What I've been doing...

Well, because blogging about what I do on a weekly basis clearly didn't work, here I am today. I guess I can only do what I can do. Today you get pictures! Yea. I can't remember how long it has been since I posted with pictures. I guess I just could go and look. I wanted to actually show some of the things that I've been up to. I'll also tell what the kids have been doing as well.

First off, I'll SHOW what I've been doing, I'm super excited about this, and so are the girls. They are begging for them:

and

The problem for the girls is that they are too big because I made these to fit my wrist. I guess I'll be making some smaller ones for them today. I can't wait to make a black one too, that is next on my schedule. I'm thinking of putting them in my etsy shop, what do you think of them? Do you think they'll sell?

I have also been making more watch bands. These can be found in my etsy shop.

I also made these:

So that's the "crafty" stuff that I've been doing, at lest that I have pictures of. I have more projects in the works, so I can't wait to get started on those.

Other things that have been going on:

I'm still doing my 5 miles a day, every day. It is hard, but still worth it. I have a new cell phone (Yippee) that I don't know how to use (um, yeah). I got it for Christmas and it is awesome (I think), but I know it's better than the last phone I had. The kids love it because it makes the transformers sound every time I open it. I did get a hands free device (Thanks a lot OREGON) for it that I love/hate. All the kids are doing swimming right now. They all love it. Bryce and Ambri are having swimming lessons at school every day and Chase and Oakli are doing their lessons at night. It makes for a crazy Tuesday night, but it is worth it. Bryce has scouts on Tuesday nights and soccer practice just started up again for him on Tuesday nights as well. Ambri is loving achievement day (which is at night), also on Tuesday nights... did I mention that Tuesday's are our FAVORITE (not really - or crazy, or something like that...). Bryce and Ambri also continue to very well with their piano (thankfully that is NOT on Tuesdays). Doug is super busy trying to get all the blueberry plants pruned and it is taking a LONG time this year, but he is doing a great job with "Hose-A" and Hose-C". (For those of you that don't know, "Hose-B" quit a while back... really... hehe...)

I'm on Strike!

Now, don't go getting any ideas now... I'm still:

I don't know that it was ever officially discussed before, but I think it was mentioned previously how difficult it was to blog every day for a whole month. I'm not saying it can't be done for some people. I know there are a lot of people out there that make a lot of money doing it every day. I'm sure that if someone wanted to pay me a lot of money, I'd change my attitude really fast. But, because no one is beating down my pathetic front door, my attitude is still the same, blogging everyday is not for me. I will, however, be back. Just not yet. I think about it often, so I wanted to let you know (if you are out there) that I am still here. I am still trying to enjoy the last few days of sun that we have in Oregon. I am swamped with soccer 6 days a week (but loving it!), canning, and am now enjoying what is a quiet afternoon once in a while. Chase is in school now in the afternoons, and Oakli still loves her naps, when she gets them. I am proud to say, some afternoons it is quiet. Sitting here thinking about what happens during those quiet hours, I cannot even begin to recall, but I'm sure that something productive happens (I hope!)

Once the rain starts to fall and soccer ends for the Princesses, Elves, Tornadoes, and Renegades I'll post pictures of the kids in action and begin work on scrapbook pages (I hope) and who knows what else, but until then, we are still here and I'm still reading your blogs too!

Soccer Season...Again

Round 2, here we go again with soccer (round 2 means now it's spring soccer, we've already gone round 1 with fall soccer).


Today Bryce was playing goalie. He makes a mighty fine goalie when he decides he is willing to sacrifice his body for the ball. There are not many days that he is willing to do that, but on Saturday, he didn't let anything get past him. Plus, he has a very good leg on him. I think you get the idea here...

Soccer Season Is Upon Us!

I've decided to start from here and move forward, or I'll be lost in the past! I do have a lot to catch up on, but maybe later on if I have time.

Ambri and Bryce are playing soccer again this year. Ambri plays on the Marigolds team and Bryce plays on the Chefs and the Renegades. It has been a very busy and interesting season so far. I'll start with Ambri because her goings on are much easier to write about so far. She is on a team with her friend Ceanne. They are doing really great. Ambri has a really good coach that just pushes the girls in a fun way and they are learning so much. Ambri has had 3 games so far this season and she has scored 5 goals. She is very proud about that, because she didn't score any goals last year. Ambri is a little shorter than Ceanne so she can't run as fast, but she sure knows how to make sure all the other girls stay out of her space! She isn't afraid to touch the other players, like she was when she first started playing soccer.

Bryce started the season off kind of continuing from last season. His coach las year asked him to try out for a new competitive team. After talking about it for a bit, we decided to have him go ahead and try out. They told us that the games would be on Saturdays and would most likely conflict with the regular AYSO games. So they made sure that they divided up all the boys to be on different AYSO teams so it wouldn't make one team suffer more than another, if there were a Saturday that they needed to be away at the Renegade game. (The competitive team is through AYSO and so they are playing on a regular team, and the "progressive" team.) As it turned out, so far all of the games have been on Sundays. They have had 3 weeks of tournaments with at least 2 games each day. Bryce told his coaches that he wouldn't be playing with the team when they play on Sundays (man, I love that kid!). So he has missed all those games so far, but he still goes to practice each week with that team. He has soccer 4 times a week between practice with 2 teams and games on Saturdays. I think that they may have a tournament this coming Saturday for the Renegade team, so Bryce may get a chance to play with them. It should be pretty exciting, the boys are very good. They basically took the best players out of the league and made a team with them. It is kind of sad watching when they have to go back to the regular AYSO team (just for fun team... everyone is a winner, blah, blah, blah...) because it is just like taking 5 steps backward each week. What do you do, though?

Ambri is now in 2nd grade and Bryce is in 4th. They are both loving every minute of it. Ambri finished her first chapter book today, and yesterday Bryce finished the 6th book of Harry Potter. He very quickly went and found the last book and dove right in. I asked him what was next after Harry Potter, and he told me without a skip, “The Book of Mormon”. I can’t wait for him to start that one! After that, he said he was going to start “The Work and the Glory” books.

Ambri finally lost her 2 front teeth on the top. She is very excited. All the other kids have already lost their teeth, so she is on the slower end a bit.

Chase and Oakli are home with me each day. Oakli is right there with Chase trying to learn and do everything that Chase does. Oakli loves to dance, and Chases loves to shake his “booty”.

I’ve been really busy with canning, drying, and walking. (Strange combination.) I did a few tomatoes this year, we still had a lot from last year. Doug helped with everything else that we did. We got 180 quarts of green beans done, 200 cobs of corn cut and stowed for the winter, and A LOT of applesauce. We did 140 pints and 130 quarts. Hope everyone likes applesauce! (We go through lots of it, but probably not that much – we went a bit overboard.)

I decided to dry apple slices this year. We have lots of apples and I definitely don’t want to make more applesauce. It has been really fun to do, and super yummy as well. I’ve been dipping them in cinnamon and sugar before I dry them, so they are even more delicious.

Walking… well, I do a lot of it. I have been doing about 30 miles a week. It has really been great for me. I enjoy my time out on the road just moving along. In August I did my first half-marathon. I have 2 more coming up that I am continuing to train for. The first one was a bit harder than I thought, even though I finished in pretty good time. I was the first walker to finish, but it was very hard. A few things to change for the next one and hopefully I’ll be good to go.

Doug will be doing the next half-marathon with me. He won’t be walking though. He did his first marathon in May, and he finished. He decided that the time he got wasn’t good enough, so he wants to do more. He was going to do the Pocatello Marathon with me in August, but about 2 weeks before the marathon, he pulled his hamstring. He is still trying to recover from that. If all goes well, he’ll do a full marathon in January.

We have more soccer, and OSU football games to keep up with. After Halloween we have a trip coming up, so I’ll try to post often and post some pictures as well!