This Weekend…

• My parents and my in-laws came to visit.
• I may have taken a bit of credit for the surprise party that my mother-in-law put together for Elizabeth.
• Many children were sleep deprived.
• Many adults were sleep deprived.
• I stayed up too late and got up too early.
• I went garage selling on Friday AND on Saturday.
• My mom brought over some things for a project that I am working on.
• I went clothes shopping with just my mom….did you catch that?  No kids.
• My dad stayed home and played games and watched cartoons with the kids.
• I put a fan in my room at night and managed to not realize till the next morning that Spencer and Meg had woken up during the night.
• I feel only mildly guilty that my parents fielded the situation.
• Turkey, avocado, bacon and tomato sandwiches on Bryce’s homemade bread are pretty awesome.
• There’s a slight, really slight, possibility I may have eaten too many in one sitting.
• I thought, I am glad that it is no one’s birthday for awhile.
• My parents brought some birthday books for me from my sister, I can’t wait till Adeline starts school in the fall so I’ll have time to read them….

Katie

While The Sun Was Out

 

• I got my first sun burn….apparently my intelligence leaves with the rain because I didn’t put a drop of sunblock on.  I decided lobsters’ beauty is under rated.
• I helped Bryce mow our lawn (read weeds)…total time…8 hours.
• Fed and watered the ugly chicklings.

• Planted flowers with the girls.

• Clipped the first of the lilacs.
• Enjoyed swinging on the porch swing in the evening.

• Finished building and painting the new chicken coop.  It has two sides, like a chicken town home, so our new chicks for next year can go straight outside.  Unless I buy the super cute baby ducks I just saw….

• Went to some garage sales.  I bought those four chairs for $4.  They’re for the sun room.  And that ugly brown shelving thing that will be miraculously transformed…with some bead board and white paint….

• Elizabeth pulled out her own tooth.  I swear, you would have thought she’d won the lottery…there was much rejoicing.
• Hauled and spread mulch.
• Checked and double checked my garden for slugs.
• Began the war against the blackberry bushes.

The rest of the week I will be trying to finish up some things, {fingers crossed, the sun room} because we’ll have company this weekend. 

What did you do this weekend?  This is not a rhetorical question…I actually read the comments, lots of times more than once.

One other thing….my mom dropped the pillow off that I took 16 years to finish and the lady remembered all about it, so it’s a good thing I finished it.

Katie

This Week in a Nutshell

My friend, Rachel and her five kids came to visit this week.

This is how Rachel and I started the week….happy.

This is how the kids started out the week….happy.

This is how we were all feeling by the end of the week….crazy.

Just kidding.

No one had the consideration to tell me I still had on my apron.

The weather was miserable but we kept busy making bags, sewing Happy Birthday banners, spray painting bird cages, feeding nine kids {constantly}, going to Joann’s, taking kids potty, washing muddy clothing, taking a tour of Harry and David, and chasing chickens.

I had fun.

We’ll see if she ever speaks to me again.

I made this doll for Elizabeth’s birthday, which is next Saturday, and just finished it this morning.

I got pretty good at ignoring the constant crying in the background.  Ha, ha, not really, ok, really.

Do you think she needs ears?

No, her head isn’t crooked, she is quietly pondering the great mysteries of life, like why after three tries I just gave up and let her head be crooked.  Can you even tell?

Have a good weekend.

Katie

It All Makes Sense Why…

I’ve never entered an actual race in my life. {Track doesn’t count.}

But Elizabeth begged me to participate in the Mayor’s Cup 1 and 2 mile race for the Pear Blossom Festival.

*Unimportant, informative side note: Medford holds a Pear Blossom Festival each spring to…?celebrate the pear blossoms, since it’s a big part of the economy here and there’s a certain kind of pear that can only be grown here and a in a certain part of France.

So I signed us up.

We received the ‘race’ information on Friday.  It had the route laid out and the times to be there. 

Here’s the thing.  I’ve never participated in or spectated at this race.  I had really no idea what I was doing.

The sheet had two times, 7:50am and 8:30am. 

The 8:30 time sounded more appealing for a Saturday morning.

We arrived at the start/finish area at 8:05am.

There were quite a few people milling about.  Lots of people stretching, adjusting music players, chatting with friends.

I thought, ‘Man, these people take their two milers pretty seriously’.

The guns shot and we started the race.

Elizabeth in her jeans and tennis shoes, Spencer in our really old, dilapidated blue umbrella stroller, still in his pajamas, and me, in my really old, falling down sweat pants because the drawstring broke months ago. 

But it was all sufficient for only two miles.

Well, it was only going to be two miles until I realized that we had accidentally entered the 10 mile Pear Blossom Run.

When did I figure this out?

When they started handing us water,

telling us how awesome we were doing,

we were being passed by elderly women,

we passed the two mile marker and everyone was still going,

our race numbers were different than everyone else’s….

In a situation like this, it’s important to not become embarrassed.

It’s important to ignore the comments that I should be walking the ten miles with a jogging stroller (as if I was jogging anyway).

So, Elizabeth, Spencer, and I just smiled and waved like the brilliant people we are and enjoyed our time together.

We ended up turning around at the three mile marker, which means, we did six miles total.

Bryce is doing it next year.

Katie

A Mixed Bag

This week has been depressingly dreary.

Which means I got a lot of projects mostly done, made a lot of soup, and had more than a few bad hair days.

But I didn’t let that get me down, two days in a row I had the breakfast dishes done by 8am.  I just had to throw that in, I’m pretty proud of that accomplishment.

I decided to make myself another bag.  Well, I pretty much needed another bag because my other one was pretty thread bare and I was worried that at any moment the handles would break spilling the precious contents inside – diapers, wipes, a pair of Spencer’s pants, pennies, old receipts, gold fish cracker crumbs, hand sanitizer.

I used one of the buttons from my great-grandma’s button jar.

The pattern is Simplicity 2685, Elaine Heigl Designs.

It’s lined and interfaced and has a hidden pocket inside.  I didn’t even have to call my mom for help, although I did have one of my friends over who has a degree in clothing construction or something or other….

This is a picture of Spencer sitting on the mud room steps {I’m the only one around here who calls it the mud room despite my best efforts at trying to train the others, they’re still confused when I say ‘mudroom’.} He thought I was doing laundry and was waiting for me patiently while eating a sugar cookie.

Caught.

Hope you have a nice, sunny weekend.

Katie

I Find I Start a Lot of Conversations With…

I saw this idea on Pinterest….

I picked up a square of craft foam at Joann’s and cut the B using a knife. Then I wrapped it in moss (which I already had, I used the kind that comes in one big sheet, and I.am.a.fan) and secured it with hot glue. Total time, 20 min, even in the midst of doing laundry, dishes, all four kids home, all fighting over the ball Spencer got for Easter and whining for candy.

 

If you give Adeline the camera, she will take multiple pictures of….her nose.

We’ve had a nice couple of days so we’ve been busy: building another chicken coop, planting raspberries and blueberries, making strawberry boxes, planting strawberries, spraying weeds, hanging swings, bouncing balls, making picnics, playing with friends and chasing chickens.

Till another day,

Katie

Mirror Re-do

Before

After

I decided I should frame the mirror.  I’ve had better ideas.  Although, it was pretty inexpensive.  The glass place that I go to regularly cut the mirror down for free and I just used two 1x4s to trim it and some left over paint.

I think at this point in my life I should probably return the math award that I received in high school.  I’m sure if my teacher saw me now she would have some serious doubts about my capacity to calculate.

I won’t bore you with the details but it was not smooth sailing.

And it’s pretty big.

I’m thinking about using it in the girl’s room as a floor mirror.

 

While Bryce was gone I took some time to do some crafts.  One of the more tedious one was covering Styrofoam balls with moss using a hot glue gun.  But I think it was worth the scorched finger tips.

I also went to an estate sale and picked up the two glass containers with lids for $.50 each.  The one holds old croquet balls my mom gave me.

Hope you have a great weekend and it’s sunny where you are.  If it is, please don’t tell me, it would induce some major displays of jealousy.

Katie

This Time, Next Year….

 

for my birthday:

• I will do the dishes after breakfast, it really does make me a happier person.
• I will not do a project just because I think I’m entitled because it’s my birthday.  The chances are I’ll do the calculations incorrectly anyway…oh, wait, that already happened.
• I will refuse my friend’s invitation to lunch because Adeline will find some unsupervised scissors and convince Meg to let her cut her hair and Spencer will have not one but seven meltdowns.
• I will let Adeline know that cutting anyone’s hair is not o.k. {although, for the record, I already have, 500 other times}
• I will not have to put Adeline in time out for 40+ minutes for cutting someone else’s hair where she will spend 15 minutes of that time harrowing up and apologizing for every other indiscretion she’s ever committed like: sometimes she says the st(upid) word, she has been hitting and kicking for a really long time and she just can’t get her body to stop, and she’s so sorry, etc., etc., etc..
• I will have a frozen pizza for dinner, so I can actually spend time with Bryce versus him sweating in the kitchen making homemade bread and clam chowder that the kids won’t eat anyway, making the whole dinner experience kind of miserable.
• I will let the kids watch movies all day.
• I will have popcorn and cereal for lunch.
• I will pray for the whole day to be sunny, not just for sun, because apparently I wasn’t specific enough and the sun DID come out, but it was for the 20 minutes I was in a store.
• I will be more grateful.
• I will be less annoyed.
• I will not get frustrated with Elizabeth when she complains about her upcoming birthday and not being able to have a friend party or when she starts crying and I tell her in no uncertain terms that she is behaving selfishly and that’s it my birthday and she should straighten up and I get one day out of the year and I would really love it if she would just be happy and stop playing the victim.

Yup, next year my birthday will be awesome.

Katie

Here We Are

Spencer turned 1!

Spencer’s new monster.

 

• Bryce is home
• We went saw the Hunger Games, it is excellent.
• My sisters came to visit.
• We drove to the coast.
• It was raining torrents and really windy.
• We had lunch in the car and drove back.
• We watched two seasons of Downton Abbey in three days.
• We went shopping.
• We ate a lot of Blizzards.
• We laughed a lot.
• We did haircuts.
• The chicks are ugly, and smelly, and noisy.
• The sun came out yesterday.
• I turn 29 tomorrow.
• We bought some raspberry plants.
• Adeline is trying my patience.

Katie