Not a Malfunction, Just a Runaway

Click on the picture to find the kid with the escaping wardrobe...

Congratulations to Steph and Matt on their new addition.

Now they have three adorable girls :) They posted some new pictures last night and I was struck again by how much I think their oldest (of course, I see Steph in her, too, and she is prettier than Matt ever was, but still) Ruby looks like her dad...


What do YOU think?

Does Ruby look like Matt?

Happy Halloween

Summer took all the pumpkin carving pictures, including the one below.

Rachel isn't really mad, she is just teasing Summer by being photographically uncooperative :)

I like the contrast between their expressions.

Michael was so excited to be a frog, I had a hard time keeping him from hopping during the picture taking.

Heather and Kelly - pioneers

Gwen - cowgirl

Michael - frog

Naomi - fairy princess

Stray...

You've heard of stray dogs...

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and Stray Cats...

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but have you ever heard of a stray CHICKEN?!?!?!?

Yep, we have adopted a stray chicken.

She just showed up in our yard a few months ago and moved in.

It happened at a fortuitous time, since we lost three chickens to what I'm guessing was the bird flu (have you ever heard a chicken hack and cough?) and so it was nice to get an addition to our little flock.

The girls christened her Snapdragon.

Stan says she is a game hen.

Here she is with Daisy and Buttercup, the extent of our poultry :)

Ruth Parker Jewelry

A friend of our family is building her jewelry making business. Lauren has impeccable taste and I love her sense of color. She does a wonderful job of combining old and new to make beautiful jewelry.

Here is link for those of you who like pretty shiny things or for those of you who might be buying Christmas presents for someone who likes pretty shiny things...


Ruth Parker Jewelry

She even has a weekly giveaway and a new one went up today (just for you Alyssa).

Ode to Gwen

This evening, Summer and Heather wrote a song about Gwen, to be sung to the melody of "For the Beauty of the Earth."

For the beauty of Gwen's hair,
For the moonbeams in her eyes,
For the rubies of her lips,
For the roses of her cheeks,
Gwen thy lovely face we praise.
Please don't stomp away in haste!

Michael is Five

Happy Birthday Michael!!!

...and, yes those are tea lights, because I was prepared as usual...

Sunday Afternoon

Not today, but on a recent Sunday afternoon, one of the girls made a cookie ice cream pie.

It was delicious.

We needed a walk after we ate it, so we went to a local park with a small lake.

We saw an egret and...

...some obese geese.

Naomi is so glad her Dad picks her up and carries her. What luxury!

Mermaid Hippopotamus

Rachel is taking a ceramics class this year in school and made this mermaid hippopotamus :)

Monsters

Kelly is getting ready for Halloween...

getting in the spirit of things...

drawing monsters!

Stuff

Rachel convinced Naomi to let her curl her a hair a couple of weeks ago for church. Too bad I didn't get an after picture...


It is nice for Michael and Naomi to have a reader at home with them during the day, especially right after we get home from the library with a new stack of unread treasures.

A few people have asked me what I am doing about my toes since I broke my back and the answer is nothing. They are going unadorned. With brace on, I can't really reach to shave my legs very well, much less paint my toes. One of the girls shaved my legs for me once (she's still traumatized by having to put shaving cream on them and won't do it again) and Stan has a couple of times, but mostly, I am going around as the wild woman of Borneo.

I have to admit, I can't get that worked up about it. On the other hand, I was very excited when I saw a doctor five weeks after the accident and was able to take the neck part of my brace off. Then, I saw another doctor a little over three weeks ago and he told me I could stop sleeping with the brace on. It has been so lovely to sleep without it!

I am slowly feeling less pain, but not nearly as quickly as I would like. This whole experience is a lesson in patience :)

Anyway, back to my toes. Stan has been keeping my feet in good shape, buffing and lotioning them, and would be willing to paint my toenails. My daughters would be kind enough to do it also (as long as it didn't involve shaving cream), but I have gratefully declined. So much of the enjoyment I get from painting my toes is the artistic part, I have been fine with putting off having decorated toes until I can experience the whole shebang. I have painted my fingernails a couple of time, but since I hate the way chipped polish looks and I used my hands for washing dishes instead of my feet (and aren't we all grateful for that) I always go for something subtle (boring!).

Trivia

Naomi is left handed.

Misery is...

...having the flu. I had a temperature of 103.1 today. I haven't had a fever that high since I was a kid. Bleh!

Prayers

This evening, I was helping Naomi say her prayers and asked her what she would like to thank Heavenly Father for. She replied after thinking about it a second or two, "Mine Jesus, and Him died."

She likes to look at pictures of the Savior. I asked her the other day if she remembered being in heaven before she was born and if she remembered Heavenly Father and Jesus. "Yes, "she said. I asked her what they told her and she answered, matter of factually, something that sounded like, "They get rowbeetoo."

I wish I knew what she meant :)

Ends & Odds

Rachel is on the frosh/soph volleyball team at her high school. Here she is in her uniform just after hitting the ball during their first scrimmage against another school.

We saw this car in the grocery store parking lot and just happened to have the camera. The driver slowed down to let me get a picture. I imagine he gets that a lot. Notice the suitcases on top and the mannequins in the backseat.

Today, we went on our annual library reading program sponsored local amusement park trip. Fun, fun fun!

Logic

I took the kids on a little field trip today to a local bird farm. It was fun. We all wanted to buy something, but good sense (on the part of the mother anyway) won the day.



Here is how the conversation went in the car on the way home -

Kelly - How old do I have to be to have a bird for a pet?

Me - Pet birds are expensive, so you need to be old enough to have a job.

Michael - Does Daddy have a job?

Me - Yes.

Michael - Let's get HIM a pet bird!

Naomi - I want a little tiny bird to tickle my toes!

This is what happens when...

...you have older sisters with too much time on their hands.

Trying to be like Matt

In my everlasting quest to be as cool as my younger brother, I am putting labels on my blog because he and Steph have them on their blog and that is reason enough to do it. Unfortunately, I didn't start labeling my posts three years ago when Blogography started (also following Matt's example who was following the even cooler Claire's blogging example), so I have some catching up to do. I am done with 2006 and now I will take a nap and work on the rest another day...

Morning Pet Therapy

It is still reaching triple digits during the day here, so the best time to be outside is in the morning. Heather and Gwen were ready for school early and headed to the backyard to enjoy their pets until it was time to go. Here they are with Sandy, the rabbit, Toby, the guinea pig and Snapdragon, the stray chicken.

Snapdragon was curious about Toby and it worried Gwen, so she took measures.

What better way to start the day than with a warm furry friend?

School is in Session

The five oldest girls are back in school. Hard to believe, but Summer is a junior and Rachel has started high school this year. Heather is in 6th grade, Gwen is in 5th and I am homeschooling Kelly in 2nd. It is quiet at home with only three kids around during the day.

Everyone seems to be enjoying school and comes home happy, which makes me happy. I did have a bit of an email run-in with one of the girl's high school English teachers. She assigned three novels with lots of bad language and I objected. I thought it was silly that the high school had a rule that "Students must not be vulgar, obscene, or profane in speaking, acting or writing," but they were expected to read books with incessant profanity. The teacher was unwilling to compromise and, per the daughter's request, I didn't push any more. It still frustrates me, though. Oh, well.

Just in time for school to start, we replaced the van that was totaled with the same exact vehicle, same color and everything, just two years newer. It was nice to skip the learning curve that comes with a new, unfamiliar car :) I also started driving again in time to do school pick-ups, which is uncomfortable in my brace, but it is nice to be able to get out!

Terminology

Naomi rushed over to tattle that,

"Michael hit me!"

After cross examining her older brother, I tried to explain to her that it was just an accident. Wanting me to be clear on this, she impatiently told me,

"It's not accident, it's OWIE!"

Gwen is Ten

Happy Birthday Gwen!!!

Amazing isn't it? Our Gwen now has two digits to her age, at least for the next ninety years until she turns 100 :)

A little about Gwen - you just can't hold her back. In anything. At the park, she runs like a shooting star. We keep track of how many times we exercise in six months for an out-to-dinner reward and she reaches her goal in a month and a half. The summer long library reading program takes her about two weeks to finish. When we are out running errands, I say two things more often than anything else, "Michael stop touching" and "Gwen stop running in the store". She sees those long wide isles in Target and just can't contain herself. Her favorite way to end her in-store runs are with a long slide down those shiny floors :)

But, her exuberance for life is only one of the many things we love about her. She also has great taste in birthday dinners. This year she had gazpacho, shrimp, and sweet potato fries with a pecan, raisin, chocolate chip pie and ice cream for her birthday "cake".

Milestone

I sneezed yesterday!

Multiple times!

Without crying!!!

I remember the first time I sneezed after the accident. I was standing in Aunt Raeola's kitchen and had to clutch the counter in fear of collapsing from the pain. I know that sounds extreme, but sneezing behind my broken sternum hurt my injuries more than anything else. Up until yesterday, I could tell you how many time I had sneezed since the accident (exactly four) because each time I wanted to lie down and sob, which I didn't dare indulge in because...I don't know. It wouldn't be dignified? It would spook the kids? Anyway, it hurt.

I developed a method of sticking one hand down the front of my brace and pushing on my sternum for counter pressure (in case of failure) and using the other hand to push up on my nose to try to block the sneeze while thinking very hard about not sneezing...not sneezing...not sneezing...

Luckily it worked most of the time. Then yesterday, in that half asleep half awake state I sometimes like to enjoy for longer on a Saturday than on a weekday morning, I sneezed. Twice. And it only mildly hurt, rather than causing pain more excruciating than a clumsy dentist without Novocaine. Oh, joy! It is so nice to feel some tangible evidence of healing. And it is also nice to be able to sneeze freely again.

Maybe I Was in a Rut

Since I am not driving and too much shopping wears me out (sad, huh?) Stan has been doing all of the grocery shopping for the last three weeks, which I really appreciate. He has been doing all the dad stuff (and he has always been the kind of dad who helps a lot with the kids and the dishes) PLUS at least half of the mom stuff. I am sure he will be glad when I go back to braving the checkout lines, but in the meantime, he and the kids have been having some fun.

So far, they have brought home the following items that don't usually make it into the cart when I do the shopping -

an eggplant


a papaya


a fresh coconut


three kiwis


a bunch of red bananas and a plantain


three pints of blueberries


and some white nectarines.



Next they are planning on buying some cassava root!

Heather in a Helmet

Last month (before our trip) Heather went to a week long program at one of our local universities. She had a few friends from school there with her, including Hannah. On the last day of the program, the kids got to go on the challenge course next to the rec center.

Brooke is another friend who goes to their same school and I thought her father (who works for the university) provided perfect commentary for this next video.