"In our day to day actions, it is often the small and simple things that will have a long-lasting impact. What we say, how we act, and how we choose to react will influence not only ourselves but also those around us. We can build up, or we can tear down." -Per G. Malm

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Fun with Prayer


Em is starting to expand her prayers now. It used to be that every prayer was "bless this food" with a hiss of "I don't need any help" or "I do it myself" as we would try to teach her to expand her vocabulary.
Since she has been branching out we've gotten some great prayers such as this one while she was blessing her food. "Heavenly Father, bless mommy and daddy and Meghan and mommy and daddy and mommy and Emily and this day, and the alligator comes and chomps our house and we throw him out the gate, bless this food, make us strong in the name of Jesus Christ Amen."
The other night for family prayer amidst the bless mommys and so forth she said "bless us to get on the website and be musketeers etc... "
It is so hard to keep a straight face sometimes and be a good example.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Brain Dead

So I had this planner a "Mom's Plan It" planner to be exact. I got it at the Mom's Night Out that Anna and I went to about a month or so ago. Anyway. It was sitting on the dryer cerca the open washer and fell in unbeknownst to me. After each canning batch I would throw my towels and washcloths etc.. into the open washer and then do a load of laundry as needed. Well I went to get our my clothes to put in the dryer and voiala!!! Paper on everything!!!!




You can't really tell on Meghan's camo jammies complete with ruffle on the but. It just kind of blended in.


Here is the floor after shaking paper off every single piece of clothing.


The maintenance guys came out a couple weeks ago because our washer was leaking. It came through the wall into the living room, was leaking into the kitchen and boiler cabinet. I couldn't figure out why it would do this. Then it dawned on me as he was snaking out the pipe to the washing machine. It is probably that pile of paper from my planner that has been hanging out in the pipes. Since then we have had no more incidents and I have tried to keep things off the dryer or at least not near the open washer.

Here is brain dead number 2. I was making rice for dinner and in a hurry and while making the stir fry to go with said rice I kept smelling this burning smell. I lifted the pot that cooks the rice and the instruction manual was in between the heating element and the pot. (Note the perfect burn circle.) That was a close one.




Sunday, October 11, 2009

Kidneys


I thought this picture of my "kidney" tomatoes would be a great way to talk about Meghan's latest ultrasound update. Her kidneys look the same. The right one still has hydronephrosis (sp) and the left one still has reflux. We'll check her again when she is 18 months. Dad is going to do that one because they do the IV, Catheter and they strap her down to a table for an hour. That was fine when she was 4 months and slept through it but I won't do it at 18 months.

Bath Time

My kids are so stinking cute! Here are some bath time shots.
This looks very conspiritorial to me.
" Mmm. I love to suck the bath water out of my washcloth."

" I love to just drink it from the bath toys"


"Hey Emily, can I get in too?"




Innocent?

Don't let these girls fool you. They are not as innocent as they look. Cute yes, innocent no.
Here is a bit of their artwork. I was feeding Meghan breakfast downstairs while Emily and Danielle were getting along and playing happily upstairs (first clue that something was up). But I kept feeding Meghan thinking "how nice." Then I hear over the monitor "Black, blue, pink, black, yellow..." I think wow they must be sorting the bucket o balls. Then I think there are no black balls and Emily definitely knows black. (second clue) I decide to go up and they had gotten the "empty" old cartridges off the desk and painted themselves. They are very abstract but lovely.

They got their toenails painted pretty spot on.



Hope

Hope, an amazing word. It means so much to so many people. Hope is something that has sustained people throughout the ages, hope in God, hope in times of peril, hope for a brighter tomorrow, etc... Well for me hope currently weaves through Four things. ONE I hope that Meghan does not wake up to night at 1:30, 2:30, or 3:30 which has been the common theme all week. TWO I hope that Emily calms down, goes to sleep and doesn't' wake up Meghan in the process. THREE I hope that the people who stole our gas tank off of our grill really needed it so that we could some how be of service to them unknowingly. And FOUR I hope that they rot in Hades!
I mean don't take the one sitting right in front of the grill (maybe they new that was empty), but lets go to the trouble of lifting off the grill cover and getting the tank off. At least they put the cover back on. Fortunately there was enough gas left in the empty tank to do our burgers tonight before it died.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Why Hello There

I can't believe it has really been like 5 weeks since my last entry. Why is that you may ask. Becca, what could you have possibly been doing? Well, see for yourself...



My most excited and biggest helper.



The spoils of my garden.

Thanx to Aldi's for that $0.99 sale on strawberries since we didn't make the pick your own season.



I have been a canning fool. We did something like 13 gallons of salsa, applesauce, green beans, dried beans, chicken, chicken broth, strawberry jam, I don't know what else. It is all a big blur. I actually have other things to blog about. I have done other things, but canning is usually done at night after the kids are in bed and by then I am too tired to blog. I can't seem to do it during nap time anymore since Meghan is the only one who takes one. Emily still needs one even if she doesn't think so. I have decided though it isn't worth the fight. Thanks to my friend Deb who faithfully checks my blog everyday even though I have done nothing with it. These 3 entries are for you Deb. I will be catching up over the next few days off all the other things we have been doing this last month or so.




Apple Sauce

You start with a bushel of freshly picked apples
add one cute helper

and a lot of elbow grease
and you get a bunch of applesauce.
Sorry no pictures of final product. Dead battery and then everything was put away by the time I remembered to charge it and it actually got charged.



Family Fun

Last night we had Family Night instead of on Monday. (Brock had a HUGE project to finish for class Wednesday). We had so much FUN. We made homemade pizza for dinner and then we made Caramel Apples for our Family Home Evening Treat. They set up while we had our lesson and then we gobbled them up! I love Fall!

Meghan enjoying her peas.Sorry honey no pizza yet.
Look at those cheeks; I just want to eat them. She is SO cute!







Mmm...so good.