Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Moo

That is the first sound that struck me our first night in our new home! More on that later...

We are getting settled slowly (Jamie! Where are you with your quick unpacking skills when I need you!:). This place is a lot smaller than we anticipated - our apartment that is - and we have had to get rid of a lot of stuff. We are still sifting through boxes of kids toys and parental junk that we constantly ask, "Do we really need that?" or "Have they outgrown this yet?" I have a huge load of stuff for good will but haven't gotten a chance to get it there because we only have one car!

Bob is enjoying his new "career" as a full time student with 20 credits! His books alone cost $500 and his tools will more than triple that for this semester. With more to come next semester! Fortunately next year will be much less because most of the books he had to get this year - only like $200 next year and tools will be covered because he won't need anymore new ones next year. Who ever knew that being an airplane mechanic was so expensive!

So, I am at the library and should go find my kids. We won't have internet until the 10th so I will give you the whole scoop then - complete with pictures!

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

And We're Off!

Well, the computer is being packed today and I'm not sure when I will be back online. We will be in our new house on Friday but I'm not sure when we will have internet access again...who knows how long it will take to get it there in the middle of nowhere!

Until then, happy blogging my sweet blogging friends! :)

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Journey to a Cake


Our busy weekend is finally over and I am pooped! I'm ready for bed but before I go I wanted to tell about this wonderful dairy-free cake I made over the weekend. It took me 2 days to do - one to bake and one to put it together and decorate. (I also baked 2 batches of brownies from a box and a different chocolate layer cake from scratch for a cake walk at church on the same day I baked Luke's cake. Can you call me crazy please? I know I was feeling that way on Friday when I did it!) Sami even said that it didn't taste like it was dairy-free! Yes! This is the cake I have been looking for all these years! I got this awesome book for the library that I'm going to have to get from ebay called Amazing Dairy-Free Desserts by Penny Wantuck Eisenberg. Thank you Penny! I love this book and can't wait to try out the ice cream - it's one of the things that Luke has really missed since being on his dairy-free diet. There is even some great info at the beginning of the book about dairy-free products and where to find them. The "Chocolate Marshmallow Layer Cake" - I'm not sure if I can post the actual recipe because it is published so I won't - has tofu sour cream in it. It's the "secret ingredient" so to speak. Luke loved it - even better because he's the one it was for!

Amie, you have to find this book. Sammy would love you for it - not that he doesn't love you already! But you can score some pretty big cool mom points when you make him those chocolate chip cookies! Which are also great, by the way. There are some eggs in it but I'm sure you have found some pretty good egg substitutes that would work just fine!

So, without further ado, here is the birth of my pirate cake. Since I did it last minute I did have to improvise on a few things - like the drinking straw gun walls! - but I think it turned out pretty good in the end and one little - ahem, I mean big - boy thought so too, which is really all that mattered! :)

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Saturday, August 11, 2007

"Ahobe Der Me Pardies!"


Today Luke is 7!


Happy birthday to my strong willed child! There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not glad that he is ours! Though he's not a cuddly boy, that just makes the hugs and kisses that he does give (or take willingly!) all the more sweet. He is all boy, that's for sure. He loves dirt and bugs and tormenting his sister and not listening to his mother! Though I believe he is the reason for those 3 gray hairs I have, at least there aren't 7 - one for each of his years! His strong will will take him far in his life IF he learns to tame it and control it. He is a determined child and when he's not being cranky, he is a complete joy to be around. He's a big help and will do anything - when HE wants to! :) He thinks he's the strongest boy in the world because he can lift a mic stand and loves to quote Garfield, "It's 100% fat!" when refering to his rib cage and oh so flat belly! LOL


His favorite quote from Garfield is, "Love me, feed me, never leave me!" That, my dear son, I will pledge to you forever.


This title quote, along with the visit to the Wiggles World last week, inspired me to try this pirate ship cake for Luke's birthday today. The quote, "Ahobe der me pardies!" is Luke's 3 year old version of Captain Feather Sward's fameous quote, "Ahoy there me hardies!" He still likes pirates but he has graduated to "Pirates of the Carribean" lately and loves to tell me about "Davy Jones"!

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Inch by Inch

We are STILL waiting for news for our apartment! I called yesterday to see if it was ready to move in and she wasn't sure. The office is across the state so she couldn't just go over and check but the lady who is the caretaker of the complex that we will be at was out of town until Friday. She said she was trying to get a hold of a different guy who may have a key to get in and check but apparently she didn't talk to him or he didn't have a key because she never called me back yesterday. All we are waiting for is the date we can move in so that we can get a truck and go!

Bob is pretty excited to get accepted to school! He was afraid he was going to have to take placement exams because it's been so long since he graduated from high school but they accepted his AS*VAB scores from when he went into the Air Force almost as many years ago! Now we are waiting for financial aid. I did his FA*FSA as soon as our taxes were finished last spring but now we find out that he was randomly selected by the US Office of Education for verification. So we have to fill out the verification form and send in a copy of our 2006 taxes. If there are any differences between that and his FA*FSA than things will be adjusted accordingly. I know they aren't any different because I used our 2006 taxes to fill out the application! Oh, well, just one more hoop to jump through.

Bob starts school on the 20th.

Oh, and we had a GREAT time at Gre*at America over the weekend. Luke thought it was a pretty awesome birthday present and was elated that his friends from church were there too. He wanted to go on every roller coaster there but unfortunately Mom didn't want to ride all of them so he was grounded - except for the Wh*izzer which I don't even think I had to go on with him! Jozie didn't like the roller coaster too much (she cried all the way through!) but they had a wonderful time at Hu*rricane Har*bor, the water park. It was sprinkling while we were there but that didn't stop us! We went down the lazy river and they played around Skull Island for quite some time. We didn't get to go on as many rides as we wanted to and actually didn't get through the whole park because we did a lot of waiting. We were there with a group of 12 people and wasted a lot of time trying to decide what to do. That part was a little frustrating but the kids had fun and I don't think they really realized what they missed. I went for them and as long as they had fun that's all that mattered!

The day was pleasntly not sunny and hot (we didn't get sunburned!) but it was hot and cloudy and we ended up leaving early (about 8:30) because of rain. I think the most stressful time of the whole day was getting out of the parking lot! Everyone else had the same idea as we did at the same time and we ended up in a huge traffic jam.

The kids were asleep before we pulled over for gas and food on the way home so we just went through the drive-thru and were home by about 11pm. I'm glad we didn't stay until 10 because we would have been even more exhausted than we were by the time we got home!

Yes, Jamie, I do remember going "back in the day"! What great times! I didn't get the Ameri*can Eag*le this time though! I wanted to but nobody else would go on it with me and I didn't want to go alone. :(

I didn't get many pictures because I didn't want to carry my camera after Lunch. Luke also has this obsession about ruining every picture I take of him by running or turning away so there aren't many nice ones of him! Of course Jozie is just the opposite, I can't even get a candid shot of her, she sees the camera and she HAS to pose! Go figure! Oh, and Marcus, the boy in the picture with Jozie, is only a year older than her! I think she kinda likes him! LOL :)

Friday, August 03, 2007

This is Not Very Surprising...

But a fun little quiz to take! Now it's your turn! Let me see if YOU are addicted to blogging! :)

64%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Pittsburgh Singles from Mingle2

My Temporary New Look

I was just playing around with the different colors and such and found this sort of appealing. I really wanted the background to be the same color as the banner but for some reason that wasn't one of the options. I may play around with it some more later but for now it's basic black. Hope it isn't too hard on anyones eyes! I kinda like it better than all white. It cuts down on my eye strain! :)

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Sunshine, Swimming, and Surprises!

We have been busy doing a whole lot of nothing new around here and a couple of something news over the last couple of weeks so lets sum this up:

  • Jozie got her glasses. I was pretty excited about it but because I was hoping it would help with her reading. She only has to wear them for reading and other close up things like her knitting or coloring or that kind of thing. We haven't tried them for reading yet because it seems like we are constantly going lately and we just don't have time to sit down and read. She looks great in them. I don't have a picture to post yet but will post when I take one!
  • Jozie got her ears pierced. She was funny. Scared to death of the pain and we told her it was just like a little pinch. The lady was just marking where she was going to put them and you could just see the fear in her face. She didn't much like the first one and cried but she knew she had to follow through with the second one. I had to hold her on my lap but she got through. She was VERY brave. They look cute and I'm glad she got it done. My mom did it for her as her birthday present - a LATE birthday present! :) She already has this little pair of heart earrings that she picked out with my mom and she just can't wait to wear them. :) She is such a girly girl!
  • I've been knitting quite a bit more (thus my lack of posts...I just can't seem to keep up with more than one hobby at a time!). I've done quite a few dishcloths since my last post. This one was pretty easy but this one (you may have to scroll down a bit to see it, it's in pink and a variegated orange called the Nine Patch Dishcloth) I've had a harder time with. I got blocks 1 to 5 just fine but got stuck at the corners. Jaclyn is on vacation so I haven't called her yet to ask for help. I just put in a place holder and went on to do a second one of the first one I mentioned. Jozie has been knitting a scarf for her brother for his birthday but she has a hard time remembering to take the stitch off the end of the needle so she just keeps on adding stitches until she does remember enough times to get to the end of the row. Her's is just a basic 9 stitch row but once I asked her now many she had and she counted and said 19! I had a hard time not laughing! LOL I had to pull out a bunch of rows to fix it. She wasn't happy but if I had just decreased to fix it it would have been skinny at the end with a big fat lump in the middle then skinny again. Hopefully she will learn from her mistakes! LOL I want to try this out because I don't have any special napkins or placemats but it may get boring after a while and I'm afraid I won't finish enough to make a whole tableful of place settings! LOL
  • Today we spent some time with our home school friends at the pool. The kids had a blast swimming with all the other kids and it was great to be able to catch up with Jen and Janice. I wish it could have been longer but those times do have to end eventually.
  • So, last and most exciting - WE GOT OUR NEW HOME! It's three bedrooms with a bath and a half and we are currently waiting for it to get new carpet and vinyl flooring. The lady wasn't sure when that was going to be finished when she called me last week so I'm calling her tomorrow or Friday to see if she has a more firm date. Bob starts school on Aug. 22 I think so we are getting down to the wire. We're very excited and packing like crazy. We are going through some of our old boxes (stuff that never got unpacked from the last time we moved) and getting rid of stuff. It's amazing what you find yourself getting rid of that you didn't really even need but thought you couldn't live without 2 and a half years ago! :)
  • Oh, and the kids and I are taking a trip to Gurn*ee, IL on Sat. to go to Gre*at America. I haven't told them yet and don't plan on it until we get there. The Children's pastor at our church got tickets through his work for $26 each so hopefully it will be well worth the trip. Otherwise it would have been $55 each. Bob has to work so he's not coming. Kristin is coming with us and we are also going with the Children's pastor and his family plus my mom and John are bringing Sami home from the summer at her moms and we are meeting them there. At the moment it's a good thing that tickets are already paid for because Luke is lying on the floor throwing a fit and I really don't want to take him anywhere! (He's mad because I told him to shut his video game off for throwing a fit and banging the thing on the concrete floor!) So this is going to be part of Luke's birthday present. The children's pastor's son is bringing a friend with him and they are both pretty good friends with Luke so he will be excited. I just hope there will be plenty of rides that they can go on because they are still pretty short. I think I'm going to measure them and see what they can and can't go on so I will know when we get there and I can direct them around the ones that are too big for them.
  • And since I have been so busy with my knitting and packing I haven't had much time to take pictures or work on a new photo show....We'll see if I can get at least one for my next post! :)