All they want for Christmas...

We made this video of the kids telling Santa what they want for Christmas. It seemed like a good idea. It took us 5 tries to get this final product. It isn't perfect, but it is perfectly Zak and Corie. BTW - I've never uploaded a video, so if anyone has any problems viewing this just pop me an email.

It's beginning to look a lil' bit like Christmas!

When I was young (insert joke here) December crawled by. Do you remember those days? I am reminded because my kids ask me every single day, "How long 'til Christmas?" We both agonize over the answer... it's too far for them and too close for me. We have just about finished our shopping. We did almost all of it on the internet this year, and I LOVED it. In fact I actually prefer ishopping to actual shopping. No pushing crowds, no whining kids, and the shops actually have what they are advertising. I do have some homemade gifts to complete though. Well, complete is not accurate, because I haven't actually started my sewing projects yet. The kids have finished their homemade gifts though. Here's a picture of them rolling up their lemon soap balls... Grandparents, look surprised when you open them!

We did have some non-holiday activities planned this weekend. Saturday morning we went to a model train show in Winooski. Zakary was the most excited, but we all enjoyed it.After the train show we brought Corie to her first basketball practice. She was actually pretty good, but in the middle of practicing passes she ran off the court in tears. We calmed her down, and she agreed to go back on court and finish the session. Luckily she wasn't the only one that cried, and by the time practice came to an end she was enjoying herself again. Whew!
We put the tree up on Saturday night and then commenced decorating it. Zakary would pick up an ornament and circle the tree several times before finding the perfect branch to hang it on. Apparently we only have two perfect branches on the tree, and they now house about 15 ornaments a piece. Corie spent most of the night telling Zakary not to hang all the ornaments on the same two branches, and when he ignored her she would tell me that Zakary was hanging all the ornaments on the same two branches. Eric would then comment on how all my elves looked demonic and then return to watching television. So basically it was same ol' same ol'.

Demonic?! I don't know what he is talking about.

To late to be early for Christmas

We really tried to start our Christmas shopping early this year, but now it looks like the best we can hope for is to be on time. We finally got the call that our name has reached the top of the Harman pellet stove waiting list, and we are expecting to have one delivered within the next two weeks. We had to move the living room around to accommodate the upcoming addition, and as with everything in life it turned out to be a bigger project than anticipated. You see there is only one spot in our living room that meets the specs for the pellet stove and our two 7-foot bookshelves were there and... there was only one place in the living room where we could fit those two 7-foot bookshelves and... our computer desk was there and... there was only one place to put the computer desk and... we had two 4-foot bookshelves holding two aquariums on top of them, so I guess you know how we spent the last two weekends. We did it right though and went through everything instead of just moving it all. Oh, the things I found on that desk. Three blank wedding cards, several blank birthday cards, a blank Mother's day card, the receipt for Bimbo (my cat who died over 6 years ago and who I acquired almost 18 years ago), and the post office receipt for the package that Amber never received (don't worry, Amber, I'm on it).
We got the Wall-e dvd, and Zakary hasn't wanted to watch anything else (not even Toy Trains). Corie enjoyed it also, but after Zak put it in for the third time she decided to retreat to her room to make things out of our garbage. You should see the lovely Mother's day present that she made out of an old tampon box. The first thing she does when her dad drops her off is go into our recycle bin to see what she can salvage. Oh, the things that girl can do with an egg carton!
Our Saturn has been deposited at the junkyard, and fearing that he would only have two cars to work on every weekend Eric has been on the look out for another car. He and his father, Bob, went to a junk car auction. They actually called it a used car auction, but if you saw what Eric (tried) to bring home you would agree with me. I say tried because it died on it's maiden voyage and will be towed to our mechanics before actually seeing it's new home. You know you are in trouble when the title labels it as an "abandoned" car. I'm sure between Eric & Randy, our mechanic, the new Saturn will be up and running which is good because our Taurus needs to go back to the shop... and now you know why we always need 3 cars!

Life after summer

It was a beautiful autumn. All the leaves have fallen to the ground by now, but most of them retain their lovely colors. They make the woods behind our house look like one of those quaint pictures that you see on the cover of a 1940s "Better Homes & Gardens". The weather has been unseasonably warm. Our high temps for the Halloween weekend were in the lower 60s. The whole family was busy outside with our usual fall activities. Eric worked on our cars (as always) and cleared out more of the scrubby trees from the edge of our woods. Zakary worked on covering every square inch of our yard with some sort of toy construction vehicle, and Corie spent her day continually reminding Zakary that he was going to have to "pick up every one of his toys before he went in". I was cutting back the perennials and pulling up the remainder of our garden. While doing my gardening I started to notice that my arms were getting sore, and I was sweaty and out of breath. Eric told me that it was the result of "exercise", and I have decided that I don't like it.

Halloween night was great. The kids came home loaded with candy. I let them eat as much as they wanted whenever they wanted for the weekend, and they still have a pile left. Of course Monday’s sugar crash wasn’t much fun, but I think the kids would agree it was worth it. The costumes met all the required criteria… they were warm, comfortable, and finished on time! BTW - they were tarantulas.

I am looking forward to winter for the first time since becoming an adult. I had just started sewing last spring and was really enjoying it. Summer is too short to spend indoors though, so my new hobby was pushed aside for the season. I took my birthday off, and decided to sew something for my sister. It came out funny looking, so I had to make her something else to compensate. I’m going to post the picture even though I’m not sure the package has arrived.The doll is from a free pattern I found on Martha Stewart’s web site. Here’s the link: Black Apple Doll pattern. I enjoyed making these guys so much that I made these next.

The pillows were copied from pictures that I found on the web.

The kids are doing great. Zakary still loves school. He is starting to get bossy with the other kids though (something he learned from his sister), and we are having a lot of talks about the Golden Rule. His favorite DVD, “I Love Toy Trains” Vol. 1-13, has temporarily been replaced by “Twenty Trucks”. Corie is doing much better in school, but her attention has started to turn to boys lately. I know she is only 9, but she is a Sprague. She has started writing scary stories, maybe I’ll post one. She never finishes them, but they start out pretty good. Eric has been busy with work, school, and fixing on our cars. The Blazer has been put up for the winter, and the Saturn is officially dead. Now he only has to work on the Taurus and Rav4 every weekend.

When life hands you 144 lemons...

Our neighbors own and run a food stand that they set up all over the northeast at various fairs and festivals. As the season ended they had lots of lemons & limes left over, so they gave us a box of each. Pretty nice, huh? Mom lent us her juicer, and I spent several hours making and freezing lemon and lime juice. I hadn't realized how long the process was going to end up taking, but when it was over the house smelled great and we had around a gallon of juice in the freezer.

We are slowly trudging through our Get-ready-for-winter-checklist. Eric worked on the boiler this weekend. There was a lot of muttering coming up from the basement, but when it was all over we had heat. He spent the rest of the weekend working on the cars. If I understand him correctly my whole car is being held together by spray foam or something like that. The Saturn isn't even that lucky. Apparently it is on it's death bed... it's been given only 2 months tops.

My weekend was filled with laundry, yardsale fodder and tarantulas. We are planning a yardsale with our neighbors this weekend. I've been prying old toys away from the kids along and collecting things from their hiding places for a month now. I'm about half way through pricing everything. When we are finished with this fiasco we will probably come out with a $20 profit for weeks of work, however think of all the junk we will get rid of. The tarantula costumes should be done by the end of the week. They are coming out so cute. I'm adding red stripes to the legs and that made them look so much cooler.

Has it really been that long since my last post?!

Corie swimming in September

We are in the middle of a beautiful Fall, and as much as I don't like Winter I am looking forward to it's slower pace. We have had a couple of new additions since the last post. Our washing machine died after 15 years of faithful service. It has been replaced by a Whirlpool Duet Sport, and yes it is a front loader. Eric has put several of these in "green" houses, and said that he has never had to service one. It is amazing how much cleaner our clothes are. Our second new addition is a female Betta for Corie. Now let me tell you something about Betta's... We got Zakary's Betta because they breath air, so you don't need a pump. You can put them in cheap glass fish bowls and they are relatively low maintenance. Right? Wrong! They need to be kept at a water temp in the high 70s, and that means they need a heater. Heaters don't fit in glass fish bowls, so we had to update to an aquarium. When we took Corie pick out the fish she had earned we steered her towards a female Betta. I knew males couldn't share a tank, but I'd been told that a female tank mate would be okay. Wrong! Of course we didn't find this out until after Corie fell in love with her fish, and I had already paid for it. So... I found this great tank divider for only $10, but we needed to sort of block their view of each other. So... Here I picked up a great set of aquarium plants for only $14, but despite their weighted bottom they kept floating up. So... We got two bags of gravel for $4 each and placed it on the floor of the tank and on the base of the plants. Of course now the tank was so complicated there was no way we were going to be able to keep the water clean. So... We picked up a new pump and filter. Of course all these purchases were separately, because we learned everything the hard way. You should see how cute our tank is though!

We went to Harvest Fest with Dad and Pat again this year. It's kind of a family tradition. The forcasted "torrential downpour" never occurred, and we had a great time. We did miss our Amber though. She is away at college, SUNY Brockport, where I hope she is having a great time. The following day we went up to Bob & Cheryl's for a visit. Aunt Karen was up visiting from Maryland, and we hadn't seen her since they moved away from Vermont. The sun was out, the air was brisk, the company was great, and the trees were at peak color. It was a perfect Fall day, and we did what any self-respecting New Englander should do under those circumstances... we drank (lots of) wine. We talked about important things like how your body starts falling apart after 40, the size of our butts, healthy recipes that don't taste like cardboard, and how cute my kids are. At least that's what we girls did. The boys did testosterony-things. I saw them holding their beer bottles, looking at tractors and cars, and talking a lot. I couldn't hear the conversation, but I'll bet it covered topics like gas mileage, property taxes, engines, the pros and cons of different heating systems, and the cost of oil this winter. It's no wonder women live longer! Men bore themselves to death. Speaking of the greatness of women... Cheryl gave me my birthday presents early!

They are great! Of course people are starting to expect me to sew now, but that is something that I am looking forward to doing. The "Simply Sublime Bags" is actually a no-sew/low-sew project book, and it has the coolest bags in it! The "Making Vintage Bags" has bag patterns from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, and I already have requests from it.

We had a great harvest from our garden this year. We put up lots of tomatoes, green beans and peppers. We still have carrots and squash that need to be put up, but there are also 2 Halloween costumes that aren't going to make themselves! The kids are going up to their Grandparents house this weekend, so Eric and I will try to make the most of it by knocking things off the things-to-do-before-winter list. Poor Eric has to repair the Saturn (again), and work on the boiler. I have two tarantula costumes to make, a fish tank to filterize, and a house to clean. Remember Bette Midlers apartment in "Outrageous Fortune"? That's what our house looks like... and if you don't remember or haven't seen that movie then you really need to.

Here's a short, but interesting commentary. Just click "listen": Pundits

It's not all bad

No. That is not Venus, goddess of love and beauty, laying on that clam shell. Although I can see how you could make that mistake. We went up for a visit with Eric's parents last weekend, and had a great time. The day was a perfect blend of sun and breeze, and Bob & Cheryl spoiled us into relaxation. Although the day wasn't exactly warm enough for a swim Cheryl, Zaky and I ventured into the pond, because it will most likely be the last chance to do so before the cold weather sets in. Poor Corie couldn't swim due to her toe injury, but after a bit of sulking even our moody little preteen couldn't maintain a pout on such a beautiful day. Eric spent most of his day trying not to share his toys with the kids, but they would have none of that! They were hot on his trail touching his stuff until he finally gave up and put his toys away. Bob, Cheryl and I enjoyed the show while it lasted. I have added some new pictures to our Family album on Google. I am trying not to post to many pictures in this blog so that dial up people won't have trouble loading the page. It wasn't until we tried to look something up online at my Dad's house that we realized how spoiled we were with our cable hookup. As we were waiting for our pages to load I kept picturing a little emaciated gerbil on a rusty wheel running round and round. Poor Amber. It's no wonder why she was never on Facebook.

Our kids are growing up. Wednesday morning Corie couldn't decide what to wear to school. Everything I held up got a scrunchy face. Finally she said "I want something black. I want tops with skulls on them. I want to dress like Amber...in black". I said, "you mean goth?" She said "Yes. I want my Dad to take me to my favorite store, Hot Topic". Okay. She's a Sprague, so I knew it was going to happen, but I thought she'd make it past nine years old before we got to this point. On the other hand we have Zakary who went into the kitchen and made himself a peanut butter sandwich without assistance for the first time. Now if I can just get them to clean their rooms... ha-ha.

Bad Things Come In Fives....

It's school time again. Zakary started preschool this year. He has school on Tuesday and Thursday, and he loves it. Corie starts 4th grade this year, but the exciting news (in her opinion) is that she had two trips to the emergency room due to an infected toe. They lanced it on the first trip and removed the toenail on the second trip. It seems to be healing without further complications, but it's really gross to look at. Eric and I have exciting news also... our washing machine broke, then our Taurus broke, and then our Rav 4 broke, and then our Taurus broke again, and we had to cancel our vacation plans so that Eric can work overtime to pay for all our broken stuff. Talk about being bummed out! I'd start drinking, but I can't afford it.


We had two new additions to our household: Butterfly and Fish. We found Butterfly in our yard. It was missing some leg parts and two wings, and was so pitiful that we had to take it in. We had it about 2.5 weeks, and I was just about to give it to my mother-in-law (who was begging us for it) when it passed away. Sorry Mom. We will keep an eye out for another mutilated insect for ya. Fish is still alive and well. Zakary never named it, so I did ("Fish"). Eric's name choice for the Beta was "Master Beta", but I didn't feel like explaining that one to the kids. Fish is Zakary's reward for successful potty-pooping. Corie is working on earning a fish of her own, because Fish looks lonely in his tank. She wants to name it "Sticks", but I was hoping for "Chips". What do you think? Fish & Chips or Fish Sticks?

It's been a while since my last post. The man forced me to work overtime the last couple of weeks, so there just wasn't any time for important things like blogging. Zakary has been using the potty faithfully with no accidents or backslides, so we treated him to a trip to the Shelburne Museum. They had a one-day-only toy train exhibit, so Bob, Cheryl, Zaky and I (Eric was working OT) spent the day there. Zakary was so well behaved never trying to touch or grab any of the displays. He just watched those trains so intently trying to figure out how they worked. They had all kinds of models. His favorite to watch was the N-Gauge, but he was most anxious to own and play with the Lego train set. The only thing that he did not enjoy was walking into one of the building to be surprised by a clown standing in the corner. Luckily Grandma Smith was there to cling on to for protection. Note the picture below:

Corie spent over a week at her other Grandma's house in NY, so she missed the museum trip. She did get the princess treatment from her Oma though, and returned home with a new pedicure, iDog, Invader Zim paraphernalia and purse (which she coincidently forgot to bring back to her Dad's, so I've decided to see how well it works... so good so far... it's really more my style anyway).

We have had buckets of rain this summer, so our woods are loaded with mushrooms... and I have a new camera. See where I'm going with this? If you have any interest in checking these pix out just click on MUSHROOMS. The soil has stayed so moist the fungi have also started popping up in the garden. Here they are keeping company with the basil. The rain has also wreaked havoc on my poor squash & cucumber (or at least that's what I'm blaming it on). The plants are plagued with mildew. I was treating it with a homemade chive remedy, but it's spreading to fast. I did get a pleasant surprise while weeding. It looks like the experimental okra planting is a success. I had doubts as to whether or not it was warm enough to grow okra in Vermont, but the plants are producing. In fact they also have a lovely flower that resembles hollyhock. Here a a couple of photos....



Aren't they pretty? Of course they are prettier when they are cut into rings, rolled in cornmeal, and deep fried.

I can't end this post without mentioning what Eric's dad, Bob, deposited in our driveway. He brought up Eric's pride and joy, his 1977 Blazer. This will be all that Corie, Zak & I will see of him for the rest of the summer...
... but doesn't he look happy!

As you may (or may not) have noticed a hit counter has been added to my blog. Last week I had 5 hits, and I want to thank all five of you. Of course I had to call you all on the phone and ask you to go to my blog, but the fact remains that you did come here. I feel so special.

The week started with a garden full of summer squash and green beans. I went through my collection of recipes, tried some new ones, and froze what was left. If you are overrun with zucchini I recommend Paula Dean's Zucchini Bread. Yum! After being inspired by the Lunch In A Box blog I decided to organize my bento supplies. My Mom had given me a set of plastic drawers that would be just perfect, so I spent hours arranging the cutest collection of bento supplies you've ever seen. I took pictures of each drawer and called the kids in to admire my hard work, but as I put the set of drawers in their new home the bubble burst. What was that thing my Grandpa Sprague always said???? "Measure twice, cut once".
Oh well, at least it does fit in sideways.

This was a really busy week at work, and the next two weeks promise to be just as loaded. Don't worry though, because I did find time to do some online shopping. My first stop was Newegg.com where I purchased a new Canon Powershot A590 digital camera. We like it a lot so far, but we still haven't used most of the fancier options. My second stop was at Ichiban Kan. I hadn't planned that shopping excursion. While innocently checking my email it came to my attention that they had gotten in a new shipment which included new bento supplies. If you clicked on the "pictures" link above then you noticed that there is no room in those drawers for more bento stuff, so it looks like it will be time for reorg when the box arrives. The last stop was at LL Bean. Our little Zaky starts preschool at the end of the month, so we bought him his first school backpack. Eric did a little shopping himself... an orbital sander and new work boots. Boring but practical.

Eric, Zaky and I went up to Bob & Cheryl's house this past Saturday. Eric and Bob spent the afternoon in a futile attempt to drive Eric's "antique" Blazer to a garage for repairs. While Cheryl, Zaky and I spent our time in the pond. Yes, you heard correctly. Zaky finally got in the water. Cheryl's grandma powers were at full force and Zaky was powerless to resist. Here are the pictures to prove it...

I spending a relaxing day floating on a big, pink clam shell (probably looking like Aphrodite although no one actually said it out loud), and after a great dinner Eric and I headed home. Yes, that right I said "Eric and I". Zaky stayed for a three night visit with Grandma & Grandpa and a trip to Santa's Village. Don't feel sorry for Corie though. She has been at Nana & Grandpa Sprague's house for the past week, and that will be followed by a trip to Lake George with her dad. That left Eric and I childless for two days this week. I suppose you are wondering how we spent those lovely 70 hours. A romantic dinner? A movie in the theater? Watching clown porn? Nope! We did a little shopping, and upon returning home Eric went to downstairs to Manland and played video games while I went upstairs and played in my sewing room. Like Tony Shalhoub said in Galaxy Quest, "It's the simple things in life you treasure".

Whitney

Some of my fabric stash.

We finally got the house (almost) clean in time for our company. It was hard to plan a menu without an itinerary, so I did most of the cooking on Sunday morning opting for salads and lunch meat. Although I have hundreds of cookbooks I scoured the Food Network website and found two new salad recipes and one new dip recipe to try. The salad recipes (Greek Grain Salad and Cobb Salad) were great, but the dip recipe was awful. Dad, Pat & Amber arrived Sunday afternoon and stayed until Wednesday. We did some shopping around Burlington and went down to the waterfront on Monday. Tuesday we spent the day at Kill Kare State Park. It's a small park, but it's really beautiful. The weekend went by way to fast, and it was depressing to come home from work Wednesday night to such a quiet house. Corie went home to NY with them. She's going to spend a week there. I can just hear her "Nana, look at me", "Grandpa, watch me climb this tree", "Amber... Amber... Amber, look at me now". Okay, so maybe a quiet house isn't so bad. Next week Zaky is scheduled to go to Santa's Village with Grandma Cheryl and Grandpa Bob. When I die I want to come back as one of my kids!

Nothing makes you realize how uneventful your life is like writing a blog. Oh sure, if I posted once or twice a year I’d have lots of interesting (or at least semi-interesting) things to write about, but try posting every couple of weeks and ho-hum. It’s not that we don’t enjoy most of our day-to-day activities, but they just aren’t the most interesting things to write or read about. You did however come here to read about our daily life, and I will not let you down…

I’ve survived another work week and am looking forward to the weekend. Dad, Pat & Amber are coming up for a visit, so we have been working on getting the house presentable. Actually to be precise Eric and I have been the ones doing the work. Much like Sisyphus and his rock we make little progress, for no matter how fast we clean the kids are somewhere in the house undoing our efforts. Eric did manage to get our new potties installed. I didn’t know that there was anything wrong with our old potties, but apparently they were wholly inadequate. I guess you have to be a plumber to understand, but we are now the proud owners of twin Mansfield potties with matching Church slow-close potty seats... I told you this wasn’t going to be exciting!

It's been a little slow at work, so I've had some time for the internet... Wanna see what I bought? Of course you do.

I have wanted the "Stuffed Toys" for a long time, and almost had it for Christmas but lost the bid last minute. The Japanese craft books are excellent. I've got about 10 in my collection so far, and about half of them are written entirely in Japanese. I also bought some things at Ichiban Kan. It the first of several purchases I plan to make with them :) They have bento items at great prices, but they sell out really fast.

I've recently joined Facebook and can't believe how many friends I've heard from. Now we have another bunch of people that we don't have time to keep in touch with :) I can't end this post without commenting on the photo of Zaky. We took it the day before his 4th birthday, and we sent it into PBS Sprout's Musical Mornings show. I think we sent it in to late though, so it didn't get aired.

We celebrated my sister’s graduation and my Dad’s semi-retirement this weekend in NY. It was great. We enjoyed lots of great food and great family. It was a mini vacation. Here’s a picture of Amber with Corie and Zakary. I think Amber looks more like Aunt Beth every day... except for the ink & hair color (which I love). Corie loved swimming in the pond and would have been content to spend the entire weekend in there. She's a real fish.

Their house and landscaping look amazing, and I took piles of pictures. I plan to use them for ideas when we start landscaping our own house. Here are a few of my favorite shots:

These are the door chickens that I made… one for Pat and one for practice. Zakary has informed me that he needs one for his door also. If he had any money he would be my best customer.

My cousin, Sandy, sent me a link to join facebook, so I could check out her pictures, etc. Since signing up I’ve been getting all these emails from people that I haven’t seen in years. People from high school and college from 20 years ago (ugh, I’m old). It’s pretty cool, but it’s also a little over whelming. That’s a lot of emails to answer. I hadn’t planned on actually using facebook when I signed up, but it seems like it would be fun. Unfortunately work has been so busy lately that I haven’t had time to do my own thing.