Simply Kersh

Work????

2011-08-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

Just a quick family update - I got a job! It is kinda a big change for our family. I will be working as the Thursday- Friday administrative assistant at MVCA (Heidi's school). it is during school hours, and I may get to pop in to see Heidi for lunch once in a while. I will miss my Clara girl. For the first time since Heidi was born we will be having regular childcare, a wonderful friend will be watching Clara. Change is good - but kinda scary.

Garden Plundering!

2011-07-14T11:28:00.001-07:00

We are so excited to have a mostly full garden put in this year! We always have plans for more. This is our fourth summer in the house and it is so nice to see so much food in our own yard. Here is a pic if this mornings plundering:
We have rhubarb, spring onions, snow peas, strawberries, raspberries, beets, and beet greens with lots more coming! The whole time I was picking Clara and a friend we also have a vegetable party and were munching on bolted broccoli and peas and berries. It was lovely hearing two 3 year olds fighting over and celebrating vegetables. And now off for juicing, jamming, pie filling, and lots of blanching. Oh, and Harry Potter at midnight :)

Sorry for the lack of posts and short posts - we don't have internet at home right now and the girls have a time limit at the library. Hope you are having a great summer!

Spring is coming!

2011-03-29T11:54:00.001-07:00

It really is. I was informed today that we have had 23 days strait of rain. You know it is Spring in the valley when your back yard is holding so much water, that it squeaks when you walk on it and reacts like a wet sponge when you step on it. And this year for the first time - we have a good amount of Spring flowers!

Last week Heidi clipped and arranged this for me. Daddy and I helped a little bit, but not much. I was very proud of her design skills. She grouped antique jars with an odd numbers of flowers in each. The pink one is actually from a friends yard. But every arrangement needs an accent!

Ahhhh! A girl after my own heart.

Small successes = big blessings

2011-03-11T13:45:00.000-08:00

For the last week or so I have been trying to wean my girls back off the television. We created some bad habits at the end of last month due to the bad weather and parental sickness - basically they watched for several days strait while we were just trying to survive. It took some time, but they have been doing really well now most days with the TV limits that are now being enforced and have started playing together good again after we get Heidi from school.

But yesterday was different. They asked only one time if they could watch OPB (that is all we have for TV here) and I said, "not right now." "OK" and they were off. Wow that was easy! Yeah for success - but that was only the beginning. I was doing some work on the computer and listening to them play in their room. Then things got quite - not always a good sign. I told my self to start wrapping up then go see what they were doing. Well it was another 10 minutes or so before I got back to their very quiet room, yes, it was still very quiet. I cracked the door open and this is what I saw:

Warms my heart! Heidi said she was teaching Clara to read! It was a book where there are several items on the pages with words next to them and Clara was "reading" them as Heidi pointed to the pictures. "And mom," Heidi said, "I didn't even correct Clara when she got a word wrong! I just said good job even when she called a 'stretcher' a 'bed'!"

The girls played and did chores without complaining until Daddy came home. I actually got bored at one point because I was left out of the game!

I would like to end by saying this is how my house always is, but I can't. There are still many squabbles to break up, messes to clean and tears to dry; but by taking time to remember the progress I see daily in my girls becoming ladies makes it all so much easier.

Clara quote

2011-02-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to share a special moment I had with Clara yesterday and by having it here maybe I will always remember to treasure it. After MoPS yesterday all the kids were telling their mommies that they loved them (good job teachers). This had been on her mind and we were having a conversation about how we loved each other later that day when we were snuggling on the couch before quiet time. It went something like this:

Me: I love you Clara!
Clara: I love you to mommy
M: How do you know that I love you? What does mommy do to show you?
Think, think, think.
C: She forgives me? (yes, sounded like a question, I think she thought it was a test)
M: Yes that is one way!

Beautiful! I love that little girl, and yes I do forgive her. I will need to remember this when she is a teenager I am sure.

What a picture of what God has done for us. We crawl up in His lap and if we just accept that He forgives us, we will know how much we are loved. What a concept for a 3 year old to understand.

BTW she is currently testing the forgiveness theory by standing on a stool behind the couch and kicking her unfastened shoes off over my head. Luckily it didn't have to move to needing forgiveness, I got it stopped before that became an issue. I love being a Mommy to!

Also read more below! I know, I know shocking 2 posts in one day - what can I say I finally had some extra energy - but more on that later.

Finally all moved in!

2011-02-09T15:43:00.000-08:00

It has been almost 3 years now since we bought our house. Yesterday I unpacked the last 3 boxes that were packed for the move. What did they contain? PIGS! Yes they are finally up in their full tackiness on the shelf that is finally finished on 2 walls of the dining room.

Yep, I (Odessa) have a lot of pigs. Sadly this isn't all of them. I have larger ones around the kitchen and a whole trunk of stuffed ones. Yeah, sad. Someday maybe I will let Jeff have some of the space to decorate with his GI Joe collection, but for now it will probably only have pigs added as souvenirs from special vacation. And yes, it is tacky...but it is also really fun! The girls love it and there are so many stories up there!

Like this one:
This was our wedding cake topper! The half heads you can see on the sides was our first cake topper...no we didn't get married twice. Apparently not many stores carry pig cake toppers but I had found one online. The first one came and the groom had his ear broken off, so after I had a replacement in hand that was fully intact, we took out the broken one to shoot at. It was the first time I had shoot a gun and took the grooms head clean off with the 22! Now Jeff knew what he was marrying! OK, so I didn't hit another thing for the rest of the day. And to keep things fair, Jeff did take off the brides head.

So there you have it. We are all moved in but PLEASE DON'T GIVE ME ANY MORE PIGS!!!

sandwich bread of tastiness

2011-01-02T14:53:00.000-08:00

Jeff here, I have been asked by a few people for my sandwich bread recipe. It is based off this recipe.

Whole Wheat flour (from the Peters) 1 lb 4 oz ~about 4 cups
Vital Wheat Gluten 2 Tbsp
instant Yeast 1 Tbsp
Honey (from Flemings) 2 Tbsp
Eggs (farm fresh, really important) 1
Canola Oil 1 Tbsp
Milk 4 Cups (you can use water, if so add some dry milk to the 'dry' stuff, whatever the right amount is.)
All Purpose Flour 1 lb 13 oz ~ about 6 cups (I sometimes do about 1 lb WW flour and 13 oz AP flour with a teaspoon more of gluten)
1 Tbsp salt canning/pickling salt (1.5 Tbsp table salt)
some room temp butter

Put salt aside in a small dish.
heat milk to 100 to 110 degrees. Add the honey to the milk.
In a big bowl mix the first flour, vital wheat gluten, yeast, egg and oil.
Add the milk and honey to the big bowl of dry stuff. Mix and mix in the rest of the flour.
Knead for about 6 minutes, if using a KitchenAid knead for around 2-3 minutes (I'm guessing, I like to feel it). It should be very tacky, but not sticky.
Let the dough rest covered on the counter for about 20 minutes. I like to use my 20 minutes to read a book to the girls. This 20 is really cool, it lets the flour absorb moisture and makes the dough less tacky ( autolyse is the fancy word).
Flatten the dough on counter and sprinkle half the salt on it, knead it a few times then add the rest. You shouldn't be able to feel the salty grit...maybe 7-9 minutes.

Put dough back in bowl and cover with damp tea (not terrycloth) towel. Let the dough rise till doubled in size. If the room can be 65-75 degrees you will do well. This should take about 2 hours (so cuddle up to a movie with your spouse, a Kung Fu movie really helps bread rise).

Once risen put it back on floured counter and flatten so that the big gas bubbles pop (in the bread silly).
Roll into 3 loaves (about 1.5 lbs each). You can go to YouTube and search for "shaped sandwich loaves" for the best way to do this...I can't really explain how I get it other than roll it up with few drops of water on the inside.
Grease your loaf pan with butter and put loaves in seam side down. cover with the damp tea towel and let rise for about 45-60 minutes. (use this time to go online and order "Bread Bakers Apprentice" by Reinhart, it is amazing)
Bake @ 375 for 35 minutes. It should drop out of the pan easily. Knock on the bottom and if it sounds hollow you are good. If you want more security take the internal temp, it should be around 195. Let rest for 40 minutes before cutting or your bread will feel insulted and be all ripped up inside.

since you made three loaves, deliver on to a friend. or you can freeze it for later use...or you can make more later.

I figure this cost is somewhere near $1.50/ loaf, I've never calculated it out.

Few tips,
I went to the grocery story and asked the bakery for a bucket, it is 3.5 gal and works great for the 'big bowl'. Plus then you and just put the lid on rather tan use a towel.
I always add a tich of Ginger to the dry stuff at the beginning, it kick starts the yeast (i don't know why).
The ginger, egg, and honey act as preservatives. You can cut out the canola and add another egg yolk (or whole egg).
I like to measure with the Tbsp in this order yeast, Salt, oil, honey (use one Tbsp, and the honey slides right out into your milk.)
If you need pictures let me know and I will add them next time I bake.

Well, there you go, please mess around with this and make it your own and let me know how much better yours is so I can steal your ideas.

Out with the old, in with the new!

2010-12-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

Out with the:

In with the:

I thought I would hop on here and post the newest kitchen crazy thing we have decided to do, mostly so I can be held accountable! We are getting rid of our microwave. This decision came about from a few reasons. First being, lack of counter space for all the other appliances we use, it also really limited our access to the only outlet in our kitchen. Also, we really didn't use it that often, pretty much just for reheating left overs. And lastly for keeping more nutrition in our food. I love how quick microwaves are for reheating leftovers but I also want those leftovers to have all the possible nutrition in it that a leftover could possibly still have. And I will admit I did rely on the convince of pushing a few buttons to get my food warm several times a week.

We also found that we were hauling our kitchen aid out of the garage several times a week, and that thing is heavy. I was so scared I would drop it one time and take my foot off or break the dear thing! And as you can see in the above photo we can now access the outlet and have room for our second favorite appliance - a Cuisine Art. We just fell in love with this one recently as it was just given to us as a gift, it replaced our old off brand food processor - and yes this is a plug for Cuisine Art, if you can afford it (or have a wonderful friend wanting to give you one) get it! We are actually thinking of ditching our blender as well because this baby can do a smoothy better and is easier to clean.

We haven't gotten rid of any of our old appliances yet, they are living in the garage for a while in case we get desperate for a quickly warmed leftover but I think a craigs list posting is in our near future!......Any one in the market for a microwave, food processor or blender???? They would make great Christmas presents for your favorite college student!

Clara turns 3....a month ago

2010-11-12T16:37:00.001-08:00

This is a little late...Clara's actual birthday was October 15th. I know I am behind, but I still wanted to share pictures and jot down a few facts about this lovely little lady.

On her actual birthday we were treated to a day at a near by pumpkin patch that rivals an amusement park called Bauman Farms - seriously worth what it cost to get in. We ended up being there 5 hours and still didn't get to enjoy all the attractions that they offer!

Clara was also able to get her first brain freeze on an addicting apple cider slushy, pick out a huge Belgium mum for the family, and discover Brussels sprouts on the vine (which she loves by the way). We had to save some energy for dinner with Odessa's family at the Willamette Noodle Company, a new favorite restaurant.

The next morning we had a pumpkin princess party. I got the idea when I saw all the cute pumpkin items that are out during this time of year. We also had an orange flower girl dress that was Heidi's at about this same age....or so I thought. I searched high and low and couldn't find the dress! Of course a pumpkin princess had already been promised so I squeezed in making her a new dress the week before with pieces of fabric I already had and let her pick where everything should go. She loved the idea even more then!

With her pumpkin cake that had to be pink on the inside!

The pumpkin princesses!

Here are a few facts about Clara as a little girl, no longer a baby for sure!

she is 35 inches tall and 30 lbs
she has a very developed since of humor!
she loves to play games and setting them up.
she loves music and dancing, in fact the few things she has memorized are all to a tune
she prefers to wear dresses and to dress up
she has amazing balance (definitely not from mommy!)
she can't wait for her sister to come home from school everyday
she does not like to be alone, but prefers being home
she loves to snuggle and give kisses

We love you, are sweet little blessing!

Drops!

2010-09-01T13:50:00.001-07:00

My friend just started a new devotional site for moms called Drops! They are launching it today and will start the devotions next Tuesday. Check it out! There is a giveaway today as well!
Drops of Living Water

New additions to the family!

2010-08-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

This is mostly going to be a photo post. It will show some of the things our family is really excited about that happened over this summer. First meet Sharky and Chocolate:

Yes, we have a bunny named Sharky! The creativity of a 2 year old.
And this is chocolate - a very patient bunny, Heidi holds him more like a cat and he tolerates it.

Though she does know the proper way to hold a bunny - it is just difficult to get him there.

These two joined the family just this week and we are hoping to have them as little helpers in our weed problem. And they are about the only legal thing we can have here in town that have garden worthy manure.

Which brings us to the other addition to the family this year. We are fully gardening at our house this year! If you remember this post from last spring, we were just getting things up and going then. Now 2 loads of manure, 1 load of dirt, a whole bunch of worms, watering planting and the sun that finally got us this:

3 kinds of tomatoes, red popping corn, and lots of pumpkins (they were suppose to be cucumbers - anyone have any extra???)

And this:

5 egg plants (we thought the first ones had died so we planted more then they all worked! Can you say baba ghanoush?) and green beans. In the top left corner you can see the edge of the tire that has 3 types of peppers.

And this:
Strawberries, blueberries, and a few raspberries.

And this came back from last year:
We have rhubarb (already picked 3 times - can't you tell?), chives, and oregano. There is sage, tarragon, and a tiny basil on the other side of the rhubarb as well. On the other end of the house are all our dahlias - but they are pretty pathetic this year.

So far we have only had the herbs, tons of rhubarb, a few cherries tomatoes, a few of each berry, and 2 green beans. But we are so excited to enjoy and share the bounty God has given us.

Just living not blogging

2010-07-01T21:59:00.000-07:00

I looked and realized it has been a month since I have posted. Not for lack of posts per-say. June was a very, very busy month. We went on vacation, had VBS, starting canning, had company, found out my sister is having a boy (starting anatomy lessons with Heidi now - fun, fun!), had the MoPS planning retreat, put in our garden, and just barely stayed on top house work. With all of this going on I choose to live these things and not stress about blogging them. My kids will probably never read these blog entries, but they will remember me reading to them or taking the time to celebrate a completed puzzle with them. I want to remember these days, but enjoy now to the fullest as well.

I am already on the computer a lot - and stalk blogs, my own e-mail, and my husbands facebook (I know lame, I should get my own but then I would waste even more time) too much. My choice to skip blogging for the day is a time saving relief for me. I try vowing to do no computer days until I need to pay a bill, find a recipe, or locate a garage door repair man - google is my friend! But then I end up reading all the new updates that everyone puts up on all theses different sights. I love hearing about them, but I am sure you all have seen that I rarely comment on anything. I have found it is really hard for me to put my thoughts into words and it takes a lot of time for me to do (please know I am praying and thinking of you even though I don't comment). I don't see commenting as a waste of time I know we all love them, but my choice to not comment is another moment for my family. Time is precious and I wish I could slow it down!

I will continue with this blog, but I am sure the posts will be few this summer highlighting big things and things I actually remember to take my camera on! I am not going to stress about the things I haven't blogged about. Thank you my faithful readers for checking in and now before I check out for the evening I will leave you with a new CQ - watch out she is full of them now.

Last week I pulled out an old nickname I had for her, chunk-a-muffin - hankering back to her chunky legs days. She stopped in her tracks and said, "My name isn't chunk-a-muffin!" I was expecting to here "it is Clara!" next while my mind was racing with thoughts of how this nickname had scarred her self image when I heard, "It is Super-DUPER chunk-a-muffin!!" Boy I love that kid!

Graduation!

2010-05-31T20:55:00.000-07:00

We have made it through our first official graduation as parents. I almost teared up, but I made it. Which is good as there is a chance that this one was only practice as Heidi may be repeating kindergarten again. Though this has nothing to do with her academics, she is doing great there in fact she is like 5 years a head in some areas (sheesh). Since we put her in a year early, it just may be healthier for her to repeat with kids her own age. I was good and took a few pictures to capture the cuteness - seriously the cutest graduation I have ever been to.
Here is her class and on the right is her wonderful, wonderful teacher.
With her proud parents.

We are so excited she made it through her first year of school. It is amazing to think back and realize how much she has learned in the last 9 months. We are blessed with a girl who loves school (thus far) and made it to every day this year! Way to go Heidi!

And now for one of those hard decisions to make as a parent! Do we keep her a year a head with the same class she did this year of kindergarten with or do we have her repeat and be with her peers?

The Vicarious Farmers

2010-05-17T11:23:00.000-07:00

It is no secret that we have been accused of being like "little house on the prairie" with our eating. Yet, we do not own a farm....but we enjoy tons of home canned goodness from local produce, fresh eggs, fresh milk (we make into butter, butter milk, yogurt and last week ice cream), homemade bread (even for sanwiches and french toast - thanks to Jeff!) made from local whole wheat flour, and this fall Washington home grown beef (not local, but family). We eat through others local farms in exchange for home canned goodness. I love it. I really do. Going back to high quality local basics are a lot of work but boy does it taste good. Plus knock on wood we haven't been sick in over a year - I think it is what we eat!

We have always been partial to "healthy eating" and I had canned something almost every year since childhood. But with Jeff getting sick and setting out on the crazy diet to healing, we learned so much more about food and what you can do with food. While it is a lot of work - the quality and the price (we eat for probably less then you think) are well worth it.

Don't worry, we haven't completely gone off the deep end. We do still go the grocery store because lets face it bananas are like the easiest fruit to transport and give to your kids - and they don't grow around here! And I don't take the time to make own cereal. My kids do eat mac and cheese from a box, hot dogs, freezer pizzas and Dora the Explorer slow melt popsicles (I don't even want to know what was added to make them "slow melt") - just in limited quantities.

I would love to share more of what I have learned, the skills I have acquired and my local sources with you if you are interested. Maybe someday I can have classes at our farm when we get our 5-75 acres. Until then we will enjoy our raised bed, square food garden and live vicariously through others!

Growing up

2010-04-21T16:32:00.000-07:00

I haven't done a post on growing up in a while, well I have done a post on anything in a while. Truth is I haven't had much to blog about and I have been haveing so much fun just living and being in the weather AND I have been waiting for one of two things to happen. Oddly enough they both (almost) happened. So now you get them both - one for each girl.

First Clara, since she is second born she is rarely first, so I will give her what I can! A few posts ago I told how we were going diaper free, fully expecting to have a lot more accidents but there was no going back. Well she made it 13 days! I was so hoping for 2 weeks and that is what I was waiting to post about. I know you were all waiting on the edge of your seat for that post. But to bad, 13 days will just have to do. I am really impressed with how quickly she has caught on. She is growing up so fast - literally I think she has grown well over an inch in the last six months and for her that is a lot! Today she told me she had to grow up "because I can't grow down".

And now for Heidi - drum roll please:She has lost her first tooth! I know the pictures are bad, but we couldn't get the girl to hold still or stop grinning so big she was covering her bottom teeth! In the second picture she is holding her prized "tooth pillow". I made it for her about a week ago after we first discovered she had a loose tooth (which I was totally unprepared for I might add - I though I had at least another year, well that's what I get for not reading parenting books I guess). The pillow has a little pocket in the front (for all you tooth fairies out there, this makes it much easier to find a tiny tooth under the pillow) that is just big enough to hold a dollar tightly. Yes a dollar is what we hear is the going rate these days. Apparently like everything else the cost of a tooth has gone up as well and now the poor fairy is going to go broke.

As I just heard on Dr. Laura, "With little kids at home the days are long, but the years are so short." To true.

Kid quotes

2010-04-08T12:44:00.000-07:00

We learned in the adoption class we took last December a little bit about child development. We are by no means experts, but so far it seems that Heidi is a about a year ahead still on most things. We learned that 6-9 year olds really like rules and keeping rules, they want to know where the line is and will usually tell other people if they are wrong.

Heidi has hit this "milestone" lately. OK, maybe Heidi has always had a little bit of this since she could talk (can't imagine where she gets that from....hint: she is the oldest girl of a oldest girl). As her education has progressed, so has her skill in this area. She can now read all of her numbers up to at least 100 and with that comes the ability to tell Jeff and I what our speed limit is at every sign. She takes her self given job very seriously. So seriously in fact that last week when we were half way home from Salem at 10:00 p.m. and she stated, "Mommy, I have to go to sleep, please read all the speed limit signs to daddy." She didn't fall asleep until she made sure I did my job. Thank goodness she doesn't have the angle from the back seat to see the speedometer.

And we mustn't forget Clara. This morning she was taking a bath and I heard her giggling and saying "look bubbles"(don't worry it's not what you are thinking). She was holding a ball under the water and squeezing and releasing it. She called me in to see her cool trick. By the time I got in there she had done this several times and the ball was full of water so when she squeezed it again there was no bubbles. She then stated, "It no working, it batteries dead!" FYI - I do not give my children toys with batteries in the bath tub.

And because no good blog post is complete without a photo, I will leave you with my child, the cute uni-bomber, who insisted on going into the library like this:

Heidi is making plans!

2010-03-29T21:39:00.001-07:00

I have a great HQ to share because I never want to forget this one. First a little back ground, for about a year now Jeff and I have been planning a younger adult group activity for our church that we call Final Friday - held the last Friday of every month. We always provide child care for cheap so those with kids can easily attend. As we are still in the kick off phase of the group, many times it is only our two girls in care. It was not the case this last meeting. Our girls were joined with another family of four little boys, the oldest being just a little older than Heidi. I bet you are starting to guess were this is going!

This is the story I received after the event from the childcare workers. Heidi and oldest boy J had a great time playing together much of the evening. Apparently this involved a lot of Heidi riding on J's back as he was pretending to be monkey. Throughout the evening J told the workers twice that he was doing what ever she told him to - and he was! After the second time Heidi added, "Yep, he is going to make me a great husband some day!"

When we got home that night we didn't say anything to her about knowing this conversation took place. She again told Jeff that "Someday J is going to make me a good husband." Being a good daddy he then asked, "Oh really, why is that?" "Well," she replied,"because he is strong, and smart, and kind."

So I guess we better start saving, what does a wedding run these days anyway? At leased she picked him for really good qualities. I mean can we really argue with her list of requirements? Plus he is awfully cute.

You Should Have Seen the Other Guy!!

2010-03-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately for Clara the other guy in this case was the edge of the bathtub. She was taking a shower all by herself the other night like a big girl. All of a sudden we heard quite the crash (Jeff believes that just before the crash he heard her trying to hop in the tub which probably lead to the crash). We both run in to grab her and she had a stream of blood running down her body from some where near her right eye. We got her calmed down and clean up rather quickly and the blood stopped really fast, but the lovely 3/4 inch gash in her eyelid stayed open. We kept going back and forth about wether or not we should go to ER, but would they even attempt stitches in a 2 year old's eyelid? We decided to put her to bed and watch for signs of a concussion. Here is what we woke up to:

Let me give you a closer look:
We did actually take her to Dallas ER after church the next day because it started getting red around the edges and we didn't know how to treat a wound so close to the eye to prevent infection (FYI, it is OK to put antibiotic ointment this close to an eye). They said keep it clean a watch for infection and she didn't have a concussion - good thing the whole ER visit was only a half hour because we didn't really need much help.

So for now it looks like we have a boxer for a daughter and hopefully she won't have to much of a scare.

Girls room phase #3

2010-03-17T17:35:00.000-07:00

It has already been almost two years since we bought the house. Wow that went fast. The girls room was the first room that I painted and since they are growing and the room items need to keep up with them it has also gone through a few changes. Not total over hauls just new phases of the same base. It is all big girl now. No nursery items, no diapers, no baby toys. They are growing up. I think this phase is my favorite and I hope it sticks for awhile. But first, here is what I started with:This is all of the toys that were in room - way to many. Since we still had may lingering baby toys and other broken/cheap/old/un-played with toys it was time for a full over haul. (Thanks Alysun for watching the girls so they wouldn't try to keep said broken/cheap/old/un-played with toys, they haven't miss much of it at all - unfortunately they discovered where I hid the "get rid ofs")This is all the clothes that my children own from sizes just to small for Clara to fits Heidi. Way to many!

And now for the fun pictures!
Toys all organized! Everything now fits on the shelves or under Heidi's bed. Yeah!!
Clothes all put away or saved for later!

And we are now set for 2 princesses! And when Clara is ready for a twin bed we can just switch it out.
This is a piece of art I put together from random pieces of supplies I had around the house. We pray this blessing over the girls each night, so it seemed fitting.

While the room was all torn apart I also got baseboards up. You know a room is finished when the baseboards go on right?

WE'RE DIAPER FREE!!!!

2010-03-05T18:22:00.000-08:00

Clara is potty trained with very few accidents (maybe 2 a week) even at night!! What a wonderful feeling! She was sooo much easier than Heidi and loves that fact that she is in panties all the time. Maybe in a few years we will get the scream "we're debt free", but for now we will settle for "we're diaper free". Which is a step to being debt free.

I'll add a cute Clara story just for kicks. This morning after we dropped Heidi off at school, we got home and Clara promptly ran over, grabbed something then I heard, "I have two and now I am a bunny!" Here is what I saw when I turned around:
What a cute kid!

Dumb DIYers!

2010-03-03T14:24:00.000-08:00

Did you know my husband is incredibly strong? You may not guess by looking at him that he can bend pipes. But he can! And on Sunday he proved it!

It started out as something that should have taken 15 minutes to fix. The cold water faucet behind out washer has leaked since we bought the house. Two weekends ago we bought and new/used washer dryer set that can stack. So we decided to redo the whole laundry area of our garage and get some covered shelves of some sort to put all our small appliences in (there is no room in our kitchen). Time to replace the facut. This of course entails turning off all the water to the house. So we waited till the girls were both napping and Jeff went to work. BUT instead of the faucet coming unscrewed at either of the two places that it could have it decided to hold strong, break off the mount that was holding it on the wall and proceed to bend the copper piping all the way around the back of the faucet as we twisted to get it off. Of course this was all happening behind the dry wall so we couldn't see what it was doing until it was to late. AND the pipe that wrapped around had to come from some where which happened to be about two feet lower in the wall where it had broken a joint.

So a large hole in our wall, 7 hours, and $250 to a plumber later we move ourselves in to the category of dumb DIYers on this one - but really, how hard should it have been???

Oh, and did I mention that my entire family was here for the last half of this exciting adventure to have a small belated Christmas celebration. We had to go next door to get a pot of water to cook pasta for dinner! Luckily the rest of the meal was done and dishes can wait.

This just proves that no matter when you celebrate Christmas, something is bound to go wrong with the plumbing.

One Diaper weekend!

2010-02-21T19:47:00.000-08:00

Truthfully I got one vote for each of the topics I want to blog about, so I broke the vote and picked myself (sorry Alysun, next time).

I had mentioned a while ago that we were potty training Clara, she is doing really well. She uses the big potty all of the time and tells us when she needs to go (which is good, because I wouldn't remember to take her), has dry panties 90% of the time when she wakes up from nap, AND the last three days she has woken up with a dry diaper in the morning. I think I am right on the edge of having the no more diaper dance!!

All of this adds very greatly to our spontaneous get away last weekend. Jeff had last Monday off (gotta love state jobs, they get all the holidays off!) and we have gotten our tax return so we took the girls on a overnight-er to the beach after church. Pool, cable, eating junk food on the bed, what more could you ask for to have a great time.

I am not to much of a spontaneous person, I have learned this, Jeff was very polite and waited/helped for a few hours before leave so I could have everything in order and packed for every weather condition. We didn't tell the girls anything until Heidi guessed, they are fine with spontaneity. The great part was when I realized I only had to pack one diaper! ONE!! Just for the night, we didn't even need swim diapers!

Here are some pictures from our lovely time:

Finally all toasty warm!

The pool was out of towels and were to busy to bring new ones so we had to sprint back to our room on the third floor sopping wet and jump in the shower to warm up.

Chasing sneaker waves, a must on the Oregon coast.

Their shoes got wet, Jeff underestimated how fast Heidi could run - but she was in rain boots so she was fine, Jeff was not!

The waves were huge!

I don't think I have ever seen the waves so big before, AND there was hardly any wind we couldn't have asked for a better beach day.

Heidi practiced her photography.

She finally has figured out how to hold the button down long enough, now she just needs to work on actually getting everything in the picture! (note from Jeff: this reminds me of some of the 1990's alternative band photos, except we should be looking away.)

Sister love.

I just love this picture, I know it won't last for long.

So that was our wonderful one diaper weekend away. I must confess that we did have an accident just before coming home when we stopped for lunch at DQ. Probably due to the fact that we played at the beach for about 2 hours and forgot to take her when we got to the restaurant. In her defence she did tell us, she just REALLY had to go. And FYI for all you potty training mommies - the bathroom is outside at the back of the building at the Lincoln City Dairy Queen.

Half an hour

2010-02-19T16:13:00.000-08:00

That's all I have is half an hour, with both kids occupied and before I have to start dinner. And I am not going to blog, I am going to start our adoption application. I am sure I will only just get started, but starting is a big step. For those who don't know, we are now funded enough to confidently move a head. We are excited and looking forward to the future, we would appreciate your prayers as we start this huge blessing in expanding our family.

When I have more time again, I will blog - I have two topics in mind. "One diaper weekend" and "The girls room, version #3". Which would you like to hear first, leave me a comment and let me know.

A quick CQ!

2010-02-10T10:30:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to give you a quick CQ, that's right the Clara quotes have started rolling and she just gave me a doozy!

I was trying to explain that on Valentines Day we tell the people that we love we love them. I asked her who she loved and she replied, "I like the boys who love me!"

It has begun already at the age of 2! I have now clue where she came up with this!

Beating Christmas Break

2010-01-06T19:16:00.000-08:00

I blogged just a few short months ago about Heidi starting school. With the first year of school comes your first Christmas break. Heidi really didn't know what to do about this. You go to school a while and just when you have the routine really down, you stop going. Then just when you get use to sleeping in (yes a 5 year old has to learn how to do this) you go back to school. That is a lot for a little body to do! I tried to keep somewhat of a routine, but that was hard as the holidays include a lot of really late nights. I have to say the girl is a trouper and went back into the routine of school really well.

Here is how Heidi decided to spend her first day of official Christmas break:How can your day be bad when you wear PJs all day with a birthday hat and you are allowed to check the mail all by yourself?

As I have established, I am not a photographer and don't even come close to classifying myself as camera happy. I have to confess most of time I forget the camera at home or forget that it is in my purse. In fact I didn't even bring it to Christmas, I know- pathetic. I do love capturing a few quick shots of my kids doing something new though. Here are a few things we did to beat the weather and the holiday excitement.

Who doesn't love to have their nails painted festive green and red? (BTW the outfits they are wearing they picked out for themselves and Heidi had them both dressed before I even got out of bed - she even took care of Clara's diaper, good thing it was a clean morning!)

Making gak is great! Heidi has figured it out enough she was able to mix it all herself.
Clara didn't really like the texture at the beginning but loves the end product. She has played with here a few times now and each time I hear her telling herself, "Don't eat it, it is icky and will make you sick." She has done really well listening to herself and I don't think she has even tried to lick it.

Here is the recipe:

Bright Gak!

1 C (2 4oz bottles) white Elmers glue (don't use generic, it usually doesn't work)
1 C warm water divided
1/2 tea borax
tempera paint

Pour glue into large mixing bowl. Add 3/4 cup water and paint until desired color is achieved (I wouldn't recommend more than 2 Tb worth), mix. In another bowl dissolve borax in 1/4 cup water. Pour borax mixture into glue mixture and knead for about 10 min until mixture stops sticking to hands. Enjoy with cookie cutters, plastic toys and a craft apron!

We also put up a Christmas tree, made tons of gingerbread, and lots of other holiday things. It was great fun, but I am glad school is back in session.

And I must leave you with a parting HQ. Heidi had cut out several shapes that I had drawn for her and wanted to label them. I had been slowing spelling their names for her to write herself. I became busy and Jeff stepped into help. This is roughly the conversation I heard.
H: "Daddy how do you spell rectangle?"
J: "R-E" pause "C-T-A-N-G-L-E" (said quickly)
H: "Daddy slow down, I am only 5 years old!"

Hair!

2009-12-14T14:41:00.000-08:00

I love little girls hair, it is just so fun and cute once you go through excruciating task of styling it. I have been wanting to do a hair post for quite some time now but things but things kept up and the post kept getting longer and so on and so on. WELL today is the day! And you will see why at the end of this post! I will warn you now that this is a photo dump of the last year of cute girly hair. And please keep in mind I am not a photographer or good photo editer - infact the photo editing program just completely dissapeared off our old computer, possible because it was being ignored! To start us off, here are some before and afters of some things we did with Heidi's hair this year:

Before (I love braids!)After

Before! We had fun with this one!
After

Before
Before version #2
After

I loved doing things with Heidi's hair. Unfortunately for all the things we did above she has hair just like her daddies - 3 cowlicks, high forehead, and bone strait! All of the above afters fell out in about 2 hours. But it was fun while it lasted!

Photo batch #2 is all about Heidi learning to do hair, she has learned to do:

Clara's,

Mine,

and Jeff's! (she also took this picture all by herself!)

Here is a bonus picture of what Heidi learned to do with Clara's wet hair!

Clara has also been learning to do her own hair, unfortunately it wasn't always in the right place:

Can you believe I was standing about 10 feet away the whole time she was doing this!
This is the proper way to dry your hair.

While I am on the topic of hair I have to give one last reminder of bad hair of the year:

R.I.P!

Now on the some more cute hair. Clara has finally grown enough hair to put a few pretties in and she use to leave them in. She won't anymore, now her new trick is to get her "bangs" (which I am determined not to cut) stuck in her boogies! Don't worry I didn't take a picture of that.

Look! It can hold a clip!
This is one of my favorite pictures.

Big girl hair!

About 14 monthes ago I cut my hair off for the second time to donate for Locks of Love, a place that makes wigs for children undergoing cancer treatment and have lost their hair. My short hair loven' 4 year old decided she wanted to do that too. So for 14 months now, other than a few trims and cutting her bangs, Heidi has been growing her hair out. Today is the day she donates her hair - I am so proud of her!

Ta-da! I did it!!!

All set to go for my first professional haircut!
And the side....
And the back.

I hope you have enjoyed this journey of the last year with us!

Oh, the smell of popcorn and nail polish mixed

2009-12-13T13:08:00.000-08:00

This is a smell I am sure I will have many more time in my house in the coming years. It visited us for the first time on Friday night for Heidi's 5th birthday party. She actually doesn't turn 5 until next Wednesday, but I was much easier to do her party the weekend before rather than right before Christmas. This year we did a almost slumber party - I took all the girls home at 8:30 all tired, PJed, and teeth brushed ready to curl up in their own cozy beds. We had a blast. Heidi invited over 4 little friends and all we able to make it!
We had a pancake cake for the party! Seriously the easiest cake ever. We let the girls pick what they wanted in their pancakes then stacked them up added whip cream, sprinkles and candles and wa-la a cake!
We made sure they all behaved.... actually this was a really good game of Simon says! The command was put your hands on the window.
All settled down for a movie, popcorn, and getting their nails done.
We gave them little travel bags for gift bags so they ended their party with brushing teeth.

Jeff and my dad stayed long enough to make the pancakes and then they scooted out so we could have an all girls party - no boys allowed! This equals 6 girls 5 and under at my house all at the same time and me being the only adult. It went amazingly well - thank you new Strawberry Shortcake sweet dreams movie from daddy.

I am giving myself points for this one! It was super fun, easy and cheap!

More on growing up fast!

2009-11-10T14:46:00.001-08:00

I just went through all the photos on the camera and realized how much of life I haven't blogged about, but I love seeing how much of life we have lived in the past year. Maybe one of these times I will dump post some of my favorite photos from the year.

In other news, we reached another milestone with Clara this weekend. For the first time in 4 and a half years, the crib has been taken all the way apart. Since we have started more seriously potty training, and since it had become a game for Heidi to crawl into the crib and then try to get her sister out, we figured it was time for "the big girl bed!"
This is her trying it out before we had it all the way made. She is "fake sleeping" with a big smile!

This is about how many stuffed animals she likes to sleep with, she may actually be a few short.

Clara loves her bed, and has done very well with the transition. We have only had to remind her a few times to stay in bed and even when she wakes up she usually takes quite awhile to figure out she can get out.

As I mentioned above, we are potty training as well. She is doing pretty we for us just really starting - hopefully soon we will have a no more diapers post!! WOO-HOO!!

The HQs are back!

2009-10-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

Last week Heidi was ripe with quotes. Here are a few that stick out in my memory:

Last week one day at about 6:45 in the a.m. she came running out of bed still half asleep and looked at me in the bathroom. I said good morning and asked her how she was doing. She said, "Fine, I am going into the living room to think." Five minutes later I went to check on her and she was curled up on the couch under a blanked. I asked her if she was done thinking and what she had been thinking about. Her reply, "Superheros". What a way to start the day!

Quote #2 came when we were on our way home from WA this weekend and were passing the golf course on Hwy. 22. Heidi decided that she knew all about golf and would like to share it. This was the beginning of the conversation that followed.

Heidi, "Daddy, do you want to hear about golf?"
Jeff, "Sure honey" (anything to keep you happy at the end of a 3 hour car ride)
Heidi, "Mommy, do you want to hear about golf?"
Odessa, "Sure honey" (anything to keep you happy at the end of a 3 hour car ride)
Heidi, "Clara, do you want to hear about golf?"
Clara, "NOOOOO!" in a long sing-songy voice
Heidi, "Well then plug your ears, because I'm going to say it!"

And finally the icing on the cake. Later the same night as the above we were on our way home from the grocery store when Heidi decided we all needed nick-names. Her choice for me was, "Lady-wood-dungeon-woman." I didn't know whether to feel like a super hero or a villain for a little while! It changed a few minutes later to American flag so she could pledge to me.

Clara's birthday party

2009-10-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

Clara turns 2 on Thursday! Boy did that go fast, especially these last 6 months. She waited so long to do so many things and then just sort of exploded in the world of the reaching mile stones of growing up. We celebrated her birthday yesterday (look at that I am blogging about it the day after it happened, that is pretty good for me!), it was so much caos and fun!

We just had a few friends over, but as we are all of child having age, the children quickly outnumbered the adults at 7 to 5! Ages almost 5 to 2 and a half weeks.

As we have always done with all our birthday parties for our children, we let them pick what they want and then add in a few things to balance it out and to express their favorite things of the year. In the past we have had strawberry shortcake in December and a P.J. party with even parents participating! This was Clara's first real chance to have some in put on the party, her choices were - popcorn, balloons, and yellow! We had fun with that with some extra balloons we had and I even scrounged up a table cloth with cats holding balloons. When Clara got up from her nap yesterday, all she could say was "a-boon, a-boon!" She loved it! We balanced it out with a make your own pizza activity (which is Clara's favorite food), yummy grown up snacks, and mixed up a batch of big bubbles. But enough rambling, here are some pictures of the party:

Opening gifts, Clara is the slowest gift opener ever - each piece of tape is a gift.

She is covered in foam from the bucked of bubble solution, I just considered it as pre-treating her dress to wash before she covered it in pizza and cupcake!

Here are most of the kiddos enjoying their pizza. They had a lot of fun making them and if the picture were bigger the state of the floor would prove that. Jeff then cooked the pizzas on the grill, they turned out pretty well.

Here she is with her yellow cupcake-cake! She even got her own candles out on her 3rd try. Did you notice the oh so themey balloon cupcake papers? They were my only party purchase for this one. I love simple, fun birthday parties!

Numbers

2009-10-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

I have had a lot of number in my head lately, most of which has something that could be blogged about behind it. Instead of a lot of posts, which I don't have time to do, I will give you a run down in ascending order:

1 = Clara's age but only for another week, I need to get planning her party!

2 = The number of dear friends who have had babies in the last 2 weeks! See them here and here

3 = The number of cats we have kept alive, together for over a year. See the rescue story here

5 = The number of weeks until our big adoption fund raiser kick off. I had better get planning.

6= Less then a week until the next MoPS! More planning.

25 = The amount I paid for a new working dryer yesterday after 4 days of not having one!

28 = The number of flies I have killed in my kitchen so far today. Also how old I turned yesterday! (Thank you all my friends, it was a wonderful birthday!)

32 = The amount I need to save to have enough to get the dishes I want. See them here!

33 = Roughly the number of minutes I have before Heidi wakes up from her nap, I am going to go lay down.

100 = The number of hours I had kid free a few weeks ago when I was in Tennessee for MoPS convention, it was awesome, but not because my kids weren't there. See picture of the hotel we were at here.

264 = Roughly the number of women expected to attend the Christmas dessert at our church this year. BTW, I am head of the planning committee this year so more planning!

369 = The number of successful canning jars I have filled this year with all kinds of yummy food.

789 = I believe that is the number of pictures on my camera that that need to be gone through and printed.

And now 5 again = the number of links I have put into this post.

I love this time of year. I can look at those numbers and see so many reasons to celebrate or get ready to celebrate for. Call me crazy, but I really love planning as much as I love the celebration - most of the time anyway!

Check out my poll and let me know what you think of this time of year. Happy Fall!

Show and Tell

2009-09-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

I know it has be a long time since I have posted and it isn't for lack of ideas, just lack of time. For now I will just pick one topic because it is to cute to pass up!

Every Tuesday at Heidi's school is show and tell. This is something new for Heidi and it took her a little while to figure out what it was. The first week her teacher told her it would be happening she was devastated because "she didn't have an outfit for that." Oh, dear.

She finally took her stuffed care bear because that is what is most special to her and no one else is allowed to play with it, so it is something good to share about.

Week 2 rolls around and I think she has it a little more figured out and I asked her what she wanted to bring and she said Clara! I tried to persuade her other wise, but she insisted that I bring Clara in as her show and tell. I went ahead and made arrangements with her teacher, who said they had never had a sibling brought in as a show and tell before! I think Heidi though she was going to get to have Clara with her all day at school (wouldn't that be nice, sigh) and she insisted that she would take care of her assuring me that teacher wouldn't have to do anything extra. Yeah right!

I was a little late getting her there and when we went into the classroom Clara was announced as "the special show and tell is here." Clara had no idea what was going on!

Heidi took her to the front of the class and said, "This is my baby sister Clara, she is very special to me, but not to special because I let other people play with her to." She then went and sat back down and left Clara there!

Oh, the stories Clara will tell when she is older about being her sisters show and (very short) tell. About how she was second important, next to a purple bear, and how others were "allowed" to play with her with her sisters permission. Isn't sisterly love cute?

And where do you ask has all my time gone??? Well it is time for a canning count: 345 filled successful jars, 6 failed seals (the most I have ever had), and 1 broken jar (Whoo-hoo!). Thats all for now, bye!

Ahhhh it's mullet man!

2009-09-04T16:11:00.000-07:00

Last week we went out with other young adults from our church and went bowling 80's style. We had so much fun and I actually bowled over 100 on one game! The guy working went along with us and played 80's classics the whole time. I truthfully had to google "Saved by the Bell" to catch up on the dressing style, and after cutting up a few old t-shirts came up with a good outfit. Jeff had an outfit left over from another party to wear. Below are a few pictures of the group but I must first warn you that one of us is showing a little leg!

Aren't we hot!

Here is the whole group.

And who can forget the classic side ponytail?

And while we are on the topic of hair, we must give honorable mention to Jeff's. For the last 6 months he has been growing it out, his reasoning being for just such an event to happen. In the last 10 min. before we left for bowling he had me cut his hair into a mullet to complete his look. Be prepared for a scare!

Here's the back.....

Here's the side....

Aren't I hot!

Don't worry, the rest of the hair came off the next day. Being seen once in public was enough scaring by one hair style. How far have you gone to complete a costume look?

They grow so fast!

2009-09-03T14:59:00.000-07:00

Yes they do grow up fast, especially when you start things a year ahead! Heidi started school yesterday. Her first day of the next 13 years! We have begun the routine of waking up early and am proud to say that 2 days in we haven't been late. That is really pretty good for me. Here are a few pictures of the big girl all ready to go!We are so proud of her.

Something worth blogging

2009-08-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

I have had blogging on the brain for the last few days. There really hasn't been much to blog about. It has just been a normal week of house work, canning, children and other busyness.

I though about doing a post about our awesome college retreat last weekend. We exchanged our 2 kids (thanks mom) for 10 college students and headed to the Christian Renewal Center up near Silver Creek Falls. I would highly recommend the place. They have a few huge rope swings and a zip line, plus hiking at the falls. The think that appealed to me the most was that they do all the cooking and cleaning!! I had 5 meals in a row that I didn't have to cook, clean a face/floor/ table up afterward, or do dishes. Can I get an Amen!Here is our group. They are awesome and we love everyone of them. It is great supervising a group that is all over 18! We can let them pretty much do what they want. It also helps that none of them are trouble makers.

Like I said I though about doing a whole post dedicated to the retreat, but that is about all I am willing to share on that topic.

I also though about doing one on yesterday when the phone rang a gazillion times. Most of the time there was no one on the other side. I still answered it a lot! To the point that Clara was walking up and down the hall, holding a play phone to her ear saying, "Hello, hi, hello, hi, 'dis Odessa, hello, hi!"

But again that was only a thought. For if you are patient, then your children will truly give you something worth blogging about.

Today before lunch I know Clara was tired, but I really wanted to finish what I was doing, which I did with much whining from her. We still sat down at a decent time for lunch at 12:00. At about 12:15 I looked over and saw this:That is still her spoon in her mouth! And yes she is out cold!

Canning count so far: 197 jars on the shelf, 1 broken in the canner, and 3 failed seals.

Clara is growing up

2009-08-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

I know I recently did a post on Clara, but this little girl is growing up so fast another is due. Plus I have only had her around all week as Heidi was down at my parents.

Clara has hit a few milestones lately. She has caught on to the concept of talking really fast and had immediately gone into competitive mode when Heidi is around, now my house is really, really never quiet! She isn't even 2 yet and is in full swing "mine" and "no" phase. Lovely! Maybe she will pass through it quickly - I hope so. She is also starting speak in full short sentences and is pretty much clear as a bell! This was very surprising as Heidi still has trouble with some sounds. I think part of it is Clara talks slower, Heidi talks as fast as she can not leaving time to make all the sounds in a word.

With Heidi gone this week and Clara having the choice of what to watch on TV all week she got spoiled with a lot of Sesame Street and other videos with those characters. Clara has completely moved into another stage that most toddlers go through and that is the "ELMO" stage. Let me tell you Elmo is cool around here now. We actually have an old Elmo Jeff pulled out of the dumpster in his college days. I say old because he has no cool accesories or sound or talks or giggles. He is just a cute stuffed animal with big hard eyes. BUT he has been to Isreal and on several camping trips before he became an object of affection for both of our girls. Clara was extatic when I pulled it out of storage (Heidi declared herself done with Elmo about 6 months ago and he has been waiting to be loved since then in the closet).

Another talking stage that I totally was not ready for yet with this little one is the "why" stage. Yes, mothers it is here! She isn't even 2 yet. She actually asked me "why" 2 times in a row this morning! AHHHH! Time to come up with creative answers again.

I will end with a cute story of the week. Clara was in the bathroom with me one moring this week watching me put on my makeup. She brough me the cat dish because it was empty. So I filled it with water while I was telling her how good of a girl she was to take care of our cats. I set the bowl back down and a few minutes later I here these little sighs behind me. I turn around and she is sitting on top of her potty reclining back with her feet in the water dish. What a girly, girl! She knows a good foot soak when she sees one!
It is so hard to believe that 6 monthes ago she wasn't even walking yet. Boy I love my walking, running, imagining, attempting to jump, talking little girl.

Excalibur

2009-08-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

Hi all, this is Jeff.
As many know Odessa is a Master Food Preserver. I'm really proud of her for this. On aspect of food preservation is drying food. I really like dried food, you can eat more calories and not be as full since your tummy is only full of food not water.
Anyway, back for my Birthday I bought a high class (were talking 'Putting on the Ritz') food dehydrator. It is an Excalibur brand. these suckers are nice. I picked it up off of ebay for way cheaper than new. The only problem is that I bought a 5 tray system, I should have saved a bit longer and gotten the 9 tray.

I won't bore you with all the details of why it is better, you can find that here. We have used a Ronco style (they look a bit like R2D2) but the hole in the middle really cuts into your usable space. With how much i need ot use a dehydrator have in as much usable space really makes a difference. So far we have made a bunch of Zuchinni chips (salt and pepper, or bbq flavor), banana chips(20 lbs for free), dried figs, and apricot fruit leather.

Dried Zuchinni may be the best thing around, somehow they take on a slight buttery taste..quite delicious.

If you are in the market for a dehydrator (and you should be, they are pretty cool if you do garden or hunt or lik eto dry socks a few at a time or anything like that) I would really recommend the excalibur brand. They are a bit expensive but they dry stuff faster and provide more space to dry saving time. Ask Dess to see our is you are ever here for a class that she teaches...also ask about dehydrated jelly!

And for the reason people check in on family blogs, the kids are still cute and we are healthy.

Triangle Lake

2009-08-12T17:06:00.000-07:00

This last weekend we go to go camping with our church at Triangle Lake just south of us. We had so much fun, you know sleeping on the ground (really, we don't have an air mattress), fighting the mosquitoes, inconvenient showers, prepping food outside - it's great. We really did have a great time. Here are some pictures of our adventures.

It actually got warm enough for all of us to swim in the lake, the girls did really well.

Heidi was almost brave enough to jump off the diving board with the help of her friend, but opted instead to have me push her in to Jeff - twice!

Here the brave girl is with Daddy!
We also got to go out on a sail boat when we were there, unfortunately there was no wind so we just motored around the lake, but the girls still loved it.
Heidi's favorite part of the sail boat - coloring below deck and gummy worms.Clara's favorite part of the sail boat - being up at the front holding on to the rope and yelling WEEEEE!
This is Kayla, Clara, Heidi, and Jeff out in a canoe.

The next day Clara actually fell asleep on the couch watching a movie, this has only ever happened before when she is sick. I think it was a successful trip!

We had such a great time and will probably go again next year. We had 2 things that helped make the trip better. Number one, the girls slept really well at night and naps. Number two I cooked everything before hand that we would need cooked and just assembled there. We didn't even bring our stove - it made it so much easier! But there is still nothing like coming home to showers, lights, plush carpet under your feet and a glorious bed.

My disappearing time of year.

2009-08-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

As many of you may have guessed from my lack of posting lately, it is canning season. This year I decided to offer canning classes in my home and take the master food preservers course through the OSU extension service. I must have been crazy last spring when I started planning all of this, but hey I'm alive - which is amazing after I learned all the crazy things that can go wrong with canned food. Don't worry, I really was doing most of it correctly. So if you have ever received any home canned gifts form me you are safe.

Learning all the science behind food preservation was fastenating! I perservered through the course well; even with it having homework, a first for me since college 7 years go. So as of Wednesday I am happy to anounce that I am a certified master food preserver through the OSU extension!!

Ta-Da!! Don't I look official?

I have been putting all the new tested recipies I have aquired to good use lately with some produce that I have had a surplus of. Here is what I have been up to:These are honey zucchini pickles, I am not sure how they taste as I had exactly enough to fill jars and no extra - but they sure look good!

This is rhubarb-carrot-orange marmalade, isn't that a mouth full. It is actually pretty good, although it turned out the consistency of a butter more than a marmalade.

Coming up next are green beans (which I can can for the first time ever as I am now the proud owner of a pressure cooker!), black berries, and peaches. Count for the year so far is 92 jars filled with 100% of seals working and one jar broken as of 2 hours ago. Ahhhh, happy summer time!

To all who have men in your lives

2009-07-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

I have an advice tip from Heidi. All women are to paint the faces of all the men and boys who are in their lives purple the next time they see them. Why??? Because it makes them more handsome! (I am not sure I would get away with this one even in my house.)

100 and Creative Clara

2009-07-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

First, I would like to begin this post by letting you all know this is our 100th post! It has taken us over a year to get here, but we have stuck with blogging! Thanks for going on our adventures with us.

Now on to our little topic. Clara is developing quite the personality that is uniquely her own. At this same age Heidi was barely talking but by pointing and gestures she knew all of her shapes clear to octagon and her colors to turquoise - Clara has no interest at all in this but is talking a lot with new words daily (this has me worried as Heidi talks non stop now, would it be possible for Clara to talk more?) Clara's imagination has also developed much sooner than Heidi's did. She loves to make pretend food, take care of babies, pretend sleep, play pirates, and make me think I have a sheep in the back of the van (when asked what to do about that she told me to tickle it!)

There are two stories I would like to share about our creative little one. The first is last weekend the neighbors had quite the party with a live band in their back yard. We were sitting in our yard enjoying the music and Clara was hauling my fruit buckets all over. At some point I turned to check her and she has turned 2 buckets over, sat on the shorter one and played the taller one like a bongo drum with the band next door. I was shocked!

Story 2 is, a few days later she was at the dinner table being very naughty after she was done eating. While I was trying to discipline her, she was trying her darn hardest to ignore me by taking her dinner plate and steering it and saying "vrooom, vrooom". I can guarantee she has never seen her sister do this as Heidi has very little interest in cars. Heidi was laughing hysterically and had to eat in the living room so Clara could finally be disciplined. Never the less, we were still impressed that she could turn a plate into a steering wheel.

Maybe this imagination thing is just because she has an older sister to follow, but the things they play are so different.

It is always interesting to watch the differences in my girls. After having a very concrete thinking, interested in all the facts, loves to learn (essentially a mini Jeff) I think God thought it would be funny to give us the complete opposite in girl #2 who is more interested in being creative, music, has no desire for learning facts and loves making people laugh.

From the first moments we had with each girl we know they were different - Heidi screamed a scream that rivaled a hound dog Banshee the first hour of her life, Clara had her eyes open and was looking around cooing. Heidi likes pink, pink, and more pink while Clare tends to choose green, red and black - unfortunately she is stuck in a lot of pink as hand-me-downs fit the budget nicely. Heidi likes dolls, dress up and tea; Clara likes cars, balls and rocks to the head. Heidi loves vegetables and baths, Clara doesn't at all. There are definitely areas they are alike in - they are both very social, neither ever went through the "I need only mommy" stage, they are both independent, love to cook, have their hair done (the finished product not the process) and they are both very much daddies girl.

Our girls are reminders everyday about how creative and loving our God is. I wouldn't trade them for the world, but the world is what I hope to give them. (Does that sound cheesy?) (note from Jeff...my main goal is to protect them from the world.)

Eyes

2009-07-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

In our house any type of glasses are referred to as eyes. I think this may be because Jeff and I both wear glasses and the girls know that they help us see, thus they must be eyes. Heidi has had her own pair of sun "eyes" for over a year without breaking them (that has to be some sort of child record somewhere). Clara is now old enough to know how to put them on and she was continually stealing Heidi's. Last week we made it over to the beach (which equals a visit to the outlets) and we found some super cute glasses marked $2.50 so I thought I would get Clara her own pair, I was even happier when they rang up at $1.19! (They are at The Children's Place if you want a good deal!). Here are some pictures of my girls in their cute glasses.
This is how Clara smiles, she is saying EEEEE!
How do you keep these things on your face?
Ever the movie star.

That is all for now, I love my girls!

Movie confessions and 5 for 5 out!

2009-07-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

It seems that Jeff and I have become quite the movie nerds these past few months. By this I do not mean that we have been going to tons of movies, I mean we have just been going to the ones that have nerdy cult followings. Our confession is we actually celebrated our 6 year anniversary in May by seeing Wolverine and Star Trek....on the same day. They were both awesome! Although I would have to say I liked Start Trek a little better, but I am still far from calling myself a Treky.

Our other confession is that we have already seen the new Harry Potter. We went to the first night midnight showing! We may have been the only people who were over 17, married, without children in line at the local theater where it was showing on 5 screens! It was very good, but sad - although the 6th book is sad so they didn't really have a way around that. First we only found horrible seats in the front row all the way at an end, and then a kind, cute man in the food line stuck up a conversation with me (he may have been trying to hit on me, but it has been a while so I just made sure to drop the "husband" word!) and I found out we could change theaters - we did and got seats in the back row with is much more conducive to watching movies with bifocals. Thank you kind, cute man - our experience was much better than it would have been.

And now for the second part of my title. I am watching my friends kids today as she has been ordered to bed rest to keep a baby brewing another week, you can read her story here if you like. Her three boys are adored by (and adore) Heidi, but this is my first time solo with all 5. I am proud to say that for almost an hour the house has been quite as all have fallen asleep. Can I just say again I love having a park behind my house where little bodies can run themselves tired!

How does our garden grow???

2009-07-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

When we moved in to our house our back yard was a mess!! It had several nice features like 3 very good sized fruit trees and lots of room. It also came with lots and lots of weeds. It has been just over a year now and I though I would show you some of the progress we have made as well as some of the ideas we have for our yard. I couldn't find very many pictures of what the yard looked like when we moved in, but there are a few.
This is the start of one of our bigger projects of last year. We had 2 of these large tires to empty and move. We got rid of one and moved the larger of the 2 to the opposite end of the yard to become to center of our future raised garden beds.Here it is in place with the beds around it! Yeah! Jeff got these built this last weekend and here he is scooping cow poo in to them so we will have lovely dirt to grow lots of yummy stuff in next year. Thanks Jeff and Alysun.
Here is another picture from last year. My mom, Heidi, and I are trying to tame down the weeds in the beds along the house. We had some that were over 6 feet tall! Right in front of Heidi you can see and small green plant, that is the rhubarb we planted last year.
Here is our rhubarb this year with a few herbs around it. In the last week I got the pavers set in to frame off the bed. I also made the planting area of the bed bigger by sifting 4 5 gallon buckets of rocks out to have a good hose area with rock under it rather than rocks with a lot of dirt covering them. Yeah!
Here is the bed on the other side of the sliding glass door. These are all dahlias! This week I am hoping to finish off framing this one. It shouldn't take too long as my sister has already squared off the bed.
This shows some more of the progress we have made this year. Jeff is taking down the suckers from the center of our pear tree. Some of these babies were over 30 feet! The tree had really been neglected for along time. We got a few off of it last year, now it is loaded. Yeah!

Also notice the lovely trees running down the fence in the right of the picture. We think these were supposed to be a hedge, but as with many things in our yard they were neglected and got about 12 feet tall. They are now gone! Yeah! Thanks Nic. We are planning on putting grapes along this whole fence.
We have also added an entertaining piece to the yard. Thanks to my wonderful husband and one of our college group guys, we have a 10 minute fire pit - they were speedy! We have had a fire at least once a week in it to make s'mores. Eventually we would like to do a dry set paver patio with the fire pit built into it.
I though this was just a cute picture of me and the girls. This is how we have been getting through these last few really hot afternoons. Neither of them really like to get all the way in the pool, but they really like to copy mommy!
Awwww, Jeff's pride and joy! The manure we got was chaulk full of lovely red wrigglers - which is apparently the correct type of worms to use for vermicomposting. He dug through the poo to get enough to start his worm bin. Also note you can't see ribs in Jeffs chest!

That is about all we have done. There is a whole lot more to go, but at least we can see some progress. Please let us know if you have any tips for getting rid of weeds, chances are we have it in our yard. Our battle cry will be "death to morning glory" for the next several weeks as we try to get rid of the retched weed. Then we can decide what to do with the the 5,000 dandy lions that have taken a liking to here. Funny thing is the park that is along 2 of our fence lines has no weeds. Oh, the wonder of chemicals.

Bonks!

2009-06-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

Clara is at that lovely stage of falling down - a lot! She had been doing really well with avoiding scrapes and bruises until this weekend. Here is what her head looked like after the weekend;
The one on left the is from Friday at VBS she tripped smack into a corner of a cupboard, ouch! She was apparently done crying very quickly, but they decided to come get me anyway because of how fast a goose egg was forming. Oh, WOW, was there a goose egg, by the time I was there it was sticking out about 1/2 an inch. What a tough girl! The swelling is down now, there is just a good bruise that the flash wanted to shine on.

The one on the right looks like a rug burn. I picked her up from Sunday School and it was starting to show, but no body seemed to know what she did so she must not have made a fuss. What a tough girl!

of endoscopies and diagnosis

2009-06-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago Jeff broke his diet. He began eating flour, sugar, starches all the 'normie' foods. Oddly he had very little reaction. This change was in preparation for an endoscopy. Not much really went wrong, a little bloating and gas, but no pain or other reaction.

On Friday Jeff had the endoscopy, camera and light down the throat to look at the intestines and stomach. The result was very encouraging. overall the result was normal. The Gastroenterologist said that it looks better than expected, a normal healthy intestine. He is going to be reviewing the biopsies to see what it may be wrong.

It could be that Jeff never had Crohns, nor Celiacs, but just had a kink in his intestines originally. Since this part was cut out it may be that Jeff is healthy. As it stands Jeff is a medical mystery and the Doc's are going to be reviewing his case to see what is up.

There is the other option that Jeff had Crohns and was relieved by the Specific Carbohydrate Diet which was created in 1890 to cure Celiacs but then left behind in favor of Pharmacutical company based maintance which doesn't end the problem (healthy people don't buy meds).

Either way Jeff will probably return to the diet just to secure the change, but won't be quite as fanatic about it.

So Praise God for healing.

Our first CQ!!

2009-06-19T18:38:00.000-07:00

Clara is now starting to talk and fully relate most of the sounds she is making to whatever the current situation may be. It has not taken very long for her silly personality to show its face in her speech. So our first blog worthy Clara quote is here. This morning while I was brushing Heidi's hair she had a few good rats and she said several ouches in the process of removing them. Clara loves to have done to her whatever her big sister has done. She backed her little body up to have her hair brushed and stood still. As I glided the brush over the very little hair that she has that is so fine it holds no tangles at all she said, "ouch, ouch, ouchie!" several time! It was very cute.

Graduation!

2009-06-18T09:04:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are pictures of my brothers graduation. And that's all, just pictures and comments on them.

Finally done! (I know it is a silly picture, he never stops making faces!)All four of us graduated from Rogue Community College. Me in '00, Ailah in '03, Kayla in '06, and Derek in '09! My parents committed to financially helping us all get our associates degree, I don't think they fully realized what that meant with 4 kids- they have had some one at this college every year since 1996! Boy are they glad to be done too!
My brother in law, Ben, also graduated the same day with 4 different things, he has been there a little while.We can never seem to get a good picture of the family, to many goofy people and tired kids, but hey this proves we were all there!Uncle Derek and the girls. Heidi's comment on this picture was, "Oh, that is so cute" said in a very sappy voice.

Good job Derek and Ben! You are done! We are proud of you!

Sprinklers!

2009-06-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

We love having the park behind our house. Whenever we get the urge to park play we don't have far to go and it is a beautiful outside eating location. I often wondered how it was kept so beautiful. I figured they watered it because on a summer mornings there is puddles under the swings - but I have never once seen the sprinklers on. It was a mystery.

Our mystery was solved a few weeks ago when it was really, really hot. The parks and rec. guys came out to set the sprinklers for the year and informed me that the sprinklers are usually on at 5:00a.m. (now I know why I never saw them), but for one day each year they are on during the day to run there course after they have been set.

We were lucky enough to be home on this day this year and it was hot so Heidi had a great time!
I wish I knew what day it would be next year so I could invite everyone for a park sprinkler party. Because really, who wouldn't want to run in a beautiful park full of sprinklers!

Another on bites the dust!

2009-06-09T21:55:00.000-07:00

Remember the lovely green that had a glorious peach death last month? Well there was only one other room in our entire house that was painted a color other that white when we moved in, it was another lovely green. Someday I will eventually show you pictures of the other beautiful bedrooms I have bathed in color, but not today. Today is the day you get to see the death of heinous green number two! Most of those little white spots are small holes that had to be patched, I think the previous residents had a love affair with staplers. And the green paint would start peeling and just keep going - great. But wait it gets better! To fully pull the room the previous residents decided to paint the interior of the closet a very thin coat of a lovely purple.
Just emptying the room was a feat of its own. I sadly cannot find any pictures of the six foot pile that once occupied the majority of this room, but believe me it was very real.

This room has served many purposes over the last year. Guest room (on the floor), office, but mostly place to put everything we didn't have a place for. The room will now be serving the purpose of "sisters room", Odessa's sister Kayla is moving in for a while. Really most of the transforming work had to be done anyway just so she could actually live in the room. It took me the better part of 3 days to prep the room and only 6 hours to paint it (once again thanks to my friend Sue!) so it really wasn't that much more work. And now listen as heinous green gives its final screams under the squelching foot of soothing blue.
I missed getting pictures before my sis started moving in, but hey the room was done on time!

We choose the blue because it should fit any of the many ideas we have for the future of the room. It would be a very soothing TV den or make a lovely room for our some day adopted son. Much more versatile than lime green, don't you think?

Overdue and a few QHs

2009-06-08T16:04:00.000-07:00

I am a bad blogger, I know it. I get these really good post ideas and then the day gets away from me and before I know it is to late to post something because it would be completely irrelevant. This time it is late, but still important enough to write about it. So here it goes.

One year, one week and one day ago my brother was in his wreck. I thought I would give everyone one last update on how he is doing. It took until about 4 months ago to be considered back to normal, but he has pretty much made a full recovery. He has purchased a new truck and is able to ride his motorcycle again. The only thing that seems to hurt is flying. He went back to Indiana last month for a wedding and said he pretty much had to just look left the whole time the cabin was pressurized because he couldn't move his head. A few weeks ago he was up to help with the big roofing project and was able to do all of the work just fine. Praise God for a full recovery.

I was going to be a good sister and post a picture of him on the one year anniversary, but remember I am a bad blogger and forgot to take the picture. I promise I will make it up to you and post a picture after I see him this weekend for his graduation. He finally gets to graduate with his AA! It was just two weeks before graduation last year when he wrecked. He has now completed the last 2 classes he needed and can graduate.

If any of you have no idea what I am talking about here are there are links to old posts just after he wrecked here, here and here, but be warned some of the pictures may be disturbing. I just have to say again, praise God for a full recovery!

And a couple HQs just for laughs and because we have been lacking in them lately. Today I asked her what she wanted for dinner and she answered roasted marshmallows in a sandwich with chocolate and crackers (I think she thought that if she had it as a sandwich rather than a S'moore she might actually get it to pass as healthy dinner).

Then last week after Sunday school she told me in the hall that she had learned a new song "you can't get to heaven on roller skates". Her teach then started singing the song, which is a silly song about all the ways you can't get to heaven, i.e. in a limousine, submarine, etc. So wanting to test how much of the lesson had sunk in I asked her how you do get to heave. She then replied very matter of factly and with an big ol' smile, "You have to die!!" Once again we see the theology of the young.

Our little genius!

2009-06-04T20:41:00.000-07:00

WARNING! Parental bragging ahead! We have always though Heidi was a little ahead of the learning curve. We really didn't do any schooling with her at home (I know, bad parents), but this was mostly because she was catching on to concepts so fast she was getting way to far ahead. We know our child, and when she gets bored she can be a handful and a half! We didn't want to bless any teach with anymore Heidi-ness than was necessarily. After thinking about it for awhile and being encouraged by a friend/teacher (OK he actually brought us an application at church), we decided to try Heidi out for kindergarten a full year early at a private school. Today was test day. She came in at above average for spelling, average for reading, and slightly below for math. Not bad, but the twist is the "average" chart didn't even go down to children her age, she had to be evaluated against 5 year olds, which she isn't even 5 until December and 7 months of your life can make a big difference when you are only 4! She is definately above average for her age and we are now the parents of a school age child. Yep, jumping right into 5 days a week haveing to get her out the door and a much more set routine. Boy is she excited!

We may sign her up for Mensa...but that may be overkill.

I am woman...hear me roar.

2009-05-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

It seems that I have been in touch with my more manly side lately. With the many jobs we have to do around the house and the time they need to be done in,I have needed to help in some new areas. I feel I have gone where many house wives have not. Let me explain.

In the last week and a half I have:

Helped work on the re-roofing project (OK, most of it was errand girl and hours on the phone, but I was on the roof for over an hour yesterday to help with tear off and that has to count for something)
Driven my father-in-laws big ol' diesel all by myself (don't worry Larry, the truck is fine!)
Thrown as least a cord of fire wood with some of the pieces being up to 24 inches across (Jeff let me know that the ax was in the garage, but I'm not feeling quite that manly)
And the icing on the cake, I ran the chain saw for over an hour (OK, so I couldn't start it by myself, but I still cut a lot of wood)

Whew that makes me tired and sore in more places than I knew existed just thinking about it. I think I will go have a nice cup of tea and paint my toe nails just to balance out the testosterone!

FYI the roofing project is going well. the tear off is done and the guys have started laying the under layer. Not bad for 2 days for some silly kids who haven't done this before.Jeff hard at work.

It's so quiet

2009-05-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

I though I would let you know what we are up to this week. Jeff has the whole week off (yeah) to put a new roof on the house (boo). In order to complete the project, we needed Jeff's dad's air compressor and nail gun. So we squeezed in a quick 2 day trip for Jeff and Heidi to go up to southern WA to pick up the tools and his dads truck. They took the train up yesterday, because I had way to much to do for the final MoPS to take them up, and are heading home tomorrow morning. All of this results in 36 very quiet hours for me. If you have been around my family for any length time you will know that Heidi talks a lot...all the time. I find myself actually turning on music and the TV just for some noise. Clara is now old enough to miss her sister, I don't think I have ever heard her say "Heidi" so many times in one day. I am enjoying this time, but I am also ready for them to be home. This may be more due to the fact of Jeff being gone as well. It has been almost 5 years since I have had to be home alone all night by myself. I don't like it! But boy was my house secure last night!

Outings

2009-05-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

Thought I would post a few pictures of some family outings we have had in the last couple of weeks. First we went to the Ag Fest in Salem at the end of April. It was the first year we have gone and we had a blast.
Here is Heidi riding a pedal tractor in the tractor races.
Heidi also got to take her first pony ride, Clara tried but was scare to death of them!Here is Heidi milking her first (cardboard) cow.Here is both of the girls "gettin' jiggy wid it" up on stage with Disney radio.

Then this last weekend we headed to Silver Creek Falls for mothers day. Jeff and I had not been since college days and I had forgotten how beautiful it is. We had a little bit of an adventure finding parking - it was packed! We then hiked to 3 different falls. Heidi was such a big girl and walked the whole time. Clara managed to stay safely strapped onto Daddy's back the whole time. (She did not like the spray from the falls, or the cliffs leading to some falls.) We figured the whole trip was about 2 miles!We managed to get a good family photo thanks to some fellow hikers.Here are the girls taking a little break.That is me and the girls way back behind one of the big falls.Heidi took this picture of us, and we are standing right in front of the water fall it is really hard to tell a 4 year old how to line up the camera to get the view!
Here is one of the beautiful falls.

It is a great time of year to go as everything is still so full and there is a good chance you will have nice weather. It is totally worth the drive, but there is a $3 fee for a day pass now - that is new since college days! That would have been too expensive back then, now it is a cheap day. We are moving up in the world.

Ta-Da! All done (almost)

2009-05-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

The moment you have all been waiting on the edge of your seats for is here! The kitchen is done (mostly, there are a few small projects I want to do over the summer to pull it all together). If you have not seen the dreadful mess that was my kitchen before or if you need a good scare of a refresher then click here before you continue. We finished at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, the pictures below were taken just 5 and a half days after the ones in the old post. And now, on with the show - I will highlight some of my favorite new things as we go, enjoy:
Yeah for white cupboards, and a vent hood, and knobs on upper cabinets doors (we think this is the first time in our married life that we have had knobs on our kitchen cabinets!)
All of these dishes are clean, really. It is just that without a dishwasher and the need of the shelf above to continue drying there is really no where to put dishes. They will get put away soon, I promise.
Yeah for art on my walls again!
Yeah for new paint color. I was really tired of feeling like I was cooking inside of a sun faded hospital scrub.Yeah for our new fish tank and deal score on an IKEA dresser. Jeff and I have kept fish (in fact some of the same fish) all 6 years we have been married, so a bigger fish tank is really exciting.

After looking back at the old pictures I think a good cleaning would have done the old kitchen a bunch of help, but hey it was after a busy weekend and the kitchen was messy. I am VERY happy with the weeks work and am a much happier cook.

And so I am held accountable, here is my to-do list for the kitchen this summer:

Make curtains out of eyelet fabric for window above sink
Paint and hang a plate rail shelf in dining room (it will go where the different colors meet)
Refinish 2 bar stools for seating at the island
Put fabric behind glass doors of dresser so storage mess is hidden

And if we are lucky:

Replace sliding glass doors with french doors (which we do have in the garage!)
Paint and install baseboards

I want to say thanks to my mom who came for a whole week to help and my friend Sue for helping paint - thanks guys! I am so happy with the results of all the work that went into the kitchen. I go in and feel happy now.

In need of a make over!

2009-05-07T23:41:00.000-07:00

As many of you know we bought our first home about a year ago. It was a fixer-upper, but not in that bad of shape. In the first few month's we did a lot but then life happens (and winter) and not a lot gets done. Well no longer! You are about to see what can be done in five days in a room that desperately needed attention. Below are photos of the kitchen/dining area that we have been living in for a year. They are very accurate portrayals of our real life, they were take first thing Monday morning nothing staged.And the final result...well for that you will have to wait!

There goes all the wisdom I ever had!

2009-04-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

I feel as if I should be asking for sympathy from everyone, but I am not. And it is not because I don't want it, believe me I can complain! It is because I really don't need it.

Let me explain - yesterday I had all of my wisdom teeth pulled in one fell swoop, with only local numbness, I didn't even need the laughing gas. I guess I am one of the lucky few that this isn't that bad for. Don't get me wrong, I hate being in the dentist chair with bone grinders in my mouth, blood everywhere, and hearing the sound of my teeth breaking just as much as any other person. Today I am doing really well. I promise this isn't pain meds talking, I am fully cognitive. Other than a very painful hour yesterday waiting for pain meds this has been tolerable. I think that the 2 hour nap I stole today really helped, but I also made it to Bible study on time, swept the floors, did 3 loads of laundry and kept my children alive today.

The good news of this extraction is it seems I am part super woman. Apparently I have really dense bones. I mean really dense bones. The doctor on a scale of 1-10 gives me a 9.5, leaving the .5 for just in case there is someone out there who has stronger bones naturally. This is really good news for everyday, really bad news if you are pulling teeth (I will spare you the details). I guess this is why I have never broken any bone ever. It also means that I have a very low chance of having osteoporosis, yeah!

It wasn't nearly as bad as the labor pains I had for Heidi and Clara, but then again I did't get a baby out of it either. Just some extra room in my mouth that I really needed. And to think I paid to have this done, volunteering myself for this. Oh well, off to my dinner of pudding and squash soup.

Big words

2009-04-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

Heidi is growing up. She is making the cute funny connections with words and their surrounding contexts less often. This in no way means she is a lack of entertainment. She is moving on to bigger words and concepts. Here are a few as of late that I can remember.

Terrifies - We were on the way to the coast and we were playing "guess the animal I am thinking of" (our version of 20 questions, but you can only choose to be thinking of an animal and it is OK to ask more than 20 questions). After Jeff and I had asked several questions and she had said yes to every single one, the animal really wasn't making since at all (we think she just wanted to be right and yes is always the right answer, right?); so she decided to give us a hint. "It terrifies little princesses!" Oh, yes that would be a dragon. Does that still count as a animal?

Emergency - Her Mega Blocks doll house had several "emergencies" yesterday as she could not get the pieces to stick together as she wanted and she wanted me to fix them. Never mind that it was a great e-bay find that was used and has a few broken pieces (that we knew about) which is what she was wanting me to fix.

Spirit - This one is more of a concept. Jeff had told her that Jesus had helped him get better when he had been in the hospital. So of course being a literal 4 year old thinker, she thought Jesus had been right there. We tried to explain that it had been the spirit of Jesus that had helped him. She asked, "What is that?" Yeah, good question, especially since you are 4 and have no idea that a non physical world exists. How would you satisfy that question without a zillion other "why" questions following it? (Jeff here, I have come to determine that mysticism, theology and complete literal minds just don't mix...which is why we need all new sunday school curriculum. somebody write it)

Seattle!

2009-04-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

WARNING!! Lots of pictures coming!

Last week the girls and I got to have quite an adventure! We got to go visit some family in Seattle. Jeff's brother and his wife live up there and since we don't get to see them very often, we headed up for a visit on their spring break (they're teachers). It was so much fun!! Unfortunately my wonderful, gracious husband had to stay behind because ODOT doesn't have spring break (although with the way furloughs are being purposed, it may happen in the future... but that is another story). But my sister came along, so I had wonderful help. And now on with the show!

Here we are in the train on the way up. It was really fun to take the train up, I was nice to be able to get up and walk around and Heidi was so excited to have the way over priced bagel from the restaurant on the train!Clara dancing with Uncle Jon.Heidi making breakfast with Aunt Jess.With the famous Pikes Place fish market pig. With me being a pig collector, I though it would be great to have a miniature of this for my collection - can you believe we couldn't find one anywhere! I came home with a wooden toy pig because it is literally the only pig we found the whole trip.This was a beautiful arboretum we found at Volunteer park - and the best part, it was free!This was the cactus room in the arboretum, they were huge!Throwing pennies in the arboretums wishing well. There were bug eating plants just behind the girls that any little boy would have drooled over, but my girls wouldn't even look at them the thought of a wishing well was just to romantic (sigh).A sculpture at Volunteer Park, you can just barely see the space needle in the background.A picture of the space needle taken from the top of a tower in Volunteer Park. BTW Heidi climbed all the stairs up and down the tower by herself - it was well over 100!We took the ferry over to Bainbridge Island one day.

We made it to the nose of the boat long enough for one picture, it was FREEZING wind.One night we were treated to cupcakes from the Cupcake Royal - a Seattle company that makes gourmet cupcakes. We had honey peanut brittle, Yummy.This was a water fall park we found a few blocks from the train station while we were waiting for our train home. It was carved out of the corner of a block and was enclosed on all sides so it was really loud.On the train ride home Heidi slept, Clara did not.Clara's most exciting part of the trip... discovering she has pockets in her clothes!

It was a wonderful (and tiring) trip with lots of walking and tons of great food. Thanks Jon and Jess for a great time and lots of visiting, and thanks Kayla for all your help (especially watching the girls so we could go to the crepe restaurant!).

Good News!!

2009-04-23T18:49:00.000-07:00

Here is the next chapter in the ever continuing saga of the Kershner's health.

Clara had her follow up appointment on Wednesday up at Emmanuel and it was all good news! All of the lab work came back with no signs of Celiacs and she is gaining weight well. She weighed in at a whopping 19lbs and 13oz! This is a significant increase, in fact she is almost in the weight curve range for her age. Apparently the average toddler of her age gains weight at an average of 4 to 10 grams a day, her average for the last 69 days is 16 grams a day. So not only is she gaining well with in her own personal curve, she is catching up to average! If she continues on this path we are good, next check isn't for 3 months and we don't need anymore blood (yeah). There it is in plain man and scientific man terms - God is Good!!!

Easter weekend!

2009-04-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

But first an update on the last post. We decided to go ahead and do the blood work again - but at a different hospital. I took Clara down to Corvallis yesterday and it was SO MUCH BETTER!! They still had to go in to both arms, but they we so much more polite and patient. Poor Clara must have known they didn't get what they needed the first time because after she calmed down and we were ready to try again, she pulled up on her sleeve and held her arm out! What a brave girl.

Now on to Easter! We had a fabulous weekend all around. This year my parents rented a house over at the beach and we spent the whole weekend with all of my family - 10 in all. I don't have a lot of time to write, so here is a lot of picture to give you an idea! Thanks mom and pop for a great weekend!

Heidi dying eggs

Rock climbing

My brother in law Ben caught a fish with his hands

Heidi hunts for eggs at the beach house

Clara hunts for eggs at the beach house

The only picture we got of the 4 of us

Happy Easter girls who wouldn't look at the camera because it was more fun to kick the tote!

Frustrated with Phlebotomist!

2009-04-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

I know I have been absent from the blogging world, and it isn't because we haven't had anything interesting happen lately, I just haven't made it a priority. So I apologize to all who have been faithfully checking for updates, and I am warning you in advance that I am returning with a post of frustration.

As many of you know, we have had some health concerns with Clara. We have been to see the doctor up at Emmanuel hospital and as expected, she ordered some lab work. (BTW she was very impressed that Jeff is on the diet he is on, she likes it but rarely prescribes it because of how hard it is to stay on - way to go Jeff!!) Jeff had said he would be the hero (or in Clara's mind the villain), which means he had to take an extra long lunch, and I would have to be on time getting into town with everything (including a stool sample) ready to go. A few weeks ago we got everything set to take Clara in for the draw.

It was horrible! The poor thing screamed the whole time (expected) AND they had to poke both arms!!! Apparently they couldn't find the vane the first time because she has unusually small, dodgy, deep vanes for someone her age and they were actually digging around for it. So they switched arms. Jeff really wanted to punch someone. She was slightly consoled with the stuffed giraffe they gave her and was very proud of a band-aid on both arms. She was better after some french fries and a frosty. Jeff was truly traumatized, and he isn't even allowed to have french fries or a frosty.

But wait it gets better..... A few days ago I get a call from Salem hospital lab (my reaction is heart stopping, what have the found that they are getting back to us so quickly, panic). Well apparently there was a labeling issue and every thing has to be thrown out without being tested and we have to come back in. YEAH RIGHT!!! Now I am mad.

What would you do?
1. Take her back in for doctored ordered tests
2. Say it looks like she is finally starting to grow well and skip everything.
3. Find a different lab to work with
4. Change the approach and just do an endoscopy which she would be asleep for, but could possibly be just as traumatic.
5. (Please insert any suggestions here!)

We are still here!

2009-02-24T17:02:00.003-08:00

We have been without a computer for a few days as Jeff has been doing a desperately needed reformatting. It was kinda weird not having it for a few days, but it was so worth it - it is so much faster now on everything! I will post more later, but for now I will leave you with a great HQ that came yesterday while taking a bath:

"People from South America eat grass hoppers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

There you go! What better bath time thoughts are there?

Happy Valentines Day!

2009-02-14T11:29:00.000-08:00

We would like to wish everyone a very happy valentines day!

I was so proud of myself this year I actually got 9 cards out on time to all of our family, I am always late. I got the idea from my Better Homes and Gardens this year and what I made was similar to below, I layered a lot more paper for accents and decorated them. They turned out pretty cute. Of course I mailed them all without taking any pictures.

Heidi has had so much fun this year getting ready for Valentines day. We have made several cards and made cookies and last night we threw up some decorations to surprise her this morning. You would have thought it was the the best Christmas morning ever! Here are a few pictures from the last week of our prep.

Making Daddy's big card.
Decorating cookies with Emma
This is for Emma, I promised I would post the picture of the two girls in matching sweaters in a box so she could see it.

Every girls dream!

2009-02-08T12:34:00.000-08:00

A Chocolate Facial!

Heidi really enjoyed cleaning a bowl for me the other day! She also gave a completely unrelated HQ. She was singing a song and she told me she wrote it herself, "you know, last year when I was in high school and I was 98!" We are still working on the concept of time.

For Sale!

2009-02-02T16:52:00.001-08:00

We have had our car for sale for a while now and have had several lookers, but no buyers. The time has come to use my faithful bolg followers as advertisers. Here's what we got -

2004 Toyota Matrix Xr. 65K miles. Getting around 38 MPG hwy. Runs and Drives perfectly, clean and non-smoker. All maintenance done regularly. Clean title and title in hand. Features: Dual Air Bag, Air Conditioning, Power Mirrors, Power Windows, Anti-Lock Brakes, Stereo/CD/Cass, Cruise Control, Power Steering, Automatic 1.8L 4 Cyl, Power Door Locks, Fog Lights, Tilt Wheel. No problems with this car. Can seat four adults comfortably (would be great for a carpool).

Help us sell our car please!

We love this car and it is in great shape, but with having kids the mini van is much more practical. We are asking $11,000 or best offer, call us at (503)838-6428. Thanks!

Oops!

2009-01-30T15:33:00.000-08:00

Monday I was down in Albany with my mom and we had gotten a little turned around. My mom said we needed to be going the opposite direction so why not flip a u turn. I told her yeah right, I'm driving a minivan! Well I swung into the next driveway and decided to try a u-turn. There was no one around....except a cute little black car right in my blind spot. The car turned right with me in the u-turn until about half way in which is when I saw it, .27 seconds later wham!
Everyone was fine, though you wouldn't have though so with the other ladies initial reaction. And luckily we have full coverage on the van so we just have a small deductible to pay. Maybe it is a possible blessing the Matrix hasn't sold, even though we have had 3 people look at it, now we have a back up car while the van is being fixed.

On a funnier note, later that day Heidi asked Jeff why he couldn't turn left on a particular road. He went on to explain that it is called a one way road so all the cars can only go one way. She replied, "Oh, so that means that if you go the wrong way you will hit cars, get lots of cracks in your car, and then have to do lots of paper work?"

It always comes down to the paper work doesn't it?

A yellow sippy lid

2009-01-23T17:48:00.000-08:00

Last night Clara was quite fussy and would not drink her milk at dinner. Usually she isn't the biggest milk fan, but she will drink it with dinner most days. Being cheap, I put the sippy in the fridg for the next day. This morning, I offered her the milk again. Before I even got it to her high chair she shook her head no and pushed the cup away when I gave it to her. Now I know she was really thirsty, what is the matter! I looked and it looked like the holes on the cheap push on lid may have been plugged from being bitten to much, so I tossed the yellow lid in the trash and stuck on a green one. She drank the milk just fine, no fuss. I kinda though that was strange, but oh,well maybe she was just to frustrated with trying with no results.

But at lunch I gave her some apple juice in another cheap cup with another yellow sippy lid - same thing! She LOVES apple juice and had been very excited when the pitcher came out of the fridg. She didn't even give the cup a try. I said, "Maybe you don't like yellow." As a statement - not a question. Clara replied, "Un-uh!" So I changed the lid. Sure enough she drank it down. Apparently all yellow sippy lids are bad.

Do your kids have any wierd quirks that showed up at a very young age?

The flasher and coming out of the closet.

2009-01-21T17:17:00.000-08:00

My girls and their morality these days, I just don't know what I am going to do. First there is Heidi, she has become my flashing streaker.
Or so the picture implies. And please don't get me wrong, she is still perfectly willing to change clothes in front of anyone. Really, she just had so much energy one day I sent her out side to run to the mulch pile in her swim suit (her choice of attire for the day) and a fur coat in the wet grass to get some of it out.
Don't worry I am not a terrible mother - just creative. I knew she would be fine, the next place she was going was a warm shower, after which she ran around the inside of the house naked for five minutes. The real question is flasher or not flasher? Either way she has way to much energy.

Then there is Clara, who choose to come out of the closet last week. Really she did, literally!
See! She had no problem getting herself into this situation, the girl climbs on everything! And like every good mother I let her get herself out of it, taking pictures of course.
Male or female, who could resist those thighs? Clara, have you started painting mustaches on yourself to express your true inner being? Or maybe it is just lunch. We may never know the full implications of this event.

Jeff's Genetic Joke

2009-01-14T22:35:00.000-08:00

So I had some more blood work done. It turns out that I not only have Crohn's disease (confirmed from the doc's opening me up an looking inside) But whats more I also have all the genetic markers for Celiacs Disease. It is not 100% certain that I have both. I am just 3100% more likely than 'normal' people to have Celiacs....or as my Gut Doc put it "extreemly unlikely" I don't have it.

So, in June I am scheduled to have the Doctors do a viewing of my guts to check out their condition. Just an endoscopy (that is the camera going down, not up....) so no big worry.

Personally I think it is hilarious. Also, since I have already removed gluten it is no big deal.

Any body else have a wierd genetic thing? Different colored eyes that you have been hiding? Spontanious regeneration? Able to bend time and space? Come on waive your freak flag with pride. I do.

A successful insane attempt

2009-01-13T15:27:00.000-08:00

This last weekend was great. My grandmother was turning 75 on Saturday and my Aunt was throwing her a surprise party. I really wanted to go, especially when I found out there would be cousins there that I have not seen in 10 years. I came up with this crazy plan and pulled it off!

The plan: wake up at 4:00 a.m. to shower enough to be awake, put girls and sister in van half awake, kiss Jeff good bye - gently do to neck pain. We then drive to Albany to pick up my cousin and her 2 boys (ages 7 and 10) to max out every seat in the minivan, drive 7 hours to make it to the party on time. Once there, rush to the bathroom in the lodge (which was through the bar) to dress girls and myself, along with 4 other cousins. Surprise grandma big time! We got her good!

We then visited for a few hours hopped back in the van and drove 3 hours (half way home) to my parents for the night - where both girls ended up in bed with me and I didn't get much sleep. Then church on Sunday and hit the road again for home - 3 and half more hours.

All of the kids did fabulously. Heidi loved having the boys in the back with her, and all they have wanted for years is a sister, so she was spoiled. Having my cousins portable DVD player along was definitely a plus.

The trip was good - and hard. I love that I am part of a very large (and loud) family. Some of my cousins have made decisions that are hard to watch happen. I will always be there to love and support them, and pray that one day they will all find the peace that passes all understanding that I know.

Question: would you have attempted 4 kids in a minivan for 800 miles in 2 days?? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Jeff on narcotics

2009-01-09T11:31:00.000-08:00

We have the first appearance of JQs, that is Jeff Quotes. These were said in a narcotic induced state and are only being posted with his permission.

Here is some background. Do to some over exertion Christmas weekend, Jeff still has a very sore neck. With the diet that he is on he is really not suppose to take any medicines that are in pill or liquid form because they will all contain potato starch, corn starch, and/or sugar. The catch is if the substance never hits his stomach and intestines it is fine. We have had one trip to urgent care were he received a muscle relaxer, an anti-inflammatory, and a pain reliever all in injection form - which gave him some relief but resulted in a sore backside for a few days and a 103 fever for 24 hours. Not really wanting to go that rout again, he has be seeing a chiropractor and is taking a nasal spray narcotic pain reliever, which also has some nasty side effects and is very unpleasant to take. Last night while on the pain reliever he was hilarious. He had climbed into bed around 8:30 and about 9:00 the show started. Here is a rough breakdown of the next hour and a half. ENJOY!!

9:00 - Calls me into the room and asks me to help him take off his shirt because, "It is all sticky and covered in Clara's tooth paste. I already used Clara's tooth paste, you know the one that is not mint." I help him take off his shirt politely say good job (over the years Jeff has been on a lot of medication and I have found just agreeing works best when he is sleep talking).

9:10 - Calls me back in and asks, "Can you go get Clara's tooth paste? I need it for my back."
I reply, "Yes honey I will be back in a little bit."

9:25 - Calls to me again, and I think I asked him if he was awake. He replied, "Yes I just can't open my eyes, are you getting the tooth paste?"
"Yes, Honey" and I start to leave.
He says "Your lying!"
"Honey you are asking me to rub Clara's tooth paste on your back."
"No, the tooth paste that is in the silver dollar container!"
"Do you mean the Tiger Balm?"
"YES!"

9:35 - I go in with the Tiger Balm and am rubbing it on his neck and he tells me about this dream he had, "We were in Toledo, Spain, and we were trying to by swords, but they wouldn't sale us any because our legs were wrong."
Thinking he was really some what awake I replied, "You gotta love narcotics."
"No they were swords men, not drug dealers."
I tried to explain I meant he was having crazy dreams on narcotics, I don't think he got it.

9:45 - I finished the massage, and told him I would be in in a little bit. He replied, "Do we have any ice cream?" My mind is racing here trying to figure out how to tell him he can't have the ice cream that is in the freezer because, well, he can't have ice cream; but he saved me with, "NO, BLUEBERRIES!!! I really want some blueberries."
"OK, but they will be frozen"

I go get him some blueberries, just a few, in a bowl and bring them in.

9:47 - He pops up as if nothing is wrong his eyes are still closed and I hand him the bowl of blueberries. "Oh, honey you are the greatest, and they are even in a bowl!"
"Yes they are in a bowl, I will be in in 10 minutes to check on you and come to bed."

10:05 - (I was a little late). I come in and he is sitting up in bed just as I had left him, the blueberries are gone and he has a folded blanket around his shoulders. I must have startled him when I came in because he jumped and said with his eyes still closed, "Oh, hi Hun. I woke up sitting up and I was eating the most delicious blueberries! And then I thought I was the king of Rohan, but I knew I really wasn't the king of Rohan. Why is this blanket over my shoulders, is it because I am the king of Rohan?"
"No, you are not the king of Rohan. Lie down and go back to sleep."
"I don't want to go to sleep, I want some cheese."
"No honey, you need to go to sleep."
I finally get him down, and get into bed.
I hear a pouted, "I really want some cheese, I'm going to go get some, what do we have?"
I list of what is in the fridge.
"What should I go eat?" as he is pathetically trying to get out of bed.
"Stay in bed I will go get you some cheese." (aren't I a good wife?)
"No you are in bed, I will get it my self."
I quickly get out of bed to beat him up, "You should not be holding a knife right now I will go get you a slice of cheddar."
"Oh, OK."

He mumbled a few more things after finishing his cheese and finally went to sleep around 10:30. It took awhile for me to fall asleep because I kept rehashing everything that had happened so I could write it down the next day - and it is very hard to fall asleep when you are laughing.

Why everyone needs a 4 year old girl living with them.

2009-01-07T16:52:00.000-08:00

This is for those of you without children who can't even imagine there is a world like this that people actually live in, and for everyone who has or has had a 4 year old daughter and needs a laugh because they know what I am about to disclose is true. Everyone who doesn't fall into these two categories, enjoy anyway and I hope this brings a smile to your face.

The top 15 things in the life of a four year old female in no particular order:

1. A good or bad day is established by how much pink you are wearing.

(This is a good day - minus the pants of course)

2. A day without "Blues Clues" or "The Wiggles" is like a day with out your significant other, sad and lonely.

3. Tu-tus are acceptable daily attire, and at times even required.

4. Loves and snuggles fix everything. Although, while they sound nice they last an average of 2.5 seconds on a good day.
5. All babies are breastfed. This includes purple bears, ducks, and gender confused girl dolls named Simon. Babies have a choice - milk on one side, juice on the other.

6. Since Mommy has stopped breastfeeding Clara, she must not be taking care of her. Thus I will take it upon myself to take care of Clara. Mommy now gets Simon. Taking care of Clara does not include feeding her, putting her down for naps, or changing her diaper.
7. When wearing jewelry, one must wear all the jewelry they own, or divide it between all who are present.

8. A good meal includes dancing, during not after.
9. Death is scary and something no one in the family should do. Although, when told that meat is dead animals I just want to know what kind. I have no problem knowing I am eating a pig, fish, cow, or chicken. Pet fish dieing don't faze me at all, it only creates a hard choice - should we flush it or feed it to the turtle. Luckily we have not had to face that decision for several months, it is terrible on Mommy.

10. It is perfectly acceptable to change into your PJs in the middle of the living room, even if there is company over.

11. A day without coloring is a day unfinished.
12. It is always a good idea to wait until the very last possible second to go the the bathroom. It is a very dramatic affect to run down the hall holding everything in (with you hands of corse) yelling for help.

13. Kittens can be carried by any part of their body and live.

14. You should cook in your (pretend) kitchen only if you are filming for Rachel Ray.

15. A "bubidul" hair style is one that includes every hair clip you own.

(Here you have a very patient mommy, she was even more "bubidul" on the top and sides!)

Jeff's take on the PJ Pizza Parade

2008-12-24T20:39:00.000-08:00

So on my diet Pizza is a major no-no. Flour and sugar in the crust, usually sugar in the tomato sauce, lactose in Mozzarella and pepperoni, starch as an anti-caking agent on the preshredded cheese the restaurants gets. I would spend Christmas in major pain or soaring on narcotics, neither is my idea of a good time...well narcotics are fun in a different way,

So with some research and a bit of intuition I made this up...a gluten/sugar/lactose free pizza crust.
3 cups cooked Spaghetti Squash
2 eggs
1/4 cup shredded cheddar or jack cheese
1/4 cup cooked white beans
Italian herbs and spices.

whirrrr this together in food processor, put in oiled pie plate
bake at 350. I haven't quite figured out how long to bake it...go for browned and i may be pick-upable. It was a bit crumbly...maybe oil in the crust...try it and tell my what you come up with

Mine made enough for two pizzas. Top how you like to...It's a Pizza go crazy, artichoke and olive, or change the seasoning in the crust to a more spanish style and do a taco pizza.

Family traditions are too important to skip. This is how I made it work.

Tell us about some of your favorite christmas traditions.

We've been iced!

2008-12-24T17:52:00.000-08:00

Our front yard looks like the wrong end of a high school prank. With the melting that finally came today, all the ice that was balanced on the branches of the tree in our front yard slid off. It is a very twiggy tree and so it had a lot of long pieces of ice that broke when they hit the ground. The result is that our yard looks like someone went and bought about 20 bags of the round ice cubes and dumped it all over our yard!
This is all ice cube size, I promise! It got a little dark before I got the pictures done. Boy am I glad this is all that is left of the last 10 days. We actually had 10 days of winter, I think that is a new record for this area.

Now off to put on PJs and eat pizza in the car while we look a Christmas lights! I love this tradition.

A great HQ

2008-12-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I made tuna salad for lunch. It is from home canned tuna with all the natural oils still in it so it is very good for you. Heidi is usually very interested in what is in her food and how it will help her body. I was trying to get her to eat it and told her, "It has special oil in it called omega 3 and it makes your brain smart." Her reply was, "But I don't want a smart brain, I just want to be cute. I am daddy's little princess and princesses are suppose to be cute, not smart." Oh dear.

I know what we will be doing next spring

2008-12-22T14:13:00.000-08:00

So we are still stormin here. Freezing rain, aka sleet I am told, is not fun. I can deal with snow, I don't really like it after a while, but I can handle it. Over a half inch of ice on everything out doors is crazy!

Trees were around here were not told they were ever going to have to hold as much weight as they were asked to a few days ago. For about 24 hours starting early Sunday morning we had branches, some the size of trees, falling all up and down the block. We were very glad to move into an established neighborhood with lots of trees, we'll see how many make it. This is our front yard.
That is all the farther I ventured out for pictures today, but hey do I get points for doing it bare foot? Our park has tons of branches down, and the 10 foot hedge we had along our back fence is bent to about 4 feet now.

Really we have made it through very well, neither of our cars were hit, and nothing on our house has been damaged. The fruit trees in our back yard had their branches much closer to the ground this summer when they were full of apples, so they should be fine. And, yes, there are still apples on them! Our neighbors across the street lost their front gutter and the ones next to us lost part of their fence and have a large portion of a tree still on their house. The up side is we are one of a small handful in the neighborhood with a wood stove - can we say FREE WOOD!

We still have not thawed completely from any of the waves of weather we have had in the last week, walking even in our back yard is hard. So next spring we will be cleaning and pruning, and replanting, and pruning, and cutting fire wood and pruning. Hopefully most of our plants have made it. And yes, it is snowing again - this time on top of the ice.

"It's beginning to look alot like Cristmas..."

2008-12-19T13:45:00.000-08:00

Yeah like Christmas in Montana or some place where there is always snow in the winter. Not the Willamette valley of Oregon. Here are a few things that set the mood:
I am thankful for all of these things. Even the snow that I am really getting tired of. It is a lot of fun for the girls. Our little tree just looks so cheery and homey. And who doesn't love wood heat in the snow? But let me tell you five days strait of home with the girls never venturing farther than the post office yesterday and Odessa is going loopy! But my house is clean and all of my Christmas projects are finished, all that is left is wrapping - I should finish that today. AND I have blogged like 5 days in a row, that is a new record I think. Hoping this finds you warm and happy where ever you are. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Heidi's 4 year old picture

2008-12-18T17:56:00.000-08:00

Our little winter princess!

Our first 4 year old HQ is here! This afternoon Heidi wrapped her sister up after laying (shoving) her on the floor in an attempt to swaddle her. I then hear to the tune of 'Away in a Manger', "The little lord Clara asleep on the carpet!"

I love my cats....Really

2008-12-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

No really I do, I really like them, all three of them, I just have to keep reminding myself of this this morning. At 7:00 while Jeff was getting ready for work I heard a big crash and then, "Oh crap, hon....!" I jumped out of bed to find a large potted plant knocked over, the pot is cracked and there is dirt everywhere. #1 guess at the culprit: Dash, he climbs on everything! #2 guess: there isn't one, I'm pretty sure it was Dash. Definitely not: Atlas, he can't jump that high, he's to fat.

Then at 9:30 I am putting Clara down for her nap and making sure all of the cats are out of the room. I am happy when I find they are all out, and then disappointed when I find them poking at two huge piles of puke on the bathroom carpet. #1 guess at the culprit: Paws, he is kinda a gorging eater. #2 guess: Atlas, he has always had a sensitive stomach. Definitely not: Dash, I don't think he has ever eaten that much in a day!

Mother of the year (not) and Super Daddy

2008-12-16T13:12:00.000-08:00

Today is Heidi's birthday! We have successfully kept a child alive for 4 years. We had her birthday party on Sunday, which is good because no one would have been able to make it today do to the weather. We had a smashing time. And by smashing I mean Heidi's nose.Heidi really wanted a pinata for her birthday. She chose a chili pepper one because it looked like a strawberry and she really wanted it to match her strawberry shortcake dessert. I love the way 4 year olds think. Anyway, the thing would not give at all! I took the 2x2 we were using as a bat and was helping her go at it when both of our hands slipped a little and the end we were holding came up and hit her nose. Tears, blood, open flesh, we had it all. Nothing seems to be broken, she didn't even have a bruise the next day. Did I ever feel like a terrible mother. I mean, who else do you know that has given their child a bloody nose on their birthday. But I totally scored back a few points when I told her she could wear a bandaid - a Care Bear bandaid over her nose. When we returned to the garage, the pinata was still not open even with the kids hitting it the entire time. Luckly we had a strong Daddy who could rip it open.

Lesson learned #1: Odessa is not athletic, don't let her help with hitting things.

Lesson learned #2: Don't buy cheap WINCO pinatas, they are made from corigated cardboard and packing tape.
The rest of the party went well. Heidi recieved lots of games, which we love. We didn't have any messes with the craft, just one kid trying to eat the cinnomon/applesauce ornaments - but that was almost worth the face she made! And who doesn't love local strawberries in December. I love having a freezer space and a thinking outside the box 4 year old so we could have strawberry shortcake in December.

Today Jeff stayed home from work. Yesterdays trip to and from were a little scary - and it is an excuse to stay home and play with the kids. I hadn't taken Clara out yesterday, so it was really her first snow experience today; unless you count last years face plant when she was 2 and a half months old, but that is another story. This is pretty much what she looked like the whole time.Heidi and Jeff discovered if you shovel snow on the to old metal slide in the park, you can go really fast! Heidi loved it, possible only because with all the clothes she was wearing and the powery snow none of the falls at the end hurt.And once again the sled came out and Jeff being Super Daddy would take the girls on sled rides around half the block.

Oh, what fun it is to ride in a daddy powered sleigh, hey!

The first snow!

2008-12-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

We actually got snow in December! Of course Heidi thinks it is all for her since it is her birthday and all. I got to take some great photos of Heidi for her birthday portrait (which I will save for another post). We had a great morning playing in our back yard. Heidi and I tried to build a snow man, but we couldn't even make a snow ball because the snow was so powdery. So we settled for getting our shovels and throwing snow around! We even did some sledding in our flat back yard, which means it was fully Mommy running powered. Heidi loved it! She even took a few face plants bravely.
The picture below shows that we still have a few apples on our tree. They look so funny with mounds of snow like hats perched on top.

This is as far as Atlas got.
That is our back porch. He truly is a wussy cat. Although today I guess I can't blame him. It was really cold with the wind this morning and Heidi was chasing him trying to pile snow on his back. I myself only lasted a half hour, Heidi loves it and did another 15 minutes on her own.

What do you think of the snow? Let me know on my poll.

Oh dear, it's been over a week.

2008-12-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

You would have though I was still canning or something with my lack of posts as of late, but nay. Really I have no excuse.

The biggest event we have had as of late was the ladies fancy Christmas dessert that I was on the steering team for. Meaning we were in charge of getting the dessert and all of the decorating. I think we had close to 500 wrapped boxes including the favors. As well as lit greenery swags around our whole church gym. It came off rather well. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring a camera, so sorry no pictures. Also, the same weekend was cookies by the pound, which in a moment of craziness I agreed to help cook for, and the annual craft boutique, which I also prepared several items for. Thank you Jeff for putting up with me last week, thank you mom for all your help, and thank you my lovely decorating committee and dessert servers!!

Other than that, here are a few highlights of the last week in photos.

Heidi sang in evening service, unforutuately none of the pictures are post worthy due to how far we had to zoom. She loved being on stage! Once everything was over for the week, we had a family movie night on Sunday, Clara really likes popcorn!
Here we are waiting for the parade of lights in Independence. It was a whole 4 or 5 floats long with Santa at the end. But it was totally worth it just to see how excited Heidi got, I seriously thought she was going to wet her self with excitement when she saw Santa on the fire truck!

After hanging out in the library with cookies and cider for awhile while the line died down, we finally got to Santa. Heidi wasn't sure what to do, and Clara, well she just wanted away from the 6 and a half foot man with a beard. This was seriously the tallest Santa I have ever seen.

And lastly, Ta-Da! Clara has figured out how to get onto Heidi's bed! She appartently does this by pushing the doll cradle over, crawaling in, then crawling onto the bed. Unfortunately she has now clue how to get down other than falling. Here she is recieving an xylophone lesson from Heidi.

A quick HQ

2008-11-28T13:59:00.000-08:00

This morning at breakfast I was treated to Heidi sing the hokey-poky. Although I corrected her while trying not to laugh, she still insisted that the words were "you do the hopey-popey!" I love 3 year olds.

Now is the time to buy Band-aid stock!

2008-11-25T21:49:00.000-08:00

Why? You ask, why is now the time to invest in Band-aid? Because I have a sneaking suspicion that the stock will jump several points tomorrow. This is not Jeff the financial planner talking to you, it is not Jeff the wood splitting hero, in fact it is not Jeff in any form. This is his klutz of a wife coming to you today saying Band-aid stock will jump simply because of the amount of their product we seem to need on hand.

While we're on the topic of hands (see last word above) that reminds me, my hands hurt! I am currently sporting three Band-aids with the need for a fourth coming. "Gasp," you say, "what has happened!" Well it all started Sunday night when I was trying to slice a pomegranate for dinner, it was over ripe (when they are over ripe their skin is rock hard) and oops with a knife I gashed my left ring finger right at the edge of the nail deep enough to send me into shock. Ouch number one.

Then last night I was slicing apples to make dried apple rings with our mandolin slicer and oops my right thumb followed the apple a little to far and a one inch cut showed up. Ouch number two!

The double dose came this afternoon when I was doing some crafty things with my high temp glue gun. I was trying to work quickly to get glue all the way around something before it had a chance to dry and it dripped onto my left thumb, it really hurt. In a panic, I threw the project onto the table, getting glue on the table and my other hand. I grabbed the big glob of really hot glue on my thumb and pulled. This resulted in a quarter inch circle of skin ripping off the back of the thumb and a blister on the tip of my right middle finger. Ouch numbers three and four as soon as that blister pops!

Consequently, I have used up every Band-aid I can find in the house (except the three inch square ones and the tiny baby ones you never know what to do with) including the stash in my purse and the pirate printed ones.

I have discovered it is much harder to accomplish daily tasks with only six good fingers. Jeff is considering setting up a call list to have people check up on me every hour.

What is the most separate little injuries you have had in a week? What do you do with tiny Band-aids? Do you have anything sharp or hot that you need to have tested, I do still have six good fingers? And on second though, maybe you shouldn't invest in Band-aid, I'll probably be cheap and buy generic!

They grow up so fast

2008-11-24T13:54:00.000-08:00

Clara has been our budding little girl as of late. I don't know if it is because I am more observant of her since the scare we were give last month, or if it is because she is just developing very quickly lately. After 5 clinic visits in 10 days a few weeks ago, we have seen our baby start to turn into a toddler.

While I am here, I had better explain the scare and the 5 clinic visits. It all started with her one year check up. They said she was fine, but small and we needed to have her legs looked at because her feet point outwards. Luckily, the Shriner's were having their free once a year screening clinic at the Salem hospital in two weekends so we didn't have to go to Portland. She checkout fine! All joints are aligned but it could take up to another 2 years for her feet to point correctly, which means she may be a little slow on walking.

Between the first visit and Shriner's, the poor little thing had to get 4 immunizations (our doctor doesn't do them because his practice is too small to stock them, which means another stop), and blood work done (which we had to squeeze from her finger because she is so tiny she didn't have nice surface veins). And then came the call, the doctor wanted us back for another visit. They said everything was fine with the blood work, but all of you mothers out there can imagine what went through mine and Jeff's heads for two days while we waited for the appointment. What was wrong, why did he call us back??? It turned out her size may be an issue. She has always been small, but her growth curve had dropped, she was 3 lbs and 2 inches smaller than what the smallest healthy girl of her age should be. At lease she was behind in both areas, which means she is well proportioned. On recommendations from the Shriner's doctor and our doctor we need to get her in to see a pediatric gastroenterologist to be checked for nutrition absorption issues (with the family history, there is a good chance she may have Crones or Celiacs), but this means a trip to Portland to either OHSU or Emmanuel. We are giving her a break, but we will be pursuing this soon. Please pray we make the right decisions.

I will now move on to the budding little girl we see before us. She is truly a joy to have. In the last month she has had her top two teeth finally come in. She can hold on to fingers and walk fairly well, but she has a long way to go. With her confidant crawling, she can get anywhere and into anything. She can pull herself up on anything and most of the time figure out how to get back down.

Our home is filled with 5 words from Clara:

"Washish?" ('What's this' while pointing to anything she wants to know the name of, has yet to start trying to say the words back)
"Atish" (her attempt at 'Atlas', our 20 lbs cat - also means any other small furry animal, i.e. rabbits, kittens, my in laws small dog, it is also what all animals say)
"Da-da" (said anytime Jeff is in sight, at home, or anytime she is handed a phone - may also mean mom, we're not sure)
"Ooo-oo" (as in pretty, anything becomes a bracelet, necklace, hat, or ring, and I mean anything! And they all make her look pretty, she shows she knows this by saying so.)
"Boo!" (I have never met a child who loves to play peek-a-boo more than Clara. She says boo at everything, i.e. taking her shirt off, when you open the car door, when someone new walks in the room, when there is a blanket over anything that is removed. The word is can be accompanied by her covering her temples and the quickly moving her hands, this is an attempt at covering her eyes.)

She can also sign 4 words: more, please, all done, and thank you (which she usually blows a kiss with, very cute!). These take a little bribing, but we can usually get her to do them. Her preferred answer is to shake her head "no" at everything, and still expects to be given food. She thinks saying "no" is funny, and whining is a much better way to go.

We are working on pointing to facial features when asked, but currently everything is an ear.

The mile stone she accomplished this morning almost brought tears to my eyes, because..... well, she is growing up! Clara, at 13 months, accomplished spoon feeding her self most of her breakfast. She actually stayed clean and only dipped her finger in her bowl once. It took her along time to finish, but then again she has always done everything very slowly.

Our talented little one!

Clara is truly a blessing. I hope you have enjoyed the up-date as much a I have enjoyed remembering every little thing about her.

Blogging and boiled milk.

2008-11-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

So yeah, I haven't turned on the computer in a few days and had a lot to catch up on. The only problem is, I also started a batch of yogurt at the same time. Why is that a problem you ask. Well the first step in making yogurt is to bring the milk to 180 degrees, stirring occasionally. While lost in the world of bolgs, the milk did not get stirred, in fact it was given no attention what so ever. That is until I heard a sizzle and looked over to see milk form 3 inches tall. My house smells lovely right now, nothing like the smell of burning milk.

Just add fire!

2008-11-19T12:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had the wood stove installed! Yeah! And this morning, we passed inspection! Double yeah!

The inspector said it looked great, and I am hired to do tile work in his house! Although I don't know that I would attempt another one....well maybe, I did learn a lot.

The kittens are enjoying exploring the new addition. If you look closely, you can see that Paws is in the stove in the above picture. I'm sure this is a habit he will soon break.

Our busy productive week!

2008-11-16T14:16:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know it has been a week. And I am going to use the age old excuse and say we were busy, but hey we were. In fact there were at least 2 days this week we didn't even turn on our computer! So here is what we have been up to.

Last Tuesday Jeff's parents came to visit, they brought us another load of wood. Jeff and Larry (Jeff's dad) unloaded it in the rain. But as you can see from the picture, this is a mixed blessing because some of these rounds are the size of the whole wood stove! Does anyone have an extra ax lying around that we can buy???
After the wood, Jeff took advantage of Larry's truck being here and went and got a big load of manure. Which Jeff unloaded in the rain, and then washed the truck....in the rain.

Can we say compost, Mmmmmm!

While my wonderful husband and father in law were out working hard for the family, Andrea (Jeff's mom) and I worked up quite the appetite holding down the fort.

The rest of the week I was busy with the stand for the wood stove. I have finally finished scraping all of the grout that dried on to all of the tiles on the top part (hint: always wash off your grout sooner than later!) and then grouted the bottom part. Luckily, the girls were very good for me and I was able to move pretty quickly and got it done in two days. Although, I was not moving so quickly the next few days after spending two days on the wood floor on my behind and doing the same motion over and over with my wrist. But another thing is marked off the list home improvement!

Ta-da!

We get the stove put in on Tuesday! There is a lot Jeff and I will attempt by ourselves when it comes to hope improvement, putting a hole through our roof is not one of them. We are a little nervous, we have never hired contractors, and as far as we can remember our parents really didn't either. What do we do? What do we have prepared? Do I stay home or leave? What if they don't meet our standards? Ahhh so many questions! (BTW Jeff is currently in the attic moving insulation so it doesn't all come falling into the living room for me to clean off of everything, isn't he great!)

Yesterday Jeff and I cleaned the garage so we could get to the stove we have been saving for 6 months now. It looks pretty good. There is now enough room to dive in to the winter projects we have planned, which is mostly a lot of painting. But it is freezing out there! Does anyone have an idea of what a good is?

Then we have today. Today was church, the usual routine- I had nursery, sale tickets of the ladies candle light dessert, chase Heidi around cookie time, teach Sunday School..... Oh wait, did I say teach Sunday School? Well actually due to homework and sickness and the generally scattered schedules of college kids, we had no students! So Jeff and I took advantage of free child care and joined another SS class at Murphy's Bar and Grill and had a little date. It was great! Not that I am suggesting any of you college kids out there should skip Sunday School just so your teachers can go out, we are not that desperate.

After lunch today Heidi asked Jeff if they could play video games. She has never really played them before, she just all of a sudden had the interest. Of course Jeff jumped at the chance; any chance to play video games, even with a 3 year old and Mario Brothers is a good one. Heidi was actually able to move Mario about 6 inches down the screen, jump on the bad guys, hit the box with the coin, hit the box with the mushroom to make you grow, catch the mushroom, jump up and over the first pipe, and then die because the time ran out. It was great! I think we have the makings of another gamer.

for my sunday school class

2008-11-09T16:31:00.000-08:00

This is mainly for the College group at EBC.

Kayla here is the picture you requested

And for the Star Wars funk fans (esp Jenna who just watched Star Wars for the first time in marathon yesterday). Here are the songs, I think they will play on here... I don't know about the copyright status so don't download or you will be illegal and sinning. I own the cd, so I think I'm okay...If anybody ever finds another copy though let me know....it's called "twin sister" By the band Twin Sister...formerly known as "Boba Phett"

Scoundrel

Ben

We don't serve their kind here

he's no good to me dead

we got company

Hope this works. Maybe I should add a poll to see if people would rather have an extra week of immanence/transcendence or eschatology...maybe I'm too tired.

Heidi is loaded!

2008-11-07T10:07:00.000-08:00

So Heidi was full of HQ's this morning. Since we are having a "stay home day" I had told her last night she could pick out any clothes she wanted when she got up to surprise me when I got up (she has been getting up before me lately and has been enjoying her morning time alone, and Clara finds it entertaining to watch her from the crib - it's great). Here is the outfit she came up with.

She says she is a cool Australian rock star from Africa (I tried telling her that Australians are from Australia, but that didn't fly). In the picture she is "playing her best guitar that is like her headband" (pink leopard print), on her stage. And to complete the outfit she is wearing her angel wings, you can barely see them completely cockeyed on her back.

Then later this morning she wanted me to be her teacher and tell her a lesson about Jesus on the cross. She decided to make in a game and she was going to be Jesus. I was telling her what they did to Jesus on the cross (she was more interested in getting to heaven), and she had decided that nails through your hands wouldn't hurt. I told her to think about it, because nails hurt. She thought and decided I was right (I'm saving her admitting that), BUT instead we should use a little bit of Scotch tape! I asked her what she meant and this is roughly the mono log I got back, "You know Mommy, we could just use it to wrap around (she demonstrates something being wrapped around her wrist) to hold me on the cross. It wouldn't hurt and then I could stand on my little stool (the little step Jesus stood on, we had talked about that somewhere in the 'lesson' too) and be fine. And then I would die, and go up to heaven, and you could be God. (pause) Here I go!" She then 'dies' by falling over on me on the couch. She is very uninterested in God forgetting the naughty things she has done; but then again she doesn't think she does anything naughty, because after all "I don't hit anyone" (her words, and she would be right hitting is not one of her down falls). Now dieing and going to heaven, that is cool. Would you count that as progress?

Whew, and all that before 10:30 this morning. It might be an interesting day!

We're done!! A drum roll please.......

2008-11-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

So this week I wrapped up the canning season, which by the way this is the longest I have ever canned into the year (I don't like late harvests). We're not done with freezing (notice the pumpkins in the bottom of this picture) or dehydrating (the bucket of red apples). BUT canning is done!!! Unless of course we are handed a bunch of something for free, I'm sure we could find something to do with it in the 2 jars we didn't fill this year. OK, OK enough chit-chat, and now the moment you have all been waiting for (or maybe just me), the final canning count of jars filled and sealed in 2008 is.......

367!

Clara's one year old picture

2008-11-04T15:56:00.000-08:00

Here is the nice picture we decided on for Clara turning one. I actually took it in our front yard and played around in Photo Shop some and am pretty happy with the results!

Halloween!

2008-11-03T11:06:00.000-08:00

We had a very fun Halloween ! We took the girls around to some friends to do some trick or treating as well as to the local nursing home. Some friends of ours also had a costume dinner party.

Our Family All Dressed up!

Our Heidi!

A few other cute things have happened since Friday that I just can help but mention. Heidi was loaded yesterday with HQs we were treated to "God's arms are mucky." We asked her why and were able to determine that it was because He had to reach into the clay to make man and never washed up! Also she has been into making up words lately. I don't remember what the word was that she made up, but the definition was, "A musical instrument that looks like a piano with electrodes inside." Electrodes huh, yeah she is Jeff's daughter!

Below is a cute picture of Jeff giving Heidi a waltzing lesson on Sunday. She was very uncomfortable with his hand on her waist and wanted it on her shoulder....what a good girl!

Choices

2008-10-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

I choose to nap! (see entry below) But did it happen, not really. I laid down for about 10 minutes and the phone rang, I am terrible about just letting the machine get it, and it was a call I had been waiting for. About 10 minutes later Heidi woke up. I was able to convince her to stay in her room another half hour playing so I could at least rest half asleep. I did get my tomatoes finished too, we were a little late to AWANA but they got done!

Last night AWANA was Bible character dress up night. I asked Heidi out of the whole Bible who would she like to be. It will not be a surprise to many of you that she chose pregnant Mary. Daddy's old T-shirt, a few fabric scraps and of course a pillow which has now been dubbed "the baby Jesus" and wa-la!

Unfortunately most people didn't realize it was a girl under that hood and everyone thought she was a fat shephard. It didn't upset her any, she loved that fact that she was "pregnant." I kept hearing funny statements like "I can't do the running games because I have a baby in my tummy" and "Baby Jesus is going to pop out in a couple minutes!"

Clara also had her one year check up yesterday. OK, everyone knows she is small but hold onto your seats for this one! She weighs 15lbs 10oz and is 27 and a half inches tall! She is and official itty-bitty! They said she is healthy and well proportioned, just small. There are a lot of short genes in the family. Of her 4 great-grandmothers and the one great-great-grandmother who we know the hight of, 4 of the 5 are under 5 feet tall! Some of this is due to age, but they were small. We also found out Heidi is up to a whopping 34 pounds, and I am down to - well less than I was before and I'll leave it at that.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

2008-10-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

We have been very busy wrapping up the food preserving time of year and that is pretty much all we have gotten to lately. My mom and brother came up this last weekend to help with the girls and we went crazy getting stuff done.

On Saturday, we pressed cider with some friends and did about 60 gallons! We filled their freezer and ours and any other container we could find. Although Monday we went into our garage and discover that the expansion from freezing forced open the door to the freezer, 2 jugs fell out (luckily they didn't break) and propped the door wide open!! AHHHH!! We didn't really loose anything but a few things leaked so we now have sticky stuff over the packaging of a lot of good stuff. We also have a lot of cider to drink quickly, since there is nowhere to put it.

Saturday was also the harvest party for the college group that Jeff and I lead. We had a very good turnout and had alot of fun carving pumpkins, eating and pressing more cider.

On Sunday we took the girls to the pumpkin patch. We had a lot of fun on the hay ride and the mazes, Clara wasn't to sure about the grain pit, but unfortunately the batteries went dead in the camera before I could get a picture of her funny face and her hand up in the air so she wouldn't touch the grain.Apparently the dirt was very interesting because I couldn't get either of the girls to look up!Heidi on the John Deere Trike!

I was pooped by Monday, but my mom wanted to stay another day to get stuff done around the house. This woman has an insane amount of energy, and she stayed up until 2:00 a.m. almost every night she was here! I was in bed no later than 11! Anyway, we got the nasty grout scraped off of half the tile that it is stuck on after my mistake of not washing it off quick enough, and my mom sanded my craigslist find dresser I have been waiting to paint.

Tuesday was MoPS Operation Christmas Child meeting, which is always a busy one for me. I was hoping to come home and relax, maybe even take a nap. BUT NO!! We got a call on our Matrix that is for sale and they wanted to come see it that evening, so I spent 3 hours organizing all the maintenance receipts, finding the title, cleaning and vacuuming the car.

Well after all of that I have a choice. Both girls are asleep should I start in on the last of the tomatoes that I need to put up or should take a nap? I will let you know my choice tomorrow.

A funny mental picture

2008-10-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

Two things - we just had a birthday party resulting in balloons; and we were crazy a month ago, rescued kittens and we still have 2. Now add them together....here is a clue.
You can imagine the POP and run we have had several times this week!

I am adding this picture too simply because it is cute!

Of Birthdays and Pumpkins

2008-10-19T22:05:00.001-07:00

October is our month of birthdays. We celebrated mine the first week of the month, my moms the next, and Clara's on this weekend. Yes Clara is 1!! She has been 1 for 5 whole days and me being a terrible (busy) mother have not blogged about it until now. We had a small party for her on Saturday, a kid friendly potluck. The kids loved having so many finger foods on their plates all at the same time - pickles and raisins and goldfish, oh, my!

Here are a few (OK maybe a lot) pictures of our grand celebration (sorry they're grainy, the resolution got reset on the camera apparently and needs to be fixed, Jeff help!!!) -

The birthday girl!

Yes, Alysun, I know it is cropped funny and there is someone else's feet in the background, but she is cute!

This card was fascinating!

The cake I pulled off in under 2 hours and started dinner at the same time!

Yes, she is holding it in her armpit and is pulling out bites

After dinner and cake, look at that belly!

Today we went out and harvested the rest of our tomatoes (Four 5gal. buckets, oh yeah!) and a bunch of pumpkins for our church college groups harvest party next week and several for my front porch, it looks pretty now. We then rushed to our church business meeting and had a quick dinner. On the way home Heidi asked if we could carve a pumpkin (interpret that as, "Daddy will you carve me a pumpkin while I tell you everything I want on it?") Jeff, being a good daddy agreed. When we got home she started to strip down (last year she carved in panties and a paint smock). Laughing, we told her she didn't have to. She then justified her actions by saying, "Well I have to take my pants down to get my shoes off." HUH?! I guess she just likes to do a lot of things naked. Anyway, here a the artistic results.

Heidi wanted the eyes one oval and one rectangle, with "big tears"

This is the face she wanted daddy to carve,
surprisingly she was happy with the results he gave.

Our evenings HQ came as I had just finished arranging a bouquet of flowers from out garden and I stated, "Is that beautiful or what!" Heidi's come back was, "It's what."

And now and food news flash from Jeff.....Lentil's appear to be okay! Finally some 'filler' food that is cheap year round. Of course there is a specific way to cook them...found here. Also,I have been having luck with 'normal' salads...with homemade dressings of course. Sheesh, 'dess you wrote a lot, but I love you more than the ocean loves the moon.

Three Grape Days

2008-10-17T20:35:00.001-07:00

That is not a typo in the title, I have had 3 grape days...literally. On Wednesday morning a few friends (and the 6 preschool aged children we have between us!) and I headed out to get some grapes at our garden. We didn't really know how much to pick to get enough for what we wanted to do. We picked a lot! And most of the kids did great.

It took me three days to juice out all the grapes in my steamer juicer. We filled the juicer 9 times! It holds about a 5 gallon bucket of grapes on each fill. The grapes yielded poorly on the first few batches, but I think that for some reason letting them sit overnight in boxes made them give more juice. We had a little more juice than I was anticipating, well not too bad maybe only 2 extra gallons! I think we ended up with 13 or 14 gallons of juice, which resulted in:

11- half gallon canning jars
16 -quart jars canning jars (though 11 are the for the gals who helped pick!)
7 -pints of jelly
3- half pints of grape/honey jelly
2 - 32 ounce pitches in the fridge for drinking now
1 - 3 quart container in the freezer
1 - 9 X 13 pan of jell-o
1 - fruit leather from some of the pulp, it is OK but the flavor isn't worth the effort
1- 1 quart juice container for my sister, because I am tired of grapes!

I will say that again, I AM TIRED OF GRAPES!!!!! But they're done. phew!

Also in the middle of all that we were given 2 5 gallon buckets of tomatoes. Can't let them go to waste, so they became 6 quarts of tomatoes sauce. I am really ready to be done with canning season.

Just a note from Jeff here. Any History buffs check out archives.org. I've been listening to WW2 news broadcasts. WOW! Respect your grandparents and all that.