Dusting off the old blog...WHAT!

 After some recovery emails and password resetting I found my way to this old blog! 

Not sure what I will do with it. 

There is a new school year... There will be three homeschooled Wiedz... There will be two public-schooled Wiedz... There is a college-aged Wiedz...

It has been almost 5 years since my last post...so much has changed.

I am different. I have learned so much about myself, my goals, my identity, my parenting, my relationships. 

The world is different. Progressiveness, politics, culture, social media. 

My hobbies are the same. My worldview is the same.

Maybe not much has changed, after all.

Nice to know Blogger hasn't changed much either...maybe there will be blogging as part of my 2021 and beyond.

Photo curtesy of #1 (follow her on instagram at sw_snapshots)

Best laid plans…that's what they say.

I'd gotten into a great groove these last few days.

Kids to the bus. A little break. Tidy up the bedrooms (open curtains, make beds, toss laundry down the chute). Treadmill for 20 minutes. Check out some blogs. Dishes. Snack. Preschool activities with the littles….you get the idea. 

A good day.

Today. Mr. Wiedz forgot a charging cable for his computer. His dead computer. Conference calls keep him from coming back himself (cause he totally would if he could), but make it necessary to go into town this morning instead of all that other stuff.

So here we go.

I'm kind of in the mood to blog again...I wonder if that feeling will stick?

We've made quite a few changes here in the World of Wiedz. I'll figure out how to share what's happening without writing a book...

I'll be back.

Um, yeah...

So.

I'm not sure if this managing a bigger home, homeschooling, working for our company, wife-ing and mothering and crafting is going to mesh so well with the blogging-thing.

I want it to.

I really want it to.

But...

Who knows, I'll try. Because I really do have some fun stuff to show off. We are doing good in school. Some of the stuff we are working on is share-able (meaning you the reader might actually be interested in it). I'm knitting some fun things. Some actual finished projects! The kids are growing (I tried getting them to stop but they like it too much) and we are generally just having an awesome time...I'd like to share that with you.

I'll write up some ideas and see if I can squeeze some time to type and embed photos and the like into my day.

Summer {waning}

Ahhhhh. I bet anyone that has checked back in here in the past 4 months (!) has gotten real tired of looking at that yarn along picture. Here's a cute baby playing at the water's edge to look at instead. 

We spent a couple of nights last week camping with my extended family. So fun! Such good memory building. 19 cousins to play in the water all day with. Shared dinners and running around during a wind storm trying to save camp. Good times.

But it is good to be back. Good to get the last of summer wrapped up. Our list of "before the rain starts" just seems to get longer even when we are able to get a project done from it. My school preparations are going good. I'm still needing to get some of my books (I'm so jealous of moms who know what they're going to use and have it ready in the spring - I'm still trying to survive the current year in the spring...I never know what I'm going to do or use for the next year yet!). I now know what I want to use and where to get it and I'm starting to get a look for how our days are going to go. This prep stuff is my favorite, wish I had days of uninterrupted time to get it done.

I'm hoping for more hands-on this year. Pull out the activity book for history more often, make some great arts or crafts, read good books and enjoy them with each other. And I'm hoping to record it on the blog again this year.

So here's to the last weeks of summer. To getting those "before it rains" projects marked off the list and to keeping the fun in school prep.

Enter to win...

Not from me, silly.

But Jessica at balancingeverything.com is giving away this really fun calendar. You can click over and enter to win yourself!

http://bit.ly/cvcM7y

I'm back!!!!!!

Our high-speed internet got set up today!

#1 and I did a little celebration dance when the UPS man stopped at our house with the modem.

We're off tomorrow to celebrate Mr. Wiedz's birthday with a swim at Grandparents D's. The kids and I are going to spend a couple nights at Grandparents N's. Next week though I'll be back with posts!

Wooo! Hooo!

I'm back...kind of

For very good reasons we have had no Internet for a number of months now. For the most part I don't mind, having an iPhone helps so I'm not really without Internet or email, I was spending a lot of time surfing blogs and crafty things. But I have missed writing in this space. The past few weeks I've missed it even more.

I mentioned to Mr. Wiedz that it is the one thing that was bothering me about our lack of Internet, that I missed blogging. His solution was that I could come to the office and post. I think that could work. I think the best way is to write the posts then schedule so I'm not running into the office with four children all the time. But I think it could work.

So I'll be back. Updating. Posting. Changing things around. Just tonight I've had fun changing the header and putting up a baby ticker. So much fun to be had out in blog land.

Yeah. It's good to be back!

I know I have a blog.

I'm just too tired.

Tomorrow.

I promise.

Where did May go?

According to Blogger I've only posted twice this month. At that rate I'm going to loose my faithful blogging audience. It is on my list today, along with:

clean house
read my Bible
make a sample quilt square for Mr. Wiedz's opinion
find my glasses
finish an application I've had on my desk for over a month(!)
go through #1's clothes
LAUNDRY
get dressed
upload photos to memory manager
post

I'll be back later. We'll see how the list goes by the end of the day...now that I'm done with my computer/planning my day time the breaky dishes are calling.

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!

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.

Gotta Post SOMETHING

A family hike at Bezeall Park, in Kings Valley on the 9th. If you're near-by you should try it. It is beautiful!

There are so many things to blog about...

• spring break has started...and started well.
• I'm sure my kids have had many cute moments since I posted last
• We've done some wonderful and free home improvements that I want to share
• I'm working on a couple of projects
• I've been inspired by some great stuff in blog-landand
• news...there is life-altering news (not pregnant, just to take that one off the list).

I'll be back after I've uploaded my photos. Got to get to learning time this morning.

100th Post!!!

This is my 100th post! I've been trying to think of something really creative to do for my 100th post; 100 things about me, 100 things I love, etc. Nothing is coming to mind.

And now I'm too tired to think of 100 anything.

Thanks for reading!

It took me awhile...

****December 17th****Edited to add links.****

...but here I am!

Well, it took me almost 2 weeks to get my to-do list I'd posted on the 2nd done!

Laundry was so caught up the other day I couldn't even do full loads. I got an email the other day about making laundry soap and at the grocery store I got the ingredients and tried it. K was wondering what the heck I was doing but I really like the soap, it is SO much cheaper and so easy to make.

Here's my new header...cute, I think!

The cleaning lists are up and in practice...although I haven't "felt" like it the last couple of days. But when I do, the house looks like someone cares to take care of it!

The boys are so fun most days. I'm slowly reading an online book, Raising Godly Tomatoes and slowly implementing some of the ideas I'm getting. I'm enjoying them more and the screaming is decreasing...everything is more enjoyable with less screaming!

Thanksgiving never got posted about. Needless to say it was a wonderful time. It was a quiet week at Grammie and Grandpa N's. Grammie N recently had broken her arm so I got to cook the dinner and all the munchies to go along with the days of eating to lead up to Thanksgiving. We were especially blessed that Mr. Wiedz returned from work early that week. There is much that goes into that but it is a whole other post that may or may not be written. We are just ecstatic to have him home!

In my opinion it is not a holiday without Chex Mix...Happy Holidays!

Laziness, pure laziness...

...that is why you haven't heard from me!

Today's to-do list:

• Laundry
  
• Room lists that tell a person (big or little) what needs to be done in that room to have it clean. We let the cleaning lady go...so we're back on our own and need all the help we can get.
  
• Make a new blog header
  
• Post about Thanksgiving and the other stuff that's been going on
  
• Keep up with the boys I have at home today
  
• Cook, clean, discipline, play, change diapers...you know, the usual
  

You'll hear from me again soon...I promise.

A fast post...

Some of you will be sad there is not more to this post. But, with no Mr. Wiedz here, I'm tired. I want to sit and watch mindless TV instead of sitting in front of the computer.

Here's a collage of what's been going on with us.

I'll write more later!

some little changes...

I'm not too sure about the picture at the top...on my old computer running Firefox (and not too well at that) it looks weird. I'll talk to the small number of people who read my blog and see what they think. It is almost October so I thought a refreshing was in order...now that I know how to change my template it takes all the self-disciple I have not to change it often!

I've been missing...but I'm too tired

Lots of wonderful time spent with family, both our small Wiedz group and my extended family.

Course all the driving it takes and energy makes me only want to sit on the couch, drink a Pepsi, and watch all the TV I've got on DVR.

All the gory details later.

Doing some baking...

I really do like to cook and bake. At family functions with Mr. Wiedz' family everyone always tells me to go relax..."you've been in the kitchen all day". But I'm quick to tell them how much I'm enjoying myself and with all the kids occupied by attentive aunts and uncles I'm happy as a clam.

A few months ago I found a link to a wonderful blog written by Rachael Anne. Each day she posts a "small thing" to help create sanctuary in our homes. Mostly I've just been reading along...her insights into her "small things" are just a great as the "small things" themselves. I especially love the scripture verses she picks each month and did indeed post this month's on my fridge.

This month I've tried some of the "small things". And this week was to cook something from scratch. I don't use too many mixes and the like...they tend to be more expensive then just having raw ingredients so loved the encouragement to get in the kitchen. Plus I took it a little further and let the boys bake with me.

We looked online for a recipe for a from scratch cake. We didn't have any baking powder so we had to keep looking until we found one that used baking soda instead. We did find one, called "day before pay cake". It also called for chopped apples which was a nice touch. Makes me think it is a little healthy snack and we have a lot of great apples right now.
So, the boys and I set off to make it while #4 was down for a nap. They took turns pouring in ingredients and stirring. And each of them got to lick some of the spoons or bowls (#4 woke up just before we were done so got to join in on the licking).
We had fun. And the cake turned out pretty good...really good that afternoon for after-school snack with ice cream. And also good the next morning with coffee.