Older Pictures

Here are some old pictures that I have not had time to post. These are mostly from Fake Christmas with a few other thrown in there.

I am still in Knoxville and having a great relaxing time. I have visited with lots of friends and have had time to hang out with old friends.


Mallory opening a gift with grandpa

Their aunt gave them a magnetic bracelet that can be a necklace or bracelet or anything else they want it to be.

Cousin Izzy and her two missing teeth


Nathan was not too happy during fake Christmas. He did not want to put his sweater on, then he did not want his picture taken and last he was extra whinny. I love taking pictures of my crying kids. Their faces are priceless.

Cousin Andrew looking so cute.

Mallory and cousin Caitlyn

Julianne loved seeing Lexee at Thanksgiving. She took care of her and loved that she gave her hugs and wanted to hold her hand.

Another unhappy Nathan face.

Julianne made her own tent and was very proud if it.

My sick kids

Well Nathan had a cold for about 3 weeks. It started at the beginning of the month of November and continued throughout the end. Last week he had minor asthma and we thought he might have an ear infection but he did not. Julianne had strep throat on Friday for like the 5th time this year. That bug loves her. She is a strep throat magnet. The other kids never seem to get it when she has it which is great so I don't worry too much but still she was so mad that she could not go to school on Friday. She really wanted to participate in the walking club at recess so she was actually really mad but she got over it. Mallory has escaped most of the illnesses around here so that is good.

I have been busy making my Christmas presents. My goal this year is to only buy gifts from locally owned stores, ETSY, or from resell stores. While on my way to work one morning I was listening to NPR and they were discussing Wal-Mart and how they are discounting everything and other smaller stores are not able to keep up with their prices and have had to close. This is such a shame and I am tired of hearing stories like this. So basically, especially in this economy, the little stores are having a hard time competing with Wal-Mart. So I am making a point to support these stores so that they do not have to close (I'm sure I will not make that much of an impact but it is the thought that counts). If Wal-Mart keeps taking over then years from now we will only have superstores lining our landscape. This is not helping the economy unless you want to work at Wal-Mart as a sales person.

I am getting ready for my trip to Knoxville I am spending a long weekend there and then going directly on to Coke headquarters for a visit. So it should be a great weekend. I am excited to see my friends and to spend some time with my friend who just had a new baby. I am a little nervous about traveling and all the unpredictable that occur with that but I am trying to be rational and not get myself worked up too much. I also am nervous about missing my kids and hubby. I have never been away from them for that long.

ETA (Edited to Add) New computer lingo I just learned.

Well I am in Knoxville right now and I am enjoying my visit with my friends. I arrived this morning, my flights were all on time and ran smoothly, I visited with good friends from Ohio and now I am at my friend Katie's who just had a new baby 3 weeks ago. I will write more later.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Missing my kids and hubby
-Having a smooth flight into Knoxville
-Visiting out of town friends

Thanksgiving wrap-up

Well, we had a great Thanksgiving week. I can't believe it has been so long since I have last written in this blog. Wow, 12 days. That's a long time. Oh well. I don't even know where to begin. I will start from the the most recent and work backwards. Our Thanksgiving was a fun filled day of going to my dad's and visiting with siblings and extended family. The kids had a blast and played with their cousins the entire time. The food was excellent and the dessert was even better. My brother made a fantastic chocolate cake and though not very Thanksgivingish it was great since I am not really a pumpkin or other pie women anyways. So I was thrilled. I had the opportunity to talk to my stepmother's mom about sewing and quilting. It was a great conversation and it was nice to have another quilter/sewer to talk to. She had great words of wisdom and I have adored her work since Julianne was born. She has made each of my kids a quilt and I have seen the many quilts she has made my stepmother. She loves to do it and she loves to make them for others.

On Friday we had Christmas (I call it "Fake Christmas") with my dad and our siblings. It was fun. The girls received a bunch of American Girl doll stuff and Nathan received a wooden car tracks. PlanCity is the brand name of car garages/trucks/roadway system that my stepmother bought him last year and again this year. They are plain simple wooden cars that he loves. The girls have even been playing with the construction cars more than Nathan has. The girls have been playing endlessly with their American Girl doll accessories. They spend lots of time playing with them so it has been nice seeing where their imagination takes them. The girls can play pretend play with just about anything. Like I said they have been playing with Nathan's construction cars and making them be "mommies, daddies, I will run over you, Lets drive this way, etc." Nathan tries to play with them but they are not too thrilled playing with him and it usually ends up in a fight because he did something to ruin their playing activities. So I kind of feel bad for him because slowly he is kind of being pushed out of their playing. So that means he is clinging to me. Which is fine but he also has a hard time playing by himself. So we will see how that goes. When Julianne is at school, Nathan and Mallory play pretty well together but when both girls are at home that changes. Additionally, at the family events he clinged to me since I think he did not really have a playmate. My sisters son is 6 months older than Nathan but they have not really clicked together like the two girl cousins have. That may be because they are still young so we will see how that progresses in the future. For fake Christmas I got a mini DVD camcorder. I think I requested just a camcorder that plugs into the computer and you burn onto a DVD but I got this one. So I don't know if that was my mistake or the givers. I am fine with this one. It works well I just need to figure out how to download the videos onto my computer. Anyways, it is great since we have had the same VHS camcorder since Julianne was born. So it will be nice to have this one. Hopefully it will plug into the computer so I can download some videos.

I can't really remember what happened the week before Thanksgiving. I know that Nathan had a cough and still does. I think he might have an ear infection but he claims that his ears do not hurt. His cough has gotten worse but he may have had what I had. Oh yeah, last week I had a nasty chest cold. I was about to go to the doctor because I thought it was worse than that. I have not had a chest cold for years. I felt like someone was sitting on my chest and my coughs hurt. I never had a fever or anything else. So I knew it was not the flu. So Nathan has had his cough for more than a week. I gave him a treatment today thinking that it would help his cough but it did not. I also learned last week that our lovely new crappy insurance does not cover middle ear aches, tonsillitis, etc for the first 6 months we are on the plan. Which stinks since that is what we are usually in for, so I am trying to save my trips to the doctor for when they really need medicine.

D's mom had the kids for a night last weekend (I guess two weekends ago) which was really nice. I cut fabric for my upcoming Christmas presents and relaxed around the house. D and I went out to dinner and drank too much and ended up playing cards with our neighbors. it was really fun and it was nice to have dinner with him.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing a deer on my morning run (it is deer season)
-Having a great Thanksgiving
-A relaxing weekend
-seeing Christmas lights around the neighborhood

School conferences

Last week Nathan had a very minor asthma episode. It started with his runny nose and dry cough and he barely had any labored breathing. So I only gave him one treatment and he was good to go. I knew that it was coming since they have been coming during the beginning of the month. I am glad that it was minor but I am not making any generalizations about it since it always backfires on me. So I am just stating the facts for my record.

We had school conferences last week and it was great to finally get to talk with their teachers and learn how they were doing. First let me explain their report cards, oh I am sorry "Progress Reports." These are not the traditional, Handwriting, Math, Science, etc with the grades ranging from "E" for excellent, "S" for satisfactory, etc that I remember. They entail 30 to 40 statements in different categories ranging from "Community, Compassion, and Civility, Work Habits, Language Arts-which include Reading, Communication and Writing, Mathematics and Integrated-Authentic Curriculum. On top of those main sections there are statements underneath those sections from "looks at books independently, identifies letters, shares ideas related to topics, forms letters appropriately, understands number concepts, participates in group inquiry process, etc." For those specific statements there is a sliding scale ranging from Beginning to Progressing to Achieving. For each grading period they get a corresponding number (first quarter is a "1", second quarter is a "2", etc). Anyway if you are confused don't worry. I have just now gotten used to the progress reports.

So anyways, Julianne is pretty consistent in her progress report with most of her first quarter skills in the achieving category. Her teacher said that she loves Julianne and if she had a class full of Julianne's her job would be easy. She listens, is considerate of all her classmates, she loves coming to school, she does all her work on time and independently, she is a help around the classroom, etc. She did score lower on "checks for quality work." Which is not surprising to us since she has a tendency to rush through tasks and not finish things completely. So we talked to her about that. Also her teacher is starting to worry about her reading levels. She is worried that she may not move ahead for the next quarter. So we will have to work with her more on that. She loves to write and she can remember her spelling words in no time but for some reason she dislikes to read. She know that all the other kids are reading "fun" chapter books and she is just not ready to do that yet. So for her it is confidence since she hates to be wrong she guesses on most of the harder words and forgets her reading skills and that is why she is afraid to be wrong. So we are working with her and hopefully it will click with her that she can do it.

Mallory was a little more sporadic on her skills. She has achieving Community, Compassion and Civility skills but the rest were all over the board. At the beginning of the year she tested in the average range for her letter sounds and for some reason she has regressed on her scores. I don't know if it is because there was another teacher testing her for this most recent test or because she just did not know them. But she qualifies for additional help so she will be helped by one of the reading resource teachers. This did not surprise me one bit since she has a hard time remembering things. I will ask her what the letter "G" is and then one minute later I will say "Mallory what is this letter?" (I am showing her a G). She will say "H" or another one. So she knows most of the letter sounds and letters but there are a few that she still misses. They are also doing a lot more in Kindergarten then I remember Julianne doing. She is already learning sight words and is taking home little books that she is reading. I did not think they did this until after the holidays. Anyway, I am not concerned and I think the extra help will be good for her. I also have stepped up my work with her. I had a hard time learning to read and especially comprehending boring books so I know that she will be fine.

So that is all. It is fun having two kids in school but there is a lot of stuff to remember now. I am consistently getting papers home talking about htis and remember to bring that to school. I have forgetting lots of stuff for them and feel bad. I need to get a better system for writing things down so that I don't keep forgetting.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Julianne and Mallory loving school
-Going to a great conference today on Sustainability (I love going to conferences and learning new things. I always get inspired)
-getting over my nasty cough.

I forgot my purse

I forgot to post pictures of Mallory's purse that I made her last week. This is the same pattern that I made for Julianne's purse and Mallory has been bugging me to make her one since I made one for Julianne. Actually the correction to that story is that I made the purse for me but decided that I did not like it and gave it to Julianne. So now I am making one for Mallory and one for her cousins as a Christmas present. I am very happy with the way it turned out. Doing a pattern for a second time is like riding a bike when you have been off of it for while. It was smooth sailing with a little bumps but not as hard as the first time. I have been a little distraught lately because I have not made anything since I made my quilt and my mother-in-law's ditty bags for the veterans. It has been a combination of being too busy with work, D not being home as much and the related lack of free time and my lack of waiting to get the machine out every evening. So with three factors I set up shop in my dining room table. So now the table has my computer and my sewing machine on it. The table used to be exclusively for the kids and their crafts/drawing but I am tried of the kids stuff taking over my stuff. So I put their stuff away and set up my sewing shop. Now I don't have the lingering negativity of thinking that I need to get everything out for an hour of work and then put it back away. Additionally it is in my face more and calling my name to be used. So hopefully that will help my "I don't get to work on stuff for myself" attitude with our changes in D's job and my increased "working outside the home" duties. My next project is making Christmas gifts for family members and hopefully gifts for my friend that is going to have another baby any day now. So I have to get plugging away in order to not make these tasks not seem too daunting.



I like this purse much better than the one Julianne has (shush don't tell her or she will be begging Mallory to trade her or she will never play with her or sleep in her room again). It is sturdier and the fabrics are more stylish. This is actually leftover fabric from Mallory's dress so that was extra nice not to have to buy new fabric (especially since my fabric stash is enormous).

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-making homemade items/gifts
-having a sewing machine
-coming home to my family

Picture updates

Here are my pictures from Halloween that I promised.

Here is Julianne in the parade. The girl next to her is actually Mallory's teacher's daughter. Small world and they are the ones that have the same birthday.

Here's Mallory in her Gothic Juliet costume. she just loved the flow and all the special attachments on it.




Here is Mallory at her class's Halloween party. She kept wanting to play this donut on the string game but she did not want to be blindfolded. So when she finally got up enough courage to do it she decided against the blindfold and was very timid about getting the powdered suger on her. She was adorable and after she did it once she wanted to do it again and was not as timid.



Here is a picture series on Nathan and his mixed up costume. As you can see he does not have his planned Superman costume on. We tried to get it on him and like I explained last week he refused to wear it. So we went outside and our generous neighbor boys loaned him some goods. He loved the mask and really wanted to hold the "shooter".

This is our babysitting neighbor girl who is also in the band.

Julianne switched from a nice cat to a bad cat. Hence the teeth.


Of course Nathan, who wants to try everything and is very persistent about it, wanted to try our neighbor girls trumpet. So he actually did very well and had sounds coming out of it.

Julianne also did pretty well.

Here is the neighborhood gang ready for trick-or-treating.


Here are pictures from Julianne's last soccer game. She played really well. She is the one with the pink shorts/skirt on.

Not much is going on this week. We have been raking leaves and loving the great weather this past weekend. It has been nice all week and it was great.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-having a great run this morning.
-my lovely husband
-having the opportunity to have a professional part time job

Fun in the leaves

Yesterday I witnessed Mallory tackling Nathan in a fit of frustration. The kids were a little crazy yesterday while I was cleaning up from dinner. Julianne was doing her homework at the kitchen table and was getting annoyed because the kids kept coming in there and trying to play with her. So I took them into the playroom and gave them both puzzles to work on. So a few minutes went by and Mallory was working on hers and Nathan was finished with his and then threw his in the air. So I went in to the playroom to talk to Nathan and get him to put it back together so that we could put it away. While I was talking to Nathan his foot accidentally hit Mallory's block puzzle and one of the pieces got out of line. She got mad she pushed him on the floor so he ended up being in a turtle position, or child's pose if you know yoga, and Mallory leaped on top of him and opened her mouth and went right for his neck. Then she got off and pushed him. I stood there and watched the entire episode and to my surprise stood there with my mouth opened wide and I could not react. It happened in slow motion and I can still remember all her moves. Finally, I stopped Mallory and sent her up to her room. Now this is not the first time our sweet Mallory has beat up on Nathan. There have been many occasions where Nathan has come to me saying Mallory bit him or pushed him or hit him. This is just the first time I witnessed it. Julianne does not have as many fight like that with him. I did see her push him into the wall this past weekend but that is a rare occurrence. Mallory rarely gets very frustrated but when she does she loses it and poor little Nathan was in her path. So anyway after that burst of frustration we talked about how unacceptable that behavior is and she had a consequence and she apologised to Nathan after her time out. I am sure that will not be the last but hopefully she will be more patient next time.

We had a great Halloween. Julianne was a black cat, Mallory was this Gothic Juliet and Nathan was a mix between a superman, and star wars character with a shooter in his hand. He was suppose to be superman but he did not want to wear the costume and ended up borrowing our neighbors boy masks and "shooters". So he had fun. Julianne got 164 pieces of candy and Mallory and Nathan probably totaled that much also. So we have gobs of candy at our house and it has been hard to resist.

Here are some pictures of the past week.









Julianne did not come out until later, hence the bad flash picture.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Having great neighbors to hang out with
-one extra hour of sleep/stuff to do
-The crock pot for busy days