5 Months!

It's been a flurry of crafting activity around here, so I am a couple days late with this post. My son hit the 5 month old mark and it's hard to believe he's been with us only 5 months. I count the 9 months he was in my belly, so for me, he's been with us for much longer.

While he is still on the small side, he is a feisty little guy and we've just started to feed him solids- mushy carrots so far, and he has gobbled it up! You know I'm a mom when I look forward to seeing orange poo in the diapers!

Sleeping with daddy. He sleeps in the middle so I have easy nursing at night. My husband will wake me if Baby fusses and I'll whip a boob out and go back to sleep. He sleeps almost through the night and once he makes it all the way through without waking, he'll make the move to his crib.

Such a handsome little man, with gorgeous blue eyes and peach fuzz hair on his head. He likes to stand, so we spend lots of time holding him up so he can stand and I've started to put him in his saucer so he can stand on his own. He dislikes the swinger we have, crying the second we put him in there, arching his back so I can't buckle him in. He has been trying out his voice and has quite an ear-piercing scream. He has also, for the first time last week, reached for me while Hubby was holding him.

I look forward to seeing Baby grow and learn more things for himself. He is a well-loved baby, with his sisters smothering him with kisses and hugs, and mommy and daddy hugging and kissing him, too. If he grows up to be like his daddy, he'll be a good man. We love you Baby.

Quick Fix

Our office is located in the breezeway between the main house and the apartment. It's a nice wide room with windows all along one wall and then windows and a sliding door on the other side. The sliding door had those annoying vertical blinds. I *hate* vertical blinds. I've had to co-exist with them in just about all of the apartments I've ever lived in and they are just boring, void of any personality and not exactly private. Horizontal blinds, I can live with, but vertical-- blah!

The vertical blinds in the office were cheap and flimsy, with little metal weights on the bottoms and as soon as we moved in, the girls zeroed in on the weights and every single one has disappeared. I haven't seen one around here since, and as a result, the blinds flutter and don't hang down straight. Very unsightly, but we lived with it. It was only an office and when company came over, the door got shut to hide the mess on the desk.

For quite some time, I had a stack of yard sale sheets and linens and blankets on the floor of the office. I meant to put them away, but with 4 kids and a house to care for, time seems to slip through my fingers. Finally, I tackled them last week and as I reached for the orange blanket, an idea dawned on me.. would I be able to use it as a curtain in place of the vertical blinds? Could I use the existing hardware without having to buy new rods? I could, and I did.


Voila!! I was able to slip the old blinds out of their clips and I slipped the blanket in. I worried about the weight of the blanket, but it's holding. I can even open it with the old hardware! What a nice bit of re-purposing! Reusing the hardware and recycling a vintage blanket for a curtain.

When the sun comes in, the whole room gets a lovely orange glow and I've noticed the girls hang out in the office more often, sitting in the middle of the room on the floor, playing dominoes or cards. The room is also a bit warmer now, with the blanket keeping the cold contained instead of the old vertical blinds letting all the cold air in. I knew there was a reason I hadn't put away those old sheets and blankets! :o)

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

We are peaceful people, I don't like to rock the boat if it can be avoided. My husband will stand up for himself and his family, but will otherwise walk away if possible. That said, we had to talk to the neighbors for trespassing on our side of the property. Normally we wouldn't be too bothered by that, but it happened in a weird way...

I was taking out our daily scraps and heading to the compost bin in the garden area by the back end of our property. I wasn't paying any mind to the woods around me and I was singing, "The hills are alive with the sound of music..." (we were watching it on DVD and the song stuck in my head) pretty loudly. All of a sudden I hear a loud motor sound and it scared me. I looked around, thinking maybe it was by our drive, but I didn't see anything and then when I looked up by the property line, I saw a someone there, with some sort of tractor with yellow flashing lights and smoke. He was burning something. It really startled me to see someone there so close, and I was also kind of embarrassed he probably heard my terrible singing. Then again, he wasn't supposed to be there, so if I broke his eardrums, it's his own fault.

Anyway, I didn't stay to see who it was, though I was pretty sure it was the neighbors, and I hurried back into the house where my kids were watching the movie.

When my husband came home that night, I told him what happened. It was too late to go out and check and the next day we went out to get my mom from out of town. So we didn't get to investigate until Thursday, when there was a lull in my cooking. The neighbor was a good 10 to 15 feet inside our property line, cutting down trees, burning and making a path. I don't know why he was making a path when there is a dirt road just inside his property line. The husband told me that the tractor with the flashing light I saw was probably the bobcat the neighbor owned. Hubby saw him with it before when he went over to talk with him once.

Our lines are clearly marked, so there was no excuse for him to be over on our side. They bought their house about a year after us, and the surveyors left their orange markers and neither they or us, have taken them down. When the husband went over there to ask, the neighbor denied being there and said he saw the smoke and called the fire department. When Hubby asked if he had a bobcat, the neighbor got all shady and said he didn't know what Hubby was talking about. Instead of pointing a finger, my husband said that he was tired of trespassers and he was going to catch them sooner or later, then walked off. He hopes that it was enough of a warning to keep the neighbor away.

Might be time to invest in some fencing materials.

Might also be time to get a dog. A dog would have barked and alerted me to the fact that someone was out there, and I would have known instead of being caught unaware. The more I think about that day, the more I think it would be nice to have a dog around the house, me being deaf and not being able to hear certain things, especially when Hubby is away at work. We would train the dog to bark when someone is at the door or someone is outside. A dog would also be nice to have when the kids are playing outside and we can train the dog to stick around the children at all times.

I've been scanning the web for local shelters for puppies and am keeping an eye out for ads in the local papers. We can't afford a pure-bred and we're looking for a mid-size dog. The prices for shelter dogs have sky-rocketed! We saw one puppy that we liked and found out the adoption fee would be $325, not including the required spay/neuter costs. Ouch! A local shelter down the road asks $125, also not including spay/neuter costs. After we first moved here, we got a dog from the local SPCA for $75, including micro-chip and neutering, but unfortunately, he didn't work out with us and we took him back a few days later. We know we have to start with a puppy and not an older dog, since we have cats and small children and babies.

If anyone local knows of a place that has puppies for a reasonable price, let me know.

WARNING:

Do NOT leave your children unattended with markers!

Thanksgiving Crafts

As of Sunrise Monday morning, hunting season is in full swing around here. West Virginians take hunting very seriously and the schools here close for a whole week instead of the usual 3 days for the holiday. Living where we do, with 2 sets of neighbors that are hunting around our property, we will be staying in the house just in case. No matter how skilled a hunter they are, accidents still happen and I'd rather be safe than sorry.

We have been doing crafts this month that are Thanksgiving related and I thought it would be time to post about what we're doing. Maybe you want some ideas on what to do to keep your kids busy while you're getting ready for dinner preparations, or maybe the kids said "I'm bored" one too many times... well, here's what we did:

Handprint and footprint turkeys! Trace hands and feet and then assemble to look like turkeys. Makes a cute picture and the bonus is to remember how small their feet and hands were. Oldest went a step further and drew feathers and then made a nest full of eggs for the turkey to sit on. She added black dots on all the eggs and when I asked why, she said the babies are peeking out of their shells. After Thanksgiving, these turkeys will go in their memory boxes-- I have a box for each child and I save extra special drawings and mementos.

Last Friday (I try to do art class every Friday) we had our new friend join us for art class and they made pilgrims! Paint pointy party hats black, then cut out construction paper to make faces, hats, arms and belts and buckles. Assemble and glue to parts to the hat and presto! A pilgrim! Oldest again, went a step further and cut out yellow construction paper for hair. Oldest and our new friend are both 6 and they did this project with minimal help from us, Middle is 4 and Youngest is almost 3 and they needed a bit more help to assemble and glue the pieces together. It was lots of fun though, and they'll look great on the table for Thanksgiving dinner!

While we waited for the paint to dry on the hats, we took a short break and the kids made cranberry bread. After the bread was put in the oven, we went back to finish the pilgrims. We found all sorts of recipes in cookbooks and on the internet, and they're all pretty standard. I've made several different kinds and they are always yummy, so if you've never had cranberry bread, now is the time to make some-- cranberries are on sale everywhere and you can buy extra and freeze them.

Happy crafting!

An Update...

Sunset at a local park

I have been wanting to write a post lately, but seem fresh out of ideas. Things are busy here, as they always are when the holidays near, and my head is filled with ideas of what I can make for gifts. I am constantly on the lookout for gifts that would be fairly easy for me to make on a mass scale and something that everyone would like. I have a few projects that are high on my list, I just need to find the time to make them.

I met a woman and her son at the Library last month and she also home schools. How lucky that her son is the same age as Oldest! We have been getting together, twice a week, to do lessons and art projects and I really enjoy her company. She had been feeling much like I was, looking for another home schooler and not finding very many who have the same or similar ideas. It's so nice to be able to talk to another adult (besides my lovely husband) and have an excuse to get out of the house and going somewhere other than the food store.

We have not had satellite TV service for nearly a month now and I am amazed at how much I don't miss it. None of us do, really. My husband apologized to me, saying he was sorry it took him so long to "see the light" and canceling the TV and he told me I had been suggesting it for over 6 years! Was it really that long? In any case, better late than never and we are doing so much more together as a family without the TV. The husband and I are also going to bed earlier now and I've actually started to wake up before the kids! I still have a few late nights when I have my nose stuck in a book that I can't put down, but for the most part, I am finding myself in bed before midnight or earlier.

It snowed here and we have a light dusting of snow on the ground. I am so grateful for all the hard work we put into gathering firewood and now we are enjoying the benefits of the woodstove. As my husband likes to put it-- "All our hard work is going up in smoke!"

The kids are asking for me to make snow ice cream, but I have to explain we need more than just a dusting of snow to make it. They're disappointed it isn't enough to go sledding or build a snowman, but I tell them we still have more months of winter to come and who knows what that will bring.

I'll be writing again when I have fresh ideas and a complete post in my head to put into words. Stay tuned...

Making Cookies

I want all of my kids to know their way around a kitchen, to be able to whip up meals and feed themselves instead of depending on take-out or microwave meals. Cooking is a good life skill and I am so grateful to my mom and dad for teaching me how to cook. Home Ec. was one of my favorite classes when I was in school and it's a shame that many schools no longer offer that class.

Reading recipes is also a good math lesson-- figuring out how many halves are in a cup and how many teaspoons make a tablespoon and so on. Cooking usually becomes a math lesson when I have one of the kids helping me. Makes for a yummy home school lesson.

The other day, the kids wanted to make cookies. Oatmeal with apples was the pick and while the Baby slept on a blanket on the floor, the girls got busy in the kitchen!

I keep a blanket in the kitchen for moments like this, sometimes I need two hands and asking for help is not an option and the Baby doesn't like the swinger and screams his little head off. Put him on a blanket and he's happy and then he falls asleep.

The girls kept pinching bits of oatmeal to eat. I'm glad they like oats, but I wasn't happy with the mess on the floor. I'm a lazy cleaner, which means I try to make the least amount of mess so I don't have to clean. My blood pressure went up when I let the girls make cookies all by themselves. I had to look away more than once and tell myself it's only oats, easy to sweep up; only egg, easy to wipe up; only batter, easy to clean up.

Oldest is cutting up the dried apple slices into smaller bits for the cookies. Between their snacking and the one cup designated for the cookies, they used up a whole quart of dried apples! Next year I will be drying more apples!

They took turns adding each ingredient and then stirring the cookie dough. They made the cookies all by themselves and I was so proud of them. I shooed them out of the kitchen when it came time to bake them but not before they all got a big spoonful of cookie dough to nibble on. Never did get a picture of the cookies, but they were quite tasty.