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Ribbet! Ribbet!
This is one of our new pet frogs. We ended up with four of them after the heavy rains last weekend. You can tell how tiny they are - about the size of your thumbnail. Hayden has them in his room in an aquarium with a lid. They may be small, but these things can really move!

At first, we tried to figure out what to feed them. A couple of nights ago, Hayden came upon the solution. He caught a fly out of the air (yes, Bryan can catch a fly in his hand out of mid-air, too) and put in in the aquarium. Apparently one of the frogs put on quite a show eating it. Hayden and Clayton were impressed.

I spend a lot of time chasing flies since the kids are coming and going all day and letting more in as fast as I can swat them. Now Hayden is after them, too, but for a different purpose. I just hope nobody starts trying to let them in intentionally... Posted by Picasa


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Vocabulary Building 101

I was horrified in my late 20's when I heard a commercial for some sort of vocabulary building product. It said that we don't acquire new vocabulary after the age of 25, and I had already passed that mark. I would like to think of myself as a lifetime learner, so I do try to learn something new whenever I can. I live by the motto: Use a word 3 times and it's yours. I like to play the Match Up game at The Free Dictionary. The Word of the Day is good, too. You can make a Google homepage for your web browser and add all of these things to it, and much more.

Yesterday at the quilt shop I learned some new vocabulary, or sewing/quilting lingo:

Fat quarters - Please don't ask me to use this intelligently in a sentence or give you a proper definition. I can sort of visualize it if I try really hard. I don't feel too bad since it's not even on Wikipedia. I think I should get some kind of prize for knowing a phrase that you can't find there.
"Playing together" - This refers to fabrics and colors that harmonize well together on your project, in this case, your quilt. I'm still not sure if we're referring to the play of pattern and color, or using personification to describe how well these fabrics interact.

Years ago, I had a dry erase board where I listed a new vocabulary word each week for us to learn. I got a real kick each week out of everyone's reaction to the new word, which was usually quite random. Hmmm, maybe I should start that again...

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Sew Memorable
Today has been a very full and memorable day, not the least of which being our first trip to Sew Memorable in Dawsonville. Sabra and I went on a very impromptu trip with our quilting bee friends. We met for a 9:30 Chick-fil-a breakfast, and then loaded up with our friends, the Pattons, in our van. Sew Memorable is an amazing fabric store with a rustic, mountain feel. Our other friends, the Shamblins, met us while we were there. The proprietor, Jeanne, made us feel right at home and spent 3 hours helping the girls choose just the right fabric for their quilts. This will be Sabra’s first, and it is a mix of blues, pinks, yellows, and greens, with a hint of red and a “bug” theme (cute bugs, like ladybugs and butterflies) running throughout.

Let me say here that I feel that I have found a kindred spirit in Tammy, in spite of the fact that we have different mediums of expression: I tend to use the computer as a creative outlet, and she is a master of the lost arts - quilting, cross-stitching, crocheting, and the like. I think it will be interesting to see if we can teach each other a little of what we know. We had a great time today sharing stories and driving down the road listening to Rascal Flatts! Terri, you are awesome – thank you for taking our sewing machine to Alabama. It is now up and running and Sabra is sewing everything in sight.

This post is dedicated to Tammy and Terri, our quilting coaches. Thank you and we’ll see you Friday! Posted by Picasa

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Chicken Enchiladas
This is an amazing chicken enchilada recipe that I got from a lady in our old homeschool group. She made it for us when Felicity was born, and I had to have the recipe. Trust me, this is great stuff!

CHICKEN ENCHILADAS

1 pound (apx.) cooked chicken (cubed or ground)
2 – 8 oz packages cream cheese
2 – 8 oz cans enchilada sauce or make as below
1 small onion diced (optional - saute, or it is really strong!)
8 oz package pregrated Mexican style cheese
1 small can sliced olives (optional)
1 small can sliced jalapenos (optional)
¼ cup cooking oil (approximately)
15 corn tortillas (approximately)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray (9x11) baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Mix chicken, cream cheese and ½ can or ½ cup enchilada sauce and optional onion and jalapenos in skillet on medium heat. Stir occasionally while heating tortillas. Heat cooking oil on stove. Dip corn tortillas in warm oil until they begin to bubble about 30 seconds each. Remove tortilla with tongs and place on layered paper towels to drain excess oil while you heat the next tortilla. Completely cover bottom and sides of pan with tortillas. Cover with ½ the chicken mixture and sprinkle with 1/3 grated cheese and drizzle with sauce. Layer tortillas over top. Layer remaining chicken mix, 1/3 cheese, sauce and tortillas. Pour remaining sauce over top. Sprinkle top lightly with cheese. Decorate top with olives and jalapenos. Heat about 20 minutes in preheated oven.

**Can be covered and frozen for later!

**You can make a sauce from tomato sauce and seasoning packet of “Enchilada Sauce” and add some spices to taste. Keep the sauce on the back burner on low to use while preparing the enchiladas.

**If you don’t have to feed a lot of people, you can put all the chicken mix on the bottom and make only one layer instead of two. Posted by Picasa

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Easy, Big Breakfasts
I wanted to pass along a couple of great breakfast ideas I got from Large Family Logistics. Large Family Logistics is a website, with blog, dedicated to great ideas for home management, especially but not exclusively for large families. I learned about them because they received the award for best family blog from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine (TOS). The picture on the left is of the Dutch Puff. I had to take a picture because it was just so awesome looking! The outside edges are more bread-like, and the inside has more egg. It's great with syrup on top. Fran, Andrew liked it, too! At first I thought the eggs weren't cooked, but then I realized that it was swimming in butter. Anything swimming in butter works for me! In the picture you can also observe my clean kitchen countertop and stove, since I had time to clean while waiting for the butter to melt to cook the puff - another perk! :-) Today we tried Baked French Toast. Another hit! I even made it healthy with fresh-ground wheat French bread.

Both of these recipes are prepared at night, put in the fridge, and then cooked in the morning, which works great for me since I rarely cook anything more exciting than oatmeal for breakfast. If you don't have a large family, I would recommend dividing the recipe in half and cooking in a smaller dish, since these recipes easily feed a family our size.

I would love to see more great recipe ideas. Later I will post my Grandmother Piles's pie crust recipe, which is wonderful and so simple since you prepare it right in the pie plate - no rolling and transferring! Posted by Picasa

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Birthday Cake!
Tonight, Lily Rose was introduced to the magical world of chocolate. She had lots of help blowing out her candle!
You can see a touch of ice cream on her mouth. She was not particularly excited about it, I think because of the temperature.
Hmmm... good stuff!
Content after her first experience, Lily has now been initiated into the mysteries of the female obsession with chocolate. It is really strange that even as children, there seems to be a difference between the sexes and their love of the stuff, or at least this is what I've observed with my clan.

While we were eating cake, there was a deluge outside which hopefully will help conditions in metro Atlanta, where there are severe watering restrictions due to a substantial drop in water levels at Lake Lanier. While some may say it rained cats and dogs, for us it rained little frogs (that rhymes, doesn't it?). Hayden, Christian, and visiting Andrew Corbitt took off through the neighborhood on scooters as soon as the rain slowed. The streets were full of water, and just looked too fun for the boys to resist. They came home with three very small frogs, which now reside in an aquarium in Hayden's room.
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Birthdays
This lovely birthday tiara was passed along to me yesterday and I was told that Miss Fran wants to see a picture of Lily Rose wearing it. It is really difficult to get pictures of her with her eyes open and/or her tongue in her mouth, so one out of two isn't bad. I think she looks quite regal, tongue and all. We were late getting home from the ballpark last night, so we are saving the eating of the birthday cake for tonight when her Daddy's home. I think it is a right of passage of motherhood that we meticulously plan only the best in the way of infant nutrition for 12 months, then we hand them a piece of cake on their birthday. If it's only me doing this, don't tell me - I don't need the guilt. Watch for pictures later of this life-changing event for Lily Rose!

I love this picture of Jacob which was taken last week when we went out to eat on his birthday. It says, "Mom, are you really going to take my picture here in this restaurant?" Hey - you only turn twenty once, and I'm the one who's going to document it!





As Carolyn would say, this is my Happy Birthing Day picture with Jacob. I told him some of his birth story. I think I am going to write them down to share with the kids. On my birthday Jacob told me I was getting old. After he picked himself up off the floor (just kidding - we were on the phone), I reminded him that when Lily is his age, he will be about the age I am now. Think about that one, kiddo! Posted by Picasa

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Happy Birthday, Bunny!
Lily Rose is 1 year old today, and what an interesting year it has been! Even after having 7 other kids, Lily introduced some new firsts: first baby with colic (I honestly didn't think colic was a real thing - WRONG!), and first baby to need physical therapy (for torticollis, a new word for me). We moved when she was 6 weeks old - which, by the way, I don't recommend! - and truly it was this precious little one who anchored me amid the choas and confusion which was our life.
Lily isn't walking yet, but she certainly gets around; I am always shouting, "Where's Lily?!" She seems to gravitate towards Christian and Clayton's room. Yesterday she was trying to climb the stairs to the girls' room, which is soon to be her room, too. I performed a Superman move and swooped in and caught her just as she fell backwards. I guess it's time to teach the crawling-down-stairs-backwards move.
Lily is the source of constant attention; there's always someone trying to entertain her. I found out yesterday that Clayton expected Lily to suddenly start talking to us today, since she's a year old now. Kids have so many ideas and expectations surrounding birthdays. Our young ones have always been confused because I'm a year older than Bryan, but he's bigger than I am. For kids, age is about size, so this just doesn't make sense.
Lily has lots of big things on her little horizon, not the least of which are walking, and moving into the girls' room (I'm hoping she'll sleep later in that room than in ours). I'm looking forward to the years ahead with my little "flower child." She is such a blessing to us all! Posted by Picasa

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"I write the songs that make the hoodlums scream..."
This post is in honor of my sister, Jamie, who has always been a huge Barry Manilow fan. When she was a kid, there were people who thought she looked kind of like him (which she did not appreciate, in spite of her love for his music) and they would say, "You look like Mandy!" This didn't really make sense, since "Mandy" was the title of one of his songs and not his name, but we are talking about comments made by people who would traumatize a child by implying she looked like Barry Manilow in the first place.

I know that Jamie will love this story, which I found linked on Rocks in My Dryer. I'm considering adding the word "daggy" to my vocabulary, but I think it could have negative consequences in a house full of kids. I would love to witness this new crime-fighting strategy in action!

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To blog, or not to blog...
As a recent convert, I've been analyzing the whole concept of blogging lately - what it means, both to me and to others. I am blogging for posterity: for my kids and my memories. This blog is the scrapbook I never make, the photos I never print, and if Blogspot doesn't go away or delete old posts, these memories will be there for my kids.

Before my mother passed away, she and I talked on the phone most days. She listened to my ramblings or just let me vent. Now that she's gone, I treasure every written word she left for me. The funniest are the recipe cards she gave me in my early married days, when I knew nothing about cooking. They're little conversations, which read like, "To get hamburgers and steaks that taste like the ones we have do this (if you never liked them but didn't want to hurt our feelings, don't do this)," or "2 tablespoons chopped onions (yes, Dawn, it's needed, you can cheat and get the frozen ones)." Wouldn't I love to read a blog of hers!

An article in the HomeschoolBlogger.com library called "The Power of the Blog" states:
... blogs have a more subtle power as well, for blogs are also like the riverbanks and wells of bygone days, where women would meet with other women and share their labors. There they would also share ideas, encouragement, and counsel. There was a sense of community then that made it easier to face the challenges of daily life.

Our modern conveniences have granted us much, but they have stolen that sense of community. Many young women feel adrift, especially as they enter the world of homeschooling, a world that many of their mothers never knew. Through blogs, we can regain a measure of that sense of community as we share daily struggles and advice and seek wisdom from one another. The blog can give us the power of information and encouragement.
I love the enhanced connection I feel with those whose blogs I read and who read mine. It really does foster a sense of community, with opportunities to share advice and encouragement. Just clicking that "comments" button opens up every mother's dream, Adult Conversation, even though the conversation is typed, not spoken, and likely not occuring in real-time. For my non-blogging buddies - give it a try!




Here's a little follow-up from recent blogs:

IKEA - Believe it or not, I ventured back for a third trip on Saturday, but this time with other adults, Bryan and my mother-in-law, Sharon. There is good news and bad news: the bad news is that the bookcase which I "accidentally" returned is out-of-stock for up to eight weeks, but the good news is that Bryan's mom bought the girls the whole set of cool play stuff like the set up in the nursing/family restroom! I painted their room this weekend, so now we can wall mount their new things.

Singer Featherweight - I picked up my machine today! It only cost $35 for servicing and replacing the power cord to the foot pedal. It did not have the Centennial emblem on it. Oh, well... I wasn't going to sell it anyway, but I thought that would have been neat to find the emblem.

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Writing Contest - Deadline Tomorrow!

Thanks to A Circle of Quiet, I read about a writing contest to encourage bloggers to post their "Where I Am From" poems, sponsored by Joy in the Morning. This is based on the poem Where I'm From by George Ella Lyons. You can read the entire poem here. If you would like to write your own, click here for the template. To enter the contest, you must post your poem before June 21st at 11:59 EDT. Following is my poem.


Where I'm From

I am from softballs, from Furr’s Cafeteria and ice cream with little wooden spoons.

I am from hiding in the laundry hamper, duck when a car comes, pet mice, kittens, blue glass bathroom knobs, “made in occupied Japan” figurines, and pink shag carpet. From Lollie, Panda, and Robbie.

I am from the Caudles’ attic and Grandmother Warden’s front porch swing.

I am from the mimosa tree with the concrete patch in the middle, the weeping willow and the magnolia, window boxes with red geraniums.

I am from family loyalty and ringing in New Year’s Eve on the curbside with the tambourine, from Aunt Thelma and Aunt Mayme, Grandmother and Granddad Piles, and Grandmother and Pappy. I am from real hot chocolate and homemade chocolate covered cherries on Christmas Eve.

I am from my father’s honesty and my mother’s wisdom.

From “don’t eat ice cream and go outside,” and “more can be bought.”

I am from the Old Baptists and salvation by grace. I am from annual meetings, foot washing, lunch at church, and Amazing Grace.

I'm from the South – “American by birth, but Southern by the grace of God,” biscuits dipped in sorghum and butter, cornbread in a cast iron skillet, hot brownies covered in melted butter, Mrs. Butterworth, and JIF.

From marking the “day of terror” on calendars with Blake; Skip-Bo, Taboo, and Trivial Pursuit at the kitchen table; softball tournaments; Laura falling over with her blanket; Barbies with Jamie; playing HORSE with Daddy, Blake, and Steve.

I am from Daddy’s guitar and watching him sing with Mother for hours at a time. I am from Brown-Eyed Girl, Hang on Sloopy, and Teenager in Love.

I am from Fort Smith, from Jasper and Eureka Springs and Weleetka, from riding behind Daddy on the back of a motorcycle. I am from a family with roots that time or distance can’t sever.

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Our Patio Garden
Our family loves tomatoes in the summer, however, we buy them at produce stands to get the home-grown ones. This summer, I decided to try to grow our own. I don't consider myself to have much of a green thumb, so I'm just hoping to keep them alive. For people who are accustomed to growing large gardens, ours won't look like much, but for us, this is very exciting!

We have "regular tomatoes" on the left, bell peppers in the middle, and cherry tomatoes on the right. The little bell peppers are so cute! I picked the two large tomatoes in the picture at the end of last week, but they've been sitting on the kitchen window sill all weekend. My neighbor is growing tomatoes and said her first one wasn't good. I have been putting off trying ours for fear that they wouldn't be good and we'd just be disappointed. We tried one at lunch today and it was great! Christian said it tasted like "Poppy's sweet potatoes with sour cream and bacon bits." I'm still trying to figure out what that's supposed to mean; I think he just considers his Poppy's baked sweet potatoes to be amazing, so this comparison is a compliment to our tomato! Posted by Picasa

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Happy Birthday, Jacob!
Twenty years ago today, at 3:03 a.m., Bryan and I began our journey into parenthood with the birth of Jacob. As a firstborn, he began life as something of a guinea pig. When we took him home from the hospital, I said, "I can't believe they're letting us take him! Don't they know we don't know what we're doing?" Fortunately, he didn't know any more than we did, and we all figured it out together. He was certainly one energetic kid!Jacob loves baseball. Here is a picture when he played for the Barons; he was the youngest player on the JV. I think he was around 13 years old.
This picture was taken last summer.
This is a picture from Jacob's high school graduation last year, just shortly before Lily was born. Isn't he cute?
We love you, baby! Have a happy birthday!
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Flag Retirement
Yesterday, Christian, Sabra, and Chloe participated in a flag retirement ceremony for Flag Day. The kids lined up and were given old flags to carry (I think most were from military graves). They got to do some fancy footwork, with the veterans barking out military style marching orders.
When they reached the front of the line, they handed their flag to a veteran, who unfolded it and burned it. Bryan and I were actually getting a little nervous because of the close proximity of the flamable material to the metal drum where the flags were being burned!
It was a really neat thing for the kids to do, and opened an opportunity to discuss the proper care and handling of the American flag.
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Joining CAPPA
Today I officially joined CAPPA - Childbirth and Postpartum Professionals Association. I have been doing the required reading for certification as a childbirth educator. Now I need to observe a childbirth education class, newborn care class, and breastfeeding class; attend two births (ten hours total labor) and a certification workshop; complete and submit a pre-workshop study guide; teach a 15 minute childbirth topic assigned to me at the workshop; and pass an open book test on childbirth education topics.

Now I need to find two births to attend. I can attend the birth of a friend who lives close to me, however her last child was born on route to the hospital. I probably should line up three births since hers could be very quick - good for her!

I pray the certification process goes smoothly and I can find employment. I'm hoping to be able to teach one evening a week. We are way too busy for much more than that. There is a new hospital opening after the first of the year in this area, so hopefully opportunities will be available.

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IKEA Adventure
Do you ever feel that your life has become a comedy of errors? This pretty much sums up the last couple of days on a quest for some really CHEAP (well, hopefully not cheap, just inexpensive) bookcases. Since our move last August, my little friends - my books - have been languishing in boxes in the basement. A little heavy on the personification, you say? No, they're my little friends, they've been languishing, and I'm pushing for their release.

Did you know that the Atlanta IKEA store is an astounding 15 acres? I do.
Firsthand. Amazingly enough, they have a free supervised play area. The catch is that you can only drop off the kids for 45 minutes before they page you. It is really difficult to cover 15 acres in 45 minutes while pushing a double-stroller containing your 2 children who were too small for the play area (Hayden and Christian weren't with me). Once your 45 minutes is up (and I quickly learned that their clock was 5 minutes ahead of mine), they turn on your pager. This is the kind of pager that they give you when you're on the waiting list for a restaurant. These pagers are LOUD and they vibrate; basically they announce to the world, "I'm a loser who has strayed too deeply into the 15 acres to return to my children in a timely manner."

When I dropped them off the first time, it was time to nurse Lily. Panic set in as I tried to calculate how much of my 45 minutes she would consume. My only other option was to attempt to nurse her with 4 other kids with us in the family restroom. Not an option. The good news is that the family restroom had a comfy chair and amusing little play areas that kept Felicity entertained while our clock was ticking. After our first embarrassing pager incident, I checked in with the kids and set off for another trip through the maze that is IKEA. This time I arrived before the pager went off (no flies on me), and checked out the kids to hit the cafeteria. Can you believe I fed 6 people supper for $10.50? This included (edible) chicken marsala, chocolate milk, mac 'n' cheese kids' meals, and even canned baby food (a lifesaver!).

Fortified, I was ready to begin round 2. When I went to check the kids back into the play area, I discovered that I had to fill out the paperwork again. Unfortunately, the kids were getting a little too comfortable with the place by now. While I was standing by the wall filling out the form (with my back to them), Sabra, Chloe, and Clayton started playing at the bottom of the escalator. Apparently the game was to ride up a couple of steps, then quickly walk back down to the bottom. The problem was that Clayton went a little too high and panicked. This was the point when I turned and saw what they were doing, and then I panicked. Imagine seeing your 4-year-old ascending into the 15 acre jungle while you're below with a bulky double-stroller (NOT escalator-friendly) and 2 other kids.

A kind lady who saw what was happening asked me if I wanted her to go after him. "Yes!" I answered. Everything seemed to be happening so quickly, and I was so scared I couldn't think clearly. She ran up the escalator and caught up with him at the top. Since there was no return escalator, she said that they would come down the elevator and meet us. You have to understand that the elevator does not come out by where we were. The only way I had a clue where to go was because I had been to both entrances of the play area. We raced through a door marked "Staff Only," down a short hall, and around a corner to the elevator doors. I hit the button. The first elevator opened... empty. Then the second elevator opened. It was full of people, but no Clayton and no kind lady, and they'd had plenty of time to get there.

By this time I'd escalated to full-scale panic, and imagined that my child had been kidnapped by some woman who saw an opportunity to nab a cute little boy. I know this wasn't necessarily rational, but neither was I. I grabbed the kids and raced back to the base of the escalator, where it all began. Two other ladies were standing there, who were either friends or family of Clayton's rescuer. I had forgotten all about them, and was instantly comforted that I now had a tangible connection to the woman. They said that Clayton had stood at the top of the escalator looking panicked at losing me. I had raced to the elevator to meet him, but all he saw was that I was suddenly gone, and didn't want to leave. That was why they weren't on the elevator.

We turned to race back towards the elevator when I saw the top of Clayton's head in the play area. The lady had gone to the back entrance and they let him in from that side. I thanked her, looking across from my side. The girls who worked in the play area said that they would have watched the other kids so that I could have chased down Clayton, but it all happened so quickly that it never occurred to me. I know I used the work "panicked" a lot, but that was the operative emotion at the time. Whew! What a scare!

At IKEA, the second floor is a huge showroom where you can see all of their products in room-like settings. If you see something you like, you write down the aisle and bin numbers where you can later pick it up in their self-service warehouse area. When I was ready to get my bookcases, I went downstairs to find this area. I quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to push both a double-stroller and flat-bed cart loaded with bookcases, so I checked Sabra out of the play area to help me. I smashed my finger loading the first bookcase, but then a helpful employee handled the others. Sabra and I got in the check-out line, along with everyone else in the store, since it was almost closing time. That's when the pager went off again. I was stuck; I couldn't abandon my cart and go get the kids, and I certainly wasn't sending Sabra. I'd already lost one kid. The thing buzzed and vibrated for at least 5 minutes before finally stopping. Then the silence was ominous. Surely they knew I was coming, didn't they? Finally we paid and picked up the kids. What an adventure, 4 hours and 3 bookcases in the making!

Unfortunately, that's not the end. This morning I realized that the bookcase I bought for the girls' room just wasn't going to work. I'd picked up Jacob on our way home from IKEA and needed to drive him back to his apartment in Atlanta, so he helped me load the bookcase back into the van. When we got ready to leave, we realized that my diaper bag, Felicity, and Lily were locked in the van, and we were locked out of the house. I won't bother going into the details of how we got ourselves out of that mess, or the other mishaps along the way--my encounter with a panhandler in the IKEA parking lot; how I bought a replacement bookcase which is too tall for the intended room; Jacob chasing us down in a parking lot; etc. What I will say is that Bryan called me just shortly before I got home to tell me that he was about to start assembling bookcases, and one of them was the wrong color. Can you guess why? Because I returned THE WRONG BOOKCASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am quite proud to say that I do have one assembled bookcase (the white one pictured above), and it's in a room that wasn't even supposed to be getting a new bookcase (that sort of thing happens when you buy bookcases that don't fit in the rooms for which they were intended).

I can't believe I still have a third trip to IKEA on the horizon.

If you have made it to the end of this story, congratulations - you do NOT have a short attention span!

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Our first quilting bee, and rediscovering a little piece of family history...

Sabra and I were invited on Friday to join some other moms and daughters in our homeschool group who are interested in quilting. We will meet about every two weeks this summer and work on our individual quilts; in between meetings we will work at home on our own. We need to bring our own portable sewing machines, however I only have one that is built into its own cabinet. Or so I thought. When we got there we saw two new portable sewing machines and one old black Singer. As I looked at the Singer, I recognized it and remembered that I actually own one like it. It belonged to my Grandmother Weisinger, my dad's mom. I had not seen or even thought of this sewing machine in years, and I don't think I would have even remembered it if I hadn't seen this one. I called Bryan and asked him about it; he remembered the machine and its carrying case, however he hadn't seen it since we moved last August. The other ladies were very excited about it, too, and one knew of a gentleman in Alabama who could service it for a very reasonable cost. By the time we left this first bee, Sabra had completed her first square and has the fabric to make four more before our next meeting.

When we got home, Sabra went straight to the basement. A few minutes later, she returned beaming, with Christian behind her carrying the sewing machine in its original black carrying case. A musty odor wafted from inside as we opened the lid. It smelled of history, but more than that - my history. I've learned that our machine is a Singer Featherweight, which will only sew in a straight line, but is considered a gem for quilting. Based on the serial number, ours is a 1951 model. It has already made its journey to Alabama, since we discovered it just in time to hitch a ride with one of our quilting friends. In my online research, I've also discovered that the 1951 models are called "Centennials," since the company was founded in 1851. Here is a little Featherweight Centennial history:
Singer Featherweight Centennials

Singer, rightfully proud of its company history, decided to celebrate its centenary in 1951 by giving all machines made that year a special badge. This was the standard Singer emblem of the time but with the inscription "A Century of Sewing Service 1851-1951" around the outside of the oval. These "limited edition" models made for only one year are becoming increasingly difficult to find. Most have 1951 serial numbers but authenticated models with 1948 to 1952 serial numbers have been located - suggesting that the company held vast stocks and simply badged machines just prior to dispatch. The Centennial Featherweights are mechanically identical to the standard 221 - and only the badge identifies them cosmetically.
I learned this after my machine left on vacation, so I'll have to wait until it returns to check for the special centennial badge. How exciting! My friend was very impressed by the condition of our machine. It didn't look its 55 years!

As we left our first quilting bee, I felt that my horizons had just been expanded - so much new knowledge to assimilate! - and at the same time I felt drawn to my roots. The women from generations past in my family were quilters. I have family quilts which are some of my most treasured possessions and are priceless to me. At my wedding shower I was given a wedding quilt that was made for me by my great-grandmother, who was no longer living. In my basement I have at least five quilt tops which were hand-sewn but never pieced together with a back. Quilting is something that I really want to learn to do, and Sabra wants it, too. I hope that this is something that we can learn to do together, and in so doing preserve our family's quilting tradition and resurrect my grandmother's old sewing machine, a treasure in its own right.

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Bunny on the move!
Can you believe Bunny will be a year old on the 22nd? I can't! We remembered the push walker this week and got it out for her. She's loving walking along behind it.

Doesn't she look pleased with herself?

The babies are usually the first kids up. They really enjoy snuggling up in bed, when I'm wishing they'd just go back to sleep or let me sleep a little longer! I gave up the fight and just took a few pictures of them one morning this week.

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