THE TICK!

No, we didn't find a tick. We got The Tick vs. Season 1 in, through Netflix. *happy sigh* I love The Tick. And I do love Netflix. The boys are about to love Netflix even more, if that's possible. *grin*

So, before I go hog up one of the beanbags and watch with the boys, I thought I'd leave you with this little tidbit...

James has been making up Books Never Written - he came up with this one today:

How to Make a Pencil, by B. Sharpe (Author of How to Succeed in School)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Project Overview and Fun Winter Days

Zorak took pity on the children after watching them play with the wagon remnants for a few months. They just couldn't accept that it had died. (Is there anything more pathetic than seeing a child stand in the bed of a wagon with no wheels, waiting for a sibling to come pull the wagon?) A few metal straps, some new bolts, and a can of Rust-Oleum later...

...and another generation of children will know the joy of riding Calvinesquely down the hill.

We've also finished the linen cabinet door, Smidge's bed, another coat rack/bookshelf, and some other project I know I'm forgetting. But my camera has cried Uncle! and needs some TLC. Unfortunately, TLC for a digital camera runs almost enough-to-make-you-want-a-new-camera-instead. But not quite, as it turns out, once you start pricing replacement cameras. So. Pictures lately haven't turned out well enough for Project Blogging.

Outdoor shots seem to be least affected. Which is why I bring you Charge of the Light Brigade, recast starring Smidge... (I missed the charge up the hill with his sword drawn - too funny, that one is.)

And, true to our Apathetically Organic label (or, it would be a label, if KathyJo would quit gasping in horror at the thought of being Organic out of sheer laziness and make me one)... *edited to add - we're lazy. She's not. She works hard. We just don't, really.*

ANYway, we've been working on the land a bit, too.

What? That doesn't look like farming to you? It's, um, it's a tension resistance test. Very important for those... I don't know what that is. Maybe it's a Dogwood? I'll tell you in May, when it blooms. OK, actually, we were flying gliders and one got caught in the tree. So James retrieved it. And what's more fun than shaking the tree your brother is in? I don't know. Looks mighty fun from John's perspective, though. (And yes, I know he's barefooted. I figured if he fell from the scrawniest tree on the entire property and actually broke something, shoes would be the least of our concerns.)

Oh! Oh, now I remember the other project. But we didn't finish it. We began it today. We're clearing rubbish from the Scary Room so that we can build a storage pantry back there. That'll free up the actual basement-y area to be completed. Then we'll have a family room. Or a room I can escape to, where I can hide snacks. And books. And perhaps a coffee pot and a mini-fridge...

Busy season!
Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Meet Viggie. He's French.

So the boys are working on their Latin. James is... I don't know what James is doing. He's moved so far past me and my SLACKER STUDY BUDDY (erin...) that he could be writing dirty jokes in Latin and I'd have very little clue.

John is at the dry erase board, conjugating verbs. (It's more fun when you can smear the words with your fingers.) Suddenly, he turns to me and says, "It's 'viggie la MOOSE', Mom."

Uh, no. It's /vig-i-LA-moose/, honey.

He looked at me a bit funny, and repeated his "Viggie la MOOSE" schtick.

Just as I started to worry that perhaps Latin is not going to be his thing, James pointed out, oh so helpfully, "Mom, I think he's trying to emphasize the verb ending, 'mus'. That that's the right one for 'we watch'."

Ahhhh... clever child.

I may be outmanned, and outgunned around here, but I'm going to go down chuckling. And I plan to get the boys plush Viggie 'la moose' toys for their stockings, too. Who wouldn't love a Latin-speaking French Moose?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

So, so true...

Demotivators



Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Wanna Play?

We get to go play! Can you guess who we'll be playing with? I'll give you some hints...

Adorable children.

Cool parents.

WAY more creative than I could ever hope to be.

Probably WAY more interesting than I am, too. (They're so gettin' the short end of this stick - but I'm excited!)

Hmmm... ok, I'm going to finish packing and cleaning while I think up better hints.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

A Sense of Humor

I love it when the kids get a sense of humor. Not that all the kids haven't been funny. They have. We've had years of humor from them. But mostly, when they're little, they're funny in the way that they're also cute when they wear their underwear on their heads, they tell jokes with no punchline, and a variety of other humorous, weird, quirky things that you enjoy because you know (hope) they won't be doing them when they're 30. Then, just as Grouch Marx's version of a knock-knock joke begins to wear on your cheeks, they get other humor.

Last night at supper, we were talking about weird dreams, lucid dreaming, and a slew of other random topics. We asked James if he remembered when he was afraid of the computer in his room. (He was three at the time, and no, he didn't remember it.) He asked us how we handled it. Zorak told him that when he and John were asleep, we went down to the thrift store and bought fifty computers, then set them up all around his bed while he slept.

He cracked up at the sheer absurdity.

Then the boys got another twenty minutes' worth of material thinking of other cool ways to "handle" the situation. They had us in stitches.

And... I really hope they were joking...

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Hearing Voices

Part of the Big Plan includes keeping the Suburban clean. Did you know you can actually fit eight people in there? huh. Who knew?

Anyway, the battery's a bit low, so I went ahead and started it up to charge the battery while I had the doors open to clean and vacuum. I turned on the stereo, and sang along to the CD of the children's Christmas play.

All was going well, and I was beboppin' along, doing my thing. But then, when the songs would end, I thought I heard voices. Children's voices.

I'd look up. No children on the porch. Hmmm.

Go back to vacuuming. Sing a bit.

Then I'd hear those voices again. I could *swear* I heard children talking, but I couldn't see any children anywhere. And between the vacuum and the engine, I couldn't make out what they were saying, either.

So I turned off the vacuum.

And heard, quite clearly, the *rest* of the Christmas play. Performed by children.

It's a good thing I can laugh at myself.

It's also a good thing we're not driving anywhere today!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Just For Fun

Because sometimes, we need that.

When the older boys were wee ones, there were certain things we could not mention in their hearing. This went beyond Christmas gifts and various hallucinogenic holiday characters. A mere mention of the name,"Bob the Builder" would send the boys into fits of excitement, insisting that they must return home right that instant to watch Bob. That was exhausting. So, we took to calling him "Robert the Construction Worker".

This little slight-of-tongue worked so well that we expanded our code to include other things.

"Playgroup" became "frolick collective", "ice cream" might be "frozen bovine excretion" (hah - like they'd ever have figured that one out!) For years, Zorak and I have been able to create our own cryptic dialogue for just about anything, without fear of discovery. Now that the older two are, well, older, they're catching on. And they're pretty good at it.

For instance, Smidge wants to go to Chuck E. Cheese for his birthday. (Granted, I'd much rather let a street vendor in Juarez perform liposuction on my butt than spend the day there, but you know I'll go.) The real question was when we'd go, my main criteria being that Zorak has to go with us, since he's the one who introduced the vile place to the children, to begin with. At supper tonight, I asked Zorak if we should hit the "Italian Rodent's Lair" on Saturday. He processed the request, and replied in the affirmative. That was about the time James burst out laughing. He then said, "Oh, do you mean...

...and he made a wretching motion, a surprized motion, and shouted
"Mozzarella!"

I just about died laughing. It wasn't subtle, but it was good. Our code has been broken, and none of our secrets are safe. But it's worth it to have let him in on the game. This is what allows me to enjoy them well beyond the fuzzy infant, the insane toddler, the funny preschooler ages. We're raising adults, and from the looks of it, we're raising pretty good-natured ones, to boot.

**************************************************************

This is Smidge's Pear. He smelled the blossom. He watched it die back. He squealed and giggled and leapt up and down as the fruit began to form beneath the remains of the flower. This one was his. And he managed to not pick it, not pester it to death, not lose it to deer or siblings or foul winds. All. Season. Long. Sweet, sweet reward. **************************************************************

And this is John's latest find. Looks an awful lot like a chicken head, doesn't it? Complete with one buggy eye, and everything. He was quite proud, and wanted a picture before he ate it. (I have never been so tempted to call the National Enquirer, in my life, but John really didn't want to wait to hear back from them.) He found another one in the same batch that looked, as he put it, "More like a goose than a chicken. A really small goose."

***************************************************************
Yes, this is how we spend our days sometimes. Laughing at inside jokes, taking pictures of weird foodstuffs, and enjoying everything we've put into all of it. Good stuff, indeed.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

He's actually very happy.

I was having some fun editing photos, and I loved how this one turned out. I call it "60's Dad".

Don't let the photos I post fool you. Zorak actually has a beautiful smile, and a wonderful laugh, both of which he shares freely and often with us in life. They are two of the things I love about him. But for some reason he really dislikes it when I come at him with the camera. I suspect he'd rather I trap him in the bathroom, reading Shakespeare excerpts to him through the door all afternoon. He and EmBaby were laughing when I squatted down for this shot. He saw me, and suddenly went all 1800's portraiture on me. *shrug* That's okay. It's still a shot of three of my favorite people. I love the way she looks at him. And I don't know what was up with Jase at the time - doesn't look like he's partial to the stroller. Or perhaps he's developing a sense about when Mom squats down with that black thing over her face...

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Getting in the Picture

Donna posted a wonderful tidbit about getting in the picture *now* - don't put it off until you've lost weight, or done your hair, or whatever reason you give yourself for not wanting to have your picture taken. She's right. She's so very right. I have very few photographs of my own Mother, and perhaps two of her together with me. I wish I had more of them. She was beautiful. Sometimes, however, the problem isn't so much a reluctance to be photographed...

It would seem that some of us are just a bit too, erm, animated to be photographed. And when the photographer isn't really paying attention to the Mommy (who can blame him, when he's got such a plethora of adorable, smaller subjects, really?) the result isn't quite what Mom would like for her Lifelong Memorial.

I submit, in my defense, the most recent string of family pictures which include yours truly...

I particularly love the Ichabod Crane-themed shot. Yeah. These are some of the better ones.

It would seem that my issue is not pride (duh - posting these is evidence enough of that), nor is it lack of opportunity (the horses just kept coming around and around, so Zorak snapped away - he's very good about that). It seems that I am simply way too animated to be photographed. Or, something. I'm not sure which.

Of course, it doesn't help that over the course of a four-day trip, the camera was pointed, while not exactly *at* me, at least in my general direction, exactly twice (on the merry-go-round, and again on the train, as you can see). I usually have the camera, and nobody holds still long enough to use the timer. Those would be some sad, sad shots of me, all alone, standing in front of random backgrounds, talking to invisible people outside the frame. But the facial expressions would be similar, so really, what's the point?

So, if you start with limited opportunities, and add in slightly manic physical behavior, you have children who will wonder, as they peruse the family photos, exactly what affliction their mother suffered for her to be always making those faces. But they will love their father even more for staying with her, in spite of that. So, that's something.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

You don't say...

Doesn't that look like exactly what he's thinking, there? I love that look.

So, I nearly had the police called on me this week. Forgot to tell ya about that. Yeah, I was pumping gas when I noticed this...

And although my UpCloseNatureShots pretty much aren't worth taking, I couldn't resist. This little guy was SO cute. While the pump sucked the last of the checking account from my wallet, I scootched all around this post, snapping shots and trying to hit a Donna-worthy moment. (No luck.) The last picture on the disk shows the nice lady manager approaching me to find out why I was taking pictures at her gas station. Of course, she didn't identify herself, just came up and started in on me. I, being guilty of nothing untoward, and having severe personal space issues, as well as a deep disdain for being approached and questioned in public, I asked her why she wanted to know. THEN she explained that she's the manager of the gas station, and it all clicked. Ohhhh, crazy middle-aged lady snapping photos of... of what? *shrug* Well, I'd made her uncomfortable, regardless. Private property. I'm good with that. Mea culpa.

So when she asked me what I was taking pictures of, I pointed to the moth (which was, thankfully, still there - wouldn't that have been awkward?) and said, "A bug." I think that actually made me more suspect in her eyes, as she didn't even glance at it. She just frowned. (Could have been the frown of 'great, another loon', but it looked like the frown of 'thank heaven for Homeland Security', okay?) But as I lost control of my verbal diarrhea (I'd caught sight of her husband/friend/bodyguard in the background, with his phone open and his thumb hovering over the keypad, his eyes blatantly glued to the two of us - and I realized he was probably waiting for the signal to hit 'send' and bring in the cops...) I waxed on about photography and photoshop and bokah (or is it bekah? buuka? bummah?) the poor woman actually backed. away. from me. as she said good-bye. I panicked. "Wait!" I yelled. I no longer feared the cops. But I realized she thought I was a fruitcake. "Do you want to see the pictures? They're not very good, but they're-" She cut me off and ran for her car. She got in, he closed his phone, and they sat there, tag-team mad-dogging me until I left.

So, I think I'm at least cleared of potential terrorist activity. But I may now be the new Local Nutcase. Yep, me and the guy who talks to his shoes, hangin' at the gas station. We are the local color. (She couldn't have identified herself, first? I mean, really? *sigh*) Oh well, I'm only a little nuts. It's a benign nuts.

Today, we did go to the park. We played in the water. We did the picnic thing. We laughed a lot. And when we loaded up to leave, we found we had company. They've named him Wobbles, and they are *quite* excited to watch him emerge from his shell. (If you look closely, you can see his back had just begun to split, although he was still walking around.) They've been waiting for this ever since Meredith's boys found one last year. He's now on the tea cart (still on the sling) in the dining room. Zorak is pretty sure he'll hatch out while we sleep and we'll have a cicada round-up on our hands come morning. The boys plan to be up early to catch The Emerging.

I'm just trying not to think about it.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

This one looked like fun.

The instructions:
Think back on the last 15 years of your life. What would you tell someone that you haven’t seen or talked to for 15 years? How would you sum up your life? You get 10 bullet points. A list of 10 things to summarize about you. At the end of your list, tag 5 more people and send on the love…

OK, 15 years ago, I was... 20. (Yeah, tricky math. I haven't finished Beta yet.) I was living in Pennsylvania, working as a nanny, waiting for my slot to open in nursing school, in the hope of saving enough money to someday pay for medical school...

Let's pretend this is a phone call.

10 Yeah, yeah, I did get married. We've been together almost 13 years, now. Yes, I know it's a much bigger commitment than signing a lease. Yeah, shocker for all involved. But it's good. We're getting pretty good at it, too. It's mostly him - he's awesome, and he takes my quirks in stride.

9 Kids? Oh, yeah. *awkward pause, because I know how this part's going to go* We have five. *choking noises ensue from the other end of the line* Hello? Are you okay? Yes, I'm serious. No, I'm not medicated. I really like being a mom. Yes, I'm serious.

8 We're in Alabama. Yeah, I know. Who knew? Actually, we really like it. It's a great place to raise a family. But we tell people we live in hillbilly heaven, because we don't want an influx of people who move here because it's "quaint", only to turn around and lobby two years later to have everything paved and taxed.

7 Would you believe we bought a foreclosure and have spent the last three years revamping it? Ourselves! Yes. It's amazing what one can accomplish when one can't afford to pay someone else to do it. But now, we just wouldn't trust too many others to do these things for us. We've learned a lot.

6 No, I didn't make it to Bastyr. I did transfer to NMSU for pre-med, but then Zorak and I knew we wanted to have children (obviously, heh) and I knew even then that I just don't multitask well. So, it was med school or a family. The family keeps me plenty busy, and we don't have nearly the debt.

5 I stay home with the kids.

4 Well, actually, no. They don't "go" to school. We're homeschooling them... Yeah, all of them. The older three, anyway, in 5th, 3rd, and Kindergarten. The two small ones mostly serve as sensory overload training for the older ones... Yeah, we've always done it. It's no different for us than the way you do things is for you, really.

3 Yes! I do still have that truck. We need to bring it out here and get it running again, but it got us through Zorak's years at Riddle. I love that thing. But I sold Harold (the Buick we'd fixed up in PA) shortly after I left PA. Made a grand on it, too.

2 Haven't been backpacking since I left PA. I really miss that, but between always being pregnant and/or nursing, and the fact that Zorak would rather sit, nekkid, through back-to-back church services than go backpacking, it gets put on the back burner. I figure at least one of the kids will be willing to go with me one day. Or be willing to push my wheelchair on the bike trail and pretend we're backpacking.

1 *pfft* No. I don't run anymore. I didn't run, then, either, to be honest. It just took me the same amount of time to walk one quarter the distance that you ran. Why do you think I always ran east when you ran west? Der. *laughing deeply and happily* No, I don't feel the least bit guilty about it. The cold IC Light at the pub afterword was just as cold and refreshing when I could breathe as it would've been if I'd collapsed a lung. Probably better. Life's too short to hurt myself on purpose, you know. And it's too good to rush through it.

Well, there ya go! 15 years in a nutshell. I don't normally tag people, but I really want to, so...

Staci, because she "gets" it
Melissa, because her stories inevitably make me laugh
Dawn, because I'll bet she knows things don't always turn out like we thought they would (it's usually better!)
Emily, because sometimes the post-partum brain needs something easy to blog about
Jenni, because I love her Wayback Machine anecdotes!

And if you want to join in, please do!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Too funny!

When we left the house yesterday, it was spotless. Lovely. Well, could'a used a mopping, but the rest was looking mighty fine, indeed.

Today, I can't find an angle (I don't mean a room, or a wall, either - I mean one clear space as the semi-background for a close-up shot - any clear space would do - an ang-le) without showing all the papery gore that coats this house right now.

So, I walked the boys through it, gently, clearly, and asked that they remedy the infestation, plague, malaise, or whatever it is that has affected our living quarters.

John took on the coffee table, and he hadn't been at it three minutes before he came up to me, holding up something that looked kind of gross (it was way too close to my face for identification - turned out to be a lollipop stick) and said, "It looks like the eagles had a liver pop."

It took me a second to grasp his meaning, but the twinkle in his eye gave it away. I'll be chuckling over that for a while.

You know, I'm glad he gets it, and I'm even more glad that he shares it.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Laughing Until I Cry

I need a thorougly entertaining hobby. I don't mean that our current hobbies aren't entertaining, but they don't generally make me laugh until I cry. Jen, at Cake Wrecks, has the best one out there, though.

You must start with this cake (just thinking about it makes me start choking on my coffee again), but then go back through all of her entries. I'd say it's rated PG-13, at least, so you may not want to invite the kids in straight away to show them the cake wrecks. This is more of a they're-all-in-bed-and-I-need-a-cold-Mike's-and-an-irreverent-laugh blog. Take your time. Read her commentary. Giggle until the apples of your cheeks hurt.

I wish I could remember where I found the link, because I owe somebody some serious thanks. So, whoever you are in my sidebar who linked this, I apologize for not remembering. It's 2:20AM now, and I found the link shortly before midnight... it seems my attention span is shorter than I remember. (The irony in that is painful.)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Let the Games Begin!

"Family Game Night" That sounds so idyllic, doesn't it? Conjures images of contented adults gathered around a table, gleeful children perched upon their parents' laps. Maybe there's hot cocoa, or a plate of cookies. Perry Como croons in the background...

Some things, (right up there with read-alouds and "quiet time") don't work out quite that way, though. The whole Family Game Night thing has gone a little differently for us...

It started off when we had the lack of foresight to have our children more than 9.5 months apart. This pretty much ensures that they will not be able to play the same standard games, simultaneously. Ever.

And on the odd, totally freak opportunity that their skills come within a level of magnitude that might allow something like CandyLand or Chutes and Ladders to be a possibility for play, it'll then be a sure bet that their tastes will vary so wildly we'll never manage to get a consensus on which game to play. Ever. (Which doesn't really hurt our feelings, as we're not big board game players, Zorak and I.)

Cards? Did someone mention cards? Kill us now. Zorak and I are not card players. We both come from families of card players. They can do that for hours, speaking their foreign language of tricks and passes and liquor and internal organs*. We don't get it. Didn't get the gene. Don't have it in us to cultivate the desire. The boys got it. They got it, bad. So, in order not to be completely awful parents, we've taught the boys one card game: solitaire. (But hey, we have enough decks of cards that they can all play at the same time! That counts, doesn't it?) Random family members who felt the need to "share" the joy of other card games, games that require we play, too, have been written out of the will. (Such that it is, I know, not a big slap on the wrist. But it could be, okay? It could be.)

Still, the Rockwell-esque imagery of Family Game Night haunts us. We get caught up in the oily, painted goodness of Americana, rapidly forgetting that somebody ate the cheese pieces to Mousetrap, that Scrabble's no fun if you can't spell or read yet, that Jenga *will* drive the eldest insane and the smallest to tears, and that at some point, someone's gonna take it personally. When the call gets too strong to ignore, much like it does with my twice-annual attempt to keep my toenails painted, and Zorak's occasional wild foray into follicular maintenance (he grows a beard once every couple of years), we fire up the jukebox, break out the cookie plate, and try for game night.

It's not all lost, really. Some of our experiments have been a bit self-defeating. Some have left scars that the boys will have to dip into their college/therapy accounts to deal with. But not too deeply. In all, I think, we've found some workable, enjoyable things. Mostly, what we've realized over the years is that the block is the build-up, the planning, the need to make Family Game Night something that might need to be capitalized. Sometimes, it's just the fun of doing it together.

So while we don't have official game nights, we do, on occasion, get a wild hair and decide to go for it after supper. It's not always neat and tidy. It's not really even a big deal, as deals go. But the kids love it. We love seeing them love it. I think, second only to spur-of-the-moment desserts, a quick game after supper is one of the best bang-for-the-buck family activities we can offer. It really is a nice way to end the day, and we never regret doing it.

Some of the games we've found particularly adaptable to various ages and temperaments:

Charades - we really like to play charades with the boys. Actually, we like to sit there and laugh until the tears soak our shirts while the boys try to figure out the answer. As the boys get older, they've begun to catch on that repeating the same exact motion none of us could identify the first time, varying only your facial expression as your frustration over our idiocy mounts, isn't really going to work. That has both improved the game for everyone, and cut back on the inner dialogue Zorak and I keep going in our heads - the one that makes us laugh until we cry. Probably a good thing, all around.

Pictionary - or, for us cheap folks, pictures-drawn-on-a-dry-erase-board and random-made-up-words (we do have the game, with the box and the little pencils and all, but the dry erase is so stinkin' handy for this). This one isn't so much fun for the literalist in the family, but the rest of the brood has a really good sense of humor about it all. We can usually play this one for an hour before anybody overloads.

Mumbly Peg - because you know it just can't be all Victorian, all the time, right?

(I'm KIDDING! But that is an interesting link. I had no idea there was so much to the game. And I'm not telling the boys, either.)

Boggle - yes, Boggle. You'd think, since Scrabble can be such a joy-sucking excursion with two kids who can't spell and one who is just now getting the hang of it, that Boggle would be on the Nix-it List, but no. The kids love it. We play House Rules, and everybody joins in. Adults can't use words of less than four letters. Kids can use any words they can find. We cut some slack on spelling for new readers, but not much, and they get up to speed pretty quickly.

Smidge loves to play along with us. He mostly copies letters from the box and presents his paper to Zorak at the end of each round for a point tally. Zorak gets into doing this, and gives Smidge enthusiastic feedback and various points for his efforts. 9/16 of a point, or 3/8 of a point. Smidge made a most impressive string of letters tonight, for which he was rewarded with a score of "one point three repitend". Oh, the giddy, giddy joy of getting such a score!

EmBaby loves to shake the box, turn the timer (sometimes she runs off with the timer, but we're usually thankful for the extra few minutes to find more words, so nobody complains terribly), and help me write. It's important to keep spare pencils on hand if you're going to play with Em, because nobody feels bad for you when you try to claim that you got spanked on that round for lack of a writing utensil.

We don't have to do it like everybody else does. We've just got to get in there and find a way that works for us. Then do it. And enjoy it. (Life, not necessarily games. But it could be games, too.) Sometimes, it really is that simple. I cling to that knowledge.

And in the meantime, the boys are counting down the days until somebody will come play cards with them. Anybody? Any takers?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

*gin and hearts

Things that make us smile.

I think this summer we will finally put some photographs on the walls. However, I've rummaged through the ones we have framed and stored, and you know, I just don't think many of the old Sears or Olan Mills or Target photos are going to make the cut. Aside from the fact that we've had a few children since the last one was taken, there's also that they aren't "us". They barely look like us, other than my trademark fang-bearing snarl. (Always a indicative that I've tried to hold a smile for any length of time. Lovely legacy, that. *snort*)

But also, I think we take more fun photographs. Lighthearted, reflective, intuitive. Nobody we can afford can capture Our Home the way we can. Now, don't go thinking I'm getting all uppity about my mad photography skills. 90% of what I take is crap. But there are some differences that lead me, in my more sleep-deprived moments, to believe we could create some lovely artwork for the walls with the genetic experiments we have on hand (namely that I'm not limited by a time slot, and I'm free to capture things the way they are everyday, which they most definitely are not when we're in a studio.)

So, I've decided to get a little out-there and round up some of our favorite shots, mix 'em up in black and white (the ultimate skin tone modifier!) and have some fun with it. Enough of this standard, utilitarian, pre-packaged decor.

We need framed 5x7's like this one, don't you think? (Well, perhaps not this one - it's grainy - I cannot, for the life of me, figure out the right settings for indoor shots with this camera. But you get the idea.)

So, that's my Fun Project for the summer. Perhaps it'll keep me so busy I won't be whining about the hot 'n sticky aspect of it? Maybe. Probably not. But fortunately, I can multitask!

Want to share your favorite photographs? I'd love to see them!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

And now we are eight...

I wish A.A. Milne had written a book for every year.

John is now eight. He wanted to go bowling, and so, we did. (Smidge looks sad because it's over, but don't let the expression fool you; they all had a fantastic time.) The boys wore their Official Party Gear: wild print, button-up, short-sleeved shirts.

Also affectionately known around our house as "BBQ Shirts", due to the fact that they're worn to any gathering at which there is food. (The prints hide stains beautifully, by the way.)

For his birthday gift, he wanted one thing, and one thing, only:

A Daisy Red Ryder, lever action BB gun.

(Two things. He also wanted BBs.)

He swore he wouldn't shoot his eye out.

This is our little Jeremiah Johnson, our little Lucas McCain. He had the manual out and read, cover-to-cover, before I could get the waffles made. We knew the wait between getting his present in the morning and waiting for Dad to get off work to shoot it would make the day miserably long, so we took it with us into town and after bowling and lunch, we hit the range. As you can see, here, even a low-flying military helicopter (which had Smidge entranced) couldn't distract him from the task at hand. Not even for a second.

Since Friday evening, he's been down by the balcony, working his own homemade range. Almost 2000 BBs have winged their way into the target. Zorak just told me John got a blister on his hand from working the lever. This is one contented, happy little marksman. And he's growing up into a fine young man, indeed.

Happiest of Birthdays, Sweet John! We love you, and are so proud of you.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

A Beautiful Blanket - and a Thank You!!

When LB came to visit, she brought a gift that she'd been teasing me with for a while. It is gorgeous. It's a joint project, done by two beautifully talented ladies: LB made the squares and the prairie points; Amy put the back and the trim on and then hand-stitched the whole thing.

Is that not just a gorgeous, gorgeous blanket? It's hard for me to use it. I want to hang it in the foyer. But LB said I had to actually use it or she'd take it back home. She said if I'd use it, and wash it, it would get softer. Being a bit tactile, anyway, that was all it took to talk me into it. We love this blanket. Normally, there's a Smidge on one side of JT and an EmBaby on the other, but I had to chase them off for this picture so that you could actually *see* the blanket, itself. :-)

Another belated, but very heartfelt THANK YOU!!!

Kiss those babies!

~Dy

Yet more visit photos

Getting tired of them yet? I hope not, because we're having fun taking them!

LB taught the boys how to make Fresh Rolls earlier this week. They caught on fast and had no trouble taking over the kitchen. Allow me to say, here, that as much as I believe in keeping kids in the kitchen, and as wonderful as I think it is for the children to cook with their parents... I've discovered that it's a whole lot less stressful to stand in another room while someone else cooks with your children. If you can lure someone to your home to do this, go for it! Wow.

Yesterday, we went to the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge. We were there for two and a half hours, and that was not nearly long enough to see all that we wanted to see. I think we'd have made more forward motion if they didn't have these wonderful, plush chairs in the Visitor's Center lobby. It's not the chairs so much as it is that the chairs are set in front of a glass wall that overlooks a little garden with bird feeders. You could put quite a dent in your life list while sitting there! However, the bulk of my bird knowlege being contained in the Cardinalis cardinalis, and the neighbors trespassing rooster, I'll have to leave the bird sightings to LB to share. While LB visited with the volunteers at the desk, the kids and I splayed out to watch birds and kill the batteries on the world's coolest bird song book.

We did, however, go properly prepared. We first stopped at our little fruit stand on Hwy 67. I love this place. They're nice to the kids, they have great fruit, plus good local honey and other snacks. Not to mention, they are always nice to the kids. Those three little traits turned us into loyal and regular customers, and we buy a large portion of our produce there during the year. They have a fantastic nursery section, too, so of course we had to play in there for a bit. I have no clue what this gorgeous plant is, but we must get some for the house.They vibrate! Or, at least the ones there do. I reached down to feel the leaves (they beg to be touched, don't they?) and it was vibrating. So I tried a few other leaves. All of them, quivvering like mad. After I checked to see if there as some freakishly large spider or insect in there shaking the stems (there wasn't), I asked LB to touch it. Now, she'll tell you I didn't warn her. But I did. I said, "Hey, this plant is vibrating." Or something like that. In the leaping and giggling and further plant-fondling that followed, I forgot what I'd said, exactly. But I swear to you, I warned her! I wish we'd anticipated that EmBaby was going to grab the leaves on it, because the look she shot us was priceless. LB and I laughed so hard over that. She touched every leaf on those plants after the initial shock wore off.

One of my staples for any outing that will involve walking is the wagon.

This poor wagon has seen better days, it's true. But as long as the bottom continues to hold out, there's nothing wrong with this wagon that a folded sheet and a little WD-40 won't take care of. It will easily hold a cooler, drinks, snacks, diaper bag, and a worn out toddler or two. And when we aren't using it as a trail limo, it can go back to hauling straw, dirt, and children down the driveway. (Ask LB about that, too. She'd heard about it, but that's just not the same as catching a harrowing glimpse of it, first hand.)

Our pace has been slow and leisurely. Thursday turned out to be a shockingly laid-back day. No practice FOR ANYONE. No Scouts. I hardly knew what to do with all the pre-emptive angst and panic I'd built up. So, we hit the buffet and then came home to lounge about and think of reasons for LB not to pack. (We came up with plenty, but unfortunately, they'd have all left her pretty much nekkid in the airport. While that might make getting through the security line a bit easier, it wouldn't do anything to extend the visit, so we gave up and got her packed.) Tomorrow, she'll be back in the loving arms of her family, who so graciously held the fort for her while she came to visit. We'll miss her (and Smidge is not entirely convinced that her family needs her more than he does!), but it's been a lovely visit, a wonderful visit, and I'm so grateful for the time to get to know our Needleroozer better. She's left us with warm memories, new woodless pencils (who knew such a thing existed?!) and anticipation of another visit with her one day.

Kiss those babies (and hug those precious friends!)
~Dy

Wordless Wednesday - foliage edition!

Kiss those babies!

~Dy