Helping out.

If I can keep training these girls to do the work, I'll soon be out of a job;-)

I have joined the ranks...

...the ranks of the homeschooling Moms! My first box of books for next school year arrived today and I'm so excited. It's hard to put them up so they still look new when August arrives! A year ago I wasn't very excited about this option, but I knew it was very likely going to happen as the cost of the private school we have attended was rising rapidly. With Middle Sister heading to school next fall too, it sounded like a lot of money to continue sending them to school. So by the time Big Sister started school last fall we had decided it would be our last year there and we would attempt the home schooling journey. We went to a Home School convention in Cincinnati, Ohio a week ago and made our decisions on curriculum for this coming year. We had a good weekend, and are very ready to make this change. Seeing the books arriving makes it very real!
Pray we will be able to handle this!

Pick your favorite.

I finally set down this evening and played with Picasa a little. These are the 3 pictures I created and saved. As you can see I used one of them for my header. Did I choose the right one? Which is your favorite?

Fun Stuff

A friend gave me these fun things a few weeks ago. The 'E' flag will go in Big Sisters new room {hopefully soon!} and the notebook I will use. Very Cute, Very Fun, Thanks Jessica!
I'm off to sort the leftover garage sale stuff!

Ah, Sweet Sleep!

This is what I'm wanting to do more of right now. But not necessarily in this chair. I'd prefer my bed or the couch!
But, alas, I'm headed back to the garage sale for one more day! So glad it is such a beautiful day already. LOVING this warm weather and sunshine, I'm already sunburned. Enjoy your weekend.

{Garage Sale}

Update: I've been notified that I forgot to post the times! Thursday, 8:30 to 5:00. Friday 8:30 to 9:00. See you there!

It's that time of year again! Garage sale time. A friend and I started having a HUGE garage sale a few years ago. We end up with over 50 families bringing stuff, we have it in a big barn, we get more organized with it every year, and we sell tons of stuff! But we still have a lot left every year so if you are in the Troy, Ohio area, come on out and see for yourself. We sell children's clothing, teen clothing, baby items, toys, books, and some household stuff. This year there is a school benefit bake sale in the garage beside the barn. We advertise in the papers {this year in the Dayton paper too} for Friday and Saturday. But if you are reading this I'm inviting you to come on Thursday to beat the rush and have a little more breathing space!
Hope to see you there, and spread the word.

photos from last year.

Easter.

Finished.

Slip detail

Mom's centerpiece. I Loved this!

Place setting at Mom's on Easter.

More of Mom's decor.

Resurrection Day!

Low in he grave he lay, Jesus my SAVIOUR, waiting the coming day, Jesus my LORD. Up from the grave He arose!!!!! With a mighty triumph o'er His foes, He arose a VICTOR from the dark domain and He lives forever with His saints to reign, HE AROSE, HE AROSE!!! HALLELUJAH, CHRIST AROSE!!!!!!!!!!

PRAISE HIS NAME! HE CAME, HE LIVED, HE DIED, HE ROSE AGAIN! HE ASCENDED TO THE FATHER! AND HE'S COMING BACK AGAIN! PLEASE, LORD, COME QUICKLY!

Have a blessed Easter, looking forward to His return.

Jesus Loves Me. And you.

That's why he came. That's why he died. Most important, He then ROSE AGAIN so we can live with him someday. If we accept His gift.

"Good Friday"

Good Friday. Jesus' passion. St. Luke 23.

Ah, the delicious aroma!

I love homemade bread. I love the wonderful smell of homemade bread baking. But in the 11 1/2 years I have been married I have VERY rarely made the stuff. For some reason it doesn't want to raise in this old house of ours and if it DOES raise it takes 3 times longer than it should. So I quit trying. I've had these quick hamburger buns when a friend made them and since I was wanting to make sandwiches for a food exchange I decided to give them a try. And they turned out! Properly! I am still amazed! I took the cut buns on the trays to my warm living room that is heated with a corn stove to let them raise. It worked, they are delicious! WOO-HOO!

Easter outfits.

This is what middle sister and little sister are wearing for Easter this Sunday. Little Sister's dress still needs buttons and buttonholes, Middle Sister's dress is cut out, and I have the fabric shrunk for the slips that go with them. It's Tuesday. Hmmm, why does this sound soooo much like me???? The dresses will also have 3 little navy buttons in a vertical row between the collars. I'll show you when they are done... like Saturday night?!!

Help!

Update: Sigh, Big Sigh. My feet hurt, it feels so good to sit down and prop them up a bit. No, it wasn't anything bad that happened, but thanks for asking, Kara! Nope, just a bunch of things I did wrong or forgot, guess I'm getting old?! It feels like it's been 2 weeks and it's only been 2 days.

I started out yesterday working on removing more plaster from a kitchen wall to expose some more brick. If you've never taken old plaster off my advice is DON'T DO IT. It is a MESS. Huge. mess. Hmmm, seems to me I recall that I have done it before. That means I knew ahead of time what a huge. mess. it. makes. And I did it anyway. WHAT was I thinking??????

Anyway, I did get 2 holes knocked through in the interior wall of my kitchen. (see second photo above.) Then I patched in around all 3 'holes' in my walls with joint compound and lightly textured the one wall with the 2 'holes'. I left the ladder sitting in the kitchen along with all the other stuff I've been using, making it a little difficult to move around the room.

Since Travis is gone I made plans with a friend to meet her for supper. I left early, went to the bank, and went to the meat market and then headed to meet my friend for supper. When I was almost there I got a phone call from the people who I had an appointment with back at my house 15 minutes earlier:-(. I had completely forgot. So I went home, thank goodness they could get me 'cause they live about 45 minutes away. I needed to tear the collar off the guys suit coat, make a new collar and fit the new one to the coat while the coat was on him. That went well, I even found the collar pattern quickly even though I wasn't sure where it was! The only problem was little sister stood beside me the whole time bawling her head off 'case she wanted me to hold her. Not easy to hold a 3 year old when you are trying to sew quickly! I was so embarrassed that I forgot and since I had forgot my house was a disaster. I'd had the girls folding clothes, they were half done, and my dining room table was covered with clothes, folded and unfolded. Then big sister decided it would be a good time to show off a little. You know, Mom is busy and just a little stressed, so great time to do some things she won't appreciate. She took a LOOONG string of my pink tickets, tore them all apart, hid them all and had all the kids find them. Then she threw them all up in the air and said they were confetti. They went everywhere. I'm still finding them in odd places.

I did get accomplished what I needed to, and got them on their way and then we went to our dinner date about an hour later than first planned. After eating I had to get groceries which I very seldom do by myself with all 3 girls. I was exhausted by the time I got home.

And if Monday wasn't enough today has had it's own challenges. I put a couple of chickens in the oven on time bake last night. They would be ready to come out when I got up. First problem: something happened with the alarm and I got up an hour later than normal. Chicken was WELL done:-( Also was up too late to get Big Sister ready to leave with her school ride. So I had to get a shower and get myself presentable, get the little girls up and take Big Sister to school. The clock in the car was off a few minutes so she was late:-( Since I had cooked the chicken too well there wasn't enough I could use so I needed to cook more. I let that cook while I went to school this afternoon and it was perfect when I got back. The one thing that did go wonderful was the bread I made. I will post about that tomorrow!

I was also late getting left to drop the girls at a friends so I could get to school for year book class today. Then when we did leave I forgot a pattern I needed to drop off to another friend so I had to turn around and go back and get it. When I got to school I realized I had forgotten something I had wanted for YB class. Oh well, next week on that one.

Really, I'm not usually such a scatterbrained ninny:-) I think I'm just getting too old to have so many things going on at one time. Maybe I shouldn't have started my kitchen makeover? But if I don't start it'll never get done:-)

Sigh. I'm ready for bed. How early do you think I can put the girls to bed??

Things are starting to fall apart. Travis left Sunday afternoon on business and won't be back for a couple more days. And I'm totally losing it!!!!!! I can't believe the things I've forgotten and done wrong in the past 2 days. I have to run to school now, I'm already late and the kids are still in the tub so I'll update this later to elaborate.

And honey, if you are reading my blog while you are gone, I'm loving my new light in my kitchen!!!! (more on that too!)

gotta run.

Stellan's name gallery.

Happy Easter Stellan!

I finally came up with a way to do Stellan's name that hadn't been done before. Nothing sensational, just different:-) I love my letter disks, don't know why it took me this long to think of doing Stellan's name with them. Anyway, I sent it to MckMama and it is now in his gallery with all the others.

Easter Decor.

The dirty work.

A 'before' shot of the door in my kitchen that led to a back porch. We have never in 12 years used this door. So we closed it in to make more wall space.

Starting to tear it apart.

Old plaster is a MESS.

Tearing off the woodwork pulled a chunk of plaster off too. I'd forgotten for a bit that there was brick in these walls! This spot is bigger than it started out 'cause I'm leaving this bric exposed. I hop to expose another spot or two on interior walls where the insulating issue won't matter.

My wonderful husband framing in to put drywall over the hole.

Have a Blessed Palm Sunday.

Hail Him KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS! Praise His name He IS COMING AGAIN!

Kitchen redo.

I have never liked my kitchen. The house is old, and the kitchen is NOT user-friendly. When we moved in we said we would be redoing the kitchen soon. That was almost 12 years ago:-) How does that happen?? We've redone almost everything else in the house and are still in the process of finishing several projects. I decided this spring I was SICK AND TIRED of my kitchen and I was going to do something about it. Just some creative concealment, paint, and a few replacements. Most of it I will be doing myself 'cause T is busy trying to finish the stairway's creative concealment and then finish the 3rd bedroom so we don't have all 3 girls in a room that is NOT big enough:-)
So...I'm working on that along with sewing for others, making little sister and middle sister's Easter dresses, sewing for me, making food for a food exchange, laundry, feeding my family, and trying not to see how dirty my house is. I don't want to spring clean till the kitchen is done and the corn stove is off (at least off more than on) Anything else you can think of to add to my to-do list???

I started with the ceiling. We have both always loathed the job someone did on this ceiling about 100 years ago. So I covered it with thinned down joint compound. About 1/4 of the way through I was starting to think it had looked pretty good the way it was and what had I been thinking to try to change it!

Hard on arms, shoulders, neck and back. Otherwise, no big deal!

I've never claimed to do a job without making a mess. The harder I try to stay neat, the messier it gets. You should see my paint clothes. Or maybe not.

More pics coming when I have some 'spare time'. You know, between all the other stuff I have going! I'll be posting pics of the Easter outfits I'm putting together for my little girls. I'm having so much fun making these dresses! Toodleoo!