Laundry and Sickness

I've been working hard on laundry the last few days. After another all house clean on Saturday and cleaning out the car this weekend the piles were immense!


On top of that #4 and I got the sinus cold that Mr. Wiedz's cousin brought with her to Easter. So much of folding on Monday was done like this...notice those nice folded piles on the table.


If you kept up with my twitter updates yesterday (conveniently located in the sidebar) you were kept up to date with my emptying laundry baskets.


Even rebooting the laundry at 11pm last night so I could take this beautiful photo this morning.


Though I do have disclose that rebooting laundry at 11pm results in this.


I was thrilled to have empty baskets as this is the scene this morning around the house and who knows how long it will last.


#1, who completely avoided all the sickness last time around, came in our room at 12:30am and before she could tell us she wasn't feeling well she let loose all over the carpet. It doesn't matter how many times I've told her, like my father told me, to throw up in a blanket or on a floor I can clean and to try to avoid the carpet. So at 1am I was scrubbing the carpet, rebooting laundry AGAIN and cleaning the bathroom floor and walls which were also hit. Mr. Wiedz doesn't handle sickness too well but he's a champ at making a sick kid feel more comfortable so he set up the sick bed and got #1 all settled.


Hopefully the rest of us will be spared. I'll keep you posted!

I just entered a give away for what looks like a fun book over at Crafty Crow.

I've visited Crafty Crow before but never used the site for anything other than insipration. With summer coming I think I need to spend some time over there making lists of activities to keep the littles busy!

Whew!

The quilt for the auction at school tonight is finished! I stayed up way too late last night so my only responsibility to the quilt would be to photograph it.

The kids that signed up for quilting for project day in January chose the designs and did most of the fusible webbing applique.

I embroidered the words to a song #1's 2nd and 3rd grade class sing. I asked the teacher who sung it and she didn't know...she learned it as part of a longer song at camp when she was growing up.

I also hand quilted around many of the elements the kids appliqued. It was a challenge to go through so many thicknesses, especially with fusible webbing between each layer but the result is really nice. I'm really loving the light blue thread on the brown background.

I'm glad to be done. On to new projects!

Finishing and Starting

After Easter I mentioned the list I made in January. Another thing I started in January was a quilt project for the auction at the kids' school. Students at the project day made the blocks using fusible webbing applique. Then I've put it all together and quilted it. The auction is Friday so I'm thrilled to be finished with the quilting. Now all that's left is the binding which will hopefully go on easily the next couple of days.


Now that the quilt project is almost over I'm itching to work on some embroidery projects I've got brewing. The other night I was surfing and found this flicker set of beautiful and inspiring embroidery. I've been sketching, doodling and seeing pictures to embroider ever since.

On another embroidery note, this blog I frequent has an embroidery book coming out soon...I can't wait to get a peek!

Another season starts

#2 had his first baseball practice yesterday!

He's playing through our school out here in the boonies so there weren't enough kids to have a tee-ball team so they put the four 5 and 6 year-olds on the coach-pitch team. I think he's going to enjoy it.

But it is a wake-up call to the big kid stuff we're in for...practice twice a week then games twice a week until the middle of July! I guess I need to get some easy-to-pack projects for all the practice/game sitting I'll be doing.

So CUTE!

What I love about Sundays...

A clean bathroom...and everywhere else too.

We started having a family cleaning time Sunday afternoons awhile back. Everyone has a job so the whole house is tidy, dusted, vacuumed, aired-out and looking good and it doesn't take too long. It helps get us ready for a new week.

The only draw-back...the part I don't like...

Lest you think I don't do laundry during the week. Everyday #3 is supposed to bring all the laundry to the laundry room so #2 can sort it and I can do 2-3 loads. Now not everything is done like it should be but I remember #3, #2 and #4 all doing the laundry jobs on Thursday AND Friday! So all this laundry was hiding in the depths of untidy rooms and/or is what our family creates in a weekend! Ugh...


Yesterday's particular Sunday was also full of this...

And I'm loving this!

A recap

Don't you love January? Everything is so new and possible. Last January I was feeling so ready for a new year. One thing I did was make a list of all the birthdays in our lives that I wanted do something more than a card for. I also made another list of all the holidays that we celebrate and ideas for gifts for the kids for each. I figured I had plenty of time so I could really do some special things. Well, January was 4 months ago now, that birthday list has really just meant some more projects for my unfinished projects tub and most people haven't even received a card. And the holiday list...as I sat up finishing my Easter crafting at 11pm Saturday night I was remembering fondly making that list.

For the kid's Easter baskets I had seen a cute bunny that another blogger made a few springs ago with the link to the free pattern. So I downloaded the pattern and made plans to make the Wee Wonderfuls Bunnies for each kid. They were easy-ish to put together and I thought they turned out pretty cute. I can see all the weird seams and where things didn't go exactly like they should have but the kids liked them.

Our egg decorating didn't happen until Saturday morning. I had boiled the eggs on Thursday so they'd be ready for Friday afternoon but I went errand running which took way longer than I expected and by the time I was back, unpacked, dinner made, served and cleaned-up Mr. Wiedz decided decorating eggs would be better the next morning when we were all fresh. And fresh we were. I went for a run with my new neighbor-friend at 7:30. When I got back I folded a load of laundry, took a shower then mixed up egg dye. #1 and #2 tried making multi-colored eggs, #3 got more dye on his hands, table and shirt while spooning dye over his egg to get it as bright as he could just like dad and #4 peeled the only egg we gave him. Everyone had fun though and our eggs looked really great.

#1 streaching to reach the counter to roll out pie crust...how'd she get so big?

After the egg fun it was lunch time then quiet time. While the little boys were sleeping #1 and #2 helped me start my Easter cooking. We made Angel food pie, Angel food cake and chocolate bunnies and eggs.

Easter morning dawned EARLY! #1 came in just before the alarm went off at 6AM to get me out of bed for the sunrise service. I said something about her waking up so early and she informed me she'd woken up at 5:30 and waited until 6 to come get me. I told her how much I appreciated her waiting. She told me, "Sunrise service is my favorite part". So we went up the cemetery near church for the sunrise service although there was no sun rising but we only got sprinkled on which was a blessing. We then went down to the church for the breakfast put on by the men. The did a great job again with sausage, fruit trays, scrabbled eggs and pancakes. Mr. Wiedz asked the kids if they thought the Easter bunny had come to our house while we were gone that morning. That's all it took, they were finished, cleaned-up and waiting at the door in no time.

We came back home to find that the Easter bunny had stopped by to hid some baskets filled with treats but had to leave before he could hid any eggs...he'd have to come back after he'd made a few more stops.

Here's where I have to tell you about #1's wish for an Easter dress for her doll, Kit. #1 poured through the American Girl catalogs marking each dress that would a suitable Easter dress, narrowed down her choices and finally decided on a beautiful dress that with shipping would have cost $30 (and probably not gotten here before Easter). Well, I had to gently let her know that there wasn't really and extra $30 to spend on Kit's Easter dress so she'd just need to use what she had and help Kit accept an older dress that still looked nice. But it got me thinking. One of my great friends at church has grand-daughters with American Girl dolls and she had made Shelby's Kit a dress at Valentine's Day. She'd told me how easy it was to make but I knew it was far beyond my sewing skills. I emailed my friend asking that if I provided the fabric if she'd be able/willing to make Kit an Easter dress to surprise Shelby with on Easter. She responded that she was thinking of making her grand-daughter's dolls dresses so she'd be able to do one for Kit as well. I picked up the dress on Saturday morning after my run...Oh. My. Gosh. Beautiful. So Wonderful. A blessing. Kit received her own Easter basket with the dress and a wee wonderful bunny that I made shrinking the pattern down from the ones I'd made the kids. #1 was thrilled.

Everyone's baskets were thoroughly gone investigated and enjoyed and then it was time to get ready for church. I even ironed the boys' shirts! Huge. My mom will probably faint with this news. I had found a dress on sale for #1 and a cute hat at the $1 store. I underestimated how much time it would take to get us ready, photographed and out the door so we were a few minutes late for the service.

After church we participated in one of my favorite traditions at our church. We'd brought flowers from home to add to the cross outside in front of the church. Then posed for a family photo in front of the cross.

We arrived back home, ate a quick lunch and got #4 down for his nap and the older kids watching a movie. Put the finishing touches on the house and appetizers while Mr. Wiedz's entire family arrived for the Easter party. Aunts, Uncles, big cousins, Great Grandmas, Grandmas and Granpdas. It was a great time.

We had a great Easter dinner. We'd cooked the last ham left over from butchering our pigs this fall, which turned out delicious. We were even able to send everyone home with a baggie of ham for sandwiches this week. Mr. Wiedz left our pile of meat on the cutting board and when I came in from saying good-bye to the last car-load I saw #3 shoving the last of it into the garbage and shutting the cutting board...helpful little bugger. So everyone has delicious left-overs but us!

Mr. Wiedz's aunts were fabulous and made a huge dent in the kitchen clean-up before they left but a sign of a good party is the aftermath.

The kids, Mr. Wiedz and I spent the next couple of hours relaxing and trying to bring the kids down from the sugar highs. After baths and a thorough brushing and flossing (Aunt M, the dental hygienist's request) everyone was in bed by 8:00 and I was happy to take the evening off from the treadmill, curl up with my book in front of The Amazing Race.

The episode that prompted my blogging break turned out to be an outbreak of Norovirus at the school and although #1 never got it, the symptoms of one kind or another hit the rest of us the weekend before last and closed the school for the week. Today everything is back to normal, #1 and #2 off to school, the little boys laying down for naps (at least when I started writing this post) and the house quiet for a little while. I'm already missing my girl and get to pick up #2 in just 15 minutes!

Now that the Easter crafts are complete I need to check my list to see what I should start working on...maybe my thinking-ahead plan can still work.

And now on to something new...

I'm still not caught up with the laundry from BEFORE our weekend gone and now I have #4 throwing up every 20-30 minutes! Oh the joys!

As I write this he is sitting in my lap trying to convince me to refill his sippy cup of 7-UP...at 10:45PM.

So far I've nothing close to my friend Alysun's experience (you really must click this, I teared up both times I read it from laughing). Only once after I got the other boys in bed (no one else has been hit...YET) I stood in the kitchen, too far away from anything that would help so went ahead and held him through it with throw up running down my arms.

I'll be back when this has run its course.