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Did we do all that????

We have had a great week this week. I think I may post that every week, though!! Ha! It is great to be able to look back on my week and see what we have done and accomplished. I have been trying to do better taking pictures so hopefully more pictures and less blah blah!

 I will just jump right in with Monday morning!! We  went up to see Dagmar Gretchen Clover Pat-Pat Lucy Sara Spotsy Boo Dogwood Jones. I hope I didn't forget any names. This is Dagmar, Dorothy and Oz's new miniature dachschund. A friend of mine breeds them and this is one of the puppies from their litter. She is the most spoiled and loved dog in the world. The blanket she is laying on was made by our Maddie. It is her favorite blanket, too!! Dorothy and Oz call the puppy Dagmar. The kids just loved her and she had a ball playing with them.

 In the midst of playing with Dagmar, we noticed a turtle crawling across Dorothy and Oz's lawn. Needless to say, Robert HAD to get it. And here he is holding it. Being the laid back mom that I am, ahem, I immediately rushed him inside to wash his hands with soap and water thanks to Maddie reminding me about salmonella in turtles! Thanks, Maddie!! :)

 And here is cute little Dagmar sleeping. Beatrice covered her with the tiny napkin and gave her a friend.

 I saw this pattern online and immediately knew I had to make it for one of my dear friends. She is the best cook that I know and she always brings something in a casserole dish to church. I picked the fabric not becuase I bought new but because it seemed to suit her so well. It is also the same fabric I used for a skirt so I match her casserole carrier.

 Here it is closed up. Yup, some friends will be getting this for Christmas this year!! I may have my brother embroider it with something.

 Robert is obsessed with this sign. His uncle, Mr. Handsome's husband, went to school at University of North Carolina in Wilmington. This is a new sign and I guess it officially makes us a college town.

 Nothing terribly exciting happened on Tuesday. Robert was supposed to golf with Oz but it rained. On Wednesday we went to the nursing home and had a great time. Everyone behaved themselves, thank the Lord!! I think the residents were mildly disappointed there was no excitement. After nursing home, we decided to treat Dorothy to lunch. She always takes us out so we took her to Hibachi Grille SUPREME Buffet. I am not a buffet person. I don't enjoy watching people "belly up" as Mr. Handsome says, to the buffet table and load down their plates so what is on them is unrecognizable and piled together. But this buffet was par excellence!! The food was hot, fresh, and a HUGE variety. None of it was overcooked either. Not sure how they managed that. If you live in Wilmington, you should go. It's in between SAM's and Lowes Hardware on College. If you've been here a long time, it's where Hamrick's used to be. And the prices are great, too. I don't know how much dinner is but lunch for an adult was 5.80 or something like that. And the children were half price and 30% off depending on the age.

 Thursday was spent trying to get the air working. It stopped working so Heating and Air Guy came to fix it. It took him two days but he did fix it. There is some sort of wiring problem going on. God decided to make it blistering hot for those two days, too. I really was grateful for our air after that experience. Mr. Handsome felt sorry for us so he sent us to Mayfaire to eat lunch - and we got to use the credit card!! I was living high on the hog Thursday!! Mayfaire is an outdoor type mall. It's lots of fun to walk around and look in some of the shops. We ate at Happy Days Diner and had a grand time watching I Love Lucy. Then we walked over to Barnes and Noble. After Barnes and Noble we headed over to my personal favorite, Michael's craft store. As I am wont to name and number certain events in my life, I will call this one, Blood curdling experience no. 1 having never been through this in public before. We quietly walked in Michael's and I was busy reading a sign (I was pondering whether I could bring Maddie to a cake decorating class), I heard and watched our now three year old, Beaker open her mouth and let out a scream that curdled my blood. Yes, yes, it did. I was in shock and felt like I was in slow motion. I watched her mouth open up and let out a yell and then her whole demeanor changed and her eyes squinched up and her mouth opened so wide I could probably fit a basketball in it and she let out a scream like I have never heard out of any of our children. God has blessed us with the best children on the planet and while they have their moments of temper tantrums, meltdowns, and stubbornness, they know that they know that they know, public places are unacceptable places to do this. After the initial shock, I scooped her up and as quickly as I could, skittered out the door, packed everyone in the van, and drove home. It was actually a rather sad event because I had just told the children they could pick something out of the $1.00 bins they have. But the older children understood that this behavior would not be tolerated and quickly got over their disappointment. Screamer Girl, on the other hand, did not. We dealt with the problem at hand when we got home and she was put down for a nap, with me to ponder how one of my dear ones were even capable of such a scenario. It was humbling because it reminded me in a clear and present manner that none of us are perfect parents and that children make their choices apart from all that we try to instill in them. And for them, they learn that when they do make their choices with no regard for what we are teaching them, there are serious consequences. I hope Beaker remembers this because she has been careful not to scream again.

Upon arriving home, we were jubilant when we went inside!! Our air was on and working!! Yay!! :) Maddie had made some gingerbread dough earlier in the week and was going to make gingerbread cookies with the girls. So that evening they made them.

 Here is Lindsay working hard on her cookies. They forgot that it was not playdoh and I did have to remind them that it would soften too much to work with.

 Beaker loved the sprinkles.

 Beatrice is our "poser" - she loves getting her photo taken - well, most of the time!

Chef Maddie and the Cordon Maddie school of fine cooking.

Here is Robert helping out before he and Mr. Handsome head off to Scouts.

 After the cookie making and clean up, the little girls and Lindsay played wii fit. They made a wii character using all three of them on the board. It's too funny!! They named her Emily. So they play games with all of them on the board.

Friday, we had co-op, went to the park, came home, and did school. Robert and Mr. Handsome were going camping at scout camp Friday night so the girls and I were home by ourselves. We didn't do anything exciting, just hung around and watched TV.

Saturday was the BIG birthday party for John and Beaker. John is our nephew. He turned four and Beaker turned three. Their birthdays are 11 days apart so we celebrate them together, which they seem to really love. So it was a princess and Spiderman party!

Rachel and Beatrice hanging together. 

 Here's Little Spiderman!! AKA John!

 Princess Rachel being helped by Beatrice.

 Beaker with wings and skirts!

One of their friends. She had a great time!!

 Decorating cookies.

 Cousin Aiden decorating his cookies. He is Chris' grandson.

 Beaker doing what Beaker does best!! Eating junk food!! :) See why we don't have any processed food? We don't need any!! Ha ha - they get it everywhere they go!! :)

Beatrice showing off her decorating skills.

 This photo is not cooperating - two of John and Beakers' friends.

 Another friend..

 Cupcake time!! Beaker was a bit nervous about the fire but John had no problem blowing his candle out. it's a good thing Aiden was around. He was glad to help Beaker blow her candle out.

Thanks, Aiden!!

And here is Beaker with the whole armor of God!! Too cute, eh?? We got home in the late afternoon, cleaned up, rested a little, and then I put all the girls to bed. The fellas arrived home around 10:00 and had a gret time - very stinky and dirty but had a great time!! Sunday was a great day as usual. I went to the nursing home to play the piano today. It was a lot of fun. I don't go to the assisted living place to play, I play at the nursing home facility the third Sunday. Mr. Jerry and Preacher go and we have a fun time. It is one hour a month that I can sit an not have someone hanging on me! LOL -

Looking forward to a fun week. Mr. Handsome is taking off the end of the week and we are taking some field trips. yay!! I have two skirts to make for a friend so hopefully she will be happy with them.

I did forget that this is a big week for Maddie and maybe Robert!! They are going to sign up for basketball on Saturday. I need to start getting myself back in shape so I can help them.

Kristinie the Great is 3!

I will start with this photo because my editing program is not cooperating with me!! Grrrrrrr.... We started our week out rearranging bedrooms. Before God blessed us with our house, I had prayed for the childrens' bedrooms to be near ours so I didn't need to use monitors. Well, not that we would have used them anyway if their rooms WERE on the other side of the house. (I know, you are probably thinking I am a horrible parent - but the last thing our children needed was their parents jumping up at every little squawk to check on them!!) Their bedrooms are just down and around the hall we are on. (We only have one hall, actually.) We let Maddie have her room in the F.R.O.G. for about a year and that was enough for us to realize she was becoming extremely selfish and reclusive. So Mr. Handsome said that if I moved everything I could, she could move downstairs. He would move the large things. As it turned out, all he needed to do was move her bed downstairs. After all the furniture moving I did, I was too tired to take her bed apart and bring it downstairs. We did it all in one day, collecting about eight bags of trash and 10 bags to Goodwill. I even found baby blankets from when our Robert was a baby!!! WOW!!! So Maddie and Beaker share a room, Lindsay and Beatrice share a room, and Robert has the little green room. Everyone is happy. THEN - Scary incident No. 1 happened at bedtime: BUGS!! EVERYWHERE!! All over Robert's wall. They were black and had BIG wings. We used some bug spray we had and they all died. It was pretty scary. Tuesday morning I called Exterminator Guy and prayed. And I forgot that Heating and Air Guy came to put our new A/C unit in. Exterminator Guy came and answered prayer: the BUGS were no termites but Argentinian ants. Illegal aliens in my own home!!  

 The two rather dark pictures are Robert in his new room. He is completely turned around on his bed!! Too funny!! Back to my story: Heating and Air Guy spent Tuesday here with his buddy. Heating and Air Guy likes to talk - a lot. I need to get my brother to get a shirt that says, "Yes, they are ALL mine and NO I don't have time to chat about it!!" Would that be considered rude? I don't know. But anyway, I was getting a little concerned that he would be here until May if he kept talking. In cases like this, I always try to put a pot of water on the stove so I can politely dismiss myself by saying, "I think my water is boiling." Of course, one would get rather suspicious if I did this four to 10 times a day!!

 Beatrice reached a great milestone!! She wrote her name all by herself. I don't know if she can spell it but she can spell B-E-A. I have a funny story to tell but that will have to wait for Wednesday because it happened on Wednesday. She is very excited about this and proceded to write her name on every blank line in her Sparks book - which is where her teachers are supposed to write THEIR names. One of her favorite teachers was in Florida this week and she really missed her. Good thing her other favorite teacher wasn't. Bea would have driven me bonkers!!!

 On Tuesday afternoon we took a field trip to see my Dad and Mom's new puppy. We got to see her before Dad and Mom because she was still with HER mom at my friend's house. The puppy's official name is: Dagmar Gretchen Clover Boo Spotsy Lucy Sara Dogwood Pat-Pat Jones!! I don't know if that will even fit on her papers!! She is going to be called Dagmar except Beaker who yells, "AND PAT-PAT!" whenever we talk about Dagmar!! She is a cutie but I can say unequivocally, I am glad we do not have a dog. I wasn't really thinking about the ramifications of going to see Dagmar until after Mr. Handsome and Robert got home from visitation and I could hear Robert coughing from OUTSIDE - in the driveway!! It was his croupy-this-could-be-big-problems cough. I hadn't heard him that bad since he was about 3 or 4 years old so I knew something was wrong. And I knew it was serious because the cool night air didn't help him feel better. I gave him some tylenol and zyrtec, asked a friend to pray for him, and within minutes after he went to sleep, he had stopped coughing. Not out of the woods yet, I pumped him with tylenol and zyrtec in the morning and we prayed about it. Thank the Lord, his symptoms improved during the day. It was sometime Wednesday afternoon I realized he was reacting to being around dogs. He was around Dagmar and her brothers and sisters and another dog Tuesday evening that shed REALLY bad!! I was sure relieved to figure out the source of the cough and very thankful he is fine now.

 Here is Beaker holding one of Dagmar's brothers.

 This is Dagmar.

 And here she is again.

 The puppy Beatrice is holidng was her best bud!! That puppy just loved Beatrice. When we were getting ready to leave, Beatrice tried to sneak out of the house with it. It was so content with her!!

On Wednesday, we went to the nursing home. The residents love to see us and for some reason get some sort of delight seeing my children act, well, like children. Beatrice and Kristinie the Great were going to sing a call and response song and I thought I was very clear on who was first and who was second. Apparently not. I was playing the piano while they sang and they started YELLING - yes, my little darlings were YELLING and SHOVING each other because they both wanted to be first to sing!!! It was a bit embarassing but the residents got a HUGE kick out of it!! I was mortified and decided that we would probably not sing call and response songs again. Afterward we met my mom for lunch at Atlanta Bread Company. Here's the funny story I was going to tell. Beatrice was writing her name and turned to Dorothy and yelled: (Because it's a bit loud in ABC and Dorothy can't hear that well) Grandma, Guess what? I can write my name!!! Dorothy asks, as any normal adult would ask, "Great!! How do you write your name?" And Beatrice looked at her kind of funny and held up her pencil and said, "WITH A PENCIL!!!" We were cracking up. When we got home, Heating and Air Guy was still working on that A/C. He is a hard worker. He didn't talk so much to me today.

On Thursday, I spent the morning making chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes for Beaker's birtrhday. Dorothy and Oz were coming over on Friday so we could give her her birthday present - Bitty Baby Twins!! I made two batches of chocolate chip cookie bars and one batch of chooclate chip cookie dough cupcakes. They have to be my favorite cupcakes so far!!

 Here is Beaker licking the batter off the beater.

 I was waiting for the cookies to cool and decided to take a photo of my pantry. The top shelf is usually a little neater but we have dribs and drabs of chips left that everyone got bored of and they wont' finish them. I took a picture of it because I wanted to have documented proof that we do our best not to eat anything that is processed. I've come a long way from Twinkies being my favorite food group!! Our chips are all organic, blah blah blahs. Except for those Tostitos - they are not from me. They were given to me. And there are moon pies that were given to me!! We are not above eating junk food now! But on principle, I will buy one bag of chips to last two weeks (At Costco, they are easy to find) and some sort of snacky thing like all-natural fruit snacks(I'm not sure what that means but the box assures me there are no artificial preservatives and food colors and addtitives - which brings me to another thought - if a fruit snack is not grown and it is made, doesn't that make it UNnatural - just sayin'?) which last about two months. And the rest of our food is fresh, or frozen, rarely canned and rarely anything that is a "hollandaise medley" of sorts. I am proud to say that our children will eat asparagus, brussels sprouts, shrimp, tilapia, crab, lobster, salmon, spinach(as long as it is fresh sauted), all kinds of meats and fruits, too!! Maddie is the pickiest eater out of all of them but she still does great. Everyone eats what's put in front of them. They know the consequences of turning their noses up at something I've made (and I have made some bad meals that we've all suffered through together - I"m thinking Gorgonzola meatloaf which was gorgonzola overload!!) Maddie quickly reminds them of how she had to eat her dinner for breakfast and when she refused it, had to eat it for lunch. It cured her and has cured everyone else.

 We do eat cereal - well THEY eat cereal; I ususally have toast with homemade plum or strawberry jam.

 I know, my pantry is not very impressive - in fact quite boring!! I am sure people wonder how we even eat without cans of cream of mushroom soup, ritz crackers, and boxed cake mix (we survive!). But it's a great feeling to know that I am doing what I can to feed my family the very best I can. Plus what a great accomplishment to make a meal from scratch!! I am still learning so much about cooking and hope I will get better but it is great to be able to make something - in most cases cheaper - and know that it was made from nonprocessed foods!! We do love our processed foods though. Allowance time brings home the worst kind of junk you can imagine. But since their main meals are healthy and good for them, it's not a big deal when they want fun stuff to eat.

 Heating and Air Guy was finally finished on Thursday. He said he would be back Monday because something isn't working right. Here is Lindsay playing with pieces of pvc he gave the kids. They also got some wire from him. Both of the things entertained them for hours!!

 Here are the wonderful looking cupcakes. I should have cut one in half so you could see what they looked like. Chocolate chip cookie on bottom, cupcake on top. The best of both worlds!! And both from scratch - not a box!

 These are sliced baked potatoes from pinterest.com. If you have never been there, you must try it. I no longer have to print things out!! It's a virtual bulletin board.

 Friday has finally arrived!! And here is Birthday Girl with her Bitty Baby Twins. Their names are Robert and Lindsay!!

 And here is Birthday Girl with her twins in their carrier. She gets up first in the morning and opens all the doors to every bedroom and you can hear her dragging her carrier behind her!!! Too funny!!

 Here is Birthday Girl with her cupcake and her Hello Kitty candle (doesn't that candle look familiar?!!)

 Making every effort she could to blow it out. Mommy had to help a little. Beaker needed an old windbag to blow that thing out!! HA HA!

 We went outside after dinner Friday to play with the children while Mr. Handsome and Oz hid our wires from our entertainment center. They had to drill holes into it and pull the wires through. It looks fabulous now!! OH - and the Great and Powerful Oz being the Great and Powerful Guy he is hit our mailbox when they arrived!! In his big black Honda pickup truck!! Yep, yep, yep, he did!! It's nice to know not much has changed!!

 My third finished chore card organizer. This is for a lady who won it at our homeschool support night meeting. I donated it. I think I've arrived!! Someone asked me if I had an etsy shop!

And I end with Beatrice working on her AWANA verses with one of her favorite teachers - the one who was in Florida last week!! Our arrival home tonight brough the realization that our Lindsay has a phobia of crawly things. We pulled in the driveway to find a baby copperhead. Our friend, bobtail cat, is not around anymore so I guess the snakes are coming out to visit. Mr. Handsome got a broom and a shovel and killed it. As we were recovering from that, I heard a blood curdling scream behind me (Mr. Handsome had us all wait in the van while he took care of said snake.) and Lindsay screaming, "SPIDER! SPIDER!" And yes indeed, in our van, there was a spider. So I grabbed Mr. Handsome's nose spray he had just bought from the pharmacy and beat the spider to a pulp - I hope. And that is how we ended our Sunday evening!