more crafts

these are my 2 newest buildings in my christmas village.
the barn house

the ice cream shop

tired girl

this is what happens when a certain little girl is up before 8 in the morning. typically her place of crashing is the couch or chair in the front room. NOT a camping chair on the front step.

school, here i come!

taylor started school today. grandma and nana got together and got some new clothes and shoes for him. peek-a-boo shannon!

i was able to find this way cool backpack at wallyworld for ten bucks. it's bumblebee from transformers, and has a motion sensor light in it.

the wrap on his arm is from the stitches from yesterday. we replaced it after school.

more boy trouble!

my front door is made of panels of glass. and the bottom corner sticks. so when the kids go to open it, they typically push hard on the panes of glass. the panes aren't in the door very well, and the whole thing rattles when slammed.

we were getting ready to go up and meet taylor's teacher and see his classroom yesterday when taylor comes in crying with blood dripping down his arm. he had gone to open the door, and pushed through the pane of glass.

i called my visiting teacher to come and watch the girls and he and i went up to the hospital to get his arm taken care of.

that cut is about 4 inches long. there's a ton of scratches and 2 puncture wounds. the long cut took 5, and the 2 punctures took 1 each. 7 stitches and 1 1/2 hours later, we're home. what a way to start school!

girls and their accessories

shannon has become quite the little girl. i put this scarf on her head, and she became rambo baby!

we put her in the walker to keep her off the floor and out our hair for a little bit, i think we were cleaning. she turned herself around completely, and managed to walk better that way.

i have this little case that i used for my sewing stuff at one point. right now, it's empty. shannon likes to carry it around though! oh, she really likes pens too!

boys!

the other day, taylor comes in the house crying. he's got blood on his hand, and his head. he had been playing on a pile of dirt at the neighbors house and fell and cut his head.


i didn't take him in, cause it would have been a waste of time. one stitch and a bill of $300. no thanks.

elderly

i love the elderly. their wisdom is priceless, they adore my obnoxious children, and their supply of advice is never ending. however, i do not like it when they try to tell me how to raise and discipline my children.

tonight i got a call from an older sister in the ward. informing me that the children were getting into things and that she told them she was going to call the cops on them. she called me first to let me know.

turns out, she's old, she's not well. she doesn't like kids. ookay. she REALLY doesn't like mischevious kids. what kid isn't mischevious? thankfully, shaun was with us, and i could let him take the conversation and i walked away.

the kids were trying to start a lawn mower. there's no way, even if they both pulled on the cord at the same time, that they could EVER start that lawn mower.

what am i going to do with my "unruly" children?

christmas, here i come!

okay, i know, it's the middle of august and my post is about christmas. but i've had so much fun! i've had a christmas village that needs to be painted for about 3 years. i'm finally getting around to it.
#1, the church
#2, the school
#3, the bakery

#4, the queen anne house

harvest

so, i've gotten peas, and onions out of my garden and used them. but this is something else.
this is my happy face after my meager harvest!

concerned neighbors

i just got a call from a concerned neighbor. one of those that thinks they could do a better job at parenting your children than you. to be honest, they have kids of their own, so it could be worse. apparently, my children were spraying water and throwing dirt at a neighbors house, not the one who called me. he kindly told me that he thought i should keep a better eye on my children. i CANNOT watch them every second of the day. i don't have a fenced yard. short of tying them to a post, i cannot keep them in our yard. and if i did tie them to that post, i would get a visit from CPS; not something i want to have happen.

why is it that my children are angels to everyone except me?

cops and peaches

so, the local grocery store has had peaches on sale for the last week. 93 cents a pound. needless to say, i have bought a lot in the last week. i've dried them and put them up. i can fit about 14 pounds of peaches on my eight dehydrator trays. granted, once dried it only takes up about 1/4 the space, but still good. i'm on my third batch.

i took the neighbor girls to the park for lunch with us today. nobody ate a whole lot, but i got to talk with one of the moms in the ward. just after the truck left, the kids decided they were going to bike around the park on the path. (they did this without informing or asking me) but as they were all 4 together, i didn't see a big problem. until all but elizabeth came back. i asked them all where she was, and got the same answer, "i don't know, i haven't seen her." since i couldn't see her, i started looking. when i found her, she was sitting on the grass next to the path. apparently, the others had left her there after she complained she couldn't go anymore. not sure how long she was there, but someone who saw her there called the police, and reported her "abandoned." i got to her about the same time the officer did. she's okay, i was a little rattled though.

saving money, we hope

in the effort to save some money, as everyone ought to do, i did something that i have wanted to do for a LONG time.
for a little over $9, i made myslef a clothesline. we already had the posts in the backyard, so, all i needed was the line and the clothespins. gotta love the dollarstore. i got 140 feet of clothesline for $2, and 56 clothespins for $4. then, i discovered that i needed some more clothespins, so at wallyworld, i got 100 more for $3.
if i don't have to run the dryer all the time, i wonder how much lower my power bill will be? we'll find out!

streaking?

so, i just caught my two children outside. not normally a problem, except that elizabeth was buck naked and taylor only had underpants on.

when did i suddenly get two streakers?!

oven

so, i haven't heard from the landlord about the oven since the 4th of july when we saw them at the parade. i was going to sit down tonight and type up another letter to send to them.he called this morning and said that he was going to come and put the new oven in this afternoon.

WHAT! he didn't tell us he was getting a new one. he told us he got a replacement part.

so, he showed up and put the new oven in, and i'm currently cooking dinner in it!!!

YEAH!

government programs, sheesh!

shauns school money finally came in. unfortunately, it's already gone. i didn't have enough to pay off the credit card, or pay mark and my mother-in-law back. all the bills are current, but there's nothing to get us through until fall semesters loan money comes in.

the food money finally came in also. interesting story that one. i had sent in all the verification paperwork and everything they wanted for both the food stamps and the medicaid. a month later and i was still waiting to hear back about them. so, i tried calling in to get some info and find out what was going on. i got an automated message that said, "for english press one, for spanish press two." i pressed one, it repeated itself, i pressed one again, it repeated itself again. it kept looping.
so, i drove down to the local office, which by the way no longer takes care of anything except the initial interviews, and tried to get some info out of them. they gave me direct phone numbers to call.
so, on the way home, i called those numbers. about the food stamps i was told they were VERY sorry, and would have someone run the case right away and call us back that day with numbers and the money, if there was any, would be in the account in the morning. it was.
as for the medicaid, i was told that they would get someone on it soon and i would be informed. still waiting to hear on that one. when that comes through, i can take the receipts for elizabeths medicine back to the pharmacy and get my money back. that will help, that's a hundred dollars.
basically, they had everything they needed for both of them, but no one had bothered to check back and run them again. idiots!

now if we can just figure out how to survive until fall semester starts.

oh, btw-still no oven, this really sucks!

solved!

so, it occured to me on the 4th, that we have a credit card with a $500 limit on it. it's not being used and hasn't been for almost 2 years.
activating it would solve 2 problems. 1: we have necessities that we can't get because the loan money isnt' in yet. 2: it will help build our credit back up if we use it and pay it off each month.

yes, i activated it and have gotten the things that we needed.

now if the money food would just come in. . . .

money issues

we called the school today to find out where shauns loan money was. turns out the school doesn't get it until the 6th. then cause he's out of town, they will mail it on the 8th. we'll be lucky if we have it by the 11th.
the semester will be halfway over before we see the money that is supposed to get the supplies. there's something seriously wrong with that!

frustrating

ok, still no oven, but the good news is that the landlord did come over and take a look at it. he's ordered a part and we'll see if that's the problem.

the neighbor knocked on the door yesterday morning with a complaint about the kids. apparently, the kids are getting into their garage when they are not home. AH! so i had a talk with them and tried to get them to understand that they can't go in there. i was told by taylor that if they would lock the door, they wouldn't get in there! he's way too smart.

oven

there's something to be said for taking things into your own hands, i.e. threatening. i've tried to get a hold of my landlord for over a week because the oven doesn't work correctly. it won't get up to the level of heat it needs to. so, i finally sent a letter that said i was going to wait until jul 1, and then i was going to call a repairman to come and fix it and take the costs out of my rent payment.

the landlord showed up today. he's going to try and get it fixed. yeah!!

sad and depressing

when i was in pocatello, i had a group of good friends. there were four of us. one of the group is getting married in 3 weeks. her bridal shower is tonight, and shopping for lingerie was this afternoon.

the sad and depressing part is that my babysitter bailed on me, and i am currently sitting at home with the kids instead of shopping with the girls. i even had backups lined up, and they fell through as well.