What a Week!!

I have had the craziest of weeks.  It’s all good but it was jam-packed with lots of kids and family stuff.

This was parent-teacher conferences at our local school and that affects childcare.  When the week started I knew that Tuesday and Thursday would be early out days and Friday would be a not school day.  That puts a little twist on the life schedule but even more things happened.

Monday I scrambled.  Between childcare and life, I scrambled to get things ready for the post office.  Here was the pile.  Thanks to all who donate postage money.  It’s your donations that get all of this moving on to finishers.

Then the second shipment of books came in.  You might remember that Kelli and I had a quilt come out in this book, Pieced Flower Quilts.  I wrote about it HERE.  Well, you guys outdid yourself in ordering.  THANK YOU!!  I got the first shipment out last week and had to order more books.  The second shipment came Monday and I spent Monday night processing orders for Tuesday’s mail.  If you ordered, you should have your book or it should be on its way to you!  We hopefully ordered enough so that when more orders come in, I can process them right away.  We really thank you for your support.

That same night I was supposed to walk with my friend after childcare.  It was raining so we ended up walking with umbrellas.  It was the only day we could walk this week as she’s a teacher and is involved with conferences.

Tuesday after the kids got out early one of the childcare kiddos, she’s a first-grader, did some drawings of me.  This one was my favorite.  It’s “normal Jo”.  HA!!

That night Rosie got sick.  Something was wrong.  I didn’t know what it was.  She was very agitated.  She couldn’t get comfortable.

Then Wednesday morning she got up and was holding her tail funny.  So I called for a vet appointment.  Then called Kelli to see if she could help me cover childcare.

Wednesday morning Carver came in my garage door and the wood of the frame completely split.  UGH.  The door wouldn’t stay latched.

I ended up having to take screws and screw them into the board like this to secure the board…all while watching kiddos.

It was an easy enough fix…still frustrating to have to do though.

Wednesday was a busy day of childcare with the preschool kids here.  We did “magic paper”.  A blog reader gave me a pack of white crayons.  In advance, I wrote the kids’ names on the paper with the white crayon.  Then they painted watercolor paint over the top and their names magically appeared.  Here is Gannon doing his paper.

You can see that the paint resists the wax of the crayon and his name is starting to appear.

Kelli came about lunchtime to watch the kids and I took Rosie to the vet.
All things at the vet went okay.  The vet suggested that we watch and see if it was an anal gland issue.  She’s getting better.  She goes for a recheck on Monday along with regular shots.

While I was gone, sweet blog reader Jean, stopped by.  She has my friend Carla do the longarming of her quilts.  She was bringing quilt tops to Carla so stopped by to say hi to me…only I was at the vet with Rosie.  Jean brought me tulips to celebrate the finish of my tulip quilt.  How sweet.  THANKS, Jean.  You’re the best!!

Wednesday was my tax appointment.  In previous years I’ve dropped off my taxes and then picked them up a week later.  Kelli was at my house with plans to stay overnight.  The appointment was a half-hour away so I suggested they ride along and pick up my groceries while I was in the appointment.  I thought it was going to be a half-hour appointment.  FALSE.  Unknown to me I stayed there and they did my taxes.  TWO HOURS LATER, I walked out of the office.  I had forgot my phone at home so I couldn’t tell Kelli what was going on either.  She and Georgia waited in the truck for me for an hour.  I felt terrible.  Kelli was sweet about it though.  We didn’t get home until 8 pm.  What a long day.  Happily, my taxes turned out okay.  We picked up take-out for supper.

After supper, I ran around the house getting things ready for Julie in Spring Valley.  She’s the community quilter there.  Kelli had a Thursday appointment and would be driving through Spring Valley.  She was fine to stop things off and save postage money.  I loaded things into the car so they would be ready for Kelli when she left the next morning.

I spent Wednesday and Thursday with these two…or shall I say three.  Rosie is in the chair too.  She’s under Georgia’s arm.  These two were a handful.  Some people use the term “oil and water” meaning they don’t mix.  For some reason, these two have become lighter fluid and a match!!  They both throw fits when the other has something they want.  My sweet little grandkids have become fit throwing terrors.
The good news…I still love them.

Kelli stayed over Wednesday night as she needed me to watch Georgia on Thursday.

She had doctor appointments.  The result of the doctor’s appointment is…They scheduled a c-section for April 29th.

She has bunches of appointments before then.  If she would go now, they are going to let her go.  The babies are the normal single baby size for their age.  The last check a couple of weeks ago they were right around 4 pounds.  So mark your calendars and send happy thoughts and prayers our way as Kelli enters the last month of pregnancy.  She’ll be 37 weeks at delivery but with her gestational diabetes and high blood pressure, they think an early c-section is best.

Thursday while Kelli was at her appointment, two of my brothers came for a visit.  Jim the brother closest in age to me makes these amazing lamps.  I’ve told you about them before.  They are very industrial, steampunk in style.  He’s a real artist.  He said he put 80 hours into making this one.  Can you see it’s a motorcycle?

There are two fenders, a seat, and handlebars.  I think it’s so cool!!  I’m super proud of him.  I just wish my mom could have seen him do this.

I asked him where he works on these at.  He said “the kitchen table”.  I told him, “I bet that makes you really popular”.  My brothers both laughed and laughed!!

I’m known for feeding whoever comes…so of course, I fed my brothers.  I told my brother Jay that he’d have to fix my dishwasher for the price of a meal…so with Carver’s help, he did.

He’s helped me periodically and I’m so thankful for it.

I was so happy that school got out early so Carver could see Jay.  Carver just loves him..and he got to meet my brother Jim too!

After my brothers left and childcare finished Georgia and I went down to a garage sale that said they had sheets.  I always look for sheets for the community quilt projects as many use them for backing quilts.

I did get some sheets but I also bought this pile of fabric stuff and the totes.  It was a “name your price sale”…I hate those.  I told the lady to shoot me a price.  She said, “$30”.  I could have picked through it all but I thought that would be hard with Georgia.  I told her “$25”.  She said yes and I bought it all.

I’m going to do a blog post on all that was in the tote.  You’ll have to decide if I made a good deal or not.

Friday was a full day of daycare with all of the school-age and regular kids here.  There were seven here then Kalissa came with the boys so I fed 12 for lunch.

The kids that came always request fried fish and squash so I made both.

Remember that crayon resist project we did earlier in the week.  I ended up telling the kids the “trick” to the magic paper and let them make their own magic paper.  Here one girl made a picture of me and her.  So cute.  I had to show it off.

To the blog reader that sent the white crayons, thanks, we’re making good use of them!!

From there we went outside.  I had the kids pose with the three of the brand new scooters and two older ones.  The kids were so excited.  I bought three new scooters with the commission money from the purchases you all made through Amazon.  If you remember, Amazon pays me a commission on things that you buy from them if you start at my blog and go to Amazon.

The commission money added up to enough that there was money for new scooters.  The kids were thrilled.  Thank you so much.  HERE are the ones we bought.  I’ve had very good luck with Razor brand scooters.

You can continue to support the blog and the kids by making purchases from Amazon by first coming to my site, clicking the Amazon link in the right-hand column, and then going to Amazon.  Amazon tells me what was bought but I never get any information on who bought it.  Your information stays completely private.  I appreciate all who have and who continue to do this.  Those sales bought the scooters for the kids.

Kalissa put her rollerskates on and the kids scootered around with her.  I’m glad my driveway is big enough to have some fun on.  They did this for over an hour!!

These kids have been with our family for a long time.  All of them feel like nieces and nephews to Kelli and Kalissa…grandkids to me.  We truly love them.

While Kalissa and Kelli played with the kids, I raked under the two trees at the front of my house.  They are ash trees and shed lots.  I hate them.  All those little sticks get “turned into guns” by the little boys I have in care if I don’t stay on top of them.  So I rake regularly.

Once back in the house the kids were all busy.  There were messes everywhere.  It took all I had to stay on top of it.

Georgia fell in love with this gal.  She’s school-aged and Georgia hasn’t seen her much.  They made a great pair.

It’s 7 pm as I write this.  I have to say, that is one of the longest weeks I’ve had in a while.  It was constant bing-bing-bing with so many things to take in.

I promised myself I would move the couch and love seat and vacuum the living room really well…then it’s feet up and cross-stitching for the rest of the night…and a bloody mary.  Yep…that’s my crusty old bloody mary cup.

There will be a bloody mary.  In fact, I jumped the gun and made one before I even had this post written.  I think I earned one.  HERE is my recipe if you want to join me!  I think after that week, I earned one!