A Break

Hey, just wanted to let you know that I am going to be turning off the computer for the rest of September and October. I'll try to get on Josh's laptop computer and post pics from Beka's birthday next week. And I'll check email a couple times a week. But that's it. I'm just going to focus on some other things and try to maintain a bit of balance.

See you in November!!

projects, plants and pineapples

hmmm....

I'm trying to figure out if I can actually do these for Beka's birthday. I bought the heart shaped balloons yesterday. And had an extra one (that I had to buy because the lady caught Beka trying to blow it up) so I tried it but it popped when I tried to twist it. So I guess we'll see. =)

what was I thinking??

I didn't grab the camera at 7:01 this morning. Silly of me, I know. I didn't think of it until......well, how about I start at the beginning.

Lately Beka has been getting up 3 or 4 times a night. I just have to go in, lay her back down and cover her up. Until 4:00 or so when she normally climbs in bed with me. Around 5 I take her back to bed and she is up at 6. Catie and Emma have been sleeping until 7 recently so I half sleep from 6 to 7 while Beka eats some yogurt, gets books, comes in and out of my room a dozen times, brushes my hair, etc. This morning I woke up to a silent house at 6:54 am. And I hadn't been woken up through the night. My first thought was that Josh said he was going to go to work at 7:00 so I woke him up. Then I mentioned to him that it was 7 and I hadn't heard a peep from anyone. After that I shut my eyes and enjoyed the bliss of an early morning with no children awake yet. HOWEVER....I was wrong. There was a little chickie already awake. She was just being very, very quiet. Which means she is doing something naughty. Josh got up a few minutes later and then brought said little chickie into my room. He said, "Here's why you haven't heard a peep out of her." I rolled over and opened my eyes to see Beka with hands and face and hair COVERED in something brown and smeary. I closed my eyes and asked what it was. Chocolate ice cream topping!!! Turns out the child was hungry and went through the pantry to find something instead of opening the fridge and getting a yogurt. Josh said I needed to check the couch too as there was a bowl on it. Thankfully, she had dumped the topping in a (huge) bowl and it wasn't anywhere else. So I grabbed a washcloth and washed the chocolate off the child. It was the kind of topping that goes hard when it is on ice cream so it was really greasy. Anyway, as I took off her (white and pink) pajamas I thought to myself. "Why didn't I take a picture? How am I supposed to blog about this without a picture?" =) And that my friends is a sign that I am addicted to blogging. =) Just buy me the shirt already. or this one.

Goals for the week

• Type what we have so far for the church directory
• finish proof reading the chorus book for church
• Correct the mistakes in the chorus book and give it to Josh to print
• Do the bulletin for Sunday
• finish the doll I started on Saturday
• finish the seasons blocks
• seal the nativity scene blocks and put the stars on the stables
• no pull-ups for Beka during the days
• no pull-ups for Emma at night
• keep the house tidy
• no eating out
• finish the school room
• tidy the craft room

That's enough isn't it? =)

Menu for the week:
Monday-beef stroganoff with rice and noodles
Tuesday-youth planning meeting. Pizza I think (does this count as eating out? I'm gonna say "no" since we aren't paying.) =)
Wednesday-mostacioli
Thursday-chicken of some sort. =)
Friday-spaghetti

Weekend catch-up

• as the girls were laying down for naps the other day (and almost asleep) the doorbell rang. It was the postman. not the regular guy who rides a scooter and delivers letters and magazines and stuff but my favourite postman. The one with the white van that delivers boxes!!
• He left 3 packages. one for Josh (speakers for his car), one from Mom and one with my seeds in it!!
• I left Josh's package on the couch, put the seeds on the table and tore into the box from mom.
• Yay for new sandals for the girls and shirts for them and yards upon yards of all different colour and size rick rack for me. And lace. And 350 cupcake liners.
  
• Boo for the jar of grape jelly that customs punctured and leaked all over everything. And that they took out the angel food cake mix. hey, I can send them $42.50 to send it back to mom!!
• Then I opened my seeds!! So exciting!! more about that later
• yay, for the burst of energy on Saturday morning that resulted in 3 loads of laundry washed and hanging on the line and the entire house looking neat, tidy and clean.
  
• yay, for shopping by myself. I got to go to Big W by myself. Then the craft shop (where I found the Mod Podge I needed. for $16 a bottle!!!! how can they charge that much??) and Bunnings. There I bought some carrots (apparently I forgot to buy carrot seeds.) and onions (thought it might be fun) and some little planters to plant the seeds that need to be planted in punnets and then planted out when they are bigger.
• Then I got home, put the girls down for rests and planted my garden. So fun. I'm looking forward to corn, carrots, pumpkin, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage, silverbeet, rockmelon (cantaloupe) and radishes. I decided not to plant the turnips because we don't eat them.
  
• On a totally different note, Catie lost a second tooth.
  
• I started making one of the dolls I've got planned.
  
• I had fun trying my hand at making envelopes out of nice magazine picture pages.
  
• Josh and I had a movie night and watched a couple new movies Saturday night. yay for date nights with the cute hubby!! =)
• the pic is for Mom to show her better where the garden beds are.
  

Quilt-y thoughts

So I bought two charm packs (I think it is called Bluebonnet Trail by Moda) off Ebay. Each pack had 2 of each pattern so I have 4 squares of each fabric. My front room is slowly becoming a red and blue room with a few Americana type accents. So I want to make something with these. I went looking at flickr for inspiration and found these:

by Bubbachic

also by Bubbachic

by Georgia McDonald

I think I prefer the ones that end with a coloured corner but I like the stripe around the outside. I'm not sure about the quilting, the top one shows stitch in the ditch, the middle one has diagonal lines and the bottom shows free-motion quilting or stippling. What do you think? Also do you think that since I have so many lighter coloured squares that I should do something besides white for the main fabric?

And just so you know, I haven't forgotten Beka's quilt. (I think) I've decided to do 8 inch squares but just as a regular patchwork rather than the rag quilts like Catie and Emma's. I will just do stitch in the ditch (quilt over the seams already there) and then finish it with a raggy edge rather than a binding. If I don't do the quilting I will just sew buttons at the corners of each square to hold it together.

Cane Fire

I finally got to see a cane fire last night. Josh's aunt (his step-mom's step-sister) has a cane farm. And they were burning the cane across the road from their house so they invited us to come sit on their front verandah and watch. As you can see, the men start at one corner and then go down the sides of the fields lighting the edges. As the fire catches on it draws in to the middle of the field creating this huge, hot, loud fire. As I said, we were across the road but it felt like sitting right in front of the fireplace. And it was incredibly loud. Josh got some video but I never have luck loading videos. And one of the ones he got is too long anyway.

wanna see what I did during nap time?

I turned a pair of jeans (that were in the bag headed to the op shop)

into these cute little shorts!! I love them. And it was way cheaper and cuter than any they had in the stores today.

love, love, love this fabric with the denim.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

okay, not a lot like Christmas but at least I've started right!?! While Dad was here I (very sweetly and kindly) sent him to work with Josh and asked him to cut two pieces of wood up into a bunch of blocks. He should be pleased to know that they are not just sitting in my craft room collecting dust. I am working on my projects as I have time. I was inspired by this picture (scroll down to the bottom of the page) to make the nativity scene. I bought two sets of these stickers two or three years ago and have never done anything with them because nothing seemed good enough to use my stickers on. (do you do that? do you buy stuff and then don't use it because the project or whatever doesn't seem good enough? it feels like you're using up your precious stuff? yeah, I do that. but I'm trying to be better about that.) Anyway, when I saw that picture I knew I had the perfect stickers. And I think it turned out SO CUTE!!! The wood smells funny though so I might spray it with a clear sealer. I thought the name blocks turned out super cute too. Cuter in real life than the picture though. And the spring blocks are a work in progress. I need to go buy some mod podge. And I also have fall, winter and summer blocks in progress. I'll show you those when they are done. I especially like the fall ones and the "u" in the summer.

I also have plans to make some dolls, cats, dogs and probably a dress or two. Now if only I can come up with cute, easy things to make for the adults. And decide what to get Josh. He is so hard to buy for. And so are his dad and brothers but I make him choose their gifts. =)

Garden pics for Mom

my pansies are still gorgeous

love my new snapdragons.

Josh's mango tree. If you click on the pic you can see all the little buds that could be mangoes.

I think this is Beka's rose.

This is my double delight rose.

our one strawberry plant. You can't see them all here but there's about 10 strawberries in various stages of development.

the snow peas keep growing and producing. How many can you see here?

a new rose but I can't remember what it's called. Maybe I should go read the tag that is still hanging on it. =)

that would be a peach in the center--the other one is slightly higher and to the left and hiding in the foliage.

one of my maple trees

my daisies are taking over. Weird that the middle bush has two colours on it. And it really is taking over my Mr. Lincoln rose bush.

these are my gerberas that have been through everything. They've even been pulled out and replanted several times.

my oldest rose bush

new blogs

*made by Beka

*made by Emma

*made by Catie

Just what I need--new blogs to check out. But these were really great. I got the octopus art idea from (I think) flip flops and applesauce. Anyway, here's my newest finds.

• Flip flops and applesauce--fun blog with lots of craft activities. She has two girls that she does heaps of things with. Here's the octopus art idea.
  
• Imperfect--a fun family blog. Lindsey's pretty crafty too and boy can she throw a party.
• Stretch Marks--read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Talk about tear jerkers. And then read the Finale. WOW!! Tears and goosebumps. doesn't get any better than that! =)

busy, busy

Saturday Josh put 2 garden beds in for me. This one I'm going to try some Square foot Gardening. Along the front and left edge the squares aren't squares and aren't one foot. So I've planted some marigolds and other flowers that help with bugs, some repel and some attract. Along the fence I will plant sweet corn and sunflowers. Other veggies in this garden will be radishes, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, cauliflower, rainbow chard, turnips. Can't remember what else. As you can see Josh also installed a sprinkler system for me. (he also fixed the camera. pretty handy, doncha think?) =)
This one has flower seeds all mixed up in it. And I will plant tomatoes along the fence and also plant cantaloupe and pumpkins.

The garage-turned- guestroom turned into a schoolroom/computer repair area on Sunday.

Standing in Josh's work area. He's planning to build a dividing wall. Still looks bare but soon it'll be better. Also, all his stuff is moving off that shelf so I can put up their puzzles, games, books, etc.

The girls helped decorate. They put up all the farm stuff. Beka asked to be in the picture. =)

We've been busy today too. Already this morning I've washed and hung out 3 loads of laundry, washed dishes, started an art project with the girls, changed all 3 girls' wardrobes from winter to spring/summer, gotten irritated because the girls' new "washable" markers aren't so washable, changed stuff around in my kitchen and paid the van registration. I still need to buy shorts for Catie, buy new plastic containers to help contain toys in Beka's room since I moved the bookshelf into the schoolroom, clean off the computer desk and put clothes away in my room. Plus I'll have 3 loads of laundry to fold and put away later. But it's spring and it's beautiful and it's good cleaning weather. =)

Catie's Bulletin

outside

inside

Apparently the girls pay attention to what I do. =) Catie spent about half an hour doing up this "bulletin". Then she asked me to copy it so she could give it out at church tomorrow. =) So I made one copy for her and then scanned it in so you can see it. Too cute, hey?

If I had a camera...

then you would see

• all 3 girls riding Emma's tricycle. at the same time. with lots of screaming and giggling. you wouldn't be able to see the screaming and giggling though. =)
• the scene from my laundry room. I would title it "living in a house of girls." Josh's work shirt is hanging up to dry amongst 6 little matching dresses.
  
• Before, during and after shots of the girls haircuts later today!!
• the cute craft projects I've been working on.
• all the fun the girls have been having with their new school boxes.
  
• and probably pictures of my gorgeous flowers and maple tree. I love growing stuff. (and on that subject, I am still waiting on the seeds I ordered to arrive. Hurry, seeds. I need to plant.)

Josh is supposed to get the camera checked out today. Too late for pics of during their hair cuts but I'll get you "after" pictures soon. =)

Help!!!

okay, I can't find or think of any butterfly cakes for Beka. All the ones I find are either the Wilton pan ones or ones that are a little too much. None of them strike me as a starting point for her cake. So I'm thinking of a sheet cake with a big 3 on it and then little chocolate butterflies on the 3. What do you think?? Beka likes the idea of having a 3 and butterflies.

any other suggestions??

Beka Jane

*old picture that has nothing to do with the post except I wanted a photo of Beka*

Just had to share what Beka did this morning. Her door opened at 5:57am and I jumped out of bed to keep her from waking up her sisters. I needn't have worried as she was already headed into my room, blankie in hand. She crawled into bed between Josh and me and fell asleep. Of course she turned herself crosswise giving me about 10 inches of room. LOL =) I heard the other girls wake up but Beka kept sleeping. Then she woke up and laid there for awhile. Then I heard her first words of the morning. She was singing "Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord." She was quiet for a couple more minutes and then sang it again. What a sweet way to wake up. I only wish I could be as happy and praising the Lord when I woke up.

Happy Birthday, Ashleigh!

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