I'm still here...

Winter has settled in over the Seattle area. Rain, rain, more rain. This has been a very wet summer, fall, and hey, winter is looking like a lot of rain!

I've been busy listing stuff on eBay:

http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/burgundyelephant

There is a professional organizer in the area. She calls me when she has needlework to sell for her clients and usually I swing by and pick it up. This last batch, she had to deliver, as it wouldn't have fit in my van. So, some is listed and more is coming.

The children are doing very well, albeit Travis is coming down with something. He started sounding wheezy on Wednesday afternoon, that night wasn't the best, last night was pretty bad, so tonight will probably be terrible. The third night of croup is always the worst but then they get better. He's such a healthy child aside from RSV as a baby and the yearly croup.

Victoria is keeping up with her lessons and both girls have settled into ballet. Madeline has a new swim teacher and she's wonderful - hopefully she'll pass trout sometime this year! She's been in level three for over a year now.

I have gotten some stuff done around the house. I fixed the patch on the back wall and Brad hung the curtains. I bought a new hook rack for the red bathroom and Brad hung it. We don't have a towel rack in there now but we never used it - this way they can hang their robes and it will look nice. I also painted all the baseboards and touched up the paint but it already needs to be touched up again.

We've been listening to Alice in Wonderland and now Through the Looking Glass. We just finished Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. It was very cute and OH MY it actually taught Victoria why she shouldn't talk back. I was amazed, as that wasn't my intention behind reading the book! Victoria finished reading the Harry Potter series last night. She was thrilled and was laughing out loud at the ending. Up next for her "fun reading" is Madeline L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time series, which I'd picked up at Costco. I've been reading voraciously the last few weeks to get away from the weather. I read the Sookie Stackhouse Dead Until Dark series, Twilight and Breaking Dawn, a bunch of romance novels (whoo whoo) and am now reading The Root of Wild Madder, which is about the persian rug industry. There are rug dealers in downtown Seattle so after I finish that one I'm going to take Victoria down there and look at them closely now that I know more about them.

Yesterday we went to the Burke Museum at University of Washington. The girls had a great time and it was a lot of fun. Lots of homeschoolers there. Since Travis is ill he stayed home with Brad. The girls helped work on a button blanket and put together wildlife puzzles, aside from looking at all the exhibits.

I haven't been stitching lately - I need to finish my stocking and I have a few things that need finishing. Off I go!