So let me bring you up to speed.

Alright I am aware that the past several months I have gotten behind on all my blogs. I am a bad blogger. My life the past couple months has been crazy to say the least. I know a lot of you follow me on Facebook so you are aware of the drama, but for those of you that don't, I will give you a play by play of the past several months and get you up to speed.

September....

I realize I have blogged since then, but I know I left out a lot of things that we did.

Such as...fruit harvest. This fall we harvested a ton of apples that were juiced and made into applesauce. Sunshine loved climbing up the tree to pick the apples out of Grandma's tree.

We also ended up with lots of plums that ended up as plum sauce, jam , dried plums and fruit leather (which I documented here) . Then I had a friend of mine get hold of 3 boxes of concord grapes that were made into juice and now reside in my freezer. Also we got a hold of a box of figs from a friend's tree and made several things.
Also with fall comes all sorts of activities starting up. Bug has been busy with twice a week swimming lessons and Sunshine started ballet. They both love doing these and have really been thriving.
Then in October we had Halloween. I had every intention to post pictures of the kids carving pumpkins and in their costumes, but time just got away from me. So better late than never.They were not nearly as enthusiastic about pumpkin guts as we were.Then came the costumes. Bug was Batman, Peanut was the boy wonder sidekick Robin and Sunshine was a cat. NOT CAT WOMAN!!! She yelled at more than one person on Halloween for making that mistake. We went over to my in laws house to go trick or treating but not before stopping off at my aunt Donna's house. Also my mom was able to go with us this year so that was cool.


Then believe it or not, the majority of the month of November was mostly quiet. Hard to imagine I know. But the weekend before Thanksgiving is when my side of the family does Thanksgiving. So we all met the Saturday before and had a nice Thanksgiving with family and also celebrated my Grandma's 90th birthday.
As soon as we got done with our Thanksgiving dinner we came home to find that Bug was not feeling so chipper. He started running a fever and had an upset stomach that soon came to be known in our family as "flupocalypse '09" in our house. After 5 days of fever I took him in to be seen and he was diagnosed with the H1N1 virus or the swine flu. He sort of got better, but then Sunshine got it. She had it worse with more unpleasant symptoms. She soon got over it after about a week, then Peanut got it. his was the worse of all. Just when it seemed that Peanut was getting over it, Bug got it again.....then Sunshine got it again.....then Peanut got it again. It cycled through our house relentlessly keeping us quarantined for a full month. It was horrible. We were advised to stay home at all costs and if we did leave we had to wear these dumb masks by request from the health department. We were like social lepers. So we just stayed home. For a long , long month.
But once it passed, we were able to get back out in the real world.

In December we had ballet recitals.....

My perfect ballerina was the one closest to the teacher that actually followed her. She is the oldest in the class and you can really tell by her attention span and the fact that she is so much taller than everyone else. Did did great though.Then we were desperately trying to get into the Christmas spirit. We put a tree up for the kids and decorated the house.
And I did my usual holiday bake-a-thon. This year Sunshine helped as much as she could.
Then we rounded out the holiday season with the magnificent zoo lights. For those of you that are not in the Portland area and have no idea what the zoo lights are, it is the Oregon Zoo, but much like the Disneyland's electrical light parade but not moving. It is hard to explain so Rockstar made a cool video to give you a glimpse. You do see some of the animals at the zoo, but it is mostly about the thousands of twinkling lights.


I am still trying to compile our pictures from Christmas eve and our day after Christmas camping trip. But this about brings you up to speed from the past couple months.

So there you go.

And knowing is half the battle

So things have been sort of nuts around here with the Holidays and general craziness. Of course by holiday I mean the New Moon release in theaters. I will have more on that in another post.

But today I want to talk about something I don't normally talk about nearly enough.

Jews.

Now I have no beef to our kosher brethren, in fact I love the culture. I have talked about that on here even. I make latkes on Hanukkah, I watch fiddler on the roof at least once a year and I love Barbara Streisand. Does this qualify me for anything great? I doubt it. But , I just thought I would lay a little bit of ground work here.

I was driving the other day and passed this sign a couple times that day. It struck me as odd and got me thinking.
I am not sure what is going on there. I mean generally speaking isn't Mexico a predominately Catholic country? I mean it is the national religion. (yes I looked it up)

Are there a lot of Jews in Mexico?

So much so that they need a place to worship? And advertise?

I mean I have heard of Messianic Jews (Jews that were born and raised Jewish but converted to Christianity) but this was something I hadn't yet seen.

And so I dub this the Mexianic Jew.

Hey what do I care? Last I checked we have freedom of religion. Worship Elvis for all I care (and yes we do have a church of Elvis in this fine city of roses in which I live).

I just felt I needed to share with the class.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Oh don't act like you've never done this!!!

So last week I got a new purse because the one that I had been using was just too big and I suspected I was toting around far more stuff than I really needed.

So I emptied it out. Normally this isn't really cause for a write up and pictures. (I have a boring life, but not THAT boring) But this I thought spoke volumes of the silly happenings in my life.

This is what I found.....

• 11 tubes of lipstick (because you just never know)
• 4 cosmetic bags with misc. things like lotion and perfume samples
• 3 books (when 1 is never enough)
• 2 contact cases
• 1 package of Kleenex
• 1 checkbook
• 1 wallet
• 2 emery boards
• 4 packs of Tylenol
• 1 Tupperware container of medicated lotion
• 6 pens
• 4 packets of Hydroxycut
• 1 mini video camera (you never know when someone goes all Rodney King and you need a video camera)
• 1 package of Tums
• 2 pair of plastic potty training pants
• 1 mini Edward doll

I know that everyone has done this but the combination of all this stuff made me laugh.
Seriously I have the most bizarre life :)

Good Night Summer

Good night Summer.


Good night pool


















Good night turtle that floated in the pool


















Good night hanging basket


















Good night roses


















Good night line for hang-drying clotheses (deal with it)


















Good night to the lady washing the chairs


















And good night Gazebo



















Good night summer, we'll be seeing you.

Stop the madness!!

I know I have dropped the ball with this blog. Let me give you a quick rundown of what we have been up to.....

School started for both Sunshine and Bug. With it I started working for a friend of mine at a daycare doing transportation for her kids to and from school. My work schedule has pockets of spare time, but I have to drop off my own kids in the morning and then go and grab 5 other kids to take to school. Then I have 2 different kindergartners at noon to pick up and drop off. Then I have kids I pick up when normal school time gets out and drop off. It is a relatively easy job, just a lot of time in the car.

Then there is my new business. My friend Erin and I have started a new business. It is cooking and freezing home cooked meals for families that don't have time or know how to cook. You can read all about it (or order) here.

But it doesn't stop there. Oh no.

My mom has been having some trouble with the place she was living and so we decided it would be a good idea for her to move in with us for a while. So we have spent the past week or so moving her stuff over here and also a storage unit. We are all learning to make it work. It is not as bad as it might seem. My mom and I actually have a great relationship and so it is nice having a second mom on site to be the eyes and ears when I can't be everywhere at all times. Right now it is just finding a new normal routine to slip into.

Then last but not least, the kids started up with their extra curricular activities. Bug starts swimming next week (pictures to come) and Sunshine started ballet a couple days ago. She was so excited and so cute with all the other little girls doing their leaps and things. She really loves it. Plus I got a super cute picture I feel I must share with the class.
So in short I haven't had a night to sit and give my blog some love. But tonight is apparently the night that I catch up.

So there you have it.

Well as long as they can hang on to their dignity

So I was at the fabric store not too long ago and looking through the pattern books for some inspiration. Oh how I found something better.

I found this....

It is a bib designed specifically for the elderly.

Because nothing says "I still have my dignity " than a Mrs. Claus bib with a matching hat. Seriously what person would dress up Grandma in this drek? And further, what right thinking elderly person would agree to wear such a homemade train wreck?

Sometimes I wonder what is seriously wrong with people.

Sunshine's first day of Kindergarten

The big day finally came after much anticipation (mostly by her) for the first day of "big kid" school. Sunshine had her first day of Kindergarten. She is now going to the same school that Bug and all his friends go to. She was so excited to go because she wants so badly to be a big kid. I think I have had a harder time with it than she has. She just seems so little, but all kids must grow up eventually I guess.



Standing out in front of her class waiting for the bell to ring so that we could go in.

She didn't like having to wait even a couple more minutes

.

Getting settled in her classroom. She marched right in there like she owned the place. This one is fearless. She was practically shoo-ing me out of the room.


Ahh sigh. Two down only one left in the nest. During the day anyway.

Nice day for the beach

So after the week we had, what with school starting and me (sort of) going back to work, our week has just been brutal.

Wouldn't you know I would take it upon myself to get some yard work done along with draining the pool this week. I mean hey, school is back , that means it's fall right? Wrong! I chose poorly. Had I looked at the upcoming weather forecast I would have noted that 90 degree weather was coming this weekend. But I didn't. So with this crazy freak heat on the way and no way to cool our self off, I made the split second decision this morning to head for the beach where it is always cooler than it is here. The Oregon coast is notorious for being cooler than any scorching temperature we have here.

Today was no exception. It was perfect weather. Not too cool but warm enough to play in the normally icy waters.

It was a great day.

Now we are off to start another week, refreshed.....Mostly.

Peanut turns 3 !

I know I am late getting this one up. This is the plight of the third child sad to say. But his birthday was last Monday and we had all the back to school chaos this week. It's not that I love him less or didn't want to put his slide show together, I was just crazy busy.

We had a nice cake and opened presents earlier this week.

I think this one was one of my hardest to do because he still seems like a fragile little baby, but I guess they all grow up sometime. So he turned 3 and is hardly even fragile anymore :) He still likes to cuddle though, so we are still good.

Attention over 30 cougars!!

Only 69 days , 4 hours, 35 minutes and 47 seconds until I am fighting my way through a crowd of over sugared tweens and their pasty, overweight , under loved, cougar mothers. I fall somewhere in the middle but don't tell anyone.
But whose counting and judging?
Team Jacob 4 EVR!!LOLOLOL
Ok I am done.

Bug's first day of 3rd grade

So today was the first day of school for the majority of the Portland metro area. It has been anxiously awaited by the kids but counted down my yours truly. I love my kids, don't get me wrong, but man, it has been a long summer :) I am ready to have my house back during the day and a small break from the bickering even for a couple hours. My hat goes off to my homeschooling sisters in arms. I love the idea of homeschooling, but just don't have the temperament and patience. I was ready for routine to get back into swing.

So last night I set everything out to have it all ready for the morning so that everything would go off without a hitch and we would get out the door on time. I set out everyone's clothes and got toothbrushes ready. Packed backpacks , wrote names on everything in sharpie, even packed lunches.

We got up this morning, got dressed , ate breakfast got ready to head out the door just in time only to find........one of the cats had peed on his backpack. The one that was packed with all of his supplies. Yeah that's the one.

So I had to wash everything down, transfer his stuff over to his old backpack from last year. (which is all torn and falling apart) Then we ran out the door in a mad rush to get there just in time.

It was a bit of a disaster to say the least. There is nothing like rushing through , showing up all sweaty and panicked and with a ratty old backpack when everybody else has nice new ones. I felt bad and I wanted to inform everyone of our mishap with our geriatric cat that sometimes has accidents, just so Bug wouldn't look bad. But I figured I would just have to let this one go.

We made it in time to get him settled in his class and say "hello" to his teacher and then he asked me to leave. I snapped a couple pictures and he then thanked me for "not embarrassing him". Funny he was more concerned about me being a " smother mother" than about his ratty old backpack he was sporting.

That kid cracks me up.

Also he has the same teacher that he had last year as they are doing a 2nd/3rd grade mega class because of budget cuts. Not exactly happy about this, but what can you do short of selling plasma to put them in private schools. We'll see how it goes.

Riddle me this....

We have a 20,000 gallon pool to play in. Why is it they choose to play in a Rubbermaid container filled with water instead?

Priceless.

Summer extravaganza

So I know I have been sort of neglectful over here. In all honesty there has not been a whole lot of note worthy stuff going on here.

I have been doing a lot of canning as I do every summer. In case you have forgotten last summer...let me remind you. 2008 summer canning extravaganza

This summer has been no exception. Thus far I have done ......

• strawberry jam
• raspberry jam
• raspberry syrup
• blueberry syrup
• blueberry pie filling
• apricots
• beets
• pickles
• salsa
• peach/pineapple salsa
• pickled peppers
• bing cherry pie filling
• stewed tomatoes

My kitchen has been a nonstop conveyor belt of garden goodness. But I have not been documenting all this action on this blog. Instead I have been working a lot over at my other blog Gen x home ec. I have been working at putting up recipes and "How to's" for a lot of my basic stuff.

Come check it out and try some of my recipes out. Lord knows they are family tested.