I Labored on Labor Day

I did changed the linens on the boys' beds, did 3 loads of laundry & made bread. Twice. I had a little guy helping me the first time & we forgot to put yeast in the bread, so I had to make it again. In a bread machine that is starting to die. I have to stay and watch it for the first couple of minutes to make sure it doesn't start overheating. If it does, I have to unplug it, wait a few minutes & then try again. So I've been researching bread machines on the internet. The only thing I use mine for is to mix dough, so it doesn't have to be fancy, but it does need to work well, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Since today was a holiday, the boys didn't have school today. Nevertheless, Nathaniel was up about 6:30 am & David was up shortly after. We had about 20 minutes of cuddle time in my bed & then we headed downstairs. You know, I just realized the boys never ate breakfast. David was busy playing with his Transformers (he got some new ones on Saturday) and Nathaniel was playing with his Thomas trains while they sort of watched a Ben 10: Alien Force marathon on Cartoon Network. The day was pleasantly without much conflict even though Nathaniel only napped on the couch about an hour.

The worst thing that happened today was Nathaniel's total meltdown. We found a new show on PBS Kids this morning (before Ben 10) called Dinosaur Train. It looks cute and Nathaniel LOVED it. So this afternoon after his power nap, he starts asking to watch Dinosaur Train again. Of course its not on until tomorrow morning after they leave for school. That's all he wanted to do was watch Dinosaur Train. He threw himself down on the floor, kicking & wailing like it was the end of the world. I finally thought to look at the pbskids.org website to see if they had anything on it. Sure enough they had 2 little shows that make up an episode, so he watched those and was a happy boy after that. I didn't hear another word about Dinosaur Train the rest of the night.

Oh, did I mention that the boys went to bed at 7:30 pm? Yep. 7:30! I only had to yell at Nathaniel 1 time to go to sleep. Yippee for me! So I've spent the last hour picking up the remnants of the toys in the living room in preparation to vacuum tomorrow morning while the boys are both at school. Now its my turn to go to bed.

Some FPU pictures and a Deluge

I decided to post some pictures of our FPU graduation from last night, since I didn't last night. We had a lot of fun, and I cried. No idea why, I just did. Gratitude and appreciation, I think was part of it.

Here was most of our class, watching the DVD lesson. If you see the guy to the far right in the red hat, look back & a little to the left and you'll see Richard, back by the window below the clock.

A friend & co-worker of Richard's is a professional chef and made this credit card cake for us for free. It was chocolate with raspberry filling. Yummy! I had one couple who had not cut up any credit cards during class cut this one up.

In this quart sized mason jar is approximately 45 credit cards & about $100,000 worth of credit. We had 3 very sad ladies that cut up their Kohls' cards, but they did. Someone even chopped up their Victoria's Secret card! Much to her hubby's disappointment. :)

There's me, actually not waving my hands around as I talk for once.

It was a great class, I'm very proud of all of them! We're going to be starting another class in September and I'm very excited about it.

This morning was bed linen washing day. I stripped the guest beds and threw everything (not all at once) in the washer, then hung the linens up to dry outside. It was cloudy, but I didn't think it was going to rain anytime soon.

So after lunch we all head upstairs for naps. Nathaniel, David & I. I'd slept horribly last night, and could hardly keep my eyes open for most of the morning. Sometime while we slept it started raining. And all the linens were still out on the clothes line. When I woke up at 4:30 pm, I heard rain hitting our roof. I was hoping it was just sprinkling, but Noooo, it couldn't just be sprinkling. It was pouring. I went running downstairs, grabbed a laundry basket & threw a jacket on and rushed outside to bring the laundry it. Soaked was what I was when I was done. I was out maybe 5-7 minutes, but I was soaked when I was done. My hair was dripping wet, my pants were soaked and the only part of me that wasn't was my shirt cause I'd thrown a jacket on before I went outside. Note to self: check the forecast before you take a nap next time laundry is on the line. Literally.

Now I've spent the rest of the afternoon/evening getting everything dry. Serves me right, I guess.

I Totally Had NO Idea!

I was doing some research on the internet this morning, looking for songs about money. I found a blog whose author had his top 5 movie money songs. The one that caught my eye? "Carry the Banner". For those who may not have seen it, the early 1990s movie "Newsies" has this song in it. Check out info on the movie on IMDB.com. Anyway, I was completely shocked to discover who starred in this movie. Are you ready? Christian Bale. aka Batman. This is a Disney musical movie. And Christian Bale was in it. I have this movie. On VHS. Love it. Haven't seen it in years, but LOVE IT! Anyways, I thought that was interesting, so I had to tell you.

While I sit at my computer, Nathaniel is napping, a loaf of bread is rising, and David, Conner & my father-in-law are out weeding my weed patch. I mean, my garden. Its a comfortable 73 degrees outside, partly cloudy with a light breeze. I really should be out there too, but I don't like to go outside when Nathaniel is sleeping. I can usually guess how long he's going to sleep, but occassionally he wakes up sooner and I don't want to be outside when he wakes up.

Oh, great, the dryer just quit. Time to fold more clothes. I hate laundry.

Happy Wednesday.

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

Do you ever have one of those days when you, oh, I don't know, are just cranky? Have no patience? Maybe both? That's me today. I'm not sure why, and I know what you ladies are thinking. Its not that. Maybe it has something to do with going from having 1 boy to 3 in the span of 2 hours on Saturday. Its not that I don't enjoy having my nephew over to visit, I really do. Its just that now I have 3 boys to deal with instead of 2. which means 1 extra one to entertain, feed and make sure that they don't kill each other. I'm so glad that we're not having any more kids. 2 is plenty!!

I want to go in my room, close the door and hide from them until its time to go to bed. Thankfully, Richard has some stuff to do outside, so the boys had to go back outside to be with Richard and give me some peace and quiet. So I can finish folding the last 2 loads of laundry of the 5 that I did today.

Speaking of laundry, one thing that we have is a clothes line, right outside from the front door. I have been hanging all our towels and bedsheets outside, one, to save electricity, and two, 'cause I like the way they smell when they've been line dried. The one thing I don't like? Stiff, not fluffy towels. The sheets come out fine, but the towels, well, lets just say I prefer them dried in the dryer so they are all fluffy. I don't hang clothes out to dry though. I don't want to have to worry about fading.

Well, its official. Its been determined that the power source for our PC is dead. So Richard gets to order/buy a new one. A friend of his who is a computer geek and used to live out here (they were in the same unit, but Rob is back in Utah now where he's from) said that there is a computer parts store in downtown Sparta, so Richard is going to go there first before we order a part from Dell. Suprisingly, Dell has the cheapest power source that we can find on the internet.

We can again start putting the boys to bed at 8:00pm. (I'm doing the Snoopy happy dance) We have been having to wait till its darker (around 9:00pm) because their room is still so bright when its bedtime. I remedied that today. I put up cardboard in their east facing window. So now its perfect. And it will hopefully help them sleep later in the morning as well, instead of getting up at the crack of dawn.

You know, I think I'll go take a few outside pictures of the house, so I can give you all a tour tomorrow....