Odd

Pictures by 4 year olds.

First we have the shower curtain in the second bathroom

A view of the living room looking like a twister tore through it. I'm happy to report that it has improved since then. 

The couch. The Alexanders hooked us up with this couch. I'm very very happy they did. And i have tried hard to keep it nice but it is showing the wear and tear that it has lived through.

It has a build in bed that folds out. It has been very handy on several occasions like when Linda lived with us for 3 months. 

And Anna, this lets us know that Astrid took at least a few of these master pieces. 

And Astrid which then lets us conclude that this was a twin job. 

Something blue...maybe Astrid's shirt? 

A box on the couch with the guts of someones homework folder from school spilled on op of it. The boxes that we keep in the garage are numbered and inventoried on a spreadsheet in excel. It makes it fairly easy to locate whatever we want out of storage. At the moment this system is in need of major redoing because we have gone through stuff and combined boxes and sold or given away the contents of others in an effort to simplify our crowed existence.

A closer look at the school papers. 

A truly fascinating picture. You can really let your imagination take wings with this one! 

I'm not sure what this might be. 

And sadly I'm painfully aware that is the 25+ year old carpet on the floor in the house where we live. Nasty old thing. VERY grateful for the carpet cleaner I got for my birthday a year ago. But nothing can ever make this carpet lovely again. 

This is someones fat thigh and the dogs paw. We had that dog fixed here recently. let's hope he will now stop making the floor nasty quite as efficiently as he was. 

Something mysterious and red. 

And finally, the monster living under the bed. 

On the horizon

I just love all the little surprise pictures the kids leave on the camera for me!

My ever hard working husband. I'm so very thankful for having this fantastic man in my life. He is so very patient with all my faults and oddities. he works so hard to try to cover all his responsibilities. He is almost done with school. One more semester! About a year ago we realised that this fabled graduation was actually with in the tangible future and we just sad there dumbfounded for some time trying to imagine life without school. Life on our terms and not what is required for the degree. Then we realized that we could go anywhere in the world and that was both unsettling and a rush of excitement. After a looooooooooong (months) time brainstorming and deliberating and testing various plans, Including moving to Denmark, and allot of talking about it all over again, the options came down to staying right where we are or better yet moving to the Sacramento area where we have a lot of family. Anywhere else we want to live is to cold for Jed's odd health issue. I was really hoping Denmark would work but there are just to many cold days in the year despite the mild climate. So sad. Hopefully one day we will have more answers and treatments for this strange cold weather issue and then maybe the many other options will be back on the table.

We are crossing our fingers and hoping that Jed is getting a job in California.

If not we'll try and get a job very close to where we are now and stay in the area. We have Jed's brother and his wife and kids here and we have become very close to so many wonderful people here in Pflugerville that we would really be sad to leave. They are our family away from family. They have been here for us through the holidays and the birthday parties and all the ups and downs. A big thank You to all the wonderful people we have come to know and love in out years here is definitely due for this thanksgiving.

THANK YOU!

Mostly though I'm thankful for my husband! over the years I have steadily come to appreciate more and more the person he is. I'm so proud of him. I've watched as he has struggled through various obstacles and I admire his courage and integrity. I'm excited for the rest of our lives together and so very grateful for our common shared faith and love.

Sooooo so scary?

Here we have a bunch of snapshots from our front yard. 

My front door. 

The haunting view in through the window 

The "sourse" of all the cobwebs in the trees. 

our mysterious cemerety on the front lawn. 

And our friendly skull on a stick. 

We had allot of fun pulling the web back and forth untill it looked just right 

And even though we did not catch any giant flies (in the net -we did get a horse fly in MY BATHROOM AHHHHHHHH!)  we did catch a lot of leaves as they turned brown and dropped of the trees! 

And there you have it.

Seasonally apropriate front yard.

I loved going out the front door. It was just fun. 

The smell of Warm Bread

Sometimes it is the very simple things that makes you feel happy 

For some reason These jars of homemade bread machine mixes makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, so much that I'm smiling like a new mama just typing this post.

Don't you just love they layers of flour, and sugar and salt? So pretty! 

I have many empty masonry jars and have for a long time been itching to use them. I got an influx in my heard of jars this summer (thanks again Janet) and the itch turned into something more violent. I have reactivated my bargain hunting for a pressure cooker that is tall enough to fit the big jars and when I happily stumbled upon a dream of a clearance sale last month I suddenly had all this fantastic flour that Had been to expensive before. One of the packages i brought home was a bread machine mix. That is when I realised that my jars could be put to good use without the pressure cooker. 

I did a quick online search and found this helpful site. I took the white bread mix and experimented by replacing 1 cup of the plain flour with a random mix of some of my other flours that i had sitting around the house. I worked out pretty well. It was so nice to have the home made bread. Much cheaper than getting it from the store. Better tasting than my other frugal bread strategy. i normally go to the day old bread store. Stock up big time. Get a nicer brand than we can normally afford for less than the store brand at HEB and Freeze about 12 loaves. The problem with that is that they tend to get freezer burned and that my freezer is often full when I find a really good deal on meat or frozen pizza or some other ready to eat thing and I really like having the space for those things. Having the freezer space is one of the main reasons I've been wanting to put things like stew in jars in the first place. 

So far i have only been making the same mystery mix but I think i would like to test some other recipes soon. I have an abundance of rye flour that I'm very excited to use. I found this great site last night, it might be worth trying them out. I might also branch out and make some cake and cookie mixes. we'll see. First I have to find some cake mix recipes i really like.

Just aim and push!

So I thought to my self: Ida you do not look half bad today, let's see if the camera agrees.

So Anna was ready to be my camera operator

I tried to explain to her that I wanted a full body picture....

one where you can see my feet.

So we got a ton of these.

which reminds me how much does a digital picture weigh again?

So we tried some close ups.

I have really enjoyed working out.

I had to stop because my joints were not quite ready to handle what I was doing to them.

My friend is going to give me a series of strengthening exercises so i can get back on track.

I've started to turn into jelly again and I'm not liking it one bit.

I like how my hair is darker at the ends but I think I'm still going to color it again if I ever get the time, or rather if Jed ever gets the time to help. If I try to do it myself it just does not look quite as good.

I again tried to get Anna in the pot.

Clearly a skeptic!

So she decided to leave.

I tried again to entice Astrid to get in the pot

This was her response.

So then I had to show them that it was perfectly safe to stand in the smoky cauldron

Anna of course took pictures.

Oh well you win some you loose some.

How in the world do other people make it look so cute all the time?

I have 3 adorable little girls. 

For the last 6 Years I have tried to get little girl hair to look cute 

I have F I N A L Y managed to figure out how to french braid. 

I experimented on the twins one day. This looked cute enough on the side with the braid but one the other side of her head it looked really off. 

The braid did not stay like this very long and as the day progressed like most of the things i do to their hair it just kept looking sadder and sadder. 

Astrid's head is shaped very different. it is bigger on top flatter in the back and her hair acts different than Anna's and Ivy's. And acts different on the front than in the back. If I just let it hand she looks like a street orphan. 

When ever I put her her up she usually has everything pulled out within 30 minutes. Sometimes it just sorta hangs in the sad resemblance of a once upon a time hairdo. 

I tried to do a french braid inspired rope braid. I just sorta made it up. As you can tell there will never be any salons named after me. 

I looked OK for about 10 minutes.  

Her hair is just so thin.

One day I will figure this out. Until then please do not judge my kids because they look like they live in my garbage can.