Peaceful Friday

Today is a peaceful day. We are home for the day with no plans because I have a virus and have not been feeling well. But it has been a good day. The kids are really quiet today too. Maybe we all needed a day off! I feel bad that Robin is working!

I have had some time to read, to knit and even do a bit of quilting. I have started reading the "Sunrise Series" by Karen Kingsbury. This is the fourth series I have read by her this year. It has been great to have a Christian fictional book going. I find it very relaxing! There are only 2 books of 4 published from this present series but I believe the other two will be out in the Spring of 2008 so I don't have terribly long to wait.

I am finally working on the squares from the past 2 quilt swaps of T2CHK!! Finally, they will become a quilt!! Some of the blocks were shy of 12.5" (including mine...EEK). So today, I have been building the blocks up with some cream material. I am oversizing them and then will trim them down to my desired size (if I do it right!!). I originally wasn't sure what I was going to do but then Wardeh from Such Treasures gave me the idea of building them up. For me, quilting has always been about diving in and then making it work!

Life's not perfect is it? I am sure not perfect... I am forgiven but far from perfect!! So, I thought it might be fun to share some of my *recent* imperfections:

This is my quilt square that I made too small and am now building up.


Oops! I am out of yarn!!


Okay, this is a bit of a longer story. I am knitting a shawl for myself because I am always cold in the evening. Well in the chaos of Christmas presents I misplaced one of the size 11 needles. I searched for a bit and then decided to get my other pair of size 11 needles. They did feel smaller for me but I still used them. As you can see they really were smaller so I have a dent in my shawl! I corrected the problem by adding a couple of stitches. I decided not to rip out the rows because the shawl is for me and I won't mind the dent! :) Yes, I did finally find the missing needle which it a blessing because they were my favorites! :)

Christmas Eve Memories

Every Christmas Eve the kids get to open one present. This year it was the present from Robin's parents. Here they are sporting their nerf guns and nerf "armor"! ;)

We spent quite a bit of time making chocolate covered pretzels, marshmellows and strawberries. The smart idea I had was to use a stainless steel bowl in a pan to make a double boiler. The truly dumb idea I had was to leave the stems on the strawberry to give us something to grab onto as we dipped the strawberries in the chocolate. That was fine until some of the stems end up UNDER the chocolate and then you end up with stems in your mouth! EWWWW!! Did we still eat them, you might ask? Well, they were covered in CHOCOLATE so OF COURSE we did!! HAHAHA!!

Christmas is coming!!

Christmas has taken over at the Twombly household and let me tell ya', it's a beautiful thing! Yesterday Robin finished up our shopping, wonderful man that he is! At home we focused on making Christmas cards for our church friends. We also got all the Christmas goodies into the house for our next two days of Christmas Eve and Christmas.

This year I decided to ask the kids for their favorite party foods. It is really silly for me to exhaust myself on a big turkey dinner when we don't have company and the kids don't care for it. So...here is what we came up with:

Breakfast: Dunkin' Donuts!

Big Meal of the Day:

Christmas Eve: Broiled Steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn

Christmas Day: Lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs, homemade bread

The rest of the day we will pick on:

~Apples and grapes

~Baby carrots and cucumbers with Ranch Dip

~Baked Lays Chips

~Sharp cheese and crackers

~Pretzels, strawberries and marshmellows dipped in melted chocolate

To Drink

~Soda please mom!!

If I can get through the crowds tomorrow early than I am going to buy an ice cream maker. I have been meaning to buy one so that I can make my grandmother's chocolate ice cream. :)

Also on the schedule is that I need to wrap allllll the kids presents and have them help me decorate ginger bread men (oh yeah add that to the list of foods) and then I think that is about it!!

Is anyone out there done with all Christmas preparations?

Brainiac Dog...

Is it a bad thing if the dog shows more interest in the school work than the kids do? Haha! Just kidding...


"Do you need some help with that Tyler?? I rock at Biology!! C'mon give me a chance!!"

"Coool...could you read that part about 'carrier pigeons again?"

"Mom, could you move your hand please? It's in my way..."

Sheesh!

It's Winter!

Winter has officially arrived! So, at least now we have a good reason for all of this snow!! This first picture is the back of our house. Icicles anyone?
This next one is the from the door of our sunroom out to the back deck. The snow was up onto the window section.

Here is my back yard at the tree line. I do love it when the trees are all snow covered!!

Christmas Tree Time!

Yay! We FINALLY have the Christmas Tree!! The kids wanted to wait this year to put up the tree. They think it is harder to wait for Christmas when the tree it up! HUH?
This was a good weekend to put it up. We had a blizzard so there was more extra time in our weekend! Here is Robin putting up the lights. He is our "Puttin' Up the Lights Pro". ;)

Then, once the lights were up, the kids could get to serious decorating!

The kids all take turns putting the topper on the tree. This year it was Rachel's turn. She is not fond of being up high but she did it!

Voila!!! For some reason my pictures of the tree all came out blurry but it gives the general idea...

Dressed in White

Home Sweet Home after last night's snowfall.
The driveway and view across the street. Just beyond those trees is the lake.

This 'n That

Yes, it is snowing out! It's dark too, but I decided to try a picture anyway. There doesn't seem to be any doubt that we will have a white Christmas this year. I can't believe that Christmas is only 12 days away!! YIKES! I need to finish up my Christmas shopping and get packages in the mail. Like many others who are paying top dollar for gas and $3.00 per gallon on heating oil, it is be a slimmer Christmas. But Christmas, just the same...

We have been so busy working hard on our schoolwork. I barely have time for anything else. Tyler starts his school work at 7:30 a.m. We start with me teaching him Math. Then I add Christian and Rachel at 8:00 a.m. We break for lunch at noon. Usually Rachel and Christian only need about 30 more min.-1 hour after lunch. Tyler requires more time if he expects to have no evening or weekend work. Most days, even he is done by 3:00 p.m. Then it is time to go to whatever activity is scheduled for that day whether it be music lessons or dance lessons or soccer training. I feel as though we are racing through the days.

This is why I so love snow!! A good snow storm cancels outside activities and gives you time to catch up with yourself. Today's storm was great timing. I needed to correct papers and help Tyler study for a big Biology exam. Robin needs to do some extra computer stuff for work. Rachel has been playing lots of piano today. I bought her a couple of books of Christmas music right on her level and she has been very excited about learning the new songs. Christian is playing a bit with the piano deciding if he would like to learn the piano alongside of already learning the drums. Anyway, it is a good night to be home!

Today I bought supplies for baking Christmas cookies. Too bad I forgot that I promised to bring appetizers to the Ladies Christmas party tomorrow night (church event). Yep, typical "Karen" move!! ;) Oh well, I guess I will pick up a veggie platter on my way there tomorrow. I really can't wait! It is my first ladies event in our new (newish anyway) church. I am excited to get to know more of our ladies. Our church is so friendly and loving. We are just having a blast there!!

Well, I best go get Tyler studying...

Have a great night!

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful for:

Jesus, my Savior (This print is by Larry Weingartner. You can purchase it at www.allposters.com.)My hardworking husband.

My fun, happy kids.

Our little pup, Dash.

Art Show

Our homeschool group offered an Art Class recently based on the book "Discovering Great Artists". The teacher would read from the book about a famous artist and then the children would use a technique from the artist. This was such a fun class! Christian and Rachel were very excited to share their art at the closing Art Show. This class was definitely a highlight of our fall! We'll miss it.

Snow Day!

This morning, which happens to be Christian's 11th birthday, Christian and Rachel woke up so excited that snow had come! They ate their breakfasts and put on their snow suits...they were all ready to go outside. What?!?! Mom wants us to do MATH first?!?! Well, here they are, snow suits on, doing their Math! This just cracked me up!!

I forgot to take pics of the snow so stay tuned! I'll post those tomorrow...