Saturday, November 29, 2008

Thanksgiving 2008

What a week!

Our huge pot of potato's cooking.
Maria fixing  Monica's bangs
Fred who is our official potato person.  Every yr he scrubs, peels and mashes all the potato's for us.  
Jon and Maria
the children were all watching the me grind wheat for the rolls.  In my new kitchen I have my flour grinder in a cabinet.  It rolls out and I can grind my wheat right there by my baking counter.  
Miriam and Jon
Martha and Tony
Cody and James

Kendra
Monica: who made most of the pies.
Tony, Paul, Jon, Hans, Mark


Martha and our friends from Minnesota
Well I knew I would be busy, but over all it was a good week.  

Tue was the day to bake 60 pies.  Thankfully there were 3 of us working on it, so it wasn't so bad.  
I did a prenatal on my client that was a week overdue.  She looked miserable.  I didn't want her to have to go more days over, but I really wanted to have Wed and Thursday with my family.  The plan was on Wed that Moriah, Martha, Miriam and our guests from Minnesota were all coming up to bake.  Thur of course was Thanksgiving and we planned on 24 for dinner.
So Wed morning we got the house all clean and Moriah showed up bringing Fred, Paul and Hans.  We got to show them all our new projects on the house.  We visited a short while, until we got a text message from Martha that says "help, car broke down, M Lake"
Well to make a long story short,  Martha, her 2 little boys and our guests,  were stuck on the road for almost 5 hours and it was cold too.  When it was all said and done, it took them 6 hours to get here!   Moriah, Fred and I were on the phone and worrying the whole time.  
Well Thanksgiving was great.  We had a very full house, lots and lots of food.  Everyone helped cook, everyone helped clean.  And my client never called the whole holiday.  
Friday morning at 6:30 am she calls.  Wasn't that nice timing!  She had a little boy, 9lbs 2 oz.    We did have to transport this mom, so that was disappointing. So much of our schooling as midwives is learning when to transport.  Everyone was happy and healthy and that's the biggest priority.  We were with them at the hospital till 4 am. so as you can imagine I am very tired today and thankful for leftovers.  

I'm so happy for the break in midwifery over the holidays.  I'm hoping to get my bedroom finished before Christmas.  I still have fire soot in the master bedroom and bathroom.  
Maybe by next week I can have it ready to empty.  Once I get it empty I get someone to come and take the popcorn off the ceilings and texture it.  Then we paint which is easy when you don't have to worry about it getting on the floor or furniture.
Then I get the new carpet.  
I have my beautiful new comforter still in the package that I bought with my birthday money. It will be fun to have a new bedroom!




Monday, November 24, 2008

I found my camera cord!

So I'll give you a bunch of pictures .

This is Mark. We made a squash cupcakes.
In this picture we are in the middle of our project. Pulling out the old carpet. You can see our new front door. Doesn't it look nice?
You can also see in this painting in the background my mom had painted. Also my beautiful buffet that she left me. It was last Thanksgiving that my mom had gotten so sick. I've always heard first holidays after someones passing is the hardest.

Jon likes to make these huge sandwiches. He can eat A LOT! This was a loaf of french bread.


Jon standing next to our new front door.

Monica laying on the new carpet.As you can see here the floor in the dining room and the nice round curve between. It looks really nice.

This is Cody. Jon and Cody put up the new ceiling fan. This thing on his head is the shade for the light. Notice his hair sticking up in the middle. It looked really funny!


Our new ceiling fan. Our other one was about 18 yrs old and made a horrible squeaking noise.

Our sweet little deer in our yard. This one was so friendly and got really close. We had been feeding them apples from the trees at the birth center. I guess she remembered because she walked right up to us while we were working in the yard.

Isn't she cute!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Catching up

I haven't written for a while, so it's time to catch up.
We had another birth last week. It was another butter birth! This baby would smile really big at only a few hours old. It wasn't your normal "gas" type smile, it was a real smile that went on for a little bit. His parents were able to get quite a few pictures of him smiling! He must have been happy to be out in the light!I have one more birth this Nov. and then we have a break till Jan. I was sure this one would go well before Thanksgiving. Well I'm just hoping it won't be Tue, Wed or Thur. Tue I promised to make 60 pies! Mark is in this special choir. It's a Fancy choir he had to try out for, they wear tuxedos and sing in the memorial center (a Fancy building) Well they are trying to raise some funds and decided to sell pumpkin pies. I don't have to make the crust, just make the filling and bake them. So 60 won't be that many, will it? Plus on Tue 3 of the children have piano lessons, and pathfinders is going to stack firewood for the pastor who broke his ankle. Plus I have a prenatal appointment. Wed. the girls are coming up and we are going to have a nice visit and start our baking and of course Thur. we will have at least 24 of us. Mishael putting our turkey in a brine (something she learned in her cooking classes) We will cook at least 2 turkeys or we never have leftovers. We decided to make the rolls on Thur morning so they will be fresh.
Well we will miss Gina (in Peru) Michael (across the US), and Moriah and Joe (going to Joe's parents) But it sounds like a few people are bringing some extra company so it will be a nice full house. Without a couch in the living room! I'll explain:
We have been going at house projects like crazy. I think Rick is getting overwhelmed at the change. There are people that like change, but others that it's really is hard for them.
I change my living room around probably every few months. I remember putting some children almost in tears from a simple change like that.
So my front door got put in yesterday. It's beautiful!
We moved the couch up to the family room and it's a little snug, but cozy. This is why we have no couch in the living room. We didn't know if it was too big. Jon was sure he could do it and so he took control and Mark and Jon lifted that heavy sofa sleeper up the stairs! Amazing what boys can do when they want to. It does come apart some, but the sleeper part is still VERY heavy.
The floor got put in the dining room/back entrance yesterday. I was a bit disappointed, because I thought it was going to look more like real wood. It's still nice, and extremely sturdy. It will last longer then the house if someone wants it that long. But it's just not as pretty as I thought it would be. But I still really like it. Today he's putting in the carpet. Our whole house is becoming a "fancy", finished house. We haven't lived in a finished house for about 20 yrs! Well since I like house projects, maybe it will never be finished. Or maybe if it really gets all nice and finished I'll have to start on the birth center. That would be good. I wonder if I put money into that, how much it could go up in value. ???
Cody has been up every weekend working on his house. I am very happy to report that he and Mishael decided to move back to Libby. Some people will probably think of them as flaky. They might be a bit, but as a Mom and Grandma I am very happy. I am very lonely for my children lately. My visits down there have been busy and short lately. Everyone is so busy with their own lives too. I know this is natural, healthy and normal, but none this less I missing everyone. Now with Michael moving too, we have none of the grown children close by. So Mishael and Cody are finally finishing their house and it's very cute, and brand new looking. Mishael can transfer her job and Cody can go to school up here and I can watch Gareth grow up and cook with Mishael and she can come to my childbirth classes. As you can see I'm glad they are a little flaky! lol.
Can't wait to show you some pictures, but you could probably guess, I lost my computer cord again. :) It's not really lost, it's around and I'm sure it will show up soon. I read once how much time the average person spends looking for misplaced items, it was an incredible amount of time! I'm guessing I'm above average!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Kitchen


I don't mean to brag, but I had 3 people over yesterday that were saying how much they loved my kitchen. It was so funny, because all 3 of them (separate times of the day) said it more then once, how nice it is, and they all said it's like a dream kitchen.
It is my dream kitchen. Of course, that's why I planned it that way! Although I suppose if I had to do it over again, now with the experience I would change a couple of minor things. But over all it's really nice and so easy to work in.
The first people that came are clients that are going to work on making the edge for the counter tops. They will be trading. That will be exciting to get another step towards finishing the kitchen.

Top of stairs, all painted and clean!

So many deer this year in our yard. The other day we were working out there, and the one deer walked right up to us (about 10 feet away) I'm sure she was looking for apples.
This is the area that burned. Since this picture we have it all nicely drywalled in. Everything is coming along so nice.


Notice my butcher block baking counter. It's so nice to knead bread or roll out crust. I have my flour grinder in the cabinet underneath. There is now a plug in the cabinet for the grinder , so I just pour my wheat in a grind my fresh warm flour.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Michael's move

Michael had told us of his plan to move in Aug. So now that the time came some of the family came up to help him pack up and clean up.

Moving is always so overwhelming. Especially at the very end!


Thankfully Martha can keep her head in these situation. Bringing order. Michael said we had to be done by midnight and we were all beginning to wonder if we could do it. But by 10 pm we were done and the apartment was sparkling!
Everyone came over and we stayed up till 1 am talking drinking tea and looking at photo albums. Michael promised to blog. It's hard to say goodbye when you don't know when you'll see each other again. He was leaving at 4 am. and came in and told me he loved me. As I sat around with my children helping sort through the piles, I was again reminded what a great family I have. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect family. They are all so wonderful and full of love.