Catie's birthday cake

Finished Catie's cake around 5:30 last night. She drew me a picture and told me how to make it. I didn't follow it quite exactly but she's happy. She definitely wanted 6 buttons. And I let her place them. I hope the cake doesn't melt over night.

For Mom

Goals revisited

So far I've only done some of the goals I had for the week

• I finally realized the laundry needed help. So I took the majority of it to the laundry lady yesterday. $50 well spent.
• Getting some homeschooling done this week. We've prepared snowman goodie bags and started snowman shirts to wear on Sunday.
• hmmmm, haven't done the homeschool plan for the term yet. better get on that.
  
• planning Catie's party is going well. I'm thinking it's going to rain so I need a Plan B that involves all inside activities. hmmm...30 people in my house....should be interesting.
• I got all my thank you notes written and posted. YAY!!
• still working on a schedule
• reminded Josh today that I get "Tamra time" tomorrow night for the Body Shop party. can't wait
• bought some cute Australia stuff for next year VBS. The girls have decided that they need to wear their hats and shirts now though. Hope we don't lose it before next January. (side note: Jennie's sister is doing an Aussie VBS at her church in July and will send us the stuff when they're done. PTL!!!)
• Went to put away the VBS stuff at church and two of my containers are missing!! Hopefully someone already put them away. Can't lose them!!

So, I guess I'm not doing too badly for my list. Today's job is a total house tidying so tomorrow we can sweep, dust, mop etc.

I mopped last Saturday because Emma spilled a kg of honey on my floor!! This week I have to mop because Beka decided to "help" with the laundry and dumped about 15 scoops of laundry powder into my washing machine on top of a wet load that was waiting to be hung out. Then she added a bottle of water!!! Some powder was on the floor and thanks to humidity and little feet my floor is a bit slick and yucky!! oh well.

Have a great weekend!

Grape Jelly

I did something last night that made me think of my Granny. I used to spend a week or two with her every summer. Several times we bought a bunch of grapes and made grape jelly. So yummy! Nothing tastes as good as Granny's grape jelly.

Well, I decided to try it. I found some recipes on the internet that show how to make grape jelly from grape juice. I don't like the grapes I've found here. They don't have the right taste to them. So I made grape jelly tonight. It was super easy. HEAPS of sugar though. I'll let them cool down and then put them in the fridge. I don't have a pot that I can process them in so I'll just leave them in the fridge. I hope it tastes good. The girls love grape jelly too so I'm sure we'll eat it all up.

Recipe I used: (forgot where I got it from) bad blogger!!!

5 cups grape juice
7 cups sugar
4Tbsp powdered fruit pectin (I used one package of jamsetta

Bring the juice and the pectin to a boil. Boil for one minute. Stir in the sugar. Stir and cook for several minutes until it is all dissolved. Take off the heat and ladle/pour into sterilized jars.

Very simple. I sterilized the jars and lids in my dishwasher and then put them in a sink of hot water to get hot before putting the super hot liquid in. I had a tiny bit left over so put it in one of my little Pyrex bowls.

Goals

*random picture of Emily because she's cute and I haven't posted her picture in awhile.

• Laundry =)
• homeschooling--snow and snowmen. We'll be reading books to do with those subjects and finding fun projects and things to do. It will end with Catie's snowman birthday party on Sunday.
• a homeschool plan for the term
• planning Catie's party
• writing thank you notes to the VBS volunteers
• getting a schedule/routine into place
• Saturday night is a Body Shop party. YAY!!!
• Stocking up on Australia Day stuff that all the shops have on sale this week then putting it away for VBS next year.
• Finalize putting away VBS stuff in the church.
  

Hmmm....I think that's enough for one week, right?

House cleaning fairies

Just thought I'd pop on here to say that 3 little and 1 tall, skinny cleaning fairies showed up today. =) After getting out of bed earlier than normal for a Saturday due to a phone call and short visit we decided to clean the house all together. (well, Josh and I decided...the girls weren't too thrilled.) We started in the front room and made it through the main room, the school room, Catie and Emma's room, Beka's room and the girls' bathroom. That means I just have the kitchen, my bedroom and Mt. Laundry to do. MUCH BETTER!!! Catie and Beka are sleeping now and Emma is laying down so I really should be doing those rooms now but the energy has left me. =)

Good Friday

well, we had 107 students at VBS today!! Good fun!! and we decided that was close enough to 110 so we put a pie in Pastor Samuel's face too. =) We got the church and school cleaned in record time as we had heaps of helpers who were all dying to go get on the waterslide. I'll have to remember that next time. I'll try to get some VBS pics up in the next week.

When we finally got home at 4:00 this afternoon there were two big boxes sitting on my front porch. Thanks, Mom!! We can begin our next year of homeschooling now =) And she sent heaps of stuff for Catie's birthday party-for some reason we can't get much snowman stuff here. ;o) And she sent the girls some aprons and chef hats. I need to have them do a fashion show of all the dress-ups Mom has made them. And my wonderful Mom sent me some Dr. Pepper lip gloss. 3 different kinds!!! Thank you!! =) She brought me some in August but I can't find which bag I put it in. Now I have one for each bag. =)

Well, I have pork chops and rice in the oven and 3 little girls in the bathtub so I suppose I should do something more worthwhile than reading blogs. Catch you later!!