I'm nuts!

This would be my little sewing area I have created in our house, one of many areas I tend to take over. I have taken this area over because I have promised to make Abby and Sabrina new outfits for the first day of school. And like always I have procrastinated to the very last minute and am feverishly working on them to get them done before Monday. typical. I have completed on project, Sabrina's dress is done. Cracks me up, cause it looks just like something my mom would have made me growing up, nothing like fashion going full circle! This would be Sabrina's dress, the pattern companies have patterns now that are from Lizzy McGuire (among others), which both girls had to have. Not that I mind, as long as they're EASY!

Wo is me:)

I think Sean and I have made a big mistake!!! We had a great activity last weekend, and everyone is STILL talking about it! Now we are going to have to live up to the hype on every activity we do. What were we thinking?! But I guess that is what you get when you put a chef, that used to be a manager at a banquet hall and an OCD individual in charge of activities.

Rodeo activity

Sean and I are the activity co-chairs for our ward. Which means, to those non-LDS people, we plan all the parties for our ward! Fun stuff. Maybe that is what I should do for my next career:) Anyway. We had an activity yesterday that we themed as a "rodeo" Really was a barbeque were we got to dress up in our western gear. I wanted to have an activity for everyone where they could try roping something. So I decided to make this big longhorn head. This is the the start of it, after I got done with the original paper mache. Turned out great, eh? Nothing more than wadding paper together and a lot of masking tape!
This is what it looked like after I painted it. Sean said it looked too cute to rope, and who was going to want to rope something that had those eyes?! Whatever. Everyone had a great time roping it, as far as I could tell. I put the head on a broom stick and put the stick through 2 bales of hay stacked together. After dinner started a few of the younger kids thought it would be great to spin the head on the stick and broke his horn off, so I put it in the truck to avoid further damage.

This is a picture of the girls while we at my grandma's house, but I thought it was good for this, cause they are wearing western hats, and look too cute.

Corn pickin'

This past Thursday and Friday I went to my grandma's in Ohio to help my aunt pick some corn. And let me tell ya, there was some CORN!!! Luckily i love it, and I plan on freezing it so I can have corn all winter long. This is part of the field that I picked from. It's only part of it, there is over an acre of sweet corn out there and it is all going to be ready at the same time. I'm glad I don't live there, then I'd feel obligated to help pick on a daily basis. On the first day out Abby and Sabrina helped. Abby lasted all of about half an hour before she wanted to go in. Sabrina lasted the entire time we were out there. She thought it was going to be cool, like when the native americans picked corn. Boy was she mistaken:)
My sister came out on Thursday as well and helped pick some. We picked about 30 dozen ears of corn. Oh, yeah, side note. On our way there, it poured down rain for about an hour then the sun came out. So guess, what, yes you would be correct if you guessed mud and humidity!!! Oh, it was lovely. This is a picture of my feet after we got done. I forgot to take the camera out so I could get one fo the girls, they were even worse! We had to stand outside the barn and use the hose to wash everyone feet and legs off.
On Friday, Heather, my aunt, had to take her 2 kids to the doctor, so I went out and picked on my own. I started at 10 and had filled 4 burlap bags by noon. It was soooooo hot, I was dripping. I found out later that it was around 95 degrees in the afternoon. Lovely. I didn't have any help on Friday. The girls had had enough of the hot sticky weather and of course, the hard work. So they chased the cats around the yard, bugged the dog and played, and griped that it was too hot.Funniest thing over the 2 days was the girls asking when Grandma was going to turn the "air" on. Uh, what air, my gram doesn't have air. Then they asked if they could watch Disney channel or Nickelodeon, I could barley stop laughing. My Gram doesn't have cable either:) The poor deprived kids, how did they ever survive?! Of course my sister brought my nephew Robert, and this is of him eating off Grandma's plate, and she was helping him. Candy was so embarrased, she never lets him eat of other peoples plate, it was too cute, though.

Camping

This past weekend we headed up to Pymatuning Lake for a couple days of fun in the.... "sun" Before we even left the trip wasn't going well. Our air matress had a hole in it and we couldn't find it to fix it. So we didn't bother to take it with us, which meant we would be sleeping on the ground. fun.

We got there on Sunday afternoon and Sean went about trying to get a fire started. There are places along the way that sell firewood and Sean picked some up while I put the tent up. He didn't get the wood from the right place. Because of the huge storms that had rolled through the week before the wood was wet. After 3 hours of trying we gave up and I went for pizza! Thank God for Pizza Joe's. By the time I got back with the pizza Sean had been able to get the fire going. That was about 4 hours after we got there. Which means we didn't get to go fishing Sunday night like we planned. Monday morning we made pancakes and eggs and bacon. If anyone has tried to make pancakes over a fire you know how extremely difficult it is. The fire wouldn't stay consistant and the pancakes took forever!! And the eggs were kinda yucky too, for the same reason. The pancakes tasted good, but took too long. We then headed to the beach, 5 miles down the road. Kinda rocky, but it's a beach, can't complain too much. We were the only ones there for most of the morning. 2 hours out in the sun and I didn't even get a tan, what is up with that?! The girls spent the time in the innertubes and playing in the sand. We then went to feed the fish at the spillway. I forgot the camera, but I have pictures from last year, I'll have to post some so that ya'll ge tthe magnitude of the fish feeding frenzi that goes on. It's kinda gross, and cool at the same time. The ducks can get pretty aggressive and will actually take the bread out of the fishes mouth if it doesn't close it fast enough. After feeding the carp we went fishing for some real fish. It was a crappy day for fishing. The wind was blowing and it made the lake really choppy, and they fish weren't biting at all. Sean and the girls fished for a while, I went back to the campsite to read my book and make some s'mores. mmmm. After Sean and the girls got back we went to bed. And I forgot to put away the marshmellows and the graham crackers and the chocolate. Sooooo, you can guess what comes next. yes, we had visitors in the middle of the night. A couple of raccoons decided they wanted some s'mores. They ate the rest of the chocolate, all the marshmellows and 3 packages of crackers. gotta love the little buggers. Actually we wanted to shoot them cause they knocked over the pots and then were fighting all night. Guess they got hopped up on chocolate and went crazy. The next day we were looking for the potato chips to eat with lunch, seems they got those to:) On Tuesday Sean and the girls spent the day fishing and I spent the day cleaning up the campsite. I have no idea what the attraction is about fishing, but the girls and Sean are fasinated with it. I'll leave that to them. Once we were all packed and ready to go we headed to my gramma's house were they went fishing..... again. I wanted to drive a tractor around so I hooked up a wagon and took Abby around the fields. Sabrina was too busy fishing to take a ride. Sean and the girls caught a bunch of stuff, nothing we coudl eat, I guess. Everytime they put there line in the pond something ate the bait. Fun stuff, for them at least. So we got home about 8 tuesday night. A lot later than we had planned. We planned on going to bed at 7 cause we didn't get any sleep while camping due to the hard ground and the raccoons, but that didn't happen. o well. I'll catch up one of these days.

I miss......

MY RUNNING BUDDIES!!!! Anyone want to move to Pittsburgh so I can have someone to run with?! :) Sean and I manage to go running once a week, but the rest of the week I am on my own. There is a great park to run at, it's a 5 mile loop, no, I have not done the loop yet, I have no one to inspire me, or talk to on the way around. So I stick to a 2 miler when I can. I hate running by myself. You Williamsburg people spoiled it for me:) I used to have no problems running on my own, now I am desperately searching for someone to talk to while I run. Anyone, anyone, please......

Peaches for me!

Today I finished up the 2 bushels of peaches that we got from a place in Ohio. Yesterday I went to a friends house and we canned the first bushel and I then had to take the girls home in the middle of the huge thunder storm. Anyway. The first thing I did was make some jam!!! Ooooh, nothing like homemade peach jam. yummy!! Abby didn't know we could make jam, she thought it just came in the jar from the store:) what is up with kids these days:) Abby was a great help, she peeled most of the peaches for me. I was able to make 12 pints of jam, it'll last a while! So now I have a grand total of 30 quarts of peaches canned. yeah. Now I don't have to pay for the stuff at the store. what a great thing.

Abby got ahold of the camera, you should see some of the great pictures of the floor I had on the camera. I really like the digital camera where I can delete anything that isn't worth keeping:) Anyway, thought ya'll would like to see proof of me slaving over the stove. I was so glad that the temperature finally broke and we could open the door and get a real breeze. The air conditioning was not keeping up with the heat output from the stove!
And this is my girl after she got bored peeling peaches and went to put on some dress up clothes. And in the background would be the peach jam. You should see the rest of the mess that I left in the kitchen. But that is a job for tomorrow!

Summer storms

The last week has been insanely HOT!! The girls played in the house all day yesterday because it was so hot. We thought we were back in Virginia!! Today it stormed ALL day. Electricity went out and everything. When I took the girls home we barely got there due to the flooding, downed tree branches and power lines.Nothing like living in Pittsburgh, wait 10 minutes and the weather will change, probably not for the better:) I have finished my precalc class! YEAH!! Pretty sure I got an A, all I had to get on the final was a C to get an A in the class. I think I did that. I'm so glad to be done with that class, now all I have to do is get through 4 calculus classes, one of which starts on the 20th! Time flies when you are having fun:)

More water fights

Today we started with the "slip-n-slide". Great except the darn thing had a hole in it and the water went all over the yard instead of on the plastic. So we improvised:) See the water snakes next to the slide, they worked great. Abby was more into the sliding than Sabrina was, which is usually the case. Sabrina likes to just walk up and down the runway (is this a sign of things to come?) and get wet, while Abby like to slide. Funnies part is when she goes so fast she flies out the end and onto the grass.
I was bored and it was hot so I got into the act. Luckily I am the one that takes the pictues so there is no evidence of it, other than me telling you.
I avoided the slide however, didn't need to be on AFV!! I went inside and got the SUPER SOAKER!!!! Oh yeah, the girls thought it was great. And they used the squirt guns they had and weren't very nice about it:) They made a rule that I couldn't squirt them while they were reloading but they nailed my while I was, now I ask you, is this fair?!!! We had a blast, then had a picnic lunch on the dry part of the yard. Gotta love the summer, when you have something to do.

Water fights

Yesterday I set out a kiddie pool and some squirt guns and the girls got into their bathing suits and had some fun. Funniest thing was the beginning. Sabrina wanted them to stand so far apart and then take turns shooting at each other and they weren't allowed to move and...blah,blah, blah. Kinda like those old duels or even the American Revolution, way to many rules:) But then I guess they got bored cause it turned into this...