A few pictures

Little Miss on the Pony Ride

Jr2 on the Pony Ride (note the yellow horse)

Dancing Belle (the other bell didn't fit in the picture)

First Soccer Game 

(full steam ahead -- Go #10 -- do you think the other team has noticed him yet?)

New blog -- with photos and a few stories

I just started a new sewing blog, with reviews of some of the patterns I made.  It also includes pictures of the kids wearing the clothes I made for them.  The blog address is http://seaminglysane.blogspot.com.

Now for the funny stories.  Little Miss has a few twists on common terms.  When she is having fun or being a cowgirl, she like to yell, "Whee Haw".  Like when going over tickle bumps (Whee Haw).  Jr2 has picked it up, too.

She also calls bare feet, "stinky feet".  For example at bedtime tonight, Little Miss told Sr that you can't go to bed unless you have stinky feet.  She also told this to me, and then came and took my socks off for me.  After a little bit, she came back and informed me that stinky feet need to be under your blankets when you go to sleep.  I told her o.k.  She has been informed that Gran's stinky feet do not have to be under the blanket at bedtime.

Jr2 has been having fun with the outdoor life, especially of the reptile / amphibian variety.  He has caught two toads so far and named both "Froggy".  He is greatly looking forward to visiting Papa and going out to the desert to catch some toads, like Farmer Boy used to do.  When asked today what animals Papa has on his farm, he replied, "Toads."

He also found a salamander stuck in one of our buckets of water yesterday.  He had Sr rescue it. Then he put it in a dry bucket, with a board on top.  The ant in his hand in the sewing photo (new blog) was later fed to the salamander.  We plan on it "escaping" while we are gone.

Jr2 has also been helping Sr with building the chicken coop.  Jr2 and Little Miss carried one of the 2x4s from the front yard out to the back.  They fight over who gets to hand Sr the next nail.  Luckily they haven't tried using the hammers…. yet.  Little Miss was carrying around the drill like she knew how to use it and had a nail with her also.  She was intercepted before she could put her theories into practice.

Our neighbor has also been a great help on this project.  He has lots of advice, knowledge and jokes to share along the way.  He taught Sr how to do toe joints and framing, among other things.  His help has made the project go a lot faster.  If it wasn't for his help, we'd have roast chicken straight from the greenhouse when we got back.

The coop will be a slate blue stain, thanks to my find in the "Oops" sale pile at Home Depot.  It was about 80% off.

Here are some pictures of them in the former chicken coop / greenhouse.

Little Miss and Chickens In The Straw

The Thinker (Farm Style -- "Got a good crop of chicks this year")

Little Miss has also helped me sew while Jr2 and Sr and the neighbor are out building.  She especially likes to put "pokies" (pins) in the fabric for me and sit on my lap while I sew.

Jr1 is graduating this weekend!  Congratulations!

Random Stuff

A couple of weeks ago I slipped and hurt my knee. Bad. Sr had to come home from work and take me to a doctor a day for the next four days (shouldn't eaten apples instead). Anyway, I stretched, at the very least, my PCL. I am now to the point where I can sew again (yeah!) and I even drove a short distance today. Sometimes, I hobble around without my crutches and just with my knee brace. Jr2 likes to make kites, or anything else that involves strings or cords. I'm still waiting for him to outgrow this phase. He also did really well in his preschool spring program. The other day I hadn't brushed my hair. He came over, told me I needed to brush it, that it did not look good, and then put some hair gel in it to try and help it. Granny should be proud (of him). Little Miss is as full of life as ever. She does not like to share, particularly since this gets a lot of attention from Jr2. She loves to taunt him. We're working on getting rid of that behavior. I'm thinking about fifty more years and it might be gone. (That means I've got 8 - 10 years left to taunt my brothers, right?) She loves her dolls. All her stories involves babies and princesses. About 80 percent also involve Dora or Daniel Tiger. The kids have a large stuffed goose I got at Jr2's baby shower. It came with little stuffed animals attached to the corresponding Mother Goose Rhyme book. The kids currently love the goose. They have named it "Duck Duck Goose". Not that we play the game, but they mention something about it in Max and Ruby. Sr works and shuttles us around and works some more. And takes the heater out to the greenhouse to keep the plants warm.

Just a quick note

Funny moments for the week. Jr2 asking for a piggybank ride. Little Miss singing, "Jesus Wants Me For A Caillou".

I mad… Now I happy and other random things

So Jr3 (I think I'm going to switch and call her Little Miss) likes to keep us informed of her feelings. I sad. I mad. I happy now. This is now evolving. This past week we were taking a car ride. Little Miss informed us that "I mad." We joked around and got her in a better mood. Then she got upset again and informed us "I two mad." So, I asked her what things she was mad about. She then informed us "I forty-six mad." I'm not sure if that's on a scale of one to 100 or if it's how many items she's mad about. I'm sure we'll get to find out. Jr2 has been reminding us that we need to start planting some of our plants. It's time to plant the strawberry seeds to get a good start. We went to the store and bought dirt on Friday night. It is kept outside and was frozen solid. We brought it in Saturday afternoon and had to keep checking it all day to make see if it was thawed yet. It was finally thawed today, so we will be planting them tomorrow for part of family home evening. Sr has been working, scouting and helping around the house. I have been cooking, cleaning, and working on lengthening Libby's dress I made her last Easter. I think the dress might actually end up cuter that it was. I've also been enjoying my sunshine lamp from SunBox. 20 minutes a day for me. I'm not necessarily getting up earlier yet, but I am getting more done in the day. I am also working on exercising. I have joined nExercise and Fitocracy (free versions) and have been tracking my exercising. I like it because then I can level up. On nExercise I get rewards I can accumulate slowly and redeem for things. On Fitocracy I have joined some groups to get encouragement. For example, someone told me that when they exercise with the kids around, they will do sit-ups, then read them a story, then do pushups, then read them a story, etc… They also try to involve the kids in the exercise and they posted a YouTube showing someone doing just that. Kind of like Coo using the kids for weights when doing pushups. So I did sit-ups the other day and had the kids sit on my feet to anchor them down. They thought it was all sorts of fun. We'll see how long that lasts, but in the meantime I'll enjoy it.

Random Bits of Knowledge I've Used More Than Expected

Lately, I've been thinking about the things I've learned (not from parents) that I've used more than expected. I'm sure I've used a lot more things I learned from my parents than I ever expected to use when I was a teenager, but that's another post. I'll probably update this post as I remember more of them. First are skills I learned at church girl's camp. I never expected to use any of these skills, since I hate camping. However, I must admit some of these skills have come in useful. For example, how to make a bedroll. Since we are trying to save money and turning down the thermostat is a great way to do it. As a paranoid mother that wants to make sure the children warm enough at night, I use bedrolls on their beds. I learned how to do this at camp, even though we never actually used them. I remember this, since soon after I learned it I had to teach my brothers how to do it for scouts. The other camping skill I learned that might be useful is lashing. We have quite a few branches from the neighbor's trees. I am thinking this summer I will lash some together to make some fun outdoor furniture for the kids (to go with the sunflower house we are planting). Drafting and math have come in handy when lengthening patterns or creating extensions for current clothes. Mom is grateful for drafting and it's positive affects on my handwriting. My psuedocode class came in handy when I graduated from college and got a job programming in a language I didn't know yet. My personal fashion selection class taught me that I can wear any color I want, as long as I get the right shade, so I'm open to trying on more clothes than I would have been. Also, it taught me that just because something is cheap it isn't always a good deal and vice versa. For example, if I buy a shirt on sale for $5 and wear it once, it cost me $5 per wearing. If I buy a shirt for $40 and wear it not quite every other week for 20 times, it cost me $2 per wearing and is a much better deal. A county gardening class taught me that while some times are better than others for pruning and trimming, any time is better than not at all. With how well I get around to doing things at the right time, this has been very valuable knowledge. On my mission I learned how to boil water (ok I already knew that) that I could then use with colder water from the tub for taking a shower when the hot water is out. I used that this winter when our hot water heater was out and we were waiting on a new one.

The Holidays

So, Sr keeps telling me when I tell him about different happenings -- "You should put that on your blog".  Unfortunately, I haven't been doing it or even making a note of the event.  As a result, no fun stories at the moment.

Jr2 and Jr3 did enjoy their Christmas.  We read the Christmas story in the scriptures and paused at strategic points to let the kids act out the events with the Fisher Price nativity set.  Jr2's favorite present was his new bike (even though he claims it is too big and too hard to ride).  Jr3's favorite present was her Hello Kitty karaoke.  We got many hours of entertainment out of it on Christmas day -- and without having any music to go with it.  Jr3 does love music and tries to learn and sing along with all the songs on the various shows she watches.  She doesn't quite have the concept of following the tune down yet.

We had a pinhole leak when we got back from our trip to Sr's side of the family (I'll have to post about that trip in another blog).  We tried a fix.  It didn't work.  Our home teacher came over and taught Sr how to weld (solder?) copper pipes.  Now it doesn't leak -- there.  Then the water heater finished going out.  We new it needed a new anode rod, but by the time that was known it was probably too late.  Sr now knows how to install hot water heaters.  Talk about a good home teacher.  He helped install the water heater as well (2 days) and the second day he dropped Sr at the doctor's (pneumonia again, we think) and dropped off a van key to the kids and I when I locked us out of the van.

Jr2 went and got his more in-depth speech assessment (which is where I locked the keys in the van).  They will be getting the results to me on Wednesday and then they will meet with us to discuss the plan of attack the next Wednesday.

Jr3 continues to love dolls and being a mommy to her dolls, although when Sr told her she was a good mommy to her dolls, she replied, "I not a mommy, I a sissy."