We'll Miss You Noisy Needles

Laura closed her doors on Saturday. I ran and bought some baby yarn and a couple books. I hope to make this hat and sweater pattern on the bottom. I also bought the colored cotton yarns to make baby hats. I have a really cute pattern that uses several different colors. I am sad to see Laura close her shop but can understand why she is "taking her knitting home". I did a little knitting before Noisy Needles but thanks to Laura, her shop and some of her customers I have really fallen in love with knitting and am more confident to try trickier patterns.

Jean The Beans

Jeanie started soccer Saturday. She is so excited and loves it! She does a lot of running back and forth but I'm not sure if she made any contact with the ball. Okay, it was the first game of the season. Hopefully she'll learn to go after the ball instead of stepping back for the opponent to kick it.Jeanie and Laura have learned the fine art of posing from their big sisters.
Definately not camera shy!
Jeanie was writing a note on the wipe-off board and asked Gretchen what comes after "back" on "backpack"? Gretchen said, "The same as "back" except you add a "p". (As you can see, she is also learning to write her name in cursive.)

Where's Danny? (Fun with Photography)

A while back my brother Brian would insert Danny in almost every photo he put on our family email. It started to be a "Find Danny" in every picture. We got a few kicks out of it. This last picture Wade replaced Danny with everyone's head in the family picture and it still kind of gives me the "creeps" whenever I see it........

(Did you find Danny in the cupholder on the top picture? How about on the breast pocket in the "Smoking Fish" picture?) (He's wearing a mask for a school play.)

Happy Birthday Matt & Wade!

Today is Matt and Wade's birthday. Matt is 29 and Wade is 21. I remember when I was pregnant for Wade. I think I was due about October 28th. One day we were driving somewhere and Matt said, "Maybe the baby will be born on my birthday". I told him that it could but probably wouldn't. Well, he was right. Wade arrived on the same day Matt did eight years later!

School Picture Rejects

We've been trying to get school pictures taken around here. To tell you the truth, the kids have been taking them themselves the last couple of years. I'm thinking maybe I should make an appointment with their Dad and have him take them all one day. The kids have made several attempts but not too successfully. Molly took about 50 of Kaitlin yesterday. I heard Kaitlin complaining at the computer yesterday about "not having Molly take my pictures". After looking at them today, I see that they are ALL either fuzzy or off-centered. Good thing she's asking for a camera for Christmas. I think she needs a little practice.......

Meal Planning

I went back to meal planning this week. I did it for a couple years and it was the best thing ever. Somehow I got out of it last winter and never got back. It does take a little time but I usually use the grocery ads to plan what meals to have for the week. When I first started I actually was spending "more" instead of less on groceries. That was because since I was taking the time to plan, I was planning big meals for almost every day of the week. Now I plan some easy and cheap meals along with a few bigger one. It makes dinner making so easy as there is no wondering what in the world to make for supper. Then every idea you come up with, you are missing several key ingredients. With the planning you know you have ingredients for seven meals on hand. This is my weeks plan:

Meal One: Tacos
Meal Two: BBQ Chicken, BBQ Red Potatoes, mixed vegetables, homemade flatbread
Meal Three: Homemade Pizza
Meal Four: Chili
Meal Five: French Toast, Sausage
Meal Six: Mac 'N Cheese (Judy T's recipe she posted) baked ring bologna, green beans and homemade bread
Meal Seven: Chinese Take Out

I have a three ring notebook I keep this in. After you do it for awhile you can flip back pages and come up with ideas for meals. We all tend to repeat lots of recipes.