Monday, March 1, 2010

Lost Teeth







Liam lost two teeth this weekend. They were his first. I wanted to get some photos of the missing teeth, but like most things it involved much drama.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

spring comes early to the low-lands







I know that this winter has been provided most of the country with some nasty weather. California has practically washed into the Pacific. The mid-west, east coast even the south have had freezing temps and snow. While El Nino is brutal for most of the country, we here in the Pacific Northwest get the good side. We get a short winter and long spring, which is why so many flowers are already in full bloom. I don't think we saw many of these flowers until mid to late March last year.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

this week in rabbit




I have been absent from this blog for a while. David is now on day shift. This is a great change for the family, but now that he is gone all day, all of the house, homeschool and parenting reponsiblities fall on me. (I am aware that this is the set-up most stay at home moms have, I am just not used to it). I am busy during the day, then after a day of being busy, I am often very tired in the evening.
Recent News from our house:
baby bunnies growing and just too cute.
the ducks laid their first eggs today. (just in time to bake my mom's birthday cake on Saturday)
The boys watched Galileo catch a mouse in the backyard today
I am baking all of our bread instead of buying. Good bread, but tired mommy.
Lots of knitting projects in process
I am hoping to join a quilt along. This week I just have to pick out and wash fabric. Pretty easy to start with.
We are learning a lot about Greek Mythology. This is a very boy friendly topic. We are also choosing a character from Greek Mythology to draw during art time. Today Christian drew a Gorgon.

Thursday, January 7, 2010


Here is my first week in review layout. I used a kit from The Digi Files Eleven availabe at The Daily Digi.

Galileo poses for a few photos


He likes the balls of Kool Aid dyed yarn. They were removed from him soon after the photo was taken.

We sent him to the bedroom today because he was playing a bit too rough with the bunnies. He always cries for about 2 minutes then takes a nap.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

introducing....


our baby bunnies at 7 days old. Five bunnies survived.




This is their mama, Sarah.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

two more things I love....

I have a couple of resources we have been using a lot lately that I just love. The first was recently discovered - Pandora Radio. I had seen people mentioning it on Facebook and decided to check it out before Christmas. It was perfect for the holidays. They have several Holiday stations so we can enjoy Christmas music during the season and then we don't have to store cd's or take up space on the iPod the rest of the year. I enjoyed the swinging holiday station the most. It had many of the Christmas songs my dad would play when I was growing up. I hated that music for many years, but now it so much fun to hear. Currently we like the Children's Rock station. Yesterday we heard Alvin and the Chipmunks perform the Time Warp. The kids love to listen and dance.
The other thing I love is Overdrive Media from the library. We go to the library website and find available audiobooks and videos. There is a link that takes us to a central site the the entire state uses and choose the titles we want. There is a seperate program to download, then we get free audiobooks for a week. The boys love this. They get up in the morning, turn the computer on and listen to stories until I am ready to start homeschooling. Christian is listening to a Magic Tree House story right now.

Monday, January 4, 2010

I love coupons

I have been following the blog Frugal Living NW since last spring. The blog posts promotions, sales, free events and shows how you can use store sales and coupons to get great deals. My friend Cheri is also a skilled coupon user and has shared some of the deals she gets.
I decided to give coupon clipping a shot. I have been following the store adds, cutting coupons and going shopping for a few weeks. I have been getting good deals, but nothing huge.
Today, I finally broke through the glass ceiling of coupon cutting. I found some double coupons for Albertsons that double for up to a dollar. I combined these with coupons and bought...
3 dannon yogurt = total .40 cents
3 for a dollar + a .60 3 coupon
3 Luna Bars = total 2.00 (the most expensive thing)
10 for 10 dollars and I had a buy two get one free coupon
Act Cavity Rinse 2.24
$1.00 coupon = $1.00 double coupon = .24 cents
2 Aquafresh Coupons on clearance for $1.59
$1.00 coupon =.59 cents
Crest Toothpaste on sale for $1.89
$1.00 coupon + $1.00 double coupon = free
Total money saved coupons + sales $13.97

creative movement class




Christmas break is over and today the boys in welcomed the New Year with dance classes. I had ballet this morning. Liam took creative dance in the early afternoon and Christian had a hip hop class in the late afternoon.
David starts day shift with Sunday/Monday off starting next week, so I will move my class to Tuesday nights and I will be able to take each child to his class alone.
I will get pictures of Christian's class later. I will be in my first dance performance in late March. My goal, other then dancing well and not getting humilated in front of an audience is to bring my camera to a couple rehersals and get some dance photos.
Stay tuned for more dance updates.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

1/2/2010


I heard on the radio today's date is a perfect paladrome. This was discovered by someone who thinks playing with numbers is "fun". I am not one of those people.
Today has not been a fun day. I need a carder to prepare my wool to spin. I decided to drive out to Newberg (two counties away) to buy one. I checked the website and they said they were open 9-4 on Saturday's. I dropped David and the boys at OMSI and drove out. The drive was fine. When I get there, the shop is closed. I assume that since it is a holiday weekend and a small business, they took the weekend off. Lesson learned: when traveling 2 counties away to go to a shop, make a quick call to shop to confirm they are opened no matter what the web site says. I drove back to OMSI and by this time it was packed. I was about to drive over to over flow parking when I saw three empty spots next to each other. I chose the middle spot for ease of parking. When I went in it was super crowded. We stayed a bit more then chose to leave. When we got to the parking lot two cars had parked on both sides of me. One car backed in. I drive a mini-van and it is not easy to get out of small spots. David and I both tried to get the van out without crashing in to other cars. David finally saw that a woman was sitting in a car behind us and one over. I went over and asked if she would mind pulling out so we could get our van out without crashing into other cars. She was gracious and pulled out. With David directing from outside, I got the van out.
When we got home, David tried to turn on the portable DVD player that we just spent 17.50 for a new ac cord on, and the screen is on the fritz. It would be so bad if this problem came up the same time as the ac cord broke and we did not spend extra money on it.
This all brings me to my photo of the day. A margarita. Don't worry the thing that is making it big enough to fill a big glass is ice. No need to call 9-1-1 about alcohol poisening. making this was even frustrating since we are not using our ice much and it was partially evoporated.
I now raise my glass and toast to a quiet evening and a better day tommorow.

Friday, January 1, 2010

little abraham and project 365


A fluffy new addition came to our home before Christmas, Little Abraham. He is to join our other new rabbit, Sarah to breed meat rabbits for us in the new year. Sarah was given to us by Christian's 4-H leader. She came to us pregnant and delivered 9 babies last night. They were all alive at birth and we will have to wait a week or two to see if they make it. This is her first litter and the mortality rate is high for first litters. She carried the babies to term and delivered them alive and those are both good signs for future pregnancies. Little Abraham should be old enough to mate about a week or two after Sarah would be done nursing her babies. If her babies live I hope to sell them to cover the cost of cages. After that we will sell a couple of babies from each litter to cover overhead costs and the rest will go to the butcher.
Sarah is a New Zealand, Abraham is a New Zealand California mix. They are both sweet, friendly bunnies.
I am in the process of arranging a couple dates for Phina so she too can have babies in the spring. I will use studs until we can find a male angora.
On a different note, I am going to try project 365, where you take a photo a day again this year. I did great last year unil summer then I lost steam. This is surpising since summer has such great photo opps and I got a new camera.