The Jolliff Family

I could probably make a series of my different baking experiences with Abigail.  She's a super good helper and today's adventure was making cinnamon rolls.  Again, recipe from The Pioneer Woman's orange cookbook (my fav!).  We made mini-cinnamon rolls and this recipe makes a bunch.  We had enough for breakfast as dinner, a pan to freeze, and a pan to bake and give away as a treat.  In related exciting news, the store now sells powdered sugar so I could actually make icing! I took these pictures last week before my hospitalization but am just getting them posted!!

As most of you know, I ended up unexpectedly in the hospital a week ago today needing emergency laparoscopic surgery.  The reality is, I had a laundry list of items that I wanted to get done last week and surgery was not on the list!!   However, now I have a laundry list of items I'm thankful for.... For Hap getting me to the hospital quickly For how patient the twins were as they waited a long time in the waiting room For teammates who stepped up to care for children so Hap could come be with me before surgery For the skilled physicians would discovered the issue and could correct it For the immediate relief from pain after waking up from surgery For the the nurse finding me a bed to sleep in at 1am that was comfortable and private For teammates who came to visit the next day and ,ultimately, drove me home from the hospital For so many people praying For the kids and the way they pitch in a help out around the house For peace that surpasses understa...

Against our better judgement, we introduce you to Mouse, our new puppy! Welcome to the family, little guy.

While we were in the States, our dryer broke.  We bought it used so it wasn't a great surprise but what was a great surprise is how much I took my dryer for granted while we had it!  In the summer the sun is so hot that the clothes are typically dried before the next load comes out of the washing machine.  However, in the winter, the air is so wet that the clothes doesn't get dry for days.  So a dryer allows us to get the laundry done in one day, which is really great with the amount of washing we do!  We typically hang our clothes up outside unless it's raining (which is typical for the winter months) and then I hang them inside by the wood fire. Our new dryer arrived at the end of last week and it's changed my life!  So much better and more efficient.  A dryer is a luxury for a woman here and I'm thankful to have one!

It's back to cooking from scratch for me and on top order was chicken pot pie with biscuits.  I brought back a new cookbook, "Magnolia Table" by Joanna Gaines, and tried out the biscuit recipe. I enjoy having help in the kitchen and Abigail was my helper today.  She's such a little mother. The tongue of concentration :)

Our weekend certainly didn't end up like we imagined!  On Sunday Hap and I had a dental appointment.  Given that the weather was so beautiful, we sent Sam and Andrew right down the street to play at a park (it's safe to do that) and brought the three younger ones with us.  The dentist was very backed up and it took longer than we anticipated.  Sam called and I told him to head back to the office as we were paying and would be down to look for them.  Hap and the three younger kids went down and saw the two boys approaching on the opposite side of the road.  Hap watched them cross to the first median and wait for the green light.  When the green light switched, Andrew and Sam started across but unfortunately, so did a taxi making an illegal turn and hit Andrew.  Andrew was knocked down but didn't hit his head and Hap went right to him and moved him to the side of the road.  Long story short, after taking the ambulance to the pediatric emerge...

I think we are all unpacked and getting into the swing of things.  Kids started back to school on Saturday and were very excited to be going back.  They have missed their friends and last week was really rainy, so mostly inside playtime.   I wanted to share a few pictures of our house.  We are thankful to be in our home and are staying pretty warm with the fireplace!  This was the before picture while we were unpacking.  Along with unpacking, we went through all of our boxes, decorations, clothes, paperwork and did a bunch of purging of stuff.  Hap really got into it and it's no secret that purging is one of my love languages :). It feels really good to be emptied out a bit and loving everything in our home again. And after.  We have a picture coming for above the church pew and my quilt isn't out yet on the pew because it needs washed but otherwise, we are situated. We shopped our own house and moved the desk out to the kitchen s...

I just wanted to hop on and say that we made it back just fine to our home this week.  Our kids are amazing travelers and everyone did so well, even getting some sleep, on our three flights! We arrived back to our house just in time to see and hear the 2020 fireworks across the city from our front balcony.  It's probably the only time I've let the kids stay up to ring in the New Year ;)   Since our arrival, we have been normalizing our sleep schedule (I think we are normalized!), unpacking and purging, and having some fun in the meantime.  We took a unpacking/purging break to go to a local park for some outside play before the rain came. Abram was finally able to open his scooter he received for his birthday. It's back to the old-fashioned cooking grind for me and Abigail is proving to be a good helper in the kitchen. I'm happy to report that our house has been deep cleaned and purged of everything that needed to go and all 15 suitcas...