Wednesday, May 30, 2012

A few finished projects


If you remember correctly for months at the first of the year on my to do list every week was crocheting slippers. & finishing the Costley quilt. They both have been done for a while now, & I thought I would share the finished products.

One of my goals this year is to learn to crochet. I found some awesome videos that have taught me most everything I know. They are amazing & if I forget something I just go back and watch the video I need again. You can read more about the videos, my goal to learn to crochet & a link to this pattern & others HERE on this old post.

Anyways I finally finished making them. Here is a snapshot of the finished project one afternoon.






They are actually pretty comfortable & I have planning on making another pair or two. My boys are now begging me to make them some kind of slipper. I purchased a pattern yesterday, now I just need to pick up a new sized crochet needle & I will be good to go. 


The other item I finished was a original quilt for my sister-in-law. There is no pattern for this one, just the one I drew out. They wanted a cowboy quilt for the new little boy & after debating over & over what I wanted to do. This became the finished product, the cowboy silhouettes are all appliqued on.








Sad to say I actually never saw it completed. It went to the quilters (my amazing mother) & then shipped from there, because I was already late on it. So my mother just sent me a picture. But I am happy how it turned out.

I have a few more finished projects to show, ones that I made for our little Coyote, but that will have to wait until another day. Happy Wednesday, ya'll.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Menu Monday


This Week's Menu     
  There are a few copycats from last week, that we never ate.   

Monday:
        B- Sausage & Eggs
         D- Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo


Tuesday: 
         B- Cold Cereal
         D- Taking Dinner to the Neighbors, Chicken Pot Pie &  Dessert

Wednesday:  
          B- Oatmeal/Cream of Wheat,
          D- Herb Crusted Pork Loin from my friend Barb

Thursday:
      B-    Cream Egg on Toast
       D -  Chicken Parmesan from here


Friday: 
  B- Whole Wheat Pancakes
  D- Father/Son Camp out, I will fend for myself.


Saturday: 
        B.  Cereal
        D.  Tin Foil Dinners

Sunday:  
        B- Sticky Rolls & Fruit
        D - Lemon  & Garlic Roasted Chicken

Baking:  Homemade Wheat Bread & Granola, Treats for neighbors & Father & Son Camp out



As always I am linking up to Organizing Junkie. 




This Week's TO DO
  • Fix My Hubby's Dress Pants (Hems & Seams) 
  • Finish Planting Garden
  • F.I.A.R - Grandfathers Journey
  • Try My Hand at Making A Pallet Box seen Here    (I think they are adorable, but this intimidates me, my husband is the carpentar at this house, but I would like to try. We will see.)


Friday, May 25, 2012

Already a Month

I can't believe that my little boy is already a month old. He is already getting too big to fast.





This is the day he was born & below a picture I snapped of him at the doctors office yesterday.



The days have flown by. The nights, were working on. I took him to the doctor yesterday. & he now weighs: 9 lbs. 10 oz. He was born 7 lbs. 9 oz. So he is gaining weight really good. For the most part he is a good & happy baby. His does get a little fussy at night, but I just pass him off to his daddy; who seems to have the magic touch. Either way we are in love with him & are so grateful we were blessed enough for him to join our family.







Isn't he just adorable. Oh, I am smitten.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Field Trip

Yesterday we had to run errands in a town away from where we live. So we decided we might as well make the most of it & we stopped at a little museum they had. The boys have been asking to go there since they drove by one time last fall. The whole museum is dedicated to the potato.

The boys got pins & postcards, and when we finished they gave us a box of hash browns to eat.





The boys posing with their pins & postcards.



The baby slept through the whole thing.





The boys looking at this cool collection of Mr. Potato heads.



A slightly better picture of all the potato heads.

(I need to apologize for the poor quality of my pictures, I do own a nice camera , but don't always have it with me. So these are all taken with my phone. But I realized I can blog & take pictures with my phone & even though it is a lower quality it is better than nothing. Someone told me that if there is no picture to remember it, it never happened. I know that isn't all true, but I realized I need to take pictures & record as much as I can. So that is what you have been getting lately. Sorry, but at least it is something.)

Okay off the tangent & back to the museum.

They had all sorts of facts about the potato .& old equipment. Did you know the average person eats 148 lbs of potatoes a year?
And the potato originated from the Andes mountains?





I saw this. & thought it was funny, it is put out by the governor of Idaho. I couldn't tell the year though.









A picture of the enormous potato outside the museum. It was a rather small museum, but fun nonetheless & we came away with a little more knowledge of the great potato.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

A. surprise

My anniversary is next week. We have been married almost 9 years. Well last weekend my hubby surprised me with an early anniversary present.









Flats of flowers to plant in my sad looking flower beds. You see there are no flowers currently growing in our flower beds except maybe 2 or 3 and a large crazy amount of weeds.
(Sad to say I studied landscaping in college & have my degree in Horticulture, but you could never tell it by looking at our yard.) Oh well a little each year & one day we will get there.
I am quite excited, you see it was something I wanted to buy, but couldn't justify it as a need. Just a want. So I couldn't do it. But I guess that is what good husbands do. They can help us justify our wants to needs.
So happy early anniversary to me. I was able to get one flower bed planted on Saturday. Now I am trying to take back the other one from the weeds & hopefully get it planted soon!!!
So I can keep putting these beautiful flowers in the ground.




I just love flowers! Happy Wednesday to you!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Ping

We are trying to get back in the swing of things with 4 kids & school. This week as part of homeschool we rowed the book Ping. I did five in a row (F.I.A.R) for a while at the 1st of the school year but I slowly tapered off. We picked it back up this week & I remembered I really do enjoy it.

This is the book:






Here are some of the things we did to go along with it.

We studied China & were lucky enough to go out for Chinese one night.













The hubby & baby came too!

Since Ping is a duck we started a unit studying birds that we will continue on this week.

It worked out perfect that our eggs in the incubator were on there last few days.

The boys laid them out on the incubator. You have to keep the rotated for the 1st 18 days. Then you set them flat & leave alone for the last 3.



Then a few days later they hatched.









We also took a walk one afternoon to identify birds.





Of course we had to take a picture of our ducks & call him Ping for a day.





We also took a tally & counted our cousins & aunts & uncles. You see Ping lived on a boat with his mom, dad, 3 brothers, 2 sisters, 7 uncles, 11 aunts, & 42 cousins. We decided to count our family & see what we have.
The boys discovered they have 9 uncles, 11 aunts & 49 cousins.

We ended our week learning about floating & buoyancy & floating boats down our ditch & pretending it is the Yangtze river in China.





It was a fun week & nice to start to get back in the swing of things.


Monday, May 21, 2012

Menu Monday

This Week's Menu     
  

Monday:
        B- Boiled Eggs & Fruit
         D- Hamburger, Rice, Carrot, Potato Casserole


Tuesday: 
         B- Ranchos Juevos
         D- Homemade Chicken Cordon Bleu w/ Rice

Wednesday:  
          B- Oatmeal/Cream of Wheat, 
          D-  Pork Chops w/ Mashed Potatoes 
 
Thursday:
      B-    Cream Egg on Toast
       D -  Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo w/ Steamed Broccoli


Friday: 
  B- Whole Wheat Pancakes
  D- Parmesan Tilipia & Steamed Veggies


Saturday: 
        B.  Sticky Rolls & Fruit, 
        D.  Tin Foil Dinners 

Sunday:  
        B- Waffles    
        D - Roast & Potatoes

Baking:  Homemade Wheat Bread & Granola 



As always I am linking up to Organizing Junkie. 




This Week's TO DO

  • Vacuum Out Vents
  • Fix My Hubby's Dress Pants (Hems & Seams)
  • Paperwork Done & Sent   Done! 
  • Finish Planting Garden
  • Finish planting flower beds & pots
  • Blog at least 3 times this week   Done! 
  • Take a break from everything & sew at least 15 minutes daily (This is just for me!)

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Heartbreaks & hugs

I belong to a quilt group. I love it. We meet together once a month. We have a teaching moment where we learn something new, we bring finished projects & share what we have done while everyone tells us how cute it us, we eat, we laugh, we have a wonderful time. We can bring our kids & they all play in the other room. We have young mothers to great grandmothers come. It is one of the highlights of my month.
I went on Tuesday & noticed it was a little more somber than normal. I showed up late & did not know what was going on. Until someone filled me in. You see there were two of us young moms pregnant. Me & another girl. Both with boys, both sick the entire pregnancy, both due within 3 weeks of each other, both scheduled C-sections. She had contractions on Friday, so she called her husband home from work, they went in, but they were only 30 minutes apart, not close enough they said. Everything else looks good they said. so they sent her home. She sent her husband back out of town back to work, because her scheduled C-section wasn't for another week & half. She dropped her kids off at a friends & headed into her regular doctors appointment.
But this time there was no heartbeat, So they rushed her (alone) into an emergency C-section. The baby had died. For no known reason. He was perfect as far as they could tell. She said he was beautiful, but somehow between Friday & monday they lost him.
Oh the pain I felt when I heard this story. It broke my heart. It hit close to home. You see there is a lot more similarities between us besides the ones I mentioned above. I too headed into the hospital early because I was having contractions, but mine were 5 minutes apart. But I was a scheduled C-section, & still had a few weeks. So they sent me home, we debated whether to fight them or not, but my husband too was leaving town at 5 the next morning. So we went home & hoped everything would be alright. So we went in the next for our regular appointment, & Finally our day arrived, my scheduled C-section. When they cut me open the found that my baby boy had his umbilical cord wrapped multiple times around his neck. He was healthy & we were lucky. But when I think of My friend & her baby, I know that it very easily could have been mine.
So my heart has been breaking this week. I have held my coyote a little longer. I am having a harder time setting him down. As I write this he is asleep on my chest




And I continue to hug him & my little boys a little more. We have had multiple miscarriages in the 4 years waiting for this baby, but I can't imagine the pain of being so close & seeing him, only to have him gone. I know this is a pretty somber post, but it's been on my mind the last few days. So I needed to share, to remember our blessings, send some extra prayers to this dear family & to remember to hug your precious ones a little longer.
Now if you will excuse me I need to hold my previous baby a few more minutes before laying him down for a nap & feeding & focusing on my 3 older ones.
Until another time - Me

Monday, May 7, 2012

Menu Monday

This Week's Menu     
   I have been so lucky after having this baby a little over a week or so ago for so many people helping me. I haven't had to cook a meal in about 12 days.  It has been nice & refreshing. I think every momma needs week or so off from cooking to help them take a break.  But we are getting ready to jump back into the full swing of life. So here we go with this weeks menu.

Monday:
        B- Scrambled Eggs ,
         D- Beef n' Broccoli

Recipe for Beef & Broccoli
     Cut up your choice of beef & marinate in sauce for 30 minutes  or a day before. (Keep in mind of I have not marinated the meat & just made it up & cooked it immediately & it was still delicious. )
   Sauce
    4 T. Soy Sauce                                     1 tsp. Garlic
    4 T. White Sugar                                    2 green onions cut up
    2 T. Oil                                                  1 T. Sesame Seeds

Mix everything together but the sesame seeds & add meat. Let marinade if you can, if not dump into to a pan & begin to cook until meet is almost done. Add as much broccoli as you desire & cook until done. Add sesame seeds just before serving.  Serve over rice.


We usually double the sauce recipe because we love it so much. I can't give exact amounts because at this house my boys love cooked broccoli so usually I  can't put enough in.  It is yummy, quick & I almost never make enough. Oh yeah & I never have sesame seeds at our house, so I have actually never made it with them in it.

Tuesday: 
         B- Whole Wheat Pancakes
         D- Homemade Chicken Pot Pie w/ steamed Asparagus

Wednesday:  
          B- Cream Egg on Toast,
          D- Someone is bringing me dinner again. No cooking today! : ) 
 
Thursday:
      B-     Cream of Wheat/Oatmeal
       D -  Pork Roast w/ Mashed Potoatoes


Friday: 
  B- Biscuits & Gravy
  D- Teriyaki Chicken


Saturday: 
        B.  French Toast
        D.  Steak & Potato

Sunday:  
        B- Pancakes    
        D -Since it's Mother's Day  I will let my boys decide & cook dinner.

Baking:  Homemade Wheat Bread 



As always I am linking up to Organizing Junkie




This Week's TO DO

  • Take our new Little Coyotes Pictures (Our Nickname for our new baby)
  • Finish & Return Paperwork
  • Make & Go to Doctor Appointments
  • Clean Office
  • Finish & Send out Thank you. 
  • Be Present in everything I do! 


Friday, May 4, 2012



For those of you that haven't seen our newest addition, here are a couple of pictures for you. For those that are waiting on me to return phone calls, ect. thank you for your concern & I will get you called back one day, but fir the week we are just trying to recover, rest, & enjoy this precious addition to the family.