Our Homesteading Quest

We took Max to the doctor's yesterday. He now weighs a whopping 15 1/2 pounds! He's not even two months old yet.

Waiting Game

My due date has come and gone and still no baby. As is usual for me. However, I don't think it will be too much longer. My body seems to be "practicing" more and more lately. If I don't go into labor sometime today, then I have an appointment tomorrow with the midwives...

Only One Day Left?

By my due date, there's only one day left. By my body, I think I'll still be pregnant into next week, lol.

Let's Play The Name Game

I guess little Mark has us all pretty well stuck on the name Max as the baby's first name. However, we are still in need of a middle name. Here are some of the ones we like. Feel free to add to the list or tell us which ones you like the best. Don't forget, it must be a name that starts with an "E". I'll take everyone's suggestions along with the favorites from this list and repost this in a day or two.

Max, by the way, means "Greatest".

The meaning of the name Ean is God Is Gracious

The meaning of the name Edan is Little Fire

The meaning of the name Elden is The Old Servant

The meaning of the name Elian is Light

The meaning of the name Elijah (Eli) is The Lord Is My God

The meaning of the name Elie is The Lord Is My God

The meaning of the name Elroy is The King

The meaning of the name Emanuel is God Is With Us

The meaning of the name Emery is brave, powerful, Work Ruler

The meaning of the name Ethan is Firm, Strong

The meaning of the name Evan is God Is Good, Young Warrior

Emmanuel God is with us.

Ezra Helper, Strong

Eldridge Ruler, Wise Counselor

 

My Poor Neglected Blog

Wow! How much has happened since my last post?

1) Let's see, we found a stove on craigslist and we've been happily baking ever since.

2) I signed up as a consultant for Scentsy which is a fabulous new wickless, flameless, candle company. The products are wonderful! Follow this LINK to find out more. Of course, I'm always looking for someone to host a home or basket party and earn the fabulous products for FREE!

3) Out of the blue a few weeks ago, the Census called and offered me a job as Office Operations Supervisor @ $12.25 an hour. I had taken the test way back in February of this year (when I wasn't even pregnant) and had all but forgotten about it until they called me. I told them that I'd take the job because we can always use the money. Although, I'm a little nervous about what's going to happen when I go into labor. Not to mention, I'm working 30 minutes further away from the hospital which is already 45 minutes away! I really don't want to deliver this baby in the car. Home, yes. Car, no.

4) Little Mark (my second child) turned 8 years old in October. Happy Birthday Sweet Boy!   

5) My oldest baby turned 18 a couple of weeks ago. Happy Birthday Beautiful Girl! She has since received her official 18 year old unrestricted driver's license as well as her voter registration card. Look out world!

6) My computer completely crashed a few weeks ago and I think Mark managed to save most of my pictures, but they're not quite where I can find them yet. Or at least not in the nice logical order that I originally had them in. However, thanks to our church and the pictures that they always do for "Fallfest" I am able to update you with at least one picture for now, with hopefully more to come in the very near future. This is from Halloween. Enjoy!  

Happy Birthday Marina

 Happy 2nd Birthday my beautiful, sweet, baby girl! I love you!!

Pumpkin Costume

I always seem to wait until the last minute to make my kids Halloween costumes. This year, I decided not to do that to myself and as it happens, our trip to Goodwill yesterday yielded a cute little Pottery Barn spider costume for Lil' Mark for only $2.99! The hat was missing, but who cares? I can easily make one of those. I made the mistake of showing my great find to the kids yesterday and of course, they all decided that they all needed a costume right away as well. Miles was VERY insistent that he needed a pumpkin costume and that I needed to make it now. I managed to hold him off until after church today, but that was as far as I was going to get. 

I searched, and searched, online hoping to come across a tutorial for making a pumpkin costume, but could find nothing that really interested me. I was going to have to face my fabric wasting fears and just wing it. Luckily, my craft room holds a decent stash of felt that I bought during one of Joann's huge fabric sales last year. So I pulled out the orange and black felt and in less than an hour...viola! A pumpkin costume! All for under $2.00.

WOW! I forgot how much I love working with felt!

  

It's about as basic as you can get, but as you can tell by the silly pose, he's very proud. Even though he's upset that I haven't made the stem hat to go with it yet.

I was going to do a tutorial on how to make this, but my camera battery was dead and only just now charged where I could even take a picture. I don't think one actually needs a tut though because it was just so darn easy:

Miles has a chest measurement of about 20" so I doubled the width of the felt to about 40". I also measured about where I wanted it to fall on him while still having easy access to go to the bathroom. Which, for him, was about 20". So I cut out a 40"x 20" piece of orange felt. I then sewed up the short 20" side. I was left with a 40" circle to which I folded over the top and bottom one inch each, and sewed all the way around each leaving an inch open to insert 1/2" elastic in both the top and bottom. I was worried that I would have to figure out a way to stuff it, but the felt is stiff enough that the elastic causes it to poof (is that a word?) out and stay that way! Yay! I love quick and simple. Because felt doesn't fray, I just cut oval holes where his arms needed to come out. Lil' Mark designed the face and the Stacey drew it on the black felt and cut it out. Again, because felt doesn't fray, I used my sewing machine and top stitched the facial features on to the costume and was done!  (I hope the instructions were clear, if you're so inclined to make such a basic Halloween costume. If they weren't, just let me know and I'll explain it better.)   

I do still have to make the hat, but then we will throw on a black, orange, or green sweatsuit, depending on what I find when I pull out their winter clothes, and be out the door! 

Best of Friends

We had company last month. I'd love to post pictures of the wonderful time we had, but Rhonda totally freaks out when I try to post pictures of her. That's ok, I'd rather post this one instead! So there! HA!  

 

This is four of my kids and two of hers. They all had such a great time. Look at how sweaty they are! They played so hard, and everyone got along great. They were like old friends, lol. 

We miss you guys! 

I've Created A Monster

I haven't had a chance to work on any of my projects today because I had to go to the discount/outlet fabric store to buy more tulle in a variety of different colors. You see, thinking that it would be a cool project for Halloween, I taught my oldest daughter (who's almost 18) how to make a tutu. However, she's decided that a tutu is her kind of fashion statement and that she wants to make them in all different colors. I guess that's what happens when you home school your children. They could care less about peer pressure or conforming. They are not afraid to be their own person or do their own thing. 

  

I must admit that I think it looks pretty cute too. Hubby thinks we've both gone crazy. 

While I was at the fabric store I picked up a couple of different fabrics for these as well:

 

Grocery totes! They are easy to make and very handy to have around. I LOVE this chicken fabric! It's one of my favorites. I had a lady almost tackle me in the store over this fabric...and I'm pregnant! I made this tote a couple of weeks ago in honor of Stacey's chicken, Lunch. The first chicken we've lost out of our flock. NO! She did NOT become lunch. She just died of old age I reckon. We will miss her and her eggs. Thankfully, we still have 10 others faithfully laying. I really do love my chickens!

Thankful Thursday! (or) Saved!

Little Mark got saved Thursday July 23rd, during VBS! He was baptized that Sunday during Family Night at our church. Because they were doing the skits from VBS week, the kids that were being baptized that day had to be baptized in a horse trough, lol. Mark said it was VERY cold!

I'm so proud of you Mark!

 

Praise God!