Nothing to say that is interesting

What are you up to this summer? Traveling? Staying home? Cleaning? Remodeling? Hosting?

I think I am doing a smattering of all of the above. I do plan to take pictures of the new fence soon and the new bathtub walls and soon, the new kitchen countertop.  What could you be taking pictures of?

Thanks for helping

A question from a reader that I need your help answering:

"What is a boy welsh name that means bright or shining that isn't too strange?"

Today is the day!

Today I got the Starbucks giftcard in the mail so today I randomly pick a post and a winner!!

The winning post is:

Off-Line

The winning comment is:

Seriously? That is a lot of posts. You should do something fabulous for it. Rachel

Congratulations, Rachel! Enjoy your coffee. :)

An interesting bit of information,
I am at Rachel's house right now and I had her pick numbers to help me decide the winner and she ended up picking the post and then her own comment without ever knowing what was going on. Fun!

Some of my favorite pictures from Harmony Hill

500 Posts

Cousins

I can't wait to look back at this picture in about 5 years.

I'm going to be off line for a week starting tomorrow. See ya!

500th post coming as soon as I get back!!!

Just a reminder

A Contest's Rules

Faces or Up Close and Personal

I was going to post the other day and blogger wouldn't let me blog on and now I can't remember what it was about.

The girls got haircuts today. Claire's is basically the same but a little shorter, Elaina got a blunt cut just a little above what her hair already was and Eily got a bob. It's a little boy haircut but she totally pulls it off. Do you wanna see a pic? Well, I will stop typing and go get the camera and load the pictures on this computer. Hang on a sec................................


Here's Elaina's hair. It it a little wild and sweaty in these pictures. Such is her look these days.

Check out The Grass in her hair. We are a clean family, no?

Here is Eily:

Claire wouldn't take a normal picture so she doesn't have any photos for this post.  I'll post a Face Post that includes her here in a minute or two.

Fences, Fevers and Fun

We got a much better estimate on the fence. He can do the fence, the bathtub wall and the dishwasher cabinet for about the same price that the other man was going to do the fence. And we know he does good work because he just finished building an addition on my brother's house. I'm very, very happy about this.  He should be starting this next week. !!!!

Eily is sick. She and Elaina just seem to be trading their sicknesses back and forth. And it's only ever a fever. Jason and the girls are at church all day so it's just me and Eily keeping up the homefront. The staying home part is actually a good thing as far as the cleanliness of the house goes. It was so bad here. We were having to step over dirty clothes on the floor and the sink was (still is) full of dirty dishes. I'm waiting for the dishwasher to get done so I can reload it and I've started in on the laundry. Other than those things I have the house picked up once again. I also clipped and organized all my coupons. It's been a productive morning.

I have one week at home before we leave for Harmony Hill. The girls and I made a paper chain to represent how many times they have to sleep before we leave and every day we remove one link. They LOVE it. It really seems to be growing shorter awful fast. Guess time flies when you're haveing fun!!

You know what this picture means!!!

This is how it's going to work this time. I am going to post a few times in the next week or two. Then I will randomly pick a post to be the "giveaway post" and the people that commented on that post are eligible to win a $10 Starbucks Giftcard!!!! So get commenting.

Back in the saddle again

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day. Mom! I just realized we never put the flag on the porch. Man. I hate that we forgot that. That's the best part.

Anyway, we went to Mom and Dad's house and the girls swam and the puppies played and the whole group ate. Then we left and two chillins went to sleep on the ride home and the other went down as soon as her special bed was put together. (She had acquired a fever during the festivities.) It was a simple night. It was lovely.

A few weeks ago, Mom and I went around to a lot of stores in the area and priced the lumber for the privacy fence that we are hoping to have built. The lowest priced store had an estimate of $1000 and that was with an over-estimate of how many feet of yard we are going to cover.  When we got home last night there was a job estimate from our neighbor (that we have been waiting 2 weeks to get. grrrrr). He wanted to give us a bid for the fence and we told him that was fine but we were going to go with the lowest priced bidder. Do you know what his quote was?!!! $2650!!!!! Excuse me, mister, but I happen to know that the lumber is less than $1000 and that is a lot of moolah for labor. Especially when we are only working with $3333 and have a long list that we want to be able to check off.   Do you think that was reasonable? Am I way off on what to expect when it comes to paying for labor?  I have another man coming today and I really hope that his quote is much lower.

Jason built us a raised vegetable garden a couple of nights ago. I'm very excited about it but once we got the frame we realized that we don't have any dirt. It seems like dirt would be an easy thing to get but apparently not. By the time we get all of this figured out it will probably be fall.

What should I cook for supper?

A Woo! A Hoo!

After pooping and peeing on the floor numerous times this afternoon, a very necked Eily stood beside me, realized that she needed to go, ran to the little potty and PUT IT ALL IN THE POTTY!!!! I'd love to think this is the end of accidents but I know better. Still, things are looking up!

Cheese!!

Yesterday in the car Elaina asked me, "Mom, are you always hungry?" I replied that I was not and she said, "Well, me, Daddy, Scooby and Shaggy are!"




It's nice to know she considers them family. I guess it's no worse/weird than me having a crush on a Ninja Turtle or a Pound Puppy when I was young.

I'm so ashamed.

I typically check out at the grocery store with a cart full of healthy food. No candy/sugary items, as organic as I can get and hopefully whole grain bread products.  I have been super duper cranky this morning and I was feeling like I would go crazy if I didn't get out so I told Jason I was going to run to the grocery store to get something different for lunch. The girls usually eat a lunch that consists of something crunchy (crackers, pretzels, etc...), fruit, a vegetable (leftover from supper or carrot sticks or something like that), and a meat.
Today, in my cranky and strange mood, I shopped using my stomach instead of my head. My cart held the following:
Pudding
Nutty Bars
5 boxes of pop tarts (I don't even know if the girls like pop tarts. Not a smooth move.)
Double Chocolate Chip cookie dough
Ice Cream
Hot Dogs
Potato Chips
Cherry Orchard Yogurt (ok. confession. this is a staple for me.)
A VERY LARGE Frappachinno
2 Organic milk cartons (was I kidding myself?)
Cheerios
Frozen real fruit popsicles
Applesauce (that wasn't too bad a decision)
Fruit cups (another one that wasn't too awful)

As I was walking to the checkout counter I called my sister, Rachel, and told her what was in my basket and was laughing at myself and knowing that I would regret filling this cart.

As soon as I got home I put up the groceries, slurped down the last of my frappachinno and got lunch going for the girls. It was chips and hot dogs. So, so very bad. I also got those DCC cookies going in the oven. I sat down to check my email while the cookies were baking and saw that someone had written on my facebook wall. "Rachel J**** sent you a message." clicked on link  "You can do it Rebekah! Stay strong!"

I did not eat a hot dog. I did not eat ice cream. I did not eat a cookie. I did not eat a Nutty Bar. I ate a 200 calorie frozen meal that I had and 3 chips. (the chips were before the message)

Thank you, Rachel.

Mommies, movies and mugginess.

Eily is potty training. She wants to, knows exactly what is going on and has had zero accidents all day. I need to just give in, realize it won't be that big a deal and get it over with.

The days have been lovely. A little muggy at times but still lovely. We have a little creek behind our house and sometimes in the evening after the girls have gone to bed I like to go outside and listen to the trickling of the water. It's so soothing. It takes me back to when I was little and would lay on the bank of Grandpa's creek and doze or daydream.


Today is Mom's birthday. Happy Birthday, Nanny!!


Elaina went on her date with Daddy. The went out to eat and to the movies. She LOVED it!!

I forgot the best part!

After supper, I baked 46 mini-cupcakes and 39 regular cupcakes.

Happy Smells!!

I did it. I cleaned the whole house except the Living Room. And I did all the laundry. Tomorrow I am going to be gone all day and Jason will have the girls here alone so the joy of having a clean house will be short lived, but I will just have to make sure and enjoy it while it is like this.

I am very sleepy but I am determined to battle on and get the laundry done and at least some of the house cleaned. By tomorrow, I should have 2 estimtes on the fixings. Woo! Hoo! For me, that's a very exciting thing.

For those of you that are familiar with my muffin top...

It's going away. :) Yesterday I rode the bike and my thighs didn't hit my stomach when my knees were peddling. Improvement.