Alive but busy!

So many things to say and things to share tonight! I'm alive, but I have been keeping busy for sure! So today will be a list of things!

- For father's day (and yes, I stole this from another blog but can't remember which one to link to right now) we did pictures of each child with a letter to spell dad. Here are the three he got:

- I made some very delicious banana bread

- I baked chocolate chip cookies. I was rewarded with my 8 year old telling me "Mom, you should quit your internet job and become a baker because these are so delicious!" Made me feel good, but there will be no baking job in my future LOL

- We ate from our garden for the first time yesterday (lettuce - 3 kinds that included buttercrunch and kale)

- I did my first hot water bath canning and made 7 jars of strawberry rhubarb jam. Up next I think I will try strawberry kiwi but I need more strawberries! Amazingly enough, all the lids were sealed properly which I wasn't expecting on this round!

- I finished one UFO up. What was supposed to be one oven mitt (that wouldn't have worked and would have only been decorative) but I turned it into two pot holders - no pictures yet, but maybe soon!

- lots of softball and my 8 year old pitched (first time this season) and actually wasn't bad at all! Last year she couldn't even get the ball over the plate, so the fact that she did this year and threw some strikes as well is just awesome =)

- I am decluttering the house. I am serious this time (yeah, yeah, I know I've said it before but I really mean it this time). My goal, which comes from a conversation over at The Motherhood, is to purge 1000 things by the time summer ends. So I started tonight and nerd that I am, I counted most of it and am at 65 things. Not off to a bad start I don't think! Of course, I am not counting the children's toys and the other day we purged those. I'm gonna guess we got rid of a couple hundred things then. We filled 4 45 gallon trash bags of toys and still have plenty left. For a few hours last week, my living room looked like this:

Boy, did that feel good!! I'm not sure about this whole 1000 things though. I really hope I can do it, but am nervous. My first thought was to do only 100, but that wouldn't be much of a challenge really. It will be good to do though. We simply have too many things and need to learn to do without and really toss the things we aren't using.

- My husband finished making my composter and we've already begun to put things into it. I am thinking we might fill it up faster than we originally planned - but that's okay =) I'm so excited to finally have it and be able to put things into it! Yeah!

Other things:
- I still hate my hair (I told you I'd talk about it a lot!!)
- I am working very limited hours on my weekend job now - which kind of stinks because smaller pay check, but it is nice to have more hours as a family
- I will babysit for 2 (very lovely) girls from this Wednesday to next Wednesday so I'm sure that will keep me busy!
- The kids are currently undergoing 3 separate reading challenges so there is a lot of reading going on at our house - but that's a good thing =)

- Saturday we are having the softball team over to our house for a little party
- Piano with the kids is going well. They still like it and are excited to practice!
- Met the new neighbor the other day. She seems so nice and I hope we can become friends!

I think that wraps it up for here for now. Hope everyone else is well ... I haven't been doing a good job of checking blogs lately but hopefully next week I can get a chance to peak in on everyone - right before we leave for vacation!! Woo-hoo!!