Privacy issues...

My family know no boundaries and pretends as though they have never heard of personal space. That is why this is so funny.

Me: Hey, you knocked on my door. Where did you learn that? Certainly not from anyone in this family.

Ethan: What can I say? I watch a lot of T.V.

That kid was born cool. The girls are totally going to fall in love with him in a couple of years.

I love that kid.

A Birthday Bag

Here is yet another completed birthday present! Go me. Remember this picture?

It is for a friend of mine who is turning 15. It is completely one-of-a-kind. There is no bag like this anywhere in the universe. I made the pattern myself using a Kroger paper grocery bag. Here is the during picture and the final project which I have decided to name the Rachel Bag (I know, super official sounding):

She is several inches shorter than me so the bag will go down farther on her.

Let the Countdown Begin

Yesterday marked the one month away date of my trip out West! I can't wait. Friends, family, and countrymen, I can't wait to see you.

Recovering from the weekend...

It is always strange to me when I'm glad to go work so that I can recover from a long weekend. My parents went out of town for the weekend so I got mom duty. I cooked, cleaned and even managed to squeeze in a quick jog (go me!). On Saturday night, I was crazy enough to have a musical party. I know, I know, you'd think having 6 kids for a weekend would be enough work. By Sunday night I was so exhausted that I went to bed before 10 only to be woken up around 2 am by two very grumpy sisters. Per usual, I failed to take a single picture.

Thanks for all the recipe suggestions. Here is a list of things that I ended up making this weekend:

• Waffles - I'm super addicted waffles right now. I can't explain it, it just is what it is. I eat one huge one and I love it so much that I am forced to eat a second one even though I'm not at all hungry. And then even though I feel kind of sick afterwards, I still do it the next time I have waffles.


• Messed-up hash browns. I can't figure out how to make good hash browns. I think I just need lots of practice.


• Mulled cider - I put in a whole can of lemonade concentrate. Pretty tasty.


• Pizza soup - I loverly this one.
• Cornbread - 1/2 into making it I realized that I only had 1/3 c of cornmeal and the recipe called for 1 c. What to do? I just substituted polenta. Fortunately, it still turned out just fine.


• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies - I made this recipe. Pretty good except I thought I would have actually put in less of the chocolate chips and baked them a couple minutes longer than the recipe called for.


• Ham and Cheese Bread - this was totally unplanned. We forgot that there was a supper after evening church. Fortunately, mom had just bought an entire bag of frozen bread dough and so Aaron and I whipped these up. Everybody seemed to love them.
• Even though this isn't food, I made some of these for our Reformation Celebration.
  

Recipe Wanted:

Does anybody have some good fall dessert recipes? We're having a party on Saturday and I need something yummy to go with mulled cider. I was thinking that it might be tasty to have some molasses chocolate chip cookies, but I couldn't find a recipe anywhere.

Super Random

One of my super random jobs is to go through the Ohio County Times Newspaper. Why? Well, it is kind of complicated so lets just say I have look through the paper and the obits. Ohio County is a super small, hick county that is next to the county I live in. The paper is also super small town. They only publish it once a week and it is often filled with pictures and advents like "Aiden Celebrated Her 1st Birthday!" Oh, and recently there was an article on how their high school football team had won their first game since 2008. You get the picture.

Anywho, imagine my surprise when I turned to the back page to find a picture and a short paragraph on how some Ohio County resident had met N.T. Wright. I know, bizarre.

In other news, I have had the hiccups on three separate occasions today. The worst is getting hiccups at work and still having to answer the phone and greet people who walk in.

Busy and Blessed

A while back I posted about how I wasn't stressed out at all. It was true. My stress level was only at a level 1 out of 10. I knew it was a just a stage of life and wasn't bound to last very long. Too true.

I am beginning to feel it slowly creeping up on me. So much to do, so little time. I keep trying to go to bed early and catch up on sleep, but somehow it just isn't working.

Because I like lists, here is what i've been thinking about lately:

• Reformation party, games, a team challenge, who is going to do the pinata, does anybody have talent?, fake mustaches, people to call.


• The weekend featuring babysitting, party at my house, grumpy toddlers, becoming a mom to 6 kids overnight, food to make.


• Christmas presents to make, birthday gifts, deadlines.


• Future plans, obsessing about small businesses, brainstorming, researching, learning, trying to be a grown-up, work, obsessing about buying a house and what sort dishes should habitate my kitchen.

Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. My stress level is only around a level 3 or 4. I'm just not sure how to do it all at once.