Trying to post some pictures!

Hey, I'm just trying to figure out how to post more than one picture in my blog and also how to put text between them. Can anyone help me out?





Here is S on his first birthday. He was lots of fun that day.

Here he is getting his first haircut.

Here is our addition with the trusses hanging inside the room. They are now upright. Guess I need a new picture.

Wow, it looks like I might have figured this out. I have a couple more pictures to post regarding organization stuff I've been doing, but I'll do that another time.

**update: No, I don't have it figured out, cause I've tried and tried to line that third picture up and I can't get it to move. so this will have to do......tired of messing with it.

SMART Habit Saturday, a day late and a few goals short!

I wonder why I am bothering to even put this on the list. For the life of me I can't seem to remember to do anything. With the exception of eating, of course, which is the one thing I should forget to do.

Anyhoo here goes:

Exercise: only once this week. Just too many things that had to be done and exercise got pushed off.

Prayer: I think I need to invest in a boulder sized prayer rock so that I really stub my toe in the a.m. to remind me. What works for you???? I wonder if a large poster on my ceiling would help, or have my alarm play "Ere you left your room this morning".

Early to bed: stunk this one up well. C and I need to get on the same page on this one. He hasn't been feeling well and so is watching lots of TV and I have sort of either gotten stuck downstairs in front of the tube with him or upstairs on the computer waiting in vain for him to come up.

Oraganize 3 things: This is the only thing that I did do this week. I started organizing all my scrap embellishment stuff by color. Still need a couple of small drawer units to finish it up. But I did get rid of lots of stuff I'll never use.
I went through the hall/utility closet and organized it. Hung up a drawer unit, and separated out all the screws, nails, picture hanging stuff, outlet covers, etc. Then I put together a tool caddy, a gardening caddy and got rid of lots of cleaning supplies. I can actually get my vacuum in it easily now. I also finished up the bathroom closet, getting the 3 drawer unit in and getting it filled. Everything now has a designated spot and it will be so much easier to find what you're looking for there.

Hope this week is a better one for me and that its productive for you as well. I will be a work widow so this may sideline me again, since I will be doing all the school driving this week. But I'm not going to use that as an excuse to not even try.

What's a mother to do?

Well, it happened.

My first baby went and turned 18 yesterday. Without my permission.

What a strange thing to say and think about. I absolutely can't believe how quickly 18 years can go by. I don't feel much older than that myself. Of course, I am reminded of the fallacy of that thought every time I look in the mirror. I made him pick out what he wanted for supper and made him a cake. We got him some new clothes which of course weren't the right thing. I have hopes of him someday wearing his pants at the proper altitude.

We ate our supper of Chicken Parmigiana and salad, cleaned up and waited around for the party to begin. After my sis and her family and J's friend T came over, we lit the candles, sang to him and made him blow out the candles. I told him it was the last time we would make him do it. It was a very low key birthday, but it was so nice to have family and friends here to help celebrate this special day in a special young man's life. He is really a good young man, with great potential. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next 18 years bring with him. Love ya, J!

SMART Saturday Holiday weekend version

I have been wracking my brain trying to remember if I followed through on any of my habits this week, and I honestly know I did something but can't remember what it was.

It has been such a crazy week with lots going on at the kids school and extra meetings and functions there, that required so much of my time. I think I got in about 8-10 extra volunteer hours this week and C got 5-6. I'm hoping to have a somewhat quieter week next week.

I didn't even get in all my exercising this week, just not home enough......

SO, this week, is just a renewal of all the same old things I'm trying to work on. I think I will have to go back and read what they were, since I'm having a hard time even remembering them.

I would like to get on here one week and report a perfect week...hahaha! Haven't failed til I quit trying.

*update: My brain finally kicked in and I remembered the one organizational thing I did this week. I spent a lot of time Sunday on the computer organizing and catergorizing my pictures. I then burned most of them onto cd's. This is a huge load off my mind. Now I'm not so worried about losing them if my computer crashes. I need to do a bit more 'clean-up' of pictures, deleting duplicates, etc., then delete the duplicates off my camera so I can take new pictures.

Whew, it's nearly over

Last school holiday party down for this year for me as the holiday room mother. Why, oh why, do I get myself into these things? Actually, it hasn't been bad being the room mom for an upper grade class. The kids are really easy to please and don't have to have tons of structured activities. They have always been really wonderful about participating in the activities and thankful for the treats. They are just plain fun, too!
C got to see that for himself today because they needed an additional driver for their field trip up to the Capitol to see the legislative process at work. He got to drive a carload of boys up and back. Good thing he's great with kids and is a Scoutmaster. He has no trouble having fun with them, but being firm, too.

So, after all the 'stuff' I've had on my mind for the past couple of days, I came home from school and literally crashed, taking a much needed nap, and I let 5 Buck Pizza cook for us tonight. Heart shaped pizzas, kind of fun! I think I am just mentally exhausted. I still have more to do, now it's on to the baby shower invites(70) for my SIL and I get to cut out 5 cardboard goats for H's class's Heidi celebration next week.

So, again, I say Whew! Just to catch my breath and dive back in!

I have to be the world's dumbest blogger....

I have been feeling really bad because no one ever left me any comments on my blog and wondering if I was such an incredibly boring blogger that no one had anything to say. Then today for some reason I had to go to my dashboard to change the language from Spanish back to English (don't ask how it got changed to Spanish, I have no idea) and saw that I had lots of comments that had to be moderated to be posted. And it was so fun to read them and realize that someone has actually read this silly blog.

So, thanks to all of you who left me comments and I promise to look for them more often.
There, now I feel better!

So I really sort of slacked off on SMART Habits. I think my brain only functions half the time and for some reason those things I've wanted to work on don't cross my mind like they should.

I am still trying to organize and I cleaned off the dresser in my room, hung up some pictures I've been meaning to do for years, moved the baby's crib and dresser to make more room in our room for them and put more clothes in the new tubs I bought getting rid of the old, raggedy cardboard boxes.

I did get three sessions of exercise in this week. That was great! That kick-boxing was killer-I'm still sore and I'm sure it was hilarious to watch.

I also did research online to gather information on some of the 'skills' I'm trying to 'store' up. I have added to my list and I've divided it into three areas:

Food:
*Cheese making-have recipes, need to practice
*canning-need to get a new pressure canner and gather more bottles, practice canning meat
*sourdough-found a place to get a free start from some 150 year old starter and will be sending for that this week so I can learn to make bread from it
*Honey Candy-(this is a family tradition that will die if I don't learn to do it. Of my grandma's 10 children only two currently make it; my mom and my uncle. I don't want to let this die, so I'm going to learn to make and stretch it properly)
*Dutch oven cooking-have oven and recipes now just need nice weather so we can practice
*Pickles-no info here but I want to try to make some this year

Yard/Garden:
*composting-lots of info, this week I found a good article on building compost bins
*Veggie gardening-Need more info on raising potatoes and onions and how to stake up tomatoes
*Fruit/vines-want to learn more about raising fruit and grapes and berries. Need to check with the extention office for info for Ut Co.
*Root cellar-Found a good website with info on all these 'old-fashioned' things that our forebears had to know to survive. The Old-Timer's Page. I would like to build a small one, if I thought we were going to be here at this house forever.....
*Harvesting and storing seed-found a good article about harvesting wildflower seed and how to clean and store them. Need to find info for vegetables.

Home:
*Pattern making-Found a neat system online called The Lutterloh System that I think would work well and for the price it would work for our entire family. Pondering purchasing this just for preparation's sake
*Hand stitching-need to practice my hand stitching. If I had to make clothing and stitch it by hand I'm not sure it would stay put together.
*Quilting-pretty much the same idea here. Maybe make a wall-hanging to practice piecing on.
*Knitting-I have learned many times, but can't ever remember how. Need to get needles and some stitch guides. I want to start this one right away.

And I finally downloaded some pictures and I'll post them here when I figure out how to get them from my photoshop album. Like I said, I AM the world's dumbest blogger.

Where did my baby go??

Well, it's official.....Soren is no longer a 'baby'. I took the buzzer to his lovely blonde hair today and he now looks like a little boy instead of a rugrat. It was hard to watch all that hair dropping away from his head, but it was time. I put him in his high chair, put my cape on him and proceeded to cut. He was amazingly still for me, I only had to distract him from the comb and scissors a couple of times. He looks so cute now, Jordan put a bit of hair goop in his hair and gave him a mini faux-hawk like his. I love how I can see his expressive eyes and eyebrows now.

He has also started saying 'Whoa!' all the time now. Whenever anything falls or he bumps into things or throws things, out it comes....."WHOA!"

And tonight he started winking his eyes at the girls at the dinner table unsolicited. SO ADORABLE!

I am amazed at how quickly a year in a child's life can fly by and how much I feel like I missed. I feel like the time is just literally slipping through my fingers like water. I try to hold on to it, but I can't. What a blessing this last year has been with Soren. I'm so thankful for the lessons I've learned along the way. I'm thankful to have had one more chance to enjoy the wonders of infancy and childhood, because I think I have a heightened sense of it's fleetingness and it's pricelessness. When I watch him I can't help but try to think back to all the other kids at his age and try to remember all the little details that are threatening to slip away. Hopefully I will find or make time to record these feelings and memories and emotions before they fly!