Random

So today's post is a going to be full of random things. I haven't much else to cobble together but I didn't want to leave the blog without posting for too long either!

• My 10 year old is recovering from pneumonia. Had she attended school (and these are the time I am extra grateful she is homeschooled) she would have missed 2 full weeks plus 1 day. The pneumonia is now cleared up, but she's still wheezing, so she's now using an inhaler and possibly a trip to an asthma doctor is in her future? Right now, we're just trying to get her back to 100% healthy
• My 8 year old has swollen glands for no apparent reason. Possibly she is fighting the same infection that knocked the 10 year old out and just isn't symptomatic (which would be lovely for her). Could be because she's been eating more wheat than usual. Could be just because I life decided I needed one more thing to keep an eye on right now. Who knows? All I know is next week both girls go back to the doctor to get double checked for both wheezing and swollen glands.
• The 4 year old is healthy - yay! And he's loving school. He's been going 3 weeks now? I don't know - the days tend to blur. But he loves it. And he thinks next year he wants to go every single day - we'll see. The school he is attending has kindergarten so I think we'll keep him there. At this point I'll keep him home after that, but at the same time, I'm keeping my options open. This seems to be the best path for him. Maybe someday I'll write a post just about how we came to this decision, but really, probably not. Just know I thought and thought and thought about it a lot. And this is where we are today.
• We're still homeschooling the girls - and that's going really well.  It's amazing how much we can get done, especially when 4 year old is at school and isn't interrupting every 2 second (yes, truthfully this is part of the reason we did decide to send him!)
• Still not getting much done on the crafting front. But I need to kick it into high gear here soon. I have three children that may want a homemade costume (okay, that I hope will want a homemade costume!) I am knitting a hat and mittens for the 4 year old and fall is letting us know he's here. Some days. Other days summer wins and it's hot again. It does feel like the weather is playing tug-of-war right now! I also want to do hats for the girls. They both declined mittens. Bummer. But I do understand. 
• My husband is working insane hours so I feel like I am now a married, single parent. (And seriously, hats off to all real single parents because I can't even begin to imagine - even with how much my husband is gone, he is not always gone and that does make things a lot easier). Anyway, I miss him. And some days wish he would come home so I could hide from everyone just for 10 minutes.
• I almost entirely gave up caffeine. I've had 2 drinks with it in about a week. I know, right, it doesn't seem like much, but seriously it is. Because I don't even want to admit to you how much caffeine I was consuming before, but let's just say it was more than 2 a day. So for 2 in a week (and only when I was out of the house and a caffeine free coke wasn't available) is amazing.
• Yes, I am still drinking coke. Just caffeine free. Baby steps here people. Baby steps. LOL!
• I recently read God Don't like Ugly and God Still Don't Like Ugly. Loved both books. Wanted to keep reading actually. There is a third book that I do plan on getting my hands on here soon. Because I really enjoyed htem and fell in love with the characters. (Side note - I read both on my Nook and they are both lendable, so if you have a Nook too and want to borrow one, let me know!)

Alright, I think that covers most things. Now I must run. 8 year old has run out of jeans that fit her. By run out of I mean we don't own any that fit her anymore, not that I haven't been keeping up with the laundry. Okay, I haven't been keeping up with the laundry, but still, that's not why she ran out! LOL! So we are off to get some winter clothes shopping done. Except with how my kids grow, it will really probably be fall and 1 month of winter shopping before they all grow out of them again ;-)

Thank you!

Not too terribly long ago my mom gave me her Cricut machine (why yes I am spoiled by her!)

I haven't had much of a chance to use it. When we first got it the girls and I played around and they made a few things - my 10 year old is actually pretty good at using it!

Anyway, with the 8yo's birthday recently, we decided we should whip up some thank you cards and this is what we decided on

Cute isn't? Well, we thought so! Anyway, last night I stayed up getting all the parts ready for her to make them herself.

And so this afternoon she worked on them (and also, loved it and felt so special to get to use the tape LOL!)

I gave her the pieces and even though we had the one card we made, I told her to feel free to make some changes if she wanted to. Here are all her finished cards - each one is a little (and sometimes a lot) different and I LOVE them all!

Just for fun, I'll share how we made them in case you want to whip a few up too!

Materials:

1 sheet 8 1/2x 11" each of purple, blue, and light blue cardstock

1 - 8 1/2" x 5 1/2 white cardstck (folded in half to make a card)

1 - 5 1/8" x 3 7/8 pink cardstock

1 - 5 1/8" x 1/2" stripped paper (I think ribbon would be very lovely too, but we didn't have any to use!)

Sweethearts Cricut cartridge

Simply Sweet Cricut cartridge (or a circle cutter!)

scissors and/or paper trimmer

adhesive

1. Using Sweethearts cartridge - cut out 1 - 2 1/4" Thank You on the blue cardstock (this is the shift of the honeymoon image.

2. Again with the sweethearts cartridge - cut out 1 - 2 1/4" shadow thank you from the light blue cardstock. (So you need to hit shift, shadow, to get this!)

3. Using Simple Sweet cartridge - cut out 1 - 2 1/2" shadow circle on the purple cardstock (to get this you hit shift, shadow, ). If you don't have this cartridge you can cut out a circle any way. I measured, the diameter is about 2 7/8. 

Okay, now all the pieces are ready to go - you just have to assemble! At this point I ran both thank's and you's through my xyron machine because it just seemed the easiest way! I then put the thank you on top of the shadow pieces and set that aside (*note I did all of this for my daughter because I thought that might be a bit tougher for her to do!)

Then I put the striped paper (or ribbon if you are using that) on the pink cardstock. Then the circle followed by the thank and you. Then I taped all of that to card. 

I hope that made sense - it's so much easier for me to do it then try to type up directions! So if something doesn't make sense, please let me know and I'll try to clarify it!

A brand new room!

When we moved into the house 3 1/3 years ago we didn't really have all the furniture to properly fill this house. Nor did we really find a good place for everything. Mostly the kids toys were the biggest issue. They didn't all fit in the kids' rooms. So first we put them in the basement:

But that didn't last, so then the toys ended up in my living room by the fireplace:

I know, not the best picture, but I tried to avoid getting shots of them because I honestly hated the toys there. And also, if we did want to light the fire place, we had to move everything out of the way and more often than not, I decided to just not use the fireplace!

At the same time, I had a front room that looked a bit like this:

Again, not a great picture. Apparently I never just took pictures of this room. And usually the card table with the puzzle wasn't there. And it's hard to tell, but there is a coffee table hiding under those blankets!

At one point, I got tired of the toys in the living room, and moved them to the front room. I think we just did it this year after taking the Christmas tree down. And so my front room looked like this:

Which was fine because it was all out of the living room (where we spend most of our time) but it also bothered me because this is the first room you see when you walk into our house. The front door is right there and the room didn't look all that nice most of the time!

So in short the toys have moved several times. I've never been happy with where they end up. And I was just done with it. So I mentioned to husband that we needed to do something to the front room and maybe could we save up and do it right after Christmas? And he agreed but said we had a little something we could use to do it now. And with that I was off! Looking, planning, deciding what to do. We completely changed it to be all for the kids (instead of toys mixed in with nicer furniture that was made for more of a sitting room situation). But I still wanted it to look nice, and yet be functional - so here's what we ended up with:



Let me just say right now - I LOVE it. I just love it. Well, I have a few more finishing touches I want to add, but it's perfect for us right now!



This desk area has already been used so much by all three kids



This little mini-bookcase is mine though



It holds some of our homeschooling things - mostly what we are currently using (or might use). The top though is for the kids to decorate and we want it to be a nature table (which I first heard about over at Soule Mama and have always wanted to find a spot to do that at our house!!)

I just think the room is lovely overall. And when you walk in I think it's much nicer to come through the door and see this



than what you saw before. And the toys are much nicer in these boxes than in the plastic containers they were in before I think too



But the truth is, the best part of remaking the room was that we were all excited to do this and everyone pitched in and helped put it all together:


(yes, he was very serious about working on this! He pounded those pegs in so perfectly too!)



=)

A brand new 8 year old!

Today at our house, we have a brand new 8 year old! And since she spent the entire week telling everyone she was turning 8 today, I'm pretty sure she was very excited about it!



Of course turning 8 couldn't be done without the aid of a cake. Last week I asked her what she wanted. Her request: a cake that was chocolate and vanilla and had strawberries in the middle. Seeing that I've done none of that before I tried to talk her into something else but alas, it couldn't be done. So last night I worked on making her dream cake. I had a good way to get both chocolate and white cake in there - make square cakes and put them together. I found a strawberry filling recipe here (and wow - it's good!) And ended up with this:

But um, yeah, as much as that met what she requested, it's not very pretty looking is it? So I worked at it for a bit longer and in the end my brand new 8 year old ended up with this:

Which frankly way exceeded what she wanted and was met by squeals of delight.

Phew. I know it's just cake, but I always feel pressure to make a really wonderful cake because well, you only get one birthday a year ya know?

Anyway, we had a great night celebrating - I'm so glad how it all turned out! Our brand new 8 year old is now peacefully sleeping after coming down from getting-the-most-awesome-gifts-ever-in-her-life-high which included not one, but TWO new American Girl Dolls and the backpack she has been wanting for several months!

[side note: our dd is one of the kids who squeals about and delights over every gift she opens! Everything is always exactly what she always wanted and she loves everything. Case in point - she loved her new key chains as much as her new American Girl dolls as much as her pack of eraser, etc, etc. It's too cute and fun to watch]

So phew. It was a big day around these parts. A little bittersweet for mom, but overall, a really wonderful and exciting day!

Little Lamby

During the summer I didn't have the chance to get much knitting done (sadly). It seems this summer has been all about hustle and bustle and moving and shaking and not so much about knitting, sewing, and well, blogging. But I did get to whip up this little guy:

Isn't he adorable? I whipped him up one weekend. His official name is Lamby. Lamby is a very curious sheep who loves to explore his surroundings.



He really likes to stop and smell the flowers - especially bright yellow ones!

He made some friends. He gets along well with these old cows - they can talk for hours! Overall he's a really great little lamb!



But what makes him very well loved is that most nights he can be found cuddling up with my 4 year old, who is extremely fond of little lamby!!


If you know someone who could use a lamb to cuddle with, the knitting pattern can be bought here! It's such a great pattern - very easy to follow and make! =)