We are not project people...

 But for some reason...my husband has suddenly decided that we are.  Or should be.  Whatever.  At any rate, this was purchased on a random Sunday afternoon and sat in my kitchen for two weeks:

 Our home remodeling guy was at our house to give us an estimate on turning our front room into an office, and commented that SwiftLock is awful and he has had nothing but trouble when he tries to install it.  Hmmm...

 At any rate, work began.  Complete with some eager helpers:

 We did some truly awesome hillbilly maneuvering to accommodate that fact that the wonderful AT&T Uverse guys apparently drilled a hole in our floor when they were installing it.  Honestly, most likely they asked me and I told them I didn't care as long as they got it in...but I really don't remember.  At any rate, it causes a problem now.

 At about this point, we saw that boards were starting to pop up.  And there were visibly places where this stuff was not together correctly.  So we tried to undo it so we could repair where it was messed up.  And found that when we tried to take them apart, we were damaging them so they couldn't be used.  Awesome.  In the meantime, we see more and more spots where they are coming undone.  We were fighting a losing battle.   So we through in the towel.  And now we aren't just getting an office, we are getting a living room floor installed also.  Unfortunately, he couldn't start right away, so now my living room looks this:

At least the kids found some good use for the empty boxes.  I feel like this is homeschool engineering or shop class, the early years :)  Or I felt that way until Caelin commented that it was in case bad guys broke into our house, they wouldn't be able to get through.  Then I felt like the mom whose kids have watched to many episodes of Hoarders... *actually I don't think she saw that episode, but there was an episode that talked about a lady who had been attacked hoarding as a security measure so she would know if someone got in the house.

Donuts!

Several months ago a friend told me about this place in a nearby town that has the best donuts ever.  These donuts were so good, that she would drive the 30 miles to this neighboring town...just to get donuts!  I told her she was insane!  We've got Krispy Kreme on the corner and Dunkin Donuts 10 minutes away!  And then she brought us some donuts one morning.  They are THE BEST DONUTS EVER!  That weekend, we had to drive up north and it so happens that one of the routes we take goes right by this donut shop.  So I convinced Simon to stop.  I walked in and the line was so long.  I knew Simon would be annoyed, but I just couldn't get this close and then not get any.  So I waited in line...and got a big old frown and sigh when I finally came back out to the van.  Until he tried one that is...he was hooked!  And he is way more hooked than I am!  We drive 30 miles just to get these donuts...way more often then I care to talk about...

The best donuts ever.  Period.

Sadly there is now construction between our house and the donut shop :(  It was already pretty crazy and unreasonable that we were driving that far from donuts, but now with detours around construction...I'm afraid we really may have to say goodbye to our donuts for awhile.  My husband does not agree.

Friends and Enemies

Don't worry, I'm not going all passive aggressive mean girl on you ;)

Cheyanne's friend from next door:

Most mornings, we take a walk around the block.  And her buddy is waiting when we get back.  There is a nice big space between our houses where they can run and wrestle.  It is great!

Cheyanne, Cheyanne, Cheyanne,...this is not your friend.

You may think you are playing by sticking your butt up in the air and barking in what you consider to be a playful manner.  She is still not your friend.

But we are making progress:

Okay, so in both these pictures Big Missy looks like she's barely restraining herself...but at least she IS restraining herself, and the dog is pretty close to her. Most days, Cheyanne gets chased around the yard and has the bloody nose to show for it.  Not that she is innocent.  She seeks the cat out so that she can bark at her and annoy her to the point that I would have ripped her nose off by now if I was the cat.

Buying meat off the back of a truck

The title says it all!   But just in case, here is a picture I took while waiting in line:

Several months ago, I saw a post on facebook from The Thrifty Couple (http://thethriftycouple.com/), talking about saving money by buying meat through zayconfoods.com .  Zaycon works with local farms to bring bulk amounts of fresh high quality meats to you.  I was skeptical, but the price was pretty good and hormone and additive free sounds pretty good.  In addition, while the bulk factor is a deterrent for some, it seemed perfect to me.  I'd been working on trying to stock up on foods we use frequently.  So I googled it, and found nothing but praise for Zaycon and their chicken.  I saw plenty of pictures and videos showing the chicken breasts.  So I went for it.  I picked up my 40 pounds of fresh chicken and divided it up into freezer bags.  It worked out great!  Fast forward to now-the cows are not ready for butchering, and Zaycon was offering fresh lean ground beef.  So I lined up again to buy a box of meat from the back of a truck.  It came in 4 ten pound tubes:

I even got to use my new food saver to repackage it all into two pound portions.  Yes...our family of just 5 uses two pounds of ground beef per meal typically.  I choose to not think about how much we'll use when the kids are older.  Yes, I know I should probably use more fillers and less meat.  At any rate, the food saver:

I was disappointed as I feel that its already not sucking enough air out of the bags, even though we've only had it for a couple months and it hasn't been used heavily at all.  But at last, it was finished:

And I feel a lot better about the state of my freezer! :)

Blink of an eye

So I just posted about how quickly your world can change.  I know this is true in general, but as a parent I feel that the possibility of something happening to your children...just makes it so much more profound.  Case in point...I have this online friend.  She's younger then me, only in her 20's.  And she is expecting her fourth child in a few months.  While I don't know her in real life, I admire her.  I've "known" her online since her first pregnancy.  And I thought the odds were stacked against her, with her and her husband being so young.  But they have done remarkably well, in my opinion.  They are kind of country folk, and I see pictures of them camping, and her husband taking the kids out on ATV's, they seem to be a strong family.  She posted last week that her 18 month old was very pale and acting off.  The doctor ordered some blood work, and the nurse had commented that she was sure the little one had low iron and would probably need an iron supplement.  She was asking if any of us had experience with low iron.  The very next day she posted from a hospital room asking for prayers.  Just like that, it went from thinking her daughter had low iron...to the doctor telling them that the blood work was "way off" and he was pretty sure her daughter had leukemia.  Blink of an eye...just like that.  Can you imagine?  They were planning to do a blood transfusion over night and a spinal tap in the morning to confirm leukemia.  I was sick to my stomach just imagining.  Many of us prayed for that sweet little one, and her mom and dad, that the doctor would be wrong and it wouldn't be leukemia, that if it was leukemia that she would survive it, for the whole family to have strength and feel God around them as they went through this awful trial.  And just like that, blink of an eye, it all changed.  Another doctor ordered more blood work and called them to let them know that it was NOT leukemia!  It was extremely low iron.  So no blood transfusion, no spinal tap, and no cancer.  Wow.  I assume they will probably find that there must be something going on to cause her to have such extremely low iron, but I'm sure that whatever is causing that won't be as life threatening as cancer.  God is good.

Sick kids :(

So we've had a busy summer so far!  We went on vacation in June, which was a lot of fun!  The kids had a blast and can't wait to go back.  We've celebrated 3 birthdays and our anniversary.  And the camps.  Oh, the camps.  In the spring, I started thinking that we really should start our oldest in music lessons.  But there was a lot of discussion about which instrument she should play.  Then I heard about a 'music sampler' camp, where she could try a different instrument each day.  Sounded perfect!  So we signed her up.  Then I got around to actually pricing what music lessons cost, and realized that we will not be starting music lessons any time soon. :)  But we were still signed up for the camp.  Our neighbor asked if we wanted to do a free bowling camp with them.  So we signed up for bowling camp.  And of course we had been signed up for CYT (Christian Youth Theater) camp since they opened registration.  I had even went out on a limb and signed up for the full day CYT camp.  But all these camps happened to be one after the other.  3 weeks in a row of camp.  We were doing fine, and the end was finally in sight!  And then it happened.  Thursday night of CYT camp, she was totally wiped out and had a fever.  I knew she was sick because she didn't even complain about having to miss camp Friday.  Or having to miss the performance finale on Friday night.  She even asked me to look at her neck to see if she had a cold. :/  Bless her little heart.  Apparently she has no idea that the reason I look at her neck is so I can see her pulse to check if she is in SVT.  A trip to the doctor on Monday morning brought more stress, as the doctor had no idea why she was sick (but ruled out strep or a UTI), but was concerned that she had a somewhat large amount of protein in her urine.  Which left me playing Dr. Google and stressing about kidney failure for a day.  But I took in a morning urine sample, which had only a very small amount of protein, so now the doctor is all like 'oh okay then.  She's fine.'  A relief for sure.  But another reminder of just how fragile we are.  I've already learned it, but had to think again about the fact that your life can change in the blink of an eye.  Just like that, you can find out that your perfectly healthy child, is not perfectly healthy.  Its enough to make you stop and get on your knees and thank God for your children.  For however long you have them, they are a blessing and a treasure.