Wordless Wednesday

Sorry I had to remove this picture. See the post I've written for Feb 14, 2007.

Scrubbing the floor

Wow!! Now there's a catchy title.

Fun! Fun! Okay not really, but for some reason my son was determined that he was going to scrub the floor tonight. ;o) It was on my 'to do' list, and once he saw the mop well that was it. So my hubby swept the floor and I got the bucket of water ready. I wrung the water out and showed DS how to scrub. After he completed a little area, I dipped the mop again and wrung it out. Well guess who thought he should ring the mop out?? (He wasn't being bossy, just really wanting to help and be independant.) So we comprimised, I held the mop handle up over the bucket and twisted in one direction and, he held the wet part of the mop and twisted in the other direction. A perfect compromise really, that worked wonderfully................well that is until we twisted a bit too much and heard a snapping sound. :o) Yes, one of the plastic thingys that holds the mop strands on broke. It didn't look like much damage was done, plus we were almost done.

You know how dominoes fall?? It all happens so fast you can't stop them! The mop had a domino moment. The next swipe of the mop the strands were falling off faster than I could blink. :o) It's quite funny! ;o)

I like that he wants to help out around our house. Last fall he wanted to learn how to use the washing machine. He knew I had to have minor surgery and wouldn't be able to do laundry or other chores for a while. So I showed him how to start and run the machine. It didn't take long until he decided he had it figured out and he could do it by himself. The next load of laundry he told me he could do by himself. I watched and only had to remind him to set the water level differently. I offered to help with the soap, but he said he needed to learn so he could do it when I was getting better. :o) :o) :o) Now I can send him to the washer and dryer if I need to, and he is pleased as punch to be able to help out.

With homeschooling I think kids learn a lot of life skills that maybe they wouldn't otherwise learn. I'm happy that he has the desire to want to learn and help out. He sees his dad help out too, which is very important.

I am amazed every day at the little man he is becoming. :o)

Wordless Wednesday

Works For Me Wednesday

Here is my WFMW tip for today. I enjoy baking biscuits, but I do not enjoy rolling or cutting them out. There is something about rolling things out that will send me running and screaming from a recipe. Okay it's not that bad. ;o) I do roll out some things like pie crust, dough for cinnamon rolls and pizza dough, but I think that's about it. Anyway, back to my tip for today......for biscuits I just drop them from a spoon. They bake up the same way (just bumpier) and taste just as great, but without the messy clean up. That's what Works For Me. :o)

Read more great Works for Me Wednesday blog posts here.....
http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/shannon/worksforme_wednesday/index.html

Scrapbooking swap items

Here are some things I made for a scrapbooking swap that I am in. It is a 2-4-2 swap so I make 2 mini kits and send one to 2 different people and I will recieve 1 mini kit from 2 different people. Sorry I don't have a scanner so I had to take a picture.


The kit includes half a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 pattern paper, a tag, journal box, 2 little paper squares and ribbon. I also included a metal frame and 2 burgundy buttons that match the thread I used on the tag.


The picture didn't turn out so great, but this is the journal box I made. I started with a rectangle shaped piece of beige cardstock. I rounded the two bottom corners. At the top I used my filmstrip punch to make holes and then I broke the holes to give the appearance of a used sheet of note paper. I added lines with a brown pen, a peice of coordinating green paper in the corner and made some snowflakes using stamps and green ink. Lastly I chalked the edges with brown chalk.


This is the tag. I cut 2 tag shapes from green paper. I paper tore 1 of the tag shapes and then chalked both of the shapes with brown chalk. I added a little coordinating pattern paper to the bottom of the tag. I used 2 stands of burgundy embroidery floss to stitch together and create a little pocket tag. I added some green snowflakes to the tag as well. A burgundy accent to the top and burgundy yarn. The squares are made of a 2" green square and 1.5" pattern square with an eyelet through the center.

~~~This is a tag set from a Valentine swap I did a few years ago.~~~

For this I used 2 tag shapes cut from beige cardstock. I paper tore one shape diagonally and then chalked both with brown chalk. I stitched them together with 2 strands of beige embroidery floss, added 2 little crumpled rectangles and a small button to the front. The little tag beside it has x's and o's stamped with brown ink and chalked around the edges.


The heart is also a tag. I cut a folk heart shape and then put it through my paper crimper, added an eyelet and some yarn and embroidery floss.

Sabbath at home

Yesterday, we spent Sabbath at home as church was canceled due to our Friday snowstorm. So we had church here. :o) Dh opened with prayer and then we each picked a song to sing. DS chose 'No matter if', I chose 'There is sunshine in my soul today' and hubby picked 'A child of the King'. We all sang together and sounded pretty good too. ;o) Then we spent about the next hour on the Primary lesson. The story was about the paralyzed man who was brought to Jesus by his caring friends. To intorduce the lesson, I had DS hold his hands behind his back and then I asked him to open the hymanl to song 300. All that to illustrate how difficult it would be if you didn't have the use of your arms. Then we read the story from the primary quarterly, read the same story from the bible and drew a picture of what our favorite part of the story was. These pictures turned out so cute. :o) I am going to scrapbook a page using these, as I didn't take any photos for a page. We also talked about the body of Christ and what part we can play in bringing others to Jesus. We each picked someone who we wanted to bring to Jesus. We drew their picture and listed ways we could do this. Then dh closed with prayer. We really enjoyed our Sabbath worship at home.

Crazy weather here.

We are safely tucked away in our home. Thankfully, we still have power and phone service. That is sometimes a concern for us in the winter. We have a woodstove and cell phone, so even if we lose power or phone service, we can still stay warm, eat and call family. :o) Here are some pics.....and it's still snowing!! ;o) I took these from inside the house, through the window, so there is some reflection....sorry about that. :o) In the first picture I took , you can't even see the lake or anything beyond the trees

Big boy now :o)

We were in town today running errands. We had to cross the parking lot and then a little lane of traffic to get to one of the stores. I told DS to take my hand. He kindly told me, "I'm getting too big to hold your hand." :o) Of course I know the day is/was coming when he would be too big for it, but I didn't think today would be the day. My heart had one of those...'My baby is growing up' moments. ;o) So, I told him that was okay and he could walk beside me. He did and we got what we needed at that store. I had to smile on our way back to the van......guess who was holding my hand?? Neither of us really realized it at the time. I noticed it later as we went into the grocery store. It's just an automatic reaction to get out and take each other's hand. I guess he forgot that he's a 'big boy'. :o) And that's okay with me. :o)

Works For Me Wednesday

This is my first WFMW post. :o)

Wondering what I could post about, I thought of 'March Break'. In March we'll take a week off from homeschooling. Sometimes we just hang out at home or get together with friends. This can sometimes this can mean extra $$.

So, this year I am encouraging our son to think ahead and save his money. I will gently remind him that he may want to do some fun things that week and he will need the money to do it. Also, to be sure that I am saving for it too I will give him some of my spare change to add to the piggy bank. Since I'm giving it to him to 'save', I won't spend it in the meantime. ;o)

By planning ahead now, we will 'have some funds to have some fun' when March gets here and, I won't have to worry about him missing out.

Til the storm passes by

Whenever we have a snow/thunder storm I always seem to think of the song 'Til the storm passes by'

Here is the chorus......
Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more,
Till the clouds roll forever from the sky;
Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of Thy hand,
Keep me safe till the storm passes by.

We have snow !!

It started snowing late yesterday afternoon and stopped just before lunch time today. These are a few pictures I took today.

My little snow man. :o)

So far so good.....

I've been working to set this blog up, and move posts from my old/other blog here. This blog site is so much easier to set up and to work with. Still lots to learn about this. :o)

Trying to figure out blogging :)

I have created this new blog. I am hoping to be able to move my other blog posts here. I am new to blogging as of Oct 2006. Wow, do I have alot to learn and figure out!! :)

I love being home

Here are a few pictures I took in early December. We had some freezing rain, and although it was messy, it was beautiful too.

This is a picture of our front field......



This is a picture of our side field. In the right middle you can see just the top of dh's sugar shack. It's his spring hobby. :)



The above photo was taken form our front door. You can see the lake in the distance and ice on the house and tree.