what's going on?

i have come to the conclusion that if i'm going to make my blogs like others i read then i need to take more pictures.
and since all of the pictures i take are of my grandbabies, then my blog would only be about them!

so here is what's going on

home organizing and cleaning:  my winter clothes are in and summer ones are out!  some went to the rag bag!  i tend to wear the same things over and over and over again.  went through my bookshelf and weeded out a small stack for goodwill.  i need to get on a cleaning schedule now that i am home every day.  it would make it so i didn't have to think.

crafting:  i made a no sew fleece blanket for sophie in purple camo!

cooking:  apples, apples, apples!!!  i went apple picking 3 times and i think i picked about 100 lbs!

so far i've made a ton of applesauce, six pie fillings, and a few apple cakes.  i'm going to make a couple dozen jumbo apple muffins and a few more apple desserts to keep in the deep freeze.

outside:  cutting down trees, raking leaves, cleaning the garage, and winterizing the coop.  the garden cleaned up so easily this year with having the chickens right there to feed the spent plants to!  i've also been working on a new garden area.

we cut our own wood

charlie keeping warm first thing in the morning.  we have yet to turn on the furnace this season

family:  lots of birthday celebrations lately and family visits.  these boys all love getting together.  their favorite thing to do now is to play hide and seek (charlie calls it hide and sneak)

the television goes on when the grown ups need a break!

school:  cruising right along with prepping lesson plans for sarah to teach ethan.  I hear that calvin is paying lots of attention and learning lots too.  maybe they can be in the same grade at some point since they are only 18 months apart in age?  i've also started to put together a learning packet for charlie at his mom's request.  with winter on our doorstep it will be perfect learning time!

faith:  every morning i do bible writing.  i'm in isaiah 24 right now and its very interesting.  learning a lot.  also attend a bible study with a couple friends and we are studying Girls Gone Wise.  AND, i also do a bible study on facebook for me and the girls, right now its Conversation Peace. 

well, that's it from the wink!  

What's going on?

Here is what's going on!

Home:  Just when you think you have a plan for how your home should be......it will change!  I have been planning on making my dining room into just a dining room.  What was I thinking?!   I was thinking of getting a few pieces of furniture (jelly cupboards) to store my serving pieces in (which are in totes in a closet at the moment)  I've decided to get a piece of fitness equipment instead.  That is what is going in the dining room because the room we use for fitness equipment (previously a bedroom) is full and we can't place it well in there.  Health trumps fancy storage plain and simple.  So I am going through stuff and what has no meaning is going to Goodwill.  Hubby is building a really large bookshelf for me because the one I have is too small so I will utilize the very top shelves of that for some of the platters and serving pieces I use a lot.  For now.

Crafting:  I'm adding this category because I am a crafter!  I dabble in a lot of different things.  This week I went to Joann Fabrics and spent 2 hours walking around and deciding on a pattern (for baby granddaughter stuff) and fabrics for a few different sewing projects.  This week we crafted these pumpkins from scrap wood.  Hubby cut and sanded and I painted.  We are a team on the wink!

Garden:  Still picking green beans and some cucumbers.  There are a few little pumpkins still growing and my dwarf sunflowers bloomed.  Late, but then again I planted them late.  I pruned my raspberries, transplanted some back into line and mulched heavily with straw.  The blueberries got a heavy mulch of pine needles.  I worked on my compost pile  which is growing crazy since I got chickens because of the straw from the pen.  I keep the pen nice and dry so I change out the straw weekly.  Otherwise I've been doing some fall weeding in different flower beds.  The leaves are changing and some are falling here in northern New England.  I've been pulling up random plants that are done producing and feeding them to the chickens.  They loved the squash plants!  This way I will get the garden all cleaned up in bits and pieces.

Family:  We had a family get together yesterday for our son's 30th birthday.  This is my second child to hit this milestone age!  His party was planned and executed by his wife.  I didn't bake the cake, but I did get to frost the cupcakes.  Ask me if I liked not being in charge of my son's birthday cake.  I dare you! haha!  We have six grandchildren, 5 of them being boys 2 1/2 to 5 years of age.  I was ready to go home at the end of the party.  I don't always hold my tongue when it comes to behaviors I see, I really was trying yesterday and I didn't always succeed.  I have to remember that they are not my children and my input is not always welcome.

Home school:  We had a picnic on Wednesday for our grandson's first official day of homeschooling.  As I previously mentioned, I purchased the Horizons preschool curriculum from Alpha and Omega.  I take their lesson plan and rewrite it into an outline for my daughter in law and son to follow.  Then I assemble everything they will need to complete the lessons, crafts, activities, etc.  I love doing this! It is a start and a learning process as we go along.


Work:  This past week I only worked 10 hours!  I loved it.  This is what I want and I can't seem to get right now.  The company I work for knows what I want, but we are always so short staffed.  I usually work 20 hours a week, but this week I have 35 scheduled hours.  I am going to try to whittle that down a bit to 30 and I am going to take lots of deep breaths.

Until next time!

a boy who loves little einsteins!

our grandson recently celebrated his 3rd birthday and the theme was

Little Einsteins, his favorite cartoon.

bubby and grampa created the red rocket cake for him

we had fun making it!

meghan drew the rocket, grampa cut it out then meghan painted it

everyone had fun "pretending"  and getting their pics taken

lots of cupcakes!

meghan set up a musical activity center

other activities were water fun, sandbox, and just all around playing!!!!

for decorations there were balloons and colorful musical notes all over

joe had an awesome day!

Day #13 my craft room

ever since the kids married and moved out of the house i have had dreams of a craft room.  so when a room became available i moved every craft related item into that room.  some of it had been tucked in other closets, under the bed, everywhere!

mostly i keep it somewhat organized, but when i get into a crafting frenzy it can get quite messy!  this is what my craft supplies looks like right now

these are the storage units i've chosen from ikea to get this room in order

2 of these, one on either side of the one below

there will also be a smaller version of the above shelving unit on another wall to hold toys that i don't want the boys to have free access to all of the time.

also, this room will be used as a guest room.  we are going this weekend to buy a futon with a comfy mattress to put in this room.

but it will probably be fall before i get to ikea as its down south of boston and we currently have no travel plans.

Day #11 busy bags

since i am firmly entrenched in baby/toddler/preschool land for quite a while, i decided it was time to start getting my resources together

busy bags?  never heard of such a thing.  back in the day i just had a cabinet full of stuff to pull out to keep them busy.  organizing it into bags that you can just grab quickly---awesome!  why didn't i think of that?

so i made a trip to dollar tree and walmart and between that and stuff i had laying around the house i came up with nine bags this week.  five are pictured above

from top left:  pool noodles cut into 1" chunks and a shoestring
                     painted clothespins and foam sheets
                     big buttons to sort and put into the slot in the cups
                     egg carton sorter color sorter with poms
                     pipe cleaners with a cool whip container (holes drilled in top)

i also made:  melissa and doug "colorforms"  i found at tjmaxx
                    a bag with 4 four wheeler vehicles
                    a bag with 4 dinosaurs
                    color, numbers, shapes flash cards disney & pooh

i used zip lock bags of varying sizes (dollar tree even has the 2 gallon ones!) and for now i put them all in a box and they are going to ethan's house.

you see, ethan is not quite two years old and he has a little brother who is four months old.  ethan needs occupying while momma feeds calvin because he is acting out for attention.

i love this idea and the idea of making them educational.  i'm planning on making lots more and keeping them available for all of my children to borrow.
                   

busy, busy, busy

life has been very busy, but i am trying to keep it diverse so i don't burn out or get bored.  (as if that could happen!)

working on lots of baby projects for julie & bens little charlie who hopefully will arrive by the end of the year.

these are my most recent sewing projects. passy clips and bags to hold the pacifiers and keep them clean.

a repurposing project. this was our coffee table-it had a lid and was basically a big box for storing stuff. we turned it on its side and moved the legs and added a shelf.  cheery paint job and its all set for the playroom.

working on next years woodpile.  its been a struggle this year to find the time to work on it with all the other happenings around here.  we still manage to spend an hour or two a week, and we will see how far we get before the snow comes.

new grandson lukas is doing wonderfully! and everyone else is too.  we've been keeping joe overnight on mondays and we love it and so does he--makes me very happy.

jeff had a bad cold a couple of weeks ago and now i've got it.  i'm trying to keep going but taking it easy at the same time.  drinking tons of water, herbal tea, using apple cider vinegar, honey and cinnamon, juicing, and thinking positive!!!!

more sewing projects this week--teething rail cover & then start a hippo mobile.  it feels good to be completing these creative projects.

more projects & new grandson!

i finished these: burp cloths, drool bibs -2 kinds

these projects i found instructions & patterns on pinterest.  i don't do tutorials, but there are plenty out there.  the fabrics are greys, blues, greens, flannel on the neckerchiefs and cotton with terry backing on the bibs and burp cloths.  all fabrics from joanns.

these are for baby charlie, he is due jan. 5th

this is lukas benjamin

8lb.7oz. 21 inches

born on saturday

ben, lukas, and grandpa

 

 had big brother joe at our house for a couple of days and now hes home with mom, dad, and lukas.

projects

the leaves are a little past peak and falling. this great pond mountain in orland maine-just a few miles from my house-one of my favorite views.  i got to go hiking with my client there this week. he loves to take photos

i made this to hang over my grandsons crib.  he is expected to arrive jan 5th, but they tell her he is already a big baby and he may come early.  i told her not to believe them  ;)

i finished this fleece tied blanket for ethan.  the boys each need their own warm blanket for me to keep here

and this one is for joe, i'm going to work on it today

 

i feel good that i've been able to accomplish these projects in the past week & started to clean up my garden & we also got the garage cleaned up so we can start parking in it again for the winter.

 

mornings here are cold, but no hard freeze yet.  i don't think we've had but a couple of frosty mornings so far on the wink.  the days have been around 60 degrees for the most part and sunny--no rain for the past week!