Blizzard of 2011!

YUP, in case you didn't know, we live in the Great White North lol. Well it gets whiter as you go north, we live in the Lower Peninsula, in Central Michigan. We got quite a bit of snow, but not as bad as other places. Our total by the end of it was 15" on the ground, but only 7 1/2" of it was from the storm. We only lost power for a few minutes, but one block over and most of the rest of our small town was out for about 1 1/2 hours. We all survived, it IS winter after all lol! Here are a few pictures from our adventure. We walked around the block to play in the snow with some cousins.

She was collecting snow balls to give to her aunt! lol
He just wanted to find the biggest ones.

Can you guess what happened here?? lol That little stinker tossed snow right in his face and laughed and laughed. I'm glad I was taking pictures LOL
Well after a good storm, you HAVE to go sledding, right?? So we packed up the kids and went to a local hill. Not an official sledding hill, but it worked great. It was just big enough for the gang of 9 kids. We met some friends and family there. I tried to get some good 'action' shots. But trying to not get run over was more important lol. The kids had a BLAST!!

Amber and Nichole were hungry LOL! This is BEFORE:
and AFTER (ok, so not really lol, but she did sit there munching alot of it)


You can see how deep the snow is, He could only walk in his old tracks, it was clear up to his waist.



And we HAD to warm up with Hot cocoa. Does this look like a happy face to you??

Sick kids!

Never fun!! UGH.. I've been up all night several nights this past week. First it was Amber, I thought it was just the blueberries she ate. They were a new bag of frozen berries, but they were given to us, so I can't say how old they are or anything. She got sick shortly after eating some, not a TON, but probably a cup. Abigail ate a few as well, and came and told me "mom, my belly hurts" this is my almost 2 yr old. It's great when they can talk and tell you what they want or need. I'm always amazed at how much more she communicates at this age than David did.

So I thought it was the blueberries, I mean the kids have only been out of the house twice in the last 2 weeks, HOW could they get sick?

Thankfully it only lasted about 12 hours and I was able to nap a bit the next day. Well that was Thursday and last night it all happened again, but this time with the boys, UGH. David comes scooting down the stairs at 3 am, holding his belly. He said "I'm sooo hungry" of course it was gas/stomach cramps, not hunger pains. I gave him some toast and crackers, but he didn't want any more than a few bits. So on the couch I was again. After a while he told me in the most serious voice, "mom, i have gas" .. right before he got sick on the couch UGH... so into the bathroom we go, poor guy.. After he was all done, he looks at me and says "I don't like air in my stomach, i think i'm allergic to air" lol. He's my 4 1/2 yr old. He only made a mess that once, but he's not eating or drinking very well. We even got him some really good Popsicles...

Later that morning Marky was sick too.. So now I'm just hoping hubby and I don't end up sick.. I've had enough already.. I'm ready for BED!!!!!

The perfect gift??

I'm sure you all know I love to cook and bake, and you can probably imagine that I have tons of cookbooks.. This is all true, but there is one that was given to me that is my favorite. At my bridal shower my than future MIL and SIL's gave me a cookbook. Not just any cookbook, it's my favorite cookbook. The perfect cookbook. I don't know where they got it, but after all these years, i've finally found one.

Mine is worn, to say the least, but it still has lots of life left.





When they gave it to me, they had it filled with many family favorites for cookies, salads, pies and even a few main dishes. They had taken the cards and had Grandma Dugan fill many of them in herself. There were also room for more. I was able to fill it up even more with favorites from my family. When I'm in the mood to cook, it's the first thing I grab. When we discover a new favorite of our own, I add it in there so I can find it quickly again. So I wanted to pass this on to my daughter, who loves to bake and cook as much as myself. Sooooooooo I'm so excited I found one. I got it in the mail a few weeks ago and have been busy filling it up, Amber doesn't know about it. I'm going to try to fill it up and give it to her for her 10th birthday in March. She can than put it away and save it for when she is grown up. I'm sad to think she'll grow up, but it's bound to happen.


Here is where I found it..

It was brought to my attention, after I posted this, that they no longer offer these books, BUMMER!!.. I've been searching online and the closest I can find is making your own. One point I will make about that is, if you can find the plastic protectors that holds the 4X6 photos, 2 to a page you will be much happier. It's nice being able to pull the recipe out sometimes, and saves room putting 4 per page (2 on front, 2 on back). This site offers them, but they cost 1/2 what it cost for my whole book EEK! If I find a new source for these books I promise to post it)

I will try to take some pictures of the new one to post of here. It holds a 4x6 index card and is protected with plastic..

The snow has arrived!

My kids have been looking forward to snow since, well since summer lol.. So when they seen less than 1/2" on the ground before bed last night, they made plans to get up early and go out and play. As I put David to bed last night he told me..

"Mom, when I get up, I'm going to get dressed and get my breakfast and go outside and make a snow angel" lol.

So here's the conversations that went on this morning when they woke up. So much for Yahoo's prediction of less than one inch accumulation over night..

Marky "this is the BEST DAY EVER!!"

David "Abigail, look there's snow outside"
Abigail " Uh-huh, I see snow"

They rushed thru breakfast and getting dressed. David didn't even need the usual "encouragement" to get dressed. They were outside around 10 am, a record for even being dressed (we homeschoolers don't hop out of bed as early as the rest of you, and can do school in PJ's lol)

Here are a few pictures I snapped this morning..

The first time she wore her snow pants, the was SO happy to put them on and they looked quite funny going almost clear up to her arm pits.

Pretty in Pink

Sled rides YAY

His first snow angel of the season.

The pond on our patio in under there somewhere

And of course we had to have some warm hot cocoa when we came in.

Crown, root canal or just pull it!!

Have I mentioned before that I'm not fond of doctors?? Well I'm not, unfortunately it's a necessary place to visit.

I had healthy teeth growing up. Never had a cavity till I was 18 yrs old. We went every 6 months, my dad was very consistent with our dental care. I remember going to the dentist, and this was before they had those nice suction things and wore masks (bad memories). We had a little sink beside the dental chair to rinse and spit in. The dentist ran the place with his son, they were both good, but the dad, well he had BAD breath. They didn't wear masks and he always made me gag from the smell. UGH.. I was to embarrassed to tell him, "your breath stinks, that's why I gag" he was obviously a little annoyed at my constant gagging. So we don't go to him anymore. I do love our dentist now, he's great with the kids and hubby has been going to him since he was a kid. Very family friendly. Still not fond of going and having my teeth pulled apart tho..

So we have insurance at the moment and went in for a cleaning, this was Davids first cleaning. He did GREAT!! He was in Amber's room and watched her get done. Her nurse was very patient and let him smell and feel the tools and such. So he climbed up in his chair when it was his turn. He already knew what tooth paste he wanted, which sunglasses and which tooth brush. He was VERY specific lol. I was in the next room and could hear it all. I heard him tell his nurse several times, "the other lady had...." so they were very comforting and he did fine even with no one in there. Mark and Amber's teeth look great. David has a little cavity in a molar.

So on to me, well back around the first of the year (while we had no insurance) I broke my molar in the top right. It was sharp and annoying to chew on but didn't hurt and I wasn't going to rack up a bill for it. I did go in sometime in Mar to have my front tooth fixed. I had a cavity and it was getting to the point it was showing black on the front. So we decided we could handle $80 to fix it. They also checked out my molar, sanded the sharp point off and said GET IT FIXED ASAP!! Well ASAP was Wed.. We found we had insurance and it ends the end of the month. Oh the joys of Union's... So i got on their on call list, if someone called in. Tuesday I got a cleaning with the rest of the family (after 2 yrs EEK) and they called me on the way home and said I could come in at 3 on Wed to hopefully get a crown. They did an X-ray and it showed the decay stopping close to the root, so maybe we could crown it, maybe we would have to do a root canal. Let's try and hope for a Crown..

They decay was to far down, a crown would fix it for now, but not last long, and root canal was the best option OR just pull it.. Oh a tough decision.. i was already numb so get it done now, or come back and do a root canal later. ugh...

Well we decided lets just pull it.. My appt was at 3pm, I got out of there at 8pm, YES 5 hours later. Ends up I have really hard teeth and it was infected, poked thru into my sinus AND I inherited my grandfathers hooked roots. YIPPEE but it's all over and I don't have to go back. My mouth is really small so that didn't leave much room either.. My tooth came out in about 20 pieces, they had to drill it apart. Pulling only helped a little, the nerves kept coming un-numb (mostly likely leaked into my sinus) and it was so close to my jaw it could only move in 2 directions with out hurting...

So I'm on an antibiotic for the infection and Ibuprofen, being here with 4 kids all day, there's not much else I can take. It seems to be working, 400mg every 4 hrs. I feel much better than I expected to. So that was Wed, this is Friday only a few more days and I should be good and new right???? and maybe I won't get as many sinus infections too..

So that was my week, how was yours?? LOL

Since I'm on here posting about PB&J cookies I'll take an extra few mintues and tell you what's been going on her, or what's going to be going on..

I've lived in Michigan my WHOLE life, but NEVER been to Mackinac to watch the fireworks, WELL this year WE ARE GOING!! Hubby's job is working out so that we are heading up north for a week!! YES!! We are all very excited.. I get to watch the fireworks from St. Ignace. We are camping on Lake Michigan at a campground. We have a really busy weekend and week because we are leaving on Thursday, and I have to pack the camper. Hubby just got to slide out on the camper out for me, so I can get into my pantry and get it loaded.

Sunday I have a fitting for a bridal party (very excited!))
Monday appointment for WIC and picking strawberries
Tuesday we are making strawberry Jam!!
Wednesday we have eye doc. appt

Oh and yea in the mix I have to load the camper, dig out my canning jars from the shed, get the house ready to be empty for a week and all the stuff that goes along with normal life...

but all that work will be well worth it.. You see if won't just be us going... there will be about a dozen or so of us from Marks family going and we are going to have a BLAST... We've got our dinners planned and everything....

Well I better get busy!!!

Is it May or not???

I'm beginning to wonder, because it's been kinda chilly around here. Rain isn't unusual in Michigan, but the chill isn't that common in May. It's almost June and it's only in the 50's today. It will get warmer eventually, I know.. Our house is nice and toasty, which is nice. When we did get those few warm days, we didn't even notice since we have central air for the first time EVER too!! We are going to really LOVE it this summer...

We've been going in circles around here lately. Sometimes I wonder if I standing up straight. I can't tell you everything we've been doing lately (soon I can!), but trust me, we've had quite a month and a really busy next few weeks.

We are trying to stay on track with our homeschooling, a constant struggle. We take more breaks off than public schools do, to be able to spend as much time as possible with hubby. His schedule can be erratic to say the least. This winter hasn't been quite as difficult as last year, but it still can be hectic. I'm planning on schooling year round, since we do take breaks. My kids understand that once they get this years work done they will get a "summer break", but since they've never been to public school they don't miss it as much as you would expect. I'm planning on adding a few subjects to next year too, art, Latin and music. I know it's not really adding since we do them in one form or another, but with a regularly scheduled curriculum is the plan.

I'm getting ready to order next years curriculum too, Rod and Staff for Reading, English, Writing, Art and Spelling. I already have the Latin, Music and Abeka Math. I also have a Science curriculum too. I'm debating finding something else, but my kids LOVE it, so it's a hard decision. It's just that it's a old one and from a public school format with the "red lined" teachers books, so I have to scan and edit the answers out. So if anyone knows how to make the answers not print, i would LOVE to know how.. It would save me alot of time and money since I have the curriculum up to 6th grade I believe.. The answers are in red and are not suppose to copy somehow, but i think that only works on the old copiers from what I can figure.

As far as the Rod and Staff goes, I am really liking it. It blends the Bible stories in with the lessons, which actually makes it easier for the kids to learn it, it makes the fill in the blanks make more sense. I can't tell you how many of their old books would ask random questions in the lessons that made no sense to even me. The answer was totally different than what we would call it, or answer. I've gotten that a few times in this, but since it's Mennonite based, most of the answers are related to more historic items (like using oxen with a yoke, something they need to know, but not a normal routine for us lol).

Much to my dismay we've decided to hold off on the garden and greenhouse. Since it's been so cold here, i'm not sure it was a bad idea yet anyhow. My FIL didn't get his garden planted until this week, part because he was busy and part it's just been to cold still. I'm just holding out hope that we'll get to pack up the camper and head out with hubby soon. I'm so ready to go do some camping lol.. I've got it cleaned and packed for the most part. I've still got to find a few things for it, like some decent plastic plates and bowls, but we can survive.

I've got a few most post to get on here, like I tried my first rotisserie on our grill YUM!! I have pictures, and a few others too. I need to get the pictures off my camera still, it's sitting her next to me, that is my next project lol..

So till later!!!!!

Busy, busy

Warm weather is finally here, or closer anyhow. I know I don't post much, but the warm weather makes me feel more ALIVE!! Lol...

Today I have a large order of alterations to get done. I got it started yesterday. I'm hemming pants, jacket sleeves and taking some sides in as well. I LOVE doing alterations. I love sewing, but I really think my passion is the altering. I know I'm a little crazy. As my mom pointed out last night, I just get busy and don't finish sewing projects, hehe, she was the same way when we were small. It's sad really, I have some really adorable outfits I made for Amberlin and Marky (matching) and now, the dress will fit Abigail this fall... YIKES all it needs is a hem and buttons. I now have it hanging in front of me in stead of packed in a box, so I'll remember it's there. I promise to post pictures.

I'm also looking forward to moving Abigail upstairs to Amberlins room. I'm not sure how soon that will happen, but when it does...... I will have a room just for sewing and office, NOT baby too. It's kinda hard to sew when she's sleeping and harder to sew when she's awake lol. I have great plans for that room. She's still not quite ready to go upstairs yet tho. We do have our school in there as well, but we do our school at the table, and store out books in a tote in the DR. Our shelves of books and such are in the office/sewing/baby room lol..

So it's time to get the kids going at their school and I've got sewing to do.

I'm also compiling a list of some great links I've found regarding composting and simple gardens. I'm really excited about it, I can't wait to get some flowers and vegis in the yard. I have to keep in mind that I have 4 kids, I'm busy and I'm not always here in the summer, so...... if you have ideas, I'd love to hear them and I just may add them to my list on here....

Till later..

I haven't forget.....

I really need to try to post more often huh?? I really do try. I have all these ideas that go around and around in my brain and then get lost when I have the time to sit and type. It has nothing to do with having 4 kids, really LOL..

So I've found and tried a few new recipes I've been wanting to put on here. I'll post them separate one per message, hopefully today. Hubby's been home more often lately, which is really nice. Our family time has really gotten a boost, but he doesn't have his own laptop. Our desk top computer is too slow, so he uses my laptop. Hopefully he'll be getting his own here shortly. It seems that when I have time to sit and type for longer than a minute, it's when Abigail is sleeping, in the office, where the desk top is, sooooo.... I sit and read a book instead. I LOVE to read, but tend to read a book in one or two days, if it's good. I read very fast. So I can't put it down. I don't usually even pick up a book, because I know i'll be stuck in it. I got a few from the library and have been totally absorbed lately.

So I'm off to go roll out my noodles for supper right now. My bread is almost ready to put in the oven. The first batch was wheat and yes it was GOOD warm. The second is just plain ole white for the kids that don't like wheat... sigh..

I'll be back later to give you my FAVORITE recipe, YUM
Honey Oatmeal Bread,, I crave this bread, it's sooo yummy..

until later..

JenD

Dec. 23,2008

Well a little update, Yes a sugar free day or two is possible and YES you feel like crap (thanks for the warning Mandi). But I feel much better now. After you get over the hump of the de-tox of sorts I feel much, much better. The fog in my brain went away. Now staying that way, isn't so easy. It's so hard to not grab a cookie or two as a quick snack. So we went shopping and stocked up on some fresh fruits and vegi's. When your on the run and need to grab on the go, even harder. Fast food just doesn't offer much in the way of healthy food, but we all knew that right???

The pancakes where awesome. I've made them a few times since, I'm getting some strawberries to try in them. The possibilities are endless. I think that's why I love cooking so much. The possibilities go as far as you can imagine. I never take a recipe and follow it exact, why be normal???

Have any of you been stuck in this snow? I measured a minute ago and we have 13" of snow on the ground, most of it came down in one day. It's been snowing daily for the last week and we are expecting another 5-10" in the next day.. We've already got over 3 times more snow by this date last year. WOW, it's going to be a white winter. I'm hoping hubby gets that Geo-Thermal done soon... He's almost there. It's been sooo cold outside, he was welding and cutting in my backroom. I had to put up a blanket so the smells didn't get not the rest of the house. Hopefully by the first of the year it will be up and running. Doing it in his spare time, really makes it take longer. Can't wait, when that's done we will have a "green home". Between the Low-E windows, blown insulation (made from newspaper) and the Geo-thermal we are there!! YAY..



Here's another "green" idea.

What are they you ask?? Well we come from a family of hunters. Although hubby wasn't able to hunt this year (he had time, but opted for family time instead..) Many Uncles hunt and when they have as many as they want in there freezer, they offer them to family to process. Soo this year we got a deer from his uncle, cut it up and froze as much of the meat as possible. We use it just like beef. It's healthier since it's free range. On top of the meat we got, i boiled the bones and hard to clean pieces for broth. I buy it all the time, why not make my own. So we brought home the bones, neck and ribs and put them in a pan with some onion, celery, garlic and salt and pepper. I put it in the oven on 350 for, oh I don't even know how long, all day.. Used some cloth to strain it and pick the bigger chunks of meat from it. I than froze the broth. Well aside from alllll of that, I also kept the suet from the deer as we cut it. The fat is what they make those nice square chunks with bird seed you can buy at the store (they usually use cow, but pig and deer work as well). So I made my own. They have alll kinds of varieties, the citrus one caught my eye. Since we have a box of grapefruit, we saved the skins from them. After I melted the suet in the oven, mixed birdseed in it, I stuffed the peelings with the mix. I set them outside and froze them. I now have home made bird feeders. We love watching the birds on our front porch. Now with the cold weather it's even more important to feed them. So Suet bird feeders.... I put the rest in my large rectangular pan and later cut them into squares, I store them in the freeze and fill my wire mesh holders as needed.

This post is getting quite long. I guess I should post more often. So I'll add some pictures to the next post.

Here's a link to a previous post I wrote about the Christmas Holiday. If you are interested in seeing our point of view, you can find the post here.

To check out my blog on living healthy and green click here. I am trying to post a new green tip weekly. I will try harder to keep up with it. I have all these ideas, but they are getting left in my head LOL.

TTYL, I'll post some winter pictures for you in my next post.

My baby girl is walking!

I wanted to share this short video. My baby girl is walking at 9 months old! It is silent, since it was taken on my digital camera. I still can't figure out how to get my video camera to load onto any sites.

I have 2 sick kids here today, so I don't have much time. Hope they get better soon, I'm tired LOL.

Enjoy!

Thankful!

What are you thankful for? No I'm not going to go into some long message about being thankful, really. But I am going to tell you what I'm thankful for. I'm sure you all know of all the troops away from there families over seas. Well I am thankful that my brothers have both returned safe and sound. Yesterday they both arrived back home. They had been gone since May and June of last year. So now there deployment is over and they have come home. I'm very thankful to all those who serve our country and sacrifice limb, sanity, family and sometimes there lives for our freedoms, and I'm thankful most of them come home safe.

SO Thanks to all who serve!!

The thing left is to celebrate!! Can't wait to see you all soon!

Woo Hoo!

David just came in from outside playing to run to the potty. ALL ON IS OWN! YAY!! WOOHOO! PROGRESS! I am seeing the end to diapers for one child in sight, it's getting closer. He's stayed dry pretty well in underpants, but would need to be reminded. If he can get away with it, he will get a diaper on, but we've had to keep convincing him underpants are better.


But he came in all on his own, ran thru the house to the bathroom. YAY!!!

Just had to share a mom moment with you all!

new pictures

New pictures!

Abigail was so tired, but just wouldn't go to sleep. So I put her in her swing, and she tried to stay sitting up to stay awake lol. I snapped this pic before I laid her back. She just couldn't stay awake!

The Potty training saga continues!

Did I mention I'm potty training our son? Well he is proving to be the most interesting of them all. If you are a mom, you will now doubt fall out of your chair in laughter, if not, you will fall out in shock lol.

Potty training is always interesting, some of those kids are angels and hop on the pot as soon as mom says it's time or even on there own, and then there are Davids, the normal ones lol. Well I mentioned before he doesn't like training pants, I bought him some little boxer type things, and he doesn't like them either, he says they're too tight, so we just keep trying. I'll have to go shopping and find some thing else. Now I KNOW he's ready and as soon as I can find him some underpants that he'll wear he'll be done in no time. He HATES being wet, or dirty, or sticky, so if he doesn't have a diaper on, he'll feel it more and not like it. Of course I have to be sure to not find shorts to loose, cause I want them to hold his mess. Of course there is the current option that he has taken too. I was sitting in my office and Papa (Dad) was on the couch. All of the sudden I hear, "Mom, Davids ready for big boy pants, come quick" Yippee I think, but no. David is ready cause he for what ever reason we don't know, decided that instead of leaving it in his diaper, he'd bring it down it his hand, literally. He took his diaper off and, we're not really sure of the details, cause he was the only one up there. But the diaper was upstairs, he had his pants on, and you guessed it, in his hand. Well after a thorough washing of hands and a hopefully memorable lesson on what to do with it, he was off on his way again. We got him to wear his pants for a few minutes. Yes we have a bribe box too, candy, but still he won't wear them long enough.

Well once was enough for me, but not him. I was making popcorn and he was heading to the bathroom with brother. A few minutes later, big brother hollers, "Mom, Davids holding his poop in his hand again". I told hubby, come watch the popcorn (it was in a electric popper thing) and I headed to the bathroom. He had by this time thrown in it the toilet, I asked Mark what happened, he's in the bathroom, WHY was it in his had. Well how do I say this without grossing anyone out???? He started going in his pants, and instead of sitting on the toilet, used his hand to transport it to the toilet. [sigh], what to do, what to do!!

So were waiting for it to click, and hope it's reallly soon!! Any suggestions??

Potty training!

Well it's that fun time again. Our 2 yr old is ready to potty train. Full fledge in the underpants training. Now he's been training for a while, when we change his diaper he sits on the potty, but now he knows when he needs to go. He takes his diaper off and throws it away, sooo it's time. The thing is with David, he doesn't do change well, we have to ease him into it. He just goes nuts if we drop and change. I tried putting underwear on him a few days ago and he didn't like them AT ALL. He thinks the legs are to tight, so we finally talked him into to trying some on later. So now were going to get him out of diapers. Of course that's the plan, we'll see how it really goes.

For those who've been thru this all before, you know what I mean. Our first was potty trained by 2, of course she had accidents here and there, but for the most part she did really well. She wore pull ups to bed for several years. Our second was a boy and he was much like David, he took forever, but one day he woke up and it just clicked. From that point on he never had an accident again, even at night. So we're hoping it's ready to click for him soon, because 2 kids in diapers is expensive.

Well I've got to go mow the lawn!

Pictures

He crawled in bed with me this morning. They looked so peaceful. Than they woke up LOL



Oh the joy of mother hood. She looks so peaceful and content, and natural. It's so hard to pull out her thumb and stick a pacifier in instead.


She just doesn't look as happy. With all my kids I replaced the thumb with a pacifier. I figure it's easier to take a pacifier away at a year old than a thumb. But it gets harder with each kid. Especially this one. She pulls out the sucky and pokes her thumb back in. And it helps her sleep longer. I come in the morning to find she slept all night (which is AWESOME) and her thumb in her mouth. She's more persistent, I'm really having a hard time not letting her get away with it. At church on Sunday we did this over and over, probably 10 times thumb out, sucky in, sucky out thumb in. lol. sigh

Chicago, IL

Sorry I've been MIA lately, but I have good reason, really!

Here is some of what we've been up to. We took a "mini vacation" as the kids called it to Chicago, IL. Having never been to a "BIG" city before it was quite the experience for us. The sky scrapers were so tall, and there were so many people. I know it gets busier there than when were there. The SIDEWALKS have speed limit signs on them. I'm not kidding, they said, "when congestion is heavy, walking pace only" or something along those lines. The crosswalks were fuller than the road, there were more taxi cabs than cars, and more taxi companies than types of cars lol. It was alot of fun. I'll fill in more later, but here are some pictures. If you ever get to go, take a camera, we didn't stop in the downtown area, just drove thru.



The Sears Tower

The Donald Trump tower.

It's almost Spring YAY!

This adorable outfit was made by my mom for Abigail. I think it is just the cutest. It has a matching diaper cover (the underware type things).

It fit her perfectly, with a little room to grow.

Well I'm finally posting some more photos, it's been kinda busy around here.

Abigail turned 5 weeks old on Thursday and has been very busy growing. I weighed her yesterday and had to do it twice because I was afraid I read the scale wrong lol. She weighs 13 lbs 2 oz. At her doc appt on the 11th she was 11 lbs 8 oz. So over 2 lbs in 3 days, WOW! And she's been eating LOTS, so that makes me busier. I'm good at multi tasking, but carrying a baby around with one arm, gets tough lol.

We are planning our gardening as well. I finally get to plant flowers around the house. I'm sooo excited. This is the first year I've actually been able to use my flower beds for real flowers. Now I had some stuff in them, but didn't plant much in there, cause we had to do the siding, and windows, and roof and eaves. It didn't make much sense to me to plant flowers that I KNEW would get trampled, soo I waited and planted very little. BUT this year, we can fix up our beds and over flow them. We also have the greenhouse which we will be using. I will get some seeds started and have a potted garden this year. We don't have a garden dug, so I will be saving pots to plant in. I've never used a greenhouse before, so this is new, and exciting. If you have any suggestions, send them my way. We have a heater in there, a thermometer and a sun roof to open for air. So now we just get to have fun! I love gardening, so I am very excited, so are the kids. Amberlin is already planning her little garden, I'm not sure where it will be yet, but she's planning in none the less. I know we will have some tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, some various melons and squash. I'm also starting various flower seeds. Our goal is to have a year round garden in our green house. Rather than plant a huge garden and can a ton, we'll plant less and have fresh year round.



I remember having a garden while growing up and eating the fresh green beans off the vines. Mark was raised with huge gardens and his mom taught me how to can and make jams and such. We just don't have the huge garden here. I can't wait to get my flowers and vegis planted.



Well she is starting to squeak, so I gotta run. Enjoy the photos.

One month old!

4 weeks old

Well Abigail is one month old today. I weighed her and she is 11 lbs exactly today. Here are a few pictures. She's doing great, the kids are adjusting to her and life is back to normal (what's normal). I tried to get this posted yesterday, but didn't make it. But here it is today. I will try to post a few more pictures I took of her, I have to try to crop and edit them first.

I kept trying to get a picture of David kissing her, but he was just to fast. So this is the best one of them all LOL.