Seriously?

Something has been weighing heavy on my heart lately. Deep down in the depths of my being, I have dreaded that this might happen. And now it has.

Imagine my horror when I woke up and checked my email, only to see these words:

"You've heard the buzz about the hottest silhouette to hit the jeans scene. Now get in on the trend with our must-have skinny jeans."

Thank you GAP for a rude awakening. I wonder what Stacy and Clinton have to say about this. Haven't they been forbidding tapered leg pants for the past how many seasons? And now they are being called the "hottest sellout".

Despite the horror. Despite the outrage. Despite my better judgment. I know I will wear them.

Also, another disturbing fashion trend. Shirts like these:

Don't let them fool you with their cuteness. Yes, they are adorable, but I don't like what they do for women who have given birth to one or more children. They scream: "Am I a maternity shirt?" I have a few pieces like this. Some with a tieback and a couple with an empire waist and I'm telling you, I get double takes from people every time I wear them. I know exactly what they are thinking. "Is she or isn't she?" Everyone wonders if I am trying to sneak another pregnancy by them but they are too afraid to ask. Again, I continue to wear them in the name of fashion despite my better judgment. And no, I am not pregnant.

I'm giving props to this lady. I stumbled across her blog via Randi and I love what she did. Oh that I had the guts to pull off the same dress for 365 days. Way to go brown dress lady. You rule.

One and a Half Stars

If, by chance, you happen to send your eleven and nine year old into the library to pick out DVD's, you might end up with a very interesting selection.

For our viewing pleasure:

Mr. Wong, Detective
Mr. Wong in Chinatown
The Muppets Take Manhattan
and last but not least...(oh the insanity)
Ernest Goes to Camp

Heaven help us.

Jack

Today you turn three Jack. You have been talking about "It's almost gonna be my birthday?" for the last few weeks. Sometimes you call it your "Super Birthday." It's obvious that you understand that birthday's are something special because when you have been frustrated with me or angry with me, you threaten that "It's not gonna be YOUR birthday Mom." Big talk for a little guy. Caedmon is especially excited for you to turn three. He is convinced that after today you will "talk better". I think you talk just fine.

I'm trying to decide if your eyes are going to sparkle more when you open your new red tricycle or when you realize that everyone is singing happy birthday to YOU. Or maybe it will be when you take that first bite of birthday cake. I'm surprised that you didn't just ask to be served a bowl of sugar with three candles in it. Another idea would be to attempt to float your three candles in your bowl of "crunchy ceeyo" for a special birthday breakfast.

Put your thumb over your pinky and raise your hand high. You are THREE!

Happy birthday JackJack.

Whodunit

Break out the magnifying glass and the pipe Sherlock, we have a couple of mysteries to solve.

1. Who is setting our rabbit free? Banjo does not have enough dexterity in his little paws to un-twist our makeshift wire latch. He may be a white bunny, but he does not know magic. I hope he enjoyed his morning of freedom, and it appears that my flowers are safe from his jaws of death.
2. Who mistook the tub for the toilet? In the wee (no pun intended) hours of the morning, it seems that someone took a wrong turn and emptied their bladder into the bathtub. Eeew.
3. Where are all of the toothbrushes? They disappear as fast as chocolate chip cookies around here. We either have a hundred or none. There is no inbetween.

We ARE the Fourth of July Parade.

We filed down the side of the street, a red white and blue line headed up by a father pushing a toddler in the stroller, a mother with a baby strapped to her torso, and four little hooligans in between. I could almost hear the people we were passing whispering and crossing their fingers, "Please don't sit by us, please don't sit by us." We finally claimed our little plot of curb along the parade route and set up camp. All of the children around us suffered significantly reduced candy profits apon our arrival. We tried as hard as we could to keep our children minding the "parade etiquette". No cutting other children off, especially toddlers. No running out in front of the farm machinery. And most importantly, feed mom and dad a steady supply of candy.

All in all it went well. Some highlights:

• Watching barefoot Jack jump up and down and squeal at the sight of the first tractor. His eyes lit up as bright as the fireworks themselves.
• Chuckling as the children scrambled for the few pieces of candy that were NOT Tootsie Rolls.
• Tyler and Caedmon's "almost" red hair. Very patriotic. We are still quite a few shampoos away from their natural color.
• Lots of new pencils and pad of paper.
• One "float" (if you can call it that) threw out a box of Mucha Lucha fruit snacks. Bonus.

There is just nothing like a small town Iowa parade. Let me sum it up in three words:

Tractors. Horses. Old cars.

I Must Have Walked the Plank.

Did you think I was dead?

Did you think that the race killed me in some sort of a freaky three-days-later-she-keels-over type thing? Let me explain my absence.

Last week was vacation bible school and I taught bible games. In keeping with my procrastinating tendencies, I spent most evenings last week searching the internet for the next morning's games. It's not that they didn't give me a curriculum, it's just that we had such large groups of kids that those games didn't work in my little room. I was in charge of decorating my room and here I am with my scurvy first mates:



I went with the "pirate secret hideout" theme and dressed as piratey as I could from my own closet. See how I am "Arrrrrging" in the photo? I make a pretty tough pirate don't you think?

I had the pre-K, kindergarten, first and second graders come through my room and I completely fell in love with those kids.




Here I am with one of my classes. I have disguised their identities, not because of poor fashion choices, (doesn't this look like a fashion do's fashion dont's pic?) but because I don't think it would be right to post pics of other people's kids on the internet. Oh, and it was crazy hair day, which explains the blue and purple wigs. I left Caedmon un-black boxed. Notice the red hair. We opted to just dye the boys' hair for wild hair day. It is supposed to wash out in 8-10 shampoos. We'll see about that. I'm thinking it might be a good idea to dye ALL my kids' hair at the beginning of the summer or if we are going to a theme park or to the zoo. It sure does make them easy to spot in a crowd.



Here is a better pic of Chuck and Chuck with their red hair:



Great smile Caedmon.

I don't want to leave the girls out. Noelle won a prize for her fountian of hair.



Wow. Those are some super un-flattering pics. Sorry girls. You'll love this when you are 16.

Now that all of that is over, it's back to real life. Laundry, dishes and cooking real meals.

Maybe.

Arrrg.

Zzzzzzzz

"Why Heather!" You exclaim, "What are you doing awake at 12:45 a.m. when you need to be at vacation bible school at 8:30 tomorrow morning?"

You asked.

I'll tell you what I'm doing. I'm watching a wide awake one year old play with her toys like it's the middle of the afternoon, that's what I'm doing. I just spent the last hour and a half lying in my bed as she climbed all over my head. I am a human jungle gym. I was fed up with the kicking, the rolling, the laughing, the twitching, the thrashing, the jabbering and the head butting. The girl could not stop moving.

Note to self: No matter how desperate the situation, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT let your one year old drink any of your "iced coffee beverage". At least not after noon.

Success

I don't think the success of a race should be measured by time necessarily. Maybe a more accurate gauge would be the "sweat-o-meter".

While we were training for this race, on some of the sweatier days we would laugh about my little one inch ponytail. If the temps were high on a particular morning, I would coax my short hair into a rubber band just to get it off of my neck. By the end of a the run, it would be dripping down my back. Isn't that disgusting? I could literally wring it out like a wet towel. A few weeks ago I got a haircut and trimmed up the back, it was bordering on mullet. We lost our sweat-o-meter. Although the temperature was a nice cool 50 some degrees for this morning's race, by the end of 13.1 miles my hair was dripping even with no little ponytail. Success.

It was a wonderful race. The training payed off and I felt like a hundred bucks the whole time. Well, maybe more like seventy five..... I was shooting for a two hour finish. I would have been happy with 1:59:59. My final time was 1:57:19 and I am thrilled.

Friday Flashback-Goals

Spring 2004. My very first "run". I had been working out on the elliptical machine all winter and now was joining my friend outside to run for 30 minutes.

I remember the gasping for breath, the side stitch, and the overwhelming desire to stop and walk. We did. A couple of times. This was the first time I had tried to run since my junior high track career. There was no coach blowing his whistle, no "training program". It was just me, putting one foot in front of the other. Just me, fighting the desire to hit the snooze button one more time. We ran for a couple of months before she proposed running in a race that fall. A 10K, 6.2 miles. The moment those words came out of her mouth, my mind was racing, trying to come up with an out, an excuse of why that wouldn't work for me. Didn't we have something going on that weekend? Didn't I just feel a weird pain in my knee?

We ran in the race and a strange thing happened. Something bit me. There weren't any mosquitoes on the course and I don't remember seeing any bumblebees. I was bit by the racing bug. Although my friend practically had to drag me across the finish line, in those 50 some minutes of misery, something changed in the chemistry of my brain. Afterward, all I could think about was "could I have done that faster?" That's when my passion for running began.

On Sunday, I take that passion to the next level. I have officially signed up for and will be running in my first half marathon. Thirteen point one miles. When I signed up no one was holding a gun to my head, no one was twisting my arm, I signed up of my own free will. On Sunday morning, all of the training will be tested. Can I do it? And can I meet the goal time I have set in my mind? I have trained for nine weeks with two wonderful ladies who are both running their first half marathon also, it's a new level of running for all three of us. And if I start to question myself as we pound the pavement, I'll just remember that first spring and how far I have come.

1 Corinthians 9:24 and 25

24Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

Works For Me Wednesday Debut

I have decided to crash Shannon's Works-for-Me-Wednesday Party. Brace yourselves, this is going to be so informative you won't even know what to do with yourself. Knowledge will be spilling out of your ears.

My tip is..... My Garbage Disposal.

What works for me is shoving large amounts of food down my garbage disposal and flipping the switch. We had some trouble with the first disposal we had, it was old and cranky. It couldn't quite keep up with my "deposits". We had to call the plumber out a couple times and on the second visit, he replaced it with a brand spanking new grind-o-matic. Just a note- the disposal will always break when you have a counter full of dirty dishes and a sink full of yicky, stinky water. Very humbling.

Aaaaaanyway. We now have a high powered disposal and I sure do put it to use. There is almost nothing that I can't put down that thing. After every meal you can find me standing at the sink scraping large amounts of food into the sink. Fruit, vegetable, meat or dairy, I do not discriminate. I have even been known to put a half a cake down the drain. Which, now that I think about it, what was half a cake doing in my kitchen UNEATEN?! And why did I put it down the disposal instead of just getting a fork?

So get yourself a garbage disposal and go crazy. Just make sure to keep silverware, sponges and hands out of the sink when you flip the switch. I speak from experience. (The silverware and sponges, not the hand. I do have all ten fingers.)

Why We May Become Vegetarians

When Tyler was younger, we used to call him our little carnivore. He. Loved. Meat.

Fast forward.

Tyler is eleven. He still loves meat but after today he may not. Yesterday's Father's Day Festivities included grilled steak. Tyler took his first bite and immediately the hunk became wedged somewhere way deep down in his esophagus. It became the cork that wouldn't allow any other food to pass by. That was yesterday. We though we would wait it out, since he could breathe and everything, and see if sleeping would relax him enough release the meat.

Nope, it didn't. And that's why we aren't doctors.

This morning I called and took the poor starving kid into the clinic and our doctor referred him on to the surgeon at the hospital. Wow. Writing that out makes it sounds so serious. We spent most of the morning and into the early afternoon in the outpatient area at the hospital. Here are some words for you. Anesthesia. IV. Scope. Chicken Noodle Soup.

He did great and we now have some really interesting pics of the inside of his stomach. He thought the hospital bracelet was cool so he wore it the rest of the day, even to his baseball game. The poor kid hasn't stopped eating since we got home.

It's the new carnivorous weightloss program where you only eat steak. One bite.

Friday Flashback- Dad's Cushman

When I was little, we lived in a little house, on a quiet street, in a quiet town. My parents planted a tree in the front yard in honor of me. It's quite large now. There was a huge stone wall on the side of the house that my sister and I used to jump off. The funny thing is that when I drive by that house now, I am struck by the fact that the wall is only about a foot and a half tall.

Perspective.

There was a bush in the back yard that we discovered was sometimes covered in ladybugs. Not the nasty ladybugs, the real ones, the red ones, the nice ones. We had a swingset, the one I broke my arm on, and a row of bushes lined the back of our yard. It was wonderful. It was quiet.

But my dad had a Cushman. We called it The Cushman.

Isn't that GREAT? I'm not sure if that is the exact model, but it's similar to how I remember it. I'm sure Mom has pictures of it somewhere. Dad would pile me and my sister on that thing, one of us behind him, wrapping our arms around his waist, the other standing between his knees, holding onto the handlebars, and he gave us rides around the yard and down our street. We just loved it. The red shiny paint, the black vinyl seats, it was so cool. At some point Dad sold it. I think he wishes he hadn't. Now my kids love to go to Grandpa and Grandma's big house in the country, outside of that same little town. Only it's not so quiet now. When their grandchildren are there, the yard is full of kids zooming around on the go-cart, and the moped laughing and squealing and beeping the horn. But neither the go-cart or the moped compare to the original, The Cushman. It is the father of all scooters. Happy Father's Day to my Dad and his love of all things fun.

It's like one big commercial

I have become a woman of convenience. A lover of all things disposable. It must have been the sixth kid that sent me over the edge, but here I am. Let me share some of my favorite "making-my-life-a-whole-lot-easier" products.

I know cleaning used to be all about a bucket of water and some Lysol, but I have fallen in love with Mr. Clean. Actually, it was his magic erasers that got me. They really are magic. I'm not sure how they work and I don't think I want to know. It would take all of the magic out of the magic. Crayon on the wall, soap scum in your shower, and everything else in between can be solved with one of these babies. Love them.

Growing up, I helped mom dust with a sock pulled up to my elbow. We were reminded not to spray the dusting spray over the hardwood floor or someone would end up flat on their back. Much like a banana peel. For awhile I dusted with a bucket of water and a sponge. Really, it was THAT bad. I hated dusting. But now I love it. *using my best commercial voice* Thanks to Swiffer dusters. I even put the kids on dusting duty, it's so easy and so fun. I still only do it every month or so. *gasp* Ok, maybe even less often than that.

Kandoo wipes. These little babies crack me up. I picked them up in the store, trying to decide if they would be worth it. When I looked at the package and saw the wiping frog, they went straight into my cart. Now I trust that my little independent wipers are"clean" if you know what I mean.


My newest venture has been the disposable toilet scrubbers. Ever since I put Tyler on bathroom cleaning duty, I wanted to find a way to make it as sanitary are possible. I really didn't like the idea of him winging the wet toilet brush all over the room. *shudder* So I caved and bought these. It was a wonderful mother/son bonding experience as we figured out how to work the thing and we both smiled as the toilet water turned a lovely shade of blue. I also bought some Clorox wipes for him to use on the sink/counter area. Do you hear that? It's the sound of me, cracking the whip on these little slaves, I mean children.

So there you have it. Some of my indulgences. Who would have thought that toilet scrubbers could fall into that category? An indulgence should involve chocolate. How about I will eat some chocolate while my son scrubs the toilet. Sounds good to me!

Seven Things I Say- A Meme

Thanks to Super Mom, I am tagged. It's kind of fun to have a meme to spice up this twice a week blog. Sorry everyone, but it's summer and the old blog has taken a back seat to more important things. (the pool)

On with the meme. What does the Laundry Lady say?

1. "Chuck" I call my kids Chuck. All of them, and sometimes even my husband. I think this originated when Caedmon got his first pair of Converse knock offs.

2. "There is only one Mommy!" This one I pull out when I go into martyr mode. If all of the kids need me at once and I'm in the middle of something, I remind them that there is only one me to go around.

3. "super" The adjective of all adjectives. "Are you super hungry Jack?" Sometimes I use it incorrectly in sentence structure, just for fun. "I super want to go to the store." Another fun little word I have been using lately is "sassafrass". Mostly I've been using it to describe Noelle and her new hair cut.

4. "Oh. my. word."

5. "What, is up, mydog?" I'll send you on a wild goose chase to show you where I got this one. Good old Homestar. Click the linky then click on Puppet Stuff, and then when you get there, click on Biz Cas Fri 1. It's so stupid it's funny. Or maybe it's just me.....

6. "Jack, get out of the street." Followed by. "Do you want me to hang your bike up in the garage?"

7. "Who wants to go to the pool?" It's a good thing it's raining today or we would be outahere.

How about we see what Truth and Mopsy have to say. Tag, you're it.

Gemma

Screeching, squealing, climbing, grinning, toddling, scavenging, and eating fist fulls of dirt. This is what it is to be one. I find it quite appropriate that her first three words are "Dadda", Mamma", and "Uh Oh".

A look back at Gemma's first year of life.

Happy Birthday to our little Gemster.

Friday Flashback-Baby Jack

I love this picture. Proud uncles on the left, the two oldest sibling in the middle, whispering about something, and Daddy on the right, admiring his third son. Baby Jack is oblivious to the crowd surrounding him and sleeps away.

The Tale of A Frog in Photos

And then they buried him.

He Lives

Dogs have an average life span of 10-25 years. During the Roman Empire, Romans had an approximate life expectancy of 22 to 25 years. Today my little brother turns 25, he's got the dogs and the Romans beat.

I am happy to report that Shane survived years of stitches and sprains. He pulled a sweet bike-dive off of the chicken house roof and walked away. There was one skateboarding incident and countless snowboarding falls. Firefest did not claim his life or any of his limbs and he has never been bitten by a rabid squirrel while chasing them across his college campus. I'm sure there are many, many more feats he attempted that we will never know about, and it's pobably a good thing that we don't. Shane, have an awesome birthday. And wear a helmet.

Friday Flashback-DiaperFest

This morning as I changed a quick Gemma diaper, I got to thinking. I had just opened a new package of Luvs size 3's and I paused to take a trip down memory lane.

Back January 1997, we had just brought home our new little winter princess. Noelle had just rounded our family out to a nice even quartet. We were living in married student housing in the Great White North, and our two kidlings were sharing one of our two tiny cinderblock-walled bedrooms. We had a white, not-really-wood, type dresser thing for the kids to share. It was almost like a little mini entertainment center. The left side of the dresser opened up and had three or four shelves inside. In an attempt (a very futile attempt) to be semi-organized,( it's a life long struggle) I opened all of the packages of diapers that we had received as gifts and the ones we had bought and stacked them into straight tidy white stacks on the shelves inside the dresser. Rows of toddler diapers along side little newborn diapers. It was an overwhelming moment for me, my life's destiny staring me right in the face. I grabbed the camera.

If I had a scanner I would share.

I chuckle at myself now. I was a young (very young) mother taking a new step in parenting. Nate was gone during the day going to school and working three different jobs to support our family, and I was home with my our little ones. I was now outnumbered. The diapers were a wake up call to me. A visual of what was to come. Oh if I had only known. I haven't quit changing diapers for eleven years and three months. We have always had at least two kids in diapers, sometimes three if you count pullups.

As I wrapped up the diaper this morning and threw it into the trash, I smiled to myself. What kind of a picture would it be if I had ALL the diapers (clean of course) that we have used in the past eleven years, stacked up in a room? How long would they stretch if we lined them all up end to end? A mile? Ten miles? I think that if the nineteen year old mother that I was could have seen that picture, she would have passed out. One day at a time, one diaper at a time.

Introducing a very funny lady.

If you have a stomach of steel, go see what SuperMom has been up to. The poor dear. No wonder she's Desperate.

Again with the baseball

We have been spectating to our hearts content. The trick has been to master the watching-two diamonds-at-the-same-time and not miss any big plays on either field. Noelle looks over at us every few seconds, just to make sure our eyes are glued to her. We wouldn't want to be caught *gasp* talking! So most games so far have been spent standing between fields, looking back and forth, almost as if we are at a tennis match. Until last night.

Last night we had to divide and conquer. Nate took Caedmon and Camryn to Noelle's game. I took the two littles to Tyler's game in a nearby town. I'm sure things were lovely at the YellowJackets' field. Caed and Cam probably played beautifully and uneventfully on the playground with their friends. I however, learned a few things.

• A slushy and a big grab bag of Doritos will keep a two year old occupied for approximately 45 minutes. Good to know.
• I can down a 44 oz Cherry Pepsi in approximately 1 hour. All by myself. Maybe I should just put in an I.V., it would save the hassle of having to actually pick up the cup and put it to my mouth.
• Pack toys for the little ones, but don't underestimate the enthralling power of a good dirt pile.
• When the game goes long, (REALLY, REALLY long) just pack them up in the van and turn on a movie. Sword in the Stone is awesome, even after you've watched it 400 times.

Some tips for you, just in case.

Our Little Wildlife Project

The younglings have been re-released into their natural habitat. An adjustment period will be necessary. We are hoping that the reintroduction will be deemed successful.

(School is out and summer vacation has begun)

Fugitive

If you were to drive down a certain street in a certain town in the Midwest this morning at exactly 7:26am, this is what you would have seen.

• One father with a dirty knee climbing back into his car, now late for work.

• A gaggle of giddy kids, the smaller ones still in their pajamas, the older ones now extremely close to missing the bus.

• One wet haired mother, clad in a red bathrobe and flipflops, carrying a very large and very guilty looking white and black bunny.

Two for Togetherness. A meme.

Twelve years ago, Chilihead tagged me for this meme. Being the procrastinator that I am, I'm finally getting around to it. Twelve years later.





2 things you compliment your husband on while in his presence.
1. How great he looks in his brown corduroy pants.
2. He rocks at the internet.


2 compliments you make about your spouse to your friends.
1. He knows a little bit about EVERYTHING.
2. He is a master lawn-smith.

2 traits you married him/her for.
1. His heart for God.
2. His commitment.

2 days you cherished the most with your husband being together.
Okay, the obvious answers would be our wedding day and the birth of our kids, so I'm going to say those are a given and require myself to list two OTHERS.
1. We lived in Grand Forks North Dakota when the city was flooded in '97. The whole town was evacuated and we fled our home with our two little babies in a line of cars that was miles and miles long. It was scary but I felt safe with him. We made it though that day together.
2. When I had a miscarriage. He just held me and let me cry.

2 material things you could give your husband if you just inherited a fortune.
1. A gift certificate to Tiger Direct. Because there is NO WAY I can pick out computer stuff for him.
2. A riding lawn mower and a house with a big yard to go with it.

2 things you would miss the most if she/he left for two weeks.
1. Know that he is there when I hear scary noises that could possibly be axe-murderers.
2. Sitting and talking with him after all the kids leave the dinner table.

2 thoughts that crossed your mind when you first met/saw your spouse.
1. Oh my gosh. Look at those eyelashes.
2. He's a junior AND a football player. Wow.

2 favorite dates
1. When we were teenagers, we spent an evening ice skating on the river. It was dark and we were the only ones on the ice. The huge slow snowflakes were falling down through through the light of the street lamp. It was a magical moment.
2. The midnight showing of Star Wars Episode Three. It wasn't really a date, some of his buddies were there too, but he let me come along. We are geeks like that.

2 funny odd things you love.
1. Can it be a love/hate thing? Three words: Restless leg syndrome.
2. He loves the movie "The Last of the Mohicans" and can hum the soundtrack. And does. Often.

2 places you have lived with your spouse.
1. The ghetto
2. married student housing

2 favorite vacations
1. Omaha zoo and stealing firewood from an old man's garage
2. Chicago in the winter and the dangerous trip he made to the downtown pharmacy for our sick little Caedmon.

2 people I tag
1. Melanie, Yes they are all hers.
2. The lady who hides in her bathroom.

I Am Not the Center of My Universe.

I was sitting around, wallowing in my own self pity, and minding my own business. The last three days have been rough and I have allowed myself to just sit and marinate in my own whine. I have been sick, the three littlest kids were doing everything they could to make sure I didn't get any rest, and the cupboards were almost empty. Or so we thought. I didn't really feel up to a trip to the grocery store, so I was treated to the lovely complaints from my kids about how we didn't have aaaaaannnyy thing to eat. They didn't like the cereal choices and bean soup for supper wasn't going over very well. And then I read my dear friend's blog.

She would like you to think that she is as dull as dishwater, but don't let her fool you. She is wonderful and vibrant and so generous and makes the best cup of coffee for miles around. She also just wrote about some heartwrenching yet encouraging things . Things that make me feel so petty. I was sobered by what she shared and the photo she posted is stuck in my mind forever. If you want to be yanked out of a self centered funk, go see what "T" has been talking about.

Testing, testing, 1 2 3

Raise your hand if my blog crashes on your computer.

I am having problems with my blog and Internet Explorer. They just can't stop bickering and it usually results in all sorts of errors. Interestingly enough, it doesn't happen when I use FireFox. Give me a status check people.

I hate to say it, but the argyle might have to go.......

How many links can I put in one post?

Ahhhh. Monday morning. It's so hard to drag myself out of bed on a Monday, but once I do, I'm ready to attack the week. Funny how that energy fizzles out by, say, Tuesday. Heh.

Nate is back. Let's all breath a collective sigh of relief. *Phew*

He was out of town for five days, helping his parents "Up North". They have a cabin on a beautiful lake in Minnesota and they were getting a whole lot of work done up there. I don't like to tell the internet while he is out of town. I prefer to let you know that he was gone after he is home. You know, axe murderers and everything. But he's back now, and I can sleep in peace again. (I suppose it would help if I quit watching shows about horrible savage polar bears and psycho-pregnant-lady-kidnappers.)

The kids are done with baseball practices and the actual real games begin tonight. We are entering the month of the year where we either eat supper at 4:30 or 8:00. Any great crockpot recipes would be greatly appreciated. That is if I remember to start the crock pot during the day. The next month will be pretty intense, but I just love it. Baseball season is so festive. It's the true essence of summer for us. Go Yellowjackets! Go Cardinals!

I found a new fun little website for kids. Orisinal. The games are so stinking adorable. I'm trying to steer my kids toward games like these instead of games like these. The pretty music and sweet little graphics don't go over as well with an eleven year old boy though.

A couple photos to go with previous posts. Just got them developed.

Remember the worms in the tub?



Here we have Tyler and the thorn that impaled him. I swear, it looked MUCH bigger in real life.




Shannon asked about what kind of a vehicle we drive. Sometime I'll have to tell you all about our twelve passenger van that we call "The Beast". But for now, let me direct you to some photos of the interior, with WAY too many people inside.

Off to refill my coffee mug and "attack" my day. Yeah right.

Friday Flashback-Minivan Style

Just taking this opportunity to remember what it looked like when we fit in a regular type vehicle:

And also, remember this a few weeks ago? I found these close ups in a long lost file on the computer. Who knows what else my hard drive is hiding from me!

Why I've Been Scarce

I have recently jumped on the "Lost" bandwagon. Could I possibly be the only person in the whole wide world who doesn't watch this show? In order to catch up, we* have been renting the first season DVDs and I am totally hooked. I just returned discs two and three and rented four and five. I'm such a loser. And a chicken.

You know how on the show the "unknown monster thing" tears up trees and stuff? It kind of reminds me of a two year old in a patch of lilies of the valley. Know how I know that? Because today my little Jack, who is unrelated to Jack on the show, stood in my lilies of the valley and ripped them right out of the ground, tossing shiny green leaves all over like a savage beast. Not really sure what he was thinking....

I love my flower beds but they are suffering at the hands of my children. Gemma was found gnawing on the chives this morning. Countless plants have been trampled as they tried to emerge through the soil and mulch. Some have been sacrificed for the "greater good" aka, digging for worms. All but three of the little round buds on the peonies have disappeared AGAIN. This is the third year with minimal blooms. I admit it though, they do scream, "Pick me! Pick me!"

I wish I had some lilac bushes, then my life would be complete. I pick them over at my parents' house, bring them home, and then I take hits off of the lilac bong all day. The scent is absolutely intoxicating.



*Nate, Tyler, and I. Yes, we are such responsible parents. He's eleven, he can handle it.

Getting crazy with the camera phone

A couple new things around the Laundry Pile.

You remember our bunny Banjo. He's not dead, in fact he is thriving. Check out his new toy, I mean OUR new toy.



Isn't that great? Banjo now has a little harness. It is intended for small dogs such as Chihuahuas or little mini wiener dogs. Come to find out, it also works for excessively large rabbits. Here he is in action.





I'm thinking that now we can take him on little walks around the neighborhood. Wouldn't that turn heads? A woman strolling down the street with a gaggle of children and a rabbit on a leash. Our neighborhood already thinks that we are a daycare, now we can be an animal shelter too. Banjo is enjoying the new found freedom. He likes to nibble on the grass and dig holes in the yard. Nate may murder him.

Here is something else new. One of the children has been trying out his super powers on our silverware:




Maybe he is using sheer mind power, I don't know. I DO know that it's getting difficult to find a straight utensil to eat my dinner with. Gah.

Friday Flashback- Bubbly Pancakes

You asked about the pancake story and now you get it.

Growing up, our vacations were camping vacations. We had a tent and an Astro Van and we saw the world. Well, we saw a lot of the Midwest and little bit of the Rocky mountains. We took a lot of trips growing up, but this story comes from one of the most memorable.

First of all, I want to give my parents props for taking all six of us camping. Vacations are hard with a grumbling un-grateful teenager. I know. I was one. We would drive all day, set up the tent that evening, sleep, and then pack everything up the next morning and take off again. Sometimes we stayed in one place for a few days, but STILL! Our little family has dabbled in camping but we have not yet tackled the "moving every day" type of travel. My children want to live long enough to come back home. It's stressful enough staying in one place; ask the people camping next to our gargantuan tent. They can hear the yelling. "Caedmon! How many times have we told you to stop jumping on the air mattress?!"

Aaaaanyway. My Dad made a little "camp kitchen" for my mom. It was a little wooden box, maybe a foot and a half by a foot and a half. The front of it folded down and she packed a lot of her camping supplies in the camp kitchen. Inside were aluminum foil, silverware, paper towels, salt and pepper, etc. This particular morning, Dad was making breakfast for us. He was frying up pancakes and had oiled the skillet with some vegetable oil from a little tupperware container in the camp kitchen. He made a big pitcher of orange juice and we all sat down and dug in. It wasn't until after we washed our pancakes down with a few sips of the oj that we all started foaming at the mouth. "Oh Ma! I don't want Old Yeller to die." Come to find out, the "oil" was NOT oil. It was dishsoap. The pancakes tasted fine, but when we took a drink, the bubbles were activated. We all had a good laugh and made sure to supervise Dad's cooking in the future. He has become a legend among chefs.

A Moment of Silence Please

I mourn.

Trivial Tuesday

Just a list of nothing.

1. Today was a bad hair-day. I'm talking "helmet" hair, bleh. I'm hanging on to hope that tomorrow will be better. These things are so unpredictable.
2. I'm pretty sure that if there is pop (or soda for you soda people) in heaven, it's A&W Rootbeer. I had myself a ice cold glass of the nectar of the gods today and it is so doggone smooth. It's like buttah.
3. Sometimes, when Nate and I are sitting side by side at our respective computers, I get really mad and yell at him. "You're hogging all the bandwidth again!" Stupid game. I wish he would just cancel. *grumble*
4. If your husband asks you to hold the ladder while he climbs up to the very tip top to unclog a clogged up rain gutter, you might want an umbrella. I know this because I was standing underneath my husband when the putrid water started spraying and dumping down on me. Good times.
5. A golf ball sized ball can clog a downspout quite nicely.
6. Tyler found another tick. I'm so proud of myself, I pulled it out all by myself. Then I died.

The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

In my last post, I eluded to the fact that the morels are popping up all over the place. We did our fair share of hunting this weekend. The kids had a great time exploring Grandpa and Grandma's woods. Caedmon managed to find a tiny little baby toad in a sea of undergrowth. He has toad radar; it's his super power. We scoured ever square inch of their land, and came home with a delicious bounty. We love to eat them floured with a bit of salt and pepper and fried up in a whole lot of butter. Mmmmm. We came home full and happy. But we did not come home alone.

We were followed. As soon as I saw the first tick on Camryn, my skin started crawling. The ticks love Camryn, she seems to get more than everyone else. She pulls them off herself, because she knows that I am TERRIFIED of them. I can handle spiders and other creepy crawly things, but ticks give me the heebie jeebies. It's not that I'm scared of Lyme's disease, maybe I should be. It's just that ewwww, I don't want some little bug crawling on me. So here's how the terror went down. After being in the woods all evening Saturday, we came home and put the kids to bed. As I was stepping into bed myself, my tick radar kicked in. (It's MY super power) Right there, on the floor beside my bed was a tiny brown bug. *shudder* Of course I freaked out and refused to sleep in my bed. Nate was on the computer in the family room, so I decided to sleep on the futon. I'm laying there, feeling all creepy crawly, but I finally begin to doze off. Suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, a tick drops onto my temple. I was about to barf I was so freaked out. Just ask Nate, I was on the verge of tears.


I searched for this fun little photo to show you all what the blood sucking bringers-of-death look like. Can you even imagine how hard it was for me to look at fifty images of these little terrors? Again, EWWW!

I'm going to bed now. Pray for me.

Friday Flashback and some other stuff too

Busy busy busy. It seems that since spring has sprung, I am spend less time on the computer and more time outside. I guess that's a good thing, especially for my family. We have realized that if Jack is outside, he needs a grown-up following him AT ALL TIMES. The kid is an escape artist if I ever saw one. Here he is, trying to get into the gated kitchen by using the overturned vacuum cleaner as a stepping stool. This year he reeeeally wants to be at the park with the big kids, but the park is at the end of our street. Running down the middle of the street alone just isn't a good idea when you are two. So I am officially his personal body guard, protecting him from himself.



We have done a bit of gardening, not veggies yet but mostly moving flowers around. I keep waiting for one of our trees to start growing money so that I can make a big trip to the nursery and pick up all kinds of plants. Yeah, I don't see that happening anytime soon. We have nice green trees, but it seems that they are of the non-money bearing species. Gardening can be expensive, especially when your husband loves his lawn almost as much as he loves you. So we are buying lots of not-fun type things as well. Weed and Feed, turf builder, blah, blah, blah.

Tyler was impaled last night. That's a great way to start off a paragraph isn't it? Really grabs the attention of the reader. We were doing a bit of mushroom hunting (morels are out in full force people) and he took a running dive under a locust tree. I'm pretty sure it wasn't on purpose, the kid totally tripped. Anyway, when he stood up he realized that his chest hurt a little bit and upon further inspection, we found a small black dot. It was the end of a thorn that was stuck straight into his skin. Nate had his Swiss Army knife and pulled out the tweezers. He managed to do a minor surgery right there in the woods and pulled out a thorn that was between 1/3 and 1/2 inch long. I'm kind of bad at estimating length, sorry. It was nasty though. Tyler was pretty proud of his wound, being the true boy that he is.

Finally, I give you a Friday Flashback. I forgot what a pair Camryn and Caedmon were before Cam had to start Kindergarten. They were almost as mischievous as Caedmon and Jack, but not quite. It seems that Cam wanted to practice her drawing skills and decided that her little brother's naked skin was the perfect canvas. I wish you could see each little person she drew on his back, they were hilarious. He must have just sat there so still while she did her work. It's a good thing she wasn't into pointillism.

The Best Burger King Kid Meal Toys So Far

The kid in me still pulls the toy out of the kid meal before I unwrap my burger. When Spongebob was the prize at the bottom of the bag, I was giddy. Call me juvenile, but this pic cracks me up every time. Feeling down? Just pull out the photo of the army of Spongebobs.