I wonder how many blog posts there are out there with that title? Oodles, I suppose. But at least it’s not the norm ’round here.

As you can imagine, we’ve been cramming a lot of summer into the last couple weeks of it. Nothing overly exciting or exotic, but we’ve been doing fun things. Drama camp (parent run) took all of last week. We did an indian spy play. The script was written by a seventh grade boy, with dance numbers and everything. Our family was able to contribute the music and some sari suits for the ninja princesses thanks to our recent obsession with Bollywood movies and a friend with indian relatives. My excellent sister-in-law, who is a dance major, helped choreograph the dances.

Yesterday, I helped the girls sew fabric lunch bags. It took me awhile to figure out how to construct them. On the serger, of course. I patterned them after the typical brown bag lunch sack, making them a bit bigger.

It killed me to create so much garbage last year. Three girls’ lunches every day is three brown bags, three capri sun pouches, and about 12 ziplocs in the trash, 5 days a week. So THIS year, they will each have two or three fabric sacks they sewed themselves, from fabric and notions we already had. (How’s THAT for “green”)?

I’m probably going to pick up a few of these, some of these, and then I’ll try to use some of those disposable-yet-reusable containers whenever possible.

The girls will have to do their part by emptying and rinsing their containers every day. Something they’re not good at. The number of old, moldy half eaten lunches that we dug out of school bags last year was appalling.

Today, we just came back from Jetty Island. It was our first time going and I am very tired. Cool place, though. I’d heard there is no shade to be had anywhere on the island so I finally broke down and bought a Sport Brella which I’d been eyeing all summer. (They’re on sale at Sports Authority right now).

And it was cloudy the whole time.

For a while there, I thought we might end up using it for rain.

Nope.

We did still manage to use it. I set it up and stood in front holding up my beach blanket so the girls could use it as a changing room. I don’t really care, though, I’m glad I have it. It’s the coolest thing ever. Earlier in the summer when we were looking for shoes for Abby, Sports Authority had one on display. They had two full sized camp chairs set up under it, with a large cooler, and there was still room. The fact that a 10 and 11 year old girl can both change clothes simultaneously under it without fighting or bumping into each other is also worth mentioning. It sets up in less than a minute and you can stake it to the ground like a tent. I’ll use this thing everywhere.

Ok, done with the commercial.

So, I’m in bed, ’cause I’m tired, which means I don’t have access to pictures to post. Theoretically, when the girls are back in school (starting tomorrow), I’ll have time to post regularly again. However there’s only 5 1/2 weeks ’til baby comes, and I have a lot to do…

Abby and I went to the mall yesterday to get her some skincare. We walked the whole mall, looking for possibilities. She settled on Clinique’s 3 step stuff. She’s very excited. I wished I had my camera so I could take a picture of her sitting at the counter getting the demo.

It’s fun having girls.

I haven’t been home ALL week. My house is a wreck. I’m tired and in serious need of some down time… which isn’t coming anytime soon. We’re off to drama camp now.

Do you know what this is?

I was taking baked potatoes and yams out of the oven last night. I set one on the plate and it exploded. Literally. Potato everywhere, and the completely hollowed out skin was found hours later a couple feet away.

It took me a few minutes to figure out what the heck happened. Growing up, my mom always poked loads of holes in potatoes before baking them. I did it for years, simply because that’s what you do, but in recent years, I’ve omitted that step because it didn’t seem necessary. Well last night, it was necessary. Having evaluated, I think one or two holes would be sufficient. Just enough to release the pressure. Good to know.

We sewed a lot yesterday and it wore me out. Mainly crawling all over the floor tying the center of Liv’s quilt for her. I don’t have a quilting frame so we had to make do.

and here’s a picture of Clark and Veronica bonding over a plate of nachos

It appears I get much more pleasure from sewing burp cloths than the girls do. Oh well. I’m having a grand ol’ time. Maybe they’ll show more interest when we’re sewing skirts?

A double batch makes about 30 crepes and takes about an hour to cook. If I had two pans, would that take it down to 30 minutes? Three pans, 20 minutes? That’d be nice.

I must say that seeing Liv’s little finger so close to that blade freaks me (and her) out, but she did really well. The serger is incredibly fun. I need to think up more reasons/ways to use it.

I cut the fabrics into some uniform shapes and sizes, and we drew up a number of layout options. Liv made the two on the top. Abby spent the day reading, and Veronica spent most of the sewing time drawing a Marauder’s Map on a brown paper lunch bag. We’re going to make a bunch more today.

As for the rest of it- I didn’t get to the shawl, I still have to put my laundry away (the kids did theirs), and I didn’t break out the steamer. But I DID put in 30 minutes on the elliptical!!! I’m hoping that as I exercise more, it’ll be easier to walk afterwards. Yesterday, I was painfully shuffling around for an hour or so. The quilts weren’t touched, but it’s first on Liv’s list today. So once I get dressed and eat, I’ll help Veronica sew a burp rag and Liv with her quilt.

That’s not entirely accurate. There are a LOT of things I want to do today, but I’m going to do them in a leisurely attitude because I’m tired.

-Finish up laundry. My part’s mostly done, the girls need to put the second half away still
-make crepes for lunch with the fresh peaches we bought yesterday. I think Nate’s coming home for lunch, and that sounds nice. He loves crepes
-sew with the girls. We need to finish their quilts, and I have a new project I’ll talk about later
-clean up a bit. A relatively tidy house helps me relax
-try another 20 minutes on the elliptical. (Dangit. I just called my doctor, and her nurse said to try to get to 30 minutes. Blast).
-maybe try to steam wallpaper off Veronica’s walls. My sister says it works, and I’d rather paint over a textured wall than old wallpaper. It’s been primed or something though, so I’m a little worried about the steaming.
-knit more on my shawl. Now THAT sounds relaxing!

Yesterday was fun. Hayden came

and we all left to take Abby to her ukulele lesson, after which we went to JoAnn’s to buy fabrics to sew burp cloths for the baby.

I’ve never had burp cloths before, but the girls had so much fun sewing the quilts, I thought they’d enjoy another simple project and I like the fact that this is something I could really use. We’re going to cut strips and squares out of these, sew them together to make a top, then we’ll try to serge them to a terrycloth back as I really hate hemming. Mainly because I suck at it. I’m hoping it won’t be too thick for the serger, but I’m optimistic.

After JoAnn’s we went to the Yakima Fruit Market to load up on more peaches, nectarines and apricots. We also bought fresh corn and green beans for dinner. Hayden made mashed potatoes and we grilled the corn with some Lemon Garlic chicken breasts. Then the girls were invited to a friend’s house to swim, so it was just Nate, Hayden, Clark and I for dinner. It was a pleasant, quiet evening and I was able to eat pretty well.

I can’t believe summer’s almost over.

I did 20 minutes of elliptical last night. And I did feel better for the rest of it.

Hayden is in from New York and is coming over today. I have a lot to do before she gets here so I’m not going to linger here very long.

Here are some pictures from Oregon…

Oh, and I got a lot done on the shawl while we were there

We had a very nice visit in Oregon and got some neat pictures… but I’m not on that computer. I’m in bed because I feel lousy.

I had a doctor appt today, and an appointment with a hospital person to develop a “birth plan” which is weird since this is my 5th delivery and I’ve never had a birth plan before. (Or a birthing class. Shh, don’t tell). It should be helpful though in getting a good nurse. I haven’t had a bad nurse yet, but there was a close call with Veronica and I was grateful the senior nurse happened to be in the room at the time. The supervising nurse wasn’t originally planning to be there and it was quite apparent that my inexperienced nurse wasn’t up to the challenge.

Since it is a concern of mine, they put a “no newbies” note in my birth plan, along with a note that my nurse has to speak english. I wouldn’t normally care, except that I’ve experienced a baby in trouble with a nurse that didn’t speak enough english to be understood. That wasn’t cool. And the experienced nurse repeatedly asking the non-english-speaking-newbie-nurse to call out a heartbeat and getting more and more agitated when she wasn’t getting it while my baby was lifeless, gray, limp and not breathing on the table wasn’t cool, either.

No newbies. English speaking. Has to be a wizard with IV insertion.

I feel so high maintenance.

Today my doctor told me that to maintain my muscle mass and to feel better, I need to exercise. You all should know by now that I don’t mind exercising, but it’s SO HARD when I FEEL LIKE CRAP! Who wants to exercise when all they want to do is curl up into a ball on a soft bed and feign unconsciousness for the remaining 8 weeks?

Not me, I can tell you.

But I also don’t want to feel like a gooey marshmallow after delivery, like I always do.

Argh! I’m grumpy.

Maybe I should get off the bed and go for a stroll on my elliptical for 20 minutes? I’m thinking about it.

Ooh, ooh! I dyed some really cool stuff Saturday. It did that wacky color separating thing, (I think because the wool wasn’t quite clean enough), but it’s super neat looking, and I think it’ll card up pretty.

Be back Friday.

Made blueberry crepes on Saturday morning. They were my first crepes and they were perfect. I used my 8 inch cast iron skillet. I love my Lodge.

Yesterday was spent helping the girls sew their quilts from 2 birthdays ago, when their friends came over and made squares that I intended to sew into quilts for them.

I think it’s cool that they’re old enough now to sew their own quilts. The girls and their friends glued fabrics cut into flowers/butterflies/suns/etc onto white background squares and then wrote on them with colored Sharpies. I bought coordinating fabric for the background to sew the squares to. This was all done in the spring of 2007, I believe, and it’s been sitting in a laundry hamper in my craft storage room ever since.

Yesterday morning, the girls sewed the fabric shapes down to secure them to the white squares. I’m hoping that when we wash them, the edges will fray and look cool. Next, we cut background fabric to connect the squares into strips,

now we’re sewing the strips to background strips, and sewing those together.

The sewing machine and iron were going all day, and the girls were in heaven. It was a nice day despite my lack of the intended make-up sleep.

Poor Clark had a fever, so he was mellow. I didn’t get much chance to knit on my shawl. I didn’t cook much of anything, except…

and maybe I’m totally behind the times on this, but Nalley makes turkey chili! If you recall, Nalley chili has been my rock-bottom-I-need-to-eat-something-and-everything-else-makes-me-sick food. It’s not something that I normally consume, I have to be pretty desperate and have to not look when I’m eating it because canned beef totally freaks me out. Anyway, I was at the store and saw the turkey chili. It was on sale for $1 a can, and I bought 4, feeling optimistic. Half a can served as my lunch yesterday, and while it is a bit bland, it’s totally edible and I got some protein!

So that was nice.