Getting Ready for Christmas

I can't believe it is almost Christmas! I love this time of year; although, I usually end up really stressed out because there is so much to do. The tree is up, and we even put up a few lights outside this year. I am really going to try to do a little more posting for the holidays, and I still need to put up Avery's birthday post. Between work, home duties, and Girl Scouts, I've been worn out! I did get my cards ordered though! Really excited about them. I ordered them from shutterfly.com, and they were designed by Stacy Claire Boyd. When I worked for IGS in Alabama, we sold Stacy Claire Boyd some printing equipment and serviced it on occasion!

Vintage Provence Holiday 2011 Christmas 5x7 folded card

Make a statement with Shutterfly Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

So, Merry Christmas- a little early!

Long Time, No Post

It has been so long since I have blogged. I bet y'all thought the men with white coats had finally come to take me away. Well, not yet!

When I lost my job in June, I prayed and prayed for a job that I would enjoy and would help pay the bills and provide health insurance for our family. Well, I was finally blessed with a job. This is my fourth week. It is helping with the bills, and I will be eligible for insurance in November. As far as the enjoyment, well... That is yet to be seen. I am pretty miserable, but I know God has a purpose for me being there- and His purpose is way better than anything I might desire. I just have to keep reminding myself of that. Anyway, by the time I get off at 5:30, pick up the girls, and drive home, It's a little after 6. I have to immediately feed Avery (She's mean when she's hungry.), and start supper for the rest of us. Then it's bath time, homework checking time, study time, and AR book reading. Not to mention the diaper changing and disaster interference I'm running with Avery in the middle of all that. There's not much time left for blogging!

Sydney is still going to school against her will. Second grade math is not her friend. She says she just wants to do the "other subjects." She announced recently at a Girl Scout meeting that her favorite subject was lunch. Who would have guessed! LOL! You never know what she might say- or do. We recently found a dead lizard in her room- laying neatly by her bed- dead. She was just "saving" him because he was cute. I was scared to ask how long she'd been keeping him in there, but I did anyway. Not very long. Just a couple of weeks. Eww.

Stephen is still working, working, working. We get to meet for lunch every once in a while since I'm working in town now. That's about the only time we get to actually enjoy eating together without little fingers in our plates.

And who do those little fingers belong to? That would be little Miss Avery! I can't believe she will be ONE in less than two weeks!!!

She weighs 16 pounds- still a runt. She wears 6-9 month clothes, mostly. She wears some 12 month sleepers. She just started wearing size 3 diapers. She is staying in a home based daycare during the day, and Miss Heather says she eats more than the older kids. She just doesn't know why she's so little. We don't either. She eats her food and then always wants to share ours. I wish I had that metabolism!

She says "ma ma," "da da," and "na na no"! And just one time, when I was calling the dog to come inside, she said, "mon da-dee" (C'mon, Daisy), but I can't get her to repeat it. When she's getting into something that she shouldn't be, she'll turn around and shake her finger at you. B.A.D.!!! Her favorite place to be is the bath tub. She refuses to walk, but she still climbs the stairs every chance she gets.

We are gearing up for Avery's party and Halloween. I decided to go with brightly colored party supplies rather than pastels. They have a cute cupcake motif. I have a cake design in mind and have purchased the pan. I'll start getting all that done this coming weekend. Sydney is going to be a vampiress for Halloween, and Avery is going to be a butterfly.

Well, that's what we've been into! I hope you enjoyed this post. I'm not sure when I'll get around to another one! Hopefully I'll at least get a birthday and Halloween post in before the month is over!

Hanging Out

Other than learning how to sit up, crawl, pull up, and get into everything this summer, Avery has just been hanging out.

With stickers on her head...

In the pool...

In the tub...

In empty diaper boxes...

On the stairs...

And with her sister!

Baking on Tree Farm Road

I picked a bunch of blueberries from the bushes in the yard a few weeks ago. I wanted to bake something with them, so I found a recipe online for blueberry buckle. I had never had it before, but it sounded great!

It was similar to coffee cake and had a cinnamon butter crumble topping. Doesn't it look good!

It tasted good, too!

The Canning Experience

The pears have started to fall off the trees at the house. They make such a mess, and if you leave them on the ground, you end up with a rotten stinking mess and a yard full of yellow jackets! So, I decided that I would try my hand at canning and make a batch of pear butter. If you asked me five years ago if I ever wanted to try canning, I would have laughed. It's just something that I never thought I would do. It was a lot of hard work, but I actually really enjoyed it. And, as a bonus, the pear butter is delicious!

I had to buy a little canning kit and some jars. The canning kit was inexpensive, about $7. I bought pint jars so I could just use my large boiler for the water bath and not have to purchase a canner (extremely large pot that I have no place to store).

While Sydney was still asleep Saturday morning, Avery and I picked a laundry basket full of pears. Well, I picked. She watched and squealed because she loves being outside.

Then, I had to peel all those pears and cut them up into chunks. I don't think my hands have ever been that tired. Feet either, for that matter. I stood up the whole time, and I really wanted a stool. When I got finished, I was left with a sink full of mess to clean up and...

Two big pots of pear chunks!

I cooked the pears until they were soft and squishy.

Then, I drained the excess liquid and pureed them in the blender.

That made one LARGE bowl of pearsauce!

After I added the spices and other ingredients (allspice, ground cloves, nutmeg, orange zest, orange juice, and sugar), I put it back on the stove to cook down. As it cooks, the liquid evaporates, and it gets thicker.

I didn't know how much of a mess this was going to make, but it smelled so good. The whole house smelled like Christmas!

While the pear butter was cooking, I boiled the lids for the jars. I had already washed the jars earlier in the day.

After it had cooked down to the consistency I wanted, I used my nifty little canning utensil set to fill the jars. I am so glad I had that funnel! I wiped off the rims of the jars and put the lids and rings on.

Then, it was time for the water bath. The boiling water and pot full of glass jars scared me a little!

After 10 minutes in the canning hot tub, I removed the jars and put them on a towel to cool. I was so afraid that the jars wouldn't seal after all of my hard work. I just can't explain the joy I felt when I heard those lids start popping as they sealed!

And here is the finished product... 12 pints of delicious pear butter... canned, sealed, and cooled!

Yay me! I had some in my oatmeal this morning, and it was really good.

What an experience!

Holes

One child has two new holes in her head, and we're trying to prevent the other one from getting holes in her head... or breaking any bones!

Sydney got her ears pierced on Monday. She ran down the stairs at 11:15PM Sunday night. I thought something was wrong. She asked me if I'd take her to get her ears pierced in the morning. I couldn't believe it. She has always been too scared to do it. So, I took her the next day, and she went through with it. She picked the white gold & CZ earrings (of course, because they were the "sparkliest"). She is so excited about them!

Our littlest chickadee has learned how to climb the stairs. This child is everywhere! She learned to crawl a few weeks ago, and she was pulling up three days later. Now, two weeks later, she is climbing the stairs! The gate is getting installed tonight because I am tired of chasing her. But she is very proud of her accomplishment.

Hello Strangers!

Well, it has been a while since my last post. I made the last one a few days before I was laid off from my job. It has been quite a difficult time for me. With the lay off, we not only lost the income, but insurance benefits for the entire family. With two children, that is a big deal, but God is in control and has blessed us with our health. I am looking for a job, but the job market here is about the same as everywhere else- not much available! I did get a call today about some openings at a surgery center, so pray with me about that!




I have been enjoying extra time with the kids since I haven't been working. I'm pretty good at this stay at home mom thing. I get to spend time with the kids, keep the house in pretty decent order, and get supper cooked at a reasonable time. I need to hurry up and find a job because I could really get used to this!





So, I know you've all been on the edge of your seats wondering what we've all been up to, so here are some updates on everyone:

STEPHEN

• Still working all the time


• Got a toilet seat for Father's Day in retaliation for the phone charger I got for Mother's Day. (He also got a portrait of the girls in Alabama Crimson Tide dresses, a shirt, pajamas with handprints and footprints from the girls, and a book.)
  
• Has been mowing the huge yard with the push mower because the riding mower (that belongs to our landlords and they so graciously have let us borrow) bit the dust.

VICTORIA

• Celebrated my 8 year wedding anniversary with Stephen on June 15th. We got take out from Olive Garden, sat Avery in the middle of the table with a breadstick, and "enjoyed" a meal together before we retired to the living room and fell asleep. It was just perfect!


• Still haven't lost any of the baby weight.


• Still not getting much sleep!


• In amazement that I will soon have a second grader and that Avery will be a year old in 4 short months. I've already started looking at cakes!

SYDNEY

• Got out of school on June 8th. She finished 1st grade with all A's and "S" in everything except "Controls Verbal Expression." She cannot keep her mouth shut. I was able to attend her end of the year music program. They did Bambi as a musical.
• Has enjoyed staying up late and sleeping in since school has been out.
• Beat all the monsters on her Scooby Doo Wii game. (Thank goodness. I am tired of that thing.)
• Has been practicing her skate boarding skills. LOL!
• Gives free concerts and acrobatic shows during the commercials when we watch America's Got Talent.

AVERY

• Has finally learned to sit up well.
• Is still rolling all over the place instead of crawling, but she does at least get up on all fours.
• Is currently taking her diaper off while I am trying to write this blog entry.
• Says "ma ma" but does it with her tongue out, so I'm sure it's not really mama, but I pretend that it is!
• Still loves food and eats all the time but is still tiny. She still hasn't made it to 13 pounds. Soon though, soon.

Maybe I can get some pictures in the next post. Right now, I've got to go cover up a naked baby behind!

Fruit

The fruit has appeared on the trees in our yard. It is interesting to watch it transform from a flower, to a tiny fruit, to a delicious ripe fruit to enjoy!

We have pomegranites...

Peaches...
And what seems like a million pears!


In the Bible (NIV), the word fruit appears more than 150 times. Usually when something is repeated over and over in the Bible, there is an important lesson to be learned from it.

John 15:1-8; "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."

A gardener removes the dead, fruitless plants from the garden. The healthy ones he cuts back or prunes the branches as needed so that they remain healthy and fruitful. Cutting a plant does not kill it and only wounds the plant for a moment. So too are we cut - wounded for a moment so that we can grow stronger. If we stay connected to Jesus, we will bear the fruits of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-23; But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

A tree is to fruit as a man that trusts in the Lord is to the fruit of the Spirit. These are the things that we should produce as Christians - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is our fruit. This is the fruit that we should bear.

And just as the fruit begins new again each year, as Christians, we are offered the chance to begin again.

Lamentations 3:22-23 "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."

I am so glad the Lord is my Gardener!

Random Avery Stuff!

Avery and Daisy have a love-hate relationship. Avery loves to get close to Daisy, and Daisy hates it when that happens! Well, unless Avery has drool all over her face, and then I have to keep Daisy from trying to "clean her." If Avery ever learns to crawl, Daisy better find a good hiding spot!
Avery thinks she looks good in sunglasses. She cried when I took them off of her!

She rode in the shopping cart seat for the first time last week. She liked it for about 5 minutes, and then she became her usual fussy self.

She is learning to use, well chew, on the phone. She has two, and she also likes to throw them in the floor, look at me and smile, and then cry until I give them back to her.

Bridging

My Daisy Girl Scouts are no longer Daisies. We had our bridging ceremony last night, so they are all officially Brownies now!That would be my child on the end holding up the Girl Scout sign with the wrong hand!

A Leader's Poem

- Author Unknown

Sometimes I get discouraged. My time is not my own.

If I'm not somewhere, I'm always on the phone,

Reminding someone's mother of a stray permission slip.

Whose loss would cause disaster to our upcoming field trip.

I'm dashing out to get supplies (I think I'm going daft!)

Who's idea was this? Can we really do this craft?

And then there are the cookies-on the chairs & on the floor.

My house has twice as many as the local grocery store.

Even when I'm sitting still, my brain is overheating

Searching for a game or song to liven up the meeting.

Just when I'm exhausted, too tired to move again,

A small eruption at the door and the girls are coming in!

I draw a breath in wonder, & ask myself, "Oh Why?"

Then I'm almost toppled by a bear hug, just knee-high.

The room is full of laughter and suddenly I see

That I really cannot think of a better place to be.

Yes, I'm a Girl Scout leader & I guess that's no surprise,

And everything I do is worth the smile in one girl's eyes.

Laundry Soap

I've been reading a lot about homemade things. I decided to try making my own laundry soap for no other reasons than 1) because it's cheap, and I love to save money and 2) so I could say that I tried it!

There are several different "recipes" available online, but I decided to use the Duggar Family recipe for liquid laundry detergent. I figured with all the clothes they have to wash, surely their recipe would be pretty good.

Here's their recipe:

4 cups hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax

Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continuously over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted. Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda, and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover, and let sit overnight to thicken.

Stir stored detergent. Fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full will soap, and then fill the rest of the way with water. Shake before each use (will gel).

Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: Rosemary, lavender, tea tree oil.

Yield: Makes 10 gallons

Top load machine: 5/8 cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)

Front load machine: 1/4 cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)



THE REVIEW:

Okay, so first let's talk about cost. I found all the ingredients in the laundry aisle at our Publix grocery store. That's the only place that had all the ingredients. (If you can't find Fels Naptha, search for variations of the recipe online. Some use Ivory soap or Zote.) The cost of the ingredients were as follows: Fels Naptha Soap $0.99, Borax $3.99, and Arm & Hammer Washing Soda $2.29. The Borax and washing soda can both be used for multiple recipes of the laundry soap. That taken into account, the amount used for each load of laundry costs around $0.01!! You can't get much better than that!

Now for ease of making the recipe... The whole process took less than 30 minutes, so I figure if it works well, it will be well worth my time. The majority of the time I spent was grating the soap.



The soap bar kind of smelled like original Dial soap and made the kitchen smell nice and clean!

The biggest "con" for me is the storage. A five gallon bucket in some laundry rooms just won't work. Luckily, I have a decent sized laundry room with storage space to spare!



It was also a little messy transferring the soap into the dispenser. I recommend a funnel. Wish I'd had one! The soap is not a gel like store bought detergent. It is more of a liquid with gel throughout. It is kind of the consistency of egg drop soup. This is why it is important to shake before each use.

Mine turned out yellow because that's the color of the Fels Naptha soap bar.



How did it work? Well, I tried it out on a load of colored clothes, including Stephen's sweaty softball uniform. The soap does not produce suds. I'd read that it didn't, so I wasn't alarmed. The amount of suds has nothing to do with the cleansing ability.(I read somewhere that Americans have been "brainwashed" into believing that suds = cleanliness. We are obsessed with the amount of lather our bath soap creates and even the "foaminess" of our toothpaste. In many other countries, toothpaste does not foam. It has nothing to do with cleaning your teeth. American manufacturers add detergent to toothpaste so we'll feel like it is working better!)

All the clothes came out looking clean. They did not come out smelling bad, but they really did not have a smell. It was more like when Avery was first born, and I was using the Tide Free & Clear that didn't have any dyes or perfumes. If you enjoy that "fresh laundry" scent, I would recommend adding the essential oils to obtain that fragrance you desire.

All in all, I liked it. I'll have to see how it works on whites and update on that in another post. I go through a ton of pretreater with all the stains Avery and Sydney create. So, I'll have to see how it works along with that!

So, next up on the homemade homefront is baby food purees and (hopefully) a blackberry cobbler. The blackberries are getting ripe, and I'm so excited. I've already made some apple-carrot puree for Avery, and she loves it, so I bought more fruits and veggies to try!

A Little Bit of Sweetness

This is really just a shameless post to show off some pictures of Avery and her sweetness! She loves the bath, and I finally took some pics of her. We are going to have to get Sydney's old bath seat out of storage soon, though. She does "baby crunches" the whole time trying to get up and look around! She spends a lot of time sucking the water off of her hands! Can you tell her favorite food is still carrots, hence the forever orange nose!



I also finally got a shot of her in this funny onesie I picked up at Dollar General. They have the funniest onesies there. iPeed, LOL!!!



Another note on Avery... She still will not pick up any finger foods and try to eat them herself, but she loves to sit in my lap when I am eating. She can, and will, grab whatever you are eating and have a little taste. This week, she had a little Rotel Chicken Spaghetti and some ice cream.

Here's a little recipe for some sweetness I'll share with you. These are really good and super easy and quick to make- a good one to do with kids who like to help out in the kitchen...

CHOCOLATE CHIP BARS

1 box yellow cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 pkg MILK chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients together by hand. Press evenly in a 9x13 dish and bake @ 350 degrees.

Glass- 20 min
Dark- 15 min

ENJOY!

Fireflies

If anyone needs a fun, easy craft, I've got one for you! My Daisy troop had so much fun making and playing with these at our meeting last week.

We made "fireflies" (or "lightening bugs" for those delta girls, like me!) out of empty water bottles. What kid doesn't love fireflies?!!



All you need is a clean, empty water (or soda) bottle, a pipe cleaner, paper for wings, markers for decorating, a glow stick or necklace, and a glue stick or double stick tape. "Googly" eyes are optional, but very cute!

Take the label off of the bottle. Cut wings out of the paper and decorate. Use a glue stick or tape to attach the wings to the bottle. Twist the pipe cleaner around the neck of the bottle and curl to form antennae. Glue or draw eyes. Uncap the bottle and insert an "activated," inexpensive glow stick or glow bracelet/necklace into the bottle. Turn the lights off, and voila- your very own firefly!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day (a little late) to all my blog friends and followers! I had a good day. I got to sleep in until 9AM. Thank you Avery! Then, I opened gifts. It is always fun to see what gets picked out for me. I love my husband, but he is not a good gift-picker-outer!

Stephen likes to give a little something from everyone. So, my first bag and card was from him. A phone charger for my car. No, I'm not kidding. That really is what he gave the woman who has given birth to his two beautiful children. I told you he doesn't do well with gifts! I really did need it though.



The second bag was from Sydney. I got a flower pot card and keychain she made at school, a card she picked out at the mall, and a peacock feather bracelet and some earrings and a necklace to match.



Now, that's my little shopper! She knows how much I love peacocks. She told her daddy that they had to go to JC Penny's and get the bracelet because I would just die without it! Spoken like a true drama queen!



She also made me a card at home with lots of sequins on it. She wrote me a poem all by herself: "Roses are red, violets are blue, I love my mama too!" Too cute. She said the card was really thick, so she had to use some stickers from the office to help her close the envelope!



We had a little talk later about not using my office supplies!

Then, it was time for Avery's gift. "Avery" got me something I had hinted about. Well, actually it was less hinting and more "Hey, Stephen, there's this rolling organizer in the scrapbook section at Michael's and it would be perfect to put all my Girl Scout stuff in. It is brown and pink and looks like one of those suitcases on wheels. AND here's a 40% off coupon!" Sometimes, you just have to be direct!



So, when Stephen said that it was from Avery, Sydney piped up and said that it was from her, too. So I said that the bracelet, necklace and earrings must have been from her AND Avery. She said, "No, that was just from me. Avery didn't get you anything just from her." LOL! Jealous much?

So, after showers, Sydney, Avery, and I headed off to eat lunch at CiCi's Pizza. That's my and Sydney's "special" place, so we chose that for lunch. We did some shopping at the mall. Sydney conned me into buying her some "trendy" shoes.



She always cons me into buying something that she desperately needs because someone else in her class has it. After we got tired out at the mall, we made the weekly grocery run, and then headed home.

I made a "fun" supper for us with inspiration from the Nickelodeon tv show, iCarly. What else but Spencer's famous spaghetti tacos! They were actually good. I was going to take a picture of them, but Avery didn't want me to. She was ready to be put to bed.

My mama also sent me a gift for Mother's Day. A Cookbook!!! She knows I love cookbooks. I've been able to flip through some of it. The recipes look good- and easy! I'm going to have to try them out soon.



So, that was my day. I had a happy Mother's Day with my girls! What more could I ask for. I am blessed to be their mama!