I recently finished this sweater for Annah. After crocheting for about 30 years, I finally attempted a sweater. And I'm happy that this one was very easy, first her just right, and looks so cute on her. She says it is cozy and comfy.
I'm still plugging away at that pillow when I make time. It's turning out to be larger than I expected, but I do really like working on this stitch.
Gooooood morning! We are coming to you live from central Illinois this polar vortex 2014 morning. We are now on our 6th canceled school day this month. The novelty of sleeping in, watching movies, and playing video games all day has worn off. I believe we may have reached the point of needing to make up school days in June (We originally would have finished May 22.), but no one has mentioned a calendar revision yet...We know there is more cold and snow to come. I'm pretty sure my brain has frozen too. I no longer know what day of the week it is, since everything is canceled and I don't have a schedule to keep. It's just all running together.
Jeremy says the thermometer on the car said as low as -6 this morning, and hung steadily at -4 most of his trip to work. He said he passed a bank sign that said -8. I saw a neighbor post a photo of his thermometer at -9 here in our village this morning. And windchill is at least in the -20's.
We had lasagna soup last night. It was warm and hit the spot.
I am still grateful for this "extra" together-time with the kids at home. I love having them here.
Yesterday, Annah went with the PoC Pivot Youth to the WinterJam concert in Champaign!
They met at the church at noon, had lunch at Garcia's pizza, did a little bit of shopping at the mall, and totally loved the concert! They got back to the church after midnight. And, I'm incredibly thankful that Jeremy was willing to stay in town after setup for church and pick Annah up! She said she had a blast!!
This morning we had a wonderful service at PoC. Our current sermon series is based on Psalm 91, and we are all going through it every morning and every night. Previously, I've really only heard this psalm at funerals, and now I can figure out why...It holds so many wonderful promises of God's protection for life!
Psalm 91
1 Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 This I declare about the Lord:
He alone is my refuge, my place of safety;
he is my God, and I trust him.
3 For he will rescue you from every trap
and protect you from deadly disease.
4 He will cover you with his feathers.
He will shelter you with his wings.
His faithful promises are your armor and protection.
5 Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night,
nor the arrow that flies in the day.
6 Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,
nor the disaster that strikes at midday.
7 Though a thousand fall at your side,
though ten thousand are dying around you,
these evils will not touch you.
8 Just open your eyes,
and see how the wicked are punished.
9 If you make the Lord your refuge,
if you make the Most High your shelter,
10 no evil will conquer you;
no plague will come near your home.
11 For he will order his angels
to protect you wherever you go.
12 They will hold you up with their hands
so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.
13 You will trample upon lions and cobras;
you will crush fierce lions and serpents under your feet!
14 The Lord says, “I will rescue those who love me.
I will protect those who trust in my name.
15 When they call on me, I will answer;
I will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue and honor them.
16 I will reward them with a long life
and give them my salvation.”
This morning, I happened to be the only female singing for our worship set, and I was working hard! We worshiped with some GREAT songs! This is one of my new favorites:
He Is With Us by Love and the Outcome
I totally enjoyed having this one on repeat this week!
This afternoon, I got to speak to the youth band a little bit about confidence in performing and what it means to really lead worship. They are a really talented group of kids and are doing good things with their music!
I usually do work in the conference room while Annah is at youth group, but the heat is not working in the conference room. So today I stayed in the sanctuary room and watched during game time. Rich has some of the most fun games!
When Annah and I came home from church, Jeremy was installing our new dishwasher! (Our last one only lasted about 18 months! I would not recommend a Frigidaire Gallery dishwasher.) This one is a Whirlpool, and had better last a LOT longer!! How fortunate am I to even have a dishwasher...I know!!
Yesterday, Sylvia was supposed to have her first "real" volleyball game. However, the visiting school canceled it for inclement weather reasons. Sylvia had been so excited all day with building anticipation, she exploded in tears when she got home and told me the game was canceled. It actually turned out well, as Caeden was going for a sleepover at Owen's, and we were able to arrange for Eliza to come to our house for "the old switcheroo," as the kids like to call it. The girls giggled and played in Sylvia's room, watched a movie, and had a great time hanging out. It definitely made up for the missed volleyball game.
Tonight was supposed to be Sylvia's second game--turned first official game. However, there was a miscommunication between coaches and it turned into a scrimmage. That was actually for the best, I think, since these girls were pretty nervous. A scrimmage turned out to be fun and much less nerve-wracking. It was fun to watch them.
Sylvia chose number 8 for her jersey--the same number her brother wears for baseball.
Usually cool and cold weather gets me in the mood to crochet. Last year I didn't manage to finish a single project all Fall/Winter! This year I have done several, but I haven't taken pictures of them.
Right now I'm working on a little baby afghan and a pillow. This is pillow, which is a wool eater pattern. It is to tie together all the colors in the rooms of our main floor with pillows in our living room.
We had school yesterday, but have more cold and snow and winds today, so the kids are home again!
We don't even feel like we need to sleep in anymore! Sylvie and Caed cuddled up on the couch this morning when they woke up and came downstairs.
Annah joined them when she came down, and they all 3 pretty much stayed there all morning reading.
I'm glad we can be home cozy and safe, and so thankful for Jeremy who goes to work every day, regardless of the weather or what he feels like, so he can provide for us. In fact, it was just announced this week that he received a promotion to a manager position--a new job he is very excited about and humbled by. We are thanking and praising the Lord. And I'm just SO incredibly proud of my man!
Today is the third snow day the kids have had off school. It doesn't seem too bad out there today, but Jeremy said there were whiteout conditions when he drove to work this morning. So, I do appreciate the school administration making the decision to keep the kids safe. Plus, I love having them home.
I had the girls do a little craft project for me today. I thought they would enjoy it, but I was quite wrong. Sylvia was frustrated by it, but once Annah figured out an easier way, Sylvia didn't mind finishing it up for me. We just used Mod Podge to glue strips of old music onto styrofoam balls. It looks pretty cute in our music room. I really appreciate the girls doing the project for me--especially since it wasn't as fun for them as I'd thought it would be!
While digging through a buffet drawer looking for my old music, I decided it was time to get rid of all my old accompaniment trax tapes. Clearly I haven't used them for at least 15 years, no one else would want to use them, and they've just been taking up space. So, we recycled them. The girls were fascinated by the actual tape when I let each of them pull one apart.
In some ways these tapes make me chuckle, but mostly each one has special memories attached. Some of them are my very favorite songs to perform, some I sang at weddings, all of them brought me closer to Jesus.
I'm working on organizing our den and came across this little post-it love note Annah wrote me when she was probably about 4. It used to be stuck to my scrapbooking desk so I could see it every day. I'm tucking it away in another desk drawer today, because I like being surprised by it every so often.
I think the thoughts I have about this are easier and better to just be pondered in my very full heart than to try to blog them out.
The kids were off school today for a teacher's institute day. Caeden slept over at Reece's last night and spent the day with him, so the girls and I went to town for a little girls' day out!
First stop--coffee at Starbucks! Sylvia: grande mocha, Annah: grande skinny vanilla latte, momma: venti skinny peppermint mocha.
Then we went to Hobby Lobby for the next few hours! We wandered up and down the aisles admiring everything in the store.
In the end, Annah used a Christmas gift card to buy a few rolls of bright duct tape. Sylvia found a pack of 48 gel pens for half off, which she bought with her own money. She loves to doodle!
I bought some more decorative storage baskets for the living room because they were half off, and some yarn to make throw pillows for our living room (Apparently the colors of our rooms are very random [says Jeremy], so I am going to tie them all together in the pillows. I also bought some Project Life supplies to finish up my 2013 book and get started
on 2010--gotta get those pictures out of boxes!
We needed some groceries, so we went to Wal-Mart. But, I was kind of stuck in the wandering and gawking mode from Hobby Lobby and had a hard time focusing on groceries. We saw these cool chairs on clearance, and are thinking about getting some. They are so big though, I need to make sure we'd have a place to keep them!
It was after 1pm when we finished at Walmart. So even though we planned to go home and make lunch, we decided to make a quick and easy stop at McD's instead.
I just love these girls, and loved every minute of our day together. I feel so fortunate to be their momma, so blessed.
Oh, and the boys are off to a wrestling meet at UofI (vs. UofM) tonight with Scott and Ethan. So they get a guys' night out too!
I was really happy to be able to attend the elementary school Honors Assembly today. This was the first time 3rd graders were honored in an assembly, which was extra special for us since our 3rd grader was one who was honored! 3rd grade is also the first year students at our school get letter grades.
The principal reads each student's name, the counselor hands students their certificate--as well as a coupon for a free kids' meal at Subway--and then each teacher of their grade shakes the student's hand and congratulates them. Then their pictures are taken for the newspaper.
Caeden was on the All-A Honor Roll.
After school, I told Caeden I was very proud of him for working so hard and getting all A's, and he told me that he didn't--it was easy!
Sylvia received all A's too.
Sylvia is very serious about her grades, and so far has received all A's on every report card in elementary school. Even though her classes are mostly easy for her so far, she is working hard to develop good study skills and says she wants to get her Phd and find a cure for cancer one day.
Annah also received all A's for the semester, but our jr high doesn't have an assembly to recognize those students. In fact, paper report cards aren't even sent home at the junior high level now; we have to go online to see their grades. But we are proud of our junior higher too! And we are very thankful that our kids really love learning!
After church today, we went to lunch at Fiesta Ranchera with a big group of friends from church. Abby is the daughter of our new Children's Pastor, and she just adores Sylvia.
At home this evening, I helped Sylvia study for a science test. This is the nitrogen cycle diagram she drew in class. I will admit, I haven't given much thought to the nitrogen cycle. But, I sure did enjoy the drawings that helped Sylvia understand it. My favorites were the last 2, which explain how nitrogen is returned to soil--animal waste (drawing: pooping bunny) and decaying organisms release nitrogen (drawing: dead cat--complete with X-eyes). I had to laugh.
Today, Jeremy helped move our new Children's Pastor's family from Peru to Normal. He was up at 4am to check the pump that is constantly removing water (and now melting snow) from our basement. I believe they were done unloading things into the house around 4:30 this afternoon, so he went to the gym. Then he went to setup at church. It makes me tired just thinking about all that physical work!
Meanwhile, the kids and I vegged at home all day with dolls, video games, and crafts. Sylvia baked chocolate chip cookies this afternoon. I'm working on cleaning photo and video files off the computer and doing laundry. It makes me feel guilty when it's been pretty uneventful here and Jeremy is working his tail off all day!
Well, the snow days are over for now. Jeremy returned to work Tuesday and the kids to school Wednesday. Tonight the boys are at wrestling practice, so the girls are having a "Girls' Night In." We are crafting...
Sylvia is making loom band bracelets, Annah is cross stitching a bib, and I am crocheting...
Quite a bit of snow fell yesterday. However, the winds have been so wild that we aren't sure exactly how much snow we got! Jeremy says he'd guess about 6 inches or more, but a lot of the snow from our yard was blown into huge drifts and our neighbors' yards--both next door and across the street.
One of the worst parts of this storm is that the air temperatures are colder than they've been in decades. So, it's not safe to be outside playing in the snow or shoveling for long at all.
I didn't go outside, but I did snap some pictures through our windows. This is looking out our big picture window in the front of the house--facing east.
SF closed for the day, so Jeremy bundled up in many layers and was ready to try out the new snowblower we'd been given, when I noticed our neighbor was trying to get his car out of the driveway. Jeremy took his shovel over to help.
As I was taking photos out various windows of the house, I noticed the blowing and drifting of snow had created large paths where the grass was exposed, and drifts up to 3 feet high or more. This is out the back of our house--facing west.
facing northeast out the side window in our front room
Jeremy got the snowblower going and used it a bit to help Tommy get his car out.
He worked on our driveway a bit too, but it was too cold to stay outside very long. He went out several times today, but tried not to stay out too long at once, in order to avoid frostbite.
This was what my weather app showed this morning. I have never seen a windchill of -50 degrees that I can remember! That is seriously cold!!
It was much too dangerous to drive anywhere. I've never seen IDOT issue warnings like this before:
We did not attempt to drive anywhere, but saw many people in our area posting this photo on Facebook. This is Route 9 about 2 miles from our house. It was officially shut down because with constant winds and drifting the plows couldn't get it cleared!
Local businesses were all closed,
and the county highway department couldn't even run snow plows safely.
And, though we are in one of the most dangerous [travel] areas of the county, we obviously were not the only area of Illinois in a state of emergency.
So much for the end of winter break! The kids weren't disappointed at all to have another day at home in their jammies!
The frosty windows are pretty.
This afternoon, Jeremy helped our other across-the-street neighbors shovel out their driveway. It was very deep, and had to be broken up before it could be moved.
