Reorganizing My Life, Part 4

"Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any propane?

Our camper is COLD, can you feel our pain?"

Reading "Baa, baa, black sheep"

I had just finished my first cup of coffee when the camper heater came on

and then before warming up the camper kicked right back off...

after a year and a half of living in this camper I've learned all the tricks,

that meant we were OUT of propane, a huge *sigh* it was still early the

sun wasn't even out, I sure didn't want to go out in the cold and dark to

start switching bottles over now...good thing we have a little floor heater.

The kiddos were up now because it don't take long for the camper to

get cold, so I bundled them up, gave them a book and I headed out to

get the bottles switched.

So this starts with my organizing rules...





#10; You must get a "big bottle", the two little ones that come with the
camper on cold days will only last you a few days each...maybe a week!
The big one will last a good 3 weeks, so with all three you can last almost
a month. ;-)
((Another reason I love to use my crock-pot to cook, saves on propane))

#11; Get the RIGHT tool for the job, last time I tried to switch the bottles
it took me half an hour to loosen the hose...didn't have a right size tool for
the job...SO, my welder went and got me a "wrench" that works wonders,
got to have this for sure.

#12; Have extra fuses on hand, that sorry heater likes to mess up a fuse
EVERY time we run out of propane, so I have to have this handy "fuse puller"
to reset the heater before it will come back on, crazy I know but it's true!

Pictures In The Park

Being silly is always fun...

 

Big brother with lil' sister...

 

Sweetheart with lil' man...

 

My big helper...

 

My sweetheart...

 

My lil' man...

 

My lil' girl...

 

 

Big boys in the tree...

 

Lil' babies on the bridge...

 

Taking a walk...

 

The trees are starting to change, and the

weather was about to get cold, so

we spent a day at the park walking, playing

and of course, snapping memories! :-)

 

 

 

 

 

Blessings over flowing

My number one thing to be thankful for,

the LORD JESUS CHRIST.

 

For the past few weeks I've been posting on facebook the things I'm thankful

for on Thursdays counting down to Thanksgiving, which by the way is my

all time favorite holiday, love the colors the food (eating pumpkin spice

marshmallows as I type) and 'cause I have so much to be thankful for.

God has blessed me so much!

 

Well, as I was sitting in church this past Sunday, I had just a deep thankfulness

come over me, how good God has been to us, we found a church over 700 miles

from home that we can attend, and we are getting fed, loved and blessed...

can't get any better then that. ;-) They have a church bus the kids have enjoyed

riding; sweet people teaching Sunday School; loving ladies running the nursery,

and a very caring pastor and his family.

 

So I want to give a "BIG THANK YOU" to the church family from

"Grace Baptist Church" Pampa, TX. for being sweet and kind to us these past

few months, you have been such a blessing and I'm very THANKFUL!

The bus <3

Been a Tough few Weeks...

"It is better to offer NO excuse than a bad one."

~George Washington~

 

This picture greeted me one day this week

I think someone dislikes our schedule!

 

 

This past week has NOT been a good one, and I only HOPE we see a 

brighter future ahead of us;

School hasn't gone smooth...

A lot of fighting...

Long ours for my love...

Sick baby girl...BUT, lets talk about the good things this week. ;-)

 

We decorated cookies and built with legos!

 

Hehe, someone got my camera...had fun!

 

His new game, ate 30 in a row is the record!

 

Helped the lil' ones make pizza, yummy!

 

 



Family Time in the Canyon

Palo Duro Canyon

State Park in Canyon, TX.

 

We spent some family time/field trip to a really neat canyon

not that far from where we are staying at here in Texas.

Found a cave and walked to it, what a climb that was,

and then we took a dried up creek bed back down.

Came across a tarantula on the road so the boys just

had to get a better look...yes, my son touched it!

Found a neat house called the "Cowboy Dugout"

on the side of a hill, and some pretty flowers.

 

Walked some trails and found many animal tracks

a dried up waterfall and a really neat "log boat".

This place had me in "AWE", the Indians were smart to live in this

beautiful canyon, not only for the sight, but it was 10* warmer.

 

 



Some "Me" Time

I love to sew, quilt, crafts and scrap booking very much, it's always been a
calming time for me, BUT, once I became a mother a lot of that I've had to
put aside to be a mother. SO, I don't get much "me" time, with four kiddos
and homeschooling three of them, these days.
Back in July I got to visit a new store, well new to me, "JO~ANN" it was
their grand opening in Stillwater, OK., and I fell in love once I walked through
the door...fabric colors and designs you could imagine, a crafter's dream!!!
The kids helped me pick out some fabric, I wanted to make a lap quilt to
put on the edge of my bed that I could curl up with whenever I liked.
My favorite color is purple (then it's orange, that's why I love Fall so much)
so we found 4 different colors of purple and an off white to make my quilt.
Now that was the easy part, on with the HARD part...finding the time and
space in the camper to work on it! ;-)

 

#1, cutting out the fabric took some time and was done on my bed with a

"Friskars" rotary cutter and big mat.

 

#2, I'm still sewing standing up in my room, never did get a stool to sit on.

 

#3 & #4, once the piecing together was finished I had to iron it on my bed

with a towel down...waited for my husband to be home for this ;-)

 

 

#5, I had to tack my backing to my quilt top, so for this I had to use the

living room floor...and it took up the whole floor!

 

#6, I love to hand quilt my quilts BUT, this time I wanted the kiddos to

help me so I got some purple yarn and we sewed it with that.

 

#7, see we used the table for this job...they didn't help for long!!! ;-)

 

#8, then I did a quick machine stitch to hem the sides, it's measuring

56in x 43in.

 

Lil' girl was the FIRST to try out my new quilt <3



 

 



Making it through this school year

My sweet babies

 

Homeschooling families choose...

-more messy house days

-more math lessons

-less "me" time

-less "quite" time

~The Busy Homschool Mom~

 

Oh how true those words are for any homeschooling mom, though I MUST

have a clean house...haha, it's hard to do some days, this has been MY MOST

CHALLENGING thing to overcome as a homeschool mom, I like to have

a schedule and a clean house, not always easy to do by far but I'm getting

better each year (this is my 8th year) -well, I'm trying. ;-)

BUT, we are  getting by, or that is I am and we have made it through

9 weeks of school already, a fourth of the year is finished, hard to believe.

And I even managed to finish decorating inside of the camper for the Fall

this week so I had to take a quick picture of the kiddos, love taking pictures

of my babies. <3

Hair Cuts for FOUR

My boys were past do for a hair cut...it's over $10 for one now, so I try to help
the pocket book out by doing it myself from time to time. They didn't want a
hair cut, they hate it...but daddy said he would hold them down and "SHAVE"
them if  something didn't get down about their hair!!! So at lunch break, I dug
out all my things and started with lil' man, I had planned to go outside with the
mess but the wind picked up and was strong.
It's not every day I get someone to take a picture of me. ;-) Lil' man was okay
with the idea of a picture...but the older boys not so much, they didn't want a
picture with the "sissy apron". LOL
Well, the whole time I was cutting, baby girl was CRYING for a hair cut as well,
so I had to make her feel better by putting the "sissy apron" on her and making
it *look* like she was getting a hair cut JUST LIKE THE BOYS! :-)

Lil' man went first

 

She was all excited

 

Science at the Barr House

We learning about "My Body" for science, I don't have a school book for this one,
last year my husband ordered the kids some books and one of them is about your
body, so I thought "why not?"...we are having fun going through it and learning all
the neat things about our body and one of their favorites was on "skeleton". :-)

We notebooking here

 

Our cute model ;-)

 

We took a paper brown bag and used lil' girl because she was the shortest, traced

around her body to make our own skeleton body. She was just short enough to get

her all on the paper. Now the fun part was trying to draw all the bones we have...

that's when daddy helped us with that. :-)

 

Cutting out the body

 

Daddy was a BIG help

 

Once we finished drawing and coloring all the bones we could, it was time to sit

it out and look at it,,,so it sat on the sofa for the rest of the evening, AND EVERY

time I would walk into the room and see that thing it would make me jump...

the kiddos got a good laugh out of that. ;-)

 

Coloring the bones

 

Our lil' skeleton