Random On a Monday

It's a beautiful spring Monday here at Chez Crumb and that means laundry and cleaning! It feels wonderful to have all the windows open with the heavy scent of on grass and Wisteria drifting in.

We started the morning off with rushing around to get ready for an early doctor's appointment, getting everyone buckled and then mama getting in the driver's seat only to find that the car was dead as a door nail. We all went back inside, the appointment was canceled, and I have happily spent the morning cleaning and baking muffins. (I didn't want to go.)

We had a wonderful storm over the weekend which poured on us all day yesterday. It was just perfect.

Here is one of the crafts I've been working on. I tried recovering a three ring binder with scrapbook paper to use as a recipe binder. I wanted something more lively than my plain ol' black vinyl officey-looking binder. I think it turned out pretty good. I'm not in love with the paper, but I didn't want to use something really nice if I screwed it up. It was the test run, and now I know how to do them a bit better (and prettier).

I'm also trying to hash out an apron design based on one that I saw, but I'm kind of stuck. Sewing construction is not my forte. Hopefully I can get over the hump soon and I'll have a new apron! Add to that the skirt patterns I've found and want to make and I'll probably be spending a good amount of time with my sewing machine soon.

I found a new menu/recipe helper called Pepperplate.com. One can input recipes and then put them into the planner/menu and generate a shopping list from it. I like that it's free, unlike some other similar sites I've seen. They have an app so I can take the shopping list with me on my iPod. I think I'll try it for our shopping trip this weekend. If I have time to input recipes...

 I've been slowly putting a few rows here and there on my shawl design. I've gotten to the part where I want beads, and it's been fun to see the contrast of the beads and yarn and watching it come together. I ran into a few layout snags, but I think I've got it now.

 I have blossoms on my cherry tree! I'm so, so excited. It's just this one little bunch right now, but it means spring is really here, and I will hopefully be able to stuff myself silly on cherries this year. While going out to take the picture, I noticed the berry blossoms are opening too. Let the onslaught begin.

Now that it's warm I've started Duder on his way to being a "big boy" with potty training. (I wait til it's warm so he can run around in just a shirt and underwear.) My favorite part is every time he flushes the toilet he lets out a loud Roar of Manly Triumph and jumps around. It's hilarious.

We went to Lowe's yesterday to get lamps and as we were going through check out this book just up and jumped right into our cart and found it's way home with us.

Just about every single recipe looks wonderful and delicious and I want to make them all. The kids have already put in their orders. Looks like I'll be busy for awhile.

I have found that the littlest one sleeps really well if he gets a bath before bed. Thank goodness I found the trick. I found it out on accident when he slept for two hours after I gave him a bath. So I tried again the next night and he did the same thing. The night we skipped a bath? Up all night. Last night, with a bath? Mama got sleep. As Daddy said, looks like he's going to be a really clean baby.

The little guy was almost 8 pounds at his checkup last week. He has a triple chin. It's adorable and I keep kissing it up and he doesn't like it. He gives me dirty looks but there's nothing he can do about it because he's too small to run away! Muahaha!!

Happy Monday! Go bake some cookies!
Meg