I'm not dead

I've just been a little busy. But I'm back! Here's the abridged version of the last month of my life.

My beautiful girls.


A fabulous new Starbucks coffee drink I shared with some fantastic friends. It was a salted caramel hot chocolate. Note to self: buy a small one next time. And get a large water to go with it.

One of my kids' faces. They got ahold of my camera. I think its Madelyn.

All the homemade applesauce I made from some apples we stole from my neighbor's tree. (Okay, he said we could have them) I'm really getting into this country living. Do you see the smile?

The stolen apples.

A nest we lifted from the same apple tree. It made a great science lesson. I've never really looked closely at a bird nest. It is AMAZING what kind of engineering goes into a nest.

Brooklyn getting her ears pierced with Grandma.
The before:

After:




That's all for now. Be back soon...... I promise.

How my weekend went

1. I did not go to yard sales on Friday. Too much to do. Put that off til Saturday, and I didn't go then because I found I do not like to go look at people's junk all by myself. I feel bad when I don't buy something, like I'm offending them for not buying their garbage that even they don't want anymore.
2. I blanched all the peaches and cut them up into little bits. Me and the kids will make ice cream tomorrow for our cooking part of school. Then we will devour it, probably before its even frozen.
3. I went to that stupid exercise class. I remember now why I quit exercizing. Everything on me hurts. If I don't post again this week its because I sat down to pee and couldn't get back up. You better come looking for me. I'm pretty convinced that this class was created by al-quaida to torture and kill Americans. Thankfully I will be out of town next week so, too bad, I can't go.
4. I went to the woods to find my little camper/hunters this weekend. It was fun to try to find them with very vague directions and then surprise them. Here's my little hunters. Can you see them?

And this must be why the didn't sneak up on any animal.
So that's all. Now I must find a way to get out of this computer chair and back to the football game.....

Well, its the weekend. I don't have any plans. And I kinda like it that way. My, how life has changed. :)

We've been so busy this summer that its nice to not have anything on the agenda. I'll fill up my weekend for sure. Don't worry about me sitting idly by. I might:
1. Go to the gym. (I'll wait for you to get back up off the floor....and stop laughing).
2. Go yard-saling. I'm not usually a yard-saler. In fact, I really hate looking at a bunch of other people's junk. But I'm a reformed shopper after having moved way too much stuff. I no longer buy stuff I don't need (not very often, anyway). And I sure don't want someone else's junk. But last week I went with my sister and I found some cool stuff. I brought home a Pottery Barn chair that helps to fill up my living room, a cute pillow and a bag-o-crayons for 50 cents. I'm trying to decorate the house, and I'm kind of going for a hodge-podge look. I'll let you know if I find any treasures.
3. Make homemade ice cream. You know, after the gym workout. My sister in law gave me some super ripe peaches. Why eat them raw when I can put them in ice cream.
4. Hang out with my little Madelyn. Doug is taking the kids hunting again, so its mommy-and-daughter weekend.

The little camper/hunters are home from their weekend adventure. I'd show pictures but somebody forgot to take them.... Doug took Brooklyn and Ty to go run around the woods with him. I don't get it. Why would anyone want to wake up EARLY and then leave a warm bed to go walk around in the FREEZING, WET, COLD woods and then repeat the process the next day? It must be a guy thing. He probably doesn't understand why I would cut up little pieces of fabric just so I could sew them back together.

The troops came home VERY TIRED! And they had apparently adjusted to camp time because they woke up at 5:30 this morning. AGGGHHH. Doug said Brooklyn had plenty of Bigfoot stories to tell, trying to freak out Ty. And Ty fell down a hill, rolling end over end seven times.

Me and Maddy stayed home. My sister, her daughter, her husband and his sister came over on a whim on Friday night. I picked up something at their house and said "why don't you come have a slumber party." So they came up and Shane helped me finish tiling my laundry room floor - the floor I've had six weeks to finish but waited until the night before Sears was delivering a new washer. Yeah, that one.

My friend Melissa came up with her daughter on Saturday. Her little girl is quite the chatterbox ;) and had me amazed at how long she could stay awake talking! I have some talkers in my life, but I think her little one takes the cake.

And then I watched FOOTBALL ON SUNDAY!!!! Yeehaw. Its football season again!

Country Living

So this is what living in the country is like. The picture isn't the best quality. But go ahead and click on it to get more of the effect.

The really sad part is that this is one of three fly strips that we filled! And there's many, many more to be caught. Sometimes, when we weren't paying attention, we'd run into them! SOOOOOO DISGUSTING!!!!!

Maybe I shouldn't admit this. One of those things you just keep to yourself. Don't tell anyone and let them know how you really live. But my closet is full of too many skeletons! Not enough room for things like "how many flies thrive because of your sloppiness?" I'd appreciate any comments that go somewhat like "That's nothing. You should see our fly strips" or "we can't see eachother through the black cloud of flies." Anyone?

Banana Bread with a hint of Egg

Yesterday the kids and I made banana bread during school. I'm cooking with the kids on Mondays so that they can start cooking every meal for me. Purely selfish motives here. Its really a total fiasco every time, everyone wants to scoop the sugar and crack the eggs and turn on the mixer full throttle. Flour flies, kids cry. Great times.

The bread was a bit shy on banana flavor, though. Wait. Let me back up a bit. The reason for the banana bread instead of something else was because Ty decided he would take the sharpest knife from the drawer and cut the huge bunch of bananas into small chunks. Banana Bread.

Apparently I wasn't paying as much attention to the troops as is required. I was doubling the recipe and got sidetracked because halfway through I forgot I was doubling the recipe so I had to go back and re-add everything I missed. That meant two more eggs. I think Maddy was in charge of egg round number two. And I think she just may have thrown them in whole. "How did you not know" you ask? I had my back turned and the mixer was on, so its quite plausible that they were chopped to little, tiny bits while I wasn't looking. I noticed, though. Boy, did I notice. Every bite had a distinct crunch to it. "Maybe its the crust" I tried to tell myself. Nope. Not the crust. No nuts in this recipe. No crystalized sugar. Eggs. Or, rather, egg shells.

I'm back

Its been at least two weeks since my last post. Hahahaha to think that the computer set up would go smoothly. It apparently was the "worst case scenario" and got even worser. But I am currently typing in our office, in my basement. That's good news! So now I need to catch up on all my friends' blogs.

I wish I could find my camera cord because I have some pics to share from my last month or so. We celebrated Ty turning 6, Doug and I celebrated our 9th year of wedded bliss, we went to Silverwood, we had a campout with some great friends and a chicken (whose also a great friend),and we finished our laundry room. Stay tuned.

I am aiming to blog everyday this week, so come back and check it out and make me beleive I have people who actually read this thing.