What a Thursday

Today started calmly and simply enough. After lunch I felt so tired and drained. I eventually went to my bed to rest and after I helped Elisabeth with math I fell asleep.
When I woke up I went to the kitchen to make cornbread for dinner. I walked to the pantry to get an ingredient and noticed water coming out of the bathroom. I made an all call for towels to be gathered while I turned the water to the toilet off. The Blessings helped get the water dried up and the floor cleaned. 
My husband was able to adjust something and things are working well again. The evening has been spent with my husband  washing every towel we own in this house.

I finally put Benjamin's pictures in his scrapbook. He is four now and he was noticing that he doesn't have a photo album so now he does.  I only put pictures from his first two weeks of life but he has an album, nothing fancy but they are in there.

The Blessings are watching Caddie Woodlawn and I am sitting here with them. The movie is mediocre but the crew enjoy watching this every so often.

Wednesday

When I wake up the first thing I do is check my phone for email or text or voxer messages. You see,  I am not a wake up and go person, I am slow to wake up. I need time to wake up before getting up. I mean I can roll out of bed with an alarm and hit the ground running but that just isn't my preference.
Back to messages
My husband had sent a text telling me that the boiler was shut down, something was broken and to keep the fire going and he would br home as soon as the boiler parts place opened. So, I got up and checked on the fire and my little Buddy woke up and we started breakfast (pumpkin muffins) and got everyone else out of bed. We started our morning reading while the muffins baked and then I made scrambled eggs to go with the muffins. I finished up giving everyone their morning assignments and they got busy while Benjamin and I began his school work.

I did not get a shower first thing as I wasn't sure there was enough hot water, bad choice because I ended up taking a lukewarmish, coldish shower after my husband got home and while the Blessings were eating lunch, when i realized the water was warm enough for a quick shower. I enjoy my morning shower and just do not feel as though my day has started until I get that shower. After my quick shower I make a smoothie for lunch, minus a banana. I need to pick up some bananas.

The Blessings finish up their school work quickly after lunch and they start heading outside and I get the idea to try cross country skis on Benjamin since my husband was home and he could get the skis down easier. During our ski getting down, a ski slid and hit me on the side of the face. I only have a small bruised bump. My reflexes are obviously pitiful because I watched it slide down and couldn't catch the thing or move out of the way.  Benjamin did great and skied all over the place. Elisabeth and Judith skied. Both wearing my ski boots, I have two pair so that came in handy as we had skis Judith could use. Gotta look for skis at garage sales this summer.

I finally get a few minutes to ski before coming in and figuring out the rest of the afternoon with the husband. Levi and Judith had new glasses to pick up and we needed a few groceries since we have been stuck at home for a week. I started with a head cold and cough today but thankfully I feel fine and am experimenting with essential oils that a friend sells and so far I like them.

So, we decided to get into town before the eye doctor's office closed as I have no other reasons to go to town for the rest of the week.

Glasses were picked up, pizza eaten at Sam's club and couple of items picked up there, stopped at Safeway to get bananas because the bananas at Sam's were green, Otis and Judith went to the sporting goods store to get her a new  helmet for snowmachining and four wheeling, I took a couple of kids to the used children's store next door to look for deals, and we then proceeded to church.

Yippee, we all went!! We only have a couple of sniffles here and there and I had missed so much church I just needed spend time with the church family.

I let the Blessings stay up to watch Duck Dynasty, well, not the little guy, he had to go to bed.

I checked my email and had a comment that Angela liked my scoop, I like my scoop and my pickle jar too!

The picture of just the skis is me skiing, I couldn't get a picture of myself skiing so I just took what I could see.

I can't believe I waited until the end of winter to get my skis out...should have done this sooner. Spending the afternoon outside was wonderful,  wind and all.

Randomness from my day and yesterday

Yesterday I made vanilla granola (or manola as Benjamin says) I am linking to the recipe that my friend, Angela, was so kind to type up on her blog and I am including a picture of my granola in a recycled pickle jar. Obviously, Angela has a nicer jar but I'm okay with that.

Today, Benjamin and I have begun our Before Five in Row school time. He loves reading the books and working on his cutting, pasting, writing, counting, etc. Our book this week is Ask Mr. Bear by Marjorie Flack.

I left the house for the first time in seven days,  I drove the older blessings to the library while they dropped off and picked up new library books and dvds. Benjamin and I sat in the van as he had his first goopy free eyes in a few days.
I am even leaving the house again after dinner for a class and hopefully a drop in at homeschool mom's night out. Much social activity in one day!

I started a pressure cooker of moose bones and veggies for stock and well, I filled the cooker too full. I am too impatient. I got the pressure down and took one of the bones out and I am back up to pressure.

Granola

I finally made granola again today, vanilla granola. So yummy!

Sunshine

I admit that this is a horrible picture, but, as horrible as it is it is equally beautiful. I can't remember the last time that the sun was shining on the table like that for Sunday lunch. Sunshine ...there is more and more each day.

Thankful

Today I am thankful:

•For a washer and dryer for washing clothes and bedding
•Despite the fact the pink eye is slowly making its way through our home we are otherwise healthy
•A Saturday at home, there are upsides to pink eye. I think the crew will be going out to target practice and maybe even gather firewood, but I am home today
•Slow Saturday mornings and a big ole breakfast
•Cars being played on the family room floor
•Cleaning, today is set aside for cleaning. Maybe even some baking!

Life is full if things to be thankful for, take a look and see.

Now I am off to switch the laundry and give s haircut.

Today

Today I exude all the qualities of a slacker homeschool mom. Well, I had a shower so maybe not. I am in my comfy pants, bleach stained shirt and sitting on the couch. I did empty the sink and dishwasher of clean dishes and the dirty dishes are in the dishwasher. Today is a regular school day and I am the live body supervising it all. Hey, it is a good thing I am writing this post as I am not as big of a slacker as I think I am.
Last night after O got home from church he sat down for about fifteen minutes before going to bed and the home phone rings and he gets called into to work. He arrives back home around 12:20am, I am still awake as I struggle going to sleep when I know he will be home soon. Big mistake, after we get settled into bed I hear the cries of a four year old, his nose hurts and he has a fever. I was awake until 3:00am. Benjamin also woke up with his right eye somewhere between gooey and crusty, yep, #2 with pink eye.
Needless to say I am tired today, Benjamin seems as energetic as usual but he did go to sleep around 8:30pm so he got a few more hours of sleep than I did.
Thanks for listening I am not as big of a slacker as I feel but I am taking a nap today.

My Husband

I could write an entire blog of nothing but my husband’s funny sayings, poems, songs, etc. He continues to entertain us with his hilariousness.

His latest funny was the word parficitional, yes, parfictional. Judith was sharing a book character with us at the diner table and he asked her if this was a real story or fictional. She told him both because she had read or seen the author give the story of the creation of this character. That’s when the term parfictional entered into the vocabulary of our home.  Parfictional means part fiction.

He doesn’t stop there, he keeps going, yes, he does. He asked her if there was a parfictional section in the library and over the course of the week the term keeps coming up.

Oh, I love that man of mine, the funny one of the parent unit.

Firearm training

I asked my husband to buy a gun for me.



Giving Judith the thumbs up while getting ready for shooting my gun for the first time.

My Buddy

Me and my teacher 

My little people 

 Lesson time, of course, he shot first! 

Shooting his gun 

Benjamin and Elisabeth 

I think Judith has a good eye with the camera, I like the sharpness of this one. 

 

 

Life returns to normal, well, almost

Wedding has pretty much been the main focus for the past few weeks. This week was all out wedding week. I am thankful that I was still able to be home some and to take care of most things for the family and there was no fast food picked up so that was a huge plus as far as I am concerned.

Here is the sanctuary after the major decorating on Wednesday night after prayer meeting. A few things were added later.

Oh, these crepe paper rose balls. We made lots of roses and had burned and even blistered fingers.

Bride, bridesmaids and flower girls praying before the wedding. The Matron?? Maid??? of honor was praying, I took the picture and walked away. I still had much to do before the bride walked down the aisle to cry.

The cake, didn’t it turn out lovely?

The bride asked for a walk in a park feel so we did what we could to give that to her.

Weddings amongst our people here are usually church wide works and this one was no exception. Not just the women of our church but husbands and children. I enjoyed working with some of our teen girls, they made dozens and maybe even hundreds of crepe paper roses and paper cones for the wedding and they helped clean up as well.

I slept for about 9 hours Saturday night, longest night of sleep in four or five nights. I could have taken a nap today but I hope for another 8-9 hours tonight.

The almost?? We began a Bible Prophesy Conference at church this morning so this week will be filled with evenings at church. Good thing the wedding was before these meetings so I can pay attention to the teaching/preaching.