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.