Poor Halle and Pictures

My poor little Halle. Last night she dove onto my bed and unfortunately her head hit the edge of my metal sewing box. It's not really a sewing box but a decorative box that a Christmas gift came in a couple of years ago. It took me a while to figure out what was going on because of all the crying but when I saw the goose-egg I was concerned and in need of ice. I lamented the fact that we have none in the house and Chloe ran down the hallway only to reappear a few seconds later with a bag of frozen peas in hand and a triumphant look on her face. It really was a life saver. Out of all of my kids, Halle is the one that has had more bruises and owies than any other. I really hope she outgrows it. She did agree to let me take her picture though so I knew it wasn't *that* bad. Today it's just a bruise.

Here's the ginormous dumpster I talked about yesterday. And unfortunately it's still here today. I'm not sure when it's leaving. But I wanted to show you all Chloe's "crazy hair". All week there's been a celebration of Dr. Seuss and yesterday was Crazy Hair Day. We did it on Wednesday night because there's no way we'd have enough time to do it in the morning. She was really happy about it.

And from the back...cute, huh?

And look, I'm actually, really sewing. I don't remember if this is before or after the machine freaked out. I just came back from Wal-Mart with a seam ripper so I can finish the apron. I also got some really cute fabric from the $1.50 table for a couple of dresses for each of the girls and one for a skirt for me plus a pattern. I'm kind of scared to work on the skirt so I'll see how the kids dresses go first. If I don't think I can do it then I'll just make something for the girls out of the last fabric too. Trav is pretty wiped out from a really rough couple of weeks at work so I think I'm going to finish the-very-last-block for Kyleigh and the two aprons so that I can work on the dresses. I love starting projects but I really don't like finishing them. I get bored.

And lastly, here's our roof. It's not quite finished here but that's pretty much what it looks like- minus the ones hanging from the roof. It's actually even a little bit lighter than what it looks like here. Amanda doesn't like it and neither does Chloe and the jury is still out on whether Trav likes it or not. I think I like it- it's just really, really hard to pick a shingle from a tiny little square on a page. It's like picking a paint color from a swatch. Amanda thinks it makes the whole house look a bit too orange. I do wonder if painting the barn facade a different color would help. I've even thought about painting the brick. If we were going to live here another 5 years then I would but it's too big of a job and I really don't see us getting around to that.

Now I'm off to do some projects...

You Know It's Got To Be Good...

...if you start out with this much butter. I have to admit I've been in a colossal rut lately. I haven't felt inspired to do much. I haven't felt like cleaning or creating or cooking. Well, I did in theory but everything just felt like too much of a chore. " I don't feel like rolling out sugar cookies...I can't eat them anyway...Alfredo sauce takes too long...we'll just do leftovers". You get the idea. I had a bit of a feeling sorry for myself breakdown today and the Lord just sort of intervened and made some things stand out to me that I hadn't thought about. Like the new quote on the sidebar. I used to dream of owning a house and all I can see are unfinished projects and ugliness, a lack of counter space and less than stellar appliances. I've felt lost and unfulfilled and have found myself saying that 'this isn't what I prepared for, this isn't what I saw myself doing with my life'. But if I were doing something else I'd be missing it. I'd be missing my girls growing up and sharing life with them. So, with some help, I got things into gear. This is my job- and it's a really important one, so I should get on with it.


A few months back Christy linked to this wonderful apricot tart and I read that post again drooling over its yumminess. That tart wasn't in the cards because I determined that I was only going to use ingredients in the house for dinner but it lead me to a pie crust recipe which gave me the inspiration for chicken pot pie tonight. In the past I've made it with just a Bisquick biscuit top and my whole family loves it. But it doesn't have that great homemade flavor plus it has hydrogenated oil in it so I don't use it anymore. It was my very first time to make a pie crust and I haven't done it before because I thought it would be too difficult- but I was so wrong. Not only is it easy, it seems to be idiot proof too- long story. And even though it was my first attempt at making a pie crust I decided to do a 50/50 blend of whole wheat flour and white flour. It turned out perfectly. It was still buttery and flaky and delicious. I think it would make a great crust for apple pie or anything else you could possibly make with a crust. I really didn't even have the right veggies but I improvised with peas, corn, spinach and black-eyed peas- about 3.5 pounds of veggies for two pies. You have to feel good about that. Plus chicken breast. If it weren't for all the butter in the crust it would be totally healthy. But as it is you aren't eating *that* much crust since I only put it on the top.

I decided for a nice little surprise, I'd use some teensy butterfly and flower cookie cutters that I bought forever ago ($5 at Ross- score!) to top the pie.
Then I left the room for a minute and the girls decided to surprise me back. See how thick some of the cutouts are?

They begged to be able to roll out the dough too. I figured that they couldn't make *that* much of a mess so I let them... And they loved it. They were all smiles and didn't want to stop playing with it all to eat dinner.

But it all turned out very nicely and I felt happy and fulfilled. The girls were all smiles and they scarfed down the dinner that they "helped" make. I need to really tweak the filling because I wasn't totally happy with that but, whatever, next time...

I thought I'd post some pics of the fun we had at the Main Street Festival in Franklin this past weekend. The picture of Chloe is very similar to one I took of her last year at the festival and I thought it would be cool to get the same picture every year to watch how much she grows and so that the she can remember the festival as one of those nostalgic-home town type things that we do every year. And for the first time Halle was able to get into a little bounce house and really had fun. She was a little hesitant at first and seemed content to hang onto the ropes on the side and yell for help (in Spanish which she got from Dora the Explorer). We ended up getting to the festival kind of late but it was nice because it was starting to get cooler outside and most of the families already had their fill of fun and had gone home so it wasn't as crowded as last year and we were pretty happy about that. I think this will be a fun thing for us to do every year. But hopefully next year it won't coincide with a women's conference at church- that made for a super-hectic weekend.

A few weeks ago when all of the trees were in bloom and the "helicopter" seed pods were falling from the maple trees I decided that we might as well plant one. I've also planted lemon seeds several times with no success and had tried again about 4 weeks before I planted the maple seed. I typically dig the lemon seed up and am always disappointed so this time I just thought "forget it I'm not even digging the lemon seed up and I'll just plant the maple seed in the same pot". So I did and about 2 1/2 weeks later a little maple tree sprouted! Chloe and I were so happy. We've watered it and watched it grow pretty quickly. Well about a week after that I noticed that something else was sprouting and I couldn't figure out what it was. Did I somehow plant more than one maple seed? But they didn't look the same. It took several days for me to confirm that it was, in fact, the lemon seed that had sprouted. Gaaa! I didn't want to just pull one of them up, I already had plans for that maple tree. And I'd been trying to get a lemon seed to grow for so long that I wasn't giving that one up either- not intentionally anyway. So I decided to try to separate them and hope for the best. I dug the lemon seedling out, put it in a pot, filled in the soil, watered it and set it in the shade. I read last year that if you transplant something you shouldn't put it in direct sunlight for a couple of days so that it can get over the shock. During the process though- since the two trees were so close together- the maple seedlings root was completely exposed and I filled in around that, watered it, and set it in the shade as well. All day I watched them both to see if there were any signs of wilting and as of yet there hasn't been. I'm hopeful because they're tiny and if they were going to wilt they would have already, wouldn't they? I'll have to keep you posted.

In other great news, I seem to have my happy toddler back! It has been several weeks since she's felt well and been herself. I thought we were on the other side of her illness but last Friday when I took her to the Dr. to check her mouth out we discovered that she had bronchitis as well. *sigh* But this morning she's happy and playing and I'm so excited. Today feels like it will be a productive day so I'm going to work out now (it's kind of early for me to do that), and tackle laundry so that I can take Halle outside to play. I am really looking forward to making a lot of house progress today.