Kids and Too close to death for comfort...or in other words, Vacation!

So again, I wait too long to post. But when you don't have the internet at home because your poor and your husband isn't workin you don't get a lot of time. :) Ok so excuses aside let's move on. We went to Fremont in May for our 50th annual reunion or something like that. ( I think it's been 6 but the number we put on invites changes each year just for fun.) A lot of went rock climbing. My youngest has no fear (except for spiders) and went down 3 times! I finally got my courage up and went down once. Needless to say I don't think I will go ever again. It was a 140 foot cliff. About 15 feet down I got stuck. No not from panic, well not yet, but because I didn't know to put my hair up. And it all twisted up in the figure 8 that my rope was going through. Not a small chunk, but ALL of it. So I had to stop and pull the rope back up through it to get most of my hair out. .I still lost a little bit but oh well.And of course thats when my loose sneakers fell off. Then I very slowly made it most of the way down in my socks. Almost to the bottom i slipped and banged in the wall a couple of times and my harness was digging into my legs really bad so I hurt. I just wanted down, I was slipping farther and farther backwards and was pretty close to being upside down by the time I got to the bottom. I remember crying "just let me down I just want down". Not very dignified. And of course I was the one who had to let me down but I had a death grip onthe rope. *sigh* But hey Josh had fun!
And of course T ball was way way cute. Especially when the older cousins would try and tackle them and stop them from getting to the bases. Cute kids, lots of fun. And then my brother took me out on the lake in the boat while the boys went shooting their guns. It was good weather, quiet, and beautiful! Plus I caught 2 fish. That always helps. It was a nice half of the day to make up for almost killing myself on the mountain earlier. And what I have realized in the last month is how super awesome my family is. I have known this already dont get me wrong, but really really in the last while. Love you all!

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

I saw this at www.despair.com. I know it's not technically my image to share but I am linking to their site so hopefully it's ok. Just wanted to share the love. :)

Babies and Sewing Exile

We have babies in our house. My husband likes babies. All kinds of babies. I do too though. I just like it better when I'm not the one who cleans up after them. We have had a lot of babies in our house. Baby snakes, baby iguana's, a baby duck. I liked the duck. Josh named him Bob. He liked to run around the back yard, jump in the kiddie pool, eat the bushes and chase the dogs. He was a big white one. I kept trying to teach him to say Aflac but it never worked. We had kittens (now mischief making cats), baby turtles (seriously only the size of a quarter, super cute. But now are more like obnoxious teenagers who beg for food and like to bite.), the fish regularly have babies that the turtles promptly eat,baby lizards, and now baby birds. I have to say that most all babies are cute. Birds however, are ugly cute. Ugly, scrawny, creepy things who are cute because the are tiny and after all, are babies. Our cockatiels had babies and we decided to pull them and handfeed them. That way when we sell them worth double, and are nice, friendly and tame. *sigh* I forgot what having to feed someone every few hours was like. *sigh* But I admit to being taken in by their cute ugliness and being excited as they get more feathers every day.

After Christmas and all the 6 months of sewing that entailed I banished my sewing machine to exile in the corner of my room where I put all the socks that need to be matched and folded. I didn't want anything to do with it for a while. Didn't even want to look at it. However I did buy a super duper cute quilt kit for myself for Christmas. It has dragons and castles on it. I just knew I needed a break before I touched it. I had made some basic quilts before (just some big squares sewn together) but never a real piece together one. Of course, this is nowhere near a complicated as some fantastic pinwheel blocks that I've seen, but it's enough for now. So I have decided it's time to start it. Mostly because Aaron found an old over the cab camper from the early 70's some guy wanted to get rid of for 20 bucks. Still works fine, no water leaks just in desperate need of a cleaning. We decided to give it new curtains and cushion covers. To give it "more testosterone" you know. He didn't like all that 70's turquoise paisley going on. So since I was sewing for practical reasons, I might as well sew for fun too! Right?

So here is a picture of the pattern:

A picture of what the castle blocks are supposed to look like:

And my first castle so far:

Of course I didn't realize until later that my towers weren't quite straight and one was taller than the other. But by then it was out together and there was no way I was taking it all apart. Besides, they were medieval masons and were probably drinking mead all day and its good to have one tower higher so the king or whoever can have a lookout right? Right? *sigh* Oh rationalization and procrastination will no doubt one day be my end. I still need to add all the people and doors and stuff but hey..its a castle! Woohoo for me.

Hermit Crabs

It's been a busy little while. And of course when things are actually happening ... I don't write. My grandmother passed away. She was an interesting person. I always liked her even if there were many times I wasn't sure she really liked me. But she was funny. My dad made a beautiful casket and we buried her quietly. I learned things about her after she was gone that I never knew while she was here. That's sad. Why didn't I try to learn all that sooner? I think of all the stories my father tells, and the places he shows me and think...man I need to record all this. I couldn't bear it if it was lost. I love my family, I wish I was more involved with them besides cruising their blog pages and checking out the family website. I always tell my cousin Cindy we need to get together, we need to get our kids together, but in the end I never call. That's sad. I am a hermit. For the most part I am ok with that but...one can be too much of a hermit. I need to come out of the shell more often. Or at least find a bigger one with room to visit. :)

Project Weekend!

Aaron went to Las Vegas a couple weekends ago to watch Nascar. He had an amazingly good time and told me how fun it was. He said it was so fun it didn't matter if I liked racing or not, it would still be fun and I so have to go next year. I told him that my present to him for his birthday each year could be to go watch and have a good time. His present to me would be to not make me go to. I think we have a deal. :)


While he was away I decided to rearrange my house. The boys room is a skinny rectangle. It's a very small room. It has a closet on one of the long sides and a window on the other. So we had the beds against the window and their dresser on one short side and the tv on the other. This made it feel like their room was never clean, because the minute they take their shoes off, put their coats down and stuff it took up almost all the floorspace. They just had a narrow walkway from the door to tv. So I decided to see if there was enough room for the beds to go on one of the short sides and see if I could square the room off. And they did!! Just barely, I think there might be a foot between the end of the bed and that part of the closet. But ha! it fits. Then just move the tv under the window and.....holy cow!! That made such a huge difference it was crazy! Makes it feel so much bigger all squared off like that. Then I repainted their room, and while I was at it the hallway, and the bathroom, and the living room. Then my sister gave me these cool blue curtains. One small panel for each side of the window. They don't cover it (which is good I didn't really want them to) but again I was amazed at how a little change can make such a huge difference!! Curtains just make it so much more homey than just blinds. It's awesome, thanks sis!But I haven't taken a picture of that yet since of course the kids really do always need to clean it. :)

Then I decided to tackle the living room. We have a small apartment and I really don't think I like the layout. It doesn't leave you many options. Hopefully you can see the arrows in the picture. I didn't take a before one. The fish tank was on the wall by the couch. (It's a small wall since it is just a divider wall between the kitchen and the living room, there is an opening on either side of it to go to the kitchen)The book case was in front of the window. I thought maybe if I moved it all around I could make it have more light and feel like it had more room. And it totally did. Also, I added curtains. Again - I am amazed that curtains can make such a huge difference to the room! Holy cow. I bought linoleum tiles (now sitting on the floor by the fish tank)to re-do the bathroom floor, but everything else took so much more time and effort than I thought it would that I didn't get to it. I am so taking before and after pictures of that when I do it though. So over all I am rather pleased with myself. Trying not to be smug. :)

Here is the picture again without the arrows.