Wildlife

Stan was down by the Mexican border doing a survey earlier this week. I am glad he didn't run into any drug cartels.

He did find a small pile of Mexican coins in the dirt under a bush. Maybe they fell out of somebody's pocket as they napped?

He saw a leopard lizard whose tail was eight inches long (to give you an idea of how big it was),

a sidewinder with it's rattle a blur,

and a baby Flat Tailed Horned Lizard.

Weird worms...

...are worth digging for!

Summer on the Cello

Happy Pi Day!

Summer and Rachel collaborated today and made a banana coconut cream pie.

We don't need much of an excuse for dessert around here and eating pie on 3.14 was as good as any :)

Whale Watching

Each year, the homeschool school we go to has a whale watching field trip. I took Summer and Rachel about a decade ago. We didn't see whales, but we saw two or three kinds of dolphins and had a wonderful time.

About five years ago, Stan took Heather and Gwen. They didn't see whales, but they had a blast anyway and came home with what seemed like hours of video of dolphins swimming by the boat.

It was Kelly's turn, so we headed to the coast last week and I expected a lovely trip, but didn't have my hopes too high that we would see whales, but of course I was still hoping, because doesn't that spring eternally in the human heart?

Kelly was a little nervous as the boat hit the choppy water outside the harbor, but I promised her that it was safe and she calmed down, while I wondered if I should have been more honest and told her that it was 98% safe instead of 100% safe!

If you look, you can see lots of coots, two pelicans and a sea lion on the rocks we went past.

A school of common dolphins came right up to the boat and swan around and under us for a while. It was fun to watch them bowriding. I almost wanted to jump in and swim :)


And then, we saw whales! How exciting! There were two, an adult male and a juvenile gray whale. At one point, one of their tails came up all the way out of the water, dripping and shining in the sun, but of course my timing was off and my picture is kind of lame. Oh well.


Instead of a fishing boat, we went with scientists from the Ocean Institute. It was great, because they did so much teaching along the way. They collected plankton with this net...

...put it in a jar...

...and we looked at it under a microscope!

They also scooped some mud up from the ocean floor...

...rinsed it out over screens...

...and gave the kids tweezers to pick up and catalog the creatures they found.

Kelly and I had so much fun. It was great to be together and an all around amazing day.

Newsflash!

Kelly just came and quietly told me, "I forgot to tell you that I finished The Book of Mormon last night."

We are so proud of her :)

If you want your own copy, go here and scroll down to the almost bottom of the page. Or, you can read it online here.

She has been collecting them for a while.

Heather's Feathers

Can you say that ten times fast?

Stuff and Nonsense

Here's the stuff -

Heather and Gwen are in the Elementary Festival Orchestra and they had their pre-Festival concert this past week. It is kind of like a dress rehearsal. The high school orchestra also played, but Summer was hidden behind even more music stands than Heather and Gwen are, so I gave up trying to get a picture of her that night :)

We have had a cold running through the house and on the day I was sickest and also had way too much to do to even think about resting, Stan brought me some get well flowers and a muffin to cheer me up - it worked!

Mmmm!

And here's the nonsense, some Moisms -

Naomi was in the habit of sitting on my lap during family prayer and I told her when she was three, she would be big enough to kneel like her siblings. I talked about it for months and she was well prepared. She was excited about it when the time came, but the novelty has worn off and she has been trying to convince me to let her sit on my lap again for prayer. Lately, almost every time we kneel for prayer, she looks me straight in the face and says,

"I am not three anymore; I am two."

~and~

Last night for dinner, Summer made pasta Alfredo mixed with olives, red peppers and asparagus. She also baked some sweet potatos, fried some kielbasa and steamed some corn. Two thirds of the way through dinner, Michael announced, "Do you know what my favorite vegetable is? Corn!" Naomi, not wanting to be left out, asked me if I knew what HER favorite vegetable was. I said, "No, what?" She said,

"That," and pointed at the kielbasa.

It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again

I caught Naomi relaxing on the back of the couch while she watched something on the computer with Kelly and Michael. Lately, she has been reminding me of Summer when she was a toddler...

What do you think?

The Beach in the Winter

For Christmas, my parents gave Stan and me a gift card to Bed and Breakfast.com (Thanks Mom and Dad!). I found a place in Anaheim that gave us two rooms for the price of one. It was so much fun. The kids and I left after school and ate take out Chinese. Then, while we waited for Stan to get there from work, the kids played in the pool. Stan and I had one room and we put the kids in another with a stack of DVDs from the library. I like having responsible teenagers :)

The next morning, we stuffed ourselves with "Light Continental Breakfast" and headed to the beach. I love going to the beach in the winter. It is much less crowded for one thing and for another, I wouldn't want to wait all year and only go in July!

Naomi wore her new birthday sunglasses from Rachel.

They hadn't cleaned the sand that day, so there were piles of little, mostly broken shells. We had fun looking through them. Michael collected worm casings...

...and I was like a kid picking up shells.

Here are a couple of good looking birds...

...and here is a picture Summer took.

Doesn't it look cold? It wasn't too bad, but I didn't swim, anyway!

Naomi is 3!

Here is our Mo on her third birthday.

We can't believe our baby is THREE!

She had orange soda in a goblet and wanted a pink and brown cake.

She got a recycled from older sisters, has been hid away for a few years, dollhouse.

This may be the first, but undoubtedly won't be the last time someone gives her chocolates for her birthday that they bought half off after Valentine's Day.

Here she is in her new sunglasses.

She wore them to the beach the Saturday after her birthday - post coming soon!

A Lovely Valentine

Heather gave me this Valentine today. I love all the pastel colors and the roses she painted.

Self Explanatory

Growing a 'Stache

I was too slow with the camera.

She wiped half of it off...

but here is part of Mo's hot chocolate mustache!

The Ironies of Life

Last February 16th, I made my way to Target and bought 72 Fun Dip Valentines. I knew Heather and Gwen would be needing them for Valentine's Day parties at school this year and I wanted to get them half off on clearance. How could Fun Dip possibly rot, right?

I remember putting them away and saying to Stan, "Help me remember where these are because it will drive me crazy next year if I can't find them." When, after searching the entire kitchen, I reminded him of this conversation, Stan pointed out that he probably suggested I write it down. Which I didn't. And I couldn't find those elusive Fun Dips ANYwhere.

I suppose the bright side is that I cleaned out multiple cupboards, organizing as I went, but no luck. It just stuck in my craw to pay full price when I have (somewhere!) 72 half price Fun Dip Valentines, so I formed Plan B. I bought cheapo puppy and kitten Valentines and decided to make cookies to sweeten the deal. Never mind that the butter to make the cookies and the plastic bags to put them in probably cost more than brand new candy Valentines. It was the principle of the thing.

Gwen's class party was scheduled for Wed. the 10th, so Tuesday afternoon Rachel and I were busy dipping cookies I had baked into pink icing. Heather's party wasn't until Thursday, but I made enough cookies for both of them and then we ate the rest. I planned on letting them set overnight and bagging them up before school Wednesday morning. Well...

...about four in the morning Gwen threw up and then Heather started at around six. Gwen was obviously not going to make it to her party. Poor thing! I was feeling fatalistic after all the stress those silly Valentines gave me, so I ate some to console myself and gave some to Michael and Kelly. There were still more than enough for Heather, with twenty something left for people around the house to eat. As the day wore on, Heather and Gwen started to feel better and by early afternoon were obviously well enough to go to school the next day.

Gwen asked if she could drop by the school to pick up her homework, so I dropped her and Rachel off and told them I'd be back after I got Summer. When we returned to the elementary school, Gwen got in the car and made the AWFUL announcement that her teacher had changed the party to Thursday! The kids and I just ate a third of her Valentines for breakfast!

Well, you know what I was doing Wed. afternoon...baking and dipping more cookies. I hope I have learned my lesson. I think I will go buy some (more) Fun Dip Valentines for next year and write down exactly where I hide them.

(Now where did I put that note?!?)

Flower Girls

This afternoon, Heather picked some flowering vines in the backyard and made a crown for Naomi.

Then, Kelly made one for herself.

Ready toTake Her Road Test

Naomi is becoming quite the back seat driver. Recently, we were on the way to pick Rachel up from school and she asked where we were going. I told her and she announced that we were going the wrong way and that this was the way to Summer’s school, not Rachel’s.

A couple of days after that, we picked Summer up first and then were on our way to get Rachel from a different direction. She told me again that this was not the way to Rachel’s school and backed her pronouncement up with, “And I am RIGHT.”

It isn't only my sense of direction that she thinks need improvement. I stopped at a red light behind a Honda and she told me, “You are not far enough away from that little car, Mommy.”

I'm really swamped here, Mother.

Last night, Naomi didn’t want to go to sleep and she is observant enough to figure out how to avoid bedtime in our house.

After reading her three books, I said, “Time for bed!”

She looked at me and very seriously replied,

“I have homework.”

Naomi the Penguin

Studious

I went to get Kelly for breakfast a couple of days ago, and found her busy reading her Book of Mormon.


She is working on finishing before she gets baptized in a few months.