Whidbey Island

I am posting at this moment from Whidbey Island. I'm up here for the week visiting my parents. Erik and his brother BJ are hunting and Erik is also framing in the spot for our fireplace. We decided to go with number 3, the fireplace, because it would fit and look the best. I'm very excited and I hope we can get it all finished in time for Christmas. Today I finished Hannah and Ivan's Halloween costumes and I will take pictures of them tomorrow when we head to the Harvest Festival. Clayton has also decided that maybe now it's time to start walking, he actually took 3 or 4 steps a couple times tonight but never when I tried to take a video so his daddy (and my faithful blog readers) could see. Hannah is at this moment sleeping out in the "Cottage" with Grandma and Clayton and Ivan are in my room sleeping. My parents have this great shed that they fixed up into the coolest playhouse ever. It has electricity and heat and a loft and a hide-a-bed and all the toys and it's in a fenced backyard so the kids can take themselves out there whenever they want and play and read to their hearts contentment. Maybe I'll get a few pictures, I remembered to bring the camera, now I just have to remember to take pictures.

Free-Weekend!

This morning starts my full free day of this weekend. Erik took all the kiddos to his parent's house this weekend. They left yesterday afternoon so I got to shopping all by myself and out to dinner too. I've been looking at my list of things that I've been wanting to do without any kids around and I can't decide where to start. So I started here. Drinking a cup of coffee, peacefully, and setting down a few random and probably unimportant in the grand scheme of life thoughts. My plans, though they are not thrilling, are somewhat as follows: I would love to get the living room clean and rearranged, I have to clean the church (no skipping this one) and I would love to get started on the kids halloween costumes. I got all the fabric yesterday at JoAnn's and I'm excited to start on them. Hannah wants to be a fairy and Ivan wants to be a lion. Oh and I want to get the shelves up on the wall above my sink in the kitchen.
It was wonderful to sleep in this morning and get up without the usual mommy wake up call from Hannah.
I think now I'll get to working...my coffee is almost gone.

Woodstove

Erik and I for awhile now have played with the idea of putting a wood stove in our house. So far these are my ideas. Sorry the pictures aren't very clear, pencil does not scan well. Picture number 1 (they are labeled but in backwards) doesn't really work because of clearances and roof trusses. Number 2 is okay. Number 3 is my favorite and Erik likes number4. Number 4 would also be the easiest. Number 3 we lose less room but it is a lot of work. There's also the difference between a free-standing wood stove and an insert. You can't cook on an insert during power outages but we also have a propane cook-stove that I can and do cook on when the power goes out. With number 2 and number 4 we would shorten our front closet, put the door in the hallway and put the piano by the front door. Number 1 and number 3 we would shorten the closet and put the door in the hallway still but the piano would stay where it is. Which one do you like best?

Ivan's New Wool Coat

I made Ivan's coat this week also. His was a much easier pattern to understand and it was fun to sew together, though it was challenging. I love that it has 3 pockets on the outside and a pocket on the inside too. What boy doesn't love pockets to fill with things? He filled his with matchbox cars for church today. I promised him that I would get it finished so he could wear it to church so I took it to the theater with me last night and sewed the buttons on when I wasn't on stage. In the picture he has the sleeves rolled up a little so you see that I only had white thread for my serger. Oh well. I also asked him to smile and this is what I got.

Silly Boy

Ivan got sent to his room yesterday and this is how I found him about 10 minutes later. I didn't know it was possible for him to fit in the doll bed, let alone be comfortable enough to fall asleep. He slept there for an hour and a half.

Coffee Art

I had a canvas and I needed something in my kitchen, so I attempted art. Or to paint. I really liked how it turned out but it needs a word or words across the top...any ideas? I'm asking for suggestions because my brain just isn't coming up with the right word (s).

Hannah's New Wool Coat

I got around to sewing Hannah's coat much sooner than I thought. Yesterday Erik stayed home from work feeling very sick and since he had taken over the couch I sequestered myself in the kitchen and sewed. I didn't feel sick but I didn't feel well enough to do much of anything but since sewing only requires that I use my brain and my hands and feet all the while sitting at my sewing machine I figured it could still be deemed "resting". And so I sewed. Hannah's coat turned out cute and she really likes it so I won't launch into everything I wish I'd done differently but I will say that I didn't like the pattern, the way it was written or the way you were suppose to sew it together. This coat will probably be one of a kind and the pattern will get stuck in my pattern box until I've forgotten the headache it gave me. Ivan now wants a coat though and since I have the wool and a pattern his will come soon, I think. At least his pattern promises to be easy to sew.

The Show Must Go On

So Friday night I either got the flu or food poisoning. It could be either one, the flu has been going around and then Friday night I ate Burger King and drank a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks that tasted way too sweet (not a good combination...) . I made it to the JoAnn's sale and on my way to the theater I realized I needed food in my stomach or I wouldn't make it through the play. There is the argument that Burger King does not really qualify as food but....
Anyway, I threw it all up between the second and third acts. Felt well enough to make it through the third act and then spent the rest of Friday night and Saturday morning sick. I did make it to perform Saturday night and felt much better yesterday and performed our matinee; today I think I might just rest, all day.
Being sick is not much fun at all.

Daffodils

I've finally after 3 or 4 years gotten daffodil bulbs planted. Every spring when the daffodils bloom I make a mental note to plant some bulbs in the fall and so far, every year I've forgotten. But not this year! Last Saturday when we were at Costco I spied a huge bag of them and Erik didn't object when I sneaked them into the cart. Now not only have I remembered to buy them but Hannah and Ivan and I have just finished planting 60+ bulbs in the ground. It was difficult to keep Ivan from peeling them like an onion but they sure liked placing them in the hole that I dug. (How come I got the difficult part?) I still have about 10 or 15 bulbs left but I'm trying to decide where else I should plant them. Fall is my favorite time of year but a close second is the very beginning of spring when the daffodils bloom.

"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of the bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth (1804)

Of Hunting and Gates

Last night Erik called and asked me to come pick him up. He had been out sighting his scope on his rifle up at the rock quarry so he can hunting on Saturday and when he came back down the hill the gate across the road had been shut and locked. He had to walk all the way down the road to find a phone (in the rain and hail). I laughed and piled the kiddos in the Suburban to go pick him up. Which means I also had to be up and ready this morning to drive him back to pick up his truck when someone opened the gate. But wonderful husband that he is he suggested we take the kiddos out for breakfast after we did this. He also came up with a plan so that I can get to JoAnn's this weekend (without kids) cause patterns are on sale without his usual snide comments about JoAnn's sales or complaining that I really didn't need to spend the gas money to go. (Not that these incidents are related, mind you). I'm still laughing at him though for getting locked in but I'm hoping that it was worth it to get his gun sighted and that he will actually get a deer to put in our freezer.

Clayton's First Haircut

I've always been of the opinion that when it comes to hair, "don't sweat it, it'll grow," but it's harder to have the same attitude with your kiddos' hair. I'm finding though, that the more kiddos I have the easier it is to pass the "large milestones" like first haircut. I mention all this just to say that we buzzed Clayton's hair last night. He looks much more like Ivan now and still looks really stinkin' cute. All my boys are really stinkin' cute.

I'm still sort of surprised I got them all to sit still together for a picture. Next we'll work on smiles.

You're Not Old Enough...

I remember this one time before Erik and I got married I was in Center Diamond (the fabric store in Cannon Beach) and there was a woman in there with three little kids hanging around her legs. She left as I was waiting at the counter to get some fabric cut and the lady behind the counter mentioned the woman with the kids was "only 25 and has three kids under the age of 5!" I think at the time my response was something like "wow." And it wasn't the good sort of "wow". I was remembering that this morning as I realized I am 25 and have three children under the age of 5 and when number four makes it's appearance in March I will still be 25...so I will have 4 children under the age of 5. I laughed. My ideas and opinions have definitely changed in the last 6 years, but for the better, I must add.