I have arrived?

As some of you know, I've been making our own bread since September. The girls and I really enjoy whole wheat sandwich bread, and I bake about 1-2 loaves a week.

Recently, I heard about a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Being my frugal self, I looked it up at our library. Since they didn't have it, I requested an inter-library loan and they ended up buying a copy for themselves! That's pretty cool, dontcha think? I'll have to try that more often.

Anyways, I got the book and decided to try it out. Doug is a bread-snob and really loves sourdough and artisan breads. The idea is that you make up a mongo batch of dough and keep it in the fridge for up to two weeks. Whenever you want bread, you cut off a hunk, shape it, rest it, and bake it. Simple!

The result was REALLY REALLY REALLY good. Really. Doug said, "you have arrived in breadmaking." I don't know about that, but I'm definately on my way.



p.s. I worked out the cost per loaf, as pictured: $0.43

Valentine's Day Craft

For the life of me, I can't find the link to this craft idea, and it's bugging me... But anyways! *FOUND IT!* This was a fun craft that the girls and I did together. You cover a Styrofoam cup with alum foil, put some green tissue paper inside for "grass," and let the kids cut and decorate the heart-flowers. I cut out E's hearts, but she did the decorating all by herself!

Crop - Paper - Scissors

This past weekend was a special treat for me. I got to spend it with four of my best friends, doing one of my favorite things - scrapbooking!
Kristi, Dionne, Jen and I packed my mini-van to the max and drove down to spend the weekend at Lisa's house. We had the house to ourselves, as Mike and the boys spent the weekend with grandparents.

It was SO much fun! We scrapped 68 pages (is that right, ladies?) during our time, and had a blast doing so. Lots of girl-talk, inside jokes and laughter occurred. One of Lisa's friends stopped by Saturday night to join in. When we asked her if she thought we were all crazy, she paused and said, "no, but you do seem to be very comfortable with each other." :-)

I thank God for these good friends with whom I can just be myself around. We love each other unconditionally. That's a good weekend! Thank you again, Doug and all the men for taking good care of all the kiddos while we were gone. It meant SO much.
Hard at work:

Kristi kept us warm:

Precious Friends:

Surgery Update: Week 16

Well it's been a while since I've updated on Sadie's leg! In this case, no news is good news. She has been doing fabulous. While she still lacks some range of motion in the bad leg, she is walking, running, jumping, and playing on it. Every so often, she'll get up from a nap and take a little hop step, and favors the "good" leg when standing for a while, but she is a four-legged dog!

At Christmas she was finally allowed to play with her buddy Sampson and they enjoyed each other's company. (Previous visits they were kept apart so Sadie would not be tempted to overdo it.)

Thank you for all your prayers and concerns throughout this journey.

Enjoy this evidence of a happy puppy:

For the record...

...we are NOT pregnant. For some dumb reason I didn't realize that the phrase "anticipating some big changes in our lives" would send folks into a baby-crazed frenzy!

I was thinking more along the lines of E going into a big-girl bed, C starting pre-school, and the big one - Doug's job/career. It's no secret that the auto-industry is not the greatest right now and he, like everyone, is thinking about what that means for our family. It's a little unknown right now, but change is a-coming, one way or another.

So, calm down, AND stay tuned!

Getting Organized

I took advantage of Doug's final days of holiday vacation to do some organizing. After taking down the Christmas tree, we rearranged the living room to create more open space and room for the girls' craft supplies (like mother like daughter!). I also took on the major task of filing all our random papers and software. So far, it's worked out well!

Happy 2009!

This year is off to a good start, with both girls sleeping in to 7:30 am! Woo Hoo! We just got home yesterday afternoon, completing our Christmas journeys for 2008. It was nice to have some time at home, and begin to get things back to normal.

I am pretty behind in my posts, since we've basically been on the road since Dec. 19th. Please look back in time, as I will date my posts when they actually happened.

Here's to an exciting, adventurous year! We will be anticipating some big changes in our lives this year. Stay tuned...