The Crafts

You are probably looking at my post title and thinking...what?!  I'm reading up about surfactant leaching.  I have self diagnosed our bathroom with this disorder.  Basically, surfactants in the wall paint (I'm guessing it is some kind of chemical) is leaching and running down the walls.  According to various online 'experts' who appear much smarter than I, the leaching is due to us not giving the paint the proper amount of time to dry before showering.  Bummer. So begins work week in the Craft household.  One project for work week is to...tackle surfactant leaching. Work week begins tonight...although I already did some caulking so I guess it truly began this afternoon.  The caulk job took all of 30 minutes.  And yet I'm tired.  Which brings me to the second half of my post title; chemical dependency. I'm afraid I have developed an addition...to coffee.  It all started sometime after CJ was born and proceeded to be a poor sleeper up until, oh, last week! 

CJ becomes more mobile every day. YIKES!!!! In the last two days she has figured out how to move from laying down to sitting up. I also found her standing in the crib!! Earlier today I let CJ play on the floor while I read a book with Kate in the living room. When I looked up, I found her under here... ...reading a magazine and trying to open up the laptop. Everyone's world is about to flip upside down.

Throughout history the world has known lots of famous aliases. Annie Oakley Billy the Kid  Prince Mark Twain (who looks remarkably like one of my grad professors!) And now the world has one more... This infamous 'criminal' has been known to destroy and conquer up to four outfits a day. Her family is requesting your assistance in the purchsae of laundry detergent and onesies. Nothing is safe with Poops on the loose.

This past weekend was supposed to be a rainy one. But Saturday morning after a few showers, the sun peeked through. I threw Kate into her rain boots and we went puddling jumping. We picked winter onions and rhubarb. I tried my hand at making jam. Baked some awesome bread to go with the jam. It was GOOOOOOODDDDDDD!! Raspberry rhubarb jam and homemade bread. Delicious! We had some random pig piles! Got to wear some cute shoes to run errands with the family. I made some homemade caramel corn for family Go Fish. Also delicious!  We already ate the entire batch.  Yikes! We wrapped up the weekend with a few games of Go Fish. I think Kate won each game. And by the end of it all, we were exhausted! By the way, CJ is sleeping really well! The last five nights she has slept through the night until 6 a.m.! A couple of nights she has even made it well past 6 a.m.! Everyone in this house is incredibly peppy. Thank you, CJ!

My dad! Because I'm super fancy I threw each entrant's name into a hat and drew. So dad...you are the winner! I'll get you your peanut butter asap! And now to my Monday interview. My inaugural interviewee is.....drum roll please.....my husband, Matt! What one thing (not person) in your life MUST you have everyday? In the last two weeks, I’d say a donut. Otherwise, I feel like I’m lost if I don’t read a newspaper every day. If you could wake whenever you want, what time would you hop out of bed? 5:30-6:00 And go to sleep? 8:30-9:30 You have an extra $200 to drop. On what would you spend it? Is the right answer my wife? If not, how about golf lessons? You have an obvious love for Iowa State and Kramer’s meat products. Which would you give up if forced? Either will probably kill me at some point, but if I had to give up one, it’d be Kramer’s. Kramer’s I can only eat so much of. I can never have enough Iowa State. What is your favorite part of being a father? W

Well I had about 45 minutes or so in the car to think today.  I've decided that I like blogging and I am going to keep it up.  And if I really believe my blog is getting boring then I just need to do more to make it interesting. So I'm going to try something new. Beginning each Monday for the next several Mondays, I am going to have an interview with one of my readers.  So be prepared...you may get a phone call from me!  Secondly, I am going to have a beneficial give-away each Friday. It won't last forever but we'll see how it goes the first few Fridays. So today is the first ever Freebie Friday! That is what I'm going to call it. So here is how today's Freebie Friday works. This Sunday I want you to give $5 additional dollars to your church. Most of us attend some church and participate in an offering each weekend. Well I want you to give $5 more this weekend. If you normally give $10 a week, then this week make it $15. If you normally give $20 a week

While letting CJ cry in her crib this afternoon, I started reading through some of my first ever blog posts.  And I was really quite interesting.  In fact, reading those old posts makes me worry that I have lost my touch.  My touch with the world around me, my touch with using grown-up words, my touch with writing things that are coherent.  I think my blog might be really boring.  Back to the CJ crying thing.  Don't think I'm a bad mom.  I'm trying to be a good mom and make her get some sleep so her brain will develop properly.  I've always read that a child who doesn't get the proper amount of sleep means their brain won't have the necessary down time to develop at the rate it needs to.  I'm sure CJ is doing fine really, but she probably sleeps only 9 hours a day.  Meanwhile, Kate sleeps around 13 to14 hours a day.  (11 hours at night and usually a 2 to 3 hour nap in the afternoon.) Now maybe CJ is one of those kids who doesn't need as much sleep, a

Kate loves playing outdoors. But what kid doesn't, really. The other day I took Kate and CJ on a 'nature hunt.' Kate grabbed a bucket and collected various items from nature. Rocks, dead leaves, weeds, flowers, sand, sticks...you name it. We spent most of our time on the trail along Wolf Creek in La Porte. The trail suffered some damage in the 2008 floods so they are a little sandy. This past weekend a bunch of us competed in the 4th annual CY's House of Trivia. The group includes: Clint, Michael, me, Matt, Jeremy Josh, LeAnn and Mike We finished 10th out of 70.  Not bad, eh? I know most of my readers don't know Jeremy but I had to share this picture because I thought it was really funny.

This sweet face melts my heart. Except at 4 a.m. We love her to pieces.  She is so adorable I would hug her all day...almost all day. Except at 4 a.m. CJ awoke ready to start her day at 4 a.m. Please Lord, let this be a once in a never again occurrence. EDITED ***Well my prayer didn't work.  Here I sit with a wide awake baby on another morning in the 4 a.m. hour.  The only other people up are farmers, those working 3rd shift and meth users.***

April 15th, tax day, is a difficult day for some people. Most of America procrastinates.  Myself included. But six years ago tax day took on a whole new meaning for Matt and me. Six years ago today, tax day, Matt and I sat in my apartment watching my most favorite show, Survivor. Matt kept interrupting my show with questions like... "Would you ever try to change me if we stayed together for a long time?" "What?  Survivor is on.  What are you talking about."  That was my reaction. About an hour later Matt said he forgot something in his car. He ran out and when he returned he was carrying an enormous bag....full of bridal magazines. I was very confused. First he was asking me very unusal questions and then he hands me a bag of bridal magazines? Looking back I should have figured it all out...but I didn't. And it was then that Matt proposed. I was amazed, excited, shocked, speechless. Coincidentally, April is a very big month for us. We met in April, had

While starting our morning we heard the doorbell ring. Sitting immediately outside the door on a table was a white bag. Kate ran out and found two treats; a sprinkle donut and a twist donut from the local bakery! A delivery from the Donut Magic Fairy! And our morning immediately went from a little grumpy to a lot of happy. I poured some coffee and milk, and we jetted outside to eat our donuts on the porch. Thank you Donut Magic Fairy! You brightened our day!

I still choose to believe that these two kiddos look a lot alike. On a separate note, Matt and I are heading to Ames this weekend. We are going to participate in "Cy's House of Trivia" which is a super fun tradition for us. AND we are actually going to attend some VEISHEA events. If we go to this particular one, and I hope we do, Matt may have to roll me home. Look at all the awesome sounding food... Yummmmmm! (Psst....click on the word 'food' above to see the link.)