Cutting The Guys Hair

I've been cutting my sons hair for over 15 years. I don't remember exactly when I started but it was at least that long ago. A couple of years ago, my husband had me start cutting his hair, too.

The nicer clippers that I had broke over a year ago. We didn't have the extra money at the time to spend on nice clippers, so we bought a cheap set for about $10.

I knew they were bad, but I didn't realize how bad until I bought a new set. I bought these Wahl Hair Clippers (affiliate link)  from Amazon recently. Oh my, what a difference good tools makes!

My daughter has expressed an interest in cutting hair, so when we cut all the guys hair the other day, I let her help. Here she is doing her older brothers hair. This was her first haircut. Do you think he looks scared? lol

She ended up cutting her Dad's hair, too. I only had to do the one! I just might turn over the guys hair cutting to her!

Mother's Day

I started a new family tradition for Mother's Day this year. With the kids getting older, moving out, and married, it's harder to get everyone together for Mother's Day. Actually for any holiday!

So this year, I told everyone no cards, no presents, no going out to eat. I just want everyone to get together on Saturday before Mother's Day for pictures.

I had fun trying to get everyone lined up for pictures. They range in age from 10 to almost 25. I haven't said anything or posted any pictures of my oldest 2 for a few years now. They have their own lives, and as such, should be the ones to decide whether to share them, and with whom they share. I did tell them all yesterday that I was going to post some of the pics online.

So here they are, all my children.  :)

From left to right, Hannah 15, Abigail 12, Melissa 23 & her husband Corey 22, Kenny almost 25, Calen 16 and in the front, Zachary 10.

The boys:

The Girls:

God has truly blessed me with my children. They are the only Mother's Day presents I need!

Decorating Fail

A few weeks ago, I found this post about using aprons as curtain, called How to Display Your Apron Collection. Well, I fell in love with the look!

We love using aprons, and have a few, so I thought I'd try this.

Well, it didn't look so great. :( I left them up for about 2 weeks, to see if they grew on me.

Well,they didn't. And since this window is above the sink, the long ties kept getting wet. So I had one of the kids climb up and take them down. I put the old curtains back up.

I really do love the apron as curtains look. And when I get aprons better suited to this, I will definitely do this. So, I'll be keeping my eyes open for more aprons, inexpensive or free aprons!

I thought I had a picture of the curtains with the valance that those big hooks hold up. I can't find it, though. These curtains are green gingham.

Oh, I could have rushed out and bought some aprons to use. Or bought fabric to make some. That, however, would not be good for my family. We can use the money elsewhere, instead of on curtains, just because I felt like changing them. I really do love the old curtains that I made, so I can in no way justify buying new.

I'm always telling one of the children, they need to be content with what the have, instead of always wanting something bigger or better.

That goes for curtains, too.  :)





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First Cook Out of the Year!

We've been having such great weather. The kids keep having picnics at lunch time. And have really been begging dad to have a cook out. He finally gave in. So I threw out the menu plan, and we had the first cook out of the year!

We roasted hot dogs over the fire.

If you prop your hot dog on a stick up, you can lay down and avoid the heat of the fire. He looks relaxed!

Some people prefer to stand.

It's time for marshmallows!

S'mores!!!

Are you in the burnt marshmallow club?

Or are you like me, and belong to the perfectly toasted marshmallow club?

To Catch a Mouse

This was my Facebook status earlier this evening:


  saw a mouse......Can someone please tell me why grown men are incapable of catching mice?

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, we have a mouse in the house. At least I hope it's a mouse, instead of mice!


This is a very tricky mouse. We ( meaning my husband) has set up glue traps all over the house. He blocks off doorways so the only way a mouse can enter or leave a room is to run over the glue trap.

Image via Wikipedia

Instead, all our glue traps catch are hair, and people. Yeah, the kids all laugh when I get a glue trap stuck to my foot. Of course, I laugh at them when they do. lol





Do you remember the Mouse Trap Game? That game was a lot of fun to play, as I remember it. However, it was sure a pain to set up.

Image via Wikipedia

Sorta like real life. The traps are a pain to set up, but the reward of ridding your house of mice is worth it.

Of course, I don't have my reward yet.

Just a glue trap stuck to my foot.

The Wearing of the Apron

We love to wear aprons at our house. We wear them when working in the kitchen and cooking. We wear them around the house even when we're not cooking. We even wear them in the yard and garden. Or *gasp* out in public!

Which was very common in the not to distant past. It's a shame that more women (and girls) don't wear aprons. Some will never don aprons, they act like it's an embarrassment to wear one. But there's a commadarie amoungst apron wearers. We're united by common goals. The goals of making homes for our families and cooking great meals for them. And that's nothing to be ashamed of. Whether you work out of the home or are a stay at home mom.

I think wearing an apron makes me more productive. Maybe it's because I feel like I have the apron on, I might as well do some work. Or maybe it's because I don't have to worry about staining my clothes when I'm wearing an apron.

Whatever the reason, I seem to get more work done, and the food seems to taste better, when I'm wearing an apron.

My girls love to wear aprons, too. In fact, when we go in the kitchen to work, they grab an apron first, and remind me to put one on. You notice, they choose an apron first, then remind me. lol We all have our favorite aprons, and like to claim them first. lol And, yes, there has been a few tug of war battles over certain aprons. *ahem* I even let them win sometimes.

Here I am back in January of 2007 right after I finished making this apron.

You can tell I was actually working in this picture by all the stuff on the counter, and the mixer ready to go. lol




We still use this apron a lot. In fact, this past Christmas, my daughter even wore it in the Christmas play at church !

As you can tell by all these pictures, we really do wear aprons a LOT.

I think she's been sneaking sugar!

A couple days after Christmas, we had a cookie party for the girls in the family. My mother, myself (in the back), two of my daughters, and two of my nieces. If my older daughter had been there, we would have had all the girls in the family for 3 generations! We all had fun wearing our aprons, and making  cookies together.

All our full aprons hanging in the kitchen.

You can even wear an apron while playing in the leaves!

She's a good cook, but she scares me! lol

Apparently, the only thing we like better than wearing aprons (and cooking!!) is taking pictures of us wearing aprons. lol

Do you like to wear an apron while working in the kitchen?     Or when playing in the leaves?!





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Still Christmas

Today is the second Saturday of the New Year. Which means we've had plenty of time to take down Our Christmas decorations.  See our pretty Christmas Tree? Yep, it's still there!

I have not started to take pack up Christmas. Oh, I want it done. I just don't want to actually do it.

I am very tempted to just leave everything up. We're already on the second Saturday of the year, remember? What's 50 more?

Then I think about having to dust the Christmas tree all the year long, and I change my mind.

Christmas will be down and packed up by Monday night.

I found these great ideas at Martha Stewart Ornament Storage that I shall be trying. We have a lot of ornaments and no proper storage. These look easy. Especially the egg carton storage. lol Can't get much easier than an egg carton. And I have a bunch of brand new cartons that won't be getting used anytime soon, as our chickens have stopped laying for the winter. So I might as well use some of them for storage.

How about you? Does anyone else still have their Christmas decorations up?

Celebrating the Sabbath

This year, we started celebrating the Sabbath on Friday nights. Friday night to Saturday night is the Sabbath as the Bible describes. We don't know any one else in real life that celebrates the Sabbath on Friday night. We do feel that God has lead us to this, and called us to celebrate the Sabbath on Friday night/Saturday.

This has been a process for us. We started out with just my lighting the candles and saying the blessing. We now take communion as part of our Sabbath meal. In this picture from tonights meal, you can see our little wooden communion cups.

You can also see the beautiful loaf of challah bread my daughter made. I started out making the challah earlier this year, but she has taken over. She has learned how to make 6 braided challah. Beautiful and tastes great. We use pieces of challah for the communion bread, and grape juice in our cups.

We also have a tzedakah container. Tzedakah is commonly translated as charity. At some point during our Sabbath meal, we try to put money into the tzedakah container. So far, we have taken the money out once to buy food for the food pantry.

Even though we eat supper together as a family every night, this is different. It just feels different. It's hard to describe. We are more relaxed, we talk more over the meal, and linger longer at the table. It's not just dinner, it's an event. One the whole family looks forward to.

So far, we haven't had any one over for our Sabbath meal on Friday night, but I do see us sharing this with others at some point.

Our Sabbath isn't perfect. There are still some things I would like to work on. For example, I still haven't memorized the candle lighting blessing. And I would like to learn to say it in Hebrew, also.

Celebrating the Sabbath on Friday night has been great experience for our family. It has brought us closer together as a family. It is really awesome to honor God together as a family.

I very highly recommend starting the Sabbath with a family meal on Friday night.

Snow!

We got about 6 inches of snow overnight. The roads were so bad my husband couldn't get to work. He made it as far as the end of our road, then turned around and came home. Then he barely made it up the hill to get home. He thought he was going to have to park and walk, but after about 3 tries, he finally made it up the hill.

The front porch ramp.

My poor flower pots on the front porch.

The front door.

The poor, neglected bike and wagon covered in snow.

My tin man and milk can. I think all the snow makes my tin man look like a nutcracker.

I'm off to go gather some snow for snow ice cream, or maybe some snow candy like we used to make when I was a kid.

EDIT: Me all bundled up outside gathering snow. clean snow!

 I did make Snow Candy! So yummy!!