April 30, 2013

Today has been a pretty typical day around here. We got up this morning with Ronnie so that we could continue doing our morning bible reading and devotions together. This is SUCH a wonderful gift for our family. I love getting up and spending a few quality minutes with Ronnie before he goes to work. I love being in the Word with him and Kyle as the very first thing we do (OK, except for making a cup of coffee, maybe). And I love that we are praying together and my husband is going out into the world with God already at the forefront of his heart and mind.

We were planning to be gone most of the day today...Kyle was supposed to go work with my Uncle, but due to the weather radar showing that it was supposed to rain ALL DAY LONG, we did not go. And of course, it was sunny all day until around 6:30 this evening :) But had we gone, it probably would've rained.
I was going to meet my SIL, Jen, for lunch today while Kyle was working. We don't get to spend much time together normally and I was thrilled that she could do lunch on such short notice. So I was disappointed to cancel that. But next week we will try again for both things!

I did major house cleaning Sunday, so today I didn't have much to do in the way of chores. Just some dishes, laundry and of course, vacuuming ~since that is a daily necessity with pets! I got most of my things done early (another benefit to actually getting up at the crack of dawn) and spent a good amount of time piddling in the butterfly garden. There is SO much going on there! Things change SO quickly! (See my upcoming post titled "Plants and Caterpillars and Butterflies, Oh My!) And I was scoping out the bird nest that I found last week...yesterday I found that it had 3(!) eggs in it..and the mama was sitting on the eggs today! Yay! I am REALLY excited about that!

School has been going great. We have enjoyed LOTS of field trips and hands on learning. In reading today, we started a new book! Sterling North's "Rascal". I have this great study guide/lapbooking study to go along with it. One of the Chapter 1 activities was to write an editorial. Kyle was aggravated initially at having to do this but then he got involved in his writing and enjoyed it :) He was BEGGING to read chapter two, lol.

We are just about done with school for the year. I want us to go through the end of May though, especially since we did not begin this year until October. I am not really sure why I feel like we need to do this, I just do. We will stop Math at the end of May--I tried using a different curriculum this year, because I was given it for free, and it was a disaster! So I bought our regular (Saxon) and we did not begin it until about halfway through the school year...so we need to complete at least half the book to be "on task" so to speak. It is a 7th grade book, so whether or not we finish it doesn't really matter since Kyle is in the 5th grade. But, I will feel better knowing we are on track (in my mind, anyways, lol). We will hit the halfway mark in the book this coming Friday. But...I want to keep going. Kyle has been learning some incredible concepts and is really enjoying the challenge that has finally started coming around.

We will be done with our English book in another 2 weeks or so. Kyle has learned two more sentence patterns than in years past. Shurley English is AHHHMAZING!

I am SO behind in blogging about field trips, homeschool days and hands-on educational experiences. I will get caught up one of these days. Kyle has learned and experienced SO much this year in the way of Science and History. We have attended TONS of events this year.

Ronnie and I decided (for the hopefully final time) where my raised bed boxes will go. He will be making me three 4ftx4ft raised beds for gardening. I am very excited and can't wait to get started! But with all the other projects going on around here...it's a tad of the ways down the list :)

In my sewing room today I have been tinkering around. I have a birthday party to attend this Saturday night and have been getting some squares cut for the little girl as her present. I probably have about 500 of them cut! SHE SHOULD BE STOKED!!! (I taught her how to sew and quilt last summer and for Christmas this year she asked for (and received) a sewing machine! yayy!). I am also toying with a quilt pattern where I am altering the size of the pieces so that I can use my Accuquilt to cut them. It is a scrap quilt, oh so cute...and I am working on a test block to see if I can make it work. I am also in the process of making a few more Farmer's Market blocks....but that'll be in my upcoming post titled "Process Post, Farmer's Market Quilt".

Well, that's about the sum of what's running through my brain tonight. Tomorrow Kyle has a physical. So we will be out of the house rather early for that. We'll probably go out to lunch, then he will have swim team and then we'll head to church. In between all that, we'll get school done and I will get some sewing done!
Good night ya'll!

This week...

We have a super busy week this week. The third week of the month is always my busiest because I have a CE committee meeting on that Tuesday and then a Council meeting that Thursday.

 But...we still managed to get in swim team everyday, craft club and piano on Monday, scouts on Tuesday, church on Wed, science club on Thurs. and park day on Friday! Phew!

The big project this week for Ronnie was our gate...our old gate was dilapidated and Ronnie completed this frame last weekend and bought all the supplies to build the gate and front fence on that side of the house:

 

 My Dad came over Saturday to help Ronnie get this task completed.

By the time noon rolled around this was my front yard:

You know my Mt. Dora-ish neighbors loved that, lol.
They worked diligently and were able to complete the main part....there is just some adjusting left to do.

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! SUCH an improvement from the old fence! And now we can fit like 5 vehicles on THAT side of the driveway...plus 2 more in the driveway...so I can finally fence my front yard!

While the men were working, Kyle took it upon himself to work also! I LOVE THAT!

And my Dad even cut me the piece of plywood I need for the surprise I've been trying to make since Christmas for Ronnie and Kyle!

That made me happy!

I am saving this old fence and scouring Pinterest for GREAT and WONDERFUL ways to repurpose it!

Here are a few other random things that made me smile this week:

My neighbors across the street painted their garage this AWESOME color! I love it!

the ducks kept poking their heads through the fence to see what was going on with everyone being in the front yard, lol.

I found these in the trash (not this week, a couple weeks ago, but still making me smile!)

I found this at the thrift store for $2! Ronnie has been wanting me to get one of those expensive like rubber cushy mats for my sewing room! This was a total score! And it's almost the length of my quilting frame! PERFECT!

 

Patches approves too, lol.

 

I hope everyone's had an AWESOME week also!

A Wonderful Saturday

Today was a GREAT day!
Kyle had a swim meet and did AWESOME! This is only his second swim meet ever and his first since moving up to the intermediate level!
We are SO proud of him! (Pics will be in a dedicated post).

Once we got home from the meet, Ronnie mowed the lawn and I went grocery shopping. We had a wonderful meal for dinner...chicken, steamed fresh squash, zucchini, carrots and broccoli, homemade mashed potatoes and salad...picked fresh from Lisa M's garden!

After dinner Ronnie went out front and worked on the new design he has come up with for the front gate.
Kyle decided to go help Daddy...............

This is the little figure that Ronnie welded together for Kyle, lol. Kyle grabbed a handful of random things and Ronnie turned it into a treasure! Kyle LOVES this!

 Meanwhile, I headed into the sewing room!
I've been working on the quilt for my upcoming class. I already have 5 people signed up for this class! SO EXCITING!

Patches!

I learned a sewing tip! READY??........................When needing to make a diagonal line (for HST's etc.), instead of drawing the line and then sewing....you can SIMPLY IRON IT! WHOODATHUNKIT!!!! It's GREAT! I've been using this method like crazy for the past few days and it is SO fabulous! I LOVE IT! (And so simple...seriously, why have we not thought of this!??)

ta da!

And here is my Accuquilt Go! cutting my sashing and borders for me! It's wonderful!

So...how was your Saturday? Great, I hope!

This and That (including MACY JEANNE's ARRIVAL!)

My SIL, Amanda was induced on the 2nd...my niece, Macy Jeanne Chambers was born at 2:48am on the 3rd! She is BEAUTIFUL!

tired daddy

exhausted mama

PURE PRECIOUSNESS!

Proud Auntie! Isn't she BEAUTIFUL!!??!

This week our family started a new devotional..."Focus on the Family's" study on patience. They have a whole bunch of four day topics....Kyle actually chose this one :) We have been enjoying making time for our bible reading, devotion time and blessing jar together.

This coming week is going to be CRAZY BUSY!
Kyle starts piano and art club tomorrow, science club Thursday and I am teaching a sewing class Thurs and Fri. This is all in addition to our normal life schedule (swim team for 2 hours/day, 5 days/week, church on Wed's, scouts on Tues's, etc.) AHHHH!!

We got a great deal on a keyboard, thanks to Detto helping us know what to look for! Kyle's been practicing piano ALL WEEKEND LONG....

 He taught himself The First Noel on his own! And he's working on Silent Night right now.
I'm excited to see how he does with professional instruction. He seems to have the ear for music like Ronnie does...  I DEF DO NOT! lol.

In the meantime, I am preparing to teach a Valentine's Day Quilt class.
 Here are a couple of the blocks I've made for it. (WE are doing a four block with sashing wall hanging).

I've started a FB group (Lisa's Quilt Circle-isn't it a CUTE name!) for local sewers/quilters and it is taking off! I am blessed by this! I had NO idea it would be so popular, but I am loving getting to "meet" new people with a mutual love for quilting! Just about everyday I am adding friends to my FB page b/c people I don't know are wanting to be a part of the group. I LOVE IT!

I went into our LQS yesterday because they were having a great sale! Here are some of the goodies I picked up:

2 yards each...these will make great blenders or backings!

4 panels and some correlating fabric! Quilts and books for Aria and Macy!!

Look at this BEAUTIFUL thread! LOVE it!

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Last night I made Beef Stew from scratch for dinner...man was it DELICIOUS! and I LOVE that there were NO preservatives in it and no sodium except for the dash of salt I tossed in!

 I sauteed some onion, garlic and the beef in coconut oil, then added some spices and 2 cups of water-I let it simmer for an hour and a half....then I threw in another cup of water and a carrot, a few bits of celery (shhh, don't tell Ronnie, lol) a potato and half a carton of mushrooms. I let it cook for another 40-45 mins and added a 1/4 of a cup mixed with cornstarch....TA DA! YUMMY wholesome beef stew.

I also tried my tea from England last night...I had actually forgotten about it! Lisa brought me some Earl Grey back from Europe. I love Earl Grey tea and it was neat to have some from it's place of origin...........it was really yummy.

I hope you all have had a fabulous first week of the new year!

January 2nd, 2013

2013, Day 2:
Well, today Ronnie is back at work =(  We have so enjoyed having him home!

We had our first family meeting of 2013 last night. Family goals were decided, our motto in our household was discussed and we are back on track with the Accountable Kids system and our practice of intentional family time together.

We also added our very first strip of paper to our blessing jar!

This week our family activity will be going to see a movie on Friday night.
I don't yet know what we are going to see.

Kyle and I started reading "The Hobbit" together this week as well. We want to see the movie but not before reading the book! SO far, I am glad this isn't just a novel he picked up to read. It is a bit difficult to follow. The way it's written is with LONG run-on sentences. Random rabbit hole bits and pieces and then swinging back around to the original thought. All in one sentence. I've had to stop a couple of times and explain what they are talking about, lol......"goodmorninged" etc.

I love reading with my child. I think it is SO important, no matter what age he is! We are also reading The Little House in the Big Woods (still, lol) together.

Speaking of reading....most of you know that Kyle and I are BIG readers...Currently I am reading 4 books (2 reading and 2 audio) and Kyle is reading 3 books, plus the ones we are doing together. We both enjoy reading series! I love sharing this hobby with my son.

We began reading our Family Bible together again as well! It is such a rich blessing to read and study God's word with my two favorite people in the world! The Lord is SO faithful and so good! It blesses my soul to walk in and find my husband listening to the Bible on audio as he falls asleep at night. He has become such a spiritual leader in our little family.

In my sewing room:
I am trying to force myself to finish up a quilt for my Dad that I did not complete in time for Christmas. This way I will have it ready for next year! I want it off of my design wall, but not before completing the borders.

I want to finish these last couple of things so that I can put away the Christmas fabric and start planning my Valentine's Day sewing class! I want to get started next week so that everyone can be done by the end of January. Then it can be hung for a full two weeks before V-day!

I have had a large interest in my sewing classes! I've begun a FB group and a blog for my fellow local sewers/quilters. Lisa's Quilt Circle...isn't that cute! I am planning two classes in January. A beginners class and a Valentine's wall hanging quilt class. We need to get started right away, as the ones interested in the beginner's class want to do the V day one as well! I want to have the V-day completed by the end of January so that it can hang for 2 weeks before the holiday. The interest expressed in my classes is great! We will see how many commit :)

Kyle starts piano lessons this month! Can you believe it! He is getting so big. He truly amazes me. When you give a child the world as a blank canvas and allow them to paint their own picture....you would be amazed at what they can accomplish. He truly enjoys all that he does. And this allows for his hobbies to be wonderful experiences instead of a busy, hustle and bustle, stressful, just one more thing to do type of an atmosphere.(Although that does happen from time to time too!!)

Between church, scouts, swim, piano and life....we are a very busy family. But we are enjoying our journey!

I hope you all are enjoying the freshness of the new year as well! Focus on all the blessings in your life and let the "junk" go.  Life is just TOO SHORT!

God Bless!

Wednesday~June 20th

Today started out as a pretty good day. I woke up knowing I would see Ronnie today! :)

and to make it even better...he brought me flowers!

bright, sunny flowers!

<3

 We spent the few hours we had talking and just hanging out...then we went to pick Kyle up from Basketball camp and when we got home, this is what they wanted to do.....

so I did a bit of sewing while they watched TV :)

 I pulled out the Star Quilt Along from Crazy Mom Quilts blog that Lisa and I cut out, back in 2010....my cuts were not accurate though and so it was VERY frustrating to sew together now.

but here is a completed block

 Then it was time for Ronnie to head out. He had to get home and then head to church so he could teach the Youth.

"see ya later!"

 Little did we know our day was about to be flipped upside down. (thankfully it all turned out OK)

I got a call from Ronnie about 15 minutes after he left that he had had a blow out at 70mph on the highway and had no spare. He said he was in a bad part to be stopped but I didn't really realize HOW bad until I got there...and then had to leave and call 911 because it was simply too too dangerous for me to stay parked behind him. It took me 15 minutes to get out onto the highway to get out of dangers way.

~When his tire blew out, he was in the far left lane. It was also in a construction zone and in 5:00 traffic. Just turned 5:00 when it happened too. It was also right after one highway dumped onto another highway....
when he got over to the right (because the tire was pulling him into traffic) the only place to stop was where there was a guard rail....and no where to go. He was up against the guard rail on one side and up against the white line for the traffic lane on the other! The cars were all flying by (going 70 or so) and what made it 100x worse was that not only was it raining, it was on a curve...so you didn't see him until you were right there on him.

When I pulled in behind him he got mad at me b/c it was too dangerous, but I didn't know...I was just thinking he could jump in the car and off we'd go....several cars swerved to not hit us, even though we were out of the traffic lane. we were just too too close to the white line, especially being on the curve, in the rain. I called 911 and told them we desperately needed help. we couldn't pull out but if we stayed we were going to get hit, for sure. Ronnie made me leave him there and drive away :(( It was SOOOOOOO scary. I just knew that at any moment I was going to watch someone obliterate the truck and Ronnie with it. I was literally terrified.

I pulled back onto the highway and got off at the next exit, which was 50. I was looping back around to try again at finding a way to pull off enough that Ronnie could get in the car. In the meantime, he decided to climb out the passenger window and jump the guardrail to separate himself from the danger. Road Ranger showed up a few min later and gave him a ride to the 50 exit....I turned around and headed back that way and got him.

So we drove to Mount Dora and Ronnie used his tire machine at t house to mount a tire a buddy of his dropped off at the house for him. Then we headed back, not at all sure the truck wouldn't be smashed to smithereens when we got back.
Thankfully by the time we got back it was about 8:30 or so and the traffic was much lighter. It was getting dark though and still raining...and we were still on that darned curve.
But, we got on the road and Ronnie pulled off right after the guard rail into this retention pond area. His hubcap went flying across the highway and he was driving on the rim and it made an awful sound.  I thought for sure my car was going to get stuck too.

But God was certainly watching over us and none of the bad things that could've happened, did.

 Ronnie started changing the tire....

 and Kyle decided he wanted to use his "Cub Scout" skills that Uncle Eddie taught him and help ;)

 Ronnie is a GOOD GOOD daddy...there is NO WAY my Dad would've let me help after a high-stress, exhausting experience like we had, LOL.

here's the culprit ;)



and Ky wanted to do the finishing touches...

I am SO very thankful for those who prayed when I sent the urgent message to "pray right now". I was so truly terrified for Ronnie's safety and then mine and Kyle's as well....I am glad that God is omnipotent and very thankful for his protection tonight.