poor thing

Today we went to the local county fair.  And I only managed to take one picture.  Not of my kids, either.  Jon pointed this poor thing out and all I could do was think back to when I stopped nursing Derrick.  I wanted to offer her an Aleve and a warm compress.  Perhaps this is on purpose, but I don't think so, as I'm guessing that part of her "purpose" is to give milk.  Obviously these animals are the responsibility of young ones who have no idea what that feels like.  I get that it is fair week, and it's exciting for all those presenting their "projects", and you can get distracted with everything going on, but good heavens, come and milk your goats!

excuses, excuses

I've had a dry spell, it's true.  But I finished up my last week of summer term AND I've been on vacation.  We journeyed to Utah to participate in the Pioneer Day celebrations.  And we had a great time.  But, unfortunately my blogging took a back seat.  I spent yesterday swimming in a sea of dirty laundry, and my house still looks a little pathetic, so serious posting will have to wait until later.  But for those who noticed, I'm not going anywhere!

kids say the darndest things

I love kids.  Today in Primary a 10 year old girl gave the opening prayer.  Most of it consisted of the common prayer phrases, until she got to the end and said the following.

"We thank you that we could go to Sacrament today and actually enjoy it."

It was all I could do not to laugh right then, especially since as the Primary Chorister I was seated right next to the podium.  Afterward, all the adults shared a quick smile before hurrying the children off to class.  But I have to say that comment made my day.

Now if only Grace and Reid would decide to let me enjoy Sacrament Meeting again...

green thumb

Over the last ten years, we've made a couple of attempts at gardening.  It has been either hit or miss.  Last year we learned about square foot gardening from my mother, who has a good friend with an amazing garden using this method.  We wanted to give it a try, but thought we were doomed to a gardenless existence because of Truman (who destroyed our grill and sprinkler box cord last summer).  After debating how to get around this problem, we decided to build a small fence in the middle of our yard, and put the boxes inside.  This method will definitely be how we garden from here on out!  Our tomatoes, zucchini and pumpkin plants are doing fabulously!  Yesterday Derrick picked our first zucchini and I made some zucchini bread today.  There is just something about watching the plants grow and change, and then using them for something delicious.  We also transplanted the plants that Derrick and Abbie brought home from school for me for Mother's Day.  I am simply amazed at what Abbie's plant has become.  It went from a small (I'm talking Jiffy pot here) thing to this big crazy plant that finally started blooming recently.  All in all, I'm feeling pretty good about our first real garden, except for the stupid birds that keep eating my strawberries!

jinx

So, the fact that I mentioned my record blogging streak the other day sealed my fate.  I should have known.  The same thing happened when Reid was about two months old and I bragged about him sleeping through the night for two weeks in a row.  He promptly put me in my place.  In any case, today my children are on my list and I'm thinking that summer cannot end fast enough.  Grace has adopted this scream that makes me want to stab my ear drums so as not to have to hear it anymore.  And Derrick and Abbie have been behaving like a bunch of animals.  Is it tomorrow yet?

residual effects

This is a contractor's idea of cleaning a mirror.  Unfortunately, I tried to fix this right after he left and there is apparently some sort of film on there now.  I'm still working on getting it off.  As a happy side note, I noticed on his business card that he lives on the same street as one of my friends.  I asked this friend if she knew anything about him, mostly to confirm my feeling that I should not allow him back in my house to repaint the ceiling.  As it turns out, they make their children steer clear of his house because her husband (who is a mental health professional with experience treating meth addictions) is fairly sure that they are cooking meth there.  FABULOUS!

on a roll

I'm fresh out of things to post.  OK, that's not true, I'm just fresh out of energy to make a worthwhile post tonight.  But as of yesterday I have posted for 15 days in a row, and I know if I let the streak die all hope will be lost!  So I'll waste this thought...why is it that The Home Depot requires 12 disabled parking spots, yet my Wal-Mart is apparently trying to skirt by with only 7?  I probably would have never noticed except these spots at The Home Depot are ALWAYS empty.  And before you go getting the wrong idea, I believe in disabled parking, and I believe that people caught abusing it should be ticketed.  I just also believe that they could probably spare a few of those spots for normal parking, as I walk past them carrying a 1 year old and a 3 year old into the store.  Or at least make a few pregnant parking spots.  I believe in those, too, even if I'll never get to use one!

marshmallows

Don't make a mess in my house, or I'll make you clean it up...the hard way.

dear contractor

Dear contractor,

It has only been two days since you were with us, but already my world is different without you here.

I so want my children to develop a strong vocabulary.  How will they manage that feat without you here to teach us all alternate words for "poop" or "a female dog"?  Or that cigarette boxes make great weights for holding down the plastic covering to protect my furniture (which doesn't actually protect my furniture at all)?  Who will I get to show them how to spill texturing mud on my carpet, attempt to clean it up, and then leave me with a chalky discoloration and pretend that you fixed the problem?  How else can I teach them about the difference between white and off-white when you only halfway painted the ceilings in my master bedroom, but not their bedrooms as well?  And I certainly have been going about it all wrong when I've told my children that when you wipe something down, you need to rinse your rag out on a regular basis.  Who knew that the way to do it was wet once and then proceed to smear all that dirt or dust onto everything else?  At least you left me a parting gift of shattered light bulb on the bathroom floor.  And how sweet that you were so worried about how much I would miss you, that you didn't even bother to tell me that it had happened.  If I hadn't been here to hear it happen, I never would have known of your gesture or noticed that you tried to make it all easier on me by moving another light bulb over and leaving the end one without a replacement.

While I miss you so much, I don't know that I could handle the pain I would feel to have you come back here to fix it all and then leave us again.  So I'll just manage on my own, although I do want to let the company that sent you in to my home know of your professionalism. 

Until we don't meet again,

Kim

are you smarter than a one year old?

I am!  After last night I decided that it was finally time to change the door handle on the boy's bedroom from a handle style gold one (which I have despised since we moved in) to a knob style aged bronze one.  One that he can't open, which means that even if he gets out of bed, at least he can't get out of his room.  And it worked, for nap time anyways.  He tried, he failed, and he got back in bed and took a nap.  We'll see how tonight goes, but at the very least I had an excuse to begin the project of slowly changing out the door handles in the house.  One down, nine more to go.  

perfect timing

Jon is in Denver this weekend with Derrick and Abbie to see a Rockies game.  I stayed home with the little ones to get some school work done and enjoy a "relaxing" weekend of smaller messes and early bedtimes.  Except Reid apparently didn't get the memo, picking today to master climbing out of his crib.  No nap.  No early bedtime.  In fact, he is sitting right next to me at this very moment as I swat his hands and feet away from the keyboard.  I hate this particular transition, big enough now to thwart my attempts at keeping him in bed, but too young to be reasoned with.  At least the older ones aren't here to encourage him yet!

anything you can do...

Grace thinks she is a boy.

OK, so she knows that she is a girl, but doesn't quite get that there are certain anatomical differences between the sexes.

Yesterday afternoon I wandered in to my bathroom to find her standing at the toilet, pants around her knees.  I asked if she was going to the bathroom standing up, and she replied that she was.  I told her that only boys can do that, to which she responded that she could do it, too.  And somehow, she did manage to get most of it in to the toilet, although I'm not quite sure how.

Despite having other males around the house, I blame this episode on her cousin, who put on a demonstration the other night during FHE at the park.  We all enjoyed a good laugh, I just didn't expect it to spread to my daughter.  I'll need to keep a close eye on her for a while!

celebration

We had a pretty quiet 4th this year.  The highlight for the kids had to be the breakfast that we went to on Saturday morning, hosted by a family in our ward.  With the holiday falling on a Sunday this year, it was a little more challenging to celebrate in true style.  We did manage some fireworks in the street in front of Grandma and Grandpa's house, then on Sunday night we discovered that we can actually see the town fireworks really well from our driveway.  Who knew?

curly q

Lately I've been getting a lot of questions about where Grace gets her curly hair.  Which is strange to me, because I would think it should be quite obvious.  I've been wearing my hair straight more often because after four babies it just isn't the same as it used to be, but seriously, anyone who has known me for any length of time is guaranteed to have seen me wear my hair curly.  So I decided to ask Grace where she thinks her curly hair came from.

Me:  Gracie, where did you get your curly hair?

Grace:  From combing it.

Me:  No, combing our hair doesn't make it curly.  I mean how come your hair is curly.  Who gave you your curly hair?  Did I give you your curly hair?

Grace:  No.

Me:  Yes I did!  Mommy has curly hair.

Grace:  No you don't.

Me:  Yes I do!

Grace:  No you don't.

Me:  OK.  So when did you get your curly hair?

Grace:  When you were in my belly, I gave you your curly hair, and when I was in your belly you gave me my curly hair!  (she is a little confused about this, and keeps telling me that we were in each others bellies)

Me:  No, when you were in my belly, I gave you your curly hair.  Mommy wasn't in your belly.

Grace:  Yes, you were.

Me:  No, I wasn't.

Grace:  Yes, you were.

Me:  When was I in your belly?

Grace:  Six years ago when we were on vacation with grandma.

Me:  OK.

Sometimes, actually most of the time these days, its just not worth arguing with her.

brazilian lemonade

If you've ever been to Rodizio Grill or Tucanos, then you probably know about Brazilian Lemonade. It requires a little bit of time to put together, but is totally worth it! The recipe and picture are courtesy of Our Best Bites.

independence day

goodbye recipe blog

A long time ago I started a recipe blog, mostly as a convenient way to keep track of the recipes that I like. Unfortunately, that blog suffered more than this here blog, and I've decided that it is time to put it out of its misery. Except I still want a quick way to get to all of my recipes that are "keepers." So I plan to transfer that project to this blog under the label "recipe repeats", in honor of their old home, in separate posts of course, so I can find them later.

pardon the confusion

I don't want to give the wrong impression. You see, when you neglect your blog for a long time, you inevitably forget to mention when certain things change. Like when you home school your children for two months and then decide that liking your oldest daughter again is preferable to keeping them out of public school, at least for the time being. So, while going back to college with 4 small children is definitely a task in itself, I'm most certainly NOT doing it while homeschooling. Although, Emily, I appreciate the belief that I am capable of that! I loved the program that we were in, and will definitely reconsider it a few years down the road, when we hit middle school. But for now, the timing was just not right, and I was willing to admit defeat. Sometimes you get an idea in your head that just doesn't work for your family, and you have to be willing to change. So we did.

it's an idiom, mom!

While driving Abbie to her friend's house yesterday, there was a light drizzle and we had the following conversation.

Abbie: It's raining cats and dogs out here!

Me: Cats and dogs, huh?

Abbie: (sigh) It's an idiom, mom! (complete with sass and eye roll)

Then I laughed as I realized how long it has been since I had elementary English, because truthfully I would have had to look up the definition to be sure I knew what an idiom was. It's a good thing my kids are in school to remind me off all the things I learned once upon a time!

how to convince people that you are incompetent

• Go to pick up your friend's child for a play date.
• Leave the car running while you run up to the door.
• Get back in the car, try to leave, and realize that you are unable to get the car out of PARK.
• Freak out.
• Jiggle the steering wheel. Try again.
• Turn off the car. Try again.
• Panic and call your dad because he can fix anything.
• Talk to your mom because dad is on a conference call, he'll call you back.
• Call husband at work to let him know, ask if he can take a few minutes to bring you the other car so you can get back home in time for your test.
• Go back to the house and let the people know that you really do want to leave, but can't seem to get your car to work. They will come out and give it a try, which should make it work, but doesn't.
• Get back in your car and wait for 10 minutes.
• Dad will call back right as your husband gets there, and while you are telling your dad what is wrong, your husband will get in the car and immediately put it in to DRIVE.
• Feel stupid.
• Tell your dad "thanks" and let him know the husband took care of the problem.
• Say to your husband, "How did you do that?"
• Get back in and try for yourself. No luck.
• Trade places with husband, who gets it to work again and tells you that you aren't pushing the brake down far enough.
• Get back in, push down hard on the brake, and put the car in to DRIVE.
• Feel stupid.
• Tell the husband you are sorry.
• Drive home and wonder how it is that you've been driving this car for three years with no problem.
• Feel stupid.
  

too much!

I've got a test tomorrow morning. And one more chapter left to read. And lecture notes to review. And a house that I like to call "the pit of despair." And a lot of wasted time but not enough time to do it all. Enough said.