A Gereration Skipped

photo credit: Addison Murray

Today I was peeling apples to make an apple cake and it made me think of my Grandma. She was always baking and making food. Apple pies were always there at get togethers. I wonder how many pies she made in her lifetime. She also made really good applesauce. The kind with chunks of apples in it. I'm a chunky applesauce girl. When my mom made applesauce, it was really strained and thin, I think it was drinkable through a straw, seriously. I started thinking how I am like my grandma in other ways too. She had 5 kids. 5 kids in a TWO bedroom house. Lots of kiddos in a little house, that's me. She cooked alot and so do I. I think she enjoyed it or maybe it's just when you have a lot of children there's really no other choice since going out to eat is expensive and such an event. It's just easier to eat at home. Maybe when you have to do lots of cooking, you learn to enjoy it. That's me, I really like to cook (and eat). My grandma was really easy-going. As long as I could remember she never got frazzled or really upset by much. Kind of a go with the flow sort of gal. I think I'm a lot like that. Sure I get mad and upset sometimes but it takes a lot to ruffle my feathers. My mom is sort of the opposite of all that. She does like to cook and my mom cooked but eating out is her thing. She was more of a "career" woman; she had her own custom made drapery business and she cleaned houses . . . a different type of career woman but still she was and still is really into staying busy and working and going out to eat was part of her day most of the time. My mom is not an easy go-with-the-flow person. She loves a good fight and confrontation with anyone and everyone. If there's a scandal, she must be in the center of it. If there's no scuttlebutt, she might just start one. Kind of funny . . . so I wonder if this generation skipping is true will Addison and Reese be more like me or my mom? My grandma is a wonderful woman who worked hard for her family, she been suffering from Alzheimer's for the last seven or so years and she's been in nursing homes for most of those years. I miss her but remembering her as a strong and patient woman and it gives me a sense of closeness to her, thinking we share some of the same attributes.

A Hard Lesson

So Tuesday I came home and could hear this weird clicking sound coming from the computer cabinet -- didn't sound good and the screen was frozen, happens sometimes. When I restarted it was not a good sign with lots of clicking and a very primative black screen saying "primary drive 0 not found". I know little about computers but even my basic knowledge was telling me that means "I'm done". I tried not to think about it. I thought maybe if I gave it time then retried over the next few days to restart it, it would magically work. I retried and retried. Same old, same old. Keely and I made plans to go shopping on Friday at the antique store so after she helped me buy a new laptop.

I'm trying to figure it out. It's not that much different but yet it is. I'm trying not to think about what photos may be lost on old computer. Monica got me that external hard drive and I did put my photos on it but not recently. I haven't yet checked but I'm thinking that I haven't done any back ups for at least 3 months even though every single day for the last 2 weeks I meant to do it. Lesson in it for all of us. I am going to take my computer somewhere and see what's up and maybe see if it's a simple fix or at the very least try to retrieve my photos (cross your fingers for me). And I think I am email addressless. So if you want me to email you I think you need to email me . . . or maybe that statement just shows you how non computer savy I really am.

Sunday Randomness

This weekend has been a hodge podge of whatever. Friday after Reese decided to have her baby go potty . . .

we picked up the kids from school and found out there had been a "fire". The electrician was checking the breakers and a paper was too close to the outlet and it ignited. Everything was fine. If I hadn't had to pick them up in a different building then I probably wouldn't have known because another mom asked me if my kids had told me about a snake in the school earlier in the week. No, not one of them mentioned it. I questioned them about it after school, turns out there was a snake that crawled in the front door or something and the superintendent took it out. I ask them everyday about school, what did they do, did they sing songs, what happened in centers, how was lunch, did you sleep at nap time, did you get all your stars, who are your friends . . . you'd think they were teenagers they never have anything to say except about whether they liked or disliked the food for lunch. So they won't even tell me about fires or snakes . . .

Aaron took the kids to his mom's house on Friday to give me a break and I scrapped some . . . no photo.

Saturday Aaron had a golf tournament for work. We worked in the yard more landscaping. We had a visit from Spiderman and he kissed Reesey.

We went out to eat pizza and ice cream with Aaron's parents and sister and her family. It was fun. Ethan got the best surprise from Aunt Ashley

He is super into Woody from Toy Story. I don't even know why but this guy has hardly left his hand since Saturday night. I had to pry it out of his hand to go to Sunday school today. That's right: we're now religious. Well maybe not religious, but we're going to church. It's only our second week. I like it and the kids seem to do okay with it. Not a lot of young people or kids in church. Our neighbors asked us to try it. It's a little hard because everybody knows us . . . the triplet family thing but we don't know anyone really and no one tells us their names so I guess I'm just going to have to ask people who they are. I think I may have even scoped out a babysitter today who took Reesey to the toy room when she couldn't take church any longer. We need a babysitter!

The rest of today was filled with working on our kitchen floor. We bought the tile about 18 months ago. Working on the house is not Aaron's idea of how one should spend a Sunday.

It took him all day to put the sub floor down but that was because every 10 minutes he had to stop and see what was happening in one sports event or another. I helped a little but mainly it was measuring and cutting. There was only one major fight followed by him apologizing to me 3 times. No divorce threats this time around. We'll see when it comes to putting down the tile as that may require more working together. Now I just need him to bring in one tile so I can see what we picked out . . . I don't remember 18 months ago . . . I sure hope I still like it.

We had a pot of chili too. 3 out of 4 kids ate it. Ethan wouldn't so Aaron put a little on his tongue and I thought he might throw up. It's definitely feeling like soup weather. I'm going to have to dig out some soup recipes.

Hope you had a great weekend too.

Where I've Been

Lots of time gone by and no blogging. What am I doing?

Mostly hanging out with this one who is way busier than the other 3 kids combined and she's such a character -- there's not a dull moment with her. I'm trying to use my preschool time wisely this time around. Last year I had visions of checking off my long list in a few weeks, working while the kids were at school. Truth be known, 9 months down the line I probably didn't check anything off the list and more jobs were added. I still have the list . . . longer version now.
I feel so satisfied with myself that I am actually getting stuff done around the house. It's just been a few weeks of preschool but am making headway. I made a schedule of my days and that's helped a lot but usually with lists and schedules I am not realistic. Often I think I can get lots of things done in a day with just one child at home who naps 2 or 3 hours but truth is everything takes lots of time, and many things have to be done in steps. Last when I looked at my lists at the end of the day and could only cross off one or two and sometimes zero things I felt unproductive and frustrated. It wasn't like I was doing nothing all day but I just never got to the list . . . it overwhelmed me and I got sidetracked. But this time I tried to think about what could really happen in my time spans and not get frustrated for not living up to my overzealous expectations. A few weeks ago I finished putting in the bricks for the border to our flower garden (that was started in June), I cleaned off my computer armoire and side table. Big deal, huh? I should have taken a photo -- I had trouble seeing the computer monitor because of the gigantic pile. At the bottom of the pile I found letters from preschool dated May (keeping it real). I've landscaped, painted doors (only 8 more to go), cleaned out our linen closet. I figured in time to scrapbook and sew one afternoon for each while Reese sleeps. That was another problem in the past not giving me some time. So scheduling that gives me something to look forward to while I'm doing all this "work".

I also realize that life doesn't follow my schedule so when Addison threw up Tuesday night and I kept her home on Wednesday I didn't really get much done -- that' s okay. Appointments throw me off and sometimes I just don't want to do what was planned, so what? It'll be there later. I was so far behind on many things like filing -- the HUGE stack had to be more than 12 inches high. I thought I only had a couple years to go through while I'm working through all the papers I see they date back to 2006. I remembered I was ready to go through it again when I got pregnant with Reesey talk about sidetracked. I was really behind on keeping up with my POTD blog and organizing photos on the computer. All of these tasks are huge and would take hours if not days to complete, and I've tried to catch up a million times and it never works. So I took Stacy Julian's advice and am working 15 minutes a day on each these things. It is working! I even started going through my teaching tubs in the basement to consolidate, organize, and purge all that stuff (and there's a lot). One tub a day and it's working. So that's where I'm at and I feel good about everything right now.

To prove I've made time for scrapping here's a couple pages I made with my latest Studio Calico Kit. I made about 5 which is awesome for me.

Birthday Party Fever

It's that time of year where my children's birthdays are right around the corner . . . well, okay not really . . . November . . . but to plan out a theme I need lots of time . . . mostly my time is spent procrastinating then rushing at the last minute but that's how I work best. We went to the home of our friends, Danny and Sonia. Their youngest turned two. They had a jungle themed party. It was really cute!

In their yard, there were tall patches of grass that hid the jungle animals. Now that took some planning to let your grass grow that tall.


The kids thought it was fun to go on safari in the tall grass to look for the animals.



Carter was bit by the monkey pinata.

Sonia is a great cake decorator. She made that cake! The elephant is made out of gum paste I think. Reminded me of play dough. Didn't it turn out so cool?

Even Carter's present went with the theme so he could drive on safari.



Seeing all this fun stuff gave me birthday party fever . . . I love fun themed parties. Now this year the older kids aren't having their birthday party until late May or June. I want to have it outside in the backyard and in the midwest you can't depend on November weather to plan on that. I'm not sure how this is going to go over with them; I've already told them but we'll see when it happens. It will give me lots of time to plan it too. It's really hard to two parites 3 weeks apart. I know I could have ONE party for all of them but then I wouldnt' get to do fun girly stuff for Reese. The morning after Carter's party I was searching online for parties ideas for Reese. I knew the theme and already found tons of fun ideas.

I love this shot I got of Carter's brother, Aidan. Hmmmm . . . frog themed birthday party, anyone?

Labor Day Parade in Pictures

We went to the Labor Day Parade in Galesburg on Monday.










Caden loved the hot rods, Addison loved the candy (of course), Ethan loved the drums, and Reese loved the drums too (only because Ethan said it 2 seconds before she was asked). It was a fun time!

Happy Birthday Patti [a day late]

My MIL's birthday was yesterday so I'm a little late wishing her a happy one but she'll understand -- she knows I have 4 kids and she's watched them a million times so she knows how wearing they can be plus she's busy celebrating so she won't know it's a little late (until she reads this). We celebrated on Tuesday night with a pizza party.

It was fun. My FIL, Ronn, gave her a popcorn machine. She's been wanting it for three birthdays finally he must have believed her. It wasn't a little one -- it's like the carnival size . . .

Hmmm . . . I'm thinking can we borrow that for birthday parties??????

The kids had fun especially when a katydid was discovered on the picnic table

It was cool looking.

Ethan even kissed it . . . he's really into kissing lately, sometimes he kisses the door knobs, not sure what that is about.

One of the best parts of the night was giving Patti her presents. I had this "genius" idea last Christmas to give my in-laws a scrapbook album, then on holidays, birthdays, or just because I make them a layout or two to add to their album. It's a great way to share photos (which I never do otherwise) and to document fun times for them. Here's the layouts I made for her:

Two of them were from our trip to Fun City in Burlington that they treated the grandkids to.

Then this one is a "thank you" for watching the kids one day a week this summer so I could have some "me time". I used photos that she had shared with me for this layout.

She loved them!

Happy Birthday, Grammy!

Project Project Week 2

I love the show Project Runway and it's back on the Lifetime Channel (Bravo is probably hating itself right now for letting it go). Emilie Ahern shares my love of Project Runway. She has created a challenge on her blog each week to go along with the challenge on Project Runway. I missed the first week but for week 2 of Project Project it was do something round to go with the maternity challenge on the show. I used some more of my June Studio Calico Kit.