Little House on the Prairie

Carolyn was on a reading adventure after we visited DeSmet South Dakota, the final place Laura (from Little House on the Prairie) lived with Ma and Pa. She read each book in the original series at about one book per day! I was out for a walk with my walking buddy when she mentioned that one of her daughters was crazy about "Little House" when she was younger and even had a "Little House" Birthday Party. Well, I knew it would be an easy sell with Carolyn and I was right.

We tried to enjoy the "planning" stages of the party, since the actual party goes so fast. That is hard, since some of the planning requires cleaning, which isn't that much fun. We enjoyed the rest though. One fun thing was making each girl an apron in their favorite color (well we tried - one girl changed her favorite color :).

The girls each made a rag-doll. (I sewed the stuffed pieces together for them, otherwise we would still be working on them.) Anna is holding the "practice doll" we made a few weeks ago.


The girls searched for Indian beads, feathers and coins (ok coins weren't very "true" to the story) at an "abandoned" Indian home-stead. (I put "abandoned" in quotes, because the Ingals thought it was abandoned, but the Indians returned and unfortunately had a very busy path right outside their log-cabin.) Our Indian home-stead was actually our sand-box, because sometimes you have to work with what you have.


The kids played prairie games. My sister-in-law had some great ideas from her "one room-school house" unit from her 3rd grade class. They had a "penny on the foot" race, and dropped clothes pins in the bottle before it was time for a meal of "prairie hen".


Here is the log-cabin cake. (version 2.0, the original was created for her actual birthday and can now be viewed on that date of the blog. trust me when I say the camera was kind!)


I think all the girls had fun!

Back to School Days

The "big" kids started school on August 18th and Anna started today! Everyone is enjoying their new adventures. I have decided that this is the most stressful time of year with all the "back to school" meetings and fall athletics. Anna and I are enjoying our quiet day times though. This year I have 4 kids at 3 schools. In a couple years we will go back to 2 schools for one year before returning to 3! At some crazy year in the future, they will be a 4 schools - and all too close to take the bus for free! Luckily, elementary and Jr High (8-9) are close enough to walk in decent weather.

Unfortunately we live 1.95 miles from Matthew's school, so he doesn't get a free ride to school (you must be 2 miles for the free bus). I decided not to go to the pay-to-ride service, since it would be $460 for the year. It is a bummer because a bus comes a few hundred yards from my house to pick up the kids who live far enough away. Oh well! I am considering having him come home on the bus, due to a few scheduling conflicts, but want to find out how well the bus is working for some of the neighbors first. It is more of a no-brainer when it is free.
Joel - 1st grade
Carolyn - 3rd grade
North East Elementary
Matthew - 6th grade
Anna - Pre-school at Our Lady's Little Learners

Happy 9th Birthday Carolyn

Although I am WAY behind in capturing August memories in my blog, I wanted to make sure to have an entry today.

Carolyn had a fantastic birthday. Her teacher is quite energetic and full of fun. He made her a balloon bottle-nose dolphin and sang Happy Birthday to her on his guitar. She also got a construction hat, since their classroom theme is "under construction".

We picked Matthew up at school and then went directly (at 4:00) to get Happy Meals to celebrate (because we had to be at the softball diamond at 5:00). Carolyn got hit in the head with a ball when up to bat, but when I asked her how her head was, she asked, "why?" I asked, "didn't the ball hit you in the head?" Her reply (while smiling), "oh no mom, it hit my helmet!" Of course the thrill of the night was bringing birthday treats to the game.


Carolyn is going to have a Little House on the Prairie birthday party on Sunday. When I post that entry, check back here to see the lovely "log cabin" birthday cake I created for today. (It was a test run for Sunday) - I felt like it was held together with frosting (and skewer sticks if you must know), and was pretty homely, but Carolyn said it was both "awesome" and "amazing". One of my favorite things about the kid's birthdays is they LOVE their cakes, despite their obvious imperfections. When you see the picture you will know what I mean! I had made "grass" with colored coconut, which obviously took it up a notch!


Carolyn got a special birthday treat of "Lego girls" - one from each of her siblings. We previously had a shortage of girl Legos and Carolyn REALLY wanted some, so we searched and searched on the Internet. They exist, but I truly think Lego is missing the mark not just adding girl hair to all the boxes of Legos they sell. I mean really - get more girls interested in Legos - sell more Legos, right? Anyway, we bought several sets of girl Lego people on Ebay to be given for birthday and Christmas. Now we have so many, I am going to keep a couple back for Anna, when she leaves Duplos and joins in the others in their love of Legos. (Are you really surprised that Carolyn's favorite thing about Legos are the people? Carolyn is all about people!)

Bad news, good news and the best news

The bad news is that I had to put some "miscellaneous" boxes back into the storage room to temporarily conclude the great basement-clean-up. Ken's sister arrived on Monday and I wanted everything off the floor and picked up. The toys had all been sorted and put away, the school supplies divided out and the craft materials had been boxed up, but there are still more things that need my attention (that stuff that needs a permanent home or needs to leave my home :)

The good news is that my house looked great when they got here. There was minimal clutter on the shelf-like trim in the basement (sewing supplies and odds and ends). Other than that the basement looked great and there was a wide path through the storage room. (extra special - my scrapbook table is prepped and waiting for the kids to go back to school and then it is scrapping time!) Everything was off every floor and counter in the kid's rooms, dinning room, family room and kitchen. My bedroom looked like it could be a room at a bed and breakfast and my office rocked! This is how my house looks when we have overnight guests who have never seen our house and it is how I wish I could keep it all the time. Of course that is only a dream and not my reality, but I can keep trying!

The best news is that we joined the YMCA! I never felt better than the year after we joined the YMCA when Joel was a year old. I exercised all the time and really loved it. Since I mostly went at 5:15am, I was proud of my dedication etc, etc.....then I was pregnant with Anna and I couldn't drag my pregnant self out of bed that early and have never been quite as fit as that. (although I felt great last summer, that was diet more than exercise) Ken indicated that he wanted to get more exercise, so that was the final decision maker for me in joining the Y. Last winter it was VERY hard to exercise due to all the snow and lack of motivation to do work-out videos, etc. SO this year - my exercises can continue throughout all seasons! yeah (I love this better than the clean house and a clean house makes me really happy, although I am not at my best when I am scrambling to get it that way for visitors. crabby crabby crabby)

So as to not end on a crabby note...the kids are excited to go back to school tomorrow!

New to the wall

Perhaps you remember when I started a new quilt for a friend from Indiana who was in my Bible study? (not the one due in Oct, the one due it Dec....the quilt for Oct. is long done) Well I finished binding this quilt while on retreat in St. Louis, the same time I found out that this baby is going to be a girl! Well, I think this quilt would be fine for "gender-neutral", but since the baby is no longer gender neutral, I thought I might try for a bit more girly and keep the gender-neutral quilt for a different baby, perhaps one whose gender isn't know until the gift needs to be mailed, or perhaps a little boy! SOOOO, here is the girly version of the same quilt. I (obviously) love this quilt style for its simplicity and "modern" look. I don't know if "modern" is the right word. How about improvisational? Anyway, this baby and momma are getting many prayers, because that is what I do when I quilt a baby quilt.



Here is another quilt that will be on the wall a long time, because I just add a bit at a time. I am using scraps from other quilts I have made to make something sentimental (hopefully) for next winter when it gets cold. I have "stolen" from this quilt to make a doll blanket and I am not above doing it again, so it may take awhile! I just love all the memories of the quilts, etc., that I made from each of these fabrics.

Oh the Lord is Good to Me...

We went to visit my folks yesterday and the trip was lovely. Here is the "going away picture". Most of us will be back next weekend when all my siblings get together to golf with my dad (no I don't golf, but the rest do). Matthew will be with Ken on a Boy Scout canoe trip that was scheduled before the "reunion".
Here is how Anna feels about trips to visit Grandma and Grandpa.

Enjoy this picture!

This is a funky picture of Joel's quilt ready for quilting. The green is actually painter's tape. Normally it works great as a guide for quilting (just the right amount of sticky). Of course that is if the person placing the tape uses her brain and only tapes on direction at a time. Otherwise when quilting you have to sew on top of tape, which would be rather dumb! So during the quilting I had to tear-up all the intersections to avoid sewing on the tape. What a pain! I had to make myself finish all the quilting in 2 days, because I knew if I put it away, I would not want to get it out for weeks.

SOOOO - Carolyn and Joel's quilts are both quilted and only need binding. I am hoping to get this part done, so they can wake up the first day of school with their new quilts on their beds....but don't hold me to it!

For the record (and this is going to sound stupid).....the thing I like least about quilting is the quilting. What I mean to say is, I love planning quilts and piecing quilts (putting all the fabric together) and I love binding quilts. I just don't like working with the bulky 3 layers of fabric together at once on the machine. Until we moved to Iowa, I didn't have a machine that could quilt, so I either quilted by hand (which I don't mind, but takes too long for a large project) or tied the quilts together (but I don't like the end product as well). Actually I don't even mind machine-quilting small quilts, since the bulk isn't there. I think I have done my last "large" quilt for awhile. I love making baby and doll-sized quilts.

I did ask Matthew if he wanted a quilt since everyone else will have one soon. He is undecided. I am not sure if he just doesn't want me to have all the work or if isn't interested in having a quilt. I don't really care either way, I just don't want him to feel left out. Of course I am going to have to sell something to buy the fabric, because I TOTALLY took fabric out of the budget for the next year. (If you saw my stash you would understand...however, if I am going to make Matthew a quilt, it is going to be with fabric he and I love....so I am going to have to sell something if he decides he wants a quilt :)

Summer Update

Summer has improved dramatically since the beginning of summer, especially the last few days. For the record my favorite thing about summer is when I see my kids playing nicely together. My least favorite thing is when I hear them not playing nicely together.

RE: the basement. Everyone pitched in for another hour this afternoon and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. (On Friday I was about to pull out my hair.) Almost every toy has been taken out of the storage room and sorted (down to the last little lego). Additionally almost all the toys have been removed from the kid's rooms to sort as well. There are no toys on the main level as they have been taken downstairs for sorting too. If I gathered all the toys off the floor now, there would just be a small box of odds and ends - tomorrow's project! You can actually walk through the storage room once again, there are 5 empty totes and a trunk full of "stuff" to go to the St. Vincent de Paul truck. Yes I am doing a happy dance in my head. Perhaps the toys will be done tomorrow, leaving a bit of work with the "craft" stuff and school supplies....then my favorite - SCRAPBOOKING! My scrapbooking table is complete disorganized, but I have a plan, but that is for another day.

Indianola Balloon-Fest and a BIG lesson

It was about 4:30 on Saturday when Ken asked if I saw his email message. I hadn't, since I was diligently working after almost 2 weeks off. Anyway, Indianola has a huge balloon fest that we have wanted to go to in the past and this was the weekend. Anna was quiet crabby already, so I suggested he take the 3 big kids and I would get Anna to bed early.

Unfortunately she had heard enough by that time to know she wanted to see the balloons. (Carolyn was trying to plead her case and said, "I will push her in the stroller if she falls asleep.") None-the-less, I distracted her with bubbles and they left. WEEEELLLLL folks, there used to be a day when all you had to do was distract Anna for a few minutes and she was good for the rest of the day. Those days are gone. She was so sad crying, "Sissy is going to push me in the stroller." So, I took her for a walk in the stroller to the school playground so she could have fun too. Then we read books and even at normal bedtime (so much for "early") she was sad, "I want to see balloons." (and she was just thinking about the kind they sell at the store - just imagine the anguish if she really knew what she was missing) I did promise to buy her a balloon at the Dollar Store the next day and that made things better.

So needless to say, we have entered a new era. Anna isn't going to miss a beat! Had I known earlier about the balloon-show, I would have been able to convince her to nap, but I knew without a nap, she would be asleep before we were out of Ankeny! Oh well, lesson learned! Anna is a big kid now!

(I should have known that times were changing, because the other day she was in the bath and she said, "I want some privacy." For the record, I told her that 3 year-olds don't get privacy in the bath tub for safety reasons.)

after the after

Remember my "before and after" post? Well here is a shot of Matthew a week later. His bottom tooth came out (with a bit of help from him). (BTW, Matthew is doing a science experiment with his tooth, so the tooth fairy got off easy. I guess that's what happens when you are over 10 and a science-maniac.)

Also note the cute hair-cut. Matthew grew his hair out all summer, but I made it clear he wasn't going to school scraggly! He has bed-head 24/7 when his hair is long and just doesn't have time each morning to get a shower and do his hair during the school year. I offered him a deal - $5 toward his "camp-account" if he let ME cut it(he is earning money to go to scout camp next year) or $5 toward a hair-cut at the salon. (The hair-cut wasn't optional.) To date he has only had about 3 hair-cuts at the salon, but I thought that maybe another "mom-cut" was why he didn't want his hair cut. He chose the mom-cut though. Since he has 2 weeks until school he wanted it to look "like he didn't need a hair-cut, but not short". I cut a little bit and then given his thumbs up I shortened the sides and back a bit. Next time (since he won't have 2 weeks to wait) we will use the 7/8 comb instead of the 1/2...(note to self)

Of course I think he looks extremely handsome with his new cut. I told him we should be thankful that I have had 11 years of practice cutting hair, because now he actually cares how he looks. (I will try to find a picture after his first hair-cut by mom - that is an entry all by itself!)