Tonight was a fun night - dinner at a Japanese steakhouse, browsing around Barnes and Noble, buying new shoes, seeing a surprise fireworks display, then getting coffee and driving around looking at Christmas lights until all the kids fell asleep. Now we are back at home and everyone is in bed. Well, everyone except me, of course. I am not going to waste any more time in front of this computer, but am instead going to curl up on the couch and read my book. When I get tired, I'm going to crawl into bed and try to find a space somewhere amidst all the arms and legs of my husband and children. All of whom will undoubtedly, in their sleep, soon rearrange themselves so they are as cuddled up and close to me as humanly possible. I am so very blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Some random stuff...

~ I never listen to "popular" music - like Top 40 stuff - and when I do happen to hear it, it usually gets on my nerves. Noah likes to turn on the TV and push the buttons and one day when I was nursing Allie on the couch, he turned the TV to VH1 and left it there. There was a video playing, and long after I had turned off the TV, I couldn't get the tune out of my head. I went and downloaded the song - So What by Pink - and we've been listening to it. A lot. It's just so darn catchy. If I happen to not play it when we're in the car, Emma will usually request it. So the other day I was getting my eyebrows waxed and Emma was standing next to the bed, quietly watching, and then suddenly started absentmindedly belting out the song. "I guess I just lost my husband, I don't know where he went! I'm gonna drink my money, I'm not gonna pay his rent!" She seemed kind of embarrassed when she realized she was singing out loud, but nevertheless, I think it might be time to stop playing that song and start listening to something a little more wholesome.
~ Emma makes ornaments for gifts every year, and this year she really really wanted to make something with glitter. She's been working on them for the past few days, and even though she only ever works at the table, somehow our entire house seems to be dusted with a layer of glitter.
~ I've read all about the possible dangers of using plastic dishes so we've accumulated a decent collection of "safer" cups for kids. For some reason, I have also been holding on to the plastic ones. Yesterday I finally took every single plastic cup we own and bagged them all up for Goodwill. Yay. Now I'm looking for some good non-plastic mixing and storage bowls. My goal is to eliminate every single plastic dish in our house by the end of the year.

~ My very sweet friend Shawn made this beautiful memento for Allie. I love it and I'm looking for a good frame for it so I can hang it in the kids' room. Isn't it gorgeous?~ I made a couple patchwork pumpkins for Halloween gifts. I didn't finish as many as I wanted, so a few people will be getting Thanksgiving Pumpkins instead. Which reminds me, I should probably get started on those.

My lovely, charming, and witty friend Deanna invited me to join a swap. Since I seem to actually be physically unable to decline any swaps, I accepted. My task was to create 35 of one item and I decided to make lip balm. I wanted to make it vegan - no beeswax - because the best chapstick I ever had was some vegan stuff I got from Naturally Luxe and I chose to make it vanilla flavored because that seemed like a basic flavor that most people would like.I ordered all the supplies I would need, including forty cute little tubs, and got everything all laid out and ready to go. I cooked up the ingredients, then dropped the melted solution into the tubs with a little plastic pipette. The whole process was pretty fun, but I especially enjoyed squirting the balm into the containers with the dropper. Perhaps I should have been a chemist.I would have liked to add some color, but I don't think any color really goes with vanilla so I left it out. The lip balm looks a little boring to me, but is otherwise very smooth and well-scented and lip-balmy. I'd like to try making another batch, but I'm not really sure what I would do with forty more lip balms.

I just finished knitting this hat for Noah. It was the easiest pattern ever so it came together pretty quickly. Last night I was seaming up the sides, and I guess it's been a long time since I've had to do that because I apparently forgot how to do it. I was watching a movie with Steve and I didn't want to get off the couch and look up the right way to sew the seams so I just continued to do it incorrectly. Consequently, the seams look pretty awful, but luckily Noah is not the type of guy who cares about that kind of thing.

We have a window in our shower, and during the four years that we've lived here, the spraying water has taken a toll on the trim around the window. Yuck.
It was starting to look really awful and I had mentioned to Steve several times in the past that I'd like him to fix it. Steve has a lot of wonderful qualities, but since starting and finishing home improvement projects is not one of them, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Now, home improvement is definitely not my area of expertise. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I even have an area of expertise, but doing projects around the house is for sure my area of bumbling around cluelessly. Still, after talking to a couple of helpful gentlemen at Lowe's and then purchasing a few items, I set to work on the window. I sanded it all down, then applied spackle over all the rough spots. Once that was dry, I sanded again, then applied two layers of paint. Voila!I did all this yesterday, but didn't mention it to Steve because I wanted to surprise him. He noticed it this morning, and was apparently less than impressed. He said that I did it wrong, but whatever. I'd much rather have something done less than perfectly than not done at all. I am still proud of myself and happy that the window looks so much better than it did.

After Noah was born, we buried his placenta under a tree in my parents' yard. Last week when we were visiting them, they bought two more new trees - one for Emma, and one for Allie. We didn't have Emma's placenta after she was born so we didn't think to plant a tree for her at the time, but I am happy that all three of my kids have one now.
We buried Allie's placenta under her tree, and then my mom read a blessing for her. My brothers weren't there this time (too bad, because I know they are devastated to miss any event that involves a placenta), but both of my grandmas were in attendance. Even though I get the idea that my family thinks I'm a little kooky, I am so glad that they're all good sports. I will always enjoy watching these trees grow along with my children. I am also thankful that my dad was willing to dig the holes for all these trees.
And, just because I think it's cute, here is a picture of my dad and the little boy who is obsessed with tractors.

I'm happy to report that - over a year after starting it - I finally finished Noah's quilt! I had issues with not being able to find a suitable fabric for the binding so that put the whole project on hold for a long time, but a few weeks ago I finally found something that I liked.For this quilt, I chose random fabrics that I thought he would find interesting for one reason or another. I remember looking at quilts when I was a kid and being so interested in the different fabrics, so I hope Noah feels the same way about this. I wanted to do stippling for the quilting so I purchased a darning foot for my machine. I should have gotten one long ago because free motion quilting is so much fun! It took much longer than I anticipated and used almost three entire spools of thread, but was very worth it. I love how it turned out!I just used a blue sheet for the backing and I was a little worried that, because I had never done any stippling before, it wouldn't look good and would really show up against the blue. It does stand out a lot, but I think it looks okay. (And for the life of me, I can't get this picture to turn the right way.)
I was trying to take pictures of the finished quilt today, but the kids kept messing with it so I couldn't really get a good shot of the whole thing. At one point Noah ran up and grabbed the folded quilt off the couch.He immediately threw it on the floor and flopped down on top of it. I guess he likes it!

Something pretty incredible happened today. For the first time in my life, I got my license plates renewed on time. AND...not only did I do it on time, I actually did it two months early. Yay for efficiency! Noah, Allie, and I ran all over the city today, accomplishing many errands. It feels good to have all those finished, but now I have no energy to do all the dishes that are piled up in the sink, pick up all the toys/shoes/books that are littering the floor, or fold and put away the three full baskets of clean laundry that are sitting in my living room. Eh, you win some, you lose some, I guess.
My mom visited us last week, and aside from the usual help she offers, it was great to have her hold the baby so I could take pictures. I always want to bring my camera everywhere, but in reality I rarely do these days because it's just one more thing to carry and it's difficult to take pictures when wearing a baby.We went to the pumpkin patch one day and picked out a couple little pie pumpkins because Steve had promised to make some pumpkin pie. We're still waiting on that pie, and those pumpkins are taking up valuable (and sparse) counter space so I'm thinking that tomorrow might be a good day to make some pumpkin butter. Yum!

I keep going back and forth about this blog - I keep thinking I'm just going to give it up because I can never seem to update in a timely fashion anymore, but then at the same time I sort of miss rambling on about my kids and the stuff we do together. So, here is the beginning of another attempt to keep the blog posts coming.Halloween was fun. We spent it at my parents' house, which is always a good time. Emma was a bride, and she wore her costume off and on for a few days. It was nice to have her looking "fancy" again for a little while. I didn't get a costume for Allie because I thought it would just be a hassle and she wouldn't know the difference anyway, but I'm still feeling a little guilty about that. I guess that's what happens when you're the third baby. The good thing is that I'm pretty sure Emma and Noah alone were cute enough for all three of them.