Happenings from the Bush homestead

Sure has been awhile!

I have been busy busy the last few months.  Baby #6 was born the begining of March.  We added a boy to the 5 girls we already had.  It's not a whole lot different....yet.  The clothes are a different color.  And he nurses more aggressively than the girls did.  I am told, however, that the big differances are yet to come.  I can't wait!  I love having 5 girls and now a son.  And hopefully we'll have more sons (or daughters) to come. 

I have also been busy with my knitting and crochet.  I have a blog just for that though since I could not get this blog to do pictures anymore.  www.sillyjencrochetsandknits.blogspot.com  I am thinking about changing that url name though.  But that's what it is for now.

While I sit here, thinking about what we won't be doing this weekend, I thought I'd put down how our weekends go.  Generally speaking.  If we do not go to the city to my parents that is.  I'm sure you've heard or read all of these tips before, but sometimes it's good to be reminded of some good tips. 

Getting ready for Sunday.  It really doesn't have to be a rat race to get to church!

Saturday night:  Get everything ready.

1.  Shower/bathe everyone in the house if possible.  Or for us, we bathe all the children on Saturday night.  Since my hair is so long and gets frizzy if washed at night, I get up a little earlier to shower on Sunday morning.  Everyone else, including my husband are showered or bathed on Saturday night.

2.  Clothing.  What are you and the family going to wear?  And where is it all?  Get your dresses out for the girls and slacks/shirts out for the guys.  Are they clean?  Need pressed?  Do it now.  I have a helper with the ironing a little now.  She can iron her own dress if needed and maybe one sisters dress.  I don't ever let her do it all.  I want her to enjoy what she is doing.  Not be bogged down by it.  They hang their dress at the foot of their bed or sometimes just back in the closet at the end where they can grab it quickly.

3.  Undergarments.  Does anyone need socks?  Or the girls need stockings or knee highs and a slip?  Hang them on the hanger inside your dress. 

4.  Shoes.  Do you always find you have only one shoe for each child?  I do.  Even though we have a shoe cubby, we still have trouble with shoes missing.  So everyone is in charge of finding their own shoes and setting them in line infront of the shoe cubby by the steps.  They must find their shoes before snack time Saturday night. 

5.  Bibles.  They must be out in the van on their seat before snack time as well.  For those who are too young to read a Bible, which is most of them, they have their bag of colors and paper ready out in the van.

6.  Breakfast.  Set the table before you head for bed.  I put 7 bowls with spoons and the cereal boxes out on the table.  I also put a loaf of bread and the butter dish out.  Incase some want toast instead of cereal.  Like myself.  The baby doesn't need a bowl yet

Some Sunday morning rules:

NO TV!  If the tv comes on, everyone is grounded for the afternoon from playing outside. 

Eat before getting dressed.  You must be up and down to eat withing 5-10 minutes of being told to get up.  Eat breakfast and get kitchen chores done quickly.  When finished with the table/dishes/floor get dressed.  No messing around if your bedroom us upstairs. 

Do your olders help with the younger children?  They should.  They can wipe faces and hands.  Change diapers.  Help with zippers or buttons, socks and shoes, combing hair and generally getting ready.  At about age 4-5 is when we start having them help with the younger children.  Each child has a buddy to help guide.  Mom takes care of the baby.  The 8 yr old helps the 4 and 3 yr old.  Our 5 yr old helps me with baby a little.  The 4 yr old helps the 2 yr old with some things.  They don't do it all ofcourse, but they can sure help put on shoes or help get a dress over the head, small things like that. 

We are about 1/2 an hour from our church.  So we have to be ready early.  Plus it takes about 10 minutes just to get everyone out and into the van with seat belts fastened and ready to move.  We start heading out about 50 minutes before service starts.  We are never early for church.  But we make it on time.  If my husband ever gets a day job again, we will be able to be at church earlier. 

If you have older children who don't think they can shower at night, they can.  It won't hurt them.  If the girls require a ton of time in the bathroom doing makeup or whatever, they can move to their rooms or just be happy with who they are and not put so much emphasis on their makeup.  It is good to be "put together" but it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes to be so.  Vanity is not a good thing. 

Just another day

School didn't get completely done for our 3rd grader.  The Kindergartener got her work all done.  But she is still excited about school and learning.  3rd grader, not so much. 

I did more vacuuming with the new Dyson vacuum we bought a week ago.  It makes all other vacuums junk.  I wouldn't touch our carpet with a ten foot pole before, let alone sit on it.  It's old and very discusting.  In an effort to relieve our bad allergies a little before we get to tear out the carpet and replace it with wood flooring, we bought a Dyson.  The carpet looks much better and feels better.  Our socks don't turn colors when we walk on it.  I will sit (if I have to) on the floor in here now.  I will be more willing when not very pregnant like now.  LOL  After many days of vacuuming twice a day, it finally is temporarily acceptable.

I have gone back to making our own bread.  It's just too costly to purchase it at $2.17 per loaf for the bread that isn't full of fluff.  We go through about 3 loaves a week, sometimes 4.  So I drug out the bread maker for the time being.  I'd rather do it myself, but I've had a hard time with this baby that it's better to use the bread machine.  Homemade bread sure makes the best french toast in the world! 

Our children are supposed to be cleaning the living/roy room.  But #3 just "flew" through here in her capes and hats to save the world.  Umm...I'm fairly certain no picking up of toys is being done.  I best remedy that before said toys find their way to my trash bag.  OOPS! 

Tragedy and afghans

Tragedy:
Back on Dec 31, a friend of mine was

So much for that!

I was going to blog about the cute stockings I've made for our girls, the many more knitting and crochet things I've gotten done.  But I can not.  I don't know what happened to this site, but it won't let me upload pictures.  It keeps telling me that I don't have enough space.  It has nothing to do with my computer.  If I can't put up pictures, I will have to find elsewhere to blog. 

Inquiring minds wanted to know...

 To the left, is the afghan I am crocheting for my little sister for her graduation gift.  She graduated in May.  It's now umm....October.  Atleast I am farther on it now than I was in May!  She is very anxious and excited about having this afghan, so since she has now moved to her own apartment in a different city (not toooo far away from us), I have been working on it everynight.  It sure does take a long time to crochet something that should be about as tall as I am. 

Here is a close up just to show the colors.  The multi colored lines are dark green, brown, burnt orange, dark yellow and cream.  Then there are the dark brown and cream rows in there as well.  I decided to do more of the multi colored rows because I had a ton of that color yarn.  Then I found the dark brown and bought a good bit of it.  The cream however, is not her favorite color, but I couldn't find any other color that matched good enough for my liking.  And, it cost more than the rest.  So it's only in there a few times to divde the multi/brown/multi rows pattern. 

Next are the other projects I've been knitting, when I should have been getting Connie's afghan done.  But shhh....just don't tell her.  These are just a few.  I've given some away as gifts already for birthdays and a wedding.  I need to knit much much faster than I do if I'm going to be done before Christmas!  Yikes!  I won't tell you how many days are left until Christmas though. 

The bottom two are the slip stich dishcloths knit on size 7 needles.  Then the other 4 1/2 are the Granny's Favorite Dishcloth from the same website, knit on size 8 needles.  I do have another slip stitch dishcloth on size 7 needles in Peaches and Cream's Faded Glory cotton and another Granny's Favorite Dishcloth on size 8 needles that is about 1/2 done in my purse in Peaches and Cream's Fiesta.  I think it's Fiesta anyhow.  I can't quite remember.  It's been out there for a couple of weeks waiting until we go somewhere again. 

And last but not least, are the put holders I have crocheted.  For myself actually!  So now I've knit a dishcloth with a whole in it for myself, a yellow dischloth with a flower in the middle and these two potholders.  After Christmas I will knit some more dishcloths for my kitchen.  I promise! 

The pot holders are two different lengths.  Partly becasue they are crocheted on two different size hooks.  But also because I wanted to try out a couple of different lengths to see which I prefered myself.  The white and green/yellow potholder is two toned because I didn't have much of the green/yellow left.  Not enough for a solid potholder.  So I threw the white in there for extra.  The cream I tried just didn't look good.  So white it was.  Funny things is, I don't know which of the lengths I really like better.  I think probably the short one, but the longer one came in handy today for a larger pan.  So who knows?! 

The yarn basket

I've been working on my Christmas knitting as well as my sisters afghan. 

So far I have 3 granny square disclothes knitted, 2 slip stitch disclothes knitted and my sisters afghan is about 1/2 done. 

I have a long ways to go on the afghan as well as the Christmas gifts.  I'd best get moving on them!  It's already the end of September! 

I will take some photos after my husband fixes the digital camera.  :)

I'm still here

I just haven't had much to say lately I guess. 

Lately I have been going through the house.  Room by room.  Decluttering if need be, sorting, reorganizing.  The kitchen 'feels lighter' so to speak since I got it done last week.  Now I did the bathroom today.  We only have one bathroom, and it's tiny.  So it's not so bad.  I wiped everything down, including the walls and cabinets and such.  I will paint the cabinets next week.  They are discusting with their chips and cracks and whatnot.  I can't stand to look at them anylonger.  So, I would imagine 1/2 a gallon or way less than that even, and they will look great again.  They haven't been touched, except for cleaning, since they were installed in 1972 I think it was.  It's time.  We don't have a floor (it's just very base floor right now, ok, for the last 6 yrs) but I can't do anything about that. 

I'm still feeling aweful with this baby.  It just won't let up!  We changed out due date to March 6th.  So we're 16, just about 17 weeks along.  Maybe it's running after 5 other very small children, or maybe it's the condition of this house, or just a 'harder' pregnancy.  OR perhaps it's all of the above.  In anycase, it will be over by March.  I can't be pregnant forever.  Although, it sure seems like I have been.  *lol*  6 babies in 8 years.  And nursing everywhere in between pregnancys.  I love it!  But it's wearing on this 30 yr old body of mine. 

I can't compain like many people are lately, about being gone from my home all the time.  We CHOOSE to be home.     

Another long time between

Things here have been normal.  Not too much going on.  2 weeks ago, on August 1, we had a major storm come through that knocked down my husband's family's church.  Very sad.  We were married there and attended there for awhile.  But we hadn't attended there in about 6 yrs.  His entire family atteneded there since it began almost.  It was like a death in the family.  Everyone around here is devistated.  Cleaning up has been hard, but quick.  I had never heard of straight line winds before.  80+mph winds!  It knocked many of our huge trees down and one took out our power poles and lines.  So we were out of power for 2 days.  Many people lost sheds and barns and most of us around here lost our corn.  It's laying flat on the ground.  That was one scary night that I never want to experience again.  It sounded like a frieght train was coming through the house and it blew a couple of windows open.  I've been through tornadoes more than I care to remember, but this was worse because I was home alone with the five girls.  My Father In Law came to make sure we were ok and had us go to their house, since it's just over the hill, for the night and Wednesday. 

Otherwise, we've been trying to save some of the garden, but it doesn't look like much is savable.  It's knocked flat.  And many things were ripped out of the ground and blown away.  We might get a few tomatoes out of it yet, but the peas and beans and other things are all dead. 

Tomorrow we are hoping to determine our due date.  I was thinking the beggining of February, but now I'm wondering if it's not closer to March.  I am hoping our doctor will order an ultra sound to see if we can judge atleast by the size or stage of growth.  I don't need a specific date, because they never come "on time", but an approximate would be nice. 

I've been doing more knitting on the Christmas dishcloths.  The second is just about done.  And I've been crocheting on the afghan for my littlest sister.  She's moving out of my parents house in October, so she'll need a blanket to keep her warm she says.  I hate hate hate acrylic yarn.  Just the feel of it drives me crazy.  So I don't work on it much at a time. 

We have been working on some math pages and penmanship pages to get back into school habbits.  We have done thigns all summer, but I think we took the whole month of July off.  No biggie.  So now it's time to figure out where our oldest is in her learning so that I can order the right math books. 

So that's what's been going on.  We had some major plummbing issues over this past weekend too.  But my husband got that taken care of.  So he'll be going to the races with his buddy this Saturday.  Nick races, my husband does pit crew since he built the car for Nick.  And then this winter they'll be building another race car so they can run 2 tracks next summer. 

Laundry is calling my name. 

I'm a baaad blogger

I haven't kept up lately!  Yikes!

Let's see, we've gotten tons more beans and peas out of the garden.  They are in the freezer now :)  It takes lots to feed my crew, so I didn't get too many batches.  3 so far.  But there were tons of beans and peas.  We also got more cucumbers and zuccini.  They get eaten so fast though.  The tomatoes will be ready soon.  They are still orange.  I bet another week and we'll have tomatoes coming out our ears. 

I haven't done much knitting this last couple of weeks.  One slip stitch dish cloth and one K wash cloth that I made with blue cotton for our second child.  I will do each child's initial in a wash cloth in their color.  Just takes time.  And I will be knitting along with a friend on scarves for Christmas gifts as well :)  Time to think about that stuff.  For our Pastors and missions wives, I am going to do a dish cloth set in a cute basket for Christmas.  They don't need more 'stuff' I'm sure, but dish cloths are something we use everyday.  Practical and useable.

Well, I have a screaming 1 yr old who needs me.  :)

  I forgot to take a photo of the harvest from the other day :-(  But I DID remember today after I had it all cut and done.  So here it is :-)  First if the full harvest with the cucumbers, onions, beans, zuccini and one lone green tomato that the dog knocked off.  We had a platefull of beans the other day.  The girls and I ate them all right out of the garden.  They were sooooooooooo good!  And we've gotten a dozen cucumbers before this too.  I think there were 6 that we picked and cut up today.  And 2 zuccini before this too that got made into cake and one given to my parents.  My mom makes the BEST chocolate zuccini cake in the world.  Our oldest daught is learning how to cook and bake more things, so I let her do everything except grate the zuccini for the cake.  It was good.  My In-Laws enjoyed some of it as well. 

Some good news

We are having baby #6 early next year (2007).  Probably February.  I saw the nurse today to just find out about my blood work for my meds and make an appointment to see the Doctor.  So we'll see her in about 3 weeks and probably have an ultra sound to try and determin approx how far along we are and a tentative due date.  I'm not so worried about it though.  Baby will come when she/he comes.  Whether that is in January, February or March, there's nothing I can do about it. *lol*

I really like Felicity Anne for a girls name.  But I'm not sure how dh feels about that.  We've had Garrit William on our list since before our first daughter.  Since we haven't had the chance to name someone that yet, Garrit is it.  :-) 

We (at home) are all excited.  But leary about who we're telling until it's obvious.  I will tell my MOPS group at our September meeting.  And have our church put us on the prayer list.  There is no one there though to rush to tell.  And the children will tell their Grandparents so that maybe we can avoid the comments and stupid looks.  Those of you with many children know the looks I'm talking about I'm sure.

A new weeek :)

It's going to be almost, if not over 100 degrees here this week.  I think today was the last "cooler"day in the upper 80's.  I love it!!!!!

I got lots and lots done here today.  The kitchen top to bottom.  Literally.  I did the ceiling and walls, counters, fridge, table, some cabinets, the floor.  The girls helped with things at their levels.  And did much of the laundry.  I got the watering/weeding done in the garden.   Plus washed the kitchen windows inside and one outside.  Got some of the junk infront of the house moved too.  The old doesn't work grill, the 2 discusting old chairs and other misc junk.  There is more to do tomorrow still.

Tomorrow we will go to town and get meat and possibly a new vacuum.  This one is hardly workng anymore because of being so used and beat up.  There just aren't anymore hillbilly ducktape fixes my dh can do to it.  Plus we will work on this room.  Sewing cabinet clean off, computer desk clean off/out...find the couch under the laundry piles.  I will mop the ceiling and walls.  No more standing on a chair and reaching while trying not to fall.  Tear the ceiling fan apart and wash the glass and change dead light bulbs.  Vacuum and dust piano, cabinets and bookshelf.

My sewing machine bit the dust yesturday.  I've had it home for about 2 weeks.  It worked great again to do the girls star dresses.  Then Sunday morning, when I needed it, it did the same broken timing thing.  *sigh*  So...$50 more down the drain.  I've worn it out though the fix it man said.  Which is very likely.  Absolutely likely.  Guarenteed.  I know they can only take a beating for so long like mine has.  1 1/2 yrs and I've used it nearly everyday most weeks.  And made a couple hundred thing with it *lol*  I feel like a fish out of water without it. 

But that leaves time for other things.  Like big cleaning jobs and cleaning up the front of the house.

Have a great Tuesday!

My garden on July 7, 2006

My helpers watering the beans and tomatoes and hoeing out the weeds.  The corn is behind them.  Some on the West end didn't do so well.  I think it was either the ants, or the variety.  I planted 3 blocks of 3 different varieties of corn.  The West block didn't do well.  The middle and East blocks have done much better.  My garden is growing good.  The peas I replanted the other day are already coming up.  Zuccini and cucumbers are sprouting and growing fast!

  Peas Cucumbers

 Zuccinni

A cluster of tomatoes that I can NOT wait to eat!

 And I'll leave you with an itsy bitsy fruit that will be delicious when fully grown!

We've been out and watered a little and weeded some this morning already.  While it was still cool.  I have a huge tree though that shades the garden for 1/2 the day.  I wish it was gone, but no one will take care of it for me.  It's already been 6 yrs that I've been asking.  I'm sure it will be another 6 or more and it will still be shading my garden most of the day.  I may change things up next year and plant tomatoes to the West...beans/peas/peppers in the middle and the zuccinni and mellons on the East section.  Corn will stay where it's at to the North. 

 Ok...one more photo *lol* I couldn't resist this onion flowering out.

(I tried to make the photos small so that it would load ok for diap upers like myself.)

5 things about this and that

5 Things in my Refrigerator:

1. Organic cottage cheese
2. Chicken
3. 5 dozen eggs
4. Organic milk
5. Organic Rice milk

5 Things in my Closet:

1. Books
2. DH's bill files
3. big scrap material boxes
4. Empty hangers
5. Photos

5 Things in my Purse:

1. Green and purple pens
2. Receipts
3. Bandades
4. Cell phone
5. Hair ties

5 Things in my Van:

1. Camping things

2. Diapers
3. Wipes
4. Blankets
5. Worship CD's (Casting Crowns, Veggie Tales, Randy Travis and Alan Jackson's praise and worship)

No more microwave...

A few weeks ago our microwave finally bit the dust.  In the middle of cooking bacon no less.  So we have been without one.  We're not replacing it.  For awhile anyways.  At first it was annoying to not be able to just heat up my tea quickly.  But otherwise, I didn't miss it.  And now that I found my little hot plate thing, I don't miss it at all.  I like having the counter space back too. 

So besides being microwave-less, nothing much is different.  We're riding the bikes on Wednesday evenings still over to pizza with IL's.  Or rather, I'm driving behind them *lol*  My children are determined to get me on the bike however.  So it will happen sooner than later I'm sure. 

Better get back to things.  I have an annoying misquito bite that I want to itch if I sit down for too long.  We got much work done in the garden today.  But I've posted a ton of photos today already.  I'll save my photos for another day from teh garden.  It feels good be back out there growing our own food! 

More from the yarn basket!

Here is the finished wedding gift for this weekend.

And the poyholder upclose.  I did sc for the whole thing.

The dish cloths upclose.  Left to right:

slip stitch pattern

yellow seed stitch pattern

white knit ridges pattern

another slip stitch pattern

Thisorange hat looking thing will become a bag. 

Perfect for holding my small knitting projects when were on the road.

I bought the wrong color of orange for the afghan I'm making,

so I decided to make a bag with it instead. 

It will probably end up at the camp site with us.

These are the cones I'm very excited about!  *lol* 

It doesn't take much to get me excited. 

I had looked high and low for the big cones my friend

told me about at her Walmart in Utah. 

I finally found them in the big city here!  YAH! 

So I waisted no time in getting a slip stitch dishcloth on size 6 needles. 

My size 7's have a green and white slip stitch cloth on the already. 

No...I am not capable of doing just one project at a time. 

I absolutely MUST do 3 or 4 at a time.  *lol*

So that's all folks. In the knitting and crochet area anyhow. 

Next post:

Just off the sewing machine!  Aren't you excited?  *giggle*

Right off the machine...

The dresses from the 4th.

Starting with babies....

And Peanut's dress...

Then my oldest daughters dress...

The other two girl's dresses aren't pictured, but you get the idea. 

They are pretty much the same. 

I alternated the material for each child's dress. 

 So one had the star pattern dress and stripped star pattern for the bottom and pockets.  Just changed it around for the other dress. 

The other two dresses were in the wash.

It's Thursday

The garden work is done for today.  Just a little watering is all.  I weeded enough and mulched in many places with weeds, so there is not much to weed.  I still have some tall weeds though in the corn, but that's on tomorrow's list if I feel better.  I did a second planting of peas yesturday.  Hopefully they'll come up alright.  I have a great ant population out there. :-/ 

The kitchen is mopped and shiny.  Only for another hour or less though.  Dinner time comes, and my nice shiny disinfected floor will be dirty yet again.  Go figure though with lots of small children *lol*

There is still laundry to do.  But that will wait until I've finished my Doritos black pepper jack chips.  Don't try these unless you like spicy food.  I love spicy food, so these hit the spot.  And my RRLtea. 

I have nothing important to say today.  I have more on the hot pad/pot holder done.  Crochet is so much faster than knit for me.  My Great-Grandmother used to crochet when she was alive.  She made more things that I can even imagine.  One of these things were pot holders.  She liked pot holders for some reason.  My mom has some that were left after she and my Grandfather passed, so that inspired me to make pot holders.  They are sooooooooo easy!  Chain as long as you want it to be wide.  I did 38 I think this time.  Next time I think I would do 30 maybe.  Then just sc or hdc around without increasing at the ends.  It will fold up on its own.  Just keep going around with the sc or hdc until you have the size you want.  Then sc the edges up and you've got a pot holder.  You could chain 8-10 and slip stitch it in a loop or hanging too.  Very easy.  I've seen patterns for them  But I went off what my GGrandma did :-)

The latest dish cloth

Here is the first dish cloth of this kind.  I saw it originally on another website, so I searched and searched for a free pattern online.  I found one here!  While I enjoyed doing the seed stitch dish cloths, I think this will be my standard gift cloth.  Actually, I think I'll be making some for myself after I've got the wedding gift basket done.  I have a crocheted pot holder started.  About 1/3 done with that.  But that's for a later date. 

A close up of the slipped stitching.

And then the whole thing. 

I was getting frustrated with all of the changing colors.  I don't like to cut and tuck in the ends that much.  So Marcia suggested that I just let it hang and pick it back up again instead of cutting it all the time.  It worked!  No more ends to tuck in.  Then I crocheted a single crochet around the edge since it looked so rough to me. 

This dish cloth is very easy to knit up.  I didn't use the pattern sheet after the first two sections.  Take a look at this lady's pattern, leave her a comment on her guest book and try it out :) 

Excited!