Making the decorations

Fabulous Weekend!

What an absolutely WONDERFUL weekend I had! I just don't have the time to go into it all. I'll have to post pictures in another post.

First...Remember that Make it from Scratch Contest? I WON....(hee hee hee) Anyway, I wasn't going to post until I received my prize (blackberry Jam YUM YUM YUMMY!) so I could take a picture. But so many people were congratulating me, I thought I should mention it before then. Thank you to all of you! It sure was a lot of fun. And if I saw correctly I think there is another contest starting. You can't win 2 times in a row ( I'm making up that rule...share the love), but I still will play.

Next...OH MY GOODNESS... I had the time of my life at Jeanette's Pajama Crop. She had a goody bag with candies and scrapbooking trinkets and a stack of paper at each seat. And my favorite thing was the little corkboards with our names on them to mark our seating arrangement. Then she had 2 games that were hysterical. I especially loved the one where we partnered up and had clues. We had to find a little sticker on items throughout her house. Dana was my partner. She felt very weird going through Jeanette's personal things, but I didn't I was picking things up left and right. We tied for first place. We laughed and laughed and laughed! I got 3 layouts done and I like them. And for anyone who knows me you will find this quite amazing...I was the last one up! Isn't that bizzarre? The music stopped playing at 4:30 AM, so I thought it was time for me to go to bed. I called Dana to make sure she was safe driving home and I then fell asleep around 4:45 AM on the couch. Jeanette had enough beds for us...but 1st I was too embarrassed to wear my CPAP in front of anyone AND I was afraid that if I didn't wear it I would snore. It was so much fun!!! Thank you Jeanette for hosting an awesome crop!

Ok then onto today...Today is Greg's birthday. We had a great day! The kids and I made lots of fun decorations. Since today is also Chinese New Year, I decided to give Greg a Chinese Birthday party. We went to Evergreen for lunch. I gave Greg 9 "Lucky Money Envelopes". The are red envelopes that have money or well wishes in them. I used this time to educate the kids all about the Chinese New Year. The waitress and waiters were amused and kept coming over and teach us more Chinese. We made paper dragons and we made a big dragon costume for Daddy to wear. We also made Chinese lanterns. And I bought a Dairy Queen icecream Cake and had the Chinese symbol for Happy New year put on it.

It's been so busy but so fun...now it's time to sleep. I will post pictures tomorrow!

Schools Closed-updated

Today: A few flurries possible early. Mostly cloudy skies. High 32F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.

Absolutely ridiculous!!!!

Schools are closed today.

No alterations have been made to this picture...it is what it is!

This layout is from my Mom in Ohio. It is 5 degrees with a wind chill of -4. (And they have school!)

Happy Valentine's Day

Won't you be my valentine?

lightbulb moment

Granted...I'm not a very good housekeeper. Unfortunately, I don't keep up with the laundry like I should. But I KNOW my kids have plenty of underwear to get me through a few loads.

Where in the world does it go?

These are the things I thought:

1. I don't put the laundry away right away, it stays in baskets and sometimes things fall out. Not knowing if they are clean or dirty...They go into the dirty clothes to be washed.

2. Along the same lines...Kids like to dump the baskets out so they have a boat/car/airplane to play in.

3. The kids look for their favorite underwear/socks or doll clothes and while in their drawers they decide to take everything out of it.

4. a few accidents- causing the need of a new pair

Yes these are frustrating...but still I know they have a lot of underwear and for goodness sakes we shouldn't be running out so fast.

So about a week ago I found out just where this underwear is going. Or rather why it is going in the laundry so quickly.

In the morning I dress the kids and I put clean underwear on them. In the evening if Greg dresses the kids for bed--he puts clean underwear on them. When I found this out...I asked Greg why he was putting clean underwear on them at night time. He said, "Well I saw you do it." Well I do put clean underwear on them after a bath- so he must have seen me do it then.

But now I know. I know it's not an excuse for not getting the laundry done quicker.

I Made it From Scratch- Bushman Bread

Do you remember that Make It From Scratch Contest I'm doing? Well tonight is the last night to enter. I made the Outback Steakhouse bread.

All I have to say is I'm thankful that this contest is just pulling a name out of a hat of who participated and not of how it turned out or how prepared I was. LOL!

So here is goes...(We are to post pictures)

Alrighty Mix 2t. granulated sugar into 1 1/4 cup warm water and then dissolve 1 package of yeast in it. Set aside while it does its thing.

Next Mix 2 cups bread flour, 1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour, 1 T. cocoa....Oh shoot Cocoa? I don't have cocoa. Ummmm....Will one of these do? Well it's gonna have to. So in goes 1 T of Nesquick and a tsp. salt. Then mix in 2 T of softened butter.

Make a well in the dry ingredients. Add 1/4c honey and 2 T molasses.
Now add food coloring to the yeast solution. Oh my goodness...It wants me to put in 3 1/4 teaspoons of food coloring...Um that's an awful lot. Alright that is ridiculous...let's change it. Add some red, yellow and blue food coloring until it looks dark enough. This is disgusting...let's add some more red.

Alright now what? Read recipe...blah blah blah...Um where is page 2? PAGE 2???? I printed this recipe off the internet June 2004. I don't have page 2. So what do I do? I tried to look it up on the internet again. No luck. Searched my recipes. NO LUCK. AHHHHHHH! Alright don't panic...Let's look in another recipe book and see what it says for some other breads. OK then let's let it rise. So I let it rise while we went out for dinner. Came back...hmmm looks descent. Broke it into 6 loaves. I probably should have let it rise again at this point...but I didn't. Yes it does look gross. Still hoping it is better than it looks.

Ok into the the 375o for how about 35 minutes. Waiting....waiting...mmmm that smells good....waiting...mmmmm that smells REALLY good...

waiting...waiting...smells like it's burning... OH SHOOT! I guess that was too long.

Now for the guinea pig...

Smells good...little Crispy...but he likes things a little burnt.

Dang that's hot! I promise that is the look!

Alright thinking...

He gives it a thumbs up.

Alright my turn...

Not so bad! Will I make it again? Probably not. But the inside is pretty good.

So there you have it... my version of the Honey Wheat Bushman Bread.

Daddy's Girl/ Daddy's Acting Class

Happy Camper

Well I am One happy camper tonight!

Had an impromptu get together with some girls! We had a BLAST! It's so nice to get out and just chat.

Hobby Lobby is having an incredible sale on Scrapbooking stuff. Have you checked it out?

***By the way girls...I got 50% off of those Signature and Bohemia sets.***

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Well I'm trying to come up with my own 2007 personal manifesto. This is one of {A}'s challenges. I'm struggling with mine. I need to see some others to figure out how mine is supposed to be. Does anyone else have a personal manifesto? Would you mind sharing? I'm enjoying Ali's challenges. She makes me think.

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I wish I could think straight...I'm so tired!

Pray for me tomorrow...As much as I want to play I really need to clean. When I even think about cleaning I get sleepy. I've got laundry and I must mop the Kitchen floor. I really want to organize the kid's toy room too (But I'm not sure I'm going to get to that tomorrow).

Good night! I really need to upload my pictures from my camera. I got a few cute ones the other day. Ok now really...Good night.

Just being Blunt

Greg said, "If anyone asks..."

Well no one has asked so... Greg really wants gift cards for itunes for his birthday. You can actually find these at Sams and probably at WalMart too.

So if you are so inclined his birthday is Sunday.

Ok Maybe I should have just called a couple of people.

Mommy tricks- reversed

You know those "kewl" sly parenting tricks we do to get our way? Well...UGH!

Today I went downstairs carrying the clothes I intended for the kids to where today. I was singing, "It's red day, it's red day, we're all wearing red today." Cutesy little song-to get them all to coordinate today. Mason was a cinch. Well even IF it wasn't his favorite color, he is just a happy go lucky guy. Aussie is next. He says, "I don't really like red." I said, "But it's red day, we are going to a Valentine's Day party." So on it goes. 2 down 1 to go. I start singing again, "It's red day...". Ashley says, "NO- it's purple in pink day", with her sly smile. I said, "No, today is red day- we are going to a Valentine's Day party and we need to where red."

So she runs to her room to find something else to put on. Mason tries to help her pick out something she might like that is red. Nope, nope, nope...nothing is satisfying her. So then she pulls out 3 outfits. One furry light blue sweater, one purple and pink outfit with hearts on it, and another light purple outfit. Then she says to me. "Mommy, pick which one you want me to wear." HELLO? Isn't that supposed to be MY trick? She loves her independence! It's certainly not something to fight over.

So I guess my Valentine's pictures will be black and white for my Valentine Layouts. (eyeroll)

Have a happy day and don't sweat the small stuff.

Make it from Scratch Contest

I'm going to participate in a little contest. Do you want to play along? Go here and read about the 'from scratch' contest held by Stephanie at Stop the Ride.

I'm going to try to make the bread that you can get at Outback Steakhouse. I'll post a picture when I have done it.

Come on it'll be fun!

Marathon posting

Hey there...Are you lookin' at me?

This post is just to let you know I had a marathon posting on my blog.

I had other pictures to share, but this is really enough for one night. I think this is the 5th post. I'll try to keep up.

~Chelle

Ashley is like her Gramma

I have come to realize that Ashley is not only like me, but she is very much like her Gramma! She twirls the broomstick like a baton. My Mom was a majorette.

She is really into fashion! She can match her clothes very well!

She picked out this sweater at Goodwill and then she realized that she had a hat to match.

She's not crazy about chocolate.

And she really likes art.

I think there are more things, but I can't think of them at the moment.

The Reading of Act I

Saturdays- I LOVE Saturdays! You know why? I get to sleep in! Greg enjoys watching the Saturday morning cartoons with the kids. Ashley continues to call it commercials. Mommy when are the commercials coming on? She means the cartoons. The kids love it- Greg loves it and I love it! (sweet snoozin' away!)

Actually starting next week, that sleeping in thing is going to stop. Bummer! But the kids will be starting Acting Class. I can't wait to see what my kids think about it.

Anyway, tonight was THE big night for Greg and Wes. They had finished Act I of their musical and tonight was the night to have a read thru. They invited a few friends to get together and read through it. (Ok so if you don't know- THIS is a BIG deal!!! They've been working on this for 2 years!)
The read through was basically for them to get a feel of if it was "working". They got a good response.

It was nice we even got to go out to eat without kids.

Dana and Mike and his parents watched the kids! Thank you TONS Dana!
When we told the kids we were going on a date. They all said, "awww...we don't want you to go." Then we told them they were going to Dalton and Braxton's house and they started jumping around yelling, "YAY YAY YAY!" They had a blast there.

I asked them how it went in the morning. Austin said, "We had a great time until THAT Grandma took the slide away and that made us angry." Ashley chimed in, "yeah that made us real angry." Apparantly the slide wasn't attached and they kept telling the kids not to play on it. But they didn't listen. So Mike's mom just went in and took it away.

Then Austin was telling me about all the trains they had there. And then he said, "Mr. Mike and Ms. Dana have lots of money." I said, "Why do you say that?" Then he said, "because Dalton told me." LOL!

Hey Dana are you going to blog about what Austin said to you?

It SNOWED Friday

I have very mixed feelings about this day!

My MOPS (mother's of pre-schoolers) group was having a VERY special day. I didn't want to miss it for anything. I actually rearranged 2 other things- so I wouldn't miss it. They were having a free Chocolate and SPA day. I so NEEDED this day!!!

Greg was the big bad wolf, I mean the bearer of bad news. He told me the roads were just too dangerous for me to go out. He told me there were accidents all over the place and especially in the direction I wanted to go. I was SO BUMMED!

The kids begged and begged to go outside and play...so that is just what we did. So out I go with my new camera and SMACK...No warning...I was hit with a snowball. See that little stinker to the right? Yes the first thing they did was run around and make footprints and then they had a good ol' snowball fight.

SMACK!

Oh cruel Mommy snapped a picture before helping. Alright kids- no more throwing snowballs in each other's faces.

They played and played. It was so cute watching them. They played on the swingset more than they did in the Summer.

They made snow angels. It was really cute. Mason got down in the snow and realized his shirt was not tucked in. Ooooooh! That's cold! So he decided not to get down in the snow anymore- even though I told him I would tuck in his shirt.

They started making a snowman. Or rather I should say they had me making a snowman. I tried to get them to roll the snowball to make it bigger. Ashley was getting into it.

The boys got too cold to play anymore outside and they wanted to go inside. Austin's boot came off and his sock was soaking wet. And Mason was just too cold. (Takes after the Floridians in the family.) So I told Ashley we would come back out and finish our snowman. Unfortunately, we never got back out.

Where do I begin?

Wowsers! Where do I begin? I know I know...I've not blogged in awhile. I was just thinking I needed to get my pictures uploaded/downloaded (whatever the case) and blog and then I got a nice email from Jill wondering if I was ok. Thanks Jill. I'm ok I've just been very busy.

So instead of writing one LONG blog entry I think I'll make 3.

Let's see...

Did you all know that Greg and his best friend Wes are writing a musical? He is! I was going to explain it a bit and stopped myself. I'm not sure how much I can say and how much I need to keep quiet until they are ready to pitch it. Anyway, their friend Michael is writing the music. So a week ago Sunday night, he asked me to sing one of the songs for a demo. I was so honored. I practiced all week and recorded it on Thursday. It was quite strange to record. We recorded it in sections not in one full swoop. It kind of made it difficult to get into character and have energy throughout. But he seemed to be pleased. I was a little disapointed because it didn't turn out as good as my practicing. Oh well it was still an honor!

So that takes care of Sunday through Thursday. Friday will be posted in another entry.

Chinese Proverb

I just saw this today and it made me laugh!


It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins.
-Chinese proverb