Unexpected things...

Yesterday, I had talked to Michelle about maybe going with the kids to an Ag Fest today. That meant that I had every intention of getting the housework done so that the kids and I could get out and have some fun this afternoon. But when I called Michelle to iron out details, she was a little sickie and her kids didn't want to go. That was a little unexpected. The kids had lunch out in the back yard and then I put Madison down for her nap. She slept for the next 4 hours (I think she's fighting a cold) and that was definitely unexpected. I didn't think any of my neighbors were home, but saw one outside (her husband was trying to help me with my mower two weeks ago and had offered to let me borrow theirs if needed) so I asked about the mower. Her husband was going to be home soon and would get it out for me. Since our mower isn't working, I wasn't sure when I would next get to mow my lawn, so that was unexpected, too. So we didn't go to the Ag Fest, but Madison got a much-needed rest (which probably translates to an awful time putting her to bed tonight, but you can't have everything!), and I was able to get my lawn edged and mowed today while she was asleep! Not a bad day, overall. And my housework is generally done. I do have dishes waiting in the sink because I haven't unloaded the clean ones from running it this morning, and I have laundry waiting to be folded, but that's not so much that I can't handle it. And Steve had to be gone for a camporee last night, but we get him back sometime this evening. Yay! Minimum, his ups and downs consisted of getting to buy a new cot for this camporee but forgetting to take his pillows with him last night. I'm betting he didn't actually get a lot of rest last night! He will definitely be looking forward to getting a little R&R this evening when he gets home :) I see a little mindless television in my future....

Carnival!

Yesterday afternoon was even nicer than the morning so, after getting Kellen from school, we worked out in the front yard for a bit. Well, actually, I pulled weeds in the garden while Kellen and Madison played with Kellen's friend Braden. It was so much better than being cooped up in the house! I now have a large bucket of weeds ready to take down the recycling center, and my garden area looks so much better :)
After that, we did some quick left overs for dinner so that we would be able to get to the school at 6pm for my time slot volunteering with Kellen's classroom booth. Technically, I'm the one who signed up for the the volunteering. Kellen was the one who actually ran it while we were in there. His teacher explained to us what we needed to do and he stepped to immediately start taking tickets and handing out prizes. I really didn't do very much! Our booth was "3 Wheelers" and the object was to take a three-wheeled pull-and-release vehicle and see if you could get it stop inside the taped parameters for 1st and 2nd prize; anywhere else that it stopped got you a 3rd prize. In case you can't see in the picture, the green area in the center is 1st, while the two in red at the outside edges are 2nd.


When our time behind the booth was up, I bought $3.50 in tickets (at 25 cents each) and gave all but two of them to Kellen. He promptly disappeared into the crowd with them. I had thought it would be fun to get some pictures of him playing the games, but that obviously wasn't what he was thinking. Bummer. I did catch up with him twice more before it was time to go home. Once to see him play this game (below) and get one picture, and again when I told him that Michelle had Madison and I was taking Travis around the games. So I started wandering out front with every intention of just waiting for Kellen to finish off his tickets and we'd go home. Then I saw Michelle, obviously upset and frantically seeking her kids. I wished her luck finding them, but then caught sight of them myself and flagged them down. As Michelle was getting ready to go sit at a booth, she commented that she wasn't sure how she was going to get rid of all the tickets her kids bought and take Travis around to stuff while she was sitting at a booth. I wasn't doing anything but hanging with Madison, so I offered to trade with her; she could let Madison sit with her and I'd take Travis to a couple of things. This was when I went back and found Kellen really quick and told him plans had changed; instead of just walking out to the front of school where I would be waiting, he would have to find me somewhere in the carnival since I was going to go do stuff with Travis. Then Travis and I went for some cotton candy (4 tickets) and a ride on the train out in front of the school (another 4 tickets) before Michelle caught up with us. Kellen had seen her with Madison and was walking with her, so we traded back kids and I took mine home for some dessert. Kellen had spent all of his tickets on games, neglecting to notice the cotton candy, snow cones, hot dogs, or train ride that were all outside of the multi-purpose room! Oh, well.

After dessert and a little Goodnight Show on Sprout, we put Kellen in his room with a Ranger Rick magazine while I tucked Madison in and waited for her to go to sleep. Once she was down, Kellen came back out so that we could play a promised round on his new game from Grandma and Papa, from their most recent trip to Disneyland. Kellen, of course, has the best luck and beat me soundly before we'd even made one circuit around the board. Oh, well.

Pic of the Day #86

"Morning Friend"

While Madison and I were playing at the park yesterday morning, we had a little friend who hopped around the perimeter eating his breakfast and watching us.

Park Play

My neighbor a few doors down calls this a "pocket park", and it's just about two blocks from our house. What you see here is the entire park. It's just a little area inside a small hedge with this play equipment in it just waiting for someone to stop on their morning walk and play.
Madison thought that these were pretty fun, although she certainly has no clue that they are really playing pieces for a two-person game. And if Steve saw this picture, he'd promptly tell me that she's studying to be a plumber!
She started walking up this slide, but didn't get all the way to the top.
The curb around the play area was so wide that she had no trouble at all walking the perimeter; good way to practice balance!

The "steering wheel".

This was her favorite slide and she went down it repeatedly. Actually, she would stop first at the steering wheel, spin it for a few moments, say, "We gotta get out of here!" and then she'd go down the slide!

She tried to climb up this one, but she couldn't quite figure it out.
The spiral slide had a small patch of water at the bottom of it that Madison accidentally went through the first time she went down so every time after that she carefully climbed out at this side of the bottom so that she didn't go through it again.
Although the sun felt vaguely warm, it still was a chilly morning, but it was nice to at least have some sunshine and get out of the house for a little bit.

Pic of the Day #85

"Just Desserts"

Okay, so I went a few days without pulling out the camera at all, and we've skipped ahead from Sunday to Thursday. Oh, well. This is Kellen with his chocolate chip pancakes at brunch after his piano performance on Thursday morning. There were a couple of pancakes topped with whipped cream and then a whole bunch of chocolate sauce drizzled over it! He really enjoyed it, although I personally think it was just the sugar rush!

Pic of the Day #84

"A Branch of a Different Color"

This is my next door neighbor's tree. I thought it was kind of cool because the tree is covered in pink blossoms. Except for one branch of white blossoms. I'm not sure if they did this, or if it was done by previous residents at some point (I never talk to these neighbors) but if you look closely at the bottom center of the picture, you can see where the white branch was grafted in. So there is an entire tree of pink blossoms with a single branch of white blossoms growing out from it :)

Pic of the Day #83

"Kicking Back"

This tells you how far behind I am in my Pics of the Day; this picture is from last Saturday at the Earth Day celebrations. I seem to recall I was having a little trouble posting pictures between then and now, but here we go! Madison won't leave the cover of the stroller alone. Ever. As a matter of fact, lots of times she likes to pull it down so that it covers her from the tray up to her head. She called it her house just last night. But last Saturday she was getting a little bored towards the end, because I contained her in the stroller almost the entire day, so she pulled off her socks and shoes and threw them off to the side of the stroller. I had reclined the seat just a little so that (maybe) she'd take a nap - no such luck - so she's kicked back in bare feet while the other kids are checking out the stuff!

The scores are in!

We got a phone call from Kellen's piano teacher yesterday evening and Kellen got a 5! So, according to the National Federation of Music Clubs, that means "An oustanding performance which is consistantly musical, stylistically correct, and accurate. Attention is given to dynamics, phrasing, and musical expression. Memorization is secure with rapid recover from minor slips. Errors do not detract from the particpant's interpretation. A complete performance." We let him talk to both grandparents last night after we found out so that he could tell them. He did such a great job! We are so proud of how far he has come with his music in the last several months, and are looking forward to seeing him continue :)

Musical Mayhem!

Kellen had his piano lessons on Tuesday and was able to bring home full details for the Annual Musical Festival, which we already knew was being held today and tomorrow. I finally read through it all on Wednesday morning, and was rather glad that I did. Apparently, Kellen's piano teacher is a member of various federated music clubs and whenever he performs at one of their events there is an adjuticator (read: judge) who writes down comments on his perfomance, both compliments and things that he can work on a little more. Then he's given a score from 1-5 (1-needs improvement; 2-fair; 3-satisfactory; 4-excellent; 5-superior) and that score is kept on record, accumulating each time he performs at an event so that, when he reaches 15 points, he can receive a gold cup marking his achievement. His teacher is planning on calling us this evening to let us know what his score was today, but he did really well. He made 1 obvious mistake on his second piece (each child plays two songs), but he recovered fairly well and didn't let it rattle him. Playing in front of people takes practice in and of itself! In order to not distract students, and because the event itself is copyrighted or something, we were not permitted any photos or video of him performing today. However, he is going to play the same songs for church on Sunday so I will be sure to get something then :) We were really glad that Steve's parents were able to join us for Kellen's performance today, and we all went out for a brunch afterwards before they returned home, Steve went to work, and I took Kellen to school. Madison, due to her inability to sit still and be quiet, was at a friend's house playing all morning. This really worked out best for Kellen, because that made this event all about him and (let's face it) since Madison's arrival it's been really hard to make that happen for him! She goes everywhere we go, and there are things that he'd like to do that are limited because she can't or won't.
So the Mayhem part was actually yesterday. I picked Kellen up from school and took him to Wal-Mart for a new pair of dress pants and shoes. They were sadly lacking in shoes in Kellen's size that qualified as dress shoes, but we did manage to find a pair of glossy black shoes on clearance for $3. They're a little on the snug side but, even if he only manages to wear them a few times, for that price I figure it was worth it! We also bought a pair of nice khaki slacks for him in a 10 slim; that means the length is perfect and waist had to be drawn in just a tiny bit - thank goodness for the popularity of adjustable waistbands on kids' pants these days! While we were there, we also picked him up a pair of the now ever-popular crocs for summer wear. Once we got home, I had him try on the dress shirts in his closet to see what was really going to fit well and look nice, and threw the resulting combination of clothes through the laundry. Kellen finished his homework, we had some roast beef with rice pilaf and green beans for dinner, and then I cut Kellen's hair so he'd look sharp for his performance. Of course, we couldn't cut Kellen's hair and NOT cut Madison's, so she climbed up there, too. I trimmed her bangs and then went ahead and cut the back so that it's at her jaw and the nape of her neck. She looks so cute with this little cap of hair on her head :) I was cleaning up when Kellen, just having gotten out of the shower, asked me if we weren't supposed to be at scouts. Oh, no! I knew that the piano recital was Thursday morning, and that Thursday morning was the next day, but the thought had not followed that that meant it was Wednesday night and we had scouts! We were already 10 minutes late when he said that, but we gathered things up real quick and headed out the door (into the pouring rain) so that he could go to scouts. I'm really glad we went, though, because the group was working on their Communication belt loop. By the end of the evening, the belt loop was in the bag. We just have to mail the letter that he wrote to a friend of his to have it truly completed. I feel like I've been running since I picked Kellen up from school yesterday, and I finally get a break which will last about another 20 minutes. Then it's time to go pick Kellen up from school. What a day!

Earth Day! (a little late, sorry)

Okay, so I finally got my pictures to load! I know this was a little slow in coming, but this was what we did to celebrate Earth Day this year. This was designed as a Bear Den activity, but Kellen and one other boy, Mickey, were the only ones who went. Quite a shame for those that didn't go, because it was a great day! It started with Michelle driving us there in her van. Although you can't see his face, Kellen is the Bear hat and red sweatshirt in the back left corner of the picture. On the way there, we had lots of fun singing along to the Beatles music such as, "Yellow Submarine". It was a blast :)

There were so many things to do there! I didn't take pictures of absolutely everything, and I'm not going to put up every picture I took, because it would take forever for me to load and you to read :) Using stamps and giant ink pads, the kids all got to make prints on paper of various leaves and insects, which is what Kellen has here.
They also got to make their own paper to bring home with them.
These first activities were held in one building, and there was a mariachi band playing in the entrance while we did all the stuff. It was great to listen to!

In another building were many more booths (like 20 or more) and one of them showed the boys how to tie two new knots as well as how to do a rope trick! We are signing off electives left and right just for attending this function :)
I know you can't see much in the picture, because the kids are right in front of the frog, but the object is to open the frog's jacket, pull out various recyclables, and place them in the correct categories.
This is a re-art table. It uses odds and ends for making new things, and we spent a lot of time at this table. The kids had so much fun making and decorating their stuff.Our last stop was in a green house that had been converted for use as a craft room. There were several large tables set up, each armed with glue and scissors, and an entire table (the one you see behind Madison) that was full of paper, drapery samples, tile samples, pipe cleaners, and many other interesting items that were just waiting to be turned into something new and exciting! Madison thoroughly enjoyed this room, and was quite certain that she was supposed to use an entire bottle of glue on her project. Really. She tried. She removed the lid and dumped out more than half a bottle on an expanse of butcher paper.

Quite a wonderful day! Okay, the weather was fairly lousy, considering that it rained, hailed, and snowed on us any time that we weren't inside the buildings. But the activities were well worth it and we will definitely want to go to this again next year!

Now, just an interesting note here. This video is actually part of our day at the Rock and Gem Show. It is a machine that polishes rocks into perfect spheres. The really interesting part for me was learning that they color or paint the exterior of the rock before putting it in here. That way they will know when they have polished it down sufficiently to have caught all of the low spots on the rock. I thought that was pretty neat :)

Pic of the Day #82

"Thunderegg"

Yep, that's the name of this particularly interesting piece of rock. I learned that there is a vast difference between geodes and thundereggs at the Rock and Gem Show this last weekend. Apparently, geodes have crystal that grows in the hollow of a rock from the perimeter to the center. Tundereggs, however, have a crack or opening somewhere that allows a particular form of silicone to fill them, creating the colors within. Also, geodes can just be 'cracked' open, and thundereggs have to be very carefully cut. Kellen and I each got our numbers called on the raffle and, while he chose the $5 certificate to any booth, I chose this beautiful thunderegg!

What a Weekend!

Okay, I'm having problems loading pictures, so the visuals from our activities Saturday will have to wait. Sorry. I know it has (again) been a little bit since I was one, other than the brief note about the Rock and Gem Show that I put up yesterday. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, Madison was refusing to take naps. That meant that she only slept in the car on the way home from the Earth Day celebrations on Saturday, crashed on the couch at 5pm Sunday (which meant staying up until 10pm that night) and crashed in her car seat when I went to get Kellen from school yesterday. Needless to say, I was a little frazzled by the time I got to yesterday evening.
Monday evenings are a Bible study group that I go to, and I was SO very glad I went last night. Steve had a very late night meeting (not home until 1030pm) so I took both kids with me to the church. I had both of them go to the bathroom, had Maddi in a pull-up just in case, and told them that they weren't to come out of the nursery until I came to get them. Short of broken bones or blood, I didn't want to see them for the next hour and half. There were two other girls there, both older than Kellen, who stayed in the nursery with them. This meant that I got to focus all my attention on the study group and enjoy just a little bit of child-less time. Yay! It really helped put me back on track :)
I mentioned to Robin (our group leader) that I was having problems getting Maddi to sleep and she gave me a couple of things to think about. I usually play Enya (musical artist, for those not familiar) while she goes to sleep, and sit right next to her bed, where she plays with my hair, and this can take anywhere from a half hour to an hour to accomplish. Robin said to nix the music and sitting next to her bed. The music, however calming, keeps their mind running. And we really can't have her permanently attached to my head the rest of her life; let's be realistic here! So I did it last night. 5 minutes. That was it. I removed the music and sat on one of her little chairs by the door reading my scriptures and she was out in 5 minutes. Hooray!
Today, being Tuesday, is our story time at the library. This time, Madison and I walked. Not the stroller. She walked. It's about a mile to our library. I gave her a piggy back for maybe a couple of blocks and across the major street we have to cross, but that was it. It's been kind of a drizzly day, so I took a hat for her in case it actually tried to rain, but it was mostly just chilly. After a walk there, stories, playing with the other kids, and a walk back, we made tomato soup and grilled cheese for lunch and she went straight down for her nap with a repeat of me sitting by the door with my scriptures again. I love it! I know she's going to reach the point where she doesn't need the nap anymore, but I still need her to take it. I HAVE to have that break from her or my nerves are shot by the end of the day. At the library, I mentioned this to my friend Winnie (who does daycare) and she said that most days she plays really loud music while she's making lunch and has the kids dancing all over the living room to wear them out. Then she feeds them and they promptly sack out! I am going to have to keep that in mind :)
All of this avoiding the nap thing is my main reason (excuse?) for not blogging much the last few days. But, with her down now, I have had a chance to regain some of my sanity. Since we were just at the library, I have a couple of books for me so I am going to sit down and read for about the next hour until it's time to go get Kellen from school and take him to piano lessons. Blessed quiet!

Rock and Gem Show!

On Friday afternoon we went to the local fairgrounds to see the Rock and Gem show that was in town. Wow! It was so awesome, I learned so many things I'd never thought about before :) This is only about half of the pictures that I actually took, but they're enough to give the general idea. If you ever have one go through your area, I would highly recommend going, because everyone hosting booths at this one was more than willing to answer all of my silly questions!

So, this display case was of a form of opal; notice the shimmery colors, but it's much darker than what we normally think of as opal.
This was supposed to be a den activity, but Michelle and I ended up being the only ones there until about the last half hour, and that was only one more person. The rest of the group doesn't know what they missed!
Kellen had a great time looking at all of the rocks in the display cases, played a couple of 50 cent games to win rocks, and even won a door prize that got him a $5 purchase at any of the booths. He was quite pleased with his haul :)
This is one of the games that the kids played. The girl is holding a wooden embroidery hoop and has to toss it so that it lands around some of the rocks on the board in front of her; whatever it circles, she gets to keep. Michelle was rather bummed that the hoop leaned on a couple of rocks she wanted, but leaners don't count; it has to circle the rock. Oh, well.
This may not look like that much, but the entire sculpture is assembled out of different kinds of rock put together into this beautiful, delicate piece. Very cool.

I took this picture to show to Steve and to Bob, because the both really like knives and this one is definitely a little unique! I don't recall what kind of rock it was made from, but it sure looked neat.
This is a form of jasper, and I think it was from Africa, but what you see is not a piece made by assembling different stones. This is a slice of the way the rock itself looks. I thought it was pretty amazing, and it was certainly one of my favorite displays!
This was another favorite; the Mexican Crazy Lace. The layers of color and intricate lines are just so beautiful!
We definitely want to put this on our calendar again next year because this was a great experience. Not only did Kellen get to learn all kinds of things about rocks on this scout activity, but I learned a LOT of things myself. Truly a fantastic afternoon!

Pic of the Day #81

"I can dress myself!"Well, sort of. I know it's a little hard to see in the photo, but the dress is actually inside-out and backwards! I was a little busy with something else when she was trying to get it on, so she did it herself, managing to zip up the dress even though it was wrong side out :)

Magical Scouts!

I'm afraid I didn't get nearly enough pictures of our Bears doing their magic show, but it went fairly well. You can check out the Goddess' site for a few more pictures than I got :) Our cubmaster has a lot of fun dressing up as different characters for many of our pack meetings and, in keeping with the magical theme of the month, he is a magician this time :) The parents in the photo were those who helped run our pack's booth at the scout expo this year. Our family didn't go (except Steve) because Kellen had a birthday party that he went to instead.

After all the awards for the pack had been distributed, we got to watch a magic show! It was so much fun to see all the illusions, and wonder how they could possibly have been done :) Kellen absolutely loved it and brought home brochures for the Association of Young Magicians (or something like that...) which does have a local chapter that meets every 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month in town. Hmmmm....

School Stuff

Well, I finally got my behind in gear and got school stuff taken care of (we were kind of waiting for an extra $50 in the budget for the application fee) so I have now managed to renew my FAFSA and turn in my application to the university. I know the payment has cleared the account, so I am just waiting to see if I'm accepted. I don't forsee any problems, but if they decided to not take me I'm back at square one. The other thing that makes me really nervous is the transfer of credits. I literally have two years to finish my degree or I am going to have to transfer schools AGAIN. Not what I want to have happen, for sure! In the meantime, I need to spend my summer practicing my Spanish so that I'm not behind when I start back in the fall!

Good news!

I checked the bank account online this morning and the stop payment worked! Yeah! So that means that I can simply send Mom's money back (in the mail today) and things will proceed as normal. Steve was saying last night that he realized a certain amount of the fault fell on him for having made the second payment so I told him at that point that I don't use the systems of the various places we send bills to. I only use the Bill Pay through our bank; it's straightforward, shows as pending immediately so that I can see everything, I can change the date within reason if necessary, and the bank has all the information instead of scattering all our information between the various creditors (utilities, credit cards, and the like). He will probably think it through a little more next time, I bet :) In the meantime, this crisis was successfully averted, and we are so very glad!

The Day Improves...

Note: I started this one yesterday evening and then had problems uploading the video. I ended up using Google's desktop loader this morning to get a link on there, which is why this post wasn't up sooner. Sorry!

Well, Steve went to the bank and they tried to put a stop payment on the credit card payment. We won't know for certain if it worked until tomorrow. The good news is that, rather than hanging in limbo, we got a small loan from Mom and Dad to carry us over, just in case we have to contest the payment and don't see it back for another 10 days. Thank you!

I went to a friend's house to help out with her daycare kids, today. That really was a very good part of my day. Except for the part where I was in a hurry walking there and took a short-cut across a field that landed me in what appeared to be a bog of some sort. I arrived at her house a little wet and muddy around the ankles... Oh, well. Madison had a blast playing with the other kids, nobody hit anyone else, and there were several games played while we were there. It really was a very good morning. After my friend got back, we took all the kids out in the backyard to play a game (at the kids' request) that involved bean bags and buckets strapped the back of each child playing. It was fantastic! We should've had a game like this when I was growing up! Everyone has a bucket strapped behind them and the object is to see how many bean bags you can get in everyone else's buckets while preventing them from getting any in yours. You can only pick up one bean bag at a time, and you can't remove any from your own bucket once they've landed there. Here's a short clip of the kids playing. Madison is the blonde in the red shirt and green bucket.

We ended up staying for lunch, which made us a little late getting home for Madison's nap, especially walking. But that kind of worked out okay since she fell asleep within about 5 minutes of leaving their house, maintaining that state the rest of the walk home and another 20 minutes or so after that, making it a reasonable nap.

While she was sleeping, I tried to tinker with our lawn mower a bit, checking the oil and putting in the new spark plug that I bought for it. Apparently that didn't help, because it was still chugging instead of running after I did that. Then I sent an email to a guy that runs a DIY site for lawn mower repairs and he emailed me back and essentially said that my lawn mower is probably toast. He went into a great more detail than that, and suggested things to keep in mind if I take it to a mechanic, but the short story is that my lawn mower is probably dead. That's really unfortunate right as spring starts and my grass is growing at an alarming rate!

So now we are making some spaghetti for dinner so that we can get out the door to our pack meeting on time. The Bears Den is doing the skit tonight and, with Magic for the month's theme, we have been practicing a few tricks to do for the pack tonight :)

Pic of the Day #80

"Brilliant Colors"

I know (groan) ANOTHER flower. But I just can't seem to help myself. As each new brilliant piece of evidence pops up, proclaiming that spring (and therefor summer) can't be so very far away, I am drawn to capture them and share their beauty :) These ones happen to also be in my own yard, out front, so I get to see them outside the living room window all day long! Just lovely :)

AAAHHHH!

When the Federal tax return came, Steve immediately made an online payment to completely pay off his credit card. That's good. But more than a day later, when he checked the credit card, the payment hadn't posted or showed pending. So he did it again. Then the first payment posted yesterday and the second one is showing pending on our checking account for today! Together, that's over $4000! Needless to say, our checking account is in the hole, by over $300. It can be fixed, but the bank is currently telling us that it will be reviewed and a decision made on it somewhere in the next 10 days! He is going to go down to the bank today to stand on someone's desk and try to get it fixed sooner, because how are we supposed to pay our bills and take care of stuff for the next 10 days when the bank is showing that we have a negative amount of money?! I could do without days that have this kind of stress.... I keep reminding myself that this, too, shall pass but UGH!
In the meantime, I have to go get my shower and be over at a friend's house to supervise her daycare kids for an hour or so while she takes her son to the orthodontist. Hopefully, Steve will be able to call me later with an update of a positive nature!

Pic of the Day #79

"Old Toys, New Life"When Kellen was between the ages of 2 1/2 and 5 years old, we collected a LOT of Thomas the Tank Engine and Brio train items, because he was REALLY into that. Eventually, he outgrew them, of course, so they were put away in a box in the garage. Steve doesn't get rid of anything unless I make him. So we pulled them out this weekend and they have become Madison's new favorite toy. Especially the mountain, on the right side of the picture, because it makes different noises when things go over the mountain or through the tunnel :) I thought it was funny that Kellen had so much fun helping her build tracks and put trains together, just like he used to do.

Pic of the Day #78

"I want to slide!"

This was my favorite picture from the park, and literally the only other one I took that day :) She's not really smiling, but she loves the slide and will go over and over and over and over....

At the Park

I didn't take a lot of pictures at the park this past weekend, but here are a couple. Madison's two favorite things are this play structure and the swings, so that's where she spent ALL of her time.She also really likes wood chips, and throwing them, which is surprising for a girl who likes to stay really clean...
The only requirement at the park is that she has to leave her shoes on. Given the opportunity, she will go around barefoot and I just don't see the park as being a safe place to do that! The rule is beginning to finally sink in, though. If she takes her shoes off, we go home.

Pic of the Day #77

"Peek-A-Boo!"

I know, I am WAY behind on my pics of the day, so I am going to have play catch-up (it seems like I play that an awful lot, lately) and this one is first. The original owners of the house had either a cat or a small dog because this door sits under a built in desk area in the kitchen, where one of the computers sits. Madison found this last week and kept lifting the flap so that she could kind of look through. I was making dinner and she would call, "Mommy, can you see me?" so I took a picture of her peeking through the plastic pieces that prevent it being used anymore.

Unexcused Absence

I don't have doctor's note or viable reason for being incommunicado all weekend, so I suppose I will have to take it as an unexcused absence. I didn't even sit down in front of the computer Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. Wow.

On Friday, Kellen brought home is report card from school. Good job! His reading, writing, and mathematics are all at 4 or 5, which equates to strong and proficient, respectively. He also had mostly double plus marks, which are areas of strength. The only places that he had less than that are getting his work done quickly (he dawdles too much) and P.E. where they would like him to give a little more effort and participation. As a reward for his good report card, we took him out to a restaurant similar in style to Benihana's, a Japanese steak house. A little spendy, but we were feeling rich since part of our tax return had come that day (hooray for tax returns!) and Kellen has always loved Asian food more than any other, I think.

Saturday was fabulous. We had almost 80 degree weather so I loaded all the branches from last week's yard work into the trunk of my car and took them down the recycling center. I obviously wasn't the only person who had taken advantage of decent weather because people were lined up around the block with trucks and small utility trailers full of branches, grass, and other yard waste. Kellen had been invited to a birthday party for Saturday afternoon so I dropped him off at 1230pm and then took Madison back home for her nap. As soon as I laid her down, I went outside and pulled out the weed-eater so I could edge the lawn. My orange extension cord is too short. I have another one. Somewhere. I tried using a short (10') cord to make up the difference, but it wasn't long enough still, and I broke the grounding post on it in the process. Luckily, a neighbor loaned me their (probably 100') cord and I was able to finish the edging. Yeah! Then I pulled out the lawn mower, but it was running really poorly. With the same neighbor's help we looked at the sparkplug (it had never occurred to me that lawn mowers have those...) and tried a couple of things to get it running, but all it wanted to do was chug and die. Mid-way through that, Madison woke up. So much for getting the lawn done and a shower taken care of while she was asleep. The neighbor offered to let me borrow his mower, but I didn't really feel like I could do that while Maddi was awake. I wrote down the number from the spark plug so that I could go get a new one and maybe we can get our mower running later in the week. Since I really didn't feel like abandoning the glorious sunshine, Maddi and I washed the car instead. Not sure why exactly I bother because while I was running errands yesterday I caught three large splashes of bird crap right out on the hood. Oh, well. The birthday party that Kellen went to involved lunch, cake, and presents at the boy's house and then they all went to an indoor pool for the next couple of hours. At 5pm, they left the pool, stopping for ice cream on the way home, and Kellen got home around 5:30pm. When Steve got home we went to our favorite local Mexican restaurant for dinner (eating out twice in two days! Wow!) but we left early because Kellen was feeling sick. He had apparently had pizza, soda, candy, cotton candy, cake, and ice cream in the course of this party. That makes for an awful lot of junk, which left him feeling an awful lot like junk, of course :)

On Sunday, we drove into town immediately after church for lunch at Subway (eating out again!) and a trip through Cash & Carry. We don't buy a lot of things there, but Steve likes to get the #10 cans of corned beef hash, so that we can separate it out and have it for breakfast. We also grabbed a huge end of roast beef. You know, the ones that you see in the deli counter that they slice up as sandwich meat for you. And the other real reason for the trip was Steve's new favorite Tobasco sauce, Chipotle flavor, in a grande container that will last a couple of months, we hope! Madison had only taken a 20 min nap as we drove into town, so she was wired the rest of the day. I took her out to the park to run some of it off, which allowed Steve to play Flight Sim for a while, and Kellen to play on the internet for a bit. Of course, Kellen had neglected to tell Steve that he was grounded from all electronic entertainment (except the tv itself, because there is no escaping that unless we send him to his room) because he hadn't put away the play station controls last time. Tsk, tsk!

Monday was a normal day, complete with grocery shopping trip for the next 2-wk menu, and Steve had requested Brinner (breakfast for dinner) so that he could have some of the corned beef hash and poached eggs. After dinner, I took Madison with me to the church for my bible study group while Steve and Kellen watched Meet the Robinsons together. The girl who is supposed to watch Madison while we are in the bible study was late, so we had the study group in the nursery, where she could play while we talked. Ugh! I think it probably was okay for everyone else, really, but I get so stressed worrying about whether she's disrupting everyone else's attention on the lesson, I can't focus on the lesson, and I ended the night with a nasty head ache. Part of me wishes I had just left her home with Steve! Oh, well.

I think that's pretty much the weekend. I didn't take many pictures, although I may try to put up what I did take later this evening. I have gone through and read everyone's blogs (I missed so much stuff!) but I didn't comment. I know, bad, but there was so much there I wasn't sure where to even start. So you will all have to know that I did read, and I will just have to start commenting again from this point forward :) I will certainly try not to be gone so long again!

Family Feud Tag!

Family Fued Tag

Copy and paste this to your own post. Rules of the game are that you have to answer the question but you can't repeat anyone else's answer. Make sure you copy and paste the previous answers. At the end of the questions, tag 3 people.

Name something you use in the shower.

1. Washcloth

2. Face Wash

3. Razor

Name something people hate to find on their windshield.

1. Bird poop

2. Ticket

3. Advertisement

Name something a man might buy before a date.

1. Flowers

2. Chocolates

3. Cologne

Name another word for blemish.

1. Pimple

2. Beauty Mark

3. Blight

Name something you'd cook in the microwave.

1. Bottle

2. Quesedilla

3. Frozen veggies

Name a piece of furniture people need help moving.

1. Piano

2. Dresser (mine, anyway)

3. Bookshelves

Name something a dog does that embarrasses its owner.

1. Poops in someone else's yard

2. Pees on a visitor's shoes

3. Sniffing the front of someone's pants

Name a kind of test you cannot study for.

1. Parenthood (only those of you without kids question whether this is a test!)

2. Urinalysis

3. Personality

Name something a boy scout gets a badge for.

1. Archery?

2. Swimming

3. Shooting

Name a phrase with the word "home" in it.

1. Love at home

2. There's no place like Home

3. Home is Where You Hang Your Heart

Name a sport where players lose teeth.

1. Boxing

2. Hockey

3. Football

Name something a teacher can do to ruin a student's day.

1. Give them a pop quiz

2. Fail someone's test

3. Telling the students that the party was cancelled because the class is behind schedule

Name a bird you wouldn't want to eat.

1. Seagull

2. Crow

3. Vulture

Name something that gets folded.

1. Clothes

2. Origami

3. Letters

Name something a person wears even if it has a hole in it.

1. Socks

2. Shirt

3. Jeans

Name something that gets smaller the more you use it.

1. Eraser

2. Chapstick

3. Pad of paper

I tag Stephanie, Esther, and Sarah H.

Tagged!

I was tagged by Michelle W. and the rules are as follows:

1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post.
4. Tag three people.
5. Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

My memoir:

Mistakes
Disorganization
Effort
Introvert
Loving
Curious

And I tag Goddess, Abby, and Sarah F.

No Accidents!

Okay, that may sound kind of funny, but anyone who has done/is doing toilet training with a young child knows exactly what a glorious phrase that is! Granted, I am still reminding her several times during the day. But she tells me that she needs to go every once in a while, and last night she actually told Steve that she needed to go 'poopies' in the toilet (I was out at scouts) and that is the first time she's done that at all! I am periodically (finally) seeing signs that the toilet training is beginning to take root, and I am so excited! Hooray!

Pic of the Day #76

"Worthwhile Discoveries"

In the process of all my yard-work today, I found this plant at the back of the yard. I'm no gardener, really, but it looks like one of those Bleeding Hearts to me. Anyone may feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not at all certain that's what it's actually called! In any case, it sure looks pretty, and I had no idea until today that it was even there. I've lived in this house for 6 months and today was the first time I saw it! If nothing else, that made my hard work in the yard well worth it :)

Feeling Productive!

Madison wanted to go outside earlier today, even though it was overcast and rather cool, so I started working on clearing out the area around the trees by the back fence. Don't be fooled. The yard is fairly long but really shallow; the patio and sliding glass door are only a few feet to the right of this photo :) Anyway, I started pruning more branches back on the trees, pulling all the dead twigs from last season's blooms, and raking out the areas in between that were full of last season's leaves off of the trees. Oh, what would I give for a leaf rake instead of a garden rake right now! Anyway, this is my pile of stuff ready to bag up and the area along the fence that it just came out of. I was so pleased!As I was going, I also removed all of these pieces of wood and plastic strapping stuff. They used to be the supports for the trees when they were younger, but when we moved here most of the wooden supports were laying on the ground behind the trees against the fence. I figure the trees don't need them any more and I am likely to either freecycle or recycle them, depending on what the rental management place says. Who knows, the owners might want to keep them or something...
The two piles of branches here are what I've trimmed off of the trees. The new growth on the branches was making mowing the lawn a rather ridiculous affair, since I had to bend down lower than the handle on the mower to push past them. Now I just need to get them cut in smaller pieces so I can put them in my trunk to take to the recycling center on Saturday. Yard waste drop-off (for those who haven't caught this detail in previous posts) is only on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month, so I need to take advantage of it this weekend or have to wait another two weeks!
Since Madison was napping the latter half of my work time, I didn't wear my iPod; the last thing I need is for her to get up and get into trouble in the house while I'm not in there to see it, so I felt like I needed to leave it off so that I could pay attention if I saw/heard something from inside the house. It worked out okay, though, because this bird sat nearby and sang for me periodically while I was working :) Well, he probably was singing for someone else, but I got to enjoy it just the same!

To The Moms...

A friend emailed this to me yesterday and I just wanted to share it with all the moms out there. As difficult as some days are, it is incredible to realize that God loves us so much that he has equipped us with everything we need to be able handle all the stuff that life throws at us on a daily basis. Even when we feel like it's too much to take, He knew what we would need to be able to get through it.

Why Women Cry

A little boy asked his mother, 'Why are you crying?' 'Because I'm a woman,' she told him.

'I don't understand,' he said. His Mom just hugged him and said, 'And you never will.'

Later the little boy asked his father, 'Why does mother seem to cry for noreason?' 'All women cry for no reason,' was all his dad could say.

The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry.

Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on the phone, he asked, 'God, why do women cry so easily?'

God said,

'When I made the woman she had to be special.

I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet gentle enough to give comfort.

I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children.

I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining.

I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly.

I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart.

I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly.

And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed.'

'You see my son,' said God, 'the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart - the place where love resides.'

Pic of the Day #75

"Another Artist?"

Kellen really enjoys his art work, and always has. It's something he has most definitely gotten from me, because there isn't much of that on his side of the family. So while I was making dinner, Madison started pulling clean dishes out of the dishwasher. In case you can't tell, that's not actually a mini-muffin pan and spatula; she's really holding a palette and paint brush, making works of art on the refrigerator!

Together

It was rather nice to see Kellen and Madison sitting together and, when she saw I was taking a picture, Madison told me that they were reading the library books. She was choosing to 'read' stories that I had just read to her this afternoon, so that she could turn the pages and tell the story as she went, which is almost as good as being able to actually read it. The moment of sibling companionship only lasted a couple of minutes after I took the picture, but it was great while it lasted :)

Pic of the Day #74

"Waiting for Breakfast"This started with just Steve leaning on the edge of couch yesterday morning while I finished getting breakfast ready (they had already set the table and put out beverages; just waiting on the food itself) but then Madison climbed up on the couch and sat next to him. Then Kellen ran over to be in the picture as soon as he saw me getting the camera out! Only minutes after this we all sat down at the table to enjoy our French toast for breakfast :)