Here Comes The Sun....

Thankfully the sun came out today.

We really did nothing today except stay outside. Well, *I* stayed outside the kids went in and out, in and out until I thought the door might fall off of it's hinges.

I made reservations online for our trip the the "happiest place on earth". And for the amount of money it is going to cost we had better be happy, even if it kills us.

Pictures Just For Christi

We are in the middle of major renovating here at our house. Every room in our entire house needs to be redone, a rather daunting task since there is 22+ rooms plus 7 bathrooms.

Some rooms need to have the ugly wallpaper stripped off, all the trim removed and stripped, carpeting torn up and the floor refinished. Those are the easy rooms that don't require much work, comparatively speaking.

Right now we are finishing up our mudroom/laundryroom and have begun work in our family room and old laundryroom.



Here is a picture looking into the familyroom from the old laundry room. The change in flooring shows where a wall used to be that we removed. We removed ceiling and the weird dropped ceiling that covered that bringing the ceiling height up to 10ft. It is a nice large room with french doors that lead out into the backyard.



This photo shows the other side of the room. And the walls were all painted that lovely Pepto-Bismol shade of pink. The green shag carpeting that was also in this room was one of the first things that we tore up when we moved into the house.



This photo is from the perspective of standing in the familyroom looking back out into the old laundryroom. The entrance to our new mudroom/laundryroom is on the left hand side of the old laundryroom as you look at the photo. Those are our old washer (aka the smallest washing machine in the world) and it's equally small dryer sidekick. Once we get rid of them the wall behind them will be knocked out expanding our kitchen into a more user friendly layout and make room for a breakfast nook. And please take note of the lovely shade of neon yellow the room is painted in.

Our original plans were to add on a new breakfast room off the kitchen, but I can't seem to find the money tree anywhere out in my yard. All the rain has made those darn weeds grow so much you can't find anything, including one of my 7yr olds Tevas.

This room had a horrible drop ceiling with industrial fluorescent lighting. Blech. We had to tear it all out in order to have all the bathroom plumbing in the house redone. It was a huge expense that sort of sprung on us. So we frequently go out there and look up and admire all the copper piping. I even point it out to guests in our home.

I want to say, "Look up there! My house might be furnished in college dorm cast-offs....but I have new copper pipes! And I bet they cost more than the Ethan Allen table you just bought, and those adorable Pottery barn accessories. And they are SO much more functional too."

But I don't say anything because I don't want them to feel bad.

Yet Another Rainy Day

Here is the weather forcast for our area for the next week.


Tonight
Jul 27 Rain / Thunder 62°
Wed
Jul 28 T-Storms 74°/63°
Thu
Jul 29 Partly Cloudy 81°/63°
Fri
Jul 30 Scattered Showers 81°/64°
Sat
Jul 31 Isolated T-Storms 79°/64°
Sun
Aug 01 Scattered T-Storms 80°/64°
Mon
Aug 02 Scattered T-Storms 81°/62°
Tue
Aug 03 Isolated T-Storms 81°/60°


All this rain cannot be good. I think I am beginning to grow moldy.

I should have known that once I set up the pool the weather would turn bad. That is just the sort of luck I have.

And so I apologize to all my fellow New Englanders for single handedly ruining their summer weather.

And just as a heads up, I have already purchased our ski passes for next season. So save your money, I can tell you already there won't be snow.

I Think Teva Should Pay Me For All The Free Advertising I Give Them Everyday

Jokes You Would Find Funny If You Were 3 Years Old

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To go poop on the other side.

Why did the dog cross the road?
To go poop on the other side. 

Why did the computer cross the road?
To go poop on the other side.

Why did the house cross the road?
     here I tell the 3 yr old that houses cannot cross the road, and he gleefully screams:
They can if they have to go poop!

And on and on the jokes, obviously using this term very loosely,  go.

He did have one somewhat humorous one...

Why did the skeleton cross the road?
To wipe the chickens butt.

 

The Young Musician

This morning my 8 yr old son brought my flute down from the attic. It has not seen the light of day in many years. I told him that I had recieved the flute as a present when I was 9 yrs old, to which he resonded, "I'll be very careful with it" I was so proud of how concientious he seemed to be. Then he added, "I know how fragile antiques are."

He has been practicing and practicing all morning. I finally sent him outside on the porch to play it so that he could annoy...errrr, I mean delight the neighbors for a change.





He has informed me that he intends to learn to play various instruments and get "really good" so that he can go to NYC and play on the street corner and have people give him money.

Ahhhh, a career to make a mother proud.

Yuck

What is worse than finding your baby playing in the toliet?

Finding your baby playing in a toliet that wasn't flushed.

Blueberries and Swimming

This morning after breakfast we headed to a local pick-your-own farm. All the things the kids have been wanting me to make with our blueberries was not going to happen with the 1 cup they have managed to pick from our bushes. The farm also has vegetables that you can pick and so we thought we would do that also while we were there.



I was hoping to pick 2 flats of blueberries, 16 pints, but it was SO incredibly hot out and there was no shade from the sun, obviously since the bushes need lots of direct sunshine to grow. We left after picking one flat and decided that we didn't want to pick vegetables at all. I think one of my children began whining they were so hot and didn't even like vegetables and the rest of the agreed..and so I was out voted.




When we came home from blueberry picking the children could not wait to get into the pool. Even though it was sweltering outside, the water was freezing. But that doesn't seem to matter to children.

I had not yet put the ladder together for them to climb into the pool themselves, but they were all too impatient to wait. So I picked each of them up and threw them into the frigid water. After about 5 minutes several of them were wishing that they had waited for me to put the ladder together so that they could get out! I put the ladder together as quickly as I could without any tools, because I had not thought to bring any outside and I couldn't go back to the house and leave the children unsupervised in the pool.

Which brings me to something I had not considered at all during the pool saga. I have to sit all the way out there in the backyard to supervise the entire time they are swimming. Duh...sounds obvious, but I hadn't really thought about how the pool was going to impact the time I have to do things around the house.



But who can begrudge these happy smiling children??

And one benefit of swimming all afternoon is tired children. They should go to sleep early tonight and sleep in late. Right? Well, I can always hope.

We had a pizza party for dinner tonight. I ordered pizza, we rolled up the rug in the family room, took the tv out of the closet and watched a video while we ate. Now I am experiencing the other side of tired children. They are all cranky and irrational, 6:30 isn't too early for bed is it?

The Un-party

I made a chocolate cake with vanilla icing and rainbow sprinkles. My 9 yr old said he thought it was a bit too festive looking for a "funeral cake". Oh well, I told him I was sorry and that next time he could tell me a more appropriate type of cake to make for the occasion.

He answered with, "Next time? Why do you say next time? None of my pets are going to die again!" Okay. Perhaps he is forgetting about all the little headstones under our pine tree. Not the best track record I am afraid.

The candles the 3 and 5 yr old wanted to put on the cake were out also, because it was NOT a time for celebration.

When it was time for us to eat the cake we had to bring all the other toads in their terariums so they could be part of the event. I did veto going outside and sitting in the turtle habitat with the toads while we ate our cake. I'm just mean like that.




While we were eating I commented how cute it was that one toad was on top of the other toad having a piggy-back ride. My 9 yr old rolled his eyes at me and informed me that they were mating. He went on to tell us all that they do this several times a day for at least a half hour each time.

I had no idea.

Just waiting for him to ask for clarification now on how I actually got pregnant. After watching the toads he might be a bit disappointed ;-)

Building the Hover Craft

Today my 8 yr old found a science experiment he wanted to do. It was an easy one and we had all the neccesary materials. But as he read me the directions and what the experiment was supposed to "show", I knew it wasn't going to live up to his expectations.

The project was to build a hover craft using a 12" diameter circle of cardboard, a soda bottle cap, and a balloon. You poke a hole through the center of the bottle cap, poke another hole through the center of the carboard circle, and glue the bottle cap onto the cardboard so that the holes are aligned. After the glue dries you blow up the balloon and put it on the bottle cap. Then you are supposed to gently push the cardboard across the floor, where the force of the air will make the cardboard "hover" over the ground. Think a very low tech air hockey table.





Well it worked the way it was supposed to, which is not that great by an 8yr olds standard. He thought it would actually hover off the ground enough for us to see daylight underneath it. Of course I had explained to him before we did the experiment what it would probably be like, but he still had high expectations. Doesn't he just look thrilled in the photo?

Luckily most of the experiments he choses to do work out better for him than this one. It was still fun though.


Oh and it is never a good thing to hear your 3yr old in the other room, talking outloud to himself, say, "This is why little kids are not allowed to use glue."

A Sad Day

 
Warts Jr, the toad, joins the other unfortunate pets in the pet graveyard.  And yes there was a Warts Sr, you can see his gravestone in the right hand corner of the photo.

My 9 yr old takes the deaths of his pets so hard.  It is very sad.  He thinks I need to make a cake... Warts would have liked it.  Really?  Bake a cake in 90 degree humid weather with no a/c?

I think Warts was more the popsicle type myself.

But when your child is crying and heartbroken you'll do whatever it takes to make it better.  And if that means dying of heatstroke while you bake a cake, then so be it.

The Pool Saga Continues

This morning I had a bunch of whining complaining kids around me.  They were whining about this and that and all the other various injustices that have been inflicted upon them, and somehow all these things are my fault. 
 
The crummy weather lately....my fault.

The missing remote control car, that I don't even remember...my fault.

The fact that the 8 yr old didn't get up from bed this morning until after everyone else had already eaten breakfast and therefore there was none of his "favorite" cereal left... my fault.

The fact that I didn't know it was his "favorite" cereal...my fault.

The pee all over the toliet seat that 5yr old sat in...my fault.
 
Throw in world hunger and the war in Iraq and I am pretty much to blame for all the ills in the world.
 
They did have one point with which I could agree. 
 
The pool is not set up yet..
 
It is still sitting in the box on our front porch.    Sigh, again I am reminded the Mother of the Year Award is nowhere in my reaches.
 
I had been waiting for Rob to help me set it up.  When we set up the pool the last time it seemed very heavy and I didn't think I would be able to manage it alone.  But I realized today that like most of the boring chores around here I had better just do it myself or it had no chance in hell of getting done.
 
So I told the children we would try to set it up ourselves.  First off I forbid my 3 and 5 yr olds from going anywhere near the pool and told them as an extra precaution they should try to avoid even looking at it.  Because there is no way I would consider replacing it again.  

I frisked them down to make sure they had no concealed weapons that might damage the pool.  My 5 yr old told me he just had his "emergency" jack knife.  What kind of emergency requires a 5 yr old to have a jack knife, I have no idea.  But this same child showers and puts on his clothes at night because he doesn't "have time" in the morning.  I suppose if we ever have to flee our house in the middle of the night the joke will be on the rest of us.  We will all be in various stages of undress, but he will be fully clothed AND have his jack knife.  But I digress.
 
After  I did the full body searches and made sure that no one had anything remotely sharp or pointy on them I opened up the box.  The boys got out the wheelbarrow and made a few trips to get all the pool parts to the back yard.  It is amazing how diligently they work when it directly benefits them.   Hmmmm I guess the same can be said for me.  Yes we will set up the pool RIGHT NOW. 

But please...please.... I am begging you... for the love of God stop whining at me.   

It was surprisingly easy to set up.  Maybe because this time I had help that actually listened to what I had to say ;-)

As I type this the pool is filling up.  I can only hope that tomorrow morning when I go back out to check it that the water is still actually in the pool.   Because if it isn't I might just impale myself with that emergency jack knife.
    
    

     
     
 

So I Am A Wimp

 
Tonight I was about to sit down on the couch with my computer when I saw something flying out of the corner of my eye.  At first I thought...big black moth? 
 
Noooooo, it was a BAT. 
 
I behaved like the stereotypical wimpy female and screamed, hurdled the furniture, leapt over the baby, and ran out of the room.   I ran up the stairs yelling for the baby to follow me.   Of course she just stood there laughing at me, like her father.  It took few deep breaths and the summoning of my courage to go down the stairs and "rescue" her.  
 
As we stood at the top of the stairs I explained to her that *this* is the reason I got married.  I got married so I would never have to take out the garbage, kill disgusting bugs, or catch mice.  (the last one has also evolved into squirrels and bats, something I never could have even imagined in my worst nightmares 10 years ago)
 
Luckily Rob sprung into action and got the bat, who unfortunately for it,  paid the ultimate sacrifice for venturing into our home. 
 
After this, the numerous mice, and the squirrel incident from last year, I am pretty sure that PETA will not be solicting us for a membership anytime soon. 

17 weeks

I am at the weird stage of pregnancy where none of my regular clothing fits at all, but the maternity clothes are too big. I spent all day pulling these capris up.





And doesn't everyone have a Lego Yoda wearing a pooka (puka?)  shell necklace on their fireplace mantel?

How To Torture Your Parents, or Baby's Note To Self

Today I am going to wake up early....very very early.  I am going to stand in my crib at 4:00am and scream "mommy, mommy" over and over until my mom comes to get me out.  Once we lay down in her bed and get all comfortable I am going to demand my "ba-ba".  And NO, I do not want those convenient nursies anymore...I am 15 mos old now, I want my bottle.
 
After my mom gets out of bed and gets it for me I am going to kick her with my foot while I drink it and hit dad in the head with my free hand.  When they try to roll far away from me in the bed, I will turn sideways.  Now I can kick mom with both feet and still hit dad in the face.
 
Once I finish drinking my bottle I am going to hold it by the nipple side and swing it back and forth, repeatedly smacking my parents in the head with it.  When they try to pull the covers over their heads to get away from me, I will stand up and yank the covers off of them.
 
When mom takes my bottle away and throws it across the room, I will head butt her a few times.   And just for good measure I'll head butt dad too.  The I will climb on top of him and jump up and down.
 
Finally they will give up and get up out of bed defeated at 5:30am. 
 
I will dance a little jig and sing "I'm the boss, I'm the boss"  and even though they don't understand what I am saying, I think they get the meaning.
 
And after they go downstairs and have their coffee and dad leaves for work, I will climb up on the couch and go back to sleep.
 
A girl needs her beauty rest afterall.
 

 

On Being a Godfather

My husband has been asked by his best friend to be the Godfather of his third child. He feels very honored and is quite happy about it.

Of course I had to be the downer and point something out to my husband. We are NOT Catholic. I am pretty sure that they have some strict rules about that sort of thing, as it seems to be a very rule oriented religion.

Apparently I brought it up for nothing. Rob and his friend had already discussed it and decided that they would just *pretend* he is Catholic.

Oh good, not like we are talking about the baby's eternal soul or anything.

The Mother Of All Bowls

Today the contractors packed up all their stuff, cleaned up all the garbage, and left. Ahhhhh peace and quiet. Well as peaceful and quiet as it ever gets around here ;-)

They will be back, but most likely not until at least next week. I need to get some painting done before they can come back and finish. I did manage to prime most of our new sunporch last weekend and now I need to use the actual paint. Then the contractor can put in the screens and we could enjoy it without the mosquitos. I also have to put another coat of paint in our new mudroom bathroom so that the sink and toliet can be installed.

The cabinets for the mudroom/laundryroom are ordered and should arrive in mid August. So our contractor will be back again to install them and make our countertops.

Ahhh, the never ending renovations at the big yellow house.

I took all the kids out today to Old Navy and Target. We had to do something on yet another rainy day. Everyone found a few things that they liked, but I wasn't all that impressed with their sale prices or selection. I think those things tend to be hit or miss, and since we live about an hour from the nearest Old Navy we miss more than we hit.

At Target I bought all sorts of crap that I didn't know I needed LOL. I did find a really HUGE serving bowl that I was thrilled with. I have been looking for one for awhile, but none that I found were large enough.....until today.



Oh yeah.

What Else Could Go Wrong Yesterday....

How about I type a really long entry, hit publish post and lose the entire thing???

At least today is a brand new day. Things have to be better today.

Right?

One Of Those Days

I am having one of those days.

This is due to, in no particular order:

1) Contractors who have been at my house for way too long and are now more like annoying house guests.

2) My 8 yr old, who has been without his ADHD medication since Saturday. If nothing else it has served as a really good reminder of how much he really needs it.

3) The RAIN

4) Too many late nights, which equals cranky overtired children

5) Loading all the children into the van, only to discover that it will not start. Guess that Service Engine light that came on a year ago really means something.

On the bright side, at least the day is almost over.

The Daily Test Of My Mental Stability

Rob took the oldest boys back to the lake this morning for more fishing. I am beginning to wonder if I like this boat idea, it hasn't proven to be much fun for me that's for sure.

I took the opportunity to clean the kitchen, by far my LEAST favorite room in this house. The previous owner, an elderly woman, redid the kitchen in the late 1980's. And aside from it not being functional, it is also hideously ugly. It is the most large family unfriendly kitchen that could possibly exist.

I have two wall ovens, a gas one and an electric one. I was very excited about them until we moved into the house and I actually tried to cook in them. I can't fit any of my large pans in them, which makes them rather useless. There is also virtually no useable counter space, despite it being a fairly large kitchen.

This morning, I completely cleaned out the refrigerator and removed all the shelves to scrub them with bleach. I also have "issues" with refrigerator. It is probably the smallest side by side refrigerator you can buy and therefore NONE of my serving plates or trays will fit into it. And the other bonus feature of the fridge is it's location in an alcove. This means that the doors are unable to swing fully open. The shelves cannot be taken out with alot of yanking, twisting and swearing. I suppose most people would think the swearing was optional, but I really think it is a neccessary part of the process ;-)

Then I get to take the shelves over to my too small sink. It is a TINY double sink that, yes say it with me, NONE of my things will fit into. And to make the experience even more pleasurable, the faucet is small and has a low arc, so I can't even put a large stock pot into the sink to fill it up. Invariably everytime I use the sink water sloshes out all over the floor.

What kind of floor you ask??? The *white* *vinyl* floor. Then the children walk in with their shoes or dirty feet and I have mud all over the place.

Is it no wonder that I hate to cook so much?

Another Saturday

Today was another busy weekend day here at the big yellow house. I ran out early and bought some exterior primer and paint. I have to paint our new screened in porch before our contractor puts the screens in. I keep finding excuses not to do it because I really don't like to paint.

In the afternoon, while the baby napped, I managed to prime everything on the interior side of the porch. Rob had the children help him clean up the yard, it was looking a bit like Little Tykes threw up in our yard, and then mowed the grass.

After that we decided to take our new-to-us boat out onto a lake near our house. All of us can't fit on it at once, so I sat on the shore with half the kids while the others went out fishing and for a ride, and then we switched kids. The baby was less than impressed with the parking lot and small shore line and would alternately try to run into the water to drown herself or else eat garbage ;-)






We arrived home around 7:30, and Kim will be happy to hear that I still hadn't even *thought* about what we were going to have for dinner. Rob came to the rescue and made pancakes for everyone. By the time we ate it was almost 8:30. I tried to convince the children that they were having breakfast early so that I wouldn't have to make anything in the morning, but they wouldn't buy it LOL

Who Needs Television!!!

The new washing machine is hooked up and providing hours of fun at the big yellow house.

Our Trip To Upstate New York

Saturday morning I woke up at the crack of dawn to finish packing and getting everything ready for us to leave early. Typical procrastination on my part ;-) We loaded everyone and everything into our van and took off. The kids were great in the van on the ride up. I think this was mostly due to them being delerious from hunger. Rob had told us that he would stop as soon as he found a good breakfast place. That happened several hours later after much complaining on my part.

As soon as we arrived in Cooperstown, we headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Rob and my oldest two sons were thrilled with it. I was appropriately enthusiastic for the first hour or so. At that point my 3 and 5 yr olds were also less than impressed and whining to leave. So the second hour or so I spent picking them up off the floor as their knees involuntarily buckled beneath them as we headed toward yet another exhibit. My 5 yr old cried at one point, "I hate this place. It is full of old shirts and old shoes!" My sentiments exactly LOL.

From there we went and had a picnic lunch of food I had packed in a cooler, and then headed to a ballgame at Doubleday Field.

After we had done all the baseball stuff, we went to the Farmers Museum. What a fabulous place. We all really loved it. It is an educational farm that showscases the crafts, professions, tools, etc of the mid 1800's on a rural farm. The kids got to watch a blacksmith making horseshoes, a weaver using a loom and making brooms, visit the barnyard where the baby animals were kept, and play with some toys that children would have used during the time period. We were only able to spend a short time there as the museum was closing for the day. We had hoped to return the next day, but there was so much to do we never got around to it.



Here is my 3yr old trying out the wooden stilts.




And doesn't every family with a posse of unruly boys need one of these???

Around 5:00 we found a hotel, but we had to get two rooms. At first I was disappointed that we had to split up, but I think it worked out for the best in the long run. Since we don't have tv at home, it was a huge attraction for the kids. Rob had the children with him who were happy to watch baseball on tv, and I had the children who were happy to watch home and garden type shows. That is one benefit to not having tv, when we do get to watch bits of it the children are happy to watch *anything* on it. My 5 yr old son, 7 yr old son and I all laid on the bed until midnight eating chips and discussing the decorating choices the "experts" were making. LOL

After we checked into our hotel we went out to dinner at a little dive that advertised an all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner for $1.99. We could only convince one child to eat spaghetti that night, but everything else was inexpensive and tasted great. We were all satisfied and the kids each got a pack of baseball cards on the way out for being well behaved.

We went for a drive around the area after dinner and discovered that the fireworks were that night down on the lake. It seemed like fun so we parked the van and walked a few miles to claim our spot on the lakeshore. The children really enjoyed them and they were a rather impressive display for a small town.

From there we went back to the hotel and stayed up too late, numbing our minds with useless knowledge.

Part two of this exciting travelogue to follow soon ;-)

We Have Blueberries

The kids were all so excited to finally see some ripe berries. They were naming off all the things they want me to bake with them. We will have to put the netting up over the berries this weekend so that they don't all get eaten by the birds before they have a chance to get ripe.

It feels like summer is finally here. Now to just get that pool set up.

Grocery Shopping, or how to age 10 years in one morning

I am not sure why I torture myself and bring all the children grocery shopping. I really think I must have a masochistic side to my personality as I just don't learn from my past experiences.

I end up forgetting half of what I wanted to get and get things I really didn't want to get. When I returned home Rob asked me what I had bought at the store. I really have no idea. I do know I have 5 bags of different kinds of chips and two containers of Fluff, because some things just aren't worth the fight. LOL

I don't think I am going grocery shopping ever again. It is way too stressful and it leads to my second least favorite thing....cooking. The unrelenting everdayness of meal preparation is something people never tell you about before you have children. Children want to eat....all day, every day, and in huge quantities. And they all are never happy with the meal selection so there is *always* someone complaining.

I have to ask them repeatedly to tell me the only two things that my restaurant serves. The correct answer is: Take It or Leave It. They all know this. Even my 3 year old can answer this question as he lays on the floor crying and writhing in apparent pain over the green vegetable that has dared to disgrace his plate.

My 8 yr old answered the other day garbage and disgusting food. I have truly come to believe that children are cute as a survival mechanism.

I am a bit disappointed tonight with our contractor. There is a huge hole in the side of my house covered in plastic where my lovely new doors should be. That isn't the upsetting part though. I went outside after they had left to take a sneak peek at my new doors. They are NOT what I wanted. I had told our contractor that I wanted true divided light french doors; these are one big glass window. I could return it and get what I want, but it will take a couple weeks since it would be a special order. Who wants to live that long with a big HOLE in the side of their house!

Not to mention the fact that who knows when the contractor will have time to come back and finish the job. Afterall I am still waiting for my washer and dryer to be installed in my new laundryroom.

When he does show up I feel like the wallflower at the school dance who finally got asked to dance. I am just giddy when he shows up at our house, that he picked *our* house to work at over all his other clients that particular day. Somehow the fact that we are paying him boatloads of money to show up at our house gets lost.

Tomorrow the doors will be installed and I am sure I will get used to them. Afterall, once they are covered with grimy handprints will it really matter all that much anyway?

We're Baaaaack

Well, we are back from our long weekend of family fun and togetherness. Rob happily went to work this morning to relax. I think I even saw him skipping, whistling, and swinging his briefcase as he went down the driveway.

We had a great time, but, as with any vacation, the ride home was nothing short of hell. And why is it that the ride home always seems twice as long? And why is breathing so offensive to the person sitting next to you? And how do you actually burp *on* someone? And how do you know if someone is *thinking* of throwing something at you? And why can't two people look out the same window? And who cares who saw the bird, house, cow, dead animal first? And finally WHY doesn't someone invent a soundproof barrier that goes up behind the driver's seat like they have in limousines?

I keep wanting to write about our trip, but my cranky overtired children keep interrupting my train of thought. I am working on it though!

I am about to paint our window the belongs in the foyer. A window which we removed about a year ago. As part of our lead paint removal process at the big yellow house, we have all the windows and painted trim removed from our home and property and stripped down to the bare wood. Then I have the fun of repainting it all with some less lethal paint. The things I won't do to save a few IQ points for my children ;-)

Joy of all joys my contractor showed up this morning. My new french sliding doors should be delivered today and will be installed in my sunroom tomorrow. I should also have my new washer and dryer hooked up... trying not to get my hopes up too much on that one since I have been using the worlds smallest washer and dryer for over a year now. And by the end of the week our new half bath should be all hooked up. No more traipsing through the entire house from the backyard to get to the potty.


It is good to be home.

Going Away For the Weekend

Packing, packing, packing....need I say more?

I had my eldest three sons pack their own bags. I went through their bags to check if they brought appropriate clothing. Good thing I did. My 8 yr old packed NO clothes at all. He did, however, have a CD player, extra batteries, camera, several books, a few stuffed animals, and a notebook and pens. You know, the important stuff ;-)

Where there is packing, there is also laundry. I am on the fourth load this morning and not sure when I will get to the bottom of Mount Washmore.

After the laundry, I have to pack for everyone else. Find the cooler and clean it out so I can pack us food and snacks. Decide what food and snacks to bring with us and probably go out and shop for them. Clean out the van. I had told the children I would bake cookies to take with us, but I am half hoping the forget.

Hope everyone has a great long weekend.

And if any would be house burgalars are reading and thinking this would be a good weekend to rob our house, I say go for it. Please ignore the the furnishings on the first floor that look like they are college dorm cast-offs or else made by little tykes. We keep the valulable stuff up on the third floor...
In Boxes...
And the really valulable stuff is in the boxes labelled "junk" and "crap".
Help yourself. Please.

Butterflies and Tree Forts

They are everywhere in our yard!

We have one bush that had about 30 butterflies on it today. I have no idea what kind of bush it is, but it has lots of small white flowers on it.




The children built themselves a tree fort today, all by themselves. They chopped up twigs and branches and nailed them lean-to style onto a huge pine tree we have in our yard. The cut up a garden hose and nailed the strips to the side of the tree as ladder steps. I am SO hoping that it was the old broken hose, but regardless it was exceedingly clever and I'd rather replace a garden hose than stifle their creativity. They also used a section of it to make a telephone.

They also used a few rolls of scotch tape LOL. I asked my 9 yr old what the deal was with the tape wrapped all around the tree. He looked at me very seriously and said, "We had to give the babies something to do and I didn't think it was wise for them to have saws and other sharp things." I guess he learned a lesson from the pool box opening incident as well ;-)


It was a great day at the big yellow house and I was once again reminded of what neat creative kids I have.