Through the eyes of a child...

Emily lately loves taking pictures with the camera. I tried letting her use the old digital camera but without the memory card, she can only take about 10 pictures. So I've let her use our digital camera. When I was downloading pictures this morning (after finally getting new batteries for the camera!) these are some of the pictures that I found. I love looking through the camera and finding the pictures that she's taken. Well, except for when I find a random shot of my butt.

I love the imagination and creativity of my kids!

Nesting a bit early...

I've never understood the term nesting. I nest throughout my pregnancy as well as when I'm not pregnant. I'm constantly tinkering, fixing, primping, touching up this or that. However, we have had an ongoing debate in our household about the bathroom. See, we've always planned on tearing down this house and building a bigger one. Right now we only have two bedrooms and the house in general in small and old. So, it's always hard to spend money on this house when we don't plan on keeping it.

However...being a woman, I think it's in my nature to make things pretty. Most of all the bathroom, because I C A N N O T stand an old bathroom. It makes it feel dingy and dirty. A couple months ago, we redid the tub surround but in doing so, it left an exposed wall. Last Thursday morning, I'm not quite sure what got into me, but the bathroom got torn apart. The window finally got framed in and drywalled, the bare wall got framed in and drywalled. Old wallpaper was torn down, new was put up. All the trim was painted a beautiful bright white. I put up new contact paper in the closet to cover the contact paper from 1954 (did they make contact paper in 1954??).

In reality, the bathroom make-over cost me very little money. We had 2x4s in the shed which I used for framing the window and wall and well as a piece of sheetrock. I used 1x4s for the new baseboard trim and we already had the new faucet. I had bought two boxes of peel and stick floor tiles at a garage sale for $5 and the white paint was from another project. I painted the vanity a dark blue and that paint was also from another project. However, it was too bright for what I wanted but the hardware store added some black to darker it for free when I bought a new paint brush. I would have spent $5 on the entire bathroom make-over but yesterday I decided that I was not in the mood to sand the walls so they were all even from where I pulled off the old wallpaper so I made a trip to Menard's and bought new wallpaper for $40.

I still have the put down the new floor and put up 2 more pieces of trim but I am truly in love with my new bathroom which cost me $60 (Wallpaper $40, contact paper $10, paintbrush $5, floor tiles $5).

I learned so many things with this project. How to use a drill and a jigsaw as well as how to measure properly and cut sheetrock. But the thing I learned most is that you can make something beautiful for so little by just using your imagination.

Sweet Corn...

Last night at we had a sweet corn supper at church. One of my favorite things about rural country living is church suppers. You don't even have to belong to a particular church to come. Our church does 4-5 suppers a year and it is always free will offering. Last night's supper consisted of fresh sweet corn from a member's field, sloppy joes, potatoe salad, bread and butter pickles and lots and lots of rich goey yummy bars.

The guys had picked quite a bit a corn and at the end of the night there were still 2 coolers full and one got sent home with me. So....today I'm freezing sweet corn. I have to admit it was a pretty special treat since my kids ate 6 helpings of sweet corn a piece last night!

Canning does give corn a creamier texture but I do like the simplicity of freezing. After blancing the corn for 4-6 minutes, soak in ice water for another 4-6 minutes and then cut off the cob and store in freezer bags. I love using a bunt pan for cutting the corn off the cob because it helps contain the mess. I always bag vegetables in two sizes of bags. I use quart size freezer bags that are perfect for a dinner meal, but I also make two gallon size portions that I store in the freezer in the kitchen. It makes it very easy to grab a handful to heat up for the kid's lunch or to toss into soaps or casseroles!

Bubble Bottom Skirt

Em has been wanting to sew. She's asking for her own sewing machine already and I tell her maybe for Christmas. She did go through the patterns yesterday and the material box (es) and picked out Figgy's Bubble Bottom Skirt and some Amy Butler Love material. The results were beautiful and both of us love the skirt. Em especially loves how it swings.

It is a very simple pattern that went together quick. From cutting to sewing it took me under an hour. The directions are a little confusing (at least to me) but if you just follow basic instructions for attaching a skirt with a lining and a yoke, you'll fly right through. The only thing I'd do on the next one is make the elastic slightly longer (maybe just an inch) on the bottom and make the elastic around the waist slightly shorter.

Cleaning Carpets without chemicals...

In my effort to declutter and simplifying the house, my car is always one item that is forever in need of decluttering and simplifying. I will admit that my car typically looks like a pigsty. I would do before and after pictures but I am too embarressed to be reminded of what it looks like. Earlier this week something started stinking...bad. Yesterday morning I pulled the car up to the house and started decluttering. I picked out all of the trash - yes, even the trash under the seats - took all of the shoes, toys, jackets, blankets, sippy cups and bottles into the house. I found what was stinking. One of the kids had dropped their sippy cups and the milk rotten and expanded in the cup causing it to come out and go all over the carpet.

So I vacuumed and then got out the carpet scrubber. The carpet is my very best friend since I hate having carpet. Luckily, we only have it in 2 rooms but it is in the 2 most unfortunate rooms - the living room and the kids bedroom. As much as I love the carpet scrubber, I hate the chemicals that are used to clean the carpet so instead I use vinegar. While it may stink while it is wet, it leaves the carpets feeling soft and smelling fresh. And most importantly, I don't have to worry about the kids being in the house while I'm cleaning carpets or while it is drying.

Oh yeah...and mom now has new rules for her car!!

Exercise is hard work...

Before I found out I was pregnant, I had finally found the strength inside me that I needed to put in the dedication and time to losing weight. Before I had Em, I ran 5-6 times a week 4-5 miles each time. I could pretty much eat anything I wanted...and being a lover of food, I did. However, being told for years I would never have children, I never took the time to learn about pregnancy and what I could do and what I couldn't do. So when I got pregnant and people told me I couldn't run, I stopped running...my calories didn't change and 60 pounds later was at a place I did not want to be again. See, I was a chubby kid and teenager and struggled with weight my entire life and running gave me the self-confidence I needed to be happy with myself physically.

When I was pregnant with our second baby, I was already overweight and just continued the bad habits of no exercise and not eating entirely healthy.

With this baby, I had started walking before I knew I was pregnant and am resolved to keep it up throughout my pregnancy. I'm avoiding foods high in carbohydrates (potatoes, white rice, sweets) and have cut out almost all junk food with the occasional treat because really...what good is dieting if you don't treat yourself once in awhile!

Walking is one of the best forms of exercise a person can do and the benefits of exercise in pregnancy are wonderful for me, the baby, and my pregnancy as well as my recovery after the baby is born.

The other plus is that the kids love to go for walks. If it's a day that Shane isn't home to keep the kids while I walk, Em wants to walk with me and Connor likes to be in the stroller. Those walks are more leisurely but still good. When it's just me or just Connor and me, I walk at a healthy pace. Today apparently, Connor thought exercise was hard work...

There is not a lot of crafting going on in our household. We've been spending a lot of time outside playing in the play yard, taking walks through the field collecting leaves, rocks and flowers, and in the garden watching how our garden grows (and taking samplings of the fresh fruit and vegetables that it is beginning to provide us with).

The other thing I've been busy doing is decluttering and simplifying the house. We know at some point (hopefully beginning in the spring), we will be building a new house on our property, but until then, we need to make more room in our little 2 bedroom house for the new baby. So I've been spending a lot of time cleaning and organizing and lots and lots of trips to Goodwill.

Life Sure Moves Fast...

I often think about writing an update and then life starts moving forward again. It's amazing how fast everything happens. The garden has been plants and is already showing us love from the produce it is providing us with.
Emily finished her first year of school and in a month and a half will start up again.
I finally had some time to sew and stock the etsy shop with some Ready To Ship trainers. Now if I could just get other stuff besides trainers stocked!!  :)

Some fun pictures of the things the kids have been doing this summer...

The kids have loved all the rain lately...as Em puts it..."Time to play in the Goo!"

The other exciting...and shocking... news in our family is that baby number 3 will be joining us in January 2011.  Shocking since we weren't really planning on having more but sometimes God knows differently than we do. We do feel truly blessed.

Lisa