We had a tree cut down a couple of weeks ago. I felt a little sad since it has been on this earth a long time but it wasn't looking so good in a couple places. It also hung over our neighbors yard and they had a few branches cut off last year.

I'm in a cooking club with my parenting group. This last month we didn't have one, one friend just had a baby and everybody else decided to take the month off. I didn't realize how much I would miss it. So today I went to the store and came home and started cooking meals for my freezer since apparently I haven't done a good job lately with dinner. In the freezer:

Garlic Lime Chicken Thighs- we'll cook on the grill
Garlic Lemon Chicken- I'll serve with rice and broccoli on the side
Raging garlic stir fry

I also made Sassy Sloppy Joe's from Don't panic Dinner's in the Freezer.
Still to make Meat Lover's Casserole, 3 different meatball recipes, hamburger patties. Now all I'll have to decide is what should I pull out of the freezer.


Sleep seems exclusive when you want it. The other night I stayed up till Kaitlyn made it home from the prom about 1:00. So the next night I went to bed early, at 9:45 I hear a voice "Mom are you going to take a shower?" "No, does it look like it?"
Than about 11:00 Jim comes to bed talking about something, I roll over and felt something sharp. A needle was sticking up in the bed after finding it and removing it, I try to fall back to sleep an hour later I'm asleep. The next day I was tired and laid down with Amy when she took a nap, 15 minutes later the phone rings, at least it was a friend and not a sales call. So last night I again head to bed early sound asleep at 9:30, 10:30 "Mom have you seen my swimsuit?" "I need it for the swim meet" "No, I haven't seen it." Back to sleep, 11:30 Jim again talking about something he found on the Internet. I JUST WANT TO SLEEP. Back to sleep and the cats woke me up. I laid there for the next three hours on and off. I read an article I think by Dr. Mercola or someone saying the more you say your tired it makes you tired and I think that is entirely true.
What will tonight hold..................................

Jaime's soccer game was postponed an hour but on the way there it started raining. We headed down to the field waiting to find out if they were playing. Jim asked "Do we have an umbrella?" "Sure we do at home" anyway after standing in the rain for 15 minutes the game was cancelled. Don't those two look drenched?



Jr/Sr Prom






They had a lot of fun and a police escort. Lauren's dad is a police officer and he chauffeured them around Saturday night.

Yesterday

We were suppose to be at Children's Mercy Hospital at 7:00 for a 7:30 MRI. I was in the parking lot at 7:02 and ID'd at 7:08 probably in the office by 7:11. The lady says "you first appointment you late". I just sit there looking at her thinking whatever. I didn't apologize or tell her my story, just smiled. My story is this lady, I have a twelve yr old who sleeps on the top bunk, she is on her own time schedule, answers to the beat of her own drum. Twenty minutes of get up we have to go, ten minutes in the bathroom, stopped for a train. We are here.

She thoroughly enjoyed the MRI and wanted to know when she could go back for another one. WHAT? "The goggles were real cool mom, I watched the movie in them". So I guess she'd be happy with just the goggles. I was worried she'd start singing to the movie but she said they were done before Bennie and the Jets came on.

We,(Amy and I) amused ourselves by walking around the hospital for a hour. She enjoyed watching the train and looking in the vending machines. We hit the gift shop and fed our sweet tooth on the way out.
We had to stop at home so Melissa could ditch her flip-flops and get her PE shoes, drove her by the library to pick up her books on hold, dropped her off at school. Back to the library to catch the tail end of story time than back home for Amy's nap.

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I finished sewing a rag baby quilt for a baby girl who was born in February, now on to the cutting. I kinda go crazy if I haven't sewed for a few days so it felt good when I finished.
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Here's our soccer funny-
Jim usually takes Jaime to practice but he was working on Elizabeth's car. Jaime didn't want to go and couldn't find her shin guards and I planned on going late since she still needed to eat. Pulling out of the driveway I spilled my lukewarm mocha on my jeans, it was a lovely mess. We made it there by 7:20, I told Jaime hurry up and get on the field while I grab Amy. As I walked by some people sitting at a picnic table I thought I've never seen these people before but didn't look again to double check, I seriously thought maybe another family member brought them. We get to the playground at the edge of the field and Jaime is just standing there, "Jaime you need to get out there with your team" Jaime's still standing looking. "Come on Jaime, you need to get out there". She finally says I don't see Coach Jose, so I start looking for the assistant coach because she called a hour before to say we were having practice. The lady I thought was her turned around and it was somebody else. "Jaime do you recognize any of those boys?" "No, I don't think so"
"Hum they look a little bigger", So I called the assistant coach and she said that other team was there so we moved down the street to a football field.

You know when you have all the clues and aren't picking up the answer:

1. None of the parents looked familiar.
2. No boys saying "Jaime's here"
3. No coach saying "Over here Jaime"

there must be a reason.

I will say in my defense that
1. Sometimes other family members do bring kids to practice
2. Jaime is the only girl on the team of 9,
3. all the boys have dark brown or black hair.
4. I talked to the assistant coach an hour before practice.

So from a distance it looked like her team. So Jaime what did you do last night
"Well my mom tried to make me practice with the wrong soccer team". Oh well, All's well that ends well.

She was dancing around once she met up with the right team.
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I found these old canning jars at a thrift store recently.

I'd been trying to decide how I wanted to make my rag bag. This book had some ideas but I found this pattern here. After reading her website where she sells the bags she said she put a liner in the one's that she sells. So I sewed a piece of material with an opening over the bottom and slid a piece of plastic canvas in and it's worked great.
I did have a few problems with the instructions but I think that's me because I'm more visual, when sewing the pockets on I had to re-read and play around with it but after I realized my first row was going across and hers was going down it made more sense. I'm going to make another one a little smaller and use rectangles and will just use 8 batiks going up and down. I'm also thinking about adding an outside pocket.





I received this beautiful quilt from my partner in the spring doll quilt on Sewing Mama's. She wrote a sweet note that she choose 5 flowers to represent my 5 daughters.





This is the spring doll quilt I made.



I finally heard from my brother (he's retired Army living in Italy) they live three hours away from Rome and didn't feel the earthquake.