Summer's over

Well let's see....not much has happened this week- I finished painting my chalkboards- they look brilliant if I do say so myself! Elisabeth and I have just been hanging out, trying to hold onto summer by thin threads in the realization that work really does start on Monday.  Ah well- at least it's been a really great summer :)

I'm having a hard time not going out and buying lots of fall/winter clothes and tons of school supplies.  We just don't need them, but man, I sure want to!!!

For our produce box on Tuesday, we got strawberries, romano beans, radishes, corn, lettuce, basil, cherry tomatoes (like Drew's hand? hahaha), and some heirloom tomatoes.  Good thing I love tomaotes!!

My little munchkin picking a book to read!

If you look closely, you can see her top front teeth!!!

Like that? Her hand had been down on the side "hiding" her treasures that I didn't see until after she was done. what a silly girl ;)

Nom, Nom, Nom tomatoes!!!

She plays this game of, "How many magnets can I make fall at one time"...she's getting pretty good at it

The Room and Teeth!

I told my mom I'd take pictures of my classroom so she could see what it looks like, and since this is how I communicate, you all get to see, too.  Bear in mind that everything is in piles because they take everything out to re-wax the floor, then they put it all back in in a mess because they don't know where I want it. Sooo, it's up to me to slide things around and scuff up the floor.  I also have one of my dear, sweet coworkers boxes in there while they try to figure out where to put them.

This is from my doorway, looking left.

This is in the doorway looking straight on/slightly right

Those boxes aren't mine- all mine are in my closets where I can pretend they don't exist.  If I stay in this room another year, maybe I'll actually do something with them.

See in the below picture how my desk is up in the far left corner? That's where they want my desk. I tried it out, left it there for a day and decided I hate it.  I had Drew move it back into it's corner today for me. (He actually came in and helped!!-so excited, so nice!!!) - I know he'll never read this, but just in case he does, Thank you!!!  (He moved all my furniture for me so I could paint)

This is what I guess you'd consider the middle

Before.....

after 1 coat

After 2 coats

(I'm having a hard time formatting with the new layout options)
But, I have wanted to paint my chalkboards since I first started working - same issue, different classrooms. This year, I actually did some research and found what I wanted.  I was able to get tintable paint so that it wasn't just black or green and painted! They only came in tiny containers though and I ran out on about 3 square feet left (used the drips in the container to attempt to fix it)- but I'm going to have to go back and get another can just to do a once over really smooth over the whole thing.  I think it turned out well, and fits my personality a LOT better. ---normally I cover the boards up with paper, but I just didn't want to have to keep doing that (it's ugly, it fades, and it gets dirty)

I'll take pictures again when it's all put together and clean before the kids come in and destroy it. ;)



On a completely different note, guess who had another tooth break through?!

You guessed it!

She now has all but 1 molar (top right is missing), 4 front teeth, and 2 bottom teeth. Aren't the other 2 bottom teeth supposed to come in soon?  She likes to bite. hahahaha  She also likes to pull her books out of the bookcase and see if she can beat her time from the time previous.  She also learned the sign for pacifier in about 2 seconds.  Seriously, I showed her 2 different times and she got it down.  So now she'll sign for her blanket and pacifier and I almost feel obligated to get them because she does such a great job requesting them.  I also have a hard time not letting her have the paci if she keeps popping out teeth like nobodies business (for those that don't keep track as crazily as I do, she has had 7 teeth come through in 1 month and 2 days). Ouch!  So needless to say, we're going to need to start working on a pacifier withdraw method once these teeth settle in. ;)

P.S. if you go to YouTube and watch the Skidamarink video, Ellie can sit and wiggle like they do at the pauses- she loves it, I love it, and we giggle!

Ugh

I ate something on Tuesday that made me so painfully ill I almost couldn't get out of bed all day Wednesday.  I was up all night and let's just say it wasn't pretty.  Thankfully, around the early afternoon today, it started waning and I actually ate dinner tonight.  Let's hope those awesome 3lbs I lost will say off! hahaha So now that I'm feeling better, I was able to pull some pictures off the camera from a few days ago.  I am also trying to get a movie of E singing the chorus to the Guinea Pig Way on YouTube, but it's as if she gets camera shy and won't perform adequately when the camera is on...so sad, cause it really is pretty cute.

Ellie has learned how to say Hello and seems to have a decent conversation with her imaginary friends with such detail as to laugh at certain points, pause during others and push the buttons when she's done.  It scares me how observant she is sometimes.

I got a smile- it's over exposed with my lame camera, but it's a smile nonetheless.  I wish you could see all her upper teeth but she wouldn't let me get a good picture of them!

In Tuesday's box, we got German butterball potatoes, blackberries, pattipan squash, cherry tomatoes, beans, a watermelon, beefsteak tomatoes, lettuce (there would have been more lettuce and tomatoes but I used those for a salad)...and you say, hey, that's a measly amount of blackberries...you wanna know where they went??? well....

Yup..right there! hahaha She loves her blackberries! (anyone know if blackberries freeze well, or if I'm better off doing something else with them if I go pick them and use them for winter time???)-anyone??

So on a completely different topic, I start work in a week.  I'm pretty sad about having to get up at a reasonable time in the morning (6am instead of 7am, boohoo LOL)- and I'm sad I'm going to have to do my hair and makeup every day.  And I'm mostly sad about having to leave my little critter to go hang out with other little critters.  I have realized what a complete social butterfly my child is, and how she absolutely adores being around other kids, so I know she's going to be ok.  The anxiety of me leaving her with someone other than me tears me up and throws me into a mini panic attack every few days.  So here's hoping the transition to new and better things goes well.

P.S. anyone want to help me come paint chalkboards (as in you do the work(I'll buy everything),  and I'll organize and talk to you ;) ? I'll buy you lunch :)

Life

I need to start labeling my posts so I can reference back to them more adequately. We had the missionaries over for dinner tonight. Not something I'd normally bring up, but it was one of the Elder's birthday, so I had to make a cake. I didn't HAVE to make a cake, I wanted to. So he said he wanted chocolate cake, frosting didn't matter. I got the cream cheese frosting cause that looked good to me at the store, and it was good. The problem with canned frosting is that it's just too runny. That junk was just sliding off the cake. How could anyone decorate with that and think it was an acceptable cake I wondered. Never again. If I need to decorate my cake, please remind me to just make my own frosting. The can stuff is just a joke. And plus, it has all those nasty ingredients to preserve it that just aren't necessary. Anyway, the cake was a joke. It was probably the worst I've ever made. I'm running out of colors, so all I had that was acceptable was green and yellow- so I made duck colors. I don't particularly care for the Ducks, but the cake said I needed to use the colors. (I'm a Ute fan...and I can be proud of that since they're going to whoop everyone's A in the Pac-10!)

I also made Fettuccine Alfredo. I made my own sauce. I've never made fettuccine sauce before, and I have to say that I did an excellent job. It was delicious. I just wish I didn't know what went in to it. I will definitely need to find a lower fat version if I ever make it again. All I know is that that canned store stuff will NEVER be bought again. Thank you food network!

I sent home all the leftovers with the Elder's. I hope they like it for leftovers, and I can keep my tummy happy by not eating more fattening food. :)

Now for pictures and stories behind the pictures :)


Our produce haul for the week:
lettuce
celery
strawberries
blackberries
squash (zucchini and patti pan)
sweet onions
lots of potatoes
cherry tomatoes
slicing tomatoes
And my new favorite: Jimmy Nardelo Sweet Italian Peppers

Can I just say how fond of these sweet peppers I am? Well, I am. It was suggested that we fry them up and use them in various things like sandwiches, salads, whatever! So we made cheese quesadillas and fried up some of these guys with some onion til they caramelized and then put the mixture on our cheese and tortillas, melted them together and ate them. Holy smokes were they delicious! I then put some in our dinner salad tonight which were also excellent even though they weren't cooked. I highly recommend them!



OK, so this one, no one put me on STFUparents please. :) I was making the cake for the Elder and put my frosting spatula into the dishwasher. I then started rinsing out the icing bags since I can't put them in the dishwasher. So the next thing I see is E is by me checking out the stuff in the dishwasher (pretty normal)- the next time I look down, she's gone, and so is the spatula. I then see her in the front room and her face is covered in green. Instead of cleaning her up right away, I giggled, got out the camera, took some pictures and a movie, and THEN cleaned her up. She was one happy girl....which is good since the next picture was BEFORE the frosting incident...

Nana Clark has bought her an adorable hat and I said we would use it! So I tried it on and I immediately had a bawling, screaming baby. I unhooked the velcro and she literally THREW it on the ground. I am a mean, mean mommy


This one was fun- we were eating the cherry tomatoes from our produce box (Ellie included) and she thought it was spectacular that Drew could pop the tomato in and out of his mouth like a disappearing trick! We got some good giggles for it! I'm still working on a picture of her top teeth. She has a giant gap between the two and I think it's pretty cute!

As for life outside of precious princess, we've started the process of refinancing our house to get a lower interest rate to allow us to be able to better handle a second mortgage and rent out this place so that we can eventually move. Our current financial situation makes it possible for us to save a decent amount for a down payment on another house in the next 12-18 months. So for the grandma's and nana's out there wondering when another adorable baby is on the way, your answer is going to be, "Not until we have a house!" (another one ;) ) --and the reason we aren't just selling this one is that the condo association is having a hard time getting FHA approval and that seems to be the ONLY way anyone is able to buy anything lately without 20% down. So we figured we could rent it out for almost what we pay in mortgage (especially if we are able to refi)

So life is very busy, but good. :)

I even thought about work for a little bit today- which I haven't done all summer (well, other than converting my cassette tapes to mp3)

Oh Canada!

We went up to Canada for my cousin's wedding this weekend. It was a lot of fun, but it was exhausting, and driving that much is something I'm glad we don't do often. I found out border patrol rarely, if ever have their stamps on them, so we didn't get a Canadian stamp for going over the border. bummer. It was nice to see family and realize that I look a lot like some people in my family! Here's a few pictures of before, during and after the wedding:


We're prepping E for Halloween-cause you can't have Halloween on just ONE day!


Stopping quickly at IKEA to try out the toys. If I didn't have more will power, this would have come home, she really liked it.


She looks so tall (I mean, she is, but she just looks like a big kid to me in the pic)


Loving the icey water (come to find out, she was teething and a molar came through on Monday!)


Loving Hunterpup


I think she was giggling at one of the dogs who was playing with their chew toys


The happy newlyweds


Getting all smiley at the reception!


What? I can't hear you! My phone isn't working right!

p.s. using someone else's camera has made me realize how much more I miss mine, and how excited I am to be getting an awesome one in a few months!!!

Clarification

I got a couple of comments and emails about the last post I posted. I'm not going to stop blogging,...definitely not- I like doing it! I just don't know if what I post is considered too much or not? Cause if people think it is, I'm happy to go private, I'd just add people to my list is all. :)

Earlier this week we went blueberry picking. It was part of a Salem food share program where you pick the fruit and donate half of what you pick to the local food bank, and take the rest home for free! Awesome, great community service and a little payback. Sweet Drew donated more than half of ours, but we still got a fair amount. I think next time if we do it, I need to go out picking for us and then do a community service project so I don't feel so jipped at the end (after Drew gave them like 3/4 of what we picked. LOL)

What was nice though is that they are local, and organic, so I don't have to worry about pesticides :)


See these guys? Yeah. Pretty pathetic. Last year, with a giant belly, I was determined to have a garden, and ended up growing one in pots on our deck because the Dr. was so worried about high blood pressure that he didn't want me shoveling and digging, etc. I planted a cucumber plant last year and got ONE pathetic looking cucumber. This year, I made my itty bitty garden..remember that? and I got not one, but TWO pathetic looking cucumbers. What in the world am I doing wrong?! My patti pan squash and zucchini aren't growing either. I need to read up on this mush.


This looks a lot better! In our box this week we got:
1 head of lettuce
1 bunch of basil (pesto, my new best friend!)
ton of sweet tomatoes---same as the week before or 2 weeks before? I can't remember their name
1 box of cherry tomatoes (real varieties names escape me, but there's 4 different types in there)
1 pepper
2 pounds of beans
2 boxes of strawberries
1 head of garlic

Drew and I downed the strawberries last night. They were so good. I feel bad that I didn't even save any for Elisabeth!


Speaking of Elisabeth, I've totally thrown her nap schedule off from blueberry picking day and she was awake at 4am...which means I was awake at 4am. I'm pooped, she's grumpy. She FINALLY went down for a nap just a little bit ago, but it took a lot of coaxing. ...I feel she's going to be like one of those kids at the preschool I used to teach in that would fight nap time until they were just so exhausted they'd collapse...and then it'd be time to wake up in 10 minutes... Anyway, I thought this picture was cute- it makes it look like she's sleeping, but she's not. She's developing a master scheme to get out from under those sheets.

I went into work to drop some stuff off this morning. A few people were back working on their classrooms. I wish I cared enough to paint. I just don't want to paint and then have to move rooms. This is the first year I haven't had to move and it feels really weird to not be stressing my eyeballs out right now. I also realized how grateful I am to be working with a ton of people I genuinely really like. What a great feeling!

Weekend News and Ponderings

testing out the blackberry spritzer (I personally liked the strawberry one better) - they just used pureed blackberries or strawberries with seltzer water - it was good! (Speaking of blackberries, I may not enjoy blackberries, but that little girl downed an entire pint of them for dinner a few nights ago!)

This weekend, we found a really great recipe that used up some our potatoes without making mashed, baked, or roasted potatoes- it's called Summer vegetable succotash- I felt like Sylvester cat while we ate it! Anyway, I found the link here and it was really easy and tasty! I ended up cooking the onions cause I just don't like raw onions as much as cooked. Very flavorful- Elisabeth even ate it! (we also used butter beans instead of edemame because it's what we had and I'm allergic to soy)



I can't get a picture of E while she sits anymore. Nevermind, I take that back. She doesn't sit anymore. She's constantly on the move, so, so are here pictures. Her last tooth finally broke through last night/this morning- what a relief! She's been teething on all 4 top teeth for a few months, but the first of the series made it's debut 2 weeks ago, and finally this one- so 2 a week. whew! I don't blame her for being a grump!


She wouldn't leave the buckles alone- I fear she's going to be a picky dresser when she realizes she can put on and take off what she wants


can you see?? her left side middle tooth is the biggest, the others you can barely see, but can feel them really well! ;)

Yesterday after church, we headed down to Corvallis for the annual CSA potluck- it was awesome! I really wish E had gotten in a nap at some point before we had gotten there because we were only able to do half of the tour before she gave up and wouldn't cooperate anymore. What we did see was amazing though. They grow over 100 different items on their 20 acre farm. We found out that they used to use 30 acres but lost their lease, so he was telling us how they improvised with using the walkways as growing beds while things like the strawberries were too little to notice. Incredible! They just bought another 20 acres adjacent to what they have now, but since chemicals are still in the ground, they can't grow anything for a couple more years and call it organic, so they think they'll just grow grass on it til then. It was really fun to be able to walk right up to the plants and just take a nibble of what was there. The strawberry tunnels (I know there's a real name, but I don't remember), anyway, they smelled SO good!!! I was amazed at how tall the tomato plants get- more like vines that were 8+ feet tall in some places! Same with the raspberries and blackberries. We also learned that the green peppers you get at the grocery store aren't ripe- they turn yellow, red and orange when they're ripe...who knew?! And this was just 1/2 of the tour- I'm sad to know I missed half of it...maybe next year!


(tons of lettuce, over to the left where it looks like regular soil they just finished up growing garlic and are now growing carrots- tons of tomatoes and peppers and strawberries behind)


(pepper hall)


(basil paradise! - it smelled SO good! - we learned that if you cut the basil before it flowers that it'll just keep growing and growing, and growing- but once it flowers, it gives up. I also had no idea I loved pesto so much! We are stocking up for winter!)

As Drew and I were driving home, I told him I was almost embarrassed at how much we have been pulled away from what we eat...that we had no idea that peppers start green and change colors just made me feel so out of it. I'm grateful for this opportunity we've had to expand our knowledge and work on becoming more self sufficient...even if it is minutely..

So that leaves my last pondering. How much is TOO much to share online? Several of my friends have been turning to private blogging, or just dropping it all together. I like blogging, I like writing down the happenings of my life. I also like seeing all the weird and random countries that visit my site. BUT, I also know there are some people that share TOO much with too many people and that's kind of creepy. I'm not afraid of anyone stealing my kids or burglarizing our house. What would they take? My books? I am also not one of those people trying to prove myself to the world through my blog. I blog because I love to share my stories that others might find humorous or can relate to. I share because it's a way to keep family in the loop with what's going on with their Oregonian family. So I can't decide if I should privatize my blog or not. I have no idea who reads it apart from my mom and sister, which is fine. I just don't want to put too much out there where some people decide that it's just too much....


Oh hai mom!