1 hour

Today we are back to routine.

Today, instead of 8, we are up at 645.

My eyes are burning.

Ellie has no voice. 

Even Dusty moaned in protest when the alarm sounded off this morning.

It is also the busiest week of my life.

I am trying my best to avoid it 

But

It won't work.

As soon as the bus departs with my children

My life comes into full swing.

Full Days. And Sleepy Eyes

It's been a luxury to sleep in while school was off but today was a reality check.... We are not ready. The alarm for hockey disrupted our blissful routine with utter rudeness this morning. It made me panic for its return on Monday. 

Dusty took Penny to hockey and I made birthday Breakfast for Gubbers. 

Pancakes and whipped cream and berries and icecream and syrup

Heaven 

His presents this morning- a drill, tool box, and donuts from his sisters...

Then we were off and running to a centennial celebration for 4-h. It was nice to see people I hadn't seen in ages and some of the awesome new people I have met. My kids disappeared for most of it to run around with their friends. 

It was perfect. 

Then it was off to my Grammas to help clean clean the basement. We ordered pizza and Andy played with his new toys while the munchkins helped drag stuff from the crawlspace (I had exaggerated when I used the term basement)  

Then the hockey game with all of our minor hockey. We sat with some awesome friends who have a son who is actually Andy's best bud so they played and cheered and ate slush cones (thanks to some other awesome friends). It was perfect. The day was so perfect that everyone fell asleep on the way home....

That's how you know it's been an awesome day. 

How we Roll on a Thursday

This Thursday was a half Thursday to get us ready for the full Thursday next week. We still had loads to do and things that were unfinished tonight at bedtime but we survived and that on a Thursday is counted as a win.

Penny was back in the ice today after a Christmas Haidas and she said it felt good to skate. She rocked the net and her drills. I missed the smell of the rink and was glad to be back home. 

We have an epically busy couple days ahead of us with 4-H and so we had icecream for supper.

This is what supper looked like tonight. No chairs required. Everyone got out to bed and I got to have a brief phone call with Cherlyn and then I got a text to pick up my baby uggs. So as I dashed out the door all the church ladies were pulling in to my house to have a meeting I had totally forgotten about! Whoops!! 

My days seem to go like that lately. 

Maybe tomorrow we will eat real food and wear real clothes and do the dishes but it was fun to wear pajamas and eat icecream and leave the mess for tomorrow.....

Resolute in Resolutions

We have had some exciting things happen to us the past couple of days. First off, ELLIE got her hair cut. She has been requesting this for quite a while..... Months..... You will have to wait for a picture since I FORGOT to take one today!

Lucy went swimming with her friend today but came home and declared she was going to get the same thing done to her hair!

Andy terrorized the place while I tried to catch up on some of banking and other things I had been neglecting over Christmas break. I am sad my kids are heading back on Monday. It never seems long enough.

My kiddos also got to go see Trolls the other day at the theater and Lucy had been learning to curl her hair and she looked pretty grown up as we headed to town.

We have 4-h bottle and battery drive coming up and I thought I would try to get most of it accomplished while dusty was home....

It started off sort of grumpy but it actually turned out pretty fun by the end.

Now- part of my resolve this year is to limit my complaining (which is going to be one of those things that I will constantly have to recommit myself too) but my next statement is not complaining but just a mere declaration for history sake and it is that it was freakin cold. Like bone chilling stinkin rotten cold. The mind of cold that makes you wonder WHY people inhabit this part of the world..... But I am not complaining.

Also- our farming streak that I was hoping wouldn't follow us into 2017 decided to make its presence known......

Yep- another injured eye..... 

I think safety glasses for all living things might be a valuable investment....

Resolutions

I know I am double posting but I have time and I didn't get to cover New Years....

Our kids are big enought to get in on the action of resolutions so this year Dusty and I cooked a "fancy" dinner...

You know one that doesn't get cooked often...

So the menu for the first dinner of the new year was:

Steak 

Baked potatoes with homemade sour cream

Tossed salad

Sour dough bread

Spinach artichoke dip

And sparkling apple juice.

We went around and talked about our plans for the new year. This year:

Ellie- wants to write in her journal everyday

Penny-wants to speak kinder to her sisters

Dusty- wants to ride his horse more

Kristin- wants to find better balance in life

Andy- wants to be potty trained (he is just in denial about this right now)

Lucy-wants to read her scriptures before bed every night.

I am excited to see what the new year brings for us. We had an up and down sort of year last year so hopefully this year is less hilly for us!

Christmas and New Years

We had such a great Christmas! It turned out a little unconventional due to some illness and spur of the moment decisions but it was Christmas even with the minor alterations....

Christmas Eve was spent with Dusty's cousins. I forgot my camera so no pics but it was fun to get together. It almost didn't happen and it made it more meaningful that it actually got pulled together. Sara managed to pull off an amazing roast beef dinner and we visited with everyone. It had snowed the night before and was drifting everywhere. It felt very festive.

Christmas morning came and my mom and dad came over in the morning.

We opened gift and had pancakes and sausages and bacon and eggs for breakfast. Uncle Blair came and ate with us and then we packed up and went to Church. Andy was absolutely opposed when we went to leave and he didn't get to go to nursery!

We got home and finished presents and my parents left after to get the turkey. That's when it started to unravel a bit. Mom ended up sick and couldn't come. All our waterers froze up so we couldn't get the turkey. And my sister Bri ended up trying to surprise everyone by coming down that night only to find that Christmas got a little untraditional. 

We had left overs and woke up the next day to go to Dusty's parents place.  It was its usual party and the kids enjoyed seeing their cousins and playing.

We spent between Christmas and New Years just hanging out. We went to a 4-H hockey activity and got Christmas packed up and put away and just got things ready for our annual New Years eave party.

Perspective

I didn't really understand what busy was until I was actually busy. I am sure there are people who are busier than me. I know it. I am not sure how they keep it together. Most days I wish I was on some sort of medication to just coast me through.

This is a rant for another day. There are glimpses of my life that I occasionally catch. And one today was this dude....

He LOVES play dough. I HATE play dough. I am not a good compromiser. He was driving me and his sisters bananas this afternoon and I had to make buns for a community dinner so I left him to his own devices with a chunk of dough that would be his dinner (pizza).

He did great. Who knew he was an OCD pizza maker?!? 

He rolled it out all by himself.

(That's my grammas rolling pin. I have her measuring cup too. I love the little things I get to use of hers almost daily)

And then he put his own sauce on it and pineapples and cheese. He watched it bake. And then he ate it.

All 8 pieces.

He was pretty impressed with himself. 

I was pretty impressed.

Jambalaya

I haven't posted a recipe in a long time....

Truth be told....

I haven't really cooked in a long time. We mostly live off of the same rotation of slow cooker meals that just get dumped into the crockpot.

And tonight's recipe is also made in a slowcooker...

But it was good.

Really good.

That's how good....

So I wasn't really home long enough today to get it all dumped in at once.

So I got my slowcooker out and turned it in high. I chopped up 10 mild Italian sausages and a big sweet onion (in rustic chunks).

And then I was late.

When I came home I added celery (probably around 2 to 3 cups) and a big can of diced tomatoes and 2 cups of chicken broth and I sprinkled oregano and cayanne pepper and paprika on the top. I sprinkled seasoning salt on top of that and I threw in a half a bag of coleslaw and stirred it all up. Oh and a green pepper (diced pretty fine since none of my kids like peppers-cooked).

Then I was late again. 4 hours later when I got home (like 330) I dumped 2 cups of basmati rice in and stirred it up. Then I was late again. When I got home at 5 it was totally cooked and starting to get stuck on my crock pot. Fluffed and ate. So good. The only complainer was Penny but she complains about anything other than potato soup or hot dogs.... So a win!

Sleep

He is finally asleep after waking up at 3am Thursday Morning. 

It's been a long few days (mostly for him) and it's shaping up to be a long next few days. We have had three trips to emerg today and some more ahead of us.

He had a root canal done on an infected tooth and it's abscessed. It's pretty nasty and I will spare everyone the direct face picture. (He sorta looks like Quasimoto) 

It's funny for me... Not so much for him...

Stix

As the leaves have turned and my children have run off to school I find that I have a couple minutes during my day to do what I love...

This summer I bought a spinning wheel and so the bags and bags of rovings have found purpose. I spun three bobbins of yarn and needed a project. This is a delightfully sticky yarn and my friend at http://www.lmicheldesigns.com is AMAZING at designing some really awesome patterns. So these first bobbins are yarn are destined to be felted slippers.