A nice Sunday morning

We managed to get up on time this morning and, while I was cutting pumpkin bread for breakfast, Kellen came in with his bible. He started reading it after we gave it to him, which is great, but the Old Testament can be really hard to plow through. In any case, he's made it through to Noah and God's covenant with him, so Kellen was asking about covenants. It was nice to have him interested in what was being said in the scriptures and trying to understand it. I thought it was kind of funny that, after we talked about all of that, he pulled out his pencil and underlined the word 'covenant' in his bible saying something about it being an important word. He's growing up so much, and I worry occasionally about how much time I have left to continue to influence the way that he sees things, and I hope I've done enough so that when the wrong influences come he will know them for what they are. Every parent's worry, I'm sure.

We took the cookies to church and I had been right: I did sign up for March, so that was perfectly okay! This was the first time that I had actually participated in it, though, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the cookies once we got there. Someone else told me how and when things are set up and offered to help me with it, which was great. There were two other peole who had signed up for it, but they didn't come until the second service so I was really glad that someone else was willing to help me out sooner than that! Every single one of the ginger crinkles vanished, and all but 5 or 6 of the chocolate chip were gone before we left, which is saying something since I took 40 of each cookie. The first service is at 8:50am, followed by Sunday School at 10am, and the second service at 11am; the cookies get served after the first service and they are left out until the second service so that people attending either service get to have some. Since we attend the first service, we usually leave at 11am to go home and make lunch so that we can Maddi down for a nap at a reasonable time.

After lunch, I unloaded the dishwasher, Steve re-loaded, and I put Madison down for a nap. With a little bit of quiet time on hand, I went for a nap myself, Steve watched some tv and played a video game, and Kellen played on the computer for a while. Steve had a meeting of some sort this evening so he's gone for a couple of hours, I have laundry moving through (because otherwise Steve won't have any dress clothes to wear to work tomorrow), and I still have to decide exactly what I'm making for dinner tonight. It's time to make a menu again because otherwise I really procrastinate on what we're having. I have stew meat defrosted, and beef stroganoff suddenly sounds really good. Hmmmm...

Just things...

Yesterday the kids and I went out to play in the back yard for a little bit since there was a stretch of sunshine for a while. Kellen and I kicked a ball back and forth across the yard while Madison dragged her sand toys around the yard and pulled new leaves off the trees. The bizarre thing was that only about ten minutes after we came back inside, it started trying to snow! It's not cold enough for it to have stuck at all, but there were little flurries of snowflakes falling.

This morning we hooked Steve's car up to mine to jump it, since I had a dead battery, and then we loaded up a lunch and the kids and took a trip to an aviation museum for the morning. It was so nice to be out somewhere for a while doing something together. Kellen and Steve really enjoyed looking at all of the planes, and they even had an area of the hangar with stuff that the kids could get some hands-on time with. They had a few small wooden planes designed for toddlers to be able to sit on and push around, which Madison thought was great. And this particular museum even has the Spruce Goose on display. You don't get to go inside most of the planes, but they had historical information on what different planes were used for at different times, some of the unique facts about them, and photos of them being used in their time. Afterwards, we went to a local winery (there are lots in the area) so that Steve and I could do a little tasting. Most of them were pretty dry which, for me, simply means that they're not very sweet. I could appreciate some of the flavors, but it's not what I would go for if I was looking for a wine. We did buy two bottles, though. One is a pinot gris (pronounced peenoe gree) which is a little less dry than some that we tried, and the other is a dessert wine that is really sweet, like an apple syrup almost. The guy that was pouring the wines said that, although they're designed to be drunk alone, he will sometimes put a little drizzle of dessert wine over the top of vanilla ice cream to dampen the sweet just a little. We are thinking we may have to try that.

Madison fell asleep on the way home, which wasn't such a good thing because it was 3pm. Late naps make for rather difficult evenings for her. To try to counter-act that we woke her as soon as we got home, making it only a 1/2 hr nap, but she was pretty much going the entire remainder of the day! I was so worn out by the time it was bed time, and was really glad to put her down. The good thing is that, since it was a short nap, she went to bed fairly easily. I only had to sit in there with her for 15 minutes this evening, instead of the typical half hour to an hour.

The church does a social time the last Sunday of every month, and I signed up to bring cookies for tomorrow. So we made Ginger Crinkles and Chocolate Chip cookies to take with us to church tomorrow. I thought someone was supposed to call me so that everyone doing it could kind of coordinate it, but no one called me. Now I'm wondering if maybe I actually signed up for the end of April instead of the end of March. Oh, dear. Well, I have two platters of cookies wrapped and ready to take tomorrow so we'll just have to see if I was right or if I am going to feel a little foolish :)

I did take the camera to the museum today, but then I forgot it out in the car so I will have to put pictures of our day up tomorrow afternoon instead. In the meantime, it's been a long day and I'm ready to hit the sack!

Pic of the Day #64

"Naptime for Goofy"

After Madison got up from her nap she was playing with 'her' Goofy. Now, really, this Goofy belonged to Steve when he was a child, and it's starting to show some wear and tear from the both of them, but Madison loves him. I suspect that if you stood the Goofy next to Madison, Goofy would be taller (by virtue of his hat), which just makes it all the funnier as she carries him all over the house. So today she decided that Goofy needed to take a nap, and got him all tucked in on the couch under a blanket, leaving him to sleep while she went and played other things :)

More Lazy Days

I have to admit, it was somewhat forced on me today. I had plans to go to the grocery store for eggs, milk, and batteries. But when I got out to my car today it didn't want to start. The kids were buckled in and everything, but we couldn't leave. I came back in the house and called Steve, but that didn't do a whole lot since he's at work and can't solve the problem (or even accurately diagnose it) from there. Then I got on the internet (amazing tool, isn't it?) and searched "car won't start". I got a site that gives some general information on why cars don't start, and a couple of ways to narrow down what it is most likely to be. Using that, it would appear that I just have a dead battery. I pulled out the jumper cables from a tote in the garage so that we can jump it when Steve gets home tonight. In the meantime, if we want to go somewhere, bicycles are the transportation of the day. Since it's breezy and a bit chilly, we're opting to stay home instead; I can go to the store after Steve gets home tonight, no big deal :)
So when Madison went down for her nap today, Kellen and I played a couple of rounds of checkers. I throw down lots of mistakes to give him every opportunity to win, but he's really not a strategist. Neither am I, because Steve almost always beats me at almost any game we play, but Kellen is even less of a strategist than I am. He has fun learning, though, because I try to point choices out to him before he makes his move, to help him see the pitfalls before he takes them. It was fun to just sit and play a game with him for a while, since Madison seems to occupy so very much of my time when she's awake; she's really demanding!
I've pulled chicken for dinner tonight, but I'm not entirely certain what I'm going to do with it yet. I tried Rachel's Parmesan Ranch Chicken earlier in the week, and that was really good. I entertained thoughts of doing something in the dutch oven, or maybe just chicken and dumplings. I don't know yet. So many choices! I am really looking forward to our weekend because Steve actually doesn't have work on Saturday, so I'm wondering what we can do with our day...
Well, now that Maddi is up from her nap, I am going to go get some laundry started; it seems I am forever behind on that, and the consequences are dire!

Musical Beds

Last night I finally got Madison to sleep about 9pm, and then Steve and I stayed up a bit later watching the Adventures of Young Indiana Jones that came from Netflix the other day. As it was ending, Steve suddenly told me to turn it off. I did, and asked if he had heard Madison. He had, so we waited a minute, but there were no further noises. We shut off lights out in the front of the house and I turned on the light in our room so that it would cast enough light for me to check on Maddi in her bed without waking her. When I poked my head in her room, there was no one in the bed! Then I heard Steve laugh in our room. When I got there, Madison was just starting to sit up on my side of the bed. She had gone straight from her bed to ours and, not caring that no one was there, had simply snuggled herself down under the covers :)

My cat solution, I hope...

I arrived at this in a rather round-about fashion. I was looking all over the internet for solutions to cats bothering one's garden and saw something about people putting carpet stripping (thin wood strips with nails sticking up out of them) down in garden beds. That made me think of several pieces of wood that we have in the back yard (they used to be the support poles for the trees when they were young, I think) and when I looked out in the yard I saw these pieces of plastic lattice-work that had been used by the previous owners to support some vegetable plants. I didn't even have to cut them! I know they don't cover the entire length of the bed, which is why there are a few plastic forks and knives still in there, but I screwed them down on the two front corners (I don't want to damage the green railing, but the white wood is already peeling and splitting so I can't hurt it much) and now I can lift them or remove them if necessary, my tulips can be guided up through the holes in the lattice-work, and the cat doesn't have room to get comfortable enough to do his business! This just might take care of my problem; I'm really hoping because my front porch smells pretty rank of cat poop right now.

Pic of the Day #63

"Mommy, I'm jumping!"

This was the second time (out of three) that she took the couch apart this evening. I was actually quite tired of it by the third time, mostly because she can't put it back together and that means that either Kellen or I have to do it. Ugh. But it's hard to stay mad at her for any length of time; she's just too sweet and having too much fun!

What to do!

Well, I called the city offices and the local animal shelter and got the same answer from both. Since there is no licensing for cats there's not much they can do for me. If I kennel one, I can drop it off at the shelter for no charge, but if I trap it they will charge me a $25 handling fee because they become quite mean when they've been trapped and so pose a danger to the employees at the shelter. It basically means that I have no recourse for taking care of the problem. I need to find a way to train them to stay out of my flower bed because the only other alternative is to kill them and, as much as I dislike them, I'm not willing to go that far. I really don't wish them dead, I just wish them to leave me alone, and that's not likely to happen since there is new cat poop in the bed today.

I haven't gotten over to the grocery store to pick up a container of ground pepper, since that has been suggested, and I don't actually own ground pepper. We have peppercorns and use a grinder. Someone also mentioned putting plastic forks up-ended in the dirt, so I am trying that today. I only had two forks, so I supplemented with plastic knives. We'll see what happens. I'm wondering about spraying vinegar water all over the area, since I have lots of vinegar and it won't hurt the plants. Ugh!


In the meantime, the kids and I did a little art project today. I always save various containers from things that we buy at Costco (Steve really likes their mint truffles) so the kids and I cut pictures from magazines today and glued them all over the sides of two containers.

The one that I did is covered in pictures of various treats, since that container frequently has candy-type stuff in it, while Kellen covered the other one in pictures of animals from his Junior Ranger magazines. Now we just have to wait for them to dry :)

Last night, Steve got home earlier than expected so we had a movie night (no school this week) and watched Enchanted. I loved it! I hardly stopped smiling through the entire movie. Steve felt that the voice of the princess was exceptionally grating, so he didn't enjoy it as much as Kellen and I did, but he sat with us through the whole movie anyway. Madison was less interested in the movie, but she loved the popcorn that we made part way through it. I'm going to see if Kellen wants to watch it again today before we have to send it back to Netflix. I wouldn't mind buying it, but I don't know how often we actually watch it since I think I really liked it more than anyone else. Kellen is reaching a point where fairy tales aren't that cool, Madison isn't ready for full-length movies, and Steve wasn't that impressed. That would mean I'd have to watch it alone; not so much fun. Oh, well.

Pic of the Day #62

"Eating Flour"

While I was making my brownies yesterday, I had my 5 gallon bucket of flour open on the computer chair in the kitchen, so Madison climbed up and started eating it! What you see in the picture is the second time she had put some in her mouth in the space of a couple of minutes, so she didn't even decided that it tasted poorly enough to quit. That girl will try to eat almost anything :)

Cat update...

No, the problem isn't solved. Actually, after putting out the chili powder, I think I ticked them/it off. I looked out yesterday evening and saw that there were three tulips overturned instead of one. So today I went out with a small gardener's hand rake and put them back. I was really glad I had wised up and used the hand rake, because I found new crap in there. Ugh! I have had two people suggest that the county shelter may offer small cage traps for them so that I can send them to the shelter, though. I think I need to give them a call....

Quite bored...

So far, it's rained about four of our waking hours today which, since it's now 11am, is saying something. It only just stopped in the last few minutes. I have sat on the couch reading a book most of the morning, allowing the kids to just watch cartoons. Kellen eventually tired of that, though, so he's playing video games now.
It's really not good for watching calories, but I decided I wanted to bake something today, so I now have some mint chocolate brownies in the oven. If I like them, I'll put the recipe up on my other blog. At least they'll make a good treat after lunch, which is fortunately only about a half hour away. If I feed Madison lunch at around 11:30am she is more likely to go down for her nap between noon and 1pm. This isn't as critical this week, since we don't have to leave the house to get Kellen from school, but I don't want to disrupt the routine, either. She's highly unpredictable as it is; I don't need to make it worse :) And since Kellen is getting some video game time now (instead of during nap-time), I have high hopes of getting his books organized while Maddi is down for her nap. I had had intentions of doing it yesterday, and Kellen went to play with a friend instead. I really couldn't begrudge him that since the weather was going to be nasty the rest of the week...
I know that there is lots of housework I could get done, but I'm just feeling really, incredibly bored today. I need a project!

End of the day

I was expecting Steve to have to be gone until 7 or 8pm this evening, but he was actually home shortly after 6pm, which was great. After dinner and some play time, Kellen took his shower, which is Maddi's cue to find her jammies so that she can have a bedtime treat with him. Tonight we made banana splits for the kids, which they thought was great. Now everyone is tucked in bed, Steve is finishing a military history program of some sort, and we'll be ready to head off to bed ourselves pretty soon. All in all, a pretty good day!

I wasn't thinking far enough ahead to take pictures of the splits before I handed them to the kids, so this was Madison's after she'd started digging in! Oh, well. Maybe next time :)

Pic of the Day #61

"Fort!"
This is almost the only picture I took today, but I did really like it because although you can't really tell both the kids are playing nicely together inside this fort that Kellen asked to build in the living room. I know, Toy Story 2 is running in the background, but they had a great time playing together for a while this evening while I made dinner. Their interests can be so far apart that I really don't get enough pictures like this, so it was great to have Kellen getting Madison involved in gathering blankets to make their fort :)

Time for me...

This morning we didn't get much housework done, although I did get stew meat pulled for dinner (cottage pie) and the dishwasher has been loaded, but I remembered at about a quarter till 10am that today is Tuesday. That means story time at the library! Kellen wasn't thrilled about going, but we got out the bikes and rode down to the library. Kellen got a couple of books on science (one of them is even about chemistry!) while Maddi and I went into the story time for the toddlers. It isn't much, but it gets us out of the house, and I got to visit with a couple of friends there, besides killing about an hour of time without the television. Wonderful! It was kind of chilly, though, so Kellen was requesting hot chocolate when we got home. I put him off (not wanting to give Madison a dose of sugar right before nap time) and we made tomato soup and grilled cheese for lunch instead. Now Madison is down for her nap and Kellen has gone to a friend's house to play for a while so I have a quiet house all to myself. I can hear several things calling my name. There's the laundry waiting to be folded, a couple of new books that I picked up at the library, and my blogging. You can see where my priorities are at! Maybe I'll put in a movie while I fold some laundry and leave the book for later. At least then I will feel comfortable relaxing with my book, instead of guilty :)

Small Vent

Disclaimer: If you like cats, you may want to skip reading this post!

It should be stated that I have a very definite preference for dogs over cats, but things like this just cement it. I was looking out the front window (Madison was waving good-bye while Steve left for work) and I glanced down at the bed of tulips that I had transplanted the other day. One of them was upside down, the bulb literally sticking up in the air. Obviously the work of a cat, because the bed is raised two feet off the ground and is really narrow. Not really thinking it through, I went out and re-dug it's hole and stuck it back in, but I found nice cat droppings in the process (can you hear my sarcasm?) which was what really put me over the edge. I went back in the house and got a Costco-size container of particularly hot chili powder and sprinkled it all over the flower bed. I hope they burn their mouths when they lick their paws, if the smell doesn't make them stay away entirely. Outdoor cats just wander "their territory" doing whatever they feel like, and I don't think I should have to deal with the poor side effects of an animal that doesn't belong to me.

A Visitor!

I had already posted a Pic of the Day when this happened, or I definitely would have picked one of these for that, but it was great to see him in our back yard anyway! I was putting away leftovers from dinner when Kellen said there was a bird in our back yard. When I saw that it was a blue jay, I told him not to move (because when they see you moving on the other side of a sliding glass door it typically spooks them and they leave) while I carefully picked up my camera and snapped off a few shots. It's always great to see the bits of color that come with spring, including the ones that move on their own!

Pic of the Day #60

"Nothing Lasts Forever"Okay, some things do. But not pillowcases. I probably wouldn't have noticed except that this pillowcase is part of one of the first two sets of sheets that Steve and I bought ourselves in the first year that we were married. We bought one blue set and one cream set at Bon Marche ten years ago. The sheets themselves went a couple of years ago, wearing holes in them in places because they were our favorites. I still used the pillowcases with other sheet sets, though. Today, I was making the bed and was putting Steve's pillow in the pillowcase when the edge just started separating completely. Time for these to go now, too, I guess. Oh, well.

Good Job!

Kellen is home on Spring Break this week and had originally had visions of plenty of video game time. I removed that illusion at breakfast, letting him know that we had some chores to get done first and he could start by changing the sheets on his bed. So he stripped his bed, took his laundry to the washer (I started his laundry later) and re-made his bed with clean sheets all by himself. It's not the first time, but he was so pleased with the way it looked so I had him stand in for a picture of his bed all finished. He really is such a good helper, and some days it almost makes up for the damage that Maddi does! He is so good at helping to clean up all of her messes of toys everywhere, even though he had nothing to do with making the mess in the first place.

Pic of the Day #59

"Just Like Daddy"I have to apologize for the pile of clean sheets in the background, but this was just too funny. Usually, this bench sits against the wall between the piano and the television. We sometimes pull it out for Madison to have her lunch on while she watches Charlie and Lola (can you say Bad Mom Award?) and if it gets left out then Steve will use it as a footrest while he watches tv in the evening after he gets home. So this didn't get put away Friday or Saturday, and was still out when we got home from church on Sunday. So, while we were getting some lunch made, Madison was watching Micky Mouse Clubhouse with her feet up on the bench, just like Daddy :)

Easter Baskets :)

Well, the basket for Steve and I is not really impressive, but it has my new bible, Steve's gift cards for iTunes and the coffee, a couple plastic eggs, a couple Cadbury eggs, and the solid chocolate bunny. Interestingly enough, none of the candy in the baskets this year held any appeal for me. I'll have the occasionaly piece of plain chocolate, but I prefer mine dark, and I like truffles and filled candies better.Kellen took quite the haul this year. Mom bought him the Scripture Scouts cd's for the Old and New Testaments and a new book called The Wizard of Ooze (you can't see it in the picture because it's pushed in between the bible and cd's), Grandma and Papa sent an Easter card, we bought him the bible, the Lego thing was given to Madison at the Pinewood Derby and isn't really age-appropriate so we gave it to Kellen in his basket, and then there is a small assortment of chocolates and a few plastic eggs.
Madison got a new board book from Mom, a heart necklace with a cross on it as well as a Disney princess hair kit (brush, mirror, pony tails) from Steve and I, an Easter card from Grandma and Papa, and then the traditional candy.
The church was doing a breakfast on Easter morning so we got up early and arrived at the church shortly after 730am for pancakes, scrambled eggs, and sausages. Apparently, the church has been doing this breakfast every Easter for over 50 years. Wow. This was followed by the service and then, instead of Sunday School, they did an Easter egg hunt. Steve helped "hide" the eggs and candy which, for the candy, meant throwing it anywhere the kids were likely to find it easily :) He had fun, obviously. Then we came home and were totally lazy the rest of the day. We did a ham for dinner, with scallopped potatoes and peas. I think the best part of this weekend was that Steve didn't have work intrude on it even once; we actually had him with us the whole weekend and he didn't even get any calls :)

Pic of the Day#58

"Family Games"

On Saturday evening Kellen asked if we could play a game. This gets a little hard with Madison because she's not old enough to play any of our family games, but we helped her play this one with us. We had fun playing two rounds together. This one even has an "Evil" card. If you have the "Evil" card then you can play it at any time (whether it's your turn or not) and take the top card on the discard pile. Then play continues to your left, leaving the possibility that someone (or more than one someone) could get skipped in the process :) I can't wait for Maddi to get just a little older so that we can all (actively) play games together.

Random Tag!

Courtesy of Michelle, the rules are: List 7 random true things about yourself and then tag 2 people!

#1 - I only got back on the blog network again tonight because the kids are in bed and Steve is doing work on the other computer, leaving me with nothing to do.

#2 - I am going to go play Harry Potter for a while when I am done doing this :)

#3 - I hurt my back recently and I'm not sure how I did it...

#4 - I had to run the dishwasher twice today, and will have to unload it first thing in the morning in order to get anyone to load their breakfast dishes tomorrow.

#5 - Some days I am really tired of being the Mommy; can I be someone else for a day?

#6 - My fingernails are getting really long right now, which causes problems typing and means that very soon they are going to start ripping and breaking in inconvenient places; time to clip!

#7 - I think I've killed two raspberry plants within the last week. I planted them (temporarily) in buckets so that they could easily be transplanted at my in-laws' house when they get back from vacation, but there's been too much rain and there is standing water in the buckets now...

I tag Abby and LaNita!

Pic of the Day #57

"Apple Butterscotch Tart"
Once again, I am using a food item. But it was my favorite thing out of what I took pictures of today. You can find the recipe for it on my food blog. I've already put it there, because it was so yummy :) I think dessert is my favorite meal of the day, making it hard to only have one!

Pic of the Day #56

"Encouraging Spring"These tulips have been in my backyard in a pot for months. Like, they were left as bulbs sitting in two small pots by the last people who lived here, and we've been here since last July. I truly hadn't even noticed their existence until we started having a few warm days in February and I saw them poking out. I've kind of been thinking I needed to do something with them if I am going to get any flowers from them, but I hadn't actually put action to thought until yesterday. The flower box along my front porch looked rather forlorn anyway, so I transplanted the bulbs out front where, if I'm lucky, I'll have tulips popping up out of those leaves in the next several weeks. I am in desperate need of more color right now, so I look forward to seeing these bloom.

Easter eggs!

Time to dye the eggs! After dinner this evening, we sat down at a towel-covered, hand-me-down card table in the kitchen over the wood floors (avoiding the carpet) so that we could color our Easter eggs. The kit that we bought this year is a tie dye kit, which means that you wrap your egg in a damp piece of fabric (provided) and put it inside a plastic mold with lots of holes in it. Then you take a (provided) syringe to suck egg dye out of the cups and sqeeze it in through the holes in the mold. The dye then bleeds around the damp fabric and creates a tie dyed effect. Very Cool!Madison focused on just coloring the eggs in the traditional fashion, and was very particular about which colors she wanted. At one point, Steve was trying to convince her to do a yellow, because we didn't have one yet, but she was quite certain that she wanted to do orange (Kellen had already done an orange) and she wasn't having any of his suggestions.
This is Kellen's tie dyed egg. I just loved it! The swirled colors just look so cool :)
This last is a solid part of Steve's Easter traditions. You may think it looks kind of ugly, but this is his rock egg. After everyone is done with their dying effects, Steve takes one last egg and puts it through each and every one of the colors, creating a somewhat rock-colored egg. He does it every year, and it's his favorite. This one had a little more green to it than some others have had in the past, and he felt like the fingerprints around it (from rolling it in the dye) gave it a slightly more realistic look :)

Pic of the Day #55

"Weeping, Wailing, and Gnashing of Teeth"

This one is much closer than I had intended it to be, but Madison just kept walking straight at the camera. The scouts had an Easter egg hunt on Wednesday evening and Madison was kind of pleased with the little plastic eggs she was finding, but she became a little fixated when she realized that they opened to reveal candy. The face above is a direct result of telling her that she couldn't sit down and open all those eggs with the intent to ingest all that candy (I said, "No.")

Ready for Easter!

I am so excited! We actually have all of our stuff ready for Easter :) I made up the baskets yesterday. Mom mailed stuff to put in, and we have cards from Steve's parents to put in, plastic eggs have been filled, and I even have an iTunes card and a coffee gift card (to the coffee stand at the church) in an envelope for Steve. I boiled eggs today and have them chilling in the fridge so that we are ready to color them this evening, using a Tye Dye box that we got this year. Sometimes I find it funny that one of Steve's favorite things about any given holiday is the candy. Mine is the stuff that we do. Since I already made up the baskets and filled the plastic eggs, Steve has already been raiding the remaining Easter candy :) Oh, well.

I am not exactly certain how I am going to pull off dinner this evening, since the chicken that I pulled out earlier isn't defrosted... Maybe there's something in the way of a stew that I can do in the pressure cooker. In any case, I better go figure that one out. It's already just about 5pm and, although Steve will likely be a little late (making a Costco run), there are no meetings tonight to keep him out all hours, so he'll be wanting dinner when he gets here. Not an unreasonable expectation, really :)

Pic of the Day #54

"Mmmmm, Lunch!"

It seems that I am forever playing catch-up on my pics of the day, so this one is actually from two days ago. I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich with Canadian bacon, tomato and avacado, and used mozzarella instead of cheddar (fewer calories) and a spread instead of butter (again, fewer calories) for a really delicious lunch. The only thing that would've made it better would be a mug of hot tomato soup, but there was little sense in making an entire can (which would feed Kellen, Madison and myself) for only me.

My least favorite job

Without a doubt, my least favorite job in the entire house is filing. I would rather clean bathrooms, really. So I gathered my three piles of filing (see below) and finally tackled the job today. I haven't done it since shortly after we moved in, so there are utility invoices, medical invoices, receipts, owner's manuals, and tax-type stuff all jumbled together there.It really didn't take as long as I had feared this time, and here are all of my tidy piles across the table, which have now been filed away in their respective (appropriate) places, so that I can find them should I (actually ever) need them. Even though that got done, I lost on a few other scores. The vacuuming never got done today, the kitchen is a mess, and dinner was late, which was bad tonight because we had scouts and ended up being late for that. But at least I got a brief one-up on the clutter!

Pic of the Day #53

"A Good Day's Work"

This was what I spent much of my day accomplishing today. There is usually a LOT more clutter on it than you see right now, even though I know it's not perfectly clean yet. I can't have my sewing table in the house right now (no where to put it) so the box on the upper left of the desk is a small box of sewing odds and ends; scissors, rolling cutter, needles, thread, bobbins, elastic, ruler (I have no idea where my tape measure got to, again), safety pins and the like. But it had been stacked with three separate piles of paperwork, because I positively hate filing, various scrapbooking things on top of the white cabinet at the far right, scrapbooking pens everywhere that needed to be put back away... You get the idea. Steve told me the other night that he's not happy with the way the room is arranged (there's very little space on his side of the bed) but I needed to clean out before I could re-arrange furniture, so this was the first step :)

What's in my purse?

Well, this is a larger purse than I have had at times in the past. I've gone as small as just a wallet, and this one is about as large a purse as I've ever had. I really hate carrying it, and Steve will always let me know if I don't need to bring it wherever we're going so I can opt to leave it home :)

Let's see, I have the usual cards: debit/credit card, membership cards to REI, Oregon Zoo, and OMSI, Costco card, and health insurance card. I also have a Target gift card from last year that only has about $1 left on it, but I can't seem to just throw it away... I have a business card for the doctor's office that I just enrolled the kids and myself at, and an old health insurance card (already partially cut up) that needs to have destruction completed on it so that I can throw it away. I have leftover stamps from this past Christmas (that's a shame because I don't use them often and stamps are going up again in May), spare change, a plastic key to my car (it will open the doors in case I lock the keys inside, which I've certainly been known to do!), my checkbook, a pen, a pocket manicure kit (nail clippers, file, cuticle scissors, and tweezers), an extra pair of nail clippers that have no reason to be there, a Valentine's card to Madison from the lady at the library story time, a compact mirror, a certified mail receipt, a couple of store receipts, and the iTunes and coffe gift cards that I bought Steve for Easter. If I'm out somewhere, it usually has my cell phone and keys in it as well, of course :)

So now, I am going to tag Melinda! Have fun :)

Pic of the Day #52

"Cold Oatmeal"

As an adult, I have had to find ways of eating oatmeal that I like (officially, it's with butter, sugar, and milk/cream) and it's only been in the last few years that I've even made the stuff. Growing up, I positively loathed the stuff. We fixed it for breakfast the other morning and Madison played with it for a while at the table before bringing it to the couch to eat some more. By this time, all of her milk and sugar is gone (because she eats those off the top, and won't let me stir in the sugar) and it's been sitting in the bowl for close to an hour. Yech! But she continued eating it for a while after I took the picture. Stronger stomach than mine, I guess.

Pic of the Day #51

"Red and Green"

Amazing how those colors aren't restricted to Christmas! I took a walk in the back yard the other day, camera in hand, and came across this lovely little lady bug traversing one of the plants. I have no idea what it is, but it has buds on it that are getting ready to bloom, so I will certainly have pictures soon. Maybe then someone can tell me what it is :)

Pic of the Day #50

"All Smiles!"

This was just so cute. The little boy is Madison's friend, Garrett, who came over to our house on Saturday evening for a few hours. They were sitting coloring so niclely and I came over to get a picture. As soon as Garrett saw that I had the camera aimed at him, he popped out this really wide smile for me. Madison, on the other hand, completely ignored me!

A Day in Pictures!

Okay, so I was starting to feel like I was almost the only one who hadn't done this already. Monday evening I set my camera by the bed so that I could start when the alarm went off and, although it took me a couple of minutes to remember that it was there and that I was going to do that, this first picture is my alarm clock. It's really dark, because Steve won't be up for another half hour. I take my shower first (or else I don't get one until after lunch) and then I get him up at 6:30am.

7am comes right in the middle of getting Steve and Kellen out the door in the morning, but I hurried into the bedroom to snag a shot of my watch that Steve gave to me for Christmas a couple of years ago. Steve had to leave a little early so he had yogurt with granola while I made oatmeal for myself and the kids. As per the usual morning schedule, I also put together lunches for Steve and Kellen, and even pulled chilled cookie dough to make fresh cookies for their lunches.



Usually, Steve leaves with Kellen at 8am, but he had to leave at 7:45 so I was going to have to take Kellen to school. I also wanted to go by the post office to mail our tax stuff and to get a package shipped to my sister-in-law. My niece's birthday was last month, and I had a gift all ready and even wrapped, but I forgot to send it to their house with Steve's parents. Ugh! So this is a picture of our microwave as I am rushing to get everything together and the kids to the car so that I can get Kellen to school and mail stuff first thing that morning.



By 9am, I was back at the house and had gotten the dishwasher loaded and dinner started in the crockpot, so I took a picture of the clock on the stove.

Then I checked some blogs and put it the post from yesterday morning. At 10am it was time to get Maddi in the car so that we could go to story time at the library. It started out with a rather small group at the beginning, but there was a huge influx of kids at the end, making it really crazy in there.

We left the library at about 11am, going to my friend Winnie's house to drop off Garrett's sippy cup that was left at our house (someone dropped it in yucky water in the sink, meaning that the cup required a cleaning!) so I took a quick picture of her down-stairs microwave.

We got back home and made lunch for Madison and myself, quickly followed by laying Madison down for a nap. Now that the house was quiet, it meant that I had a little bit of time for myself. I considered playing a video game, but ended up just puttering. In the meantime, I took a picture of the vcr clock. Sorry it's so very dark.

At 1pm, Madison was still down, and I was surfing the tv to see if there was anything worth watching, so I took this one of the directv clock.

At 2pm I was on the phone with my sister, LaNita, which was a very enjoyable chat. It was great to hear about the fun things that Dallas is doing and some of the things that are going on in their lives right now. I don't have very many clocks in my house (other than the other computer and Kellen's alarm clock, you've already seen them ALL) so I put on a watch yesterday, knowing that I was going to need a few of the watches that we've collected over the years, so this is the watch that I bought at Disneyland during our most recent trip in November.Kellen gets out of school at 2:50pm and, on Tuesdays, has piano lessons at 3:15. This means that I pick him up, take him home to drop off his backpack and pick up his piano books, and then go straight to his lesson. Since we were in the car at the time, it seemed appropriate to take advantage of one more clock!
Kellen's piano lessons end at about 4pm, so Madison and I were sitting parked in the driveway waiting for Kellen to come out. There was really too much glare for this one to come out right, but it's obviously my cell phone.
5pm and dinner is almost ready. I crock-potted some chili and had just put cornbread in the oven. Steve didn't have any meetings, but I hadn't actually gotten the call saying that he was on his way home yet, either.
Dinner is now over and, thanks to Steve and Kellen, most of the clean-up is already done! At this point, Steve asks why I am taking a picture of our alarm clock... I explain about the "Day in Pictures" that I'm doing. He says that several of his watched don't have batteries, so I could just set them to the times that I need, take the rest of the pictures all at once, and be done with it. No! That's cheating! He thinks I'm being silly, but he'll indulge me since it's harmless :) In the meantime, there's not much to do so Steve and I have a race to the video games and he talks me into letting him go first. I come check the blogs again...
At 7pm we send Kellen off to take his shower so that he can start getting ready for bed. Steve has abandoned the video games already so I get to play for a while now. Unfortunately, I forgot to save after the last time I played, so I have to repeat a whole bunch of stuff before I start making any progress in my game again.

At 8 o'clock it's time to put Kellen to bed, so this is the alarm clock in Kellen's room. It's interesting to see how his bedtime routine has changed over the years. It used to be the bath, the pj's, the treat, the teeth, the story, and the bed, with either Steve or myself tucking him in. Somewhere in the last year, we dropped off the story, because he's getting a little old for that now. Madison used to give him hugs and kisses out in the living room but, at some point, she started following him to his room. So now he gets in bed, she climbs up to give him hugs and kisses, and then she leaves. And just in the last month or so, Steve and I both go in to tuck him in, instead of only one of us. Anyway, just interesting...
Steve has a blackberry for his phone. He loves the fact that he can get his email anywhere, I feel like it makes it easier for work to follow him home... Anyway, he took this picture with his phone while we were at Disneyland in November and uses it for the wallpaper now. At 9pm, I had just gotten Madison to sleep, which leaves me free to play my video game just a little longer, until Steve is ready to go to bed.
Shortly after 10pm, we decide the day has been long enough. I take a picture of clock on the other computer screen right before we go to bed. Ahhhh! Blessed sleep!

What to do?

I am desperately seeking suggestions on keeping Madison in her car seat. She doesn't actually climb out, but she pulls her arms out of the shoulder straps so that they just go down the sides of her body and meet in between her legs. If we were in an accident, she has a high probability of being thrown from the car. Steve won't let me put pins in the nylon straps beneath where the chest buckle is, because he says it compromises the nylon. I have tied rubber bands around the straps beneath the buckle, but one of them broke off and she just pushes and wiggles the buckle until it goes down anyway. I know that the idea is to make it adjustable so that it lasts longer for a child, but I am beginning to hate the fact that the buckle slides up and down to accomodate growth!

Catch up, AGAIN!

It's been a couple of days again... It's just not as easy to sit down and do my blogging without my laptop.

Let's see... Saturday was fairly lazy, except for cutting everyone's hair in the morning. Steve was less than thrilled, but it was way over-due so I made everyone get their hair cut before I would make breakfast. Everyone, of course, means that Steve and Kellen got full-on hair cuts and Madison got her bangs trimmed. Mine doesn't need cutting again yet. Most of us played video games at some point during the day (I played Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban, Steve played James Bond, and Kellen played Zelda: Windwaker). Steve and I watched part of Walk the Line (Johnny Cash story), but had to finish it later because he had a meeting to go to that evening. I had agreed to watch Garrett again for the evening so he was here from 5pm until about 10pm, which Madison thought was just great :) They had fun playing, and I even got the cutest picture of them putting puzzles together. I haven't taken it off the camera yet, so I'll have to get it up later.

Sunday we went to church in the morning and were really lazy through the afternoon. We had crock-potted our corned beef for Sunday dinner (Steve had meetings Monday evening and wasn't going to be home for dinner) and that happens to be one of Steve's favorite meals. He doesn't like cabbage, and I prefer it with lots of butter, so we skipped the cabbage and just did mashed potatoes with steamed veggies (cauliflower, carrots, broccoli). Kellen wasn't impressed with the corned beef, having the opinion that the flavor was just too strong. Madison, on the other hand, went back for seconds :) Steve chopped up our left overs and we'll pair that with some potatoes to make corned beef hash for tomorrow's breakfast. After dinner, we went back to the church for a musical presentation of Lamentations. I had never heard of this before, but there are series of songs written for specific days of Holy Week. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd days of lamentation, representing the last three days of Christ's life before the resurrection. In any case, the music was originally written in Latin so we were provided a translation of the songs so that we could know what was being sung. The music was performed by the local university choir and was some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. We had Madison in with us for part of it, but she just couldn't keep from disturbing others so Steve took her out to the nursery, where someone was happy to play with her for a while so that Steve could come back in for the last of the music. I was so glad that we went.

Now it's almost 10am, which means it's time to get Madison in clothes so that we can go the library for story time. We haven't gone in two weeks, so I really want to get her out for that this morning. Besides the social time, it makes it much easier to get her down for a nap if she's been out playing somewhere for the morning, and I desperately need that down time :)

Last one for tonight!

We are doing fairly well with the toilet-training now. Madison occasionally tells us that she needs to go and, between that and reminders, seldom pees her pants anymore. But she hasn't figured out pooping in the toilet yet. So she had an accident this afternoon. I cleaned her up and she ran around in just a shirt for a while. Then it was time to get Kellen from school so I told her to go get some panties on. She decided to ditch the shirt and don a swim suit instead! I let her wear it most of the rest of the day until, around 630pm, she decided she'd be better served in pj's, since that's a requirement before getting a pre-bed-time treat :)
Oh, and this was my house yesterday when I ignored my chores in favor of a book that I just couldn't put down. If one must draw a line in the sand dividing the "perfect homemakers" and the "not so perfect", I would definitely be part of the latter group! Fortunately, this mess is now cleaned up, waiting in perfect certainty, for the next one :)