(Italian meatball soup)

Yom Kippur always feels like one of the longest days of the year to me... I'm so glad it's over! I am not as joyful about fasting as Joshua seems to be -- he is definitely a good example to me! :)

My brain is a little fried, so here are a few tidbits from the past couple of days:

--We're still battling our gnat infestation. I put bleach down the drains and set out lots of traps. We moved the box of unripe pears to the garage, and my compost bucket is outside the back door instead of in the kitchen. I'm really hoping things are under control before we have guests this weekend! Gnats are just plain gross!!

--At Aldi's this week we came across a mountain of free (over-ripe) bananas! We put some in the dehydrator, froze a few, and gave about 30 pounds away. Free food is such a blessing! the boys and I love to snack on the partially dried, hot, chewy, flexible bananas they dry!

--I stepped on the scale today and saw that I have now lost 20 pounds! This is amazing to me, since I have trouble keeping motivated. I feel so much better than I did 5 months ago.

--We're having company tomorrow for lunch, and I'm serving spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, veggies, and some kind of dessert (maybe pudding?).

--We're also borrowing a tent tomorrow from one of my brothers. The boys and I are looking forward to sleeping outside at least one night in celebration of Sukkot next week, and we've even invited friends to our "campout"! (The tent has two rooms.) It should be quite an experience!

--Have you seen the deal at Shutterfly? Fifty free photos and free shipping too! I signed up last week and my 50 photos came in the mail just a few days later!

Wow, I feel so out-of-it.

Right after my last post (Monday evening) Eliyahu joined Yehoshua with the stomach flu and I spent several hours consoling them, bathing them, and cleaning up (or trying to clean up) the messes. I got them settled about 2am, just as I started feeling sick myself.

What a fun way to spend Rosh Hashanah! (Not.) Joshua got up at 2am and took over caring for everyone (good thing he had the day off work!) as I spent the next 24 hours moving as little as possible and taking care of Ruth as needed.

Wednesday I felt somewhat better and Joshua started getting sick. So, we swapped places as the children continued to recover.

Now, tonight, the boys are actually sleeping in their own beds instead of on blankets on a shower curtain on their floor! (They begged to sleep on the floor again but I was ready to be able to walk through their room.)

Tomorrow, provided that we are all feeling okay, I'm hoping to get the carpets (living room and their bedroom) steam cleaned and the laundry caught up and just maybe our house won't smell like the flu.

I can hardly remember what day it is... what I had planned to blog about this week... I've got a stack of bills to pay and phone calls to make. I'm just glad I'm feeling well enough to look at a computer screen... walk outside... take a shower. Thank you, Yahweh!

P.S. I asked Joshua if I could just swap Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur this year since I fasted on Rosh Hashanah, but he said it doesn't work that way...

Our neighbor is letting us borrow a small picnic table for our back yard this fall. The boys have had a lot of fun with it! Here is one of their picnics, served up on a hot pink tray (garage sale: $0.25) with fresh Morning Glories picked by Yehoshua!

Of course, as soon as the prayer was said, Eliyahu tossed the flowers to the ground...

An 8-month-old Ruth in all her toothless charm...

I have several posts that I'm anxious to type, but this evening Yehoshua came down with the flu and commandeered almost all of my computer time. :) Thank you all for the comments and input you provide here! :)

I was working in the kitchen and turned around to find Eliyahu using this baking sheet as a mirror. He was making the cutest faces! I had to take some pictures of him. :)

There are peas on the table because Eliyahu loves to eat frozen peas! Whenever I get our frozen vegetables for a meal, the boys beg to eat some. Sometimes Eliyahu eats so many that I actually let him skip the vegetable at that meal!

Haha. :) Isn't he funny? He was making cute sounds to go along with the faces. ;)

Guess what! I just discovered that our camera has not only a macro setting (which I use frequently) but also a SUPER macro setting. Do you know how happy this makes me?! Joshua said, "See, I told you that you should read the manual!" :)

I just wanted to share a few pictures of my sweet blessings, and decided to do a meme while I'm at it. What? Two memes in the last month or two?! Okay, rather out of character for me, but if you're interested you can read more... :)

We were blessed yesterday and today with a visit from some friends who live in the Detroit area. My friend Emily brought her 4 little ones with her and let me just say that having 7 children 5-and-under all here at once was... interesting. ;) The four oldest were all boys -- very rowdy boys. ;) Things quieted down after bedtime and Emily and I actually got to talk and grind wheat (for fun!) and eat chips and salsa. :)

For breakfast we had Easy Whole Grain Pancakes, and Joshua made his Apple Spice Syrup for on top. Yummy! :)

The lunch menu was Grilled Chicken Pizza, fresh pineapple, and a salad.

And last night, we had Easy Cheeseburger Casserole.

Emily took this picture of us before she left:

It was such a blessing to get to spend time with Emily in person again! She's visited us twice before -- you can see pictures and read about one of Emily's earlier visits here -- back when we each had just 2 boys. :)

I allowed Yehoshua to very carefully sit on the couch and take this picture of Ruth and me! This was the first time I have ever let him use our camera.

I had put Ruth in my mei tai so that we could get the house cleaned up before Sabbath started. :) I really love the mei tai, and mine is a homemade one (a gift from my friend Ruth back before I had a baby named Ruth!) which makes it extra special. :)

When Ruth was a newborn (maybe about 6 weeks old) I was able to sit her in the mei tai sideways, with both feet sticking out one side, and pulled tightly enough to keep her snug. Now she's a big girl and faces me. :)

Ruth was sitting on the living room playing with toys and looking so cute that I had to run for the camera! Such a sweet little treasure. :)

I got some barrettes for her hair. Now her hair stays out of her face!

Ruth loves to sit up and play with toys. She says "mama" and "dada" and is still the sweetest little baby I have ever met! She's not very big (compared to my boys at this age) but she is chubby! :)

Sitting down to write a new blog post opens so many possibilities. I usually have numerous post ideas waiting to be used... and my camera's memory card is nearly always bursting with photos of recent meals, just waiting to be shared.

And then I like sharing just normal stuff from our life, too. But how to fit it all in?! And it's nice to try to stay on-topic just a little bit... since there are plenty of blogs written about normal life stuff...

But this evening I got an email from Annie H., encouraging me to share more about our life.

I'd love to know what it is Joshua does and how you are able to save enough money to order things like the water filter system... or wait until you're out of everything to go grocery shopping and how the two of you met and courted... and what your routines are like throughout the day and what your growing up was like and whether you rent your house and what you and Joshua do for fun and...

Sooo... :)

I'll start with a Q&A from someone else's blog (I think this is the first time I've ever posted something like this!) and then answer some of Annie's questions. :) (Read more...)

We were blessed with a visit from our friends Lindsey, Abigail, Susanna and Lydia! Yehoshua, Ruth and I joined them for this picture. Lots more for anyone interested... :)