Archives for October 2011

 We ended up having a very full weekend.  Saturday started off with a bang at the Renaissance Festival to celebrate my niece’s birthday.  The last time we went I think I might have been a little shell-shocked.  The Renaissance Festival is serious stuff!  This year we went early and didn’t deal with the hours of traffic and crowds.  The kids were in a great mood and were happy to sit to watch many of the different shows.  We saw some poetry reading, Celtic musicians, jousting and even some belly dancing.  There favorite by far though was meeting Twig the Fairy.  She was the cutest fairy that put a rock and fairy dust in their hands upon meeting them.  She didn’t speak but giggle, smiled and did some sign language to say thank you.  I haven’t figured out yet why she didn’t speak (fairies don’t speak? perhaps she’s deaf?  saving her voice during festivals?) but her enthusiasm communicated everything.   If you go, be sure to try the soup in bread bowls.  We snacked on that during the jousting and it was the perfect lunch.

That evening we had dinner and cake to celebrate my niece’s birthday.  By Saturday evening I was pooped!  We did manage to get a round of Monopoly in and I have to say, the new electronic version using cards and the machine is pretty fun.  All the swiping helps fill my need to run registers at Target.

 Sunday’s theme was fall festivals!  After church and lunch we went to my mom’s.  But not before we had costume drama.  About two months ago I bought both of them genie costumes at the consignment sale and made a grave mistake by letting them play with them in the meantime.  Emma’s costume is completely missing.  Not to be found anywhere.  And since it was so cold, I had Lexi wear tights under her costume.  Lexi and tights and layers don’t get along well.  We eventually had to bag the genie outfit.  They both ended up wearing dance outfits a family friend had given them and named themselves fairies.  

My favorite part about the first fall festival was all of us playing a round of Bingo in one of the rooms.  They had it rigged somehow that we all won at one time.  It was hilarious when we all screamed Bingo together and realized what had happened. 

Sunday evening we headed over to Scott’s parents’ church where we used to go.  The kids had fun seeing their friends, eating a bunch of food and playing games.  And it is always good for us to go back and talk to the members we miss seeing every week.

A very full weekend, indeed.  I hope yours went well and you have a good start to your week!

Source: anthropologie.com via Daphne on Pinterest

A random adorable shoe

I don’t normally post on a Saturday morning but I wanted to say Hello.  My blog has been in the midst of switching hosts the last two days hence no posts.  Big props to Jason for helping me out.  He and his wife are the ones that took over OTHBlog from me and he’s been trying to convert my other sites for quite some time. 

For you bloggy, techy folks, I switched from a dedicated server on Surpass to Dreamhost VPS.  At peaks, the dedicated server would not hold up and it costs roughly 5 times as much as Dreamhost.  I hear it’s been working well for OTHBlog so we’re gonna see!  I think they have a Halloween special and you can get an entire year’s worth of hosting for $9.24.  No affiliate link there, just a friendly FYI.  Not that affiliate links aren’t friendly, but you know.

It’s probably been a good two days not to post as we were super busy with no time to post.  Thursday night we had some family pictures made to use on the Christmas card.  Oh, and speaking of, since the blog was down, I emailed the winners from the giveaway.  Congrats again to Jo Ann, Liz and Nichole!  After our photo session, we went to Beef and Brady’s to eat with my parents and then went home to quickly do homework and hit the hay.

Last night the girls and I had errands to run and ended up at Target.  The girls are coming up on their birthdays quickly and had gotten some gift cards to Target as gifts so of course they couldn’t wait to go spend it.  Since I’ve been cracking down on the toy-buying around here and they have to use chore money, buying just any toy they wanted was a huge deal.  And it was quite interesting watching them work out the math.  Emma, who had been begging me for colored dry erase markers saw they were $10 and said she didn’t want to spend her money.  I asked her why, if she was just begging me to buy them she wouldn’t buy them and she said, yeah, but that was your money.  Aha!  Lexi put down a toy that would have cost all her money and chose 3 smaller ones.  We still ended up with Squinkies in the house but at least it seems they are finally figuring out the value of money.

Today we are supposed to go to the Renaissance Festival.  It’s rainy and cold here though so I’m not sure if it’s going to happen.  I guess we’ll see and I’ll report in my Weekend Recap on Monday.  See you then!

Lexi at her party on Saturday.  She said the cream was banana-scented. Cracks me up!

We enjoyed a very laid-back weekend.  The kids were out of school Friday so I worked from home and let them have a play date all day long.  It’s amazing how kids can busy themselves for hours together.  They had a fantastic time, although their bathroom and my closet were victims of the fun.  Friday night we went out to Ruby Tuesdays and all enjoyed the salad bar.  The kids were off to Scott’s parents for the night so you’d think Scott and I would have a great date night planned but no, these days we head straight to sleep.  I still can’t believe I’m always the first one up these days.

Saturday morning I was up early doing edits on my eBook (I’m showing the title, cover and release date tomorrow!!) and then I convinced Scott to go with me to finally meet and have coffee with Sarah Cunningham.  I read her book Picking Dandelions (go buy it!) a few months ago and connected to so much she was communicating.  I knew we’d get along and at least from my perspective, we did just that over the next two hours.  She was a great encouragement to me as an author, I enjoyed getting to know her a little more and it was great getting an update on One Thousand Premieres.  If you haven’t checked that out yet, please do so. They are planning to retell the story of David and Goliath in a modern way and I am so psyched about it.

After that, we were off to the mall so I could get some jeans I could actually fit.  Over the summer, yes, I let a few pounds creep on.  And honestly?  I’m not that motivated to work them off.  I was happy to find Express had their jeans on sale AND I had a coupon. 

Saturday afternoon Emma decided to stay over at Scott’s parents while Lexi went to a birthday party.  We were all back together by dinnertime so I made some Tilapia and we played Monopoly.

Sunday morning was the normal these days…church, CVS and lunch.  While Scott went on a bike ride and Emma stayed at Scott’s parents again, Lexi and I hung around the house (read: I worked on my book and she watched TV).  Last night again we stayed in.  We played Twister and Scott built a fire.  Somewhere in the mix, Emma and Lexi were playing on our hammock and I think some strings got tangled and pulled and Lexi lost a tooth.  Thankfully it was a baby tooth but oh the drama!  We never did find the tooth.  Last evening some friends came over to enjoy the fire that wouldn’t burn…all the wood was too green.  Scott improvised by burning some paper and it didn’t matter anyway, we were having a great time talking.

So that was our weekend.  I hope you had a great weekend and start to your week!

Returning books to the library.  It makes me happy.  Except the $7 in fees.

I feel like I need a big catch up post.  Nothing earth-shattering but I feel like a few updates are in order:

1 – We finally got a letter from DSS last week stating a worker had been assigned to our home study and would be contacting us about setting it up.  It’s been about a week though and nothing. I had hoped we’d be approved by November but it’s looking like maybe the first of the year now.  I’m not in a hurry though, I know this will all happen at the right time.

2 –  The body shop called mid-post and said the van is ready!  Woot! Our van is supposed to be done tomorrow!  Once the body shop sent it to a mechanic to get the electrical stuff up, a pump went out that had to be replaced and then the electrical stuff wouldn’t come on so they sent it to Honda where they found a fuse out and another sensor.  It’s all supposed to be fixed by tomorrow.  We shall see.  I do so miss my van terribly.  The gas mileage and parking power of a little car is nice but, well, it’s not my van.  I am shocked though that they have not totaled the van.  My guesstimate is they have now spent at least $7,000!  I’m so grateful though.  If I’m going to have a used van, I want it to be mine with a lot of brand new parts!

3 – I started FINALLY going through the Fruits of the Spirit activities from ImpressYourKids.org with the girls this week.  They are completely soaking it up.  Last night though almost felt like a complete disaster and I nearly wanted to give in (only 3 days in!) but I ran into a verse in Galatians today and I’m certain I need some FORBEARANCE to continue the GOOD work in my children.

4 – Melissa is doing the final edit of my eBook.  I think I have a release date picked and I’m going to be sharing more very soon (maybe the cover next week??).  Let me just say again how awesome my friends are and I love they are pushing me to make this the best possible.

5 – These next two months are going to kick my butt.  I have a HUGE project at work that will require near 24-7 attention for a few weeks.  Add in the girls’ birthday parties, Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping and I ALREADY feel pooped.

I think 5 is enough!  I hope your week is going well!