Lazy days

We had another quiet week. 

 

Last Thursday Little Miss and I went to Nathan and Michelle's apartment for the evening, to sing, and play games.  We left before the games since it was getting late.  And had a slight run-in with one of Eureka's finest.  *sigh*  No ticket, thankfully, and it kind of deserves its own post so I shall have to write more about that later. 

 

We went on a Sonic run.  It's hard to tell but she is sitting on a large pile of her dolls on the couch.  

 
Saturday evening we went to the farm and "helped" Mom and Dad and Jakey make cider.  Cecily was in a great mood and played with Gus all evening.  They are so funny together.  At one point they both had apples to eat... Gus stole Cecily's... she tried to get it back... so gross.  Anyway, they had a great time running around together in the dark.

Rustin and Sharon had us over Sunday evening.  Cecily has fun running around with Grace and Eden too.  Crazy kid. 

One evening Bob came home with this floor puzzle for little miss.  It's a princess... he couldn't wait until her birthday to give it to her.  *grin* 

As you can see from the diaper in the above picture, somebody has been refusing to wear pants or shorts.  (She was ok with a skirt today, but she doesn't have that many and I want to keep them nice for church...)  Anyway, so we've been outside and it's quite the sight.  Picture skinny little legs with a bulky cloth diaper bending over with her bum in the air- "Bug!  What doing bug?!" 

Blessings.

All quiet on the western front

Seriously, we have done nothing the last week and a half.

Cecily's fever lasted all day Monday and Tuesday so we spent most of those days on the couch- "want hold you!"

She still wasn't acting herself Wednesday, Thursday, and most of Friday so we were pretty lazy.  Other than going for groceries on Tuesday, I didn't leave the house all week. 

Saturday turned into attempt to hide the pipe day.  My rough estimate for how much bead board we needed was not enough so it's not quite done yet. 

The stairs...  not going so well.  I pulled the tape off from the treads that are painted and was left with this. 

Apparently they didn't prime the glossy oil-based orange paint before the brown and it all came off with the tape.  And my black paint is not drying/ curing, even though it has been days since I painted.  I was leaving sawdust foot prints from the bead board on the treads.  Gah.  Not sure what's going on. 

We finally dug our potatoes and were very sad to discover that about half of them were rotting or had bugs in them. 

Yeah, so really quiet around here.

O wait, there was the pepper incident.  Somebody got into the pepper, which is not a big deal, except that she had it on her hands and rubbed her eyes.  Poor little miss- there was much wailing and she wouldn't get her hands out of her face long enough for me to wash it out.  I very much wished we had an eye wash station...
Blessings.

CAT and KC

We had a busy weekend. 

We spent Thursday evening at Matt and Lena's house.  Little miss was marginally good.  She did not like Uncle Matt's rendition of "What's the Matter Habibi" and took it away from him (her favorite camel book), and was pretty much enjoying all the extra attention.

 

Friday morning Cecily and I got up early (for us) and went to visit Daddy at work.  His division was having a potluck picnic lunch and families were invited to see the building before hand.  We carpooled to Mossville with Bob's co-worker's wife and kids.  It was fun to meet them, since he has a sister in W-ton church.... randomly.  Cecily really liked their kids and wanted nothing to do with Bob or I the whole time.  She followed them around and wanted to do what they were doing.

 

She did take a little time to test display software with Daddy.  "I want tabet, please, daddy daddy."

The rest of the time in Bob's office she colored on white boards with the Schrock kids.  We made a stop at the gift shop on our way out and she picked out a new dozer.  When you push down on the cab it plays an annoying song and drives forward.  Then we headed to a park for the picnic.  Raber's catered the meat so we enjoyed some fantastic sandwiches and all kinds of other goodies.  There was a family with 5 kids that sat on a blanket to eat....  Cecily decided that she was going to sit with them and plopped herself down and wouldn't leave.  O man.  They said they didn't mind so she ate lunch with them and cozied up to the mom....  she doesn't know a stranger.  I have no idea where she comes from.  Then she got to play on the playground for awhile until she got tired.

We left the picnic around two, got home and packed up the car and headed for Kansas City.  She really likes the car, but the sun was in her eyes and I'm not sure what she did with her sunglasses...  mine are way too big and she gets frustrated when they don't stay on.

This is how she entertains herself in the car...  odd child.

When it got dark, we let her watch "movies."  We made decent time, and we had a good trip, except that when we got off the interstate in Peculiar, the car started acting funny like we had a low tire.  We limped along to Galen's since we were so close and it was so late. 

Yup.  Totally flat.  We're just thankful that it wasn't a blowout, it didn't happen on the interstate, and we made it to Galen's.  Just what Dad and Bob wanted to be doing on a Saturday morning before the wedding.

Cecily did not want to go to bed Friday night, but she was up bright and early to play with Raegan and Ashtyn... all of them in their pajamas...

Galen and Shannon have a little girl's paradise; swings, toys, kitties, playhouses. 

Cecily loved it.

It was a good thing Grandma was there to rescue this poor kitty. 

So we (ha! they!) put our tire in the back of my parent's van and we dropped it off at good old Walmart on our way to Scott and Joy's wedding. 

I had my camera but I have no pictures of Scott or Joy or any of the wedding party.  *sigh*  I'll blame it on my noisy little girl and the fact that I was pretty emotional during the whole service. 

Afterwards we were supposed to wait to take a big family picture with Scott and Joy.  Little miss discovered the flower girls baskets and had a ball emptying them and making a huge mess. 

And Bob snuck this picture of Lori taking a picture of Cecily.  hehe.

And that is where my picture taking stops.  The reception was nice, the food was good, and I spent most of it in the nursery with Cecily.  We ended up leaving before everything was over to go pick up our tire and somebody was very tired of wedding.  "Bye bye church."

So Bob and Dad got the tire changed and we headed over to Karen and Randy's for what was left of the evening.  It was a full house.  The whole Wyss family made it out for the wedding except for Kray... so yeah, people everywhere.  Cecily disappeared to the basement with the kids and I'm pretty sure she spent the evening in a pink princess dress eating food off the floor.  Ah well. 

Sunday we went to church and Cecily was actually being really good and was quiet and was even just laying on the floor a little bit.  Yeah....  she was sick.  Poor girly had a fever so we ended up leaving at noon for home.  She slept a lot, but not the whole way.  We let her watch more "movies" and she did pretty good.  Except for the last half hour- she was so tired of the car and just wanted me to "hold you." 

We made it home by 8- probably the earliest I have ever gotten home from KC.  And she had a fever all day today and Bob was home cause he wasn't feeling well, and so we pretty much spent the day on the couch recovering.  Poor Cecily is so hot and she won't take any medicine...  mixing it with very watered down pop and chocolate pudding was only partially successful.  Hopefully she feels better soon! 

Blessings.

Canning and Labor Day Weekend

Last week was spent up to my elbows in fruit and tomatoes, or at least it felt like it. 

Tuesday I went to the farm to pick up pears and tomatoes.  I stood around and watched Lena and Shelly make salsa...  hehe.  Then Cecily and I went to see the kitties while Dad humored me and flame sterilized a garbage can with the acetylene torch.  Yeah....  I would not recommend following links about the dangers of cooking garbage can suppers in galvanized cans.  I should know that you really can't believe all of the crazy people on the internet...  you should not weld galvanized metal, but there is no way you will get a galvanized can to welding temperatures on a campfire, when it's filled with water and other food.  Anyways, moving right along. 

I  spent Tuesday evening making tomato sauce, and then Wednesday doing pears.  Thursday I picked up my new glasses and contacts in Peoria, and then Friday got ready for camping.  And spent way too much time trying to figure out how we were going to blow up our air mattress. 

 

In case anyone is under the impression that my house is always spotless, let me show you the kitchen during canning week.  What you don't see is the mess that little miss makes while I'm ignoring her for produce...

 

It was very hot and muggy still when Bob got home from work and he made the executive decision to not sleep at the timber.  I was not sad, but I did have to put a bunch of stuff away that I had gotten out...I do not enjoy camping in 90 degree weather no matter how cool it gets at night.  So we wimped out.

 

We spent Friday evening and Saturday at the timber.  Cecily was very curious about the tent Brent was setting up.



 There was a line for the swing all weekend.  (Itsa Tee-za!)

 
 These two...  little monkeys jumping on the bed. 

 There are lots of little girls in our potluck.  Poor Max is the odd man out.

 "Isat tootsie's bike?"

 Quite the gaggle of girls.  Very dirty girls.  They played hard.

 Sitting on the woodpile eating apples.

 Here Tyra, have some of my apple that I've dropped on the ground repeatedly...

 We all went to the lake for lunch and swimming Saturday afternoon.  I really only waded and it still felt really good in the heat.

 Then we went home for naps and reconvened for supper.  Behold the garbage can. 

 It took a little bit longer to get it all put together and heat up than planned.  O well.  These little girls had fun rocking.  "Tyra... Tee-za... tootsie... wrockin!"

 It turned out really good!  And now we have a food only garbage can if anybody wants to try it!

If you're curious, our recipe for 10 adults and 10 kids is as follows:

~7lbs assorted sausage (smoked, Polish, Andouille) plus a package of hot dogs

1 package baby bella mushrooms

2 onions, chopped
4 peppers, chopped

2lbs carrots

3 lbs potatoes

2 doz ears sweet corn

liberal use of Lowery's seasoned salt

1 bottle hard apple cider

Layer in can on top of wet corn husks, longest cooking vegetables on the bottom.  Steam for approximately 1.5hrs.  

Next time I would use less water, and maybe start with hot water so the steaming happened faster. 

 

Little miss was in rare form on Sunday.  We went in to the baby room to drop off our bags and then I couldn't find her.  She followed somebody else into church and was just sitting there, waiting.  During lunch she was sitting next to me at the table... until she ran off.  I found her in the kitchen entertaining the dishwashers.  Then in the afternoon she stole Hanna's magna doodle and would not give it back....at least it kept her quiet until church was almost over and I wasn't fast enough and she took off for the baby room.  *sigh*  Nothing like a Sunday to make you feel like a pretty ineffective parent.  *grin*   

 
We spent the evening at the timber again.  Thankfully it was a little bit cooler.  We decided not to come back for breakfast so thus ended our labor day camping for 2013. 

On Monday we all slept in. It was lovely.  Then we were going to borrow Bob's dad's truck and make a quick trip to Menards...  yeah... the truck was dead so Bob went to get a new battery.  They got it running, but it would stall when it idled.  Brought back memories of the old green truck that we had to drive two-footed so it always had a little gas...  Anyway, our short trip to Menards turned into a long afternoon.

And finally, when we picked up the sweet corn at Roth's in Morton, they let Cecily have an ear for free.  She worked on it all the way home and it was the only thing she would eat for lunch that day- raw sweet corn.  She was quite pleased with herself.

 

Blessings.

Everything is dry, dry, dry, dry

I kept hoping it would rain today...

So, yeah, catch up time again.  *grin*  So sorry to my faithful readers.  Lets see, I went to sewing club last week... and that was about it.

Saturday Bob and I borrowed some of Rustin's trimmers and worked on trimming vines.  Evil insidious things.  Ok, that's maybe a slight exaggeration...  They are very nice for privacy, but they're also really messy, spread like crazy, and were killing my lilac bushes (for that crime they paid dearly... bwahaha).  Anyway, there's a gap between the HS's fence and our back fence and there were vines growing across the gap and up into our trees.  Not cool.  Bob worked on cutting those back and I tried to rescue my lilac bush.  I was not making any headway and we decided we might need a chainsaw.  Soooo  we all went over the R and S's and helped them finish seeding their lawn and then they came over with their chainsaw.  This is the aftermath:

Poor lilac- it used to look nice and green, but with the nasty vine removed it's mostly just sticks.  We're crossing our fingers it will recover next spring.  The girls were getting hungry so they had a snack on the patio and made lots of noise banging on the table. 

 On Sunday we dropped little miss off at the farm and headed to Champaign for Sarah and Ryan's wedding. It was a lovely day.  I did not take any pictures.  I'll admit to getting a little choked up when she walked down the aisle.  *grin*  The reception was really nice and there was really good food.  We got to sit with cool people that we haven't seen in a long time, so that was fun.  And, of course, Cecily was better for my mom in church than she ever is for me... and so they wonder why I dread Sundays...  hehe. 
Grace and Eden came over Monday evening.  Tuesday Aunt Shelly came over and watched little miss while I spent an exorbitant amount of money at the eye doctor.  *gah*  And insurance won't cover near enough of it.  Oh well, it's only money, and hey, the last time I got new frames and lenses was 2005.
I'm flying!  She was having so much fun and I never quite got her whole face in the picture:

 
Wednesday we went swimming at Jessica's with Mom and Shelly and Lori & company.  Girl has no fear.  And she loves her floating bumble bee- "want bee! want bee!"

 
Sprout and Matt dropped this off on Monday.  I'm pretty excited.  This wardrobe was the first piece of furniture that Grandpa Koch bought.  I always thought it was kind of cool looking and asked him about it when I was there once to borrow a trimmer (yes, I know, we really should get our own).  The right side is for hanging clothes and the left side is drawers, except the top two are false drawers that pull down into a little writing desk with those square cubby things!  It even still has the Montgomery Ward stickers on the back. 

 It's not in super great shape and it probably doesn't have any real value other than sentimental, so my only plan is to wipe it all down good with murphy's soap and store sewing supplies in it.  Oh and tighten the legs a little so it isn't tippy.

While I was in the basement taking pictures.... here is my laundry.  I've been trying to make it more functional and pretty and less scary-basement.  So far we've added hooks to hang rags on, the light, the mirror, the sink skirt, the shelf, and the cabinet to the left of the dryer. And a random washboard from the farm that is "conveniently travel sized."  *grin*    The sink is still a little nasty- anybody know how to clean an old cement laundry sink?

 And I just finished tracing/painting the sign.  It makes me smile.  And think of my cousins.  And Wyss vacation.  And that one never ending Rook game.  I showed Shelly when she was here and she approved.  However, she thinks my couch is ugly. 

These, Shelly, are ugly couches.  I do not have an ugly couch:

(no offense to anyone who owns a couch like these... slipcovers are wonderful inventions.  *grin*)

Anyway, I've been seeing praying mantis all over the place this year.  More than I've ever seen at one time before. They're kind of cool for bugs.

 And last, but not least, this is why I have not done many tomatoes yet.  I'm waiting for them to ripen... hehe.  We may have to try fried green tomatoes some night. 



Mommy.... I pick it... matoe!


Blessings.


Summer time... and the livin' is easy...

Well, so we laid really low last week and it was lovely. 

My garden is pretty much a mess, but nobody sees it so I don't care. 

Monday evening we took Cecily to Dale and Meg's to play with the rest of the potluck kids and we ate out at La Gondola and got Dairy Queen for dessert.  It was so nice to eat in peace and quiet and only feed myself...  haha. 

Tuesday was Bob's Dad's birthday so we spent the evening there.

Cecily was eating a chocolate pudding cup and getting it all over- Bob told her she looked like she was wearing war paint, or, as she called it "war pudding."

Friday Cecily and I went up to the Washington Greenhouse and bought some plants because they are on sale now....  August is not the best time for planting things, but hey- they're cheap-ish! On the way back we stopped at Restmor to visit Beulah (our old neighbor- our future new neighbor is super cool and I'm excited!).  She wasn't in her room when we got there and we found her at the "Lighthouse Party," that we crashed.  Ah, the indignities of old age; coloring pages, trivia, and Kleenexes for prizes.  Although, I do love a good coloring page...  When the party was over we took little miss energy to the courtyard and she ran around in the landscaping while we chatted.  *sigh* 

This came in the mail the other day- the caption made me laugh a lot.  The things they can mail you these days.... hehe.

It's actually some kind of USB adaptor Bob ordered for work.  *grin*

 

I started pulling these tread thingies off the basement stairs- they are kind of gross and that metal strip on the edge doesn't stay down and puts holes in socks.

Underneath we have orange paint over green paint and lots of nastiness.  I like orange (go Illini!), but that shade is just nasty.  There are traces of it all over the basement.  Ick.  I think the plan is to paint the risers the same light grey as the walls, and paint the treads black with some no-slip additive.  We shall see how that goes, I've never painted stairs before. 

 
 We moved some furniture back into the main room downstairs...  So much more cozy than when we first saw it!  Look Matt, your John Deere is still on the chalk board!  Ooooo and check out the floral couch!  Hehe.  I just read that florals are back....  woot woot.  I actually kind of like the couch.  I wouldn't choose it for my living room, but it's not an ugly floral, and the colors are nice.  *grin*  And Cecily loves to slide while I'm doing laundry (Thanks again Streits!!).  It already looks full and there's more that will go in here... at least that's the plan.

After church on Sunday we went to Skylines to visit Grandma Koch.  Cecily was ready for a nap so she was slightly less rambunctious, which is always good.  Matt came over for the evening and brought supper.

Mom called me yesterday because there were peaches ready.  Woot woot.  So Little Miss and I went to pick them up and ended up eating lunch at the farm.  Then we came home and I did peaches all day.  *gag*  I have to can them so Bob can eat them and they're sooo good in the middle of winter, but I just don't really enjoy the process.  Too much boiling water and stickiness everywhere.  And my feet hurt.  Just two more types of produce to go....

We were on the committee for Church Potluck tonight.  I was in charge of table decorations and two pies.... soooo we got groceries this morning, baked pies this afternoon, and barely got the flowers arranged in time.  I bought some sunflowers at Kroger and then raided my garden/ landscaping for filler... including my lettuce that went to seed and is sending out delicate sprays of tiny yellow flowers....  pretty, but embarrassing when somebody asked what it was...    It was a nice evening and the food was really good, but I was glad to come home tonight and put my feet up. 

Blessings.

The Wedding

It's over!  It was a really good weekend.  I think everything went really smoothly, at least it seemed like it, and Cecily was pretty good which made it so much more fun for me! 

 

Friday evening we went to the fellowship hall in Roanoke and ate pizza and set up all the tables and the decorations.  There were lots of people there, even Ed and Peggy and Steve and Renee!  

 
Saturday morning we were up bright and early for pictures at Glen Oak Park.  We had the florist make a tiny bouquet for little miss because we knew she would want our flowees....  it was so wee and cute! 

 She loved it, though she kept shoving it in poor Bob's face.  (She does that and then says mmm... good... hehe.)  Such a patient man.

 She did fairly well for pictures.  I don't think she is smiling in any of them, she's either sucking her tongue or has her mouth full of Smarties.  hehe. 

 Ahh... got to love this picture- Elsie told us to get closer together and we were all like... we don't touch each other.... hehe. 

 Such a sweet picture of little miss with Grandpa and Grandma...  too bad she's sucking her tongue.

 Aw, look at us, all grown up.

 I love this pose, I hope Elsie got a good one.  And even though she has her own bouquet, little miss 'I love flowees' is trying to "pick"  Michelle's flowers. *sigh*

 Our lovely photographers and Dad... 

 So after we finished family pictures they wanted to start wedding party pictures.... this was supposed to be the bridesmaids and Shelly and little miss wandered right over and parked herself in front of Shelly.  So funny.  She was very upset she couldn't be in the rest of the pictures.

We were next to the lagoon when we took her pretty dress off (wanted it to stay clean for Sunday) and the first thing she said was "I swimming," no thanks to her uncles. She got to hang out with grandma and eat candy while we took wedding party pictures.   I have no pictures of the groomsmen or all of us together because I was in the pictures and so was Bob...  and my camera was in the diaper bag. 

So somehow we lucked out and had a few hours at home before the rehearsal.  Actually, it was because the Roanoke fellowship hall is 45 minutes from our house, so going over there and back before the rehearsal would not have made much sense, plus someone needed a nap.  Which she didn't take.  She fell asleep in the car on the way to Washington.  Soooo... when she woke up she got to play with Carli at the condos.  

The rehearsal was funny.  The first time we practiced walking in Michelle didn't even make it down the aisle she was laughing so hard.  And all the bridesmaids were laughing at her.  O man.  Poor Ron.  hehe. 

Then we drove all the way up to Speer for the rehearsal dinner.  We took Cecily along.  I wasn't sure if I was going to regret it, but with the logistics of getting somebody to watch her it made the most sense.   She did pretty good.  She was not happy at first since it was after 6 and she was hungry.  So we broke out the stash of snacks and then she cheered up a lot.  There was one incident during supper where she gagged on a bunch of skittles that was kind of bad.... thank goodness my favorite ER/Trauma nurse was sitting right next to us so I didn't need to freak out.    

 Shelly makes some great faces.

 After supper little miss was a little bit wound up.  So I didn't really get to listen to much of what people shared.  I read her a poem, just like old times. Random acts of poetry forever!  And then I tried to keep Cecily contained; my efforts were mostly unsuccessful.  She managed to pull the tulle and the twinkle lights off the table and ate a lot of smarties in an attempt to keep her quiet.  *sigh* 

Sunday morning we sat with Kandace and Abby and we made it almost all the way through the service!  Then we went over to Grandma and Grandpa's to eat lunch and change.  Somebody's not nervous....  haha. 

 aaaahhh..... her dress is so pretty. 

 We took the traditional Wyss girls in the mirror at G and G's pic...  this is the best of several tries... 

 We were not locked out at church...  so we got to hang out and practice walking in the world relief room for a while. 

 Then we tried to get Cecily out of there...  Tate and Cailer were planning on watching her in the baby room during the wedding.  They came to get her and she started sobbing.  Sooo.... Grandma tried to take her to the baby room.  Still sobbing.  So they pulled Bob from his ushering duties and he came and got her (still sobbing) and took her outside for a while and then they went to the baby room where she calmed down and played with the kids and the toys.  So Bob did get to go up front, and she had a great time with the boys. 

I was so nervous, but we all made it in and I didn't cry!!   I only got slightly choked up walking in when I looked at Jakey up there as best man, and when Shells was walking in.  So I'm going to chalk up my weepiness at Matt and Lena's wedding to a stressful weekend traveling with a nursing baby.  My hormones have calmed down immensely since then. *grin*

Then it was off to the reception!  Cake is the best part.  They also had wraps and chips and fruit and strawberry, vanilla, coffee, and green tea ice cream.  So good.

 Hehe. 

 So I think this is the happiest little miss looked all weekend....  chilling with Brent's girls.

 I brought a bunch of stuff to decorate the car with (so that they didn't resort to using things from the bathroom like soap and lotion).  The window crayons and markers were pretty awesome.  Cecily was going around putting her little scribbles on all the post it notes she could reach.

My cousins and I know how to do a car up right.  *grin* Or something.

 I did have to follow them around erasing the inappropriate things they were writing on it...  *sigh*  The best part is it's all "clean."  Nothing nasty or slimy- just post it notes, t.p., balloons, and plastic wrap.  You can thank me later for being the car decorating Nazi, Michelle. 

 And here they come.  Notice Trent's squirt gun....and Michelle's hand behind her back...

 hehehe... he did not know she had superior armaments... best moment of the day!

 So that squirt gun has been in my car since our wedding...  I'm so glad I never took it out.  *grin* 

It took them awhile to actually leave... Dad was kind enough to wash the windshield.... 

And they drove off into the sunset leaving a trail of post it notes and toilet paper all the way into Eureka.  haha. 

So then we got to clean up.  And once again, little miss was exhausted and clingy so we left before the work was completely done.  Don't worry, we did help, and there were still a bunch of people there to finish it all up. 

And then Rita and Troy brought over my new chair!  It was very exciting.  Little miss loves it. 

I think tomorrow I am going to sleep in and do nothing but the mountain of laundry.
Blessings.