A Giveaway

Our friends The Muncks are hosting a great giveaway over at their blog!  You can enter to win one of 14 beautiful items, and they are making it very easy to do so.  Be sure to head over there before Saturday at noon to enter yourself.  

On Hold

Yesterday I decided that I am not going to have my children choose 3 in 30 goals for December.  Today I decided that I am not going to either. :)  I'm taking the month off.  As a matter of fact, I'm taking two whole weeks off of blogging later in the month.  I'm looking forward to not even thinking about it for two weeks, and hopefully I'll come back inspired with lots of ideas for interesting posts!

I do hope to get more work done on my girls' dresses and I plan to work with my children on the piano.  We didn't do so great with piano this week, but I'm going to try harder next week.  I did finish the smocking on Abigail's dress, and today I got Esther's dress cut out, pleated, and blocked.  It's all ready to smock and I am hoping to finish hers by the end of December.  I'd love to start putting Abigail's dress together, but we'll see if that actually happens.  Here are a couple pictures of Abigail's smocking.  

And here are a few random pictures from the past couple of weeks!  I mentioned in this post that I did not get any good photos while my dad was here over Thanksgiving, but I had completely forgotten about the ones on our phones.  I can't figure out how to download the ones off of Adam's phone.  As soon as he gets a chance to do it I will post some of those as well.  

I thought this was a funny picture of Abigail with a string of Christmas lights on her head.  

Making Marshmallow Pops

We managed to get a lot of school done this week, but it was difficult with this goofball walking around  and bumping into things. :)

The white egg is a "large" one from the grocery store and the giant brown egg came from one of our hens this week. I plan on frying it tomorrow, so we'll see if it has a double yolk!  

BOY, We Had a Good Week!

We found out yesterday that we are having another baby BOY!!  Adam and I were both thinking that it was a girl...probably because it has been five years since we've had a girl and it just seemed like it was time for another. :)  But it is most definitely a boy (he was not shy!) and we are excited. :)  

We did fairly well with our goals this week.  I guess it's time to make new ones since it's December!  I think that I may be boring and keep two of my goals the same.  I feel like I have gotten a lot done on them this month and, frankly, that is due in large part to the fact that I do these updates on the blog.  Who wants to report that they failed to accomplish anything??

1.  Work on my girls' dresses.  I am almost finished smocking Abigail's dress.  I have a few more roses to do, and then I need to go back and do all of the petals on the roses.  That should not take long.  I am hoping to get Esther's dress cut out and pleated sometime next week and at some point I need to start putting Abigail's dress together.  

2.  Get most if not all of our Christmas gifts bought and mailed (or wrapped and ready to hand out) by the last week of November.  I have one more gift card to buy today, but everything else it bought and some are wrapped.  I plan to finish the wrapping this afternoon and drop two things off at the post office.  I have almost all of our immediate family shopping done as well.  I have one more thing to pick up for Adam and one more online order to place.  It feels great to have this almost completely done!  

3.  Sit down and do piano with my three oldest children at least three days a week. I sat down with them three days and they practiced on their own one day.  They are really enjoying it!  Before I had children I taught piano and never really enjoyed it.  I figured it would be easier to teach my own children since I can make them practice, but I really don't have to!  Sometimes I do need to remind them, but they enjoy practicing and most of the time they come to me asking if they can, which is really nice!

Here are my childrens' goals.

Joshua (8)

Target practice with his bow and arrow for 15 minutes three days a week.  Joshua practiced shooting his bow and arrow only twice last week, but for about 30 minutes each time.  He has really enjoyed his goal this month and is always reminding me that he needs to do it.  

Abigail (7)

Learn how to make at least 4 different recipes independently.  Abigail has not made a new recipe yet this week, but we plan to do some Christmas baking this afternoon and I have one picked out for her to do herself.  

Esther (6)

Read Black Beauty.  Esther finished her book a few weeks back and is is excited about starting on some Christmas crafts soon!  

This post is linked up here.