The New Year

Apparently I am good at starting blog posts but never publishing. This one I started days ago and well I named the post and that was it! HA! I apparently drew a blank right after that or my ADOS(attention deficit OH SHINY!!!) kicked into gear. So I guess I will do a bit of a blog about the new year. I am not big on making resolutions because I am like all the other millions of people that make them and don't keep them. I do plan to make some changes in my life. I have to do better in my bible studies. I am hit and miss at best. It seems like there is no quiet time. I am going to start staying up after everyone at night and getting a bit of quiet time. I cant seem to drag myself out of bed early and setting the alarm would just in sure that I wake the whole house up. So I think this is my best chance of quiet time. Rowdy isn't the tricky one with bible study but oh that Paisley makes it rather hard. I have to do better and am hoping that I will do just that. Oh, this isn't something I am waiting till January 1 for either. Now this other one is probably the one I put off...hahaha. I need to exercise. I almost put more but who am I kidding? I need to exercise PERIOD! I downloaded the C25K app for my phone the other day and I think I will start it. It should be interesting to say the least but I know I need to do something. First step is knowing right. Well I got that step down now for step 2. DOING it. I plan to start that Wednesday. What time? I don't know. Where? I guess at the park down the road. Why do I "guess" the park? Because the stinking park is right next to the highway and C25K does jogging. UGH. Gotta start somewhere though. I was doing Sweatin to the oldies but Rowdy had me laughing so hard making fun of Richard Simmons that I gave up. I probably burned a lot of calories with all the laughing though. Kris says he is going to start getting up at 4am. I guess that means that he will set the alarm at 3 and hit snooze for an hour then get up and run and come home, shower and be at work by 6. HA! He hits snooze so many times that I have to kick him awake cause it drives me crazy. I call it his kick start! bahaha. When I worked he was only allowed to hit snooze 3 times because I overslept once because I thought he was the one hitting snooze and I just kept sleeping through the beep. HA!
Another thing for the New Year is we really want to do some research on adopting. We are still praying about this and will continue but I think some research needs added into it. Neither one of us knows the first thing about adopting and what is needed and such. So we shall see. We started praying about this in September and I am rather excited to see what the Lord has planned if anything for us down this avenue.

A funny about Paisley. She can not get off her back for anything. If she is playing with brother and ends up on her back she is like a turtle and cant get rolled over at all. It is quite comical to see. She gets in her bean bag and its double trouble she is really stuck. I have been trying to keep Rowdy from getting her up because she has to learn to get up. Crazy kid!

I stink at sewing and other none sense

Ok, so I have faced a few facts the last few days and sewing is one of those facts. The other is laundry detergent making. So here goes. Rowdy's pants could be used as a shirt and pants since the crotch to waist band is 2 foot long. HA! But they fit BUT I have restricted him to not sitting down at all only standing for the fittings. They are done. I will post pictures later if you are lucky but I don't plan to do that till after Christmas morning. Now Paisley's gown is a whole different ordeal. It was a doozey to put together and Mom told me that ruffles were easy to do she must have had her fingers crossed behind her back because it was not easy at all. I did finally finish the gown and it's snappy looking. Just don't look closely at the fact that the ruffle on the sleeve is sewn down to the neck line. WOOPSIE! It gives it character and I don't figure these will hold up after one washing of laundry so no biggie. Oh, did I mention that Mom cut out the material for the gown and she cut the first piece out upside down so we used that as the back so essentially now him and Paisley match even more! HA! As of right now I am not going to be sewing anymore for quite sometime and I am not sure that I will ever tackle pajama's again. The other fact that I learned this week is that I am not going to be making anymore laundry soap ever again. I just don't think it is working very good. I have tried tweeking it with more this and that but Kris' pants just aren't coming very clean and his shirts came out smelling like his deodorant still. So I am out on making it but I will continue to make the other cleaners.I do really like the blue magic cleaner and so it will always be in my arsenal of cleaning products and I have used it just about every where.

Hair Update: Psoriasis is not better but not worse. Now I have over working oil glands though and my hair is super greasy. I am still on the search for a natural remedy for that. My Dad had really oily hair and it is hereditary so I know where I got it now to just control is. It does seem semi worse since starting the baking soda wash. I guess I might have created another problem solving one problem but I am sticking with the soda since it doesn't irritate the psoriasis. I wonder if my random chin hairs come from my Dad too. bahahaha I have read that regular vinegar with water as a rinse might help. I think I might try it. I was told that Apple Cider Vinegar makes oily. I would guess that the soda is stripping away to many impurities and my head is over compensating. My hair doesn't look oily to even myself and I really wouldn't have known I had a problem if it wasn't for my pillow.

Well it is Christmas Eve tomorrow and I am just about ready. Sure miss Dad and wish he could be with us again or we could celebrate Christ birth in Heaven with him that would be fine. He was always Santa and would hand out the Christmas presents from under the tree to everyone. He mostly liked watching everyone open their gifts and look at their expressions. Especially the kids. He never told me that but I caught him watching the boys and Torie several times and know that he enjoyed that part. Someday we will be with him again and so I will hang on to each memory till then.

Christmas Candy and more...

I started making a few goodies today. I made Peanut Butter Christmas Candies. They were super easy and super yummy but they are so sweet that you might try to bite your ear. You can find the recipe on my pinterest board with the name Things I have tried good and bad. I also made hard cinnamon candy because it is Kris' favorite candy. I forgot to put red food coloring in it. I lost all senses when I put the cinnamon oil in the scalding hot syrup and couldn't think of where I keep food coloring. If you need a good cleaning out of the sinuses then you should make cinnamon candy. My eyes, nose and cheeks were burning. I am not sure why the cheeks were burning (Not the cheeks you sit on either heehee) Anyways we had to turn on some fans so everyone could breathe. I got some Christmas presents wrapped today after our one time shopping trip. Yes, I said one time we went last night and got everything that we could afford! HA! So we hit Target because they really have stuff that isn't just like everyone else. Then we went to Old Navy and found Paisley a winter coat for $8. I was so excited about an $8 coat. It's a cute one too! HA! So then we ate at Chik-Fil-A for dinner and headed to Wal-Mart to finish up our shopping. Then went to get the kids from Mom's house and stashed the presents. I haven't wrapped them all yet but will get that in a few days. Tomorrow Mom is coming over and we are going to tackle Christmas cookie making. That should be interesting. I didnt buy any sprinkles because I just got all of last years swept up. UGH! Those rascals roll all over the place. I should have saved those ones I swept up! hahaha Ok, I am not that thrifty! Tonight I made Long Boy burgers which I would describe them as meatloaf on a bun and the bun got rock hard. I'll stick with my regular ole meatloaf next time. We have a busy Christmas this year. Christmas Eve we are going to Kris' Mom's office to have Christmas with Brittany (niece) because she goes to her Dad's that next day and we haven't seen her in a few Christmas due to that. Then we come back to Moms and we eat Chicken and noodles. Mom makes the best homemade noodles. YUM! Then on Christmas Day we open our gifts here then go to Kris' Moms house and have lunch there at 12:30.

Last night Kris took me shopping for my present from him. We decided that I needed new clothes the most so we went to Cato's. We started in and just picking things out here and there and by the time we got to the back of the store I had about 10 items to try on. So I proceeded in and Kris kept bringing me stuff to try on and said we have a lot that we are getting. I finally said you realize we cant afford all this stuff. Well he didn't believe me so I gave him the "likes" pile and he started adding in his head and I finally got done trying stuff on and figured out what all I wanted. So I narrowed it down to 2 shirts, 2 pairs of jeans, 1 denim skirt. Ending up we went over the allotted amount of money by $20 but I was able to get all those items for $120. We got out to the car and Kris said "Man, women's clothes are so expensive." I cracked up laughing and said I thought I did really good. He said my jeans cost $15. He did have a good point. Mine have bling on the rear cause that is just what I needed! HA! Plumbers don't need bling but then again neither does a big booty. Oh well. I got some! So we get going and Kris said "I don't think we should have anymore girls" I really laughed at that. I gently reminded him that it wasn't up to him. All in all it was a nice night and we got a lot of talking in....errr...I did a lot of talking and he did a lot of uh huh, yes, hmming. Most of the time he is listening unless he is watching TV during my rambling then I like to tell him weird stuff like Rowdy fell out of the boat today while eating a banana and he lost his toenail in the mud or something similar.

Again just a friendly reminder. This is my thoughts and they are jumbled in my head and I am afraid they come out just as jumbled and well I stink at punctuation and grammar. I shall learn both of these with Rowdy. I am not a lost cause...:)

Hair Update

Ok, so I forgot to blog about my hair. So here is the scoop and I might repeat myself from another post. I cant remember and I am not going to go and look. So here goes. A couple of Sunday's ago I used regular ole shampoo that I had been using prior to this no shampoo. Boy, did I pay for it and honestly it set me back over a week with itching, flaking and such. I am happy to be back to using baking soda and water again and then I am doing touch ups with apple cider vinegar. I do think it helps my head more so if I wash it daily in which I am not in the habit of doing unless we go some where. In saying that I have no plans at all to go back to using shampoo but I am not brave enough to not use mousse and hair spray. I don't want to give Bozo a run for his money! I have read on many sites saying that if you have oily hair then the Apple Cider Vinegar might not be a good idea on the roots and my hair is very oily(the reason I don't wash daily) so I use the ACV on a cotton ball on my hair line spots and in my ears. I must say that sometimes it burns the dickens outta me but its better than being flaky. I mean I am flaky enough not to have to constantly wipe my shoulders off. Everyone asks me how the baking soda could possibly get my hair clean but I honestly think that my hair is more clean using it than when I was using the shampoo. You do have to work at the scalp a little more but that isn't any biggie to me. I usually always scrub mine cause it feels gooooood. I use a condiment bottle from the store to get the baking soda/water down to my scalp. I wouldn't recommend the condiment bottle cause it leaks like a sieve but I do recommend something with a tip so you can get down in there. This isn't for everyone but it is for me for sure. It is amazing the uses for baking soda and then ACV both. They are both quite versatile.

Busy Week

I really thought I had planned this week all out of making some Christmas goodies to eat and making some Christmas ornaments. So far this week hasn't gone as I planned but I am not worried cause I know that it has gone as God intended for it. Yesterday we did a bunch of running around with the Santa Train coming into town and the Chamber helping I went down there and well didn't do much but let the kids go through the train which I must say is pretty neat. I was thinking that we had been through the one in Stilwell one year but I don't remember it being like that so I must have dreamed it. Last night as I was holding Paisley and trying to get her to go to sleep I noticed that yet again she had this knot on the back of her head so I had Kris feel around on her head to see if he could feel it. He did notice it and said that we maybe should get it looked at since I had felt it before. So then I started worrying. Yeah, I did. I tried really hard not to but I did. So this morning I got up and got a hold of her Dr and had it looked at this afternoon. Thankfully it was just a swollen lymph node. I thought it probably was but I didn't know where all the lymph nodes are. Before going to the Dr I went to the grocery store and then came home and started lasagna for tonight's dinner and then a big pan for Krista and Dean tomorrow night for dinner. It was rather nice to come home from the Dr and just have to throw the pan in the oven to heat, butter and garlic the bread up and toss into the oven. Although tonight for the 2nd time in my whole life I used the broiler. Needless to say we didn't have bread with dinner. I turned the broiler on high and walked off and didn't think about the bread catching on fire and setting off ALL the fire alarms in the house. I noticed they were on fire in the oven and I opened the door and then started laughing and screaming I don't know what to do. Kris came in and saved the day and put the fire out and yelled "Dinner is done". Meanwhile Rowdy ran around opening doors and turning on fans. I really have trained that boy well. Dinner was very tasty though even if the bread was burnt crisp. So after dinner I started working on the two sheet cakes for tomorrow nights dinner at Church. The first one came out burnt on one end and then running out of the pan on the other. So then I moved the racks around and straightened them up. I guess when the repair man was here he moved them. So I got that fixed and got the other one in the oven. I waited till it was almost done and started making the frosting which seized up on me and wasn't spreadable to speak of. I finally got it but the cake looks like junk so I plan to cut it asap! I need to make another one but I will do that in the morning I am done for the night.

A day for sewing

So today I started sewing. I haven't sewn anything since High School and I believe that I wrote about that in my last post. So in saying that I started out the day with Rowdy's PJ pants that I had decided to make. So after some pointers from Mom last night I was prepared to get started. Or so I thought. So I got started off with finding the pants that I was going to use as the pattern and I got those all laid out. I then got the material ready to be laid out and I then cut them out. Two just like Mom said. So then I have these two weird looking things that have no legs. Well anyways I text Mom asking where the legs were going to come from cause well I was out of material. So here is a picture of the beginning stage.

Here is the picture of the leftovers that I was debating on how to make legs from this little bit. 

So after my panic text to Mom she sped right over. Ok Ok, she was on her way to the Church anyways so she just swung by here to help the "Lost cause" her words I am pretty sure. So she came over and explained to me how this works and told me what to sew first which by the way was WRONG! So I went about sewing the hip areas and in reality you should sew the legs or crotch area first and the hip area last. Oh well I did the hips, then legs, then I sewed the crotch area up but not before breaking the needle cause Mom assured me that it wouldn't hurt a thing to just leave the pins in the fabric and go right over. WRONG again. Anyways the needle broke and so I proceeded to take the machine apart looking for the needle tip and replacing the needle which was very easy I must say but you must get the screw really tight other wise while sewing the needle will just slip right down. Yep, I did it. Anyways I get all the little gadgets back together to the best of my knowledge for the 3rd time and start to sew and the machine started making a really strange noise and not moving to much. So I grabbed the fabric off and it wouldn't come loose. It was a huge mess under there so I got everything cut loose and opened the area where the bobbin goes and here is the sight. 

So I proceeded to untangle the mess and figure out how to load the bobbin back into this area. So after all this I was well on my way to sewing some great looking pants. Did I mention that I didn't pay attention to the pattern on the material to make sure that as I was cutting I had the pattern going the same way? Well I didn't. I didn't pay any attention to that at all and so we have one leg that the pattern is right and the other leg the pattern in wrong. I am fine with that. I mean really the pants only need to make it for pictures on Christmas morning. HA!! So I proceeded on with my sewing and folded the pants right side out and VOILA there was a hole in the crotch. If it wasn't as low as it is then I would try to say it was a pee hole but well it is lower than that. So for now I have left the pants alone because I am not sure how I should try to fix that area. Then I will work on the elastic weight band, and then the hems on the pant legs. So after I got done with what damage I could do on the pants then I made a Wal-Mart sack bag holder. It was easy enough and it doesn't have a pee hole so I guess it turned out good. 

So in saying all this. I have had a very entertaining day and really have enjoyed laughing at myself all day.

Well today was our official last day for school till after New Year's. Let the fun begin! I may wish that I didn't stop the routine of school but I think we will have fun. We plan to do a little craft each day and then some baking and candy making. Rowdy is pretty excited and he is very good at helping with the baking. It is a crying shame that we are both very craft challenged. We did successfully make a paper chain for the tree in their room. It looks really cute too. I also made a star out of Popsicle sticks and twine. I think it looks weird but others have said it is cute. Tomorrow I start my sewing projects. I am really hoping that my Mom will come and help me. I really haven't a clue about sewing and so well it could be bad. I think I will start with making a sack to hold sacks! HA! You know one of those that you can stuff your wal-mart sacks into. I think I'll start with one of them. If you never see pictures of anything I have sewn then well you will know that it wasn't a good thing. I must say that in home-ec in school I made what was suppose to be a duffel bag and it ended up being the perfect bag to hold a bull horn you know big on one end and small on the other. My nephews loved that silly bag and carried it till it was falling apart which truth be known probably wasn't all that long. I have realized recently that I really have only baking/cooking as a skill. I wonder if it is lack of patience or effort? That is something for me to think about. I am leaning towards patience since the star really ticked me off today! HA! I think I will try to get better at that because Rowdy really enjoys doing those kinds of things. Well it is almost bed time around here and I have a few things left to do. Oh, and after great debate on getting GAC to watch the NFR(we usually upgrade our package for December) and ending up cancelling the usual upgrade due to price we got Free Preview of GAC!!! Kris was beside himself. Me not so much but I can find other things to do. 

PS: The NFR starts tonight...

Playing Catch up...

Phew! I haven't done this in quite a while. I go to type something and my thoughts have been such a jumbled mess that I talk myself out of it. Well no more of that so get ready for a few run on sentences and some rather alarming grammatical errors. Grammatical wow what a big word for me at 8:30am. HA! Ok, here goes.

Thanksgiving: We had a great Thanksgiving. Started a new tradition of going around the room and saying what we are thankful for. Had a few grumbles from my nephew but other than that the only hiccups were the tears that were shed. Those weren't anything new for our family functions. Sappy people we are. Ok, so we miss Dad and think of him a lot. I am Thankful that I still have my Mom though. We could have lost both parents and so I am thankful to still have her. We all ate a lot, lazed on the couches, relaxed, and did a whole lot of nothing and boy was it nice. Ronda cleaned the kitchen cause she is such a good girl and I had to pee(we call that dish water diarrhea in our house). All in all it was a good Thanksgiving with lots of reminders of what we are blessed with.

Hair: Well my hair update would be that the baking sod and water mixture doesn't seem to be making my psoriasis 100% better but it does seem to be not irritating my psoriasis like shampoo does. I didn't realize how much that means till I jumped in the shower on Sunday morning and was out of the mixture and so I just used shampoo and my scalp was mad at me all day. I have also discovered that if I wash my hair daily that it is much better on my psoriasis. I don't wash it daily because I haven't washed my hair daily since I was working. Anyways I am for sure sticking with the baking soda and water mixture if for no other reason than it doesn't bother my scalp and seems to clean my hair. Actually my hair felt more clean and soft after using the baking soda rather than the shampoo. Weird, huh?

Grouchy: Our house has been grouchy. I mean the whole place. I think it all boiled down to me. I haven't had a break from kids for several months and I think it is getting the best of me. Anyways funny how we think we are having to put up with grouchy people only to find out that maybe we are the grouch that is causing grouchy people. Oh well. It is all better now and I am less grouchy and getting a break from kids for a few hours today. I had planned to leave the house and hit WM and wonder aimlessly around for a few hours but I am car less and so I guess I will clean house although taking a long shower and a nap sounds better I am just sure that I wont do it. It will be nice to get somethings put away before Christmas is here and so everything is ready. We will see what I get done. I guarantee that whatever doesn't get done will still be here when I get ready to do it!

Rowdy: So Rowdy tells me all the time that he loves me. Just at random times during the day he will announce that he loves me. I love that he is so open and comfortable to tell me that no matter is who is around. Well in saying that he doesn't mind who is around it cracks me up when he says it and the person that doesn't usually hear it all the time says something like oh what did he do? or what does he want? People assume that when he says that there is a reason. I love that he doesn't have a clue what they are even talking about. He doesn't say I love you to get what he wants or when he is in trouble that isn't even something that has crossed his mind. I just usually answer with no he just loves me. :) We even have a code for I LOVE YOU. He seldom uses it but he knows it. Someone told me that I should write a book about Rowdy and I really should but can you imagine the hay day that an editor would have with my jumbled thoughts! I would need to hire someone to write my thoughts and make them make sense.

Paisley: She is once again cutting teeth and grouchy. But I am happy to report that she is grouchy due to the teeth not do to the others in the house being grouchy. HA! She is such a funny little girl with such a personality. Oh and she has a new love for hats. Mom made her a new one recently and she loves it. Now if only it wasn't 70 some degrees here in December then we could get some use out of our matching hats...yes, I said matching. (insert huge grin) I think we will look so cute but grouchy...err I mean Kris said mine didn't look good.

I think that is the long and short of it.

PS:This is the last week of school for us till the first of the year! YEHAW!!!!