FaceBook Friday

So, someone I follow on another blog did a poll asking EXACTLY what I had been thinking.  Would my readers be interested in reading my Facebook posts?  I mean, I realize I post the BIG stuff here but I post all the little day-to-day stuff on my FaceBook.  So, the question was, basically, would the "little" things be interesting to readers and the answer was a resounding YES!  For those of you who are also FB friends, sorry.  For the rest of you....enjoy!  I will post my statuses from last Friday to this one.

*Libby's first time in a bathing suit! And no, she does not have a black eye....it's a mosquito bite. Ugghh!

*AND....a sneak peek at the quilt. Just have to bind it and then it will be available for SALE!!!!

*Why am I so lazy today?!? Ughhh.

*I don't know how it is possible to hurt this badly and still be alive. I think I over-did it.....just a little.

*Slept all night and then for 7 out of 11 hours today. I NEED whatever I'm sick with to LEAVE!! I don't have time for this.

*So here's the plan....Everyone woke up feeling yucky today so.....chores, lay in Mom's bed drinking tea and watching TV, nap, repeat. Sounds like a winner to me!

*I'm all for holistic medicine. I would rather go natural than anything else. That said, today I FINALLY went to the clinic because I was DESPERATE for some drugs and which doctor do I get? The more holistic one of course! WHY ME?!?!?!

*Don:  You sure are pretty when you're devious.
Me: Thank you!

BWAHAHAHA!

*James Michael fell off his bed last night and hit his face on his ladder on the way down causing a huge bloody nose. My bathroom looks like a murder scene. Not to mention the blood on both our clothes.

*Re-read my own blog post and made myself cry.....How pathetic is that? LOL

*My throat hurts so badly I have to psych myself up to swallow! Ughhh.

*James Michael made strawberry/rhubarb crisp tonight. He harvested the rhubarb, Israel washed it, James cut it and the strawberries up and then I mixed it all and popped it in the oven.

*I'm starting to feel the tiniest bit better. I only took 1 nap today!!!! I hope tomorrow I can be back to full speed. Joslyn says she's been praying for me at every meal and bedtime. Little Sweetie!

*I'm hearing voices...Don't worry, I'm not delusional. It's those two little stinkers still talking WAY PAST THEIR BEDTIME!!! Guess I'd still be talking too if I were bunking with my best friend. Oh wait, I am, but we LIKE sleep.

*I will be MIA today. I feel 90% better! I'm going to go clean for a few hours and then work on getting that quilt bound. See you tonight!

*Me: James Michael, is that hallway cleaned yet.
James: Not yet.
Me: Why not?
James: 'Cause I work slow.
Me: Why do you work slow?
James: 'Cause I'm just a little guy.

Cracked.me.up.

*One bathroom and one hallway completely cleaned and disinfected. Only 4,900sq ft to go..........

*After adding 1 part "I feel better" with 2 parts "Suck it up, this has gone on long enough" I would just like to say, "Hello" to the real me. I missed you.

*Tonight's dinner....Chili in a mason jar with corn bread baked on top. Pictures? Of course!!! Mattie and Joslyn are my helpers tonight. Joslyn's currently brushing her hair. No way am I posting pics of her with her hair like it was!!

And that's it for this week.  Night all!

Random Thoughts and Happenings.....

Libby Jane escaped from her crib for the first time today.....She's 16 1/2 months old.  Is that supposed to happen already?

James Michael and Iz helped me make rhubarb crisp today.  It started when James asked me to go on a walk with him.  His request was immediately followed by adorable, pleading eyes and "Please say YES".  How could I say no?  Especially when he's been especially Dennis the Menace/Tigger-ish lately.  I know all he did was ask me to go for a walk, but what I heard was "Mommy, you've been so sick, I've missed you.  I need your attention."  We held hands as we walked to the top of the driveway and back (We don't live in the city...it's a long driveway)  He wanted to go throw rocks over a valley near our house but I told him I didn't think I could make it that far.  He offered to carry me. 

On the way home we stopped at the garden box and decided to harvest the rhubarb.  He was so excited that I let him do ALL the cutting!  We fed the leaves to the chickens and made our way to the house, stopping to show Daddy our bountiful harvest.  Israel wanted to get in on the action too and was a little put out that I was making him put clothes on and wash his hands before helping.  He's been practicing standing up while peeing and had "mis-calculated" a while before and was hence, running around naked.  He was kind enough to take his clothing to the dirty laundry for me.

Tonight, while James and Iz were going potty before bed I heard a loud sound (like someone dropping a toilet seat) and then I heard James say, "Ow...that really hurt.  Israel, will you pray for me so I can get better?"  And Israel quoted his patented bedtime prayer.  It was so sweet.

I've been sick.  A lot sick.  I never get sick.  I'm the one who takes care of everyone else when THEY'RE sick.  How did this happen?  On Sunday I took a 7 hour nap.  Joslyn has been praying for me at every meal and at bedtime.  The Bigs have been so great to help me out but you can tell by attitudes that Mommy just hasn't been all there.  Tensions are running high.  I'm hoping tomorrow I'll be back at it again.  There's two weeks worth of laundry that needs folding!! 

Oh, and one of my freezers died today so I had to transfer everything to the other freezer.  Good thing we are at the VERY END of the cow we bought or it wouldn't have all fit!

And with that, Friends, I am off to bed.

P.S.  I want to add that today someone asked when I'm due and I got to say, "Next month".  Do you have any idea how awesome that is?  I've been dreaming of this day.  "Next month" sounds so much sooner than "6 weeks", don't you think?

If You Give a Mom a Mess

So, things have been kinda quiet on the blog lately.  Don't for one minute think it's because things have been quiet at home! LOL  We've been working hard around here.  The sun has been shining......off and on....literally by the minute and that gets us doing as much outdoors as possible.  Mostly, we've been working on remodeling our dining room and bathroom.  I'm doing the dining room and Husband has the bathroom.  (Both of which are finished at the time of this posting)

Have you ever read those books If You Give a Moose a Muffin or If You Take a Mouse To the Movies?  Basically, the story line is about how if you start them out with one thing, they'll need something else to go with it and on and on it goes until they circle all the way around to the original thing you gave them in the first place.  Very good books!  I love them!

I think I might be a mouse......or at this point in pregnancy (32 weeks, yay me!) a moose.

I started out to clean the laundry room two days ago.  But, if you give a mom a mess.....she'll notice that she needs to refill the dishwasher soap container.  While she's doing that she'll notice that the liquid soap dispenser needs to be refilled as well.  Rabbit trail #1.  Then, when she goes to move the "bin tower" from the laundry room into the under stairs storage that got cleaned last week she'll notice that a can of Beta food has been spilled on the floor. Since she doesn't like bugs living in her house she will stop what she was doing to thoroughly vacuum all hints of said fish food in the hopes no bugs have noticed yet.  Rabbit trail #2.  When she gets out the shop vac, she will notice that it's not sucking as it should be and will empty the tank and clean out the filter.  Rabbit trail #3. 

Do you see where I'm heading with this!?  TWO DAYS....Between real life and rabbit trails it took TWO DAYS!!!  And Mt. Laundry-more....Don't even get me started on THAT!  And then, since Israel wasn't feeling well today I let him spend the day watching Word World in my bed during which time he fell asleep and peed in my bed.  Yup, 2 more loads to add to Laundry-more.

And I wouldn't change it for the world.  There will be a day when I have no laundry to do (comparatively) and the house will stay clean and none of my white furniture or trim will have finger prints on it.  Today is not that day.  (And, since I plan to have, like, 5 Million grandchildren I imagine that day might be the day I die.)

LuLu Belle Cruise part 2

Alright, I promised the rest of the pictures!  So here's some of those Sea Lions.  Kinda funny about these sea lions.  See the really big ones?  The bulls?  Those are the ones that no one would mate with so they got sent to live here with the "teenagers" LOL 

I also promised a picture of some ice bergs.  These are really tiny ones.  It was the end of the cruise and neither Sydney and I were motivated to go take pictures of a glacier after the winter we had!

And one last picture of Don and me.  We have a similar one in our living room that was taken on the same boat about 10 years ago.  I'm really excited to print this one and hang them side by side.

That's about it for the blog.  If you would like to see more pictures you can check them out on my FaceBook page.  I'll be uploading this month's photos to an album tonight.

Cruising Alaska

I live in the small Alaskan town of Valdez.  It's a cozy little thing perched right on the edge of the water.  There's lots of fishing, fish processing, and tourism going on around here in the summer.  This weekend we were invited by our friends to go on a cruise on their tourist boat.  We took it as an opportunity for a "date" with just the Bigs (Bigs refers to Sydney, Hannah, Elijah, and Mattie) and sucked Aunt Chelsea into babysitting for us for the day.  Elijah opted out of the cruise so it was just us, the girls, and our friends that were visiting from out of town.

It was a kinda rainy day so we dressed in layers (You can always take it off if you're too hot but if you get cold and don't have more to put on, well, sucks to be you) and headed for the Lulu Belle.  (Visit their website http://www.lulubelletours.com/ for more great, Alaskan pictures)  As you leave the harbor there are two fish processing plants.  There happened to be a boat docked there unloading fish so I snapped a pic.

 

The next thing we saw was a group of otters.  There's a technical name for them and Fred, the boats captain, told us SEVERAL times what it was but clearly I wasn't listening and I'm not concerned enough to google it! LOL  Aren't they cute little things?  We actually have otters in abundance here.  The kids and I regularly head down to the docks to look for our favorite otter, "Spot", named that because we always "Spot" him.  Truth be told it's most likely a different otter every time but they all sorta look the same so.........



Next up was a hump back whale.  We had so much fun watching this guy.  At one point he was about 40' or so off the front of the boat.  He was clearly feeding and kept getting closer and closer to the land which dropped off sharply under water making for a perfect back scratching area!



I think it may have been quite possible to sit there and watch him (her?) all day.  His movements were so fluid and perfect.  It amazes me how perfectly God designed these massive creatures to be able to move so deftly through the water.  And to live on something as tiny as krill and shrimp to boot!  I mean, seriously?  Can you imagine how much that guy has to eat just to get a belly full?  Anyhow, on with the show.......

I think the next thing we saw were the Dall Sheep.  We saw a Mama and her very tiny baby.  Can I just tell you that to THIS Mama it looked like that mountain was straight up and down?!  I know those things are very sure footed but I was seriously having a heart attack!  Would somebody please get that baby off there?!!

We also saw a group (pod?) of Dall Porpoise.  Those guys are so fun!  If you stick right around 35mph they will come right to the boat and swim and jump ahead of you.  They are smaller than a dolphin with the coloring of a killer whale.

One of my personal favorites (for sight, certainly NOT smell!) are the Stellar Sea Lions.  I could watch them all day!  They don't really DO much other than sit around on the rocks, occasionally fighting with each other, making burping noises......Wait.....that sounds a lot like my dinner table!  JUST KIDDING!!! LOL  My kids don't burp.  They tell knock-knock or "why did the chicken...." jokes.  Speaking of which....Why did the duck cross the road?  Because the chicken was on vacation!  I know, knee slapper, right?  Never a dull moment around here! LOL 

Oh, no!  It won't let me upload any more images!!!  I guess this will be a 2 part post?  OK, up later are sea lions, ice bergs, and a picture of Don and I.....But I think it'll wait until tomorrow!







Freezer Cooking

I will be the first to admit that the "me" in my head has it all together.  The real "me" does not.  I am the person that thinks about what I'm going to make for dinner at 8am.  Then I get busy with my life. (Children have to be bathed AND dressed you know) I think about it again later,  "Oh, yeah, I need to get that meat thawing right after I......"  Soon enough its 6pm and I'm scrambling to get some sort of tasty goodness on the table before Husband gets home.  I need a plan!

I love those people that cook once a month.  I love the IDEA of cooking once a month.  I've even bought books on cooking once a month.  This week, I used them. Please don't ask me how long I've owned them.  The answer would be truly embarrassing.  Since Mattie recently announced that she really enjoys cooking and would like to be my kitchen helper I enlisted her help in thumbing through this book......

and we picked a few recipes we thought would work for our family.  For the sake of being first timers we only chose recipes that used beef.  Well, that, and we buy beef by the cow so we happen to have more of it on hand.  We decided on four "recipes" from the book......sorta.  We used their Salisbury sauce as a stroganoff sauce instead of on meatballs.  Then, we basically used it for ideas.  Lasagna, mozzarella meatballs, bean, beef, and cheese burritos....We used the leftover lasagna sauce to just put in bags for spaghetti.  We made our own "refried" (actually, just cooked and slightly mashed with seasoning) beans for the burritos and added cooked rice to help thicken it up.  Much less expensive than buying it by the can.

We started with 22 pounds of ground beef, and about 10 pounds of misc. cuts for stroganoff.  We also purchased 2 #10 cans of spaghetti sauce and one #10 can of diced tomatoes as our base for the spaghetti sauce.  I always start with store bought and then doctor it up! LOL  I bought several other items as well but this gives you a general idea of HOW MUCH cooking we did!!!

So, here's a few pics......

Mattie, ready to throw her bread in for rising.

We use an artisan bread recipe for dinner bread around here.  It's so easy.  Just look it up....Artisan bread in 5 mins. a day.  All it requires are flour, water, yeast, and salt.

I used cottage cheese that was 50% off instead of ricotta this time because, well, we still own two houses and we're broke. LOL  None of the kids even knew the difference!

The kitchen in the midst of the cooking mess.

Meat balls!  We stuffed each ball with a piece of mozzarella cheese stick that Joslyn cut up for us.

 For the meat balls I use ground beef, minced garlic, minced onion, eggs, evaporated milk, chili powder, and oatmeal.  Don't bother asking me how much.  I'm a dump and pour kind of cook!
(That said, would you believe that it DRIVES ME CRAZY when I call my mom to ask her how much such-and-such to put in something and she says, "Oh, about as much as would fit in the palm of your hand."  LOL  I'm so random!)

The sauce consists of ketchup (a #10 can), minced garlic and onion, brown sugar, and liquid smoke.


Two of the finished lasagnas.

It's now the end of the day and I am utterly EXHAUSTED.  I hear my bed calling my name.  We ended up with........

 5 lasagnas (minus one for dinner tonight)
4 meatball dinners
2 spaghetti dinners
6 burrito dinners
5 stroganoff dinners

in the freezer
 5 loaves of artisan bread baked and half eaten.  LOL

 

All in all, I think the day was successful.  I have several turkeys in the freezer yet that I would like to do something with so we won't be eating beef every day but this was a great start! 

Shrinky Dink Bracelet

The other day my sister found a wonderful Mother's Day gift idea on PINTEREST!  It's a shrinky dink bracelet with a square from each of the children.  So, this is the blog I used for directions.  I HAVE NOT BEEN TO ANY OTHER PART OF THIS SITE AND AM NOT SPEAKING FOR ITS INTEGRITY SO CHECK OUT OTHER SECTIONS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

http://rustsunshine.blogspot.ca/2012/04/shrinky-bracelet.html

To be fair I should tell you that I ordered shrinky dink plastic from Amazon and did not recycle a #6 container.

Measuring the plastic pieces.  *NOTE*  Make one and then use it as a template so you don't have to do the math over and over!

Hannah clipping the corners so they wont poke Grammy when she's wearing the bracelet.

Punching holes in the corners.

The finished project...Modeled by the Lovely Mrs.  Rachel Johnson.



Sydney had other pictures of the children actually working on their projects but if you've stopped by her facebook lately and witnessed her prolific use of the word GUTS you know that she lost over 1,000 pictures yesterday due to technological difficulties.  Those were some of the pictures.  Bummer.

The sun has been shining in Valdez so we've been playing outside almost constantly!  I have wonderful pictures of our time at the beach yesterday for those of you who aren't FB friends but they'll have to wait for another post.  See?  There's my carrot to get you to come back and read again!  ;)