Weekly Winners

Father and daughter "fishing" in the koi pond.

Couldn't find the kids last weekend, finally located them behind the couch coloring. Oh how they love to color.

My nephew Bennett harassing the cat.  Check out Brother Minions face. Freaky.

So many pictures of Bennett, Emery must have been hiding from the crazy lady with the camera.

 

I washed Sean's car and Brother Minion felt the need to lounge. Cat has a death wish according to Sean.

Girls Day

I've figured out the key to Greta's happiness lies in keeping her busy. That little girl gets angry when she gets bored. If Greta isn't happy, Momma isn't happy. So this week I did everything possible to keep her active. We went to a park we haven't been to in awhile and then we spent the afternoon at the mall yesterday. She's been napping very erratically and almost always passes out in the car. So once I got to the mall I knew she'd be sleeping so I parked the car and read the owners manual. This new car has so many features to learn I figured reading the owners manual would be helpful. The only thing I found interesting was that it said I should keep the car as light as possible to extend the range of the battery.....which meant it suggested only keeping the gas tank a 1/3 full. Gas is heavy. Things I wouldn't have thought of.

Greta woke up and it was lunch time so we wandered into one of the restaurants in front of the mall, one I'd never been to. I asked the gal at the counter what she liked and she said the Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps were good so that's what I got. Golly were they delicious! It even prompted me to go home and look up a recipe that would mimic them. They are going on our menu for sure.

Greta snarfed down some garlic cheese bread and even posed for a cell phone picture.

They only way I can drag her to the mall is if I promise she can go play in the play zone. She's breaking out of her shell and loves to find other little girls there to play with. I figure it's a good thing to keep her social for these next three years I've got her home with me. I'm sure preschool will help too but that won't start until next fall.

It was a nice day, now what to do with her next week?

Romancing the Trash Pile

I'm going to file this in the "odds and ends" category. Focusing on the odd part mind you. Last week was a bit of a rough week having two sick kids and a really sick husband home. I was running here and there, toting kids to and from the doctors and hoping and praying I would stay well through it all. Monday morning I'm standing at the kitchen window enjoying my coffee when I notice something over by the horse trailer. We have an old piece of furniture that needs to go to the dump sitting by the trailer and there was a pig perched up on this piece of wood. Yes, a pig. A really ugly, brown pig. He was, uh, having his way with this old piece of wood furniture. It ranks up there with some of the stranger things I've seen in my life.

I, of course, went over there to see if he was wild or tame. He didn't run from me and even let me touch him if I had cat food. He smelled awful. He decided to hang around for most of the day (can't imagine it had anything to do with the can of cat food I gave him). Might have been he just couldn't drag himself from his new girlfriend (my trash pile). He played with the dogs and really enjoyed the watering hose during his day stay with us. Naturally, every neighbor in a 5 mile vicinity showed up on my front porch asking if the strange pig that was frequenting their houses was mine. Luckily he wandered off after two days and I haven't seen the stinky pig since. Thank goodness.....because I really don't need another animal around here.

Here he is romancing the trash pile.

One ugly, stinky pig.

A bit of a ham with the hose.

Greta's 3rd Birthday

My little girl turned three years old on Friday and we celebrated with a nice little party on Saturday. Greta was so looking forward to seeing her cousins, Aunt Betsy and Uncle Blake. They were counting down the days there at the end of the week. She had a princess party with princess decor and cake to boot. I believe she went through three different wardrobe changes in the span of the party. Wanting to show off all of her favorite princess dresses. That girl is in love with her clothes (I can't imagine where she gets that from). It was a great day full of smiles and laughter and I appreciate everyone that made it special. Lots of pictures to share.

My beautiful birthday girl.

Opening her presents with a little help from Alex and Abby.

She was in Barbie heaven. 

Baby Bennett was hamming it up, what a doll!

The non-birthday boy opening up a present. 

Time for some chow.

There was supposed to be three princesses, but at 11pm I decided else wise. 

Bennett, Betsy and myself.

My Dad shares a birthday with Greta. He enjoyed his presents as well. 

Barbies and a Barbie house, we are going to have some fun play time! 

Can't forget the yearly hat picture. This one is still my favorite.

Ode to Kindergarten

Oh Kindergarten how I love you.
Wesley loves you too but lately we all feel like poo.

So much sickness brought home.
All day I talk to doctors on the phone.

Started with pink eye in Wesley on Sunday.
Let's just say it was not a fun day.

Eye drops started on Monday were met with instant relief.
But knowing it would travel to the 2 year old was only met with grief.

Getting eye drops into a screaming, kicking girl has been a test.
This whole ordeal has been quite the mess.

Sean and I hoped and prayed it would stay away from us.
But Sean woke up this morning to eye puss.

Poor guy has a double ear infection, pink eye and a bad bad cold.
It has hit him ten fold.

I, for some strange reason, am staying well.
But only time will tell.

I'm so exhausted from playing nurse,
I'm hopeful we will soon escape from the kindergarten curse.

Computer Chick

Before Wesley started school one of the kids favorite pastimes was sitting together at the computer and playing PBSkids.org. Wesley was always the computer operator, learning how to use the mouse at an unnaturally young age, while Greta would happily sit shotgun just watching what he was doing. Well I was curious how things would go once big bro went off to school. Yesterday was the first day she asked to play the computer games and it turns out she's quite capable of keeping herself entertained without her brother.

The Wednesday Write-Up

-Volt Report: We had its maiden voyage yesterday (we've been waiting on a 30 day tag that came in the mail). Greta and I decided to take Sean to lunch so we could try out the range. I'm thrilled to report we went 46 miles on a single charge (blew that 35 mile average out of the water). It was achieved by driving it easy. Which means not gunning it, coasting down hills and when coming up to stop lights which uses the regenerative braking (when you lift your foot from the accelerator or apply brakes the motor acts as a generator that works to recharge the battery). That 46 miles cost me $1.30 worth of electricity. That same 46 miles in my former car (a Ford Freestyle) which got 23 miles to the gallon would have cost me $7.50 (2 gallons of gas at $3.75 a gallon). That's one heck of a savings! So far I'm very happy with it.

-Princess Party Planning: A certain little girl is turning three years old in about a week and half. I've been trying to figure out what to do about her cake and came up with a princess cake idea. It should be cute if I can pull it off. She's been using her brothers Imaginext dragon castle as a doll house for her princesses so I figured it was time for a proper doll house. So I ordered a wooden barbie house off of Amazon. It's sitting unassembled in a large box by the front door. The kids keep coming up to me asking what's in the big box and I have to keep lying to them saying it's car parts dad ordered. I'm putting off assembling it because I don't know where to hide it until her birthday. I'm sure it will be a couple of late nights putting it together two days before the party. She's going to be so excited.

We've gone electric!

What a weekend! I've been working on an exciting new addition to our garage for about a week and a half now and it arrived on Saturday. Via car hauler. I seem to get the two year itch with the vehicles I drive and it was time for a change. And a change I got! No more gasoline for me (I hope). In the garage right this moment is a 2012 Chevy Volt. It's a plug-in electric car with a backup gas motor. It's got a 35 mile electric range (with the possibility of more if you drive it carefully). With my driving habits this could mean I won't be visiting the gas pumps at all. Nada. Zero. Zilch. How exciting! Based on my past year of driving this car will save me over $1200 in gas in a year. Can you tell I'm pumped?

Car was delivered right out in front of the house. It literally has 29 miles on it.

My Volt next to my Dad's Volt. Note that it's plugged in and charging. How cool.

The Wednesday Write-Up (a day late)

-The drought is over it seems. We got our first rain a couple of weeks ago and you could almost hear the grass start growing again. Everything greened up overnight and we even had to mow again after our two month mowing hiatus. I was mentioning to Rich how it's amazing what two inches of rain can do to a lawn that no amount of well water can achieve.  I watered and watered with well water this summer and it kept it from dying but that grass was not thriving at all. Rich said that there is nitrogen in the air and rain washes it down onto the grass and that's what greens up a lawn so quickly.  Things I never knew. That man knows everything. Seriously.

-Sean has been working on his corvette out in the shop fixing little things that he noticed on the drive home from picking up. The brakes needed a little work and the dash was flickering on and off so he got those things fixed. Today was officially the first day to drive it to work. He was excited and I was super excited for him.

-Every day I pick Wesley up from kindergarten and the first thing out of his mouth is "What did you and Greta do today?". He's very curious about how much fun we have while he's at school. He gets very let down if I mention we went to the park or out to eat. So now I have to "skip" portions of our day so he feels like he's not missing out on something fun while at school. He's really excited to go to school every day and I'd hate for him to start dreading it because he feels he's missing out on something at home.

-Greta is officially in her "why" stage. Everything word out of her mouth is "why?". For example:
Me: We have to go get the mail.
Her: Why?
Me: Because the mail lady came and it's sitting in the mail box.
Her: Why? 
Me: Because that's their job, to deliver the mail.
Her: Why?
Me: .........Because that's the way it is.
So that's my new phrase. All the time. "Because that's the way it is." Sigh. Fun times!

-I'm officially a coffee drinker. I love it. I've finally figured out why everyone likes it. Only took 33 years. Not real sure how I managed in the morning before I started drinking it. These early mornings getting the kids out the door to school are almost doable now. I'm drinking half decaf and half caffeinated in the mornings so I don't have the jitters and then a nice mug full of decaf in the evening while watching tv and sculpting. The evening cup has kept me from raiding the cupboards in search of snacks so it's a good thing. The mornings I go running I have full strength and it really helps me move.

My trim carpenter

Three day weekends are wonderful! Every weekend should be a three day weekend. I was able to totally waste an entire day shopping, eating out and goofing off while still getting a major project done on the two remaining days. I suppose *I* didn't exactly do the major project but I contributed. I decided this was the weekend to finish the trim. I've mentioned that when we did the major floor renovation back in April that we had to rip out all the existing floor trim because it was, literally, installed into the grout and tile (that we had to rip out). So off to Lowes I went with the intention of buying unfinished oak trim, stain, polyurethane, paint brushes and a set of new saw horses and spending most of Sunday staining trim. I get to the trim isle and am treated to the most amazing sight. Low and behold they sell already stained trim. In our color! I mean, seriously, what are the odds? I was so excited. It was either $9.80 per 10ft strip of unstained trim or $14.80 for a stained 10ft piece. I needed 10 strips, so it was a difference of $50. This was a no brainer. I figured I'd spend $50 on stain, brushes and saw horses and then waste an entire day staining (which is one of my lest favorite projects).

I lugged it home and yesterday Sean installed it. It looks wonderful, he did such a nice job. I told him he missed his true calling. I kind of got used to the lack of trim since it's been gone for four months so to see it all done is so exciting. I just keep staring at it. Another big project crossed off the list. Thank you Lowes for selling stained trim (in our color no less), sure made my part of the job painless.