Loving Life

So I obviously didn't post pictures as soon as I had hoped about our sewing project day.  Sorry to those who were anxiously awaiting my update.  Our sewing day was only for the girls last week as one of my sewing friends was sick, so I couldn't do all three at once.  The girls each decided to make a kitty.  I let them pick out the fabric of their choosing and my dear neighbor Miriam came with her sewing expertise to help us.  Abby's role was a little less than Ana's due to being little and the pattern was a little harder for little fingers.  But here she is happily stuffing her kitty. Ana did more of the work by herself.  I helped guide the corners and curves as she sewed.  She did the rest. The almost finished product.  We still have to sew on eyes, nose, whiskers and mouth.  The girls are delighted in their kitties. David started his sewing project today.  He is making an organizer that hangs over the seatback of the car.  It's a bigger project and he is more in

I get antsy and discouraged with school around this time of year every year.  So this year, after talking over ideas with my supervising teacher, I decided we're going to take a week off of "normal" school and do a week of "life skills".  So far it's been pretty fun.  We started off learning about how to budget and pay bills and keep a check book.  I created two little scenarios for David and Ana (Abby is living with Ana while she goes to college).  They have a hypothetical monthly income with house payments and all that go with real life living.  I tried to keep it fairly close to real life.  It's been interesting watching their reactions from being excited about starting with so much money and seeing it being eaten away by regular living expenses.  We are 2/3 of the way through our bill paying and will finish it up today.  They will each end with around $200 left and we'll talk about what we could do with that extra money.  Here are the checks I m

We had such a busy weekend, but it was so full of awesome things!  I'm mostly recovered from all we have done.  Here's a quick rundown of the weekend: Saturday morning - take David to his band solo contest and be his accompanist while he plays his horn - he got a 1 rating. Saturday afternoon - make bread and cut up lots of fruits and vegetables for the evening church-wide celebration to end the week of prayer and fasting. Saturday - CLEAN THE HOUSE!!! Saturday evening - finish making supper (sandwiches, chips, fruit and veggies) for all the kids who will be dropped off at our house, welcome the babysitters, leave for our church worship time and have an AWESOME time together as a church.  I really deeply love the people of our church.  I couldn't ask for a better group of people to do life together. Saturday late evening - welcome the two missionaries from South Africa into our home - they will be staying in our house for the next two days.  That was the main reason fo

I think my last post was my confession on cheating by eating ice cream while on my 21 day challenge with my mom.  I would like to report to you that I am not a cheater anymore.  I made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies on Wednesday and didn't eat a single one - nor did I eat any dough.  It took some amazing self-control, but I did it!  There are some cookies waiting for me patiently in the freezer, though.  : )  Here are a few pictures from our lives for you to enjoy.  The girls made themselves some cardinal masks the other day.  I found them dressed in all red (and pink), sitting in a nest (the couch), and pretending to be "sticking up hair birds", which is the name they have given to cardinals.  I like Ana's "feather" sticking up on the top of her head. One morning before school, I gave each kid a mug of hot chocolate, a candle, a fork and some marshmallows to roast over their fire.  They thought it was the best thing ever.  It was fun entertain