Today I wore a skirt

*because two days ago I didn't have to wear a coat outside.
*because I have a wonderful husband who takes care of the boys so that I can have time to craft.
*because I happened to find the perfect shade of turquoise binding in my Grandma's stash to go with this tablecloth skirt.
*because it matches my pretty necklace.
*and because it makes me feel just a little bit more girly in this house full of super boys.

how, exactly, dinner is assembled whilst the H is gone.

reason: H is on a(nother) ride-along with a Catt county sheriff as part of his college internship. Usually this means leftovers for us, but I knew this was a good chance to try a new recipe I'd been eyeballing.
method: new activity for the olders and a s.p.o.c. for the youngest (yes, it's ok that his head is sagging like that. No, I did not know he was going to fall asleep in the 15 or so minutes he was back there, otherwise I would have planned a bit better for head boppage).
recipe: Rockin' Moroccan Wrap. Originally from the back of a can of garbanzo beans (found online here). I added a big bunch of spinach, ground up the garbanzo beans a bit, used regular onions instead of green, added some chopped tomato and toasted wheat germ, and served it all in a whole wheat tortilla instead of pitas. delicious!

baby blue eyes (and why I rarely make time to exercise)

a few notes:
1)the quilt that my mom's cousin Susie asked about is in the background here. When I finish repairing it, I'll post a better pic.
2)I LOVE these hats. so quick to make (3 pieces plus binding and only 4 lines of stitching) and really do an amazing job of keeping boy3's head warm in this old house.
3)the boys thought perhaps I needed a little extra resistance while doing crunches recently. you can see how well that is working out for me.
4)I'm really going to miss my camera until we can get to a repair shop. It was knocked off a shelf (not by me, surprisingly) and the threads on the lens were snapped off, rendering the entire camera useless. Anyone know if this means I have to replace the entire lens?

home!

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing this letter in addition to the offer submitted to purchase your property located at 410 Court Street in Little Valley. I thought it might aid your decision to let you know why we are looking at this particular house and what we intend to do with it.

My husband and I are high-school sweethearts. We were engaged while I was in college, right after my husband joined the Navy. During our tours here and overseas we agreed that a life in the military was not conducive to the type of family life that we were hoping for, and so when his enlistment was over we moved back from Italy with 2 children and a very small house fund. We have been in the states for about a year and a half now, living out of that fund while Daniel finishes his Associates in Criminal Justice in preparation for the Sheriff’s Academy next year.. His ultimate goal is to work for the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Department, hopefully out of Little Valley. With 2 little boys running around, a newborn 3^rd boy, two cats and a dog, we were very excited to look at this house. After our initial tour, we decided it would be worth every bit of labor and cost involved to invest in this old house to make it into a home for our family.

H will be sworn into the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Department this spring, and we must be living within the County limit before that (we are currently in Allegany County). If you accept our offer for this house, it is our intent to put a lot of sweat equity into restoring the flooring, woodwork, windows, and walls of the downstairs portion of the house during the summer. We will tackle the upstairs, insulation, and put a new roof on as soon as H is done with school and the Academy and working full-time again. We are excited about the potential that a double lot brings for a sandbox, garden, and plenty of grass for the kids and dog, and the fact that the county seat, local elementary school, and library are all just down the road is an extra bonus. When the upstairs is complete, it will boast a larger bathroom, sewing room, and playroom/schoolroom in addition to bedrooms.

Purchasing our first home is something that we have been praying about for years now, and we are excited that we might be only days away from making that dream a reality! Thank you for considering our offer.

Sincerely,

ps: we got it!

home?

still praying about it (a LOT). join me, won't you?

more pics

sometimes I knit

my first two boys rarely wore socks. (or clothes, for that matter)...boy3 is rarely out of them. These ones used up almost all of the same skein used to knit socks for both older boys. I think I have just enough to do one more pair a little bigger if I stripe it with something else, but we'll see. Turns out most of the baby clothing I have is red, white, and blue, so these have gotten a lot of use already. The best part about this pattern? They stay on! and as a special bonus, baby socks take mere hours to complete! just my kind of knitting: fast and practical.
and yes, that is a prefold he's wearing, with little else. some things stay the same no matter where we live ;-p

reflections

(no, not reflections on the past year. I only wish I had that kind of memory or time!)

boy1 wanted me to take the following picture for him so people could see it on their computers. He specifically requested one of "me and tree looking in the mirror with my arm around him and both of us smiling" and this is the result... enjoy :)

"my doctor said..."

...boy2 has a bit of a lazy eye. Now most of you know that I don't always see eye to eye (sorry, had to) with the doctors I encounter, and am not that likely to follow their advice to the letter. However, this particular doctor is also my super-smart cousin, and this time (I can see her eyes rolling from here about all the other times...) I decided to follow her advice and give him an eye patch of his very own. Of course I couldn't just stop at one. Guess I'll have to locate the matching pirate costumes my mom made for my brothers when they were about 4 and 2 and add them to the Christmas stash :-)

*this post brought to you by your friendly 2 month old, who would like to add that his eyes appear to be tracking extremely well, thank you very much*

what we are doing right now...

drainage project

A few key notes:
*never give a 4yo a shovel and tell him to "go dig something"
*boys+large machines=momma got a LOT of reading time in this week.
*daddy thinks his new(ish) boots are pretty spiffy
*ducks do not like dump trucks full of gravel
*man I grew since the last belly shot.
*boy2 really thought that if he sprayed long enough, the treads on the excavator would come clean.
*we are grateful for workers who hide the keys to the skid steer/track loader/bulldozer (depending on who you ask) so that no harm will come while the boys are role-playing.
*it's not nesting when your house really is that filthy.
*hooray for the Academy finding enough $$ in their budget for this much-needed project.
*really hoping the new porch(es) are big enough for a grill, picnic table, and some patio furniture.
*Labour(sic) Day is coming. I'm just sayin'...


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Non Sequitur

(pic: what happens when you let the boys paint on the driveway one day and give them paper and brushes and walk away the next day).


So yesterday for lunch I made grilled cheese with tomato soup for lunch. Boy 1 was watching and asking all about where the cheese came from. The first question was "did that cheese come from the upstairs fridge or the downstairs freezer, Mooooom?" (somehow drawing out my name at the end of every.single.question. has become the status quo). There were enough questions after that that I ended up giving him a not-so-brief rundown of how our milk got from the grass (as cow food) to the counter. By this time the food was almost done, but he did have one more question and here is the short convo that followed:

"why-"
"Nope. Ask a different question that does not start with "why." If you have a different question, I will answer it, but not everything is a "why" question, bud."
"... .... .......... ......... um.......... (at this point I can see the beginnings of about 6 different questions running through his head and almost through his lips) ..... ..... hm....... how big are piglets when the are born, Moooooom?"
"?!?! pretty small, bud. maybe about this big (motion with hands). Here's your sandwiches and soup!"

H and I didn't even laugh at first, we were too flabbergasted. Ah to be 4 again...

parking lot game

we're doing a little bit of concentrated schooling here during the summer. Not much, but just enough to keep us from going bonkers. Today, we parked cars and practiced number counting/recognition.

I downloaded and laminated this domino parking lot game (scroll down for pdf link) from mathwire.com a loong time ago, and we finally got around to playing it today. Of the many variations, this is the one we came up with:
1) Tonka had cars #1-6, Momma had #7-12. Tonka played with one dice, Momma had 2.
2) roll the dice and count to see which car to park. Make appropriate vrooming noises.
3) if one player finishes first (in this case, Tonka), he/she may help the other player roll and park cars until the lot is full. After the lot is full, the "zero" car may be parked and the dice placed in the remaining slot because they are bikes (of course).
4) tips: more dice may be added to ensure that the higher numbers are reached if desired, and a knitting needle makes an excellent pointer when counting small dots on a small dice.

aww...

don't know how much longer they'll fit together on the couch like this, but it sure is cute while it lasts!

creek with the girl cousin

thanks for coming to play, T! We love you :)

26 weeks

*apologies for the sensitive of ear, the following verse has been stuck in my head. feel free to groan*

All around the mulberry bush,
the daddy chased the mommy.
the daddy thought 'twas all in fun...
pop! goes the tummy.



what's happening developmentally

note: shirt is thrifted, skirt is thrifted maternity shirt turned skirt, shoes are from a dumpster in Italy. go go cheap outfit!

Plan For the Day (according to the 3.75 yo)

note: parenthesis are mom's interpretations. All else is dictated straight from the artist.

At Aunt Erin's house, I am going to play with this ayfo-ant (the blobby thing up there) and cars. The "I Love You" is for Aunt Erin because I love her now (sometimes says no to get a reaction) and I'm going to tell her that. The car is going to have an AMAZING crash into a monster truck. Then he will get a new car, not from a (transporter) truck, from a factory. It will be a made-up car. AND, the earth will burn up (cousin was talking about the 2012 movie) but the world will still be made. When God wants it broke, he breaks it and the car won't be able to drive anymore and he'll drive a monster truck instead.

It was a bright and sunny day...

...and look what my mom and I happened to find while on a drive around town in the early evening a couple of weeks ago! We only visited a few dumpsters this time, and had to return because my trunk was full. It's amazing what those silly college kids will throw out. On the upside, we didn't get (almost) any weird looks this time, and there were even a few other ppl out doing the same thing! Well, almost. They were looking for cans to help fund college, while we were looking for...other stuff... but at least it's a start. Also encouraging were the signs we saw on almost every dumpster advertising places to drop things off to donate instead of dumping. Sad to see how many people couldn't be bothered to do that very thing, or at the very least to recycle half their waste, but small steps are better than no steps I guess. We ended up donating a bunch of clothing, etc. to one of the local "free" places because we didn't need/want it but couldn't bear to see it to to a landfill, and we could have filled up several trucks with all the useable stuff left behind. Tonka was thrilled to provide some background music noise on the cushions, and my sister was not so thrilled to pose with my new "Sunday go-to-meeting" bag to be repaired for use come fall.
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hope this inspires to to do a little "diving" yourself :) I'm off to enjoy some mango-coconut oolong tea (yes, from the dumpster...hey at least it was individually packaged!) and dandelion-coconut cookies. Because dessert before dinner is definitely ok if one of the ingredients came from your front yard.

sweet pea pilot cap and some "leftovers" socks

Sweet Pea Pilot Cap tutorial from meg, socks are all the yarn that was left after making a pair of socks for my MIL and another for Tonka. Baby boy #3's stash has officially begun to accumulate! A few more items have been finished (baby stuff takes much less time, thinking, and materials than adult things!), but I need to take a shower, and dumpster pics took forever to load this morning (which is why this post is not about them).

So that's why my brakes squeak.

Today I set out to fix the squeaky brakes.   Armed with new pads, wrenches, screw drivers and a "c" clamp I went at it.  Did not expect to see this...   

Needless to say, after removal of the mouse the brakes should be much quieter.

D, not GrannyBoo

Grandma's tulips and a tank tute review

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Ok, here goes.  Number one, I think my mother should give me the blog, because her "compose new post" options are much cooler than my own.  Number two, my H shot all of these pics, and they're SOOC with no flash.  I really like my camera.  Number three, yes we're down to only 2 ducklings, out of a baker's dozen of eggs that we started with.  boo.  Number 4, check out the green cami! Again, the tute is from Trina, and I didn't change a thing.  The way she explains how to do the ribbing is great, and I now have a few more useable camis where once sat shirts I never wore.  Thanks, Trina!