "boobie time". So, we both got what we wanted- my crafting time, her evening snack!

felting

2008-11-22T22:23:00.000-08:00

i think i have a new obsession. at least this one involves one thing i'm already obsessed about- crochet.

i'm making a bunch of coffee cozies to add to my etsy shop... this is the first time i've ever felted anything and i am SO hooked. It really comes out looking awesome, especially if you find some pretty colorways to use!

here's one:

And you can see the pink felted prject in front of the glass- that's another cozy i'll be putting buttons on to close up.

My next project, thanks to Noelle (As God Intended) is wool dryer balls!!

quitting

2008-11-22T18:19:00.000-08:00

it's hard!

i've bitten my nails since i was a kid. since i got my first teeth, i'm sure.

and this is the umpteenth time i've tried quitting.

right now my nails still look horrendous, but i haven't bitten them in over a week now. WOO!

clean, clean, clean.... and clean some more!!

2008-11-15T13:18:00.000-08:00

yeah, that's pretty mcuh all i've done today.

i mean, we don't live in a pigsty by any means. But certain things needed to be caught up on- the window washing, wall washing, baseboard washing...dusting... in addition to the normal weekend cleanathon we try to do every saturday and/or sunday.

Tomorrow is asher's birthday party- i unfortunately forgot to take the camera with me last night to his b-day dinner, but believe you me when i say there will be a bunch taken tomorrow!

Now. I once again have to brag on the wonderful powers of vinegar and baking soda. I clean everything in the house with the stuff. Baking soda works wonders on soap scum and hard water buildup- all the chrome and stainless steel in the house gleams like it was brand new. Windows shine like they were bought yesterday thanks to streak-free vinegar and water. And on top of it all, there's no harsh, tear jerking, asthma attack-inducing noxious fumes floating around the house. Just... freshness.

*ahhhh*

I know i have also been slacking on my blog lately, i promise to start posting more often!

The kids keep me busy for sure. Annabelle started sitting up on her own a week or so ago, she loves being able to sit up rather than lay back, though she does still prefer to lounge from time to time. Asher is as precocious as ever, and told me yesterday that he's not three, he's FIVE. Because being five means he can go to school. *sigh*. i can only hope he doesn't hold me to that fact anytime soon, because there's no way for me to get him into any kind of program right now.

john and i have been keeping busy with all kinds of the usual projects... we made a wreath base out of pruned apple tree branches he cut down a few weeks ago. He started building our second nightstand for our bedroom- just have to paint it up and get the drawers in! He is still working on what will eventually be out mantel for the basement fireplace, and i of course and trying to catch up on all my crochet projects.

We also made a beanbag toss game for asher's party tomorrow. I sketched out a picture on some leftover MDF board and helped john jigsaw some holes in it and then i painted it up. I also used some scrap fabric to make the beanbags and actually used my sewing machine with no problems! let me tell you how exciting that was for me. LOL. anyway, here's a pic of the game we made... asher loves this thing, we'll probably keep it somewhere we can easily grab it instead of hiding it away for b-day parties only.

well... i have to go down some airborne- annabelle shared her cold with me and now we are both a couple of sneezing, drippy-nosed miserable females (not a good combo, i tell ya). Take care, we love and miss you all!

Happy Birthday, Asher!

2008-11-14T10:20:00.000-08:00

Today my baby.. err... i mean, my BIG BOY is three. I wrote a poem for his special day:) It's corny, i know but do you know how long it's been since i've written a poem?? My Creative Writing class in 12th grade, that's how long. LOL

I hereby declare with glee
Asher Benjamin is turning Three!

A toddler no more-
"A BOY!", he says
as he stomps the floor.

Sweet and mischevious,
you're sure to find a day with him
is very far from tedious!

Itsy Bitsy Spider is his favorite song to sing
and playing with toys-
tools, football, and paints are his thing.

He loves his baby sister and tries to be gentle
but with a tough boy like him
a few tears are sure, and surely accidental!

Another year has passed us by
he's growing up so fast!
I've written a poem and this is why...

A boy- no longer two
We just wanted to say
how much we love you!

a walk down memory lane---the belly!

Asher's First Day

First Birthday:

A few days before his Second Birthday:
And I'll take some pics tonight as we celebrate his 'family birthday', they will be uploaded later tonight:)

Happy birthday, Big Boy!

Contest

2008-11-08T15:38:00.000-08:00

http://www.babysnazz.com/contest/
Win 20 Pairs of Baby Leg Warmers from babySNAZZ!

Check it out for your chance to win!

A Beautiful day....

2008-11-05T13:44:00.003-08:00

An awesome fellow Raveler created this youtube video.. i had to share...

WE DID IT!!!!!

2008-11-05T06:09:00.001-08:00

On the verge of an anxiety attack last night i decided to shut down the computer and the tv and just hang out with the kids and then go to bed....but waking up this morning to THE BEST NEWS IN THE WORLD was the best feeling EVER.

Change.

it's coming.

and it's going to be SO worth it.

part 1:

part 2:

Halloween is right around the corner!

2008-10-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

Asher is slowly getting excited about it. Last year we didn't do much for Halloween- we went to the fire station with john's sisters, niece and nephews and that was fun but we didn't do any trick or treating.

Last year after halloween we visited target to see what we could find in the clearance section there and we found a cute, warm footie jammie for annabelle- orange with a hood and stem on top of course! She'll be a pumpkin! And since Asher hasn't really learned much abut dressing up and costumes I decided he'd be a scarecrow- it's easy and we already have half of th costume! We just had to pick up a flannel shirt, some felt and a straw hat. I'm so excited to get them dressed up! Luckily Annabelle's costume is *just barely* going to fit her. We picked it up for .99 in the 9 month size but she's almost too big for it. I may have to cut the feet off them to make it fit.

Miss Thang had her latest checkup this week. Asher will hve his 3 year checkup in a few weeks, he lucked out because i had originally scheduled the both of them to have their well-child appointments that day but Ash's old ped hadn't faxed over his shot record.

Anyway, Annabelle is 17 pounds and 29 inches long. She's a fast learner- as soon as the doctor came in she started wailing. All the doc does is check her eyes, ears, lungs and throat! The nurse gives her the shots. She did cry but not nearly as badly as the last time she had shots. She did crash pretty hard when we got home- she slept for 3 and a half hours.

She's growing SO fast. She's long and skinny, and right now she's pretty much outgrown all the 12 month clothing i have for her, though there are some brands that still fit her. I now know what it was like for my mom to find us kids clothes when we were younger! I'm having to pull out all the 18 month clothes to fit her! It's frustrating when every brand is completely different even when the sizes are supposed to be the same.

Asher has been a hoot lately... he says the funniest things. Yesterday he was crabwalking and kept saying "I'm a treasure, mommy! I'm a treasure!" ... that didn't quite make much sense to me... "yes, you aure are a treasure, honey.. mmhmmm...". Then John asked me i Ash was trying to say 'tarantula'... *duh!* So i asked him.. "Asher, are you trying to say you are a 'ta-ran-tu-la?" hahaha "YES mommy! Asher a TREASURE-LA!". Oh, and this evening at Five Guys he announced to everyone in the restaurant at the top of his lungs: "MOMMY! Asher can't POOP!". yes, i almost died.

His 3rd birthday is coming up and John couldn't wait... He bought Asher a slotcar set. Asher is IN LOVE. He's all about cars, trains, dinosaurs and tools right now. Oh and painting. he LOVES painting. We keep the race track locked up in my new craft room and He asks to race us allllll theeeee tiiiiimmmme. It's great to watch him play with it though.

Anyway, i'm rambling. It's time to head to bed for now, i just wanted to update everyone about the kids! :) we're all well and truckin' along:) love and miss you all!

2008-10-27T09:51:00.001-07:00

WHAAAAT?!

2008-10-18T19:43:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure how this happened, considering i never actually took up my promise to start exercising, i'm not dieting, i'm not sick...

For the first time since I was probably 22 years old (I'm 26, btw) I am officially under 130 pounds. *L*. holy CRAP. (for the record, i weigh 127.8 lbs)

I didn't even weigh that much when i got pregnant with asher. I'd even venture to say that i hit 130 my senior year in high school, but i know i was fluctuating between 130 and 140 when i hit 21.

WOO!!! no wonder my pants have all been fitting me so nicely lately! (well, all 2 pairs of them, that is. LOL. i live in jammy pants, so i only have 2 pairs of jeans.)

But i'm not in any kind of good shape. I get winded climbing stairs, so i obviously have some work to do! One of my long term goals, i've decided, is to eventually run a marathon. But for now i have to start by walking. LOL.

Christmas Craft

2008-10-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

I wanted to make snowflakes last year but looking at all the beautiful patterns really intimidated me. In reality snowflakes are probably the easiest damn things to make- the only reason it's slightly difficult is because the thread is so fiddly. Once you get the hang of crocheting with a teeny tiny hook (in this case, 1.75 mm) and number 10 crochet thread, it's a breeze! I was able to make all of these in less than an hour each, WITH interruptions from the kiddos;) lol.

if you'd like the patterns you can find them here, here,and here. Two of the snowflakes came from one source. you can find tons more free patterns on ravelry, crochetpatterncentral, and this site, though some of the links on this site are defunct:http://www.myhq.com/public/c/r/crochetpoet/

I also made mini stockings. Just the two so far, i'll be making two more (one for each of us here in the house) and then bunches more to give away at christmas time. I am also working on my own patterns for full size stockings for the family, since we don't have any stockings yet! horrible, i know. I'm working on john's right now- classic red. I can't decide what colors to do the kid's in- traditional christmas colors or something a little more their style (ie: pink or purple for annabelle, bright green or blue for asher) i've got plenty of time to work on them, that's for sure.

I know i haven't updated my etsy shop. In all honesty i've only had two sales. I suppose i should make more of the shrugs, since those are what sold in the first place. I've just been bogged down with finishing up WIPS and starting new projects for family and friends that i haven't had time to crochet for myself or my shop. Not to mention most of the patterns i use are free patterns that can't be sold without express permission from the pattern author. So i have to come up with my own patterns, and taking the time to do that has proven quite difficult.

anyway. We're all getting better over here- Annabelle had her very first fever with this very first cold of hers, and asher has had a heck of a cough but they are both on the mend. I myself went to the doctor yesterday, a new practitioner... not only is she less than 10 minutes away, she's family practice, she's really nice and knows her stuff. I am going to switch the kids over to her practice if her office allows it. I'm much more partial to a family practice than individual doctors- my family, my aunt and cousin and my grandparents (all on my mom's side) went to a fantastic family doctor waaaay back when i was in elementary school- Dr. Foltz, who has long retired from practicing. He was a really really great doctor, and I feel like i've found a doctor like him at this new place. So i'm pretty stoked about it.

Another note- john worked on my sewing machine... the man is incredible, what can i say?? took it apart, cleaned and oiled it, adjusted things... and then sewed a bunch of test pieces himself. Runs like a dream, but of course i am totally afraid to use it because i'm scared i'll eff it all up just by looking at it! HAHAA! i did find some heat'n'bond hemming tape i will be using instead of sewing until i can work up the courage to sit down with the machine (after hours of meditation and relaxation techniques so i don't blow a gasket the first time something goes wrong... gotta love an irish temper!)

Hope everyone is well! we love and miss you all:)

My sick babies...

2008-10-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

Went to a birthday party over the weekend (after mommy had a last-minute trip to the doctor herself the night before) and the kiddos caught a nasty nasty cold. Both stopped up and coughing, and annabelle has been running a small fever since yesterday afternoon. she looks so pitiful! last night and this morning were awful, I spent an hour and a half with her at 2 AM last night comforting her and trying to get her back to sleep. I ended up giving her some infant motrin to help her feel better, enough to get her some sleep. I also had to prop her up in her boppy pillow in order for her to get any sleep. Ash woke up at 4:45 coughing and had the chills and tried climbing in bed with me. unfortunately our queen-size isn't big enough for the three of us, so i ended up taking him by the kitchen on the way back to bed for some water and a cough suppressant.
Now that mommy is on a temporary prescription of her own she's feeling a little better lately! Now the issue is getting back to the doctor for a full month Rx.
sorry for being a little vague, it's part of the reason my entries over the last couple of weeks have been so sporadic/manic/crazy. gotta love hormones!

Sew Frustrated!!!

2008-10-02T11:22:00.001-07:00

I scored a great sewing machine off freecycle a little over a month ago. At least i think it's great. I can't tell if it's my total idiocy or if there's something wrong with the machine but I cannot operate this thing at all. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with getting the thread tension set but since i've tried fiddling with both the bobbin and the main thread tension settings it's all gone to one big, jammy-knotty-can't sew a single stitch- mess. And i'm super pissed off, because i was hoping to learn to sew on the damn thing so i could make christmas gifts and other cool stuff.

if ANYONE knows anything about setting the tension on this thing, please let me know. I can't afford to take it to a repair shop, and since it's so old and a MOntgomery Ward machine, i don't think there's anyone around here who CAN fix it.

I'm so ready to throw this thing out the window it's not even funny. >:(

WTF is THIS??

2008-09-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

Link
Link
Only part of the reason for my sudden surge of posts over the last couple of days.

TAGGED

2008-09-25T09:14:00.000-07:00

My first Meme (<----click me!) ! (well, not exactly my first since i've done tons on my now-defunct myspace account, but as far as blogger goes it's a new thing!)

The rules are:
Link to the person who tagged you. (LAURA)
Mention the rules on your blog.
Tell six (6) unspectacular quirks about you.
Tag six (6) fellow bloggers by linking to them.
Leave a comment in each of their blogs to let them know they have been tagged.

1: I don't wear deodorant, for a few reasons: Health- it's not all that great for you. Budget- i'd use an 'all natural' deodorant but i refuse to pay upwards of $7 for a single stick or 'crystal' of the stuff. Personal: Since having kids my hormones have gone all wacky-like and none of the crap i've tried works anyway! One of these days i'll be able to gather up the ingredients to the Angry Chicken's homemade deodorant and make my own!

2: When i crochet and am interrupted, i HAVE to finish out the row or round than i am working on before i will put it down. It drives me crazy to be interrupted in the first place and drives me crazier to have to pick up halfway through a row and figure out what stitch number i was on. I guess i could fashion up some stitch markers for myself but i haven't gotten around to that.

3: I hoard and purge in cycles. I tend to hang on to almost anything i think i can reuse or recycle or refashion... until things get too cluttery and then i toss everything into the recycling bin or donation box. it makes john crezeh.

4: I am awful at finishing things i start. Like the... lets count them... 1, 2...2 blankets.... 1 sweater, 1 poncho, 1 ear warmer and scarf set... the super easy dress i tried to sew on my 'new' machine but have thrown it aside in frustration... I get so excited about starting new things that i quickly lose interest in them and start on another new thing.

5: I like to keep random things clean. Like the couch in the living room, or the small shoebox of toys i keep in the living room for annabelle, or bay window and all the plants... or just one bedroom at a time. alot of these are pointless to try to keep clean all the time since asher does a damn good job of coming behind me and undoing all my work but i can't help myself.

6: I like super hot, skin pinking, scalp burning showers. At least that's the way john describes them anyway. Dude, who likes a lukewarm or cold shower? not me. fo' sho'. Of course, it isn't exactly environmentally friendly, so i do have a few things to work on. but man, if there is one thing i absolutely cannot cut out, it's a hot shower.

And i am going to taaaaag.... well, since most of the people i've linked to my blog here have already been linked via Val and Laura...... i'll tag anyone who happens to read my blog in hopes that you will pass it on as well. Lets share some more totally useless information about ourselves across teh intarwebs!!!

New Beginning

2008-09-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

Peter Mah: New Beginning. I've had an itch over the last few months about doing something, starting over, beginning anew. Obviously I can't go all-in, but I've started the process. I feel I live a very wasteful life, and have come to appreciate simplicity. Sure, i'll still have a hankering for superficial things and stuff i don't need but as it stands now I've done a pretty good job in not acting on those impulses.

In relation to a previous post, I've taken out all the 'nicer' hand towels, bar towels and wash cloths to use in the kitchen- once we use up the last paper towel we will be using cloth in the kitchen. No more buying and wasting paper towels.

I am going back to 'no-poo' ad have gathered up all the bath products i've been hoarding for no particular reason and boxed them up. I'll try to find someone who wants them before i trash them. I have so much of the stuff it would take months for me to use it up to get rid of it, so i'd rather give it away now. No more SLS, atrificial fragrance, unknown chemicals on my body or my kid's bodies.

I'm dedicating myself to use my laundry line more. The main issue i have with it is that i only have one small line- i can hang 7 towels, or two twin sheets, or 8 pairs of pants, or 6 shirts... at a time. not all at once. hardly a full load of laundry. What i try to do for now is get the heavier stuff dried outside (towels, jeans, sweats, etc)

Dilution is the solution to pullution: While i mainly use vinegar as my go-to cleaning agent we do still have a big jug and spray bottle full of Simple Green. I pured most of the spray bottle into the jug and diluted the contents of the spray bottle by much less than half. Don't ask me how many parts or fractions, you all should know by now math is not my strong point;).

No more lights on during the day!
We will be using out fireplace most of the winter for warmth!
I will be investing in Mama Cloth! (thankfully Aunt Flo hasn't been to visit since before i got pregnant with Annabelle so that's not an issue right now;) haha!)
I will reuse more
I will reduce as much as I can

If anyone has any more tips or advice, feel free to contribute. I'd love to see it!

Things to help your budget and the environment

2008-09-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

Use vinegar. I use it to clean my kitchen, my bathrooms, my floors, my windows, my mirrors... everything!

Baking soda once every month or every couple of months is a great scrubbing agent- helps get water deposits off your tile in the bathroom, shines up the faucets, gets all that cooked (burned) on food on your stainless steel pots and pans quite nicely, plus it deodorizes.

Use castille soap (like Dr Bronners)- it has many uses! body soap, laundry soap, cleaning soap, shampoo, use it to brush your teeth with (I recommend the peppermint castille and a dab of baking soda!) Not to mention peppermint helpe keep the bugs away:)

Use cloth napkins as 'paper'towels and get rid of the paper:)

Use powdered milk! You don't have to drink it, but it would definitely help cut the budget if you used it solely for cooking and cereal! use the fresh milk for drinking!

buy in bulk, buy on sale and stock up!

keep up the regular maintenance on your vehicle. an oil change and fluid check every 3 months can do wonders for the life of your car- and help your gas mielage!

carpool!

try to group your errands in ways that cut back on travel time.

open your windows inthe spring and fall, turn off your AC.

use natural light during the day, candle light or one main light at night:)

A long-time dream

2008-09-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

(image from google search HERE
I've never put this in writing! not out of embarrassment or anything like that. I jsut never thought to put it down. I guess here on m blog is as good a place as any right?

I've always wanted to own and operate my own coffee shop and lounge. I'd use organic coffee roasted locally, and sell handmade stuff or stuff made in the US. I'd make people bring their own mugs, use one of my own in the shop, or sell travel mugs they can buy to take with them. I'd of course have a sign on the front of the shop and all over the place saying something along the lines of "WE DO NOT CARRY PAPER COFFEE CUPS-BYOM! (bring your own mug!)" The mugs we could sell would be reasonably priced so people couldn't really balk at having to buy one to take their coffee out in. Or i could set up a 'take a mug/leave a mug' type thing, along the lines of take a penny/leave a penny. but i don't know how well that would go over no matter how i sanitized the mugs. lol.

I'd love to have a decent sized greenhouse. Goats, an alpaca or two... some chickens and a coop, outside cats, another lab puppy. a working shed, a garden... Unfortunately for now all this is not possible living up on our mountain. it will be some years if at all before this could happen. But i can dream, can't i?

Readiness

2008-09-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

Are you?

Here's some great sites i found helpful.

My favorite so far

FEMA

great resources in the Information Center tab

More great info

Great basic checklist

Family-oriented site

:)

New picasa pics!

2008-09-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

New albums, new images. I know i need to do some serious reorganizing in there but as far as i can tell it involves deleting whole albums and re-uploading pictures into appropriate albums... very time consuming! maybe one of these nights i'll get around to it.

Anywho, New pics in Funny Boy, New Baby, All Together Now, Silly Sarah, and new albums Annabelle 6 mos and John Bday! hope you enjoy:) (eventually i'll stop being so lazy and actually link the albums right here, but i always think of it after i've published the entry... hehehe)

Dreams...

2008-09-19T05:36:00.001-07:00

('Dream', by D. Lane Taylor)
Not many of mine have been memorable as of late. Probably because i'm interrupted every two hours by my very own Little Miss Sunshine...

anyway. normally 'bad' dreams, or dreams in general, don't bother me. I can have a nightmare, wake up with fight or flight in full effect and fall asleep 10 minutes later, no harm no foul. But when i dream a dream, ANY dream, that i have extreme difficulty doing something it really bothers me... i sit and contemplate all day long, and am generally in a crappy, down mood.

I finally got up the nerve to look up dream meanings this morning after a particularly frustrating dream i woke from this morning.

In this dream, and i will skim over the whole thing... John and the baby and i were on a plane to Phoenix (but not Phoenix, AZ... think of it as an otherworldly time and place). Anyway. our plane lands on a highway IN Phoenix, AZ, and many of the people on the plane get off. Seriously, they hop off the back like it was the emergency exit of a shool bus. Weird. We try to convince everyone that this isn't the Phoenix we were supposed to stop at, that the plane ran out of fuel and could only drive along the highway. Eventually we decided to follow suit as we soon learned there was some kind of.... not a riot, not a mob... it seemed like the goverment had broken down, there was no law, there was nothing... but it was totally peaceful. There were people relaxed, running around and getting the news on the situation, police officers taking off their uniforms in relief... John and I couldn't believe our eyes.
We somehow found a room in what used to be a huge office complex, way up on some flooe ending in 'teen', and there were hotel rooms there. Alot of people were sharing rooms, we managed to find one to ourselves.

**This is where the dream starts bothering me** Something overrides my common sense, and john's too, apparently... we decide that we need to go back out and find out what is going on but we can't bring the baby. In my head i'm telling myself "what the hell are you doing?? you can't leave her alone!!" but incredibly, we do. We put her ON the BED, and leave. Knowing full well she can roll off the bed, and she'd be completely alone.

So we go off and work our way through crowds of people, we seem to be at some kind of 'all-in-one' office park... it's like it's got housing, a park, a museum, a HUGE underground mall, hotel, offices, school... all rolled into one giant complex. But because of the non-riot, everything is disregarded... people sleeping in the offices, swimming in the animal pools at the zoo (where there are no animals..?) people completely ignoring what the mall holds, as if it weren't there...

I suddenly want to have the baby with me, and i yell to john that i am going back for her.

*I try to take off running, and as it ALWAYS happens in my dreams, i can't run. Or, i can, but i feel like i am fighting to run every step of the way. Which is frustrating to me, because in real life i used to be a pretty decent runner... but it's almost as if i am trying to run through this invisible gel, fighting to make every movement... i try sprinting through it, i try running up stairs by dropping down and pulling myself with my hands... Life around me goes on at normal pace, but i'm fighting to run and going slower than a walking pace.*

I finally get to the baby's room, and she's fallen on the floor... but is fine, or is acting like someone moved here there and was playing with her and left right before i got to the room.

i wake. John wants me to make his lunch for work and annabelle has woken up for the morning.

Now, as i said. a dream like this wouldn't bother me... EXCEPT that ANY time i dream that i need to run, am trying to run, want to run... or even fight someone/something off... i suddenly...just...can't. no matter how hard i try.. in fact, the more i try the slower i move. i claw, i strain, i do anything i can and it is like i've been thrown in a thick 'something' and it's slowing me down, but life around me goes on as if nothing is happening. I don't know if i get these dreams more often than others, but i definitely remember these types of dreams the most.

I finally got the gumption to look up dream meanings and this is what it says about running:

Run, Running

Actions, Feelings, Conditions · Dream Dictionary

If you are running in your dream, in order to interpret you need to consider are you running away from someone or something, or are you just running like jogging. Normal running means you are the right road. If you have difficulty running it can mean helplessness, being held back by negative feelings, feeling rundown or out of steam.
Running away can be related to avoidance; issues of responsibility; guilt; new strength to avoid what is negative for you. If you are pursued see pursued.
Running toward some person or object may refer to ambitions or goals; willingness to undertake responsibility; a positive attitude.

from www.dreamota.com

Alot of people would say this is all a bunch of bullshit but I feel a real (sad) connection to this explanation. It really sums up alot of feelings i've been feeling over the last year.

domesticity sucks.

2008-09-17T12:53:00.000-07:00

or at least I suck at it and i'd much rather say IT sucks than say *I* suck.

eh well.

Instead of computer time this AM (well, i had to have a dose before the kids got up of course) I decided we were going to go out, grab some groceries, come back home and i would get everything spick and span and maybe even do a little cooking!

Turns out Annabelle didn't get the memo as she has been really fussy and whiny and clingy which is really not like her at all. I know she's teething (6 teeth in a matter of a month and a half??) and the whole solid food thing is not exactly agreeing with her... And speaking of her and solid foods... the last week she's been sticking her tongue out and refusing to put it back in her face so i can shovel a scoop of ANYthing in there, whether it's pears, peas, bananas or carrots. she'll eat it if i can get it in her mouth. IF. i can get it in her mouth. Which (of course) brings me to another lovely development in the Life of Annabelle: what is with the nightly surprise ambush boobie attack?? She was sleeping through the night a week ago, and all of a sudden my boobs are getting mangles 3 or 4 times a night. I've become a zombie for cryin' out loud.

Anyway. back to the topic at hand. I suck at cooking. Here are a few examples!

I boiled macaroni and cheese so long ALL of it burnt to the pan.

I also did this with green beans.

And ramen.

I can't be trusted with meat- it always comes out half-raw.

Desserts are almost always a disaster. credit card-thin cookies, anyone? hmm? ohhh so crispy!

Hell, sometimes i can't even operate the coffee maker. who the hell heard of coffee without actual COFFEE in the water?

So. i am loking my destiny in the eye and telling it "screw you... i can cook! (can't i?? i mean, you are my destiny, so you should know....."... and i'm making applesauce. Of course, the turkey legs i bought to use for a soup may need some more time in/on some kind of heating element.

Applesauce?!, you say? Yes. i mean c'mon. i gotta start somewhere. granted, my kids and john have miraculously survived this long but really... how much spaghetti can a family eat??

workin' hard and hardly workin'

2008-09-15T04:26:00.000-07:00

So john got the trees split into firewood and after a brief "ah damn" moment when we thought we had a species of tree that is on a current 'ban' list due to a beetle infestation killing Ash trees all over the united states, we found that we do not have ash. *whew*! so we will be able to use the section of tree we saved to make a mantel for our fireplace after all!

An update on the Things times 2:

Asher has been diaper free at night now for the last two weeks and only had his first accident the night before last- my fault, because i forgot to have him stop at the bathroom on his way to bed. But he's been completely dry since the first night we took the diapers away! I'm so proud of him:)

Today is the day we start "School". That is, we're going to do the home-school preschool since actual preschool programs and daycare are incredibly unaffordable at the moment. Luckily the world has google! It's still a work in progress but I was able to find plenty of free resources online. Here's a link list I bookmarked:

http://www.edhelper.com/dolch_sight_words.htm?gclid=CI25ur2ipoQCFSxqGgokUAniw

http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/index/load.htm?f

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.reading-with-kids.com/images/alphabet-letter-b-coloring-page-boy.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.reading-with-kids.com/alphabetcoloringpages.html&h=945&w=720&sz=84&hl=en&start=36&um=1&usg=__23IbyzNPVbQjflOVgmI2DoXKGBE=&tbnid=FjH0DtJtfmhPOM:&tbnh=148&tbnw=113&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2527boy%2527%2Bcolorimg%26start%3D18%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

http://www.homegrownhearts.com/fun.htm#Geography

http://www.tlsbooks.com/preschoolshapes.htm

http://www.showmomthemoney.com/homeschooling.php

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/preschool_activities.htm#MrsD

http://cribchick.blogspot.com/2006/04/what-do-your-toddlers-do-homeschooling_28.html

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/early.htm

http://lessonplanz.com/Lesson_Plans/Science/__Preschool/index.shtml

http://schoolexpress.com/spelling01.php

http://www.signingtimekids.org/index.php?page=lessonplans

http://www.ziggityzoom.com/activities.php?c=9

I've printed out a really cute 'letter tracing' banner (of course, it's still a little early for letter tracing but I think i'll tape it up in our 'learning corner' in the basement for encouragement) and found some great learning activities. My dad also sent Asher some great workbooks for his birthday last year that i've been saving for him and we'll hopefully get into that soon too!

Annabelle is growing like crazy- 15 pounds and 27 inches at her 6 month appointment. She's cutting teeth like crazy too- 6 now. She has been cutting them in pairs, first her lower incisors, then her top and now her top 'eye' teeth. She had a really rough couple of nights over the last week but is doing fine now.

She has recently shown more interest in eating solids and has eaten more servings lately too (i started her on 1 oz once a day). Unfortunately her little body has been saying "HOLD THE PHONE!!!"... or in a way more TMI manner- she's been constipated. I've taken to remedying that with giving her a 1TBSP dropper full of pear juice immediately after her food and she usually gets pears at breakfast. I haven't gone into prune territory yet as I am unsure how to cook them myself. (do you cook dried prunes?? if not, where do i find fresh prunes?? i've never seen them in the produce section at my local grocer.)

In other news, John and I have been pondering chickens. We'd LOVE LOVE LOVE to build a coop and have fresh eggs to eat every morning- not to mention the learning potential there for the kids. Could you imagine?!? I am too excited. I have to call up the county something or other to find out if our area is zoned for chicken-keeping. Apparently most of PWC is not zoned for it but some parts are. I'm thinking (hoping!) that our area up on the mountain is rural enough to allow it. JOhn did find a blurb on the net yesterday about having to allow 100 feet from all other residences in order to be able to have one (which is definitely feasible). He'd like a rooster too but I think our neighbors would definitely draw the line there. Hell... i know I wouldn't want to wake up to a rooster crowing it's damn head off at the break of dawn every morning! I'd kill it myself.

I will be adding new pics to picasa at some point today if i can get both kiddos down for a nap. in the meantime here's a couple cute ones from the last couple of weeks:)

BOOOOM!!!!!!

2008-09-05T19:01:00.000-07:00

boom times deux.

So there were these trees in our yard... they died shortly after the housefire back in '06. One of those bad boys leaned right towards the kids' rooms. We'd been talking for awhile about cutting them down. I was seriously apprehensive about it because John (being John) swore he could do it himself, and all we needed was rope and a pulley. Ummm k! that doesn't help me feel better.

anyway... since we are supposedly getting some semi-nasty weather tonight and tomorrow (thank you Hurricane Hanna!) we decided we should get on the ball and get the things down. sooooo we did!

so john took down the first tree by himself- i had to run to the store for soymilk and sprite. lol. i got back and snapped some pics.

the 2nd tree was started right after i got back- basically we rigged up a pulley system to pull the tree away from the house as it fell.

Halfway through cutting out the wedge the chainsaw stopped working. we started getting super nervous because even though the wedge wasn't completely cut out the integrity of the tree was compromised so we had to act fast. i moved the jeep up (we had the rope attached to the jeep through the pulley system) gradually to increase tension on it in case it started falling and we called up john's BIL to have him bring down his dinky little chainsaw.

luckily right after that ours started working, so john started cutting on the opposite side of the wedge when i noticed the tree start leaning... so i hollered at him to get out of the way and floored the jeep- that M-EFFER fell right where we wanted it to, cleared the house by 15 or 20 feet or so.

I'm still pumped up over it. Now we get to play Lumber Jack/ Jill and hack up all that wood to toss in our firewood pile. A bg section of it will most likely end up as our mantel over the fireplace in the basement, and i have a few ideas for some projects of my own;)

oh and i have to add that asher was kept inside for the whole episode. As i sat in my jeep i could see him jumping on the couch through the bay window the whole time. So as i was worrying about a tree falling through my daughter's room i was also worrying that my daredevil son was going to break his face on the hardwood floor the couches sit on! GOOD TIMES!

A week of vacation....

2008-09-02T06:12:00.000-07:00

what a week! cleaning, annabelle cut 2 more teeth (total of 4 teeth now!) asher had massive amounts of kid-play overload AND naptimes (which is amazing, really) and john and i... well... lets just say by the end of the week we were ready to maybe strangle each other. but in a loving way, of course! hahahaha!

John's birthday party was saturday- it was good times! The only horrible thing to go wrong were the hordes of fruit flies that swarmed my kitchen and dining room. blegh.

anyway. pics, of course!

daddy and annabelle. awwww!

hanging around the kegerator (of course!)

Mommy and Asher:

if anyone picks up this toy guitar they automatically gets their picture taken. i have a number of embarassing photos of various guitar rippin' wannabe's playing this guitar... bwahahaa

Thes guys have known each other since freshman and sophomore years of high school!
(daniel, john, ryan, rich. not pictured but should have been: kent and george! buttheads!)

and now back to our regularly scheduled programming....

Fruits and Veggies

2008-08-21T05:53:00.000-07:00

So maybe i could stand to try some of this stuff since the kids and i came down with some mysterious cold. as usual, mine is more like a bad case of hay fever. The thing i hate most about coming down with this crap is (aside from the constant sneezing and drippy nose) are the itchy, watery eyes. John asked me last time i was sick if i was high. Ummm. on what, pray tell? i WISH i were floating in a sea of some kind of codeine/percocet induced haze... it would be better than dealing with the snot faucet attached to my face. But apparently i tend to look pretty stoned when my allergies decide to act up.

Bah. i digress.

Annabelle has started solid foods, and i've been making it all for her! good times. I really wish i had done this with Asher- i could have saved a bit of money and known what exactly my child was eating. So right now our freezer is stocked with Apples, Pears, Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, and Peas. I'll be making Peaches and Broccoli tonight. A good friend of mine sent me the babyfood freezer trays to use (you pour your pureed fruit into ice cube trays with lids!) and later this afternoon the apples and pears should be nice and set and ready to be tucked away in a freezer bag so I can reuse the trays tonight. good times! So far she loves it all... i don't think this kid is very picky (UNLIKE HER FATHER) because she'll eat anything you put in front of her (UNLIKE HER FATHER!!!). Ahhh. at least i can tell she's made it through with SOME part of me. I just hope she doesn't get my temper..... oh dear lawd.

Right now she is enjoying some nakie time on her playmat (i have reinforced the area with folded recieving blankets in case she decides to pee, don't worry. she won't be rolling around in a puddle of urine. lol) She's got quite a case of cradle cap going on, and since she (finally) had a massive dirty diaper (up her back, no less!) this morning, i decided to slather some olive oil on her scalp and let her air out for an hour before scrubbing her up in the tub. Crazy Mountain Hillbillies? mmm... possibly.. maybe a little. I prefer 'hippie', but whatev.

Asher has been incredibly.... uh.... we'll just say 'accident prone' these last few days. I can't even begin to tell you how.... (and i have to preface this comment by saying i love my son immensly, but sometimes i wonder, and i'd still love him the same no matter what) utterly stupid the kid can be sometimes. These are the top phrases that come out of my mouth when i am talking to him (aside from "big hugs" and "i love you")

ASHER! get out from under the table!!!!
ASHER! leave the dog ALONE!
ASHER! STOP JUMPING ON THE COUCH!
ASHER! STOP JUMPING ON MOMMY'S BED!!!!!

because each of those phrases is almost always followed by the shrill wail of a boy who's just hurt himself, for the 9 millionth time, doing the same thing i've told him not to do.... every... single... day. Seriously? Seriously. The kid crawls under the table with the dog (who is trying to get away from the boy in the first place) and then STANDS UP. Or he'll stand/jump/roll on the couch and fall off face first onto the wood flooring. Or jump on mommy's bed and instead of landing on a pillow ends up with his head in the wall (where the headboard would be if we had one).

I mean... i have to wonder.... what...??? i mean... am i suddenly speaking in tongues when i talk to my kid and he's just not understanding a thing that comes out of my mouth when i'm telling him "hey, you shouldn't crawl under the table because every time you do, you stand up and thwack your head on the underside of it, and it hurts, doesn't it?" (he's made himself bleed more under that table than he's ever had skinned knees or elbows.)

But as batty as he makes me i still love him. I guess. HAHA!

Bestest Friends

2008-08-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

So after my family moved from Jacksonville, NC to Olympia, WA, i gradually lost touch with my best friend from NC. It was hard, because unlike my brothers I had a really hard time making friends due to being shy, and also instead of having huge groups of friends i tend to have one or two really good friends (Veronica, Jaime, and Jen!) I once heard somewhere that I may suffer from a 'syndrome'.

I recently posted on my mother's board:

"it's just so weird to me, being a military brat, that john and his brother and sisters and my friend jen all grew up here and know so many people, and have known them since they were in elementary and middle school. Veronica is the one person i've known for the longest amount of time, since middle school, but when i moved the summer after my 10th grade year we slowly lost touch. I feel like the oddball freak when everyone i know all hang out and talk about so and so and 'remember that time at blah blah blah' because i've never had that. i've never lived anywhere long enough to create and maintain friendships like that. And speaking of never living anywhere long enough... i've been in virginia 3 years now. I've never lived in one place longer than 4 years. So it's really hard for me to grasp the fact that i will most likely, without a doubt, be staying here for many many years to come. It's just a really super weird feeling. I feel kind of adrift, and unsure of where i can set my anchor, or like i'm not sure if i belong."

One of the wonderful ladies there posted a response, and this is an excerpt:
"Understand completely the feelings you are having. Did you know there is a military brat "syndrome"? We tend to make friends more superficially since we moved so often. Deep friendships are more difficult for us, because our friendships have always been short term. You or your friend moves, eventually you lose track. We also seem to have a problem developing roots. The first time I live somewhere over 4 years I felt something was wrong. It was time to move. It was PAST time to move. They have a whole list of those sort of things about us. Anyway, give the site a shot. I think it's still free. BTW, after living in one town for 17 years I did set down roots, then we moved to NM. Will have been here 30 years in Dec. It's feeling almost like home. Only another "brat" can appreciate that!"

And wouldn't you know- i tracked my best friend from NC down, and she is only an hour and 15 minutes away! she's been here THE WHOLE TIME. She and her husband and two adorable boys came up to visit for a little while yesterday and we had a great time:) Here's a pic:)

Love and miss you all:)

Hair adventures

2008-08-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

ok, ok... so i'm done (for now) with shaving my head. I promised john i would grow my hair out. I even stopped coloring it (mainly because it's really expensive, kwim??)... but after a year of not tdoing anything but trimming up my hair i decided i NEEDED to do SOMETHING. and that something is Henna.

before:

After:

Adventures in baby food making

2008-08-06T16:00:00.001-07:00

Alright. so i'm almost as green as i would like to be. almost. Still no cloth diapers but i'm working on that- gotta save money, those things are esspessive. BUT!!! guess what i found out this week? Target will be selling bumGenius pocket diapers in select stores (not online) and i am SO hoping that one of my local and even not so local targets will get them in. I would be so stoked.

So as of this week Annabelle has started solids. We began with boobiemilk and barley cereal, and then boobiemilk and bananas yesterday, and today she had sweety tatos and boobiemilk, and TOMORROW she'll have peas and boobie milk. WOO! i never knew making our own baby food would be so fun! i have sweet potatos and peas in the freezer (i knew those old applesauce cups would come in handy!!) and i have plans to pick up some apples, squash, avocado and carrots on the next grocery trip. Hmm. which reminds me, i need to do some serious pumping!

Things are quiet here on the home front. Getting on with daily life, day in and day out. Nothing too exciting to post about. :) Although you should be on the lookout for new crafting posts, i have a bunch of projects in the making (when do i not?) and i actually need to get a daggone progress bar up for alot of them. hmmm. gotta work on that.

anyway. the famdamly is great:) we love and miss you all!

New Pictures in Picasa Albums!!

2008-07-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

All Together Now, New Baby Folder and Funny Boy!

07-21-08

2008-07-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

*WHEW*. where do I begin?? So obviously it's been awhile since I have updated this bad boy.

John's Bro, Bryan, has been in town for most of this month. It's been great visiting with him! Asher has really taken to "Uncle Brian":)

I also made a brand-spankin' new friend on the mountain! How exciting is that?? We're going to partners in crime as far as yarn/knitting/crocheting/spinning is concerned. How i fear for our darling signifigant others! BWAHAHAHAHAA! We met on Ravelry and I invited her and her hubby out to a small get together here friday evening. It was good times! woohoo!

I am waiting for my friend Jen to UPDATE ON HER LABOR/BABY! Gabriel will be here soon!!! how exciting. It's so cool that our kids (Asher and Aliza, and now Annabelle and Gabriel) are only a few months apart in age:) Congrats Jen and Cabe and big sis Aliza!!!!

I will hopefully have another item added to my Etsy shop, and have a bunch of editing to do (THANK YOU, Lynellen!!!)

Asher has had 3 consecutive days of accident free potty training!! So i think we are going to start taking the diapers away at night for good in the very near future.

Annabelle has cut her first teeth- the two bottom incisors. She's only nipped me once, and it wasn't too bad. But she's been a helluva crankypants the last few days. :( poor girl.

ummmm what else??

JOhn found a scroll saw on craigslist... we are TOO excited to start playi-err... i mean, working with it.

My luffas seem to be.... unhappy. For some reason i remember their vines being much longer and stronger, their leaves much much larger at this point. We don't have a single bloom on there yet, so i'm wondering if we are going to have luffas at all this year! :( i hope so.

Anyway, just quick post. My hopes for a long nap for A2 have been dashed as i hear her fussing in her room now. Back to MommyLand!!

Miss you all!! Love you!!

more FOs!

2008-07-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

Alrighty. So i'm setting up an Etsy account for all my crochet items i've been hoarding. I started this hat and scarf set AND the baby hat yesterday:

And you may remember this sweater- i originally made it for Annabelle, but i hadn't finished (figured out) how i wanted to accent the sweater and finally crocheted another flower and sewed it on there. So that's going into the Etsy shop as well. Annabelle has plenty of clothing. LOL
And this is a chunky mesh shrug i started...ummm...... it was sometime shortly after i found out i was pregnant with annabelle. anyway. i needed to fix the sleeves and finally got around to finishing it up today. and this is just a random picture of the GAW-JUSS lilies john found at HD the other day. They smell incredibly awesome!

A couple of ways to wear an Enwrapture wrap!

2008-07-11T12:07:00.001-07:00

Ok...the pictures are kinda crappy- don't mind the expressions on my face- john kinda sorta didn't want to stand up to take the pics, so he laid in bed and did it, and pretty much just kept hitting the button to take pictures every few seconds as i was trying to put the wrap on.

SO. here's my lame pictorial:

Step 1 (above): wrap fabric around you from the back and cross one side in front of the other, keeping the strap from the back piece pulled out over the top of the front piece.

Step 2 (above): Take the front flap and toss the strap over the opposite shoulder, take the strap from the flap underneath and wrap it around your back to the opposite side of your body- the straps will criss-cross your back.

Step 3: Pull both straps to your front and tie underneath your bust. voila! an asymmetrical wrap dress! Because one strap will be shorter than the other, I tie mine off-center on the 'short strap' side.

An alternate way to that style: Instead of throwing the front panel over your shoulder, simply wrap the straps around your back and to the front, tyingunder your bust for a cute strapless look.

If you have any tips/tricks, i'd love to see them! Post links in my comments, i'd love to try them and be able to share them with everyone!

2008-07-11T11:57:00.000-07:00

So yesterday morning we went out and wandered around the yard. Darren, John's friend, had pointed out wild blueberry bushes along the edges of our yard when he was he there other day, and Asher was alllll about picking some "booburries"- he even ate all the ones we picked! We also have raspberry bushes EVERYWHERE on the mountain, mainly on the sides of our roads, so we walked a few feet down fom our driveway and feasted on a berry patch there. MMMM sun warmed fresh raspberries!!

And here are my Luffas, doing well. The trellises are the same from last year. Unfortunately, they don't hold up very well, so we screwed them to the bottom of the back deck, so they hang higher above the planters and give the vines plenty of room to grab and spread around.

After bath yesterday Daddy John John gave Annabelle a new 'do, a la Mommy, circa 2007. So fresh and so clean!

While we were outside yesterday Asher decided he should make sure the trees had some good climbing spots. Turns out they did!

Don't lay her down, she'll screech at you. She wants to SIT UP.

Along for the Ride: Essential Babywearing Contest

2008-07-10T05:48:00.001-07:00

Win the Essential Babywearing Stash from Along for the Ride (one Beco Butterfly, one Hotsling baby pouch, one BabyHawk Mei Tai, one Zolowear Ring Sling, and one Gypsy Mama Wrap)

it's free to enter, just click on the link above! good luck!

Um. so i'm not very smert.

2008-07-09T18:40:00.001-07:00

I decided i needed a fancy schmancy new background, and found this neato one at pyzam (as you can probably tell by the hyoooge orange message bar at the top of my blog... gotta fix that....) and i hadn't realized that i would lose all my links and such to all my favorite places to visit. Friend's blogs, favorite sites, etc. So if you were previously noted on my blog and now find yourself missing, i apologize, and am hunting you down as we speak.

In other news- Annabelle is teething! for real. She cut one of two teeth today, the other is still sitting just below her gumline. So she'll have her two bottom incisors pretty soon. Hopefully she's not a biter!!!

Asher is coming along... potty training was eh.... not so great today. I had a teething, screaming infant, and my darling son peed on my bed as i was trying to pacify the youngest.

ahhhhh the life of a mother.

i wonder if it would be *really* bad if i snuck some bailey's into my coffee one of these days???

hahahahahaaa!

2 quickies

2008-07-07T18:47:00.001-07:00

so uhh... asher's wearing a girls' hat. eh well, he was the only 'handy head' around. i thought the purple hat would be adult sized....meh, not so much. i used an H hook instead of my J, so that scaled the size down a tad. It was perfect for a toddler's head though, and it is in a package destined for a friend on one of my boards. I don't know if she reads my blog, but she should have the package in the next day or two and she'll know exactly who it's for:) The pink hat on me is now my new favorite, i used bernat softee chunkee (i LOVE this yarn) and i think i'll have to pick up a few more skeins in a bunch of different colors. Each hat used just under a whole skein of yarn and i was able to work them up in about an hour and a half, not counting my interruptions of course:) the pattern is Divine, you can find it here: http://www.rheatheylia.com/index.php?page=patterns

07-03-08

2008-07-03T05:58:00.000-07:00

Welllllll it's that time. We've officially started potty training. So far it's a 50-50 story of success and failure. See, my kid loves being nekkid. And when he's nekkid he does WONDERFULLY- he actually pooped on the potty for the first time yesterday (which is a HuGE accomplishment, considering he throws a screaming tantrum if he can't have a diper to poop in)... however. The minute you stick him in a pair of Big Boy Underwear, he pees or poops in them. He just hasn't caught on to the fact that underwear are not diapers. He had nothing but accidents yesterday (i am taking diapers away completely with the exception of car trips). SO. here's to a better day today!

Annabelle is getting big!! she's so long.. and skinny... which makes it kinda hard to clothe her, but....she'll be ok. haha. She is still screeching (from what i understand -thanks to Val, haha-it will NEVER END! YEEEEEHAWWWWW!!!!) and is getting increasingly flustered with laying down. she woud much rather sit up. Unfortunately for her, she hates tummy time and refuses to lift her head (build her neck muscles!) which means that when i do sit her up on my lap or on our bed or wherever, she can't hold her head upright. but she will get seriously pissed if you try to make her lay back. *sigh*. she's stubborn like me!! this oughta be fun! LOL.

We are still (ok, ok, let me rephrase that....) JOHN is still working on our bedroom furniture. I have sacked out instead of helping lately (last night for example- sorry honey!) We'll be moving the bed frame upstairs today and before we work on anything else, John would like to get the last section of our walkway dug out and poured. I've been working on misc. crochet projects and have decided to frog another WIP, as i cannot find the yarn i need anywhere- the purple bolero is coming apart. I'll probably use it for the border/joining yarn for annabelle's granny square blanket. I still want to make the boloro, but i'll find a yarn that works better with the pattern first.

Tomorrow the kids are hanging with Nana so John and I can go to DC for the festivities being held there. I've never been to DC for any kind of anything special, and convinced John to take me there (our 2 year anniversary is tomorrow!) I've pumped some bottles for Annabelle- asher helped. He is utterly fascinated with my boobs and the pump and how it all works. I tried to explain how it worked to him, but i probably sucked at it. He got the basic concept down- Boobies+pump=Annabelle Bottles. lol. A funny side-story: I was putting the bottle i'd just pumped in the freezer and turned around to see asher trying to put the pump on his 'boobie' to pump- he'd lifted his shirt and everything. HAHAHA it was too funny:)

I know i've been horrible with updating the picasa album. i promise to get it done by this weekend!

love and miss you all:)

Happy Fourth! Hug a Marine/Airman/Soldier/Seaman tomorrow!!!

06-29-08

2008-06-29T16:18:00.000-07:00

the screeching... MAKE IT STOP!!!! AHMAHGAH!!!!!!

My darling daughter is going through a phase right now that is really testing my will... she prefers to be held all day and if put her down, she does this:

all. day. long. my ears!!! MY EAAARRRRSSSS!!!!!

06-28-08

2008-06-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

So john found a workbench on clearance at lowes. we bought it, brought it home, and unpacked it... and found all kinds of excess packing material in the box it came it. so i decided to make some of it semi-useful... and give myself something to do to kill time while john put his new bench together:)

My grandfather and i collected unicorns when i was a little girl. My dad bought me quite a few beautiful porcelain unicorns during that time, and i had the obligatory sheet set, earrings, posters, etc that any unicorn collector would have...hehehe. Anyway. I want to share my love of these wonderful mythical creatures with annabelle, and i figured i'd start her off with something i could make her. Thus, with spare time, recyclable materials, and some craft paint, i came up with this:

i handpainted it and drew the unicorn freehand based on a few sketches i found online. If i can figure out a way to hang it, i'll put it on a wall in her room, otherwise it will sit on the shelf we also found on clearance at lowes (3 dollars!!). I hope she likes it:)

06-27-08

2008-06-27T09:33:00.001-07:00

Nightstand number 1: FINISHED! WOOT!

06-25-08

2008-06-25T09:33:00.001-07:00

Well, yesterday Annabelle had her 4 month checkup... can you believe it? 4 months?? time flies! She weighs all of 13 pounds, 2oz and is 25 inches long. She's gonna be just like her mommy, long and skinny but hopefully won't inherit my arse!! She had one shot... poor thing. Too bad next month she gets 4 shots and one oral drop! yikes! So she looks/sounds great:) She yells at everything, is loving her thumb sucking, and still only laughs at Xena. LOL

Asher is good though he had a rough week. Spiked a 101 fever that broke that night, then woke up with diarrhea the next day. Kinda put a stopper on the potty training for the last few days. He's slowly starting to feel better, so we're going diaper free today to get back into the swing of things.

We've been going hiking on john's days off. It's great except for all the ticks we bring home with us. I seriously had never before seen a tick until this summer. I've been bitten three times, asher twice, and we found one in Annabelle's hair the morning after we went hiking last week (it wasn't anywhere on her body before bedtime that night, and when i went to nurse her the next morning i found it just hanging out on her head... EEEW EEW EW. i made john pull it off- he's the resident tick picker) UGH. i hate those little suckers. not cool!!

The 4th is coming up; the kids are going to hang out with Nana that day while JOhn and i go to DC... the 4th is our 'anniversary' day, we've been together 2 years now. 2 YEARS! incredible:)awesome:)

well, lunchtime is here, it's time to get some food ready. Hope everyone is well, love and miss you all!

06-21-08

2008-06-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

my first doily! awwwww ain't it cuuuuute?

It took me three days (if i had no interruptions it probably would have taken me about a day to complete it, but... i have kids.) I'll be making a second one and hope that the middle circle turns out alot better than this one did! haha. They'll be going on the nightstands john and i are making:)

And now i have to frog a wrap i started a couple weeks ago because i have a splendid new idea for it and have to figure out how to get it done.

06-20-08

2008-06-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

Pictures! Here's the work done so far on the bed:

It's all painted up and awaiting its layer of polyurethane, which will be done tomorrow afternoon or evening, depending. Once that is all dried and set we'll move it upstairs and put our mattress in it so we have clear space in the basement to build the bottom half of the bed (where the drawers will be)

John also started one of the night stands:

This blue is going to be painted onto the bottom half of our bed as well, and the brown color that is pictured above on the mattress frame will be the color we paint the drawer fronts as well! John is downstairs working on building those as i type this:)

luffas: growing well! This is just one of 4 tubs that will be growing luffas- we picked up the gardening soil and perlite for the others waiting to be transferred into their bigger homes

I have also started 2 new crochet projects (I have been unable to find the yarn needed to finish off at least 4 of the projects noted in the sidebar)... my first doily (crocheting with thread is unexpectedly soothing!!) and i've finished another blanket for a friend, this one was pretty small though- just big enough to cover baby in an infant seat and the perfect size to be used as a lovey or doll blanket when baby outgrows it:) I'll of get pictures of those up soon:)

06-14-08 pt 2

2008-06-14T15:16:00.001-07:00

FINISHED: COUSINS BABY BLANKET.

(of course, you should know i would need to incorporate Annabelle into that pic somehow... size reference, maybe? hehehe)

06-14-08

2008-06-14T06:12:00.000-07:00

What a productive week we have had here!! It's been interesting. We've made some good progress on the bed, picked out paint colors and picked up more wood to start making ur nightstands. We went to IKEA yesterday to see if we could find something to use as nightstands, but everything we liked was out of our pricerange. no big deal, we can build our own! NO pics of the nightstands just yet.

While we were out at Joanns' Fabrics looking for yarn we came across a bunch of clearance candle making supplies. Since i couldn't find any of the yarn i needed to complete any of my WIPS (note sidebar), we decided to use the card for the candle making supplies. We bought two 11lb bricks of plain white wax, three 1oz containers of fragrance oil, and wicks for 20 bucks. (The wax bricks were originally 24 bucks each all by themselves!) We decided to make our own candles because of the recent storms we've had that caused power outages. We have a couple of candles around the house, but could use a few more. Not to mention every once in awhile when the diaper pail starts smelling a little ripe we can light one of these babies up to help clear the air! LOL. So here are our first three candles, immediately after being poured. We used a lavendar crayon from asher's stash to color the wax and used the lavendar fragrance we picked up. voila! they smell great!

And little Miss Sunshine has found her thumb this week. I have proof! I know most people would not approve of a thumb sucking child, but i honestly am glad she is not sucking on a pacifier. Her thumb will always be there if she needs some comfort, and while there are potential issues with teeth i'm not too worried about them right now. Besides, she looks so daggone cute when she's half-asleep with her fingers hooked over her little button nose and her thumb in her mouth! LOL

you be the judge. hehehe!

Asher has really stepped up to the big brother roll. When Annabelle wakes up from her afternoon nap he's right there beside me- he pulls the nursing stool right up to the crib so he can see in and say hi, and likes to push the button on her playmat toy bar for her when she gets a little antsy. He's growing up too fast! Words spill out of his mouth faster than he can say them correctly, and he's starting to really jump on the potty training bandwagon... except of course when it comes to pooping on the potty. he still insists on having a diaper for that. Eh well, i won't really need to worry about for a few more months i guess. He'll have it down by then i'm sure:)

Thats all for now! i have to get cleaning, we have john's niece and 2 nephews coming over to play later and our house is a mess! lol. woohoo, good times. love and miss you all!

06-10-08

2008-06-10T12:50:00.000-07:00

we built a fort! MY KNEES HURT!! :-D

06-09-08

2008-06-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

Progress! Everywhere!

I have pretty much finished the cotton halter I have been working on. Problem is, i made it a tad smaller than I thought I was. haha! Oh, and because I am breastfeeding, one boob is about a whole size bigger than the other which makes one of the triangles on the top look bigger than the other. It's not, really... my left boob just fills out it's triangle and my right boob doesn't, so the right triangle looks too big. Sorry if that is TMI, but that's the reason it looks wonky there. Also, (and i can actually still fix this) the bodice is a tad small. It's suppose to corset together in the back, which is kind of does, just not so tightly and only at the top. I could have gone all the way down the back but that would have been a horrible fight I'd have lost. SO. here's the 99 1/2% finished top. Basically i will have to improve the halter straps, find some fashionable way to keep the trianlges over my boobs at all times, and widen the bodice so that it fits me properly. All in all though, if someone smaller than I (and perhaps evenly "boobed") wanted to wear this, they could! here's pics:

I have also gotten halfway through the blanket I am working on for cousin's baby. We managed to get out to Joann's this week to use a gift card i received for mothers day... i couldn't find yarn to finish any of the projects i have on hold (alot of them need more yarn to finish) but i DID find a bunch of lion boucle on clearance for .97c a skein. I bought 8 skeins of that, 5 of one color and 3 of another. they will work up into great christmas gifts:)

Also, JOhn and i are building our bed! JOhn found plans online for a captains bed, and between those and another building plan from instructables.com we are combining the two to create our bed. This is what we have so far. I even got to use the nail gun and the brad gun! woohoo for power tools! No pics of me yet though. :)

so, if you can't figure out what part that is, it's where the mattress will sit. (it's 'upside down' in both pics, but the bottom will be a captains' style bed, with drawers underneath, and we'll add a headboard near the end. We are going to be painting it, and are using solid pine wood to construct it. We still have a way to go, but we hope to at least get it constructed and painted and then work on adding the drawers over time. :)

Anyway, i've been crocheting like crazy, keeping up the house and kids (whom are doing well, by the way! Annabelle laughed for the first time this last week, and asher is his usual energizer bunny, fun loving sweet self).. it's been great! hope everyone is well:) love and miss you all!

Yarn Horror....

2008-06-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

Alright people... I am coming clean. I love yarn. I'm not yarn prejudiced in any way. I'll use Red heart, no problem. Bernat is one of my favorite brands, along with Lion Brand. I guess because those particular yarns are so affordable it tends to make it easy to start projects any time you want.... (but in my case i don't really ever manage to finish a project before starting a new one for various reasons). SOOOOOO... i am shamefacedly admitting my addiction....Here's my stash of UFOs!!

Blanket for Asher. I have to frog the whole thing because my edges are slowly getting wider with each row, which is not supposed to happen. Stupid double crochet stitches.

Blanket for Annabelle. I misplaced the hook I was using to make the squares and (hahaha) i found it today as i was taking all these pics!

Blanket my mother started for my cousin's new baby. it is GINORMOUS. If i were to finish it in the dimensions it should end up in it would cover our queen sized bed. SO. i have to frog it and start over, but i'm going to double strand it and use a bigger hook. Said cousin has already had her baby so i need to finish this on the double, especially since i finished the matching sweater, booties and hat that may be too small by the time it's mailed to her!!
detail of the yarn, it's cute!Random granny i made... i think i will just buy more of the yarn to make one giant granny blanket for the hell of it.

This will end up being a bolero. I ran out of yarn (that piece is about half of one sleeve, it took one skein of lion brand jiffy to make). I'm guessing i'll need about 8 or 9 more skeins to finish it.

This is a shoulder shrug i made without a pattern. it's done for the most part but i have to make a bunch of adjustments to get the fit right.

Hemp twin coaster. Hopefully i'll actually make a whole set. This stuff is really difficult to work with and makes my hands ache after about 30 minutes so i work on this sparingly.

Ok. so this was supposed to be a patterned project. BUT. the pattern i thought i would like to use just didn't work with the yarn i picked (i'm using 100% cotton yarn)... a sportweight acrylic would have been better. So i frogged the whole thing and started over and am winging it. Basically i kept the triangle (boobie hiders) and once the bodice is long enough i'll figure out how i want to make it all tie together. I'm thinking of making it a tie halter and incorporating small wooden beads, or using a neutral colored ribbon (it will have a corset-style tie for the back of the bodice)

Detail of the shell stitch i'm using for the bodice. It's my first time using the stitch so it's a teeny bit wonky, but as a whole it looks decent:)

Ok, so that's not *too* bad, i guess. Except for the 3 or 4 random 'projects' stuffed in my yarn boxes... they are just pieces i worked up and didn't really think as i was going, so they really are just a bunch of nothing. lol. i'll have to frog them as well and figure out what i can actually use the yarn for.

so there you have it. I'm hoping to find some kind of feature to add to my blog that would enable me to track my progress (kind of like a progress bar) for each project but i'm not having much luck finding anything of that nature.

Well.... i'm off to clean house and take care of kids. Maybe i'll get a chance to frog some of these thigns and finish one by the end of this week!!! we can only hope... hahaha!

05-31-08

2008-05-31T11:45:00.000-07:00

UFOs!!! They're EVERYWHERE!!! AIIIIII!!!!

And by UFOs i mean "UnFinished Objects"... aka... sarah's crochet projects stashed all over the house.

I decided later today that i'm going to photograph all the projects i have going that are unfinished for various reasons and start some kind of 'progress' log. You'd be shocked to know how many i have going on right now... *hangs head*.

At the moment i am trying to tackle a ripple afghan for Asher and i am now realizing i should have used a single crochet stitch, because AS USUAL i am having trouble with ending and starting rows with double crochet, and the blanket is slowly getting wider and wider as i go, which is NOT supposed to happen!!! So i have to frog the 13 rows i have already and start over :( not cool.

be prepared for a picture-obese post with horrifying accounts of neglected yarns....

05-30-08

2008-05-30T20:01:00.000-07:00

The Fam went hiking today! A couple of weeks ago John took us to the Bull Run Conservancy, about 25 minutes from our house. It's got a bunch of trails and lots to see, and last time we went we hiked a big loop trail- i believe it was almost 2 milesand asher walked 90% of the way. We made the mistake of taking the travel stroller with us to carry Annabelle and found it was definitely not stroller friendly in the least.

This time we put her in the snugli front-pack and hiked all the way to the top of the mountain. It took us much longer than it would take people with no kids... hahaha... but we did it! We saw deer so close they startled us- they saw us before we saw them. Butterflies, caterpillars, beetles and ants abound- a toddlers paradise. Not to mention the huge puddles of standing water at the base of the mountain trails (gross, but you know Asher loved it) and the creek we walked next to for a bit. Very serene, very peaceful. Below are a few pics from today's trip!

05-29-08

2008-05-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

A little late, but it's that time of year again, people! LUFFA TIME!

For those of you who did not catch my Luffa Adventures last year, here's the run down:
You know those Body Luffas you can find in the Health and Beauty aisle of any dugstore or beauty store? Usually in the bath section, where they keep the scented bath products. Anywho, they are hard, fibrous cylindrical looking things (or sometimes smooshed flat).... and they are VEGETABLES. :) yes! You can grow your own luffas! Of course, the luffas *i* grow aren't as 'industious' as the ones you can find in a store, but I actually prefer mine over store-bought ones. They are smaller and much easier to handle- and you can use them for anything you might need to scrub- you body, your dishes, your bathroom, your floors... the list goes on!

Anyway. John and i have started up the seedlings and have transplanted them into small pots, and within the next week or so will move them into the rubbermaid bins we have prepped for growing them in the back yard. i'm so excited- by september we will have luffas!!

Along with our luffas we are continuing the Eisenhower Estate Beautification Project- JOhn picked up some juniper 'babies' to plant along the roadway on the edge of the prperty and will be getting a few more to add to the lineup later this week as well. We have green everywhere, i am loving it.

Also, my FAVORITE mountain plant has bloomed this week... *sigh*. it's gorgeous. Mountain Laurel is so pretty!I have included a picture of course;)

Hope everyone is well, we love and miss you all!!

05-28-08

2008-05-28T16:13:00.000-07:00

NEW PICTURES ADDED TO NEW BABY FOLDER AND ALL TOGETHER NOW! OK? OK!

05-20-08

2008-05-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

So we've been busy with the few days of sunshine we've had out here- between all the thunderstorms and rainy days, that is.

We've weeded and mulched the lilac trees out on the perimeter of the front yard, mulched arond the juniper bush we trimmed back awhile ago. We planted some creeping phlox in that bed a couple weeks ago, and hope to expand it later. For now we are trying to get the vining weed out of there- it's choking out the new lilac growth.

We also started my Luffas in their usual jiffy pots, i'm excited to get them transplanted and see them start vining. Eventually we'd like to get a plot of space set up specifically for gardening, but with all the projects John has on his hands right now we'll have to work on it later. He has almost finished the walkway, and did an awesome job of getting the solar walkway lights all set up along the steps on the side of the house. We are trying to get alot of work done so we can host a house party, probably sometime in July. I can't wait:)

Anyway, just a short blurb about life for the Mountain House People!

05-19-08

2008-05-19T16:20:00.000-07:00

We haven't fallen off the face of the planet, I swear!!

I will have new pics on picasa soon- plenty to share:) We are all well. I'll catch up when i'm in a better mind to. Love and miss you all!

04-29-08

2008-04-29T06:54:00.000-07:00

The rules are:
The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
Each player answers the questions about themselves.
At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago. I was still in High school, my Junior year. I lived in Olympia, WA and was adjusting to having just moved from all my friends in Jacksonville, NC where my dad had been stationed at Camp Lejeune.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today? Cleaning, taking care of the kiddos. Gas prices are way too high to run errands, so John and i wait until his days off to take care of anything we have to go out into town to do.

3. Snacks I enjoy: Fuji Apples, sweet seedless tangerines, raisins (yumm!!!) pretzels, and anything chocolate.

4. Things I would do if I was a billionaire. Build a super eco-friendly house with a decent plot of land for a large garden, a huge yard for the kids, a garage/shed for JOhn and his tools, gift some of it to my mom, dad, and brothers, set up the kids' college funds, retain some in savings to live off pretty comfortably for the rest of our lives, open up a kitschy coffee/gift/crafting shop and donate the rest to various charities.

5. Three of my bad habits: procrastination, procrastination, procrastination (i'll stick with Lynellen's answer here, and add: biting my nails)

6. 5 Places I have lived: Washington, California, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia

7. 5 Jobs I have had: Isn't retail all the same?

8. 5 people I want to know more about: Val, Laura, Salena, Sara, Trina

04-28-08

2008-04-28T07:24:00.000-07:00

April showers bring may flowers! It's nice to have rain that isnt on the verge of freezing!! We've had some lovely thunderstorms- the growl of thunder is one of my favorite sounds...Summer is upon us!! WOOHOOO!

Work on and around the house has been the order of business lately... as usual. HAHA. John bought a clothesline and put it up on the deck pillars on the basement porch, built another step from the driveway down the side of the house to get to the basement, we planted flowers, rearranged some stones around three big oaks in the front yard and mulched it in... and then we discovered that 2 of the trees are dead. *sigh*. I'd had my suspicions since last summer... the trees never grew new leaves... in fact, the dead leaves that weren't burnt off when the house burnt down have never even fallen off the branches! so there's almost 2 years worth of dead leaves hanging on there. John bought an extendable lopper/saw and has been trimming off the lower branches, and will eventually be taking 2 of the trees down. They have an ominous lean right toward the house, so we want to try to get them taken care of ASAP.

Can you believe it will be 2 months tomorrow?? Annabelle will be 2 months old; i can't believe it. Time is flying by. Her two month appointment is next week; she's due to get four shots. I am going to talk to the doctor about an alternative shot schedule. I just think that four shots in one day is a bit much. She did very well with the two she received at her one month... but Daddy is going to take her to her 2 month appointment (Ash and I will be in the waiting room... due to gas prices getting C-R-A-Z-Y we do all of our running around in one day (or try to, anyway) together.) Since he hasn't been able to take part in her medical care just yet- not that she's needed anything other than well baby visits! I'm guessing Miss Petunia will be hitting the scales at at least 12.5 pounds. She's been binge nursing lately, and packed on a pound in a week a week or so ago.

Here is a pic of my Beautimus Maximus!

Asher has been surprising me lately! It's not that i think he's slow- just STUBBORN. Up until 2 days ago i didn't think he knew any of his letters, numbers or colors. (we are still working on shapes)... Yet when john's BIL and nephew came to visit a few minutes the other day, he brings me these foam letters that fit into their respective puzzle pieces... and tells me (correctly) which letter he is handing to me! Stinker! And apparently his favorite number is 2- he likes to pair things up and announce "TWO!". Of course, the number sequence we all know (1,2,3,4,5,6, etc) is as follows in Asher's world: 2,3,8,9,10! HAHAHAHA!

One project we completed: a chalk table! We picked up Valspar Chalkboard Paint (under 10 bucks at lowes- it's a medium sized can, and i'd say after 2 coats of pain on this table we still have 99% of the paint left!!) Asher is in love. And surprisingly, he hasn't tried to chalk up anything but the table, so that's a relief.

I hear Miss Thang waking up- time to eat!! one more pic, because i love it...

a boy and his mud puddle...