Happy Tuesday!

No special reason. It just sounds like fun.

Today is the Day of the Paperwork. It's official, and it is as scary as it sounds. I've got to call all our doctors and ask them to print out a list of our visits and payments over 2008 so I can pick them up while I'm in town later this week, find two missing birth certificates, go pay the water bill, get two of five registered for baseball (thank God it's only two!), and then try to have supper ready in time for me to slip out for a church meeting tonight.

I don't really think I can do it, either. But look, it's "Happy Tuesday". Year of Joy. Good thoughts. It's not the end result that matters, it's the effort you put forth. Or something like that. Haven't worked out all the details of the pep talk yet, but that's okay. Mere details. Nothing more.

Sometime in the next month or so, I'm also going to have to carve out time and cash to buy new materials for school. Dang. That went quickly. We are finally ready for Story of the World Vol. III. (THREE!) I'm so excited to find out what happens next. *grin* The boys are ready for new math books. And we are all ready for some new literature. It's been a good school year. Time to start anew and move forward, though. Very exciting.

Well, I've got fresh coffee, the kitchen's clean and the dishwasher is running. The kids won't starve. Fire's hot. Looks like I can't put it off any longer. So, I'm going into the filing cabinet. If I'm not back by Friday, send snacks.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Sunday Somethings

Does anybody know why there is a little pink tricycle in my hallway? Two possibilities come to mind:

A) It's too cold to use it outside, but too much fun to leave it alone out there.
B) It's a Burmese Toddler Trap

I'm thinking B. Or a combination of the two.

Or maybe it was a mermaid trap? Nah, they don't live in hallways. Everybody knows that.

**********

I want to go back!

Today we nearly didn't make it to church. I hung in there through the oversleeping, and the children who evidently decided underwear weren't a necessity when laying out their clothes last night (but suddenly decided they were a must-have item that they were OUT OF this morning). I didn't lose it when breakfast kept going and going, long after that pink bunny's batteries up 'n died. But when church had already begun and only half of us were loaded into the car, and I turned around to find Smidge wearing sweats, still barefoot, I lost all will to fight.

Zorak asked me what I wanted to do, and I told him I wanted to stay home and yell at people. (Well, he asked.) He offered to take everybody to Lowe's and let me have some quiet time to do... whatever. It's a good indicator of my mental state that I didn't pounce on that, but instead said (half jokingly) that that wouldn't work because it didn't leave me anybody to yell at.

So, we went to church. Better late than never. And certainly better than yelling at people for no good reason. I've gotta say, the service sure does fly when you're only there for the last fifteen minutes of it.

**********

Then we all went to Lowe's. Not necessarily as much fun as napping on the beach, but definitely a bit more productive.

We came home and I washed every stitch of clothing we own. I swear, if anybody runs out of anything tomorrow morning, I'm giving up and declaring us a nudist colony.

The guys ran wiring and installed a new light fixture in the Scary Room. It's not so scary with warm, UV-showering light in there. That's how you eat an elephant - one bite at a time. We'll have this baby dished up with a stucco side dish in no time at all!

**********

And then I edited pictures. Which has nothing to do with this post, but there you go. Tell you what, to tie it in, I'll throw random vacation shots in throughout the post. That should tie it all together nicely.

(Much better.)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Where We've Been

What? It's been an entire week since I've written? This is why we need to buy a laptop. (Jess mentioned Craigslist, and I think I'm going to check that out. It'd be easier to skimp on the grocery and gas money to buy one than to hide from the doctors because of it.) Anyway, that's sort of beside the point.

What's the point? The point is that, while nearly everyone we know was iced in, or wet, or cold, or just waiting for spring... we weren't. We were at the beach!

Well, no, I take that back. We were kind of cold. The kids were, anyway. But that's because my children have no sense at all (not to mention no body fat to speak of), and got IN the water. What is wrong with these people? 70 degrees on the beach may seem quite warm and frolicky, but on the beach covered in sea water, it's not so much... And just when I start to think they may one day be able to live on their own (Oh, they packed their own bags! They remembered to fill their water bottles AND get the bottles into the car! They amused themselves on the trip down! They can do it!)... they go and get wet. Then stand there, trembling and turning blue, and tell me they aren't ready to go inside yet.

*blink*

I'm thinking it's a good thing we have a few years yet before we must unleash them on the world.

And we had a wonderful trip. But I will fill you in on it this afternoon. Right now, we must find clothes and wash them so we don't have to go nekkid to church. That could be awkward.

Kiss those babies!

~Dy

Quick Church Update

We went today, all of us. It was really nice. The potluck after the service was small, as one of the families in the church had a birthday party to attend - their Grandma's 97th! What a joyful occasion! Those of us who stayed, however, also had a lovely time.

I found out the pastor's wife is a confirmed curriculum junkie. OK, so that's just a personal bonus. I didn't know they homeschool, too. But to find out that they do, and that she, also has a hard time picking curricula because there are sooooo many good ones. Oh, like a kindred soul.

The boys seemed to get along quite nicely. They told jokes back and forth over lunch, and as soon as they'd finished they all cleared their spots and disappeared out the back door. Of course, you never know if your kids are going to go and do something Truly Weird when they get out of earshot... I try not to think about that. And we did let the pastor know that we are the kind of parents who actually do want to know if our children are making poor choices. Because that's a big part of what parenting is - helping your children learn how to make good choices on a consistent basis. (Fairly consistent, anyway. Sometimes we have more hope than others, to be honest.) So we did that, and then just sat... and enjoyed the company and fellowship... and it was nice.

Even Zorak had a good time. That's a huge relief for me, anyway. That's one thing we've enjoyed at most of the PCA churches we've attended: the men aren't sitting in the background, seemingly there only because their women wanted them to be. They are active, engaged, and present in more than just body. It's so different than the churches I grew up in, and I hope that's a swing in all the churches, cross-culturally, cross-denominationally. Men have a rich and wonderful place in the church, and a church that has men who fill that place is a beautiful place to gather.

I hate to sound too optimistic so soon in the game, but it feels like this church could be a place we would comfortably call "home".

*contented sigh*

And now, I must clean. (I didn't clean before we left this morning! Oops!) The kids are playing outside. Zorak's off hunting. Jase and I are going to... well, I'm not sure how we'll go about it, but we'll find something to do. Just wanted to touch base.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Church!

EmBaby and I went to a new church last Sunday. I thought I told you. But no, I told somebody else. (So I will now be the weird old lady who never tells anybody anything and then shrieks, "But I TOLD you all about that!" You've been warned.)

I liked it. It's small. It's not five-people-and-no-room-for-strangers small, just small. Maybe 15 families. The service wasn't a surprise, doctrinally, but the lack of sparkly accompaniment to the service was a Very Pleasant Surprise.

There is one other homeschooling family. They also have five kids. But they have sheep, which we don't have. Very nice people, all the way around. The Mother does weaving. She wove the scarf she was wearing - silk - gorgeous - dyed it herself w/ bugs. Very funny person (like ha-ha-funny, not oh-that's-odd-funny). Didn't look at me like I have three heads for homeschooling five children. *ahhhhh*

They know, and admire, some of our favorite people and leaders from our Home Church (way up North), so that was a nice immediate middle ground. And when I said I was tempted to go back to high school just so I could take one of Dave Hammond's history classes, at least three other people nodded their heads and laughed. He is awesome. I have missed his lectures. Anyway, I'm getting off course, here...

They have a rocking chair in the sanctuary for rocking babies! IN the sanctuary! OK, that goes above, beyond, and well into the realm of My Wildest Dreams. IN the sanctuary, people? Of course, Zorak can't use it b/c he'll fall asleep. But still. Wow.

The pastor's wife approached me after the service and while we talked, she mentioned that they don't have age-segregated activities, but that they do a lot of family-oriented activity, instead. She also said she didn't want us to feel that they had nothing to offer because of the lack of programs, and if we have any ideas for anything that we think "would fit the community" please say something. (I told her that I'd be a bit of a hypocrite to suggest new programs, knowing full well that my littles are still so little and they need me more than anybody else needs a class. She laughed, and said she gets it.)

Did ya hear that? They get it.

Emily met everyone. in. the. room. Even people I didn't get to meet. When we left, three or four people yelled good-bye to her from across the room. I do not know when she met them. She's hilarious. And obviously, I'm getting a little slack in the parenting arena.

I did have one panicky moment when a gentleman came up and introduced himself. I introduced myself, then Emily. I said she's three, and he said, "...and four." And I froze. Ummm, this man reads my blog? Um... What have I written lately?

Turns out that no, he doesn't read my blog. But he'd already met EmBaby, who was busy telling everyone she is "three and four".

Like I said, it's a good thing I took the shy one. Break 'em in slowly... So we'll all go today. And they're having a potluck community outreach supper. *contented sigh* We're taking a dump cake, because the kids can make that, themselves, and have something to offer that they've made. A little personal contribution when you're building community. Hopefully, this will be the place we'll call Home. I'll let you know how it goes today. (And if I don't mention it, remind me. I may have thought I'd already told you.)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Misc. Things - Stove Questions

Hey, all. I thought I'd blogged the details of the stove. But I think I only emailed KathyJo about it, and I have such a fear of turning into that woman who tells the Same. Three. Stories over and over that if I can actually recall having given info once, I tend to shy away from doing so again. Even if it means I forget to tell people important things, like we're pregnant (we aren't, but I did neglect to tell a few people this last time around), or we've moved (again, not a recent occasion), or, more recently, details about our stove.

So.

Sorry 'bout that.

The stove is the Magnolia 2015 from US Stove Co. But it's only available through dealers, which turns out to be a good thing, in this case, as the listed MSRP on their page would make a grown woman cry. (Ask me how I know.) We bought ours at Tractor Supply, which is like our own personal playground. *happy sigh* Love that store.

So, here's what brought us to this stove (copied and pasted from my emails - and people laugh at me for not clearing out my inbox! Oh, and with grammatical corrections to reflect that this was in the past, 'cuz it wasn't when I wrote the email. That's it. I think):

It was down to that one and two others, that are at Lowe's, (b/c we were really feeling the crunch betwen dental work, home repairs, and the damned food costs) - the ones at Lowe's pretty much heebed us out. This one was worth the additional $50.

Pros, in no particular order - (ok, I went back and made the primary concerns bold)
* Top is 3/8" (Charles says it looks like 5/16" - we're both too lazy/tired to go measure - still too lazy, three months later, in fact) steel plate, as opposed to 1/4" on others. Regardless of the actual measurement, it was obviously thicker.
* Vents out the top, as opposed to out the back, which saves us floor space.
* The vent pipe is toward the back of the stove top, and since this stove is a bit deeper and narrower than other designs, it leaves a nice flat surface for a kettle or a stew pot.
* Rear clearance is 7" - if you put the "fire board" thingies against the wall, you could pretty much just snug it up to the wall.
* It has a cool swoosh thing on the top, which seems to us like it would help trap smoke up top there and allow less to escape into the house when you open the door. (That one is total out-of-our-butts speculation on our part.)
* Log length is 19-1/2" - if you end up buying pre-cut wood, the standard is 18" - nothing sucks more than having to shave half an inch off every single log before you can use it. If, like us, you will end up using salvage woods and scrap, it's nice to know that longer pieces can be put in to bank the fire for the night.
* You can put the logs in lengthwise (perpendicular to the door), reducing the likelihood that one will roll out onto your poor son's foot the first time you finally agree to let him add another log to the fire.
* The legs are cast, Queen Anne style legs, not bent, flat sheet metal. They had another one (the Frontiersman, or something like that) that looked okay - for a DIY project. We could have cut the parts for that, ourselves, with a torch. I like these legs better.
* It doesn't have that chintzy fake silver trim crap that you just know is going to look like shit by the end of the first winter.
* (And this one probably only applies to me, but I'm really slow about this.) The flue control is easy to remember - pull it out to open, push it in to close. Yay.
* The door is cast iron, with an arched top profile - which gives it a bit more architectural interest, compared to the pre-fab rectangle style door. Purely visual thing, but it made a difference to us.
* It comes standard with a blower - that's about $135 extra at Lowe's, so that, alone puts this one way ahead of the pack on overall price-per-feature. (We haven't tried it, but will let you know how it works, and whether it sounds like an El Camino barreling down the hall.)
* And hey, it's Trailer House Approved! (And not just because it can take the random "someone was running around the trailer with a loaded shotgun" shot. We suspect it's also a ventilation issue.)

Cons -
* Not tickled w/ the ash pan, but I wasn't tickled w/ any of the ash pans. (We have yet to actually use the ash pan - just scoop it out and into a bucket.)
* Firebricks are thinner than on the behemoth we had before - this may actually be due to an improved design, I don't know. But none of the literature we found indicated some huge industry-wide breakthrough in firebricks... so *shrug* Dunno. Going to buy a box of spares, though, and just stick it in the yucky room w/ a note.
* We reserve the right to add more as we use it, though.

Honestly, if space constraints were not an issue, we'd probably go w/ a more efficient (and less previously abused) version of the behemoth one we used our first winter here. They are space-eaters, to put it mildly, but it's really nice not to have to worry about one of the kids getting burned b/c they have a heat shield all the way around. As it is, though, space is a serious issue here, so that nixed it for us. (Edited to add: we have no buyer's remorse on this one. Quite happy with it. It does get hot to the touch, which the other one mentioned in this paragraph doesn't, but that's not as big an issue as we feared.)

Don't be sucked in by the absolutely ADORABLE "boxwood" stoves, which sell for anywhere from $125-$300. Gah, they are cute, but they are inefficient as all hell, and you'll spend the vast majority of your day feeding the little turd. Not worth it, imho.

Ha!

It is 17 degrees outside right now.

It is 74 degrees in the house.

We still have not turned on the HVAC this winter.

Just in case you were wondering how the stove is working out.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

And We Wonder Why They Get Confused

I'll set the stage:

James and John are at the table, completing their writing work for the day.

I'm working in the kitchen.

Smidge and Emily are riding a tricycle/chasing one another around the house.

Jase is eating something nobody can remember giving him, and providing general background noise.
*************************************************************

Em asks Smidge to wait. He ignores her. She tells him to wait. He goes a few more feet before stopping, but still doesn't acknowledge her with his words. She shrieks. He hollers.

I take a deep breath and remind everybody that this nonsense of ignoring one another simply has. to. stop. Like yesterday. Thank you.

Smidge, Em and Jase return to their regularly scheduled noise making.

James asks if he can write now.

What? Of course you can.

Well, it's just hard to concentrate with you talking to the littles every few minutes.

(And you see this coming, don't you?)

Well, honey, you're just going to have to learn to ignore me.

Thankfully, he cracked up and got back to writing. It could have gone horribly awry.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Sandwiched Between the Days

Well, folks, as we are motivated by urgency, I can finally say we have re-insulated the water line where it crosses the creek. This sounds great, doesn't it? Except for that bit about urgency. Yeah.

Thursday night, the low was 8 degrees. The first thing I heard that morning (around six) was Zorak announcing from the bathroom, "Bad news, sports fans." Ugh. I guessed (correctly) that didn't mean we were out of coffee. Turns out, eight degrees is cold enough that even leaving two faucets going doesn't help. Gah.

Since the weather wasn't looking to go above freezing anytime in the next two days (it had warmed up to a sultry nine degrees by seven-thirty), he stayed home that morning, we relegated the children to the wolves that raise all children-who-live-in-renovations, and we went about fixing the pipe.

We couldn't use flame to thaw the pipe because it's PVC. So we took the stockpot down to the creek and filled it with water. (Yay for the creek!) Then we boiled the water (yay for the camp stove!), cut an old towel into strips (yay for the rag bin!), and proceeded to strip the old insulation away from the pipe (boo-hiss for whoever insulated it that way to begin with).

Then it was just a matter of dipping and wrapping the towels around the pipe, refreshing each towel as it cooled. That took quite a while, but it worked beautifully as we went up and then over the creek. It was at that joint leading downward that we ran into a little glitch.

The pipe popped right out of the joint! It fell into the creek, and immediately cleared itself of residual ice, along with a few gallons of water, until we could find the key and turn off the water at the meter. Ah. Lovely. Turns out, it was never glued in. Well, not only was the pipe not cut at right angles, nor did it run at right angles, but it was jammed into 90-degree fittings and just sort of held there by a mixture of God and gravity.

It's not like whoever did this didn't know you should glue the pipe joints in a pressurized line together, as the various bits of wildly different lengths that were all stubbed together at random points were glued (though not w/ PVC glue - not sure what that was all about). It reminded both of us of Cinderhenge, in the Scary Room (the cinderblock pillars stretching up to nothingness, spread out through that room).

By then, it had warmed up to a balmy 19 degrees, and we figured we might as well put it back together properly. OK, Zorak figured we should put it back properly. I was all for just slapping it back in for now and thawing ourselves a bit before the frostbite set in. But for all my bellyaching, he was the one standing in the creek (the makeshift bridge kept giving way, and he finally just quit trying), and he wasn't wearing gloves (once they got wet, they were useless, anyway)... and HE wasn't complaining. So. Fine. We fixed it.

One trip to the basement for pipe and a hacksaw; one trip to the feed store for fittings and fresh glue; a whole lot of self-deprecation on my part for being such a total weenie when he's so stinkin' tough... and it's back together, with everything that goes into a 90-degree fitting actually running at a 90-degree angle, better insulated, and - most importantly - no longer frozen. Yay.

That set us back considerably on our weekend plans, but it was worth it. We have water. Yay.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Now She is Three

"...and Four". And still convinced that she will "soon be Jacob". (Which explains her insistance that she just get two years over with in 2009.) I love the hope that will not give up; someday, she will catch up.

Such a sweet girl. We are in no hurry to divest her of her hopes and dreams. They'll grow and change, as she does, and my biggest hopes for her are that her hopes are always bright, and her dreams are always wonderful...

That her brothers can always make her smile by knowing exactly what she needs (or wants)...

That she always believes she can do it, she can help, she can figure it out...

That she doesn't develop an unhealthy shoe attachment... although those are some pretty darned sparkly, happy-making shoes, there.

I hope she always has kisses in the morning, laughter in the day, and roses in winter.

Happy 3rd (and 4th) Birthday, EmBaby!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

(And I have to admit that while we were arranging the cupcakes on the platter, I kept saying to myself, "These are cupcakes on a plate. They are not a cupcake cake. They are not a cupcake cake. She wanted cupcakes, and these are individual, separate cupcakes, not cupcake cakes...")

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

Um, yeah.

I've got to quit falling asleep on the couch. But we have this awesome throw pillow, and when I grab it and lie down, somebody comes and snuggles with me. Then I get warm and drowsy and the next thing I know, Zorak's hauling me off the couch at two in the morning because that's not where I oughta be sleeping. Maybe I'll move the throw pillow to our room?

Smidge and I were at the dentist this morning at 7:30, where they did some absolutely horrific procedure that I don't want to relate. Without novacaine. And he didn't flinch. I'm starting to suspect that the kids' dentist is a hypnotist. They're all so... so... I don't know, but as they go about their business, it's all so smooth and cheerful and painless. Which I appreciate, but there I am, at the end of the table, just watching in morbid fascination as the process unfolds, asking inappropriate questions like, "So, that goes all the way to the root?" (I can't help myself - it's like watching an autopsy, only the bodies are alive - I'd be a total pain in the butt observing an actual surgery.) When we left, Smidge was ready for a creamslush from Sonic, but I needed some Tums or something. *shudder*

Anyway, we're all hunkered down for the cold. The Relative Cold. (Guys, I cannot actually complain! -9!?! -2?!? Who even cares about the windchill anymore when your eyeballs will freeze solid upon leaving the house? They'll shatter if you slip and fall. YIKES! Y'all are tough.) But we are hitting the library. Good call, that. Thanks!

The boys have piano this afternoon, and then it's all quiet, smooth sailing. I've got almost two weeks of suppers planned out for grocery day tomorrow. Not thrilling news, I know, but Zorak will appreciate hearing something other than "nope" when he asks if I have a plan for supper. And the boys will be glad not to have to help haul me back up out of the chest freezer when I've been digging around in there so long my back sticks and my arms are too cold to lift myself up. So really, in perspective, that is fairly exciting news. At least, for our neck of the woods.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Hi.

So busy today! Smidge has an appointment with the dentist. Poor little guy developed an abcess. It's not a surprise. He's got a tooth that he killed or scared or something (he's got my graceful genes - always tripping into something - I'm sure he'll thank me later, right?) and it changed color. At his last checkup, the dentist said we'd just keep an eye on it. So, into town today.

And then, to the pharmacy for antibiotics, I'm sure.

It's amazing to me that our children willingly tell us when they are having a problem. Particularly one that will involve a trip to a medical professional to have rectified. Man, I could have had flesh eating aliens hatching in my mouth, and I wouldn't have said a word to my mother! Consequently, she didn't know anything was wrong until mere breathing just about killed me. But these kids are great. At the first sign of trouble, be it a sore spot, or trouble flossing, they come to us and say, "We need to call Dr. B. I'm having trouble with this spot." Huh. I don't tell them I think that's wild. But it's wild.

We'll drop off donations after we hit the pharmacy, and then come home to finish school. (In theory, we take our books with us so they can work in the waiting room. In practice, all they learn is how to carry their book bags with them, but not so much work actually takes place. So, we'll "finish", erm, doitall, when we get home.)

It's supposed to get colder than various metaphorical body parts here in the next few days. High of 29 one day, according to weather.com! I know those of you in the Northern Parts are scoffing as us right now, but seriously, you've seen the pictures. Hillbillies do not handle sub-freezing temperatures well. We can never find our shoes! Hopefully, we can get enough wood up on the porch that we won't need to find the shoes, and then we can stay happily inside and not care that the water pipes may freeze, and be quite thankful we don't have chickens to let out, and... maybe I need to place a book order?

Ok, I'm off!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Clear and Cold, School is in Session

Weather reports from some obscure portion of North America. Just what people come to read, no? No. Yeah. Well, I'm trying desperately not to write a "to-do" list, which is what AM blogging usually turns into, for me.

Tried to teach Smidge his reading this morning. I should never have deviated from my belovedly mangled method of teaching via of WRTR. He *hates* (loathes? thinks dark thoughts toward?) Spelling Workout. I thought he'd like it. Turns out he's not a workbook kid. And that's okay. That's why we don't have to do it, and he doesn't have to hash out whether that's supposed to be a "car" an "automobile" or a "Jeep" in the picture before he decides what the beginning sound is supposed to be. So. Yay.

But then, trying to spice things up a bit, I tried to be funny. Or fun. Or something. So I'm telling him about the "magic letters, e, i, and y" and how they can magically change c or g to say different sounds. He didn't buy it. "There's no such thing as a magic letter, Mom."

So I called in the big boys for backup. (I should know better.) They were with me on all of it, up to the point that I said, "So, see? They're magic letters!" They bailed on me! There's no magic letter! No magic at all! It's all *gasp* LOGIC.

And humor. Oh, everybody's a comedian. They took that ball and ran with it, juggled it, and then somebody fell off the chair and everything was all pandemonium.

Fine. We'll do it your way, then.

But Smidge won't soon forget that C, followed by e, i, or y, says it's second sound. ;-) And, he much prefers the dry erase board and a slightly botched Spalding method to learning this stuff than the workbooks and pencils.

More fun with words: John is doing battle with the dictionary. He's pretty sure we know the definitions and could save him a lot of time, but -- for whatever reason *cough*cough*, we aren't sharing the information. And hostel is just a wee bit different than hostile, just in case you were wondering!

Not bad for a Monday morning, with nothing yet to reflect on, I think. But it is quite clear and cold this morning, and Zorak didn't leave me enough kindling to re-start the fire. (He has too much faith in my abilities, that man. Far too much faith.) So, I'm going to redirect the children in a few minutes and go hack up some splinters for the fire.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

I love this life.

John got his first squirrel today. He's been out target shooting every opportunity possible, so he'd be ready for just this occasion. And he is probably the happiest boy in the world. He'd actually be happier if he'd gotten another one, but I'm okay with just one because it's going to take me a while to work up the gumption to actually cook it. And that's the rule: you kill it, you eat it. Of course, in his enthusiasm, he loosely translated that to "we'll eat it", and he's been aching "to get you a squirrel, Mom" since roughly 9:37 Christmas morning, when he opened his .410/.22 combo. He was bursting with pride today as he called me out onto the porch to see what he'd brought me.

Funny, all along, I thought I was raising children and come to find out, I've raised a cat. Anyway, we're thinking pot pie... I'll let you know how that goes.

And, ironically, I spent the day disinfecting the house. The two are not related, however. (Though perhaps they should be.) We've been passing some kind of sinusy gunk back and forth since September. Considering that evens out to be only about 6-8 days per person, it's not bad. But the cumulative effect from seven people in one home is a bit wearing on the tribal leaders. So. Yay. All cleaned and sanitized. Except for the porch, obviously.

Wood stove update: still loving it! The low tonight is near freezing, and the porch is stacked with wood for the fire. The house is staying around 70 degrees, which makes this, hands down, the warmest, coziest winter we've had. We checked the propane tank yesterday, and it's still over 60% full. It was last filled sometime in late October, early November (only fills to 80% max). We have a little 250gal. tank. Last winter, we had to have a delivery every month (min. 100 gal. delivery - ouch!), and the house never got above 60 degrees. What a sanity saver this thing has been! Both James and John have become quite proficient at starting and tending the fire, which is great, because when it comes to building fires I could smoke a moose before I got a good flame going (although I've had better luck w/ this stove, which I appreciate). Fortunately, they enjoy doing it, too.

And, in discussing plans for EmBaby's birthday, she informed us she has decided to be four this year. Her brothers protested, so her final compromise is that she'll be "three and four". It seems the plan is to hurry up and turn five. "Then I'll be Jacob!" We're glad she's enthusiastic, but we may have to work a bit on her grasp of the process. The boys want to make the decorations for her birthday, so while she naps, they plan to take advantage of the time and get things lined up. Smidge wondered where we'd hide them, and James helpfully suggested, "We can hide them in the master bathroom, where Mom hides the Christmas presents. That's an excellent hiding place!"

Yep, I do love this life.

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

Back to School, Part II

The Christmas break is over. We're halfway through our first week back, and all is well. Mostly. The boys aren't "thrilled" over being back to their studies, but they are tickled to see they haven't forgotten everything (yay!), and they've had good luck so far with getting their things done so that they can still enjoy the afternoons. By Jove, I think they've got it! (They may lose it again in a few weeks, but for now, we'll just go with it.)

In looking back through this year's curriculum choices, I have to say there have been a few stand out winners.

Italic handwriting rendered James' work legible at first glance. In just four months! *sniff* That's like a little gift from Father Christmas, just for me.

Artistic Pursuits, and Meet The Great Composers were two other winners. A great program is only a great program if you'll use it, and these two made it easy to include art and music history in our regular schedule. So happy, we are. So enlightened. *giggle*

Of course, I may request my official MUS-Cultist card with my next math order. But then, y'all already knew that about us.

That's about it, on the round-up.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Gram

I've written about Gram before. You can get a glimpse of her here, or here. Her birthday is in February, and this was to be her 100th birthday. Can you imagine? I can't. I've known many people in my life, but none who had the vigor and wit and inner strength of Gram. But in spite of the strength of her spirit, her body was just worn out. Gram passed away during the night, on December 30th.

I've sat here for several days, trying to find the words. But they aren't coming. Gram was nearly 100 years old. I have only known her for 13 years. Everything I know and love about her is only a very, very small portion of who she is, and what others love so very much about her. How can I sum up something as large as that?

Gram raised six children. She always said four girls and two boys was the perfect family for her. Her daughters are all amazing women, and the kind of living legacy that makes you teary-eyed just thinking of the amount of love, fortitude, humor, wit, generosity and kindness that had to have been embodied in one woman for her to raise such incredible women. And share them with the world. How humbling.

Gram was always busy, always productive. Nothing would make her cranky quicker than not being able to *do* something. She loved to visit with people, tell stories, listen to stories, share jokes. She loved poetry and literature. She loved nature, and animals. She loved her family. She loved to be doing, going, sharing. Even when macular degenration took her eyesight, she still crocheted up until very near the end. She made blankets for each of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Even down to Jase, who is the youngest. He has a Gram blanket. I'm not sure I can part with it, though, so maybe we won't tell him, just yet, that it's his?

Years ago, she took it upon herself to teach me how to knit, tat, and crochet. She's never had a poorer pupil. Willing, but somewhat dexterously daft, to be honest. Part of it was that I spent so much time wrapped up in just watching her, listening to the stories she told while she worked, that I forgot I was supposed to be doing something, myself. Stories of her childhood, traveling across the country. She loved living in Vermont. I think those memories were her happiest of her own childhood. Stories of her time at school, her time teaching, her time spent raising the children in a boxcar... I will cherish the time I spent sitting on the couch with Gram, my fingers cramped up and yarn knotted around my ankles, listening to Gram's stories. I still can't knit. Or tat. But I know my family, and the boys' histories, a little better because of her.

Life can wear a soul down. Or it can lift a soul up. Gram had a dogged, fierce determination that Life is Good. There is, quite simply, no two ways about it. Like the complex blending of flavors in an excellent meal, Life needs all of it; it needs the bitter and the sweet, the tough and the tender, in order to be truly spectacular. You cannot embrace the one and resent the other. Not if you want to be truly happy.

That was, from my shortened perspective, one of the greatest things about Gram: Life is Good. All of it.

We're all better off for her time on this earth, and the lives she's touched will go on to touch other lives, and so on, in a ripple that will continue to make the world more beautiful with every ring that extends outward into the world.

Goodbye, Gram. You are loved.

Kiss those babies, grams, families, friends... because they are beautiful, and life is beautiful.
~Dy

We're Home.

Home, safe and sound. Drove in torrential rain for most of the way. Haven't had a land-squall like that in a couple of years. It was wild! We were worried the drive would be flooded and we'd have to spend another night in a hotel, but somehow we managed to get ahead of the rain and it didn't hit our house until five minutes after we got everybody in the door. Sounded like someone had turned on an enormous box fan when it hit - WOW. We love our home. *happy sigh*

But. We're exhausted. And so, to bed.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Made it. Sort of.

Well, we are here. We got to the Cousins' home around three-thirty-ish yesterday. We did not stop in Little Rock to pick up the parts. I think it had something to do with distance from the interstate, but I'm not entirely clear on the thing, there. It still took some finagling to find and round up all the parts once we got here. At one point, we were looking at "Tuesday for the seal and Wednesday for the bolt". Gah. NO! Right now, we're looking at... well, you know what, I'm not entirely sure what we're looking at. Zorak appreciated the reprieve for the afternoon, though and enjoyed being able to just sit for a bit. Upright and not covered in grease. Quite lovely, actually.

Confession time: Zorak and I do not travel well together. Yeah, not at all. And we have the added frustration this trip of having wanted to be in Cruces *today*. But that deserves a separate blog entry. So, anyway, this has been quite a test of our ability to smile benignly and move forward. Together. In one piece. We're doing surprisingly well, but those weird guttural noises my Mom used to make when she was frustrated but afraid she'd be struck down by lightning for saying what she really thought? I think we've both found the part of the body those noises come from. But we're doing okay. I'm proud of us. And we even manage to crack jokes now and then.

Like this morning, I told Zorak he needed to make me a list. He pulled me over by the shoulders to lean on him, and said, "There, now you've got a list." Heh. Yeah. Old sailor jokes. Funnier if you aren't a landlubber, I suppose. (I'm a landlubber, he had to take it one step further for me and add, "Now you're listing." *sigh* Someday I'll catch on.)

So, I'm listing. He's working (the Suburban is up on a tree stump - I've got to take a picture and find a way to upload it - it's hilarious). The kids are finishing up breakfast and getting ready to head down to the creek. Yeah, the creek. It's going to be 70 degrees here today! Wild, huh?

AAaaaand, I think Jase just broke an ornament. So I am going to go before we end up exiled to the front porch.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Mornin!

Well, we were here all day. The Suburban "isn't fixed, but it's functional". (I cannot convey to you how little I liked hearing that particular explanation... not this far from home.) Anyway, we'll go on to Little Rock to find the missing part there, and then on to Veronica's to finish working on it.

When Zorak still wasn't back by about two, Aunt B had a great suggestion to call the cab company and see what the charge would be to deliver some diapers. You know, when you have a baby with an active digestive system, it is amazing what you'd be willing to pay for diapers! Sadly, the cab company only takes cash, and I only had a handful of actual change on me. But when I called the front desk to see if there was an ATM nearby, the lady offered to run to the store for me when she got off at three. Next thing I know, the front desk calls again and says the lady coming on at three will bring diapers! WOW. It turned out to be the lady who had checked us in the night before. Her little guy is in pull-ups, now, and she brought all her extra size 4's. So sweet. Jase was happy to be let back out of the tub, too.

I sent the boys down to the vending machine to get snacks. They came back and it seemed nothing much had happened. Then the front desk called, "Those were your two boys down here by the vending machine?" (Uh... yes...) "Well, I just wanted you to know that they are so honest, and so well-mannered. We really enjoyed them, and wanted you to know how polite and sweet they are." (*deep exhalation* I mean, you read about my wow-if-that'd-been-me-at-that-age bit from the last post, right? I was a titch worried, there.) I guess the machine had given them too much change, so they turned it in at the desk. And I'm sure they stayed to talk, because that's what we do. We talk to strangers. They come by it honestly.

Smidge asked if we could "not have any TV tomorrow" - I didn't think it could happen, but the kid reached saturation point! Funny. We turned off the TV, read books, worked on a sweater for EmBaby, told jokes, and then they dropped off, one-by-one. When Zorak got back with supper, only two of the five were still up.

So, on we go, to another leg of the Adventure. Time to get everyone else up and fed and loaded back up. And as the new year gets underway, I'm thankful for so many things - cell phones and hotel business centers, friendly people and helpful hearts, loving children and families, smart hubbies and friends who'll make you laugh until you've got it all back in perspective.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Oh, Ack! Happy New Year!

Greetings from a Comfort Inn somewhere in Arkansas...

No, this isn't where we meant to spend the New Year. We meant to spend it with family. But the Suburban got a little cranky last night - the brakes went wonky and a wheel bearing went bad. So, thank Heaven for small favors, we realized there was a problem pretty early on, and stopped before there was actual fire, or no brakes, or stripping of the transmission. That was our biggest thing, "PLEASE don't let it be the transmission. Please don't let it affect the transmission. Please just don't even mention the transmission." (The transmission in this particular model is a nightmare. The *one* different tranny Chevy makes, and it also happens to be both the worst, and the most expensive. So. Not the tranny. YAY!)

The kids didn't mind. They're a little sad about not being at Veronica's, but we have cable. Cartoon Network and Mythbusters. Plus, they had waffles for breakfast. Not a bad New Year's Eve, really, when you're somewhere between 2 and 10, right?

Zorak and I crashed well before midnight, shortly after getting the smaller three down. I think James and John stayed up to watch something or other. They turned off the TV, though, and got some rest. Good kids. Man, if I'd had that much leeway when I was 8 or 10, it wouldn't have gone so well, what with the hotel manager calling the room to inquire why, exactly, there were children playing tag and dodgeball in the hallway. *sheepish grin* And I won't even go into Zorak dangling from a sheet over a balcony, in a sombrero and a poncho at two in the morning. Yeah, they're good kids. I don't know how we ended up with these children, but when their real parents come for them, they can't have 'em. We're keeping them.

Anyway, we meant to be up and at 'em this morning, but it took several hours to track down an auto parts store that was both *open* today, AND had the necessary assembly in stock. *sigh* Zorak, the Freezing Knight, is at the parts store, replacing the part, while we are ensconsed rather cushily in a warm hotel room, awaiting pizza delivery. We're out of diapers (um, thinking we'd have stopped last night to pick up last-minute things, heh. Oops.) but in all, sitting rather prettily. Thankful. Safe. Yeah.

OK, the children are going to realize I've slipped down to the business center. Em and Jase are sleeping (how do you wear yourself out in a hotel room? I don't quite get that, but they both went down for naps early) and the boys are doing a verbal countdown on the pizza. So I had to step out and say howdy. However, break over. Time to get back!

Happy, Happy New Year!!
May 2009 be a year of Joy, a year of Love, and a year of Growth for all of you!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Life With Kids

I kept finding the magnetic letters all over the floor in the kitchen. There were bits of ripped up foam packing there, too. So I'd put all the letters back on the fridge and the packing in the recycle bin. Next time I went it, it had happened again. What in the world is this?

Then I saw it, and realized what was going on.

EmBaby was putting her babies to bed. Albeit in the kitchen, yes. But she'd lovingly lay each letter down, and tuck it in beneath a bit of foam packing, tucked just under what would probably be their little chins.

Now that I know what it is, it's cute. Before it was just annoying. Funny how perspective changes things, no?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Wha--?

It's nearly next year! My Event Smidge broke. It's buried somewhere beneath the Playmobil and the bean bag, neither of which I've been able to extricate him from for the last few days. So that means that at the end of the day, when I look quite bleary-eyed at the computer and think, "Ah, I can blog tomorrow," it means I have no. clue. how long it's been since I blogged. (Ya think?)

Oh, I do hope you all had a lovely Christmas. Or Solstice. Or Hannukah. I think we've even blown off Learn a Foreign Language Month since the last time y'all heard from me. Yeesh. But ya know what I've been doing?

Eating leftovers. (Leftover sirloin and roast asparagus beats the snot out of leftover turkey, I don't care who you are!)

Stealing bean bags from small children. (When Granny ok'd the buying of the bean bags as her gift, I SO should've angled to get me one, too. Do you remember how much fun they were when you were a kid? They're just as good when you're a grown-up, too! Zorak and I dragged them into the playroom to watch a movie, just the two of us, the other night. Totally fantastic gift, if you're looking for something to give.) Me-Tae figured out that if you stack two of them, you have a decent fascimile of a reclining lounger. Emily has napped in her bean bag every day since Christmas. It's the cutest stinkin' thing I've seen since... well, there's just an enormous amount of cute to trip on, around here.

Eyeballing the tree. And, for the first time in over a decade of Holiday Festivity Negotiations, I do believe I beat Zorak to the "let's take the tree down now" speech. Yeah, he couldn't believe it, either. But then, it went up before Christmas Eve. There was no harrowing search for a tree, no coughing up money better spent on chocolate, no delightful Festivus-style Airing of Grievances over decorating, and so... I'm sated. Content. Got my fill, and am ready to put my bookshelf back by the couch, where it belongs, thanks.

Then there's the cleaning. But that's not pleasant to discuss. And it never lasts long enough for me to provide tangible proof. But we had company on Christmas, and then again the day after, and then we're going away for a bit. So. You know, that's more cleaning than any one person should reasonably do. Ever. And that's all I'm going to say on that topic.

And right now, that's all I'm going to say, in general. Not because I don't care, but because it's cold, and Zorak just got the fire going, and it's warmer over there. So. See you tomorrow!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

How Many Days?

This is the year Smidge has discovered the concept of time, in a linear manner. He counts down to one event, then immediately calculates the number of days until the next event. You'd think this would be helpful, somehow, right? I mean, he's been counting down Halloween, Thanksgiving, AND Christmas since his birthday in September. At least he's got place value down pat, now. But no. I'm still waiting, puckered up by the front door, for three more boxes to be delivered tomorrow. Next year, forget using Outlook or a Dayplanner, I'm going to make better use of my Event Smidge.

I've been busy dating this week, so I haven't had time to write. Just night out on the town after night out on the town. But let me tell you, ladies, there are some good men out there.

Thursday night, we spent fifteen minutes or so gleefully sniffing candle scents at Hobby Lobby, after oogling bead displays and sparkly paints and picking out the Perfect Wrapping Paper. Then we kicked back at Starbuck's for iced coffees and cheese danishes while we laughed and joked and had a fantastic time. Didn't find a thing we were looking for, but that didn't dampen the evening at all.

Friday night, I had a date with another admirer. We went a bit more casual, going the gaming route, and buying bedding and Santa gifts. We supped at Taco Bell, which doesn't sound like much, until I mention that when I said it was a bit chilly in the restaurant, my date immediately whipped his coat around and offered it to me. *swoon*

Both men held the door open for me (and the next twenty ladies behind us), both held my hand and made me laugh, and were just such perfect gentlemen. Ah. Yes. Good stuff, that.

Of course, it'll be another six years before either of them can drive... there's that. ;-) And although there's nothing wrong with shorter men, I do think they'll benefit from a few more years' growth.

Yep, I got to spend some one-on-one with the two eldest children, and it was really fantastic. We've all decided to make this part of our traditions - and, since it gets Zorak off the hook of having to do the Christmas Thing, in public market places, listening to Christmas Muzak, he thinks it's an incredibly wonderful idea, too.

Tomorrow, I get to spend the evening with Smidge. We have just a few goodies to pick up, but he's waited so patiently that we could be buying toilet paper and he wouldn't mind. He's also hinted that he'd like to hit McDonald's for a shake. Should be a fun evening, indeed!

Traditions have to start somewhere, right? What traditions do you enjoy with your family?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Pack Christmas Party

Oh, we had SUCH a great time. I think we're finding our spot. I also think the leadership is finding a good vision for the pack. It's all gelling into a pretty good experience. The majority of the party looked like this:

A little blurry. Very loud (can you hear it?) This is an animated, balloon-popping, carol-singing bunch we have, here.

They did awards. The little Tiger Cubs just made me want to scoop them all up and bring them home. But I'm not sure where we'd put five more children all in one fell swoop. And there's that pesky "parent" issue. Yeah, their parents might mind. So I just oooh'd and ahhh'd over the Totally Adorable little Tiger Cubs.

The boys worked their tushes off the past couple of months, and tonight their efforts were recognized. John's Cubmaster just gave him a bag to hold and dropped each item into the bag as he called it off. John was a bit dazed. I don't think he realized how many beltloops and beads and pins he'd earned. He's still in the hey-this-is-fun stage, not so much on the record keeping or goal setting part, yet. But he's been busy!

And I really wish I'd taken more pictures of John, because he was just *beaming* by the time he was done. But the batteries on the camera died about the third shot. So you get Bewildered John, the Bear.

James had a similar experience, and he was absolutely vibrating with excitement. But he *knew* how much he'd done, and he had painstakingly recorded every detail, every project, every experiment. He's written more reports, fixed up more displays, and made more contacts than I think he knew he was capable of. So this was pretty exciting for him.

Topping it all off, James earned his Webelos Badge. We didn't realize it was such a big ceremony thing. OR that we'd have to go up there. But one of the other moms kindly took the camera and snapped a few shots for us. As you can see, they ALL came up. John, Smidge and Em were pretty proud of James. That was just as good as the badges, themselves. Moreso, actually, for this Mama. And James was glad to have them up there, with him, whispering, "Ohhhh, COOL!" and "WOW!" - all of which must be sibling-speak for, "Way to go, brother. You've done a fine job."

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Why...

Why are there more pictures of the babies than of anybody else?

Because you can stick the babies in a box under the tree and snap 200 pictures in less time and with less effort than it takes to find the right settings and capture one shot of the mobile ones as they dash from here to there.

And if you whistle and sing and make faces at the older ones, you don't get quite the same expression you do with the babies.

I'm convinced that's the reason. :-)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

The Play

It was a long, long, LONG day. We arrived at 9:30 for rehearsals (which they didn't have - they just put all the kids in Sunday School), stayed through most of the service (lovely musical service), and then slipped out early to feed the kids (they gave everyone an hour to eat, but we ate at the buffet and that takes us two hours to really do it right, and the only other food the children would be offered between noon and eight PM was going to be hot dogs, so we intended to do it right).

In retrospect, this may have really angered The Powers That Be, as not one person was so much as *civil* to me when I came to help serve supper - a task I'd been asked to do earlier in the month. Whatever. It was worth it. The boys made it through pretty well, and Smidge really enjoyed his lunch...

The boys all did a fantastic job. We can't believe Smidge hung in there. I fully expected him to burst into tears and just sit down at some point. (They'd scheduled in a "nap time" - I think, actually, it may have been an awkward attempt to placate me after I'd expressed dissatisfaction with the schedule of keeping the kids at the church for the entire day, without the option for the little ones to rest before the busy evening. Anyway, then they were surprised that nobody napped. Der. Talk about a monumentally bad idea!) But, he didn't fall over. He didn't cry. He really hung in there, and he is so proud of himself, too.

James and John nailed their parts. They were clear, strong, and obviously enjoyed the whole thing.

EmBaby danced, made up her own hand movements, and kept Me-Tae apprised of every step. "We are going to sing another song! We are going to see a movie!" (One of the songs had a video accompaniment.)

Jason didn't fuss a bit. He was his typical happy, complacent little self. Can't ask for a better evening than that!

And just for fun, to round out the photos, Smidge and Em were so happy to see each other again at the end of the day!

Oh, I love those babies! And we're so glad we stuck it out for them. They will enjoy these memories for a long time. Good stuff.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

They're Going Out!

OK, no pictures. No cute, funny year-end letter. Just a card. And a personalized note. And the knowledge that I love you enough to just get it in the mail, already.

Aunt Jo Ann sent me an address book. What a cool idea, and yes, I needed one! Just one of those things I kept putting off - I have no idea why. So, I broke out my little box of envelope corners and bits of paper, and transferred everything into the book. I feel so grown up. *snort*

However, my stellar bits-and-corners method of keeping track of mailing addresses has proven to be somewhat lacking (to say the least), and so, if I *should* have your address (meaning, if I've ever had it before, but you haven't heard from me... or if you've moved since last I feasibly had it) it's safe to assume I haven't still got it, and would really like to include you in my New, Grown Up Method of Keeping Track of People I Care About. So, um drop me an email.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Hey, where'd the picture go?

I haven't messed with the template at all, but just noticed now that the barn picture in the header is gone. Poof. I hate to ask this, but has it been gone long?

Huh.

I wonder where it went...

Nevermind. It's back now.
Kiss those babies~
~Dy

Flooded In.

Normally, our little "creek" looks something like this:

It's deepest pool is just the right size for Em to wade in, up to her hips, and that's after a nice rain. Really, it's idyllic.

This morning, however, that spot where John and Em are, in the above picture, looked like this:

The water was a good six feet higher than usual. I couldn't get over to the other side to take a picture from the same angle, but the big tree behind John, in the first shot, can be seen just to the right of center in this picture - taken as if you stood behind him to get the shot. That water spans 50 feet between the bank of the creek and where I stood to take this shot:

(It's blurry because it was cold and rainy. It's safe to say I'd never make it as a National Geographic photographer...)

And the drive, itself, was amazing...

You know, from inside the cab of the truck. But the deepest point in that overflow atop the drive was probably almost two feet deep - a pool filled with slick clay, and water rushing headlong over the top. Nah. That stuff was really moving fast, too.

Needless to say, we found plenty to occupy our time inside today.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Sick.

We've all been sick. Yes, in the last 48 hours, we've fallen like clumsy gator wrestlers, into the muck.

Zorak went down sometime during the night on Sunday. He could not move come Monday morning. Slept it off and was functional by Monday night.

Which is good, because the kids dropped, one-by-one, all day long. And that evening, I fell prey.

Yesterday, I was done for. Useless. We ate cookies for breakfast, and watched cheesy Christmas movies on Netflix. The big boys picked up the slack so nicely, refreshing the cookie stash and changing diapers while I laid on the futon chair, rocking back and forth and begging for mentholatum and tissues. Chills, aches, drainage, stuffiness - like being beaten with the soap-filled sock of the Common Cold.

It was all I could do to get some laundry done and tidy the house by afternoon, but supper wasn't happening. So Zorak brought home a delicious roasted chicken from Sam's Club. And clementines. And a pineapple. He *hearts* us.

Everybody out cold by ten. Even our late reader didn't last beyond that.

And yet, the boys managed to get the tree up and lights on it. It's lovely. The boys strung the lights (yes, it's pre-lit, but you can just never have enough lights) and they did a spectacular job.

Em hung a couple of sparkly ornaments before moving on to stashing sparkly ornaments around the house. The bell wreath for the front door is stacked atop the advent wreath on the dining table. Best of all, all the loud, annoying Christmas decorations (singing Pinocchio, for example) live in the playroom this year. How cool is that?

Time to dope up on Vitamin C and guaifenesin and brace myself to face the day!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Where have we been?

We've been enjoying the Advent season! The boys rode in the Awesome Local Parade on Saturday. They had a blast. Smidge got to ride in the float with the bigs, and they even had an extra marshmallow-on-a-stick for him to hold, too.

Sixteen boys on a trailer with pointy sticks and nowhere to run. If I were a betting woman, I'd have laid heavy odds that someone would have lost a marshmallow. Or a stick. Or an eye. Fantastically, if I were a betting woman, I'd be broke, now. The kids were great.

Zorak, the littles and I scored a ride in the back of the truck pulling the float, and I only got beaned in the head by one piece of candy, followed by a quick, John Candy-esque, "D'oh! Sorry!" hollered from somewhere on the float.

I made chocolate chocolate chip mini muffins and mixed up a big jug of hot chocolate for all the boys. Wasn't sure if that would peg me as a total dork, or a cool mom, but the kids and adults all seemed to enjoy it, so that was nice. The weather was much better than we'd anticipated, although Jase and Em were not as impressed as Zorak and I...

The playroom is nearly complete. Zorak laid the carpet Thursday night, and we've put it all together over the weekend. It lacks baseboard (naturally), but it's functional and the kids love it. I was so proud of us, until...

I realized we'd neglected (OK, *I* had neglected) to account for the two large bookshelves (and all their books) that would now be homeless. ACK! So we spent all evening Saturday and all day Sunday sorting, culling, shifting, and reorganizing the bookshelves all over the house. Some of you will get this -- you cannot simply take those two shelves and move them, with the same contents, to another place in the house. That messes with the flow. Those books went there for a Very Specific Reason, and they cannot live elsewhere for No Specific Reason.

So.

We ended up moving and sorting five bookcases (six? I can't remember) to accomodate the shift of two bookcases. And I carved out a spot for the tree, while we were at it (gotta harness that manic energy and use it for good, once in a while!) The house still looks vaguely like someone ransacked a used book store, but it's significantly better than before. The boys helped. They slept like the dead as soon as their heads hit the pillows, too. Not sure who will be more thrilled to have this project end, Zorak or the boys. It's safe to say this will be a jolly household, indeed, by the end of the week. :-)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

...As opposed to "our" town.

We suspected we'd moved into a not-so-great town when we started hearing it linked with high meth rates fairly regularly. Since then, our suspicions have been confirmed more than once - from the cut-down 2 liter soda bottle of gasoline left down by the barn by a string of vehicles that tore out of here when Baltoid heard them (???) to the threatening, name-calling letters sent by the mayor trying to intimidate (or shame) people into agreeing to his town expansion plan. Mailbox baseball isn't indicative of a "bad area", nor were we surprised when most of our campaign signs were stolen during the election. But the most recent display seems a bit off, unless it was done by a 30-year-old lefty on a bicycle.

Somebody had to have come down *into* our drive to bash it in the way they did. It's on the side of the mailbox opposite oncoming traffic, so it wasn't just some kids driving down the road, smacking boxes. And the dent indicates the blow came from behind the box, further up the driveway. Gah. Lovely, people. Absolutely lovely. I am ready to install a camera and surveillance.

Well, that didn't work.

I'd written two separate posts, intending to use the auto-post feature for one to show up later. Since it's sitting there, you can tell I botched it. However, the first post is this one.

We had the most AMAZING experience today, in a neat little town.

Arab, AL (It's pronounced /AY-rab/, too - not /air-ub/. I thought, when we first got here, that it was an accent thing, but it's not.)

We wanted to check out Warehouse Discount Groceries to see if we could garner savings there worth adding the drive to our regular monthly trip. The prices weren't that great - higher, actually, than a few of our regulars (The Pig, Foodland, Aldi) - however, the service was TO DIE FOR. Everybody there was helpful, friendly, gracious. EVERYBODY. Even the customers were nice. The building is older, but the store is delightfully clean. The produce is good. They have large canned foods! We plan to go back.

Since they didn't have a few things we needed, we stopped at the Supercenter Wal-Mart there in Arab. Ooh, my. It was like shopping at Wal-Mart back when Sam Walton was still alive! I was stunned when we asked one employee if they had any little girl gloves in stock and she helped us find them! And when another employee overheard me telling the boys that I'd like to see if they had turtlenecks in the boys' section, and she volunteered that she didn't get any in this season... wow. Most of the time, they'll just let you hunt until your shoulders hunch over and one eye swells up.

You could have absolutely knocked me over with a whisper, though, when that same lady tracked us down in the diapers section, holding several turtleneck sweaters in different colors, to tell me that she did have some in the girls' section, but, as I could see, they weren't feminine-looking, and would that possibly work for me? I hope I didn't seem rude, as it took me a while to answer her while my brain ran through the possibilities -- 1) maybe she doesn't actually work here, she's just bored, or lonely, 2) she's a stalker, 3) it's part of a huge plan to coax me into feeling comfortable so someone else can hoark my wallet -- But NO, no. It was all legit.

We were asked more times than I can count if we were finding everything okay, if we needed any help, and if there was anything they could do for us.

The people shopping there were so nice and gentle. It was fantastic. I felt like those kids in Disney commercials look. Just all wide-eyed and grinning.

And when it was time to go, there was NO waiting in the checkout aisles.

The lady who worked at the register we ended up in was nice. And she smiled at us. Do you know how long it's been since anyone employed by Wal-Mart has voluntarily smiled at us? I had to tell her what a truly delightful experience shopping there had been that day. And I told the lady at the door, and the manager. And I'm about to write to corporate and tell them that whatever the folks in Arab have going on, everybody should get them some!

As much as we love our little piece of earth, I found myself today wondering what houses in Arab are going for...

Mid-Week *whew*

Went to the dentist. But we don't want to talk about that.
Went to play rehearsal. But I'd rather talk about the dentist visit than that.
On the Kid Front, which is way more fun to talk about (for me, at least), we've had a good week.

James cracks me up. We stopped at Home Depot tonight to price carpet for the playroom. He pointed at the (evidently broken) inflatable santa snowglobe display, with it's three pieces of "snow" floating around in the window, and said, "Look! It's regionally accurate! It gets as much snow as we do!"

John has kept us in wood all week. He's been splitting, hauling, and stacking like a pro. I forget that this isn't a standard chore for an 8-year-old, until Erin says, "He what? That's a fully grown man's job!" Yeah, it is, but he's really good at it. I'm thinkin' he needs some marshmallows in his hot chocolate tomorrow.

Smidge has taken to wearing overalls. He's feeling mighty big, that one is. But then, he got teary-eyed after he showed me that he didn't need my help with the clasps. Turned out, he's not quite ready to not need Mom's help just yet. So we hit a compromise -- he can keep learning to do new things, and I'll still be right here to help anytime, "just because". That seemed to do the trick.

EmBaby is 3 for 3 now, on relocating to our bed sometime in the middle of the night. I'm not sure if Jase wakes her, or if she just decided she likes our flannel sheets better than hers. Or perhaps she just isn't up for the long trek back down the hall after she hits the bathroom? Either way, we're good with it. It won't be long before she stops coming in except to tell us she's hungry, or there's a snake in the fridge, or something far less pleasant than the warm, sleepy presence of a Little One snuggling in with us in the wee hours of the morning.

Jase found a forward gear. He also found the cake pans. And the trash can. And the broiler drawer. YIKES! Nothing. Is. Safe. But oh, he is so excited to be able to go where he wants. He'll start to fuss, and then you can see it dawn on him, "Hey, I don't need you coolies! I can get there, myself!" And he's off.

Our low tonight isn't much lower than our high for tomorrow. And then it's going down, down, down from there! Tomorrow is grocery day. I do believe we'll set out early for groceries, and do lessons in the afternoon. Yep. With marshmallows. Good stuff.

Heh. I love this time of year.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Thanksgiving Pictures

John learned how to make carved flowers. I didn't get a picture of the end result because, well, because I have five children and some of them were puking and somehow, "grab the camera!" just doesn't spring to mind in that situation. However, the lure of carving was enough to drag him off the couch. You can tell he doesn't feel well, but he's also content.

Jase learned to crawl. Whether it was an attempt to keep up or get away, we aren't sure. He had a really great time, though. (That's a cousin Em's age who's "helping" him along. Or thwarting his escape...)

James is still working on perfecting The Ultimate Camera Smile...

Cousin Veronica VERY graciously allowed her stash of non-shattering ornaments to be used by all. I'm thinking we'll need to get a box of these this year, because I just don't think it'll go so well with Grandma's glass ornaments...

We pulled up to find the porch lit with luminarias. It was a warm fuzzy. It's nice to have family out here that loves the traditions from back there like we do. (I also love that these are electric. Adobe isn't such a fire hazard, but out here, where everything's made of wood, it's nice to avoid open flames whenever possible.)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Oh, my.

Well, we are home. Three of the five were sick, starting Thursday morning and continuing into Saturday evening. We had a lovely time, illnesses aside. Still, it felt good to pull into the drive. No matter how much you love someone, it's just never comfortable to throw up at their house, is it?

Today, Zorak got hit with something nasty. We'll call it the Productivity Bug. Urngh. He'd been coming down with it earlier, but I didn't realize just how bad it would be. When we hinted to the boys that we had some work to do when we got home, I jokingly told them we were switching to a 12-hour school day. Ha. That would've been a breeze, in retrospect. But really, I've nothing to complain about. We accomplished quite a bit, and are back on high-octane fuel around the Forever Home.

The boys helped Zorak work in the basement. That seemed to movitate everybody on some level. (James said he's just so thankful we aren't doing the 12-hour school day, he'll work as much as we need him to!) The basement is once again functional. The Mistress has been evicted. (She's living in the carport now. Yay!) Tools are back in their proper homes. Trash is in the trash bin. Recycling is... well, it only made it to the carport. But that's out of the basement, so I am a happy camper. The boys split and stacked wood, ran errands, and in general really pitched in beautifully. I cleaned, culled, and sorted. Swept, swept, and culled some more.

Zorak helped me get the door to the linen closet built. This is one of those projects where he isn't convinced it's going to work, but he goes along with it because he loves me. (That, and because he knows that without his input, I'll do it anyway, and someone may end up impaled by the fallout of a failed joint.) He made do with my not-so-precise directions, though, and went along with the crazy scheme. I guess I could have done it, but he doesn't take pictures and I wanted to document the process, in case it worked. I'll get it painted tomorrow and he'll pick up some dodads and then I'll post the pics when we've got it hung. Or when we decide to scrap it and start over.

I culled and re-organized Em's room. Then Zorak moved the crib in there. It is, once again, "The Nursery" - and now EmBaby gets to learn how to s-h-a-r-e a room with somebody. She's lucky it's just Jase. He's the most easygoing of her brothers. But we do think the new arrangements will work well for a while.

And THAT (*trumpets blare from offscreen*) frees up the guest room/nursery/library for the pending transformation into a playroom, complete with toy bins, books, puzzles and a puzzle table, comfy chairs, music, and whatever else they decide to put into the room. We'll work this week to clean it out, empty the closet, and get things lined up so that this weekend we can lay carpet and baseboard and then furnish it with the kids' things.

Hopefully at some point, we'll break out the Christmas decorations. Maybe we'll even get around to hanging pictures on the wall this month!! (What? It's only been three years. Like y'all haven't ever taken that long to get around to unpacking... *grin*)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

More Holiday Fun

Well, since the fruit of our labor didn't pan out for gift giving this year, we decided to go back to square one. All the good ideas come from there, don't they? And so, here's a peek at the gifts we've been working on this year. We refer to it as The Ultimate Regifting Project:

Hey, now, lest you think we're just being cheap, we're not. These aren't gifts we're trying to get rid of. To be honest, each pan went through a long and emotional decision-making process. We're certified cast iron hoarders. And if you have a good pan, it's hard to part with it. (I knew Zorak was in it for the long haul when he finally allowed his cast iron and mine to comingle in the cupboards! It was true love.) These are special, and they're given with a lot of love.

There's nothing quite like an old, awesome, well-seasoned cast iron skillet. And, of course, you have to know your audience. So not everybody will be getting one of these. However, take a look at what one can do with a cast iron Christmas gift:

(Doesn't that look scrumptious? Photo credit to Me-Tae.)

We're spending Thanksgiving with family, and are really looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll put down the food and wine long enough to get more pictures (because that's going to be another batch of Christmas gifts, don't ya know!) In the meantime, I'll leave you with a Gratuitous Happy Baby shot:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Good Monday Morning!

The cold snap is over. Everyone survived. However, I'm a little dingbat and didn't leave a faucet dripping enough Friday night (I thought I had, but I guess I didn't - or I shut it off at some point without thinking), so we awoke Saturday morning to a frozen pipe. Therefore, no water for us. Yeesh.

No worries, though. The kettle on the stove provided water for hot chocolate, and Zorak zipped down to the corner market, where the nice lady let us fill our 3gal. jug with water. Yay!

Zorak and the Big Boys went on the hike, and I took the littles up to Me-Wa and Me-Tae's place. Why? Because I am so, so, SOOO blessed to have wonderful friends who will let me shower at their place when I do something stoopid and leave us waterless. And they kept the littles fed and entertained, so not only could I shower, but I could shower In Peace. I'm going to count that as an early Christmas present. I just wish I'd known I'd have a draft-free shower, and I'd have taken my razor. It's been a while since I've been able to shave without goose bumps. Whole different outcome.

By the time everybody found everybody else (we don't have the most organized, communication-oriented Pack), the weather had warmed up beautifully and the picnic was quite delightful. We were only a block from one of Zorak's friends, at that point, so we stopped in to visit with him and his family. She showed me her rockin' food storage, and we discussed canning successes and failures from this year. (OK, she showed me her successes, and I shared my failures. But it sounds so much better the other way around, doesn't it?) Came home, tidied up, and collapsed in a big ol' puppy pile to watch a movie.

Iron Man. Have y'all seen that? WOW. Way better than I'd expected. Could'a done without the pole dancing in the airplane, but other than that, wow - great flick. James would really like to figure out how to make an arc reactor, and John's willing to wear the suit if James can make it work. (Help!)

And today, it's time to crack that whip. Back to work, everybody! (I'm kidding - it's the week of Thanksgiving - we are so just baking and eating and rolling in the leaves!)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy