Blizzard Charlotte

This weekend we got dumped on. 34" inches of snow less than 24 hours, not including the snow drifts. Winds were sustained at 30mph, gusts of 60mph. It was crazy, but cool to watch. I think one of the craziest parts was that there was snow under the cars. Usually in snowstorms you at least have that dry spot. But the space under the car was filled to the undercarriage. Difficult to shovel, I must say.

Our cars were quite buried.

You couldn't see where the road was.  Everyone's front porch was buried in.  It was difficult to get the door open.

The top of our shed, containing our useless snow blower!

Check out the "snow shelf" on the right of the van.  The wind was blowing so hard you could barely see across the road!  I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to see that far if it hadn't been for the street lights.  I can better understand how people could get lost in blizzards.  I never understood that in "Little House on the Prairie".  But now I get it.

Our ramp and the next-door neighbor's fence.  Those two mounds are our trash cans.

Eldon working diligently. 

Clearing it out.  It took us about 12 man-hours to clear away everything.

It came up to our deck.

The snow was packed so hard against our car, that it left the impression of the license plate.

But, we never lost power, and we have strong (although be it sore!) bodies to shovel it all out.  So, as Pa Ingalls always says, "All's well that ends well!"

Rocket Scientist

For Christmas, Eldon got a rocket. He took an aeronautics class at his school, where they built and launched rockets. So he was eager to try out his rocket. He built it with his dad and even put a Lego pilot in it. We took it to the school last Saturday where he got it ready for launching.

And off it goes! (For those viewing this via email, you'll have to go to the blog to view the video)

Good job, Eldon!

My boy Eldon

Eldon received his Arrow of Light at the last pack meeting. It's the highest award you can get in cub scouts. Great job, Eldon!

As part of the ceremony, the boy crosses over the bridge from Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts.

James was on a business trip during Eldon's birthday, so we celebrated the Saturday before. Eldon wanted an R2D2 cake. As always, he likes to challenge me. But with the encouragement of friends and family, I think it turned out well.

He loved all of his presents. When he wasn't buried in a book, he was making origami shapes for his brother and sisters.

And now he's a real official boy scout!

Canning Jar Lids for Gifts

While on pinterest, I found a cute picture of canning jar tops for gifts.  I've never been able to make the cloth across the top look good.  This, I could do, and I made a tutorial of it, so I could pin it on pinterest!
So, away we go!

First, take a lid the size you need, and trace it.  Easy Peasy.

You need piece of cardstock under your paper, or the paper will rip.  You can use regular paper and cardstock or two piece of cardstock.

Sew through the paper, using whatever creative stitches you want.  I did zigzag and straight stitch on these because they are on every sewing machine, but my sewing machine does some fancy stitches too. :)

Cut out circles, and voila!  Instant canning lids for giving gifts.  Something like this would also make cute gift tags, because they look so much like ornaments.  Love it!

A Dinner to Die For

I was making a new recipe today, and I was trying some Italian sausage that was hard like a pepperoni stick instead of crumbly like ground beef. After I had cooked it, I wanted to taste it to see if it was any good. The sausage had dots of peppercorns all over it, so I was afraid it was going to be too spicy.

I've had a bit of a cough for a while, just an irritation in the back of my throat, so I cough a little bit all day long. Well, that peppercorn hit me just right, and I started coughing my lungs out. One of those horrible hacking coughs where you just can't catch your breath, you can't talk, and you can't get any water down to stop it. My eyes were watering, and I was keeled over the sink just trying to get over it.

Meanwhile, the veggies are in the pan sauteing (I don't know how to spell that!), and all I could barely get out is "Get Dad!" Not that I'm worried about me - it was awful, but I knew I'd be fine - but I was worried that dinner was going to burn. So the kids go running around the house trying to find him, and they can't. They finally find him in the bathroom and tell him to hurry, it's an emergency. Then I realize that he's gonna get all worried, when there's nothing to be worried about, I just don't want dinner to stick and burn. So I get Eldon and motion to him to stir the veggies. He looks at me incredulously and says "Stir?" "Stir!", I choked out. And James all this time isn't coming. Why? Because our kids ALWAYS scream "Emergency!" when we're in the bathroom and they want to talk to us. Zachary's jumping on the bed? Emergency! Eldon stuck his tongue out at Jessie? Emergency! Erica's coloring on someone's paper? Emergency! So, naturally, James completely ignores them and takes his sweet time.

When he does come out, he sees what's going on and asks if I'm ok. I nod my head, thrust the recipe in his hand and point to the stove. I really was worried that dinner was going to burn. Oh, and while I'm hacking up my lungs trying to breathe, Zachary is pulling on my legs screaming "Up! Up!" I told James I could just envision me choking to death while some child pulled on my legs and screamed for me to pick them up. He said he was glad I wasn't really dying, because he wasn't listening to the kids. If it had been me, I wouldn't have listened to them either.

James did have to finish dinner. It took a good 20 minutes before I finally caught my breath and cleared everything out well enough that I could talk. I think I'll go back to the regular Italian sausage. Dinner was pretty good, but definitely not good enough to die for.

Blue and Gold

Eldon's cub scout troop held their annual Blue and Gold dinner last night. It was great! Eldon has progressed to Webelos. He also earned a gold arrow point, several silver arrow points, and his disability awareness, bowling, and collecting belt loops.

Here's James giving Eldon his Bear badge.

Eldon's best friend is about a head taller than Eldon, so James lifted him up to make it a bit more equal. We're proud of our boy!

Home Renovations

Our kitchen is starting to come together. This is our old counter. It used to have laminate behind it as well.

And this is our old floor. James is currently making a new cabinet for the dishwasher. He built a quick one with 2x4s when we moved in 6 years ago.

Everything got moved out of the cabinets and into boxes, which were moved into my office.

The appliances came out of the kitchen. I didn't get a shot of all the cabinets in here as well. With all the chaos, I stayed downstairs all day and watched movie after movie with the kids. They loved it! I got a bit bored, and can't get the SuperWhy theme song out of my head.

Some friends and the boy scouts showed up to help in the morning. About 11 people were working, including James and Eldon. 11 people hammering nails makes quite a bit of noise!

They tore out the old flooring. Then they put down new plywood and the floor on top of that.

And this is the new floor. You can also see that we painted the walls brown (they used to be white) and the chair rail, which was a dark wood.

I took a lot more pictures, but the battery on my camera was close to dead, so apparently it didn't save many of the pictures I took. Baseboards still need to be put up, the cabinet finished, and the countertop put on, and then we should be done!

Catch 22

I've had so much to write about since Katherine was born. Yet there is no time to write about it. I've pondered whether I should put it all in one big long post, or many separate posts. I'm opting for the separate posts, and we'll see how long it takes to catch up. We'll see how long it takes.

Introducing...

Katherine Alice Perkins





And now, for the rest of the story:
(For those who aren't interested, a warning - this is the story about the labor and delivery part - Read at your own risk! No, it's not yucky or scary. Some people just don't care! :))

For about a week or so, I'd been having labor pains off and on. When I went in for my 39 week checkup, the baby was way low. The doctor said, "It'll probably come fast, call when you have your first painful contraction." I laughed, because the contractions were already painful. All throughout the week, I went to bed with contractions and was surprised each morning when I woke up with no contractions. A bit frustrating, really. But it was ok, because my mother-in-law wasn't in town yet, so we were hoping the baby would wait. It did. My mother-in-law got in safely, and I kept waiting. On my due date, I had a doctor appointment, still nothing. I was hoping the baby would be born that day because it was my sister's birthday, but again, the contractions never got regular.

Saturday morning (the next day), they started to get regular, about 10 minutes apart, but after 2 hours, they went away. I spent the whole day wondering if I should eat. When I had Erica, I wasn't sure if I was in labor, so I ate dinner. That was a mistake I didn't want to repeat. So I ate lightly. The contractions started up again about 2:30, again 10 minutes apart. But this time they didn't go away. At about 4:30, they were still 10 minutes apart, but they started getting stronger. So we called the doctor, got some things ready, and left.

We got to the hospital and instead of admitting me, they took me to triage to make sure I was in labor. That had never happened to me before - I'd always been taken straight to a room. In fact, when I came in for Zachary, before I'd even really settled in, the nurse started talking about calling the anesthesiologist for my epidural. Ok, fine, they checked, said I was likely in early labor, but I needed to walk around for 2 hours to make sure. WHAT?!?!?! That had definitely never happened before. I assured her that I was in labor, this was my 5th child, and I knew what I was talking about. I had left home because the contractions were getting stronger than I could bear, and there was no way I had it in me to walk for 2 hours. The nurse was unsympathetic, and that was the end of that. So she left, I cried, and since there was nothing else to do, bucked up and started walking the halls.

Shift change occurred at 7:00pm, and soon after I got a new nurse, I asked her to check me again. She did, declaring I was at a 7, and proceeded to admit me. Now I was nervous that the baby would come before I could get an epidural. I know many women get through birth without one, I knew I could if I had no other option, but I didn't want to. In. the. least. I don't deal well with pain.

So the nurse set up the IV, got the liter of fluid in me that she had to, and called the anesthesiologist. He came in and told me to lay on my side. All other epidurals I had received had been sitting up. He said he'd been trained different. So I laid on my side curled up in the fetal position. Let me tell you, that was the best epidural experience I'd ever had. Fast, easy, the contractions didn't hurt as bad curled up like that, so I was able to relax more and get it done. I asked him why all epidurals weren't administered that way, and he said that they just don't teach it that way anymore. It's a shame, it was great!

So the medicine took effect, and I relaxed. After an hour wait, it was time to push. Ten minutes later, there was Katherine! After she was born, the doctor commented that the contractions never got very close together - about 2 or 3 minutes apart at the end. I wish that first nurse had been there to hear that - even though my contractions were far apart initially, it didn't mean I wasn't in painful labor!

Katherine was 6lbs, 9oz, and 20", my smallest baby yet. Hooray - I like small babies! She was born at 10:07pm on August 28th, my sister-in-law's birthday. She is named after 2 of her great-grandmothers - Victoria Katherine Zaugg and Barbara Alice Black. James wants to call her Katie, I want to call her Katherine. We shall see who wins the war. :) But it's the first time we've ever agreed on a name from the beginning.

And we're doing great. Recovery has been fast, Katherine sleeps all the time and eats like a champ. Nursing is actually going well. It seems like after 5 kids I've finally figured it out. We're happy and the kids adore her. Even Zachary has been gentle with her and doesn't seem jealous at all.

Summer update

Long time, no write. Because we have done NOTHING this summer. No trips to the pool, beaches, or museums. We did make it to the movies once and to the playground once, but that's it. My kids have done their chores, played together, and played the Wii a lot. Did I mention that it's hard to be pregnant during the summer?


We did buy bunk beds for the girls. We bought them unstained and James modified them a bit and stained them. They turned out beautiful. Unfortunately, we don't have a beautiful still camera, so the picture's not all that great. We looked for a camera once, but that's been about it. Did I mention that we've done NOTHING this summer?

Since the girls had the bunk beds, the toddler bed went to Zachary, in preparation for the baby. He got right in it, no problem. Then he got right back out of it, no problem. He's finally starting to stay in it, although he does usually get out once or twice a night. He zoomed right up the bunk bed ladder, too, which made me nervous. He did ok, but Jessie pushed him out of the top bunk one day (it's amazing the falls that kid survives), so the ladder came off. We keep it on the top bunk and then put it down at night for Jess to get up.

Speaking of doing nothing, I guess I did do something. I made a baby blanket, and if we have a girl, I'll keep it. :) I started on it while watching the Olympics, then finished it this summer while Erica was in therapy - about 3 hours every week.

A friend of mine told me about a corner-to-corner blanket, and I wanted to try it. You start at one corner with one square, then add on two squares, so it looks like stairs. Keep going until you reach the middle, then decrease in the squares until you get back down to one. I really liked doing it. I like the diagonal stripes. Also, when you go diagonally, about the time you get tired of doing it, you start decreasing so it doesn't take as long and you feel like you're making fast progress.

The kids have chores they have to do everyday, one of which is cleaning their rooms. One day, instead of picking up the toys, Jessie decided to dump everything out, including 3 of her drawers.

She's on day 2 of getting it all cleaned up. This picture was taken after she had picked up some of the things already. I haven't yet figured out what motivates her to get work done. She mostly sits there and does nothing. Oh well, she'll get it done eventually, right? We shall see.

And that's all that's happening for now. We're anxiously awaiting the baby, hoping and praying that it will wait 1 more week for reinforcements to come, but I'm not sure I'm going to last that long. Again, we shall see!

We've Got Talent

Near the end of the school year, the third graders put together a talent show. Eldon told jokes and played the piano.



Sorry about the quality of the video. We were way in the back, so I had to zoom in quite a bit. That made every little jiggle of my hand show up quite a bit on the video. I also didn't have a program, so I didn't know when he was getting on stage. They announced his name, and by the time I got the camera ready, he was already into his act. So I missed 1 or 2 jokes, but you get the idea. :)



For the piano, I knew when he was coming up, so I got ready. But he started playing the second he sat down, so I still missed the first part of it while I was pushing the record button. I love the way he messes up when he sees Zachary. I think it's cute. This song, called "Pumpkin Boogie", is a variation of a song from one of his piano books. He likes taking songs and putting his own spin on it.

After his performance, the MC said she had to practically force Eldon to play, and I believe it. He HATES practicing the piano. And on that note, it's over. We decided that the peace we didn't have in the family was worth more than having him be able to play the piano. We told him it was a "break" (on advice of his teacher), so maybe he'll still play around with it, but it will likely be a permanent break. He does like playing, he can play on the piano for hours, but he hates practicing. So, anyone want a piano?

P.S. Did I mention he hates practicing?

Baked Roses

The Saturday after we returned from D.C., a friend of mine wanted me to make a cake for her girl's birthday party. Before we left, her daughter had drawn a picture of what she wanted - a 2-tiered heart-shaped cake, with fondant roses, butterfly, and writing. Easy schmeasy.

Because I have 4 kids, I started on the roses on Monday. Plus, fondant roses are a lot easier if you let each layer dry completely before putting on the next layer. And there are 4 layers. All went well. By Thursday evening, the decorations we completely finished, including 21 roses. (I had started with 24, but Zachary had eaten 3 before I caught him.) Beautiful, wouldn't you agree? All I had to do on Friday was bake the cake, ice it, and place the decorations on it. Easy schmeasy.

So, Friday morning I needed to go to the store to buy eggs to make the cake. The store didn't open until 9, so I got the pans ready, made the icing, and then went to the store. When I got home, I turned on the oven, mixed the dry ingredients, measured out the wet, and was about to mix them all together when the phone rang. It was the school nurse, calling to say that Erica wasn't feeling well. She'd had a slight cold all week, but that morning I wondered if she was going to make it through school - just seemed a bit more lethargic. Oh well, I thought, at least I hadn't really gotten into the cake yet. Good timing!

Little did I know how good the timing was! As the kids were getting their shoes on, I smelled something funny. And all of the sudden, it hit me. You see, to keep prying fingers and mouths out of my cake decorations, I often store them in the oven. I'm very careful to put them on my bed and lock the bedroom if I need to use the stove or oven. Except this once. This very day. When I REALLY needed to not have this happen. So I ran to the oven, and sure enough, disaster had struck. The roses, which were neatly placed on toothpicks into a box to keep them upright and well-shaped, were now melted blobs neatly placed on toothpicks on a very warm box. The letters, number, and butterfly had been in a Tupperware container. That Tupperware container was now melted all and dripping all over my oven. Oh, and it was on fire too.

My first problem - how to douse the fire. I didn't really want to get the fire extinguisher out. You see, I was in the middle of making a cake, and had cake ingredients out that I didn't feel like ruining. Second, my one experience with a fire extinguisher turned out very messy because the fire extinguisher wouldn't turn off. (Want details? Ask my sister Karen. That was her fire.) Luckily, in a recent conversation with Karen about that fire, she had mentioned that you could use baking soda to put out a grease fire. I know this wasn't a grease fire, but I knew smothering it would work. So I got out the baking soda, threw it on the fire, and voila! the fire was out. Jessie thought that was hilarious - throwing baking soda on a fire. Wanna see what dripping Tupperware looks like? It looks like this:

Anyhow, I took the racks out of the oven, turned on the outside fan, opened the windows, and left to pick up Erica. And that's where I feel fortunate for the timing of the phone call. Because the nurse had called 5 minutes earlier, I might have left before smelling the melting Tupperware. Erica's school is only a few blocks away; I would have definitely left the oven on while I picked her up. And the fire could have grown bigger. Or the box could have caught on fire. Then I would have come home to a real problem.

So I let the oven cool down and started scraping off the goo. Fortunately on the racks, because it was dripping, it was mostly on the top of the oven racks, so I was able to pry it right off. For the parts that were stuck harder, I went downstairs to get James' chisel and hammer. Oh, did I mention James just built a new table down there. And that it's nearly impossible to get around said table. More especially so if you're pregnant. Not so fun. So I cleaned up the oven, baked the cake, and went to work on the decorations. Since Erica was sick, I cancelled her therapy, which actually gave me more time to finish the decorations. Since I'd spent all week making roses, I was a pro at it now, and it didn't take much time. Unbelievably, it all pulled together. Here are the results:

And the birthday girl told me today that it was delicious! :)

Art Show

Every year our city has an art show to showcase students' works. This year one of Eldon's art works and one of Erica's art works were showcased.

This is two people playing beach volleyball, with a third person riding a shark.

This is a vase/bowl of flowers that Erica made. We're proud of their hard work!

Washington D.C.

During spring break, the kids, my friend Malisa, and I went to Virginia to visit my sister Karen and tour D.C. Malisa is my visiting teaching partner, and months before we were talking about spring break. I said I'd like to go to D.C., but couldn't go because James couldn't take the time off work. Malisa said she'd never been and would like to go. When I reminded her that I have 4 young children and she still was crazy enough to want to go, plans were made. See, good things can come of visiting teaching!

It was great, because although we'd been to Virginia a few times to visit my sister, I hadn't done the tourist thing, although I had been there about 10 years ago when my friend Christie lived there.

We left on Monday and the kids were good. They've always been pretty decent travelers. I was a bit concerned about Zachary getting bored, but he was pretty good and only fussed for a few minutes before falling asleep. I only got lost once, and that was going to Malisa's house (I guess my brain wasn't turned on yet!) And Malisa stopped me from going east when I should go west, so all was good. We hit D.C. traffic, as we always do, but once we got into the HOV lane, it was smooth sailing. And it took us quite a bit of time to get the DVD player set up, but then we got creative and everyone was happy.

Tuesday we went to the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art. Cool thing about the Smithsonians in D.C. - all free! Can't beat that price. Jared had taken the day off work to go with us, but when he realized we wouldn't all fit in one van, he volunteered to stay home and babysit Zachary. So nice!

Here's Jess in front of a cryptography statue thingy. (Thanks Malisa for the pic from your blog!)

Tall water fountain - as tall sometimes as the 4-story building.

This statue looked like they were playing potato sack races.

An Andy-Warhol self-portrait.

A cool perspective painting.

And another one. Erica liked this one the best. She started to get bored, as she generally does, so I let her take some pictures to keep her occupied.

Wednesday was a rainy day, so Karen stayed home with the kids while Malisa and I went to the Freer Gallery of Art. But first we went to the Natural History Museum to see the Hope Diamond. It wasn't as big as we thought it would be. In fact, Malisa walked up to it, declared it was small and not worth seeing, and turned right back around. It was a priceless moment!

So then we walked to the Freer Gallery. I'm not a huge art fan or very knowledgeable about art, but it was cool to see painting by artists I'd heard of - Van Gogh, Picasso, Rembrant, Vermeer, etc.

After that excursion, we really wanted to try and see the White House. We had a map and a GPS, so away we went. Well, the road that you used to be able to drive on to see the White House is closed (probably because of 9/11). But the GPS didn't know that. Which was the problem we had the last time we tried to see the White House. So we drove down random roads that we thought might work until we saw it. Hooray! Unfortunately, this was at about 6:00pm. I have NEVER seen traffic so horrible. I now know what gridlock means. It means traveling 0mph, honking your horn a lot (yes, I honked just to be part of the full experience), and getting nowhere for a long time, but laughing the whole while!

Thursday was take-your-child-to-work day, so Joe went with Karen to clean houses. When they got home, Joe babysat and we went to the National Cathedral. Very large and cool.

They have a lot of gargoyles on the side, one of which is Darth Vader's head. Seriously.

Inside was beautiful. There were a lot of stained glass windows. Unfortunately, my camera does not work well in low light, so I didn't get much. But I got this stained glass window. There were many beautiful ones.

There are also people entombed within the cathedral, including Hellen Keller.

On Friday we went to D.C. with all the kids and visited the monuments. Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, WWII Memorial, Washington Monument, and the reflecting pool with baby ducks (that was the kids' favorite). Zachary slept while we were walking around, very cute. Then we bought yummy overpriced ice cream treats from a vendor by the Lincoln Memorial. Erica's ice cream bar fell off her stick, but we caught it. So I had to feed it to her out of my hand. Very messy. And sticky. And gooey. And funny. Good thing we had wipes. Since I was covered in chocolate and ice cream, I asked Malisa to get the wipes out for me. She pulled out a package that had one dried up wipe in it and looked at me with an "are you serious?" look. Luckily, I had a newer package in there too with plenty of wipes. I can only imagine what went through her head when she saw me and Erica covered in ice cream and one wipe for the both of us.

It was a great trip and I'm so glad we went. Thanks, Karen, for letting us take over your place!

Since my camera wasn't working well, Malisa took most of the pictures. You can see her blog entry to see a few more pics. I'll update the post again with more pictures when I get them.