Oh the joy

Last night I had the privilege of spending HOURS on end with these two lovely ladies...

Rachel & Natasha

I can't even begin to tell you how much fun we had!!  They both have 3 little ones at home, and rarely get to have a girls night.  Oh my goodness... it was just wonderful!!  FIRST we went to a lovely yarn store, then to a used book store, then to a yummy restaurant with a real, live harpist!!  We asked to be seated right next to him, and the music was so relaxing and beautiful!  We had so much fun together.  I spent more money than I probably needed to on yarn and a book, but that's ok.  Daniel wasn't mad at me ;)  

Let's do it again soon ladies!!  

This morning I went to Melissa's baby shower to celebrate the soon-to-arrive baby sprocket.  It was just lovely to see you two weekends in a row, Melissa!  I then rushed home to clean my house because I am hosting our church's supper club tonight!  It's just a ladies potluck our church has once a month at different people's houses.  I'm excited- I love having people over. And my house was mostly clean from last weeks birthday party, so as long as no one wants to go upstairs, I'm ok.  (The upstairs is so rarely clean.  But I'm ok with that.)  

Alright I have to go get started on my spinach mushroom pizza for supper club!  I hope you all are doing well out in blogger land.  :)  

Rain rain, don't go away!!

It's rainy and cold and dreary and windy here... almost blustery.... (anyone remember winnie the pooh and the blustery day?  One of my favorites!  I love the word blustery, too).  It's the PERFECT day for warm jamies, fuzzy socks, hot cups of coffee, and stacks of books.  Yay!!  I don't think I have to tell you what I will be doing all day... 

Happy B-day party!

  

We had so much fun Saturday at Daniel's birthday barbque!  I just loved it.  Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures.... I was very busy enjoying all our wonderful friends.  I am still just amazed at the wonderful people God has brought into our lives.  I am so thankful for sincere, caring, thinking, loving friends.  We had such a good time... I think I need to throw a party every weekend.  :)  Thanks to everyone who came and made our time together so joyful and happy!!

Abby and Anna watching the chickens at the party!  The kids (all 14? of them) loved the chickens.

Natasha, Lexi, and Jessy (visit Jessy's blog to see this picture of Zeke and her husband, Greg!)

Ezekiel and our new garden!  It's still unplanted, but I'm glad that we haven't planted it yet because today is really cold (lows in the 40s) and wet and windy.  Blah.  We were going to do a wooden border, but we already had all these bricks so we used them instead.  My only concern is the bricks falling over... Daniel says we can stick a rod or something (through the holes in the bricks) into the ground to keep everything in place.

Just as I was writing all this, I heard my chickens squabbling very loudly outside... I could tell something was wrong!  I ran downstairs and out into the backyard, only to see a hawk trying to get into my chicken coop!  If you don't keep chickens then you probably think it would be pretty cool to see a hawk in your yard... but hawks EAT chickens... he was down on the ground trying to figure out how to get in and have a nice afternoon snack.  Luckily I scared him away and my little babies are all ok, but I imagine this hawk will be back...  I will be really really upset if he gets one of my little girls.

Oh what do you all think of the yellow background?  Does it hurt your eyes?  I keep trying different colors and can't decide what I want...

Banana bliss

Have I mentioned my love for the game Banana Grams before?  It's just lovely.  Sometimes I play by myself, and this...

... is what happens.  Bliss for me is curled up around a cup of coffee in a clean house in my jammies with banana grams.  If I could knit at the same time I don't know what would happen!  *sigh!*

So I am busy getting ready for Daniel's party tomorrow.  I still need to: mop the kitchen & entryway, clean the downstairs bathroom, and vaccume the stairs.  THEN I need to go to the grocery store.  I'm going to try to get as much food as possible prepared tonight so that tomorrow I am totally NOT stressed.  The only thing I plan to do tomorrow is lay out the food, and in the morning I'm going to bake the cake (yum!).  That's all.  We still need to finnish mowing/weedwacking the yard, but that won't take too long, either, and we'll do that tonight. Oh and I need to start marinating the chicken sometime today.  Ok now that my mental to-do list is all typed up for you to read....

We have discovered that Ezekiel loves the saxaphone!  There is a sax player at church, and whenever he plays Ezekiel just smiles and waves his arms... when he stops, Zeke stops.  I love it!  I hope he wants to play when he's older.  He already has to take piano lessons (from his momma) but he's allowed to choose his second, third, and fourth instruments.  ;)  Man I cannot wait to start lessons for him!  It will be great.  I love him so much.

Alllright I'd better go start mopping and such.... Hmm... I wonder how fast I can get all that done....

Geodome fun!

Happy Birthday Daniel!

Today is Daniel's 24th Birthday!  Happy Birthday Darling!!!

I hope he is enjoying his day today.  He got the day off work, we slept in late, got up, I gave him his presents (3 books- what else would my husband want?), made a cake, it overflowed in the oven (so we ended up eating a half-baked gooey cake! Yum!!), I made him steak and potatoes for brunch (while he read out loud from one of his new books to me and Ezekiel), and now he's off to get a massage with the gift certificate I gave him LAST valentine's day.  I hope he enjoys that- he needs to relax!  When he gets home we plan to do some yard work together and FINALLY start our garden.  Daniel and a couple friends went on Monday to go get dirt for all our different gardens, so we have a lovely mound on our back patio waiting to become useful.   

Since it is my husband's birthday, I thought I would write a list of a few of the reasons I love him!  Here it goes...

He loves God with all his heart.

He is sincere.

He is very relaxed.  He stays calm and collected no matter what.

He loves to learn.

He loves to apply what he learns.

He is intelligent and wise.

He isn't caught up in wasteful activities- he spends his time well.

He is handsome.

He is frugal.

He values simplicity.

He is a wonderful father.

He overlooks my faults.

He's honest.

He works very hard to provide for our family.

He's funny.

He has goals in life.

He loves people well.  He's a good friend.

He's fun to be around!

There are a million more reasons...

I am so blessed to have a wonderful husband!  Happy Birthday Daniel!  I love you so much!

No garden yet...

We did NOT put a garden in this weekend... I'm disappointed.  It was super, super windy on Saturday, our planned garden day, so we decided to wait lest our dirt blow away and our tender little plants break.  Sunday we ended up being busy (ehem... with Sunday afternoon naps, knitting, and taking food to friends in the hospital) so we didn't do it then either.  But I still consider Sunday a very productive day regardless.  You're supposed to rest one day a week anyway!  I THINK today Daniel and our friend Terry may go get dirt.  If they don't do it today, they're doing it Thursday.  Either way, hopefully a garden sometime this week will be started in our yard.  

Wednesday is Daniel's Birthday!  There have been many a year where I've forgotten his birthday until the day before and had rather lame plans.  But not this year!  I started planning like 2 weeks ago, and I've already gotten him a couple gifts and invited people over for a barbecue on Saturday. I hope he feels very loved and special this week.  I do love him very much.  

Well since we're having people over this weekend, I am extra motivated to clean...  I think I am actually going to get all the laundry done, mop the kitchen floor, clean out my pantry, vacuum the stairs, you know, all the stuff that generally gets neglected to do other more important things like cuddling with my baby, knitting, reading, cooking.... Daniel's extra happy about the planned "week of cleaning" because he REALLY wants to call a realtor and get our house on the market, which we still haven't done.  Selling our house is the biggest piece of our "leaving the military" puzzle... We're planning to call the realtor NEXT WEEK while our house is still super clean from our party.  I think this is a good plan.  

So Ezekiel has gotten big enough for a jonny-jump-up.  You know those hanging chairs on springs that you put in the door frame?  Someone gave us one, and he loves it!  He doesn't do any jumping yet, but he does bounce a bit on his feet, and he likes turning around to look at different things.  Basically he likes being in a vertical position.  I've been able to get a lot more done lately because he is so content in that thing.  He's in it right now!  :)

Ok I'd better go be productive!