Friday, September 26, 2008

Happy Birthday, Jon!

Today is Jon's birthday. He has to work, but my mom is going to watch the kids so that we can go on a date.

I'd write more, but it isn't yet four in the morning and I've been up for a while doing laundry and some other things. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. So, I'll post about our day later (maybe tomorrow?) after our busy day is over and I'm more alert.

Happy Birthday, Jon!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

A Busy Weekend

We had a pretty eventful weekend. I finally have something to blog about! LOL I could do without some of it.

Saturday, the kids and I went to a Pow Wow. It's not something we will do again. It was a BIG letdown. The kids and I were all bored, we had to pay to get in (more than was locally advertised) and they had merchandise booths surrounding the center circle , and I got sunburned.


Did you know that you "can't see" this man. He is doing a "stalking dance". He is supposed to be sneaking up on buffalo and when he is crouched down he is "invisible". The announcer even said if we had our pictures developed, then they would come back without the image of the dancer. lol
The kids thought the announcer was insane.


These two showed up on/around our porch Sunday early morning. Jon was a pushover and we have now adopted them. It wasn't too difficult to persuade me.

Tiger is a little timid. He likes to hide in their new refuge. Lily is more adventuresome and curious.

This tree fell in the wind storm Sunday and blocked our side street.



It almost hit a neighbor's car.


We had some damage around our house, too. This is one of the sections of privacy fence that fell down.

Some small branches fell on some wires between our garage and house (we got them off each time) and a large limb fell on our house. There doesn't appear to be much structural damage, though I could be wrong. I think God was really looking out for us!
Do you see the crack in our next door neighbor's tree? We were really watching it Sunday. None of our children slept upstairs Sunday night. Our neighbor moved one of his daughters out of her room that is on the corner of their house near the tree. It really looked like it was going to crash down. We think the ivy vines wrapped around it are holding it up. Our neighbor isn't allowed to mess with it and has to wait on the city/county to take care of it.

Our electricity went out Sunday at 4:11pm. It came back on a little after 5:00am this morning. Now, I need to go clean out our refrigerator and freezer before I put our food back in them and catch up on the laundry.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Freaky Sneaky

Isn't it fun to put your experiences in life to use on your children?

As a child, we lived in a two-story apartment where one whole side of the apartment was adjoined to the next. My dear mother, being ever courteous and considerate of our neighbors, wanted to be sure we didn't disturb them. Therefor, if one of us children (four rowdy boys and one ornery girl) would happen upon the disfavor of said parent, one oft-used punishment was to climb and descend the stairway X amount of times SILENTLY. At the time, aside from pleasing our neighbors with our silence, I could not see any possible use for this skill in my adult life.

UNTIL I had children. We now live in a very old (originally built in 1871) very creaky house. With many thanks to my mother (NEVER thought I'd write that phrase) I am able to be beside my children without warning. I have employed this skill to stop fights, correct the errant child, and surprise my four daughters when they decide to have a slumber party instead of going to sleep at night. Time and again, my children have been caught off-guard by my stealth. This usually results in one or more of my offspring whispering "freaky".

During one of my slumber party busts, I got so close to Froggie that I could whisper in her ear, so I said the following:
"It's freaky how sneaky your Daddy can be."
As my children desperately try to figure out how to hear me coming, I am encouraged to find that an otherwise pointless exercise has become useful. So, as I am designing appropriate discipline for my children, I have hope that they may be able to find some future benefit from some useless form of punishment.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Another Celery Experiment

August 18, 2008: I prepared celery for the joint birthday party. I cut the whole root end off the celery to save time instead of separating the ribs before cutting off the ends. Previously, I had seen an activity for cutting the topmost part of old celery off and putting the root end in water to watch the young shoots grow. I figured it wouldn't hurt to see if it would work with just the root end.

I didn't get any pictures before today. When I cut off the end, I cut straight through. The growth that you can see above the level of the rest of the cut line took place after it was cut. This is what our celery looks like now:


There are even little roots growing now. Can you see them?


The kids have enjoyed watching the progress. Kitty Kat has even taken it upon herself to make sure it stays watered. I moved the celery to our dining room table to take these pictures. Baby Bear walked right past the table, saw the pictures on our computer, and ran to the kitchen to check out the celery. He started getting stressed out because he couldn't find it in its usual spot. "Hey, where'd our celery go!" I showed him where it was and everything was right in his little world again.