Quite Sunday

Jeff is on nights so my Sunday was a little quite. I washed clothes and read while trying to be quite so I wouldn't wake him up.

After looking at the 19" TV we decided that we wanted a bigger one so I took it back to Best Buy and got a 24" LED HDTV without a DVD player. It was on sale for $30 off so it was the same price as the one I got yesterday. We decided that we didn't want to spend $40 more and get the DVD combo since we already have a DVD player.

When Jeff got up we went to a late lunch/early dinner. We normally do that on Sundays when he is on nights. When we got back home we opened the TV box and looked at it. It's pretty big, it's take up a lot of room on the dresser. Sorry, Mom, you loose most of your dresser space when you come to visit.

Now I need to decide if I want to move the mirror or just get rid of it all together. I'm not sure how much the mirror is used in the guest room. After Jeff went to work I got the DVD player out of our room and went ahead and hooked it up. The picture is so much better than the TV in the great room. We aren't going to hook up cable in this room but we will probably hook up an external antenna so hopefully we will be able to get the local channels. Right now when it scans for channels it doesn't pick up anything. I sent pictures to Kimberly and Nicole and they showed Kylie and Haylee the pictures. They are so excited that there is a TV in the guest room for them to watch. 

Hospital Tour

I thought it was about time that Nicole took me to Norfolk General Hospital and show me where to park and where to go once we are in the hospital when she has the twins. In the past both Kimberly and Nicole have had the kids at Virginia Beach General Hospital so I'm not familiar with Norfolk General. It's a pretty confusing area where the hospital is as there is Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, the Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters, Sentara Heart Hospital, Eastern VA Medical School, Jones Institute and several other buildings with different parking lots and garages. Some of the parking lots and garages are free and some charge.

She drove me around the complex and pointed out the free parking lot and garage and then showed me the parking garage that charges. Depending on the time of day will depend on where we will park. If it's during the day the free parking lot will probably be packed and the Heart Hospital parking garage is a little far so I'm not sure if we are going to park there. So we may be parking in the Kaufman parking garage which is $8/day. After we parked in the free lot we went in the hospital where she took me to the 4th floor where she will have the twins. The hospital is a little big but I think I got it, we just need to follow the signs to Women Health. 

After we got done with the hospital tour we went to lunch at Ruby Tuesday's. I was in the mood for a mini turkey burger. It was a yucky day as it rained on and off all day. Why does it always rain on the weekends when I have off?

Then on to Best Buy to get a TV for the guest room. We are planning on getting rid of the big 32" TV in our room as we don't use it that much. However, no one wants a big old 32" TV so we may be donating it to charity. Sometimes the grandkids watch DVD's in our room so since we want to get rid of our TV we decided to get one for the guest room for them. Also, at times they will watch DVD's in the great room. What usually will happen is we will put a DVD in for them then they will watch it for a little bit then they will disappear in the kids room to play and leave Jeff and I watching the DVD. It happens all the time. Best Buy had a 19" LED HDTV DVD combo so we decided to go ahead and get it. When we found the TV it was by a 19" LCD HDTV DVD combo at the same price as the LED. The LCD had a bigger frame around it so it made it sit higher and it just looked bigger. After Nicole and I stood there for a while debating on which one to get we decided the LED had a better picture so I got that one. 

After we left Best Buy we decided to go to Carter's and see if they had any preemie clothes. We found some but they really didn't have any one piece outfits, they either had onesies or outfits with pants. I bought a couple things and I also bought the twins some outfits for Christmas that had grandpa on the onesie. We try and get every onesie or shirt that has either grandma or grandpa on them. I looked to see if they had one for Brayden but they didn't. By the time we left there it was close to 3:30 and I had to be home at 4:30 to take Jeff to pick up his car at the service station in South Mills. His car was getting a state inspection. So Nicole took me back to her house so I could pick up my car then home I went.

The rest of the evening was spent on the couch watching TV and reading.

Baking Take 2

Tonight, once again, I was in the baking mood. I had some black bananas so I decided to make banana nut bread. I made two small loaves for the girls, especially Kylie who was sick today. She loves my banana nut bread.

Then I made a bigger loaf for Jeff and I, even though Kimberly's family should probably get the bigger loaf since they eat more of it than Jeff and I. We really don't need that big of a loaf just for the two of us.

When I made Jeff his cookies last night, I posted the picture on Facebook. Well I got this comment from Nicole.

So after I made the banana bread I got right on the chocolate chip cookies. I decided to try a new recipe tonight. The recipe said it should make 4 1/2 dozen, well I only got 3 dozen out of it. I guess my cookies were bigger than hers. Here are your cookies Nicole, enjoy!

I finished the evening off with a beautiful sunset. Not a bad way to spend a Friday night. Have a good weekend.

Sandwich Bread

Sandwich bread doesn't last long in our house, as you can tell.

They really need to sell smaller sandwich bread loaves. They sell thicker bread loaves that are in smaller loaves, not quite sure why they don't sell sandwich bread in small loaves. We don't like to freeze bread as it seems like every time we defrost a loaf or buns they are hard and dried out.

I read that bread mold likes warm moist and dark environments. Well then, why did they invent bread boxes. Aren't they dark. I wonder if we should keep the loaf just in case we get sick and need penicillin. Mold on bread is the same species from which we get penicillin from. Now there is an idea.

Since we went to the grocery store earlier in the week I decided to make some homemade sandwich bread instead of going to the store again. I have several bread machine cookbooks and I found a recipe that we like in Bread Machines for Dummies cookbook. The bread cooks for three hours so as soon as I got home from work I started it. The house is smelling so good.

 

The bread won't be cool enough for me to cut before I go to bed so I'll just store it in my plastic bread container and Jeff can cut it tomorrow.

 

store bought bread vs homemade bread

 

Since I was in a baking mood, I decided to cook up some cookies. Jeff was in the mood for some sweets and when we were at the grocery store he picked out some white chip macadamia nut cookies. So I made two dozen cookies.

 

 

I cheated on these though as they aren't homemade. I bought them already made in the dairy section so all I had to do is cook them. Oh well, sometimes you just have to cheat at baking.

Twins Birth Announcement Cross Stitch

For the past month or so I have been working on the twins birth announcement cross stitch pictures. For each grandchild I have cross stitched a picture.

Kylie's picture

Haylee's picture

Brayden's picture

Nicole looked online for a nautical cross stitch picture and couldn't find anything she liked. She did find a picture on Etsy that she liked. For every cross stitch picture I have made whether for the grandkids, for my friend Jodie's children or for me I have used a pattern. So she showed me this picture and said I could make the twins' pictures from it.

Mind you this is a picture and it's not even a cross stitch one. At first, I thought she was crazy. I have never made a cross stitch picture without a pattern. I didn't know how to make the boat, how to do the font, how to make the pattern, nothing. I'm not sure if you are familiar with cross stitch or not but there are a lot of x's to make up the picture. I couldn't think how I was going to convert all those curves in Noah and Jackson's name to x's. This was going to be hard.

I started looking online for nautical clip art in cross stitch. Nicole wanted a boat and an anchor and I was lucky enough to find a web site that had the patterns so I printed it out. Then it was on to the font. I went into Microsoft Word and went through all the fonts trying to find one that came close to the font. The same font is being used for their first letter in their name, the month, the day and year. Then a different font is being used for the pounds, ounces, inches, time and state. Then the font that took the longest to find was one for their names. Nicole liked the fanciness of this one so she would find one she liked online, I would print it out on cross stitch graph paper then pencil it in with x's in blue and red colored pencils then she would look at it and decide if she liked it or not. We went through a couple fonts before she found one she liked. After I found all the fonts I had to print them on graph paper and measure it against the picture above to get the right size. I went through several sheets of paper before I got the sizes right on everything. 

Now it was time to create a pattern. I taped two pieces of the graph paper together and started making a pattern. I would hold the picture under the graph paper to figure out the layout and where everything should go. For Jackson the layout is pretty much like this one except he got the anchor. We decided to leave out the city so Virginia is just at the bottom. For Noah he got the boat and we switched it so that the boat, weight and inches is on the right side and the day and time is on the left side. Nicole decided on red and navy for the thread, Noah's boat has some white in it too. 

A couple weeks ago I had finished both of the pictures, except their names. Last week Nicole finally gave me the go ahead on the font for their names so I finished those up Saturday night. Here is the finished product except for the items that I can't do till they are born.

you can click on the pictures for a better view

So far I like how they have turned out. Their names is what scared me the most. The finished picture should be around an 8x10 and with the matte and frame it should be bigger. How do they compare against the original picture? What do you think? 

Busch Gardens

Earlier in the week, Kimberly had asked Jeff and I if we wanted to go to Busch Gardens with her and Kylie on Sunday and of course we said sure. We decided to take Haylee with us since Nicole is no longer able to go with us. There is just too much walking and there are some hills along the way. We were worried about the weather as they were calling for 50% chance of rain. We wanted to get there right when they opened at 10:00 to try and beat the rain. The day started out cloudy but it got better as the day went. It was so hot and humid though. As soon as we walk into BG we get the girls measured to see what color wrist band they get. Depending on their height they get a different color. Haylee was red last time and this time she moved up to red/white stripe.

She was so excited she had moved up. The next level is purple, which is Kylie's level. The wrist bands help you decide on whether or not they are able to ride a particular ride. The first ride was the Clyde's. When Haylee got off she said she wanted to ride something faster. I think the girls are getting a little old for the kiddie rides. So we decided to go to Sesame Street so they can ride the roller coaster. They rode that then another ride then it was on to Escape from Pompeii where Jeff and Kylie rode. Then we went to Italy. While Jeff and Kimberly went to ride a roller coaster, I stayed with the girls in a different area so they could ride a couple rides.

finishing lunch with an Elmo cupcake

After lunch they rode the swings, then Jeff and Kylie went on the log flume. Jeff can't wait till Kylie is ready to go with him on the Roman rapids. She is big enough, it's just that she doesn't want to get that wet even though you can get drenched on Pompeii. Haylee doesn't want anything to do with the water rides. She doesn't mind playing in the water in Sesame Street she just doesn't want to get her clothes wet. She had gone on the log flume one year and got drenched and after that you can't get her back on. Then on to the Land of Dragons where we ran into Kelly and her girls. They played with them for a while then we had a snack which consisted of dipping dots for the girls and Kimberly, Jeff and I got ice cream in a sugar cone. Then it was time to play in the water at Sesame Street. In order to get to that area we decided to take the tram there. Kylie loves to ride the tram.

Jeff on the tram, the girls rode with Kimberly

Prince Elmo's Spire

time to play in the water

About every hour or so they will stop the water and have a little show. The girls really enjoy playing in the water and watching the show.

We had so much fun even though it was hot and humid, at least we didn't get rained on.

Quite Saturday

Jeff worked today so I spent the majority of the day during chores. Like vacuuming, straightening up the house, washing/drying five loads of laundry, running to Wal-Mart to get a few items then back to finish up laundry. You know the normal weekend chores. They are so much fun. NOT!

They have finally started building behind us or should I say to our left. That lot has been empty since we have  lived here. They have built two houses on the other side of us and way further down but always left that lot open. I'm not quite sure why they started building there since they haven't sold the last two they built. One morning they had woken us up with some machinery moving dirt around. We are not looking forward to this since this will be going on right behind our bedroom windows.

Work Renovation

My work is going through a major renovation. The whole office minus the warehouse is getting renovated. Walls are being torn down, offices are being relocated, getting a new kitchen, bigger women's bathroom to make it handicap accessible, new carpet, new lights and the list goes on. During the renovation our office is being relocated two doors down to a temporary office space which means we have to move the whole office. The moving commenced on Wednesday. Everyone was in charge of getting their office packed up and moved. That morning I moved my office then in the afternoon Paul and I went through the office supply closet and cleaned that out. That was a lot of work. We ended up throwing some stuff away. The contractors showed up that morning bright and early and started tearing down walls while we were moving. At one point they had turned off the electricity and we had to get it turned back on so we could see while we were packing up the office supply closet. By the end of the day my back was killing me. Also, my feet were barking with all the walking I had to do between offices. On Thursday, Paul and I finished up the kitchen, foyer, taking down shelves in the copy room and any other things that needed to be done. I'm not sure how Paul and I got elected to move the majority of stuff. We did have the Rental Dept. move the big items like desks, filing cabinets and the fridge. These past few days have worn me out. All I can think about is in another 45-60 days we get to do this all over again, that's how long it should take for the renovation to be complete. I'm not looking forward to that. 

Giveaways

These past couple of weeks I have won a few books by entering giveaways. I try to enter as many giveaways as possible either through the author's blog, someone else's blog who is interviewing one of my authors, Facebook or Goodreads. Sometimes I'm competing against a couple hundred people for one book or one item that they are giving away but I figured what do I have to lose. Nothing, right?

First I won two books, Leaving Lancaster and Pennsylvania Patchwork by Kate Lloyd. I entered this contest on her blog. She was giving away 10 copies of each book plus one of the winners also won a basket full of goodies. I didn't win the basket of goodies but I did win the books so I'm happy. There were 130 people who entered this contest.

The third book I won was Cassie & Caleb Discover God's Wonderful Design by Susan Hunt and Richard Hunt Jr. This book is a children's book which I won on Goodreads. This giveaway was giving away 25 books and 563 people entered.

I just started entering giveaways on this site. Goodreads has numerous books ranging from christian, romance, thriller, drama, science fiction, young adult to history. You just go through the pages in the giveaways and when you see a book you like you just enter the giveaway. That's it, pretty easy. They will email you if you won. So get out there and start entering giveaways, it never hurts to try. Good luck!

Happy Father's Day!

This Day is Dedicated to Our Dads

Jeff's Dad

You never said I'm leaving

You never said goodbye

You were gone before I knew it,

And only god knew why

A million times I needed you,

A million times I cried

If Love alone could have saved you,

You never would have died

In Life I loved you dearly

In death I love you still

In my heart you hold a place,

That no one could ever fill

It broke my heart to lose you,

But you didn't go alone

For part of me went with you,

The day God took you home.

Author Unknown

God took the strength of a mountain,

The majesty of a tree,

The warmth of a summer sun,

The calm of a quiet sea,

The generous soul of nature,

The comforting arm of night,

The wisdom of the ages,

The power of the eagles' flight, 

The joy of a morning in spring,

The faith of a mustard seed,

The patience of eternity,

The depth of a family need,

Then God combined these qualities,

When there was nothing more to add,

He knew His masterpiece was complete,

And so, He called it ... Dad

Author Unknown

Happy Father's Day! We love you!

More Organizing

Today Nicole wanted to go to Target and spend her gift card that she got at her baby shower. She needed a couple more items that she didn't get at the shower. So after I got up and around I left for her house. Then on to Target we went. Nicole had a list of items she needed and I was in charge of that list. They had an awful selection on baby socks and receiving blankets which were on her list. It doesn't seem like they have the best selection on baby accessories. Nicole has plenty of clothes for a newborn baby but no preemie clothes and we figure the babies will be in preemie clothes for a couple weeks, especially since Haylee was in them for a week or so and she was 6 lbs. 12 oz. when she was born.  So we decided to head on over to Once Upon a Child which is a consignment shop for kids. We found a couple sleepers that actually had a match to them so she got them and she also bought 10 onesies which were on sale for a $1 each. They didn't have many preemie outfits so she didn't get any of them. I found several boy toys to add to our toy collection.

I almost didn't get the train as we already have a plastic one but I like wood toys and it came with all the pieces so I decided to go ahead and get it anyway. Of course, the helicopter and bus didn't come with batteries so I need to get some for those toys. I think we need to take stock in batteries as we have a lot of toys that need batteries. On the way back to Nicole's we stopped at Subway and grabbed lunch. After lunch we started putting away all the clothes she had washed that she got at the shower. We ended up running out of baby hangers and had to use the hangers that the clothes came with, luckily she had kept those just in case we needed them. I had bought 20 hangers thinking that would be enough but evidently not. Here is a picture of the twins' closet after we got done hanging up everything.

I think they are pretty set on clothes for a couple months. The newborn size in on the left and 3 months is on the right and bigger sizes down below. We also but away the socks, sleepers, nightgowns, onesies, shorts and pants in the dresser. There isn't much room for anything more. Nicole also packed the diaper bag to take to the hospital with outfits, sleepers and nightgowns and miscellaneous items. The diaper bag is pretty much done, now she just needs to work on her bag.

After we got done organizing all the clothes it was time to swim. Kylie was spending the night so Kimberly brought her over to swim before I took her home.

Haylee is shooting Kylie with a water gun

Kylie jumping off the diving board

It was hard getting those girls out of the pool to dry off. They are both fish and could stay in the pool for hours. Kylie and I left around 5:00 to meet Jeff at Ruby Tuesday's for dinner. Kylie and I barely got five minutes down the road and she was out. Poor kid ended up waking up with a neck ache.

When we got home Kylie played outside with Jeff for a couple hours. She rode the Barbie jeep and ended up meeting some new friends, two houses down from us. You can never say that Kylie is shy or bashful about meeting new people, especially other kids. By the time she came in and watched TV for a little bit to wind down she didn't get to bed till after 9:30.

Book Shelves

While I was at work today Jeff had made some shelves for Haylee and the twins. Nicole had been wanting to put some shelves up in Haylee's room for her books and make a little reading area for her. She saw some Ikea spice racks online that people would make book shelves out of and really liked that idea. Unfortunately, the only way you can get the Ikea spice racks is at one of their stores, you can't purchase them online. She did find some on eBay but they were around $40 for four of them, even though iKea sells them for $4.00 a rack. Shows you how popular they are.

On Pinterest I found some shelves that were called Ten Dollar Ledges so I showed them to her, she liked them and Jeff bought the wood to make them. Out of an 8' board he made two 3' ledges and one 2' ledge. Now the lady who made the original ledges had used them for picture frames but they work out great for books too.

When Nicole and I were measuring the wall, where she wanted to hang them, we also talked about what color to paint them. Haylee happened to be there too and she said she wanted them pink. Of course, a princess needs pink shelves and not plain old white. So Nicole gave me the can of pink paint that they had used for one of Haylee's walls in her room. When I got home form work I started painting them.

before I painted

after one coat of paint



After Jeff made Haylee's shelves he made some for the twins' room also. He made the same size shelves. Now what color to paint them is the question. Should she choose blue to match the stripes on the wall, red for a pop of color or just good old white?

Kylie's Kindergarten Graduation

We officially have a first grader! Today Kylie graduated from kindergarten. It's hard to believe she is even old enough to be in school let alone old enough to be graduating from kindergarten.

Brayden and Haylee waiting for the ceremony to begin.

Before they handed out diplomas the kindergarten classes sang a few songs.

all three classes

it's Kylie's turn

Kylie Payne

Congratulations, Kylie!

Kylie holding her diploma

the graduate and us

 

Haylee wanted in on the picture taking too

Kylie in front of her school holding her diploma

Kylie's diploma

Congrats to our little graduate! We are so proud of you!