Well, let's face it: it's been a while, three whole years in fact, since I've bothered to post anything on here.  I won't apologize.  I've been busy figuring out how in the world I am going to successfully homeschool three children every day, ALL day!  Well, maybe not all day, every day, but there are some days when that is all that I achieve.  I get my kids schooled and they have eaten three healthy meals, but they may or may not have gotten changed out of their pajamas. It doesn't sound exhausting, but let me tell you, it is mentally and emotionally draining for yours truly.  At the end of the day there simply wasn't enough computing power left in my brain for putting together anything remotely worth reading.

As happens with all children, mine have aged and become a bit more independent and self-sufficient, leaving me with enough resources to press on.  However, this does not guarantee I will post consistently.  I have noticed over time that I tend to be anti-social during the winter months, so don't be surprised if I go into "hibernation" again!

That's all for now.  I'll be sharing more of what I've been up to in the past three years later.

to teach Emmie the Star-Spangled Banner.  Upon trying to retrieve the words from memory, I found that I could only recall the version my wily Uncle Les had sung so unceremoniously at a few minor league baseball games we had attended together:

"Oh, say can you see
Any dead bugs on me?
If you do,
Pick a few,
Make a sandwich or two."

Good for a laugh, but now I am having to Google the "Star-Spangled Banner".  I feel so unpatriotic...

that when your boys are laughing and having fun together in a room where you are not, it usually means a lot of clean up for you later on.....
Just to note, my camera lens is NOT dirty, that is baby powder floating in the air from son no. 1 dumping it on his brother.  Both were so covered in powder that clouds followed them as I shooed them outside.


About ten minutes after posting this I got a very precious moment with Viggo.  He climbed up into my lap, gave a hearty sigh, then this happened....

under my house and it is stinking up my kitchen.

David just put drywall putty all over the bottom of the cabinet under my stove to help keep the stink out.


Not much more to be said, I'm afraid; other than we both are going to be jumping for joy when we sell this place! The space between the bottom of the house and the ground is too narrow to maneuver around easily, so retrieving the decomposing whatever-it-is might be an impossibility. Yay.....

Onto a more productive note: I dyed a hank of yarn for my dad today.


It's going to be knit into a pair of socks, eventually...

For those of you who don't know (and it won't be surprising if it's a lot of you, since I don't really write about it here), I knit as a hobby and dye yarn to sell in my etsy shop. You can read more about my knitting and dyeing exploits on the blog I share with my sis.

Oh yeah, Happy New Year, by the way!

I want to share a clip from a show that both Ian and Emmaline love. Without fail this is the show both of them will watch together. It was created by the Swedish, so of course it is wonderful! They speak complete gibberish, but it is still a lot of fun for even me to watch. This clip is one of my favorites...I think a lot of stay-at-home moms would be able to see most of their days at home in this video.

So without further ado...

Sometimes you just have to give in!

This week has been somewhat exhausting. We started it off with Emmaline's birthday on Sunday, Ian got sick Monday night, Emmaline was sick Wednesday night, and I was ill all day Thursday. Thankfully, the bug we got seems to be the type that worked its way out of our systems pretty quickly. However, I have been doing a lot of laundry and keeping late hours at night. After finally feeling better from yesterday, I pretty much decided to laze about the house today. I have gotten a few things done today like one load of laundry and a load of dishes put into the dishwasher. Not much to claim, but at least it is something.

On another note, I have accomplished a few other things this week, including a loverly apron for Emmaline!

I had recently purchased some aprons at Ross; once Emmaline saw me wearing one, she had to have one on too. Needless to say, my aprons were filthy within their first day of use. So, I decided to make some for her.

I used a McCall's Pattern for this apron. Very cute set of aprons.

I've decided to only make the two on the side. I have one more to make with different fabrics in the same style as the one I've finished, and I got a pretty green fabric for the one above it. We'll see how they turn out!

I've also been attempting to bake gluten-free products for my family. Since my kiddos seem particularly sensitive to gluten and certain starches, I have to be mindful of how much of those particular items they consume during the day. So far I've made an attempt at Irish Soda Bread

which tasted more like corn bread than soda bread, still have to tweak this one, and some biscuits

which I think turned out pretty well, all things considered. Paired with the sausage gravy I made, I could barely tell a difference. I'm sure it will take me a while to get used to the slightly different taste and consistency of the different flours I am using, but I hope the effort will be well worth it.

All right, now before anyone freaks out, Ian did this to me last night. In his desperation to suckle himself to sleep he latched onto my jaw and went at it. This is the result of only a few seconds. Crazy, huh?

Well, I have started the potty training process with Emmaline!

She has been fighting me more and more just to change her diaper, so I decided I was sick of it. Yesterday I just let her run around the house naked and cleaned up after her. Today I did more of the same, then decided it was kind of silly. Now my battle plan is to just leave her naked for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. This way I can wait until I put Ian down for a nap and give her my full attention.

This morning Emmaline and I spent a good while in the bathroom, reading books until she finally peed in the potty! I think I had two books left to read before she actually peed, so it took her a while. After she peed, I cheered for her and praised her and gave her some M&M's (nothing like candy to get the point across!), and we did a peepee dance together. The second time I put her on the toilet she sat their straining and grunting and said, "Trying". It really is amazing how well candy communicates with children. I told her to just relax and it would come when it would come. After she peed the second time we did much of the same. I really hope this doesn't take too long, but I'm not in control of that. We'll just have to see how much Emmaline really wants to be done with diapers and keep getting M&M's!