Kiev, Ukraine Journal - 3-18-1996 and 3-19-1996

*Disclaimer: Please remember that I wrote these when I was 14! I could be a snarky brat! I also am typing these journals exactly as I wrote them, bad spelling and all, except I have abbreviated names to protect the innocent or not-so-innocent.

3-18-1996

Today Michelle and I went to the Cs and watched Fried Green Tomatoes. It was almost two hours long. It was too long. I got bored half way through it. It was still pretty good anyway. Michelle and I and R all went to the Darneeska department store. I bought three painted eggs that open and a bottle of nail polish. I also bought a head band for me. After that we all bought ice cream for our selves. It was delicious as usual. The Michelle and I went home. Monday night Dad taught us how to play poker and we played with toothpicks. Dad made us go bankrupt. Then Dad and Mom went to the Ss to send faxes and Michelle and I stayed home and went to bed. :)

3-19-1996

Michelle and I went with mom to the Ss. We watched the kids while all the women went shopping. The kids were ok. A pooped in his pants and Michelle had to give him a bath. Other than that they were good. The women came back and we went home to prepare a meal because the Cs were coming over for dinner. We pealed so many potatoes. I made a fruit salad. I told C that the bananas were blown up ant legs, the oranges were my blown up bugers, and the apples were posion. He said it was still delicious. The affects haven't worn off yet though. After supper R and I played poker with cough drops. J played concentration, and Michelle and C talked. Then we all went to bed. :)

*I was such a lovely child talking about blown up bugers...

Kiev, Ukraine Journal - 3-16-1996 and 3-17-1996

*Disclaimer: Please remember that I wrote these when I was 14! I could be a snarky brat! I also am typing these journals exactly as I wrote them, bad spelling and all, except I have abbreviated names to protect the innocent or not-so-innocent.

3-16-1996

I woke up today at 5:30 A.M. I was freezing, so I got another blanket and went back to sleep. THen when I woke up at 8:00 R was reading a book. D made drop donuts. They were so delicious. During breakfast R and I watched Snow White. I was really dissapointed. I thought Disney films were always good. Well, not this one. Then we played a game called mind master. It was cool. After that we gave ourselves makeovers. We looked like a couple of pigeons. At 5:00 that night we met my family to go to the Boston Burger. It was good, For Ukrainian stuff. After we ate we all got ice cream. Mine was the first so it stood up. C's was the last and when dad gave it to him it all fell out onto his hands. It was so funny R started hamburger chucks all over the place. It was the most disgusting thing you could ever see. :)

3-17-1996

This Wednesday will be the half way point for our trip. We went to Centre again today. It was good services. KS preached on obeidiance again. After that we and R all went down St. Andrews street. It's the one with souvoniers you can buy with American dollars. I bought a stacking doll with green, gold, and brown on it. I got it priced down 2 dollars. We spend about 30 minutes on that street because we had to be at the Cs by 5:00 for supper. When we got to the Cs it was 5:15. We played fictionary first and then taboo. I was awful at taboo and fictionary. Supper was chili with pasta. D is such a great cook. It was the best chili after mom's. We also had bread and cabbage. :)

My Recipe Box - Apple Cider Pork Chops

I love trying new recipes. I especially love coming across a recipe that we like enough to add to our meal rotation. This recipe is one of those!

Apple Cider Pork Chops

Ingredients:

1/2 cup flour

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

4 bone-in pork chops (1 inch thick)

3 T butter or margarine, divided

4 Granny Smith apples, thinly sliced

1 c raisins (optional)

1 c brown sugar, packed

1 c apple cider

Combine flour, salt and pepper in a zip-top freezer bag. Add pork chops, seal and shake to coat. Remove chops. Melt 2 T of the butter in a large skillet. Add chops. Cook 5 minutes on each side. Grease a 13x9 inch baking dish with remaining butter or margarine. Place apple slices in bottom of dish; top with raisins and sprinkle with brown sugar. Arrange chops over brown sugar and drizzle with apple cider. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or less, if chops are not 1 inch thick.

Enjoy!

Lisa's Little Lovelies

Hi All!

I hope your weekend was wonderful!

I want to take today to talk a little bit about my shop, Lisa's Little Lovelies.

You can check it out on Etsy or on Facebook. The links are on my righthand sidebar.

I have been having a great time with my little shop! I have had several orders and am very happy with how things are going so far. Right now, I am trying to add inventory to my Etsy shop. I have a few things on there, but I would really like to have about 30 items at any one time. I think having a variety of items will help my sales. I am also looking into buying an embroidery machine. I think not being able to personalize things with embroidery is hurting me so I am hoping to change that in my near future.

I added camera strap covers to my list of items I make back in November.

This is one I made for my sister for her birthday.

My sister liked hers so much that she ordered one for a friend of hers. Another customer ordered one, but I, sadly, forgot to take a picture of it. These are listed for $15.00 in my shop on Facebook. They are custom order only right now. I'm planning to put a few in my Etsy shop soon, though.

These crayon rolls are something I have seen all over the internet so I just had to try to make some! I made a large one that holds 24 crayons (the Care Bears fabric) for Chloe Jo and I made 2 smaller ones (that hold 10 crayons) as gifts.

I love them and I think they are perfect for church services! They are not listed in my shop as of now, but I will make them custom for you.

The last few things are shirts, which are what I am most interested in selling.

This is a shirt that was ordered for a little boy who has a birthday soon. The customer sent me a picture of what they wanted and I took it from there. I love the candle flame!

 This shirt is actually in my Etsy shop. It is super simple, but I really love it and I think a little boy would, too.

These were ordered for a set of brothers. They turned out so good and, more importantly, the customer loved them!

I finished these alligator shirts up this week. They were custom ordered from my Etsy shop. The customer liked the alligator shirt I had in the shop, except it was on an orange shirt and the wrong size. She wanted 2 on pink shirts. I didn't have matching pink shirts in stock so I had to take what I could find so the pinks don't match. I have yet to hear if the customer still wants them. I would be disappointed that they don't match exactly. :(

This shirt was made for a little girl with a birthday coming up. The font is Rockwell Bold and it is my go-to font for numbers or an initial for shirts. I like that it is so wide so that the fabric can have a larger pattern on it.

I made this Mickey Mouse inspired shirt for a little boy that is going to Disney soon. This is another shirt that the customer sent me a picture of what they wanted and I went off of that.

This is a snowman shirt that is in my Etsy shop right now. I really love it because the snowman and the scarf are made out of fleece. I have made a few appliques out of fleece and minky, but haven't gotten may hits on them. I think the cuteness factor gets lost in pictures.

That is all for now! I would love it if you "liked" me on Facebook and shared my shop with your friends! I am really looking forward to hopefully growing my shop this year!

Kiev, Ukraine Journal - 3-14-1996 and 3-15-1996

*Disclaimer: Please remember that I wrote these when I was 14! I could be a snarky brat! I also am typing these journals exactly as I wrote them, bad spelling and all, except I have abbreviated names to protect the innocent or not-so-innocent.

3-14-1996

At 9 o'clock I met R to go sledding. There has been snow every day this month. And it's usually always snowing. When we got to the hill a military man in a gray long coat and a gray box hat followed us through the path and watched us sled for about 5 minutes. I see those guy's everywhere but this one was more cautious than the rest. He sort of made me a little uncomfortable. I only crashed twice. We found out that if we go on our stomachs we wouldn't be apt to crash. I finally tried the stairs. They are so fun to go down. I flew over the bumps and was at least a foot in the air each time. It was great. When we left and I got to our metro I treated R to some ice cream. Those cones are great. What I don't understand is why do they sell ice cream in the winter? :)

3-15-1996

Today we went to the metro at 2:00 and went sledding with C, J, and R. It was fun. I didn't wipe out any. There was a Russian class of boys there on a field trip. We had a huge snowball fight. J, I, and R were the only ones on our team. There were about 12 Russian boys. We beat them anyhow. We clobbered them so badly that they still thought that they won. Then they came back for more. We all started to put them down so all in all we beat the tar out of them. Then when Chelle and I went home, R came with us. She wanted me to spend the night so I hurried around the house getting clothes and cosmetics. But I was a little late. Because Slova called. He is becoming real anoying. After I got off the phone I left with R. When we got to her house we gave ourselves makeovers. We looked like ugly ducklings. For supper we had cheese potatoes and roast beef sandwiches. D is a great cook. During supper we watched the movie Robin Hood with Kevin Costner. Then R and I made brownies. After that the whole family and I watched Apollo 13 until 12:30. The R and I went to bed. :)

New Year's Resolutions!

It's that time again!

Time to make up resolutions for the new year. So how, you ask, did I do with last year's resolutions?

Here goes:

1. Pray more. This is such an important part of a Christians life and I pray now. I am going to take more time to pray like I should. I'm going to say check on this one! I pray quite a bit more nowadays. I do think there is always room to improve with things like this, though!

2. Finish the Pray Without Ceasing cross-stitch. This is at least the 3rd year for this resolution. This year I'm determined to finish it! Total uncheck. I think I touched it to pack and unpack it when we moved. It is no longer on my Resolutions list. I am tired of not finishing it.

3. Keep reading off of the Top 100 Books list. I've read 30 so far. I don't want to put a number on here because I would like to get a few of the longer books (Anna Karenina, Ulysses and Lolita) marked off. Check! I read An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, Things Fall Apart by Chinue Achebe, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, Candide by Voltaire, Native Son by Richard Wright, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

4. Finish 2007 and 2008 in my scrapbook. I would love to put 2009 on there, but 2009 is when I started taking a gazillion pictures (hello Chloe Jo!) so I think that would be stretching it a bit! Argh. Uncheck. I don't think I scrapbooked at all last year.

5. Last, but not least, I need to start taking care of my skin better. I've been noticing that I am getting crows feet and other age lines on my face. I need to start using a facial lotion. Anyone have an inexpensive recommendation for this? I also am trying to use more body lotion and foot lotion. Check. I use lotions regularly and try to keep my skin feeling better. I tried several facial creams but they all made me break out really bad so I'm just going to live with the new wrinkles that are popping up. No matter. Wrinkles mean wisdom, yes?

Okaaaaaaay...so I did okay on my resolutions last year. Erm. 3 out of 5. Now it's a new year and that means a clean slate!

Here are my resolutions for this year:

1. Continue working on my anger issues. I have to continuously keep myself in check or my anger will get the better of me. I have mellowed out a lot over the last few years and I want to keep working on that aspect of my personality.

2. Appreciate my husband more. Russ does a lot for our family that I don't appreciate enough (as was evident when he was in Mexico). I need to show my appreciation more.

3. Do the iGrow devotionals. For several years I have read the Bible through as my daily Bible reading, but this year I am changing it up and am going to do a daily devotional book. I'm really looking forward to this type of study and am hoping to grow even more as a Christian.

4. Grow my little shop. I am really looking forward to, hopefully, making my crafts a real side business. I am looking into getting an embroidery machine so I can personalize the shirts I applique. I am also looking into different ways to advertise.

5. Lastly, I would like to enjoy spending the days with Chloe Jo. She is starting preschool in September and I am already dreading this huge step. I think going to school will be really good for her and I am excited for this next chapter in her life, but it still makes me sad when I think about it. Russ and I have all but gotten out of the notion of having any more children unless God decides to bless us with a surprise so this is a very bittersweet event.

Here's to hoping I do better this year than I did last year!

My Recipe Box - Sweet Potato Rolls

I love bread. Always have.

Bread is one of my favorite sides. For this reason, I never have rolls or any kind of bread for a side at home. I simply can not stay out of it.

Back before Thanksgiving, I signed up to bring bread to the church's Thanksgiving potluck. I had a recipe that I had been wanting to try so this was the perfect opportunity to do so.

It was a hit and I went home with an empty bread bowl!

I subsequently made these same rolls for our own Thanksgiving dinner.

Sweet Potato Rolls

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sugar

2 pkg dry yeast

1 1/4 cup warm water

1 cup sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed

1/2 cup shortening or butter, melted

1 egg

2 teaspoons salt

5 cups flour

In large bowl, add sugar and yeast to warm water. Stir to dissolve and let stand 10 minutes. Add potatoes, shortening/butter, egg and salt and mix well with mixer. (We received a kitchen aid mixer for a housewarming gift and it was great for this recipe!) Add 1/2 of the flour (2 1/2 cups) and mix well again. Finally, add remaining flour and mix well a third time. Cover dough and let rise until doubled in size. Punch down and shape into rolls. Let rolls rise until doubled in size and bake at 400 degrees for approximately 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

One last comment on these: they are super yummy warm. If you let them cool, they are good. Just good.

Elf on the Shelf - Days 11 and 12

Hi Everyone! I hope you are having a happy hump day!

Today I am finishing up the the Elf on the Shelf posts!

While I loved doing Elf on the Shelf, I fizzled out after day 12. Next year, I think I am going to start it on the 15th of December.

Day 11 - Dora colored a picture for Chloe Jo! CJ loves My Little Pony so she thought this was fantastic!

Day 12 - Dora hung up streamers over CJ's door. Again, CJ thought this was fantastic and wanted to leave them up for several days.

I thought this idea was particularly good. We will do this or something similar to it in the coming years.

Until next year, Dora!

Christmas! And other things!

Yeah....so....it's been a while since I've posted (besides the journal posts that are scheduled).

Sorry about that, ya'll.

We've been crazy busy around here.

First off, we received some very sad news last week. My precious unborn niece or nephew went to Heaven. Please stop by Anything But Grey and give my sister and her family a little love.

Secondly, my husband and dad were in Mexico for a week for a mission trip. Everything went great and I went to pick them up at the airport yesterday evening. I'm so glad Russ is home. Chloe Jo has been a bit of a monster and I'm sure it is because Daddy hasn't been here. She was very upset when he went to work today, but I'm hoping things will get back to normal now.

This is a picture of Chloe Jo and the dolly Daddy brought her from Mexico. We named the dolly Antonia Maria Rios. :)

The rest of this post is going to be about Christmas festivities. It's pretty long, but I'm really going to try to get caught up during the next two weeks (and then hopefully not take another long hiatus).

These are a couple of Christmas pictures I took of Chloe Jo one afternoon. I haven't always loved the smocked bishop dresses, but they have really grown on me the last couple of years. Then I really didn't love the prices for them! Ouch! I found this one on eBay and am so glad I got it. We used it as CJ's Christmas dress and she loved wearing it! Yeah, none of the ones that were full length (so you could actually see what I'm talking about) came out very well. I heart this one, though!

 The Thursday before Christmas we had movie night! I saw this idea on Pinterest and am happily adding it to our list of Holiday traditions!

I wrapped up a large box and let Chloe Jo open it after supper! I have to say, Russ didn't know about this and he was just as excited as she was!

Inside the box was a new Christmas movie (How the Grinch Stole Christmas), a new pair of pajamas for CJ, popcorn, CJ and my favorite candy (gummy bears), apple cider and hot chocolate!

Chloe Jo quickly changed into her new pajamas and we spent the rest of the evening watching Christmas movies, eating popcorn and gummy bears and having a fun family time. It was great!

We went to my parents house on the Monday before Christmas to celebrate with family so we did our family Christmas on the Saturday before. I knew we wouldn't have much time on Sunday and I wanted Chloe Jo to be able to play with her toys a bit before going out of town.

Stockings! As a side note, the stockings I made were so impractical! They were too small to even hold a dvd. Next year I will use them to display and keep our other stockings to stuff...erm, I mean for Santa to stuff. :)

I handed out the presents and everyone dove right in!

Chloe Jo was soooo fun this year! She was fun last year, but this year, she just got it. She was so excited for every present she opened. I. LOVED. IT. This was one of those times that it really hit me about why we went through what we did to get her here. So. Fun.

Russ really loved his Oklahoma City Thunder shirt. His favorite gift was an electric tie rack. He told everyone about it!

I loved this waffle maker! I have used it several times and it is so great! I also got a set of stemware that I have been loving. We don't drink alcohol so I use them for milk, tea, ice water, grape juice...whatever floats my fancy!

Here is Chloe Jo with the last gift she opened. She loves her new Ariel doll!

The aftermath. She was so happy. Love this picture and love her so much!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a good new year. We went to bed early on the 31st. We had to be up very early the next morning to drop Russ and Dad off at the airport.

Stay tuned for my New Year's Resolutions post!

Kiev, Ukraine Journal - 3-12-1996 and 3-13-1996

*Disclaimer: Please remember that I wrote these when I was 14! I could be a snarky brat! I also am typing these journals exactly as I wrote them, bad spelling and all, except I have abbreviated names to protect the innocent or not-so-innocent.

3-12-1996

Today Chelle and I babysat S, A and C at the S's house. We had a great time! Ha, Ha! S messed up the computer. A peed all over Chelle and C was fussy. Then K1 wanted me to figure out the last part of Kings Quest. Well I hadn't won that in a year and he was teasing me that a had the mentality of a fly. The thing is, I couldn't deny it. Then around 6 we had a pizza party at our flat. J played the computer, Michelle and C talked, and R and I watched the kidies. S, A and C were all sick. They were all pitifull. The pizza was nasty. It tasted like onions, pepperoni, and bread. I like Mazzios Pizza better than I liked that. Then everybody left and we all went to bed. That was a tiring day. :)

3-13-1996

This morning Mom, Michelle and I went over to the C's. Me and R went to the market to buy bread, pickles, yogurt, and eggs. I almost got ran over by a tram and R a car! We had a hard time finding the bread we wanted so we had to get some other kind. It wasn't much different except for the shape. When we got back to the C's apartment Mom, Michelle, D, and J were all playing a game called password. It looked stupid. J was really good at it though. After that the Mom's left and we left at 2:00. Andrew, who sold souveniers, came around three. We got some stacking dolls and lacquir boxes. When we went to services that night at least 25 people came in late. The S's weren't there because everyone, except K2 was sick. :)