Finally!

After a week of watching snow fall everywhere but here, we finally got a little white stuff ourselves! We woke up to about 2 inches this morning and Ed went out to shovel the walk and the driveway since my parents and grandma were coming over for lunch after church. He used the brand-new shovel I bought over TWO YEARS AGO, but haven’t had a need for yet.

We took the long way to church in order to be on more clear roads, but still saw one car that had slammed into the ditch due to the icy roads. Of course, by the time we got out of church, the temperature had risen and the snow was pretty much melted. Ah well, it was still pretty.

I was right!

I don’t get to say that very often. But I was right. That weird sky materialize into a lot of snow somewhere.

It’s in our old stomping grounds. The town we used to live in. Which is in the Banana Belt of Washington. They are sitting with 14 inches of beautiful snow, with more coming down, and at least two snow days.

And us, up here in the great white north, have cold wind. I’m pretty sure that our nasty wind is keeping the snow down south and we are not going to get a snow day.

And that is just not fair.

But.

At least I was right!

Weirdest Day in a Long Time

1. You know those marshmallow hay bales? The big round ones that farmers wrap in white plastic? One fell off a truck in front of me this morning. It was at an intersection and I was turning and everyone was going very slowly, so nobody hit the hay bale. It was absolutely surreal. It just plopped right down on the road. Didn’t roll or anything. As of 4:00 this afternoon, it was still on the side of the road.

2. A winter storm watch is in effect for tomorrow, but this morning I took a walk in the sunshine, was warm, but slipped on hail on the sidewalks.

3. My friend’s little girl called me on her mom’s cell phone. She chatted to me for 5 minutes! I kept asking her if her mommy was there and to give her mommy the phone and she would say something indistinguishable, except for the word “Mommy.” She jabbered away at me and finally said, “BYE!”

I was freaked out. Why wasn’t my friend taking the phone away from her daughter? Was she unconscious on the floor of their kitchen? Had they been in a car accident? Something horrible must have happened, otherwise my friend surely would have noticed her daughter talking on her cell phone in all that time. I call her on her cell phone, no answer. I call her at her house, no answer. I leave a desperate message, “Please, call me when you get this message!” I call her cell phone about 3 more times, still no answer. I am about 2 seconds away from packing Elise in the car and driving around to look for her in the ditch when my house phone rings. It’s my friend. She’s oblivious. I said, “You’re alive!” She says, “I was just doing my Bible Study.” I said, "Did you know your daughter called me on your cell phone?” No, she had no idea. Sheesh. I about had a heart attack and she was just doing her Bible Study in her kitchen while her two-year-old called me and China on her cell phone.

4. My first grader came home from school with a purple bruise on her cheek. Apparently she fell off the balance beam onto her face. How does that happen? The nurse gave her ice and said she was fortunate because she didn’t land on the bones around her eyes, just on the fleshy part of her cheek. It’s going to be lovely by tomorrow, I’m sure. What’s weirder is that one of her friends got hurt on the swings at the school last week when the swing broke while she was on it and now the school took down all the swings to “fix them”. I’m now officially anti-playground.

5. The sky. Is very strange today. I was sitting in sunshine with hail coming down on my head. I’m wearing my sunglasses looking north at the scariest, darkest sky I’ve ever seen. I’m thinking there’s a very good chance this winter storm watch will materialize into a lot of snow.

For someone. Somewhere.

Maybe.

6. I think I should go to bed now before anything else weird happens.

Our Escape

We have been tired and cranky around here. We knew we needed a break…an escape…a getaway. Thankfully, my parents are willing to watch the girls just about any time we ask and so this weekend, we got about 28 hours to escape…to refresh…to recharge.

We escaped on a beautiful ferry ride.

We escaped to Harrison House Suites on Friday Harbor.

We refreshed at the Friday Harbor Suite Penthouse.

We escaped into our books while lounging on the loveseat together.

We refreshed with a spa-like bathroom.

We recharged with lots of delicious food…cookies and truffles and wine provided by the lodging…

…an early dinner down by the marina…

…homemade breakfast brought to our room…

…complete with mini blueberry cheesecakes for dessert!

We refreshed with blue skies, cool crisp air, and gorgeous sunshine.

We recharged by soaking in the majesty of our Creator.

We finished our weekend escape watching a beautiful sunset reflect onto our favorite mountain on our way home.

Happy Birthday, FIVE YEAR OLD!

We all love you, little buddy! We hope you have an awesome birthday!!

A little more love

Bethany and her friends playing “Heart & Soul” on the piano at the sleepover last weekend.

 

Pose for the camera, girls! These three are SUCH good friends!

 

Ed opening the personalized “subway sign” I made for him for Valentine’s Day.

 

Valentines Day = Chocolate Fondue! I can’t help it if one of my love languages is chocolate!

 

This year’s fondue was voted THE BEST EVER!

 

Lots of smiles

 

Elise pretty much shoved in piece after piece of Angel Food Cake. She liked the chocolate too, but she didn’t mind just grabbing bite after bite and eating it plain.

A Love Story

Once upon a time there was a little girl on Valentine’s Day. She made beautiful Valentines for her class.

On Valentine’s Day she went to school. When she came home, she announced that she had lost a tooth! Everyone was very excited and then she announced that the teacher had said,

“Now, little girl, if the tooth fairy forgets to leave you money for your tooth, that tooth fairy will have to bring you DOUBLE the next night.”

The tooth fairy thinks the teacher should keep such thoughts to herself in the future.

The tooth fairy did not forget and the little girl went back to school the next day very happy. On that same day, the little girl’s momma met a friend for coffee. The friend told the little girl’s momma a story. She said,

“My son came home from school and I asked him if he got any special Valentines. He said no, but he had a little smile on his face. I asked him what he was smiling about and he said, ‘Well, my girlfriend lost a tooth yesterday and when she wrote her name on the chart, she put a little heart after her name. I asked her what the heart was for and she pointed at me.’”

The little girl’s momma laughed and laughed. That night she asked her little girl about it. At first the little girl tried to deny it, but the mischievous grin gave her away. The little girl did in fact draw a heart for the boy who calls her his girlfriend.

The momma is in for it with this little girl.

From the girls…

A good laugh

Last night I had a good laugh, thanks to this book:

Yes, that’s right. “100 Income Streams for Full-time Moms”. I bought the book on a whim. It had been recommended on some blogs. (I have no idea why). I had some money at Amazon. I want to earn money while not really working. I figured, surely, there would be something decent. It had awesome reviews. (Again, I have no idea why).

It is absolutely the most ridiculous thing I have ever read! Here are some of the suggestions for “income streams”:

Animal Breeding – what? Doesn’t that take, like, a degree in animal science? I mean, I have a friend who breeds chickens, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t just wake up one day and decide to breed her chickens. It took some research, but, I wonder, is it even legal?

Baby Proofing – As if someone is gonna pay me to put plugs in their electrical outlets.

Dating Coach – no comment necessary

Laundromat Owner – Hello?!?! I thought this was for STAY HOME Moms!

Inventor – Uh…

Music Instructor – Again, doesn’t that take a music degree?

Motivational Speaker – Oh sure, just about anybody could do that job.

Stand-Up Comedy – Well, all right, I could try that one. Cough, cough.

Wild Game Processing – I’m thinking you’re gonna need some equipment for that one…and maybe you don’t want your children along on this job…which makes you, once again, not a stay home mom!

And my personal favorite…

 

 

Professional Potty Trainer.

 

 

Uh huh.

I’ve decided to go with that. Please contact me if you’d like to pay me to potty train your child. Go ahead. Be that parent.

There are 90 more where those came from. I think the woman who wrote this book just figured if she listed 100 of the most bizarre jobs and “made-up jobs” and called it a book for moms she could make her “income stream” for the year. Maybe if I brainstorm, I could come up with 100 more and write a sequel!

How about…Professional Coffee Friend?

More projects

Last weekend we worked on more projects…some are done, some are not.

That reminds me of that story…

M R Ducks

M R Not!

O S A R!

O! M R Ducks!

Never mind…

My cool Silhouette has been busy cutting out various Valentine creations.

 

That’s what my computer screen looks like when it’s sending a design to the Silhouette.

 

A stack of the little flower shapes.

What the Silhouette was cutting out was rectangles with fold marks to wrap around lollipops, flower shapes, and heart shapes for holding the flap closed.

See? Elise’s finished Valentines for her class! Everyone else has to finish tomorrow…I imagine the table will look something like this again:

 

Ed installed these awesome sliding drawers in the shelves above my fridge. I’ve always said that space was darn useless because I could never reach anything. Granted, the pull out shelves mean that what I store up there has to be small and is less than without the shelves, but I was just storing jars anyway, and it feels a lot safer to have them in those sliders than all willy-nilly on top of each other up there. That was one of those cupboards in my house that you opened cautiously and protected yourself as you did so. Not anymore!

 

Perhaps my favorite recent project…a white Ikea pitcher (for my new “pitcher collection” above my cupboards) with a vinyl B. I love the way it turned out and it was SO easy!

One of many projects

Many months ago I bought an old rusty milk jug at a local antique store. (I know for sure it was many months ago because the friend I was with was pregnant at the time and now her baby is almost 7 months old)! I had always wanted one and finally found one for cheap!

I liked it the way it was, but I also knew it could use some help, but working on it just kind of got put off. Finally, I made my first attempt at cutifying it. And yes, cutifying is a word. I made it up myself.

I bought some Rustoleum hammered finish spray paint and started spraying. The only problem was that it’s winter and so I was doing this in my garage. I didn’t think the overspray was too bad until I picked up the newspapers that I set the milk jug on and there was an outline of where the newspapers had been in white paint. Oops. It’s wearing off, though.

So, then I set it on my porch in that white condition, for a while. I kept looking at it and wondering what to do next. I decided now that it was all pretty and white it needed to be distressed a little. I took some sand paper to the handles and the seams and then adhered a “Welcome” vinyl. It definitely needs more distressing – some coarser grit sand paper ought to help, and I’m not 100% sold on the “Welcome” vinyl, but it’ll do for now.

I am open to suggestions, however.

An Everything Fairy

Is there such a thing? An Everything Fairy? Someone who will come in and do everything that needs doing? Pick up the laundry, put it away, find homes for all the things that don’t have homes, clean the bathrooms, including the drawers, toilets, and tubs, do the dishes, fix all the things that are broken, tell Bible stories, finish all the projects that aren’t done, find magical solutions to all clutter issues, chauffeur my kids around, pack the lunches, make dinner, grocery shop, kiss owies, talk about friend problems, help with homework, pray for the family, remind the children to say no to drugs, bake cookies for bake sales, quiz the children for tests, and just generally take care of things?

Oh, I know! It’s called a Mommy.

And that would be me.

Happy Birthday to my Much Older Brother!

We miss you, and hope you have a great birthday…the last one before the big one!

My very own Cam Jansen

This past week was B.E.A.R. week at school. I’ve blogged about this before. It’s the week when the children are supposed to Be Excited About Reading and not watch TV. They bring books and bears to school all week, make bookmarks, read with other classes, listen to the principal read poems over the intercom, and it all culminates with Book Character Dress-Up Day on Friday. The students and teachers dress up as a book character and they have a parade through the school so everyone can see everyone else’s costume.

Becca’s been reading the Cam Jansen series this year and so we decided she should dress up like Cam herself! Cam is a young female Encyclopedia Brown with a photographic memory. Her only distinguishing feature is her red hair.

So…

My very own red-headed Cam Jansen! The fluorescent red hair spray is pretty hard to see on her dark hair, but I think we did a decent job!

 

The red is totally different under the lights at school and the flash of the camera, but here you can see the book, as well as the chocolate bar she’s holding since the book she chose was Cam Jansen and the Chocolate Fudge Mystery. That one was my favorite, too.

I love having my very own Cam Jansen in the house. I always know who to go to when a mystery appears.

Little Cutie

This child makes me smile. This child tells me she loves me multiple times per day. This child can drive me bananas. But this child is getting old enough to do crafts on her own!