Found it!

Lookie what I found? Actually, I made Chris look for it since he was the one that downloaded the pictures to the wrong folder. My question was, "Why do we have 3 different folders to download pictures to anyway?

Here are my kiddos on the first day of school this year. It is a tradition to take the picture next to my truck. It helps me to put into perspective how much they've grown. Not to mention the fact that my 10 year old is wearing bras now. Freaking out about how much she's changed. Sheesh! Lots of girl changes going on around here. Mood swings, crying, having fits that we don't normally have...draining!!! I've been quiet here in blogland as of late. I think I'm trying to get into the swing of things with our schedule, and with myself. It's the quiet times in the morning when no one else is awake that I tend to recharge for my day. I sit and watch the chickens chase away the birds out of their yard, listen to the quiet breeze in the trees that bring down the changing leaves, and wait to hear the bedroom doors open. Speaking of doors opening, I just heard one. Ready, set go! Have a wonderful weekend!

A day in the life of Evan

Evan is my kid that really likes everyone to entertain him. This job usually falls on his sister who, as she gets older, is finding this less enjoyable. On occasion he finds something that really strikes his interest. Just look what we walked out to one morning. Green slime was slowly making it's way down to the floor. The neighbors made goo out of white glue and borax. Evan found out if he put it up to his face and blew into it he made big bubbles. He also found out that borax is irritating to your face after prolonged contact.

Meet another being in our house that is entertaining to Evan. I do post lots of stuff about our pets, but I don't know if anyone realizes how special our cat Molly is. She is one of the only cats I've ever been around that tolerates being trapped under the laundry basket and poked at by all the neighbor kids until I find them and yell at them. Then when they let her out she doesn't run away. It's like she knows they won't hurt her and has a job to do to be Evan's companion. Really. She is smart, a good hunter, and loves her little boy. She loves him enough to let him tuck her in to said laundry basket and give her rides around the house for a good 30 minutes while the dog follows them waiting to chase her when she jumps out.

I'm serious folks! Thirty minutes went by. He just pulled her around and around the house while she acted like she was on the People Mover ride at Disneyland.

The dog was waiting patiently...

We'll be out in the garden this weekend, which means Molly will be gardening too. She likes to keep a check on the gophers around the edge and rolls in the dirt. If you sit down to rest she'll most likely jump in your lap and purr while she soaks up the sun, and deposits dust on your lap. Sometimes there are animals that really become part of your existence. That sure makes it harder when they leave us, but boy it sure makes while they are here special. She makes one little boy happy. I'm just glad she is so tolerant and patient. She was custom made for him. Thanks God. Sometimes angels really do have fur.

Hey batta batta!

It's time for baseball. Last year Evan didn't want to play until after he watched his sister play softball and was too late to sign up. This year he was very excited to get going. Well, he wasn't that excited at first because I put him on the Nuggets league, which is mostly 6 and 7 year olds, but it does go up to age 8 and since it was his first year I didn't want him in the majors yet. He's not a big guy and frankly, I thought it was more important for him to learn the fundamentals first. Some of these kids have been playing for years already! After he got over being mad at me for putting him with the little kids, we went to his first practice and he saw that most of the kids go to his school and eat at the same lunch time as him. Whew! Dodged that one! Saturday they finally got to play their first game. The others have been rained out so far. Looks like this week will be more rain. Frustrating since us parents invest so much in the gear and time just sitting at the fields so they can play.

Evan wanted to play catcher this time. At this age there are lots of Dads around helping. The catchers just sat there waiting for the dads to get the ball and throw it back. Lazy kids! They look like turtles in their get up. Too cute!

He has a little work to do on his batting, but since they only had about 3 practices and then 2 weeks before they finally had a game they all are a little rusty. All in all he had a great time and that's the important part. He doesn't seem really concerned with the score or getting outs at this point. He seems to just want to learn how to play the game, hang out with his friends and have fun playing ball. That's the most important part!

Here bunny bunny!

The kids already colored their eggs. Once again, I grumbled (for a second) about having to go buy white eggs at the store to color. Then I remember trying to dye brown eggs as a kid. It doesn't really work. Since we don't eat the hard boiled store eggs, I leave them sitting out as decorations all week. Then Evan plans to take them outside to shoot with his bb gun. Boys.

Doi, I'm an egg, duhh, me too, durrr, who are you? Gotta love dumb face stickers.

We got a little creative with some scotch tape and multiple dippings this year. That was fun. This is about the only time of year I can find something to do with my Great Aunt's glass bowl. I love this bowl because I remember it as a kid, but I just can't seem to make it fit in with my house. So, I use it as an Easter egg bowl.

Happy hunting! If it's not raining we're planning on a 3 acre hunt! Ha, ha. Chris and I should be able to sit and drink coffee for a good couple of hours! Maps and proper egg count will be needed.

Play Ball!

Spring means playing ball around here. Evan is on the Rockhounds this year. We spent all Saturday doing opening day parades, ceremonies, bbq, and pictures. Whew! I was pooped! From 8:45-4:30...enough already!

Amanda is Blue Ice this year. She enjoyed seeing all of the girls that she played with last year on "Hot Stuff". We, of course, had to go get a Slurpee and some sunflower seeds too.

So, for the next 2 1/2 months I have NO life beyond practice and games. I will say I am proud of myself for NOT getting sucked into being team mom this time. Twice was enough!

Being thankful

Lots to be thankful for this year. The older the kids get the more they are thankful for traditions. Hay rides, desserts, taking a walk after dinner to pick out ornaments at Nicholson's Blown Glass down the road, all things they look forward to every Thanksgiving. They have it easy though. We used to get towed around in a rickety trailer with tractor exhaust burning out our sinuses. Pansies.



This is a tradition that's been carried on in many families, but I still like to think we're the only ones that do this. My Aunt Cathy used to always make sure we dawned our olive fingers every Thanksgiving. Of course I taught my kids to do the same.

Another tradition, my mom always in the kitchen whipping up great food. We are always thankful for her skill and hard work.

Hummm. Somehow this one is out of order and I don't feel like fixing it! Olive fingers never get old. I must admit I even had my olive fingers on at one point as I stood quietly in the corner. Don't tell anyone though!

We hope your holiday was filled with tradition and family!

Happy Halloween!

We went to my bf's house to trick or treat this Halloween. Her sister helped decorate the house and make a haunted house in the garage. The dads were in charge of scare while us moms took the kids around the neighborhood to trick or treat. The funny part is we made it to about 10 houses and the kids wanted to go hang out and scare kids too. That meant about a sandwich bag of candy that was gone the next day! SCORE!!! Us adults dresses up this year, which is a first for me. I'm missing some pics that I'll have to get from Marcy but here are a few to start.


Amber LOVED trick or treating! She would head right up to the door and work her way inbetween the kids. Then she'd say, "Get more candy!" and head to the next house. She walked the ENTIRE way around the block. Not bad for a two year old! She was a bugga for Halloween. She was not a bugga, however, that was interested in wearing her wings. She only wanted to be a bugga without wings.

Here is Evan fighting with his mask. Why do they always want the masks? They end up hating them about half way through and taking them off anyway.

Here is Amanda as a vampire. Yes, I broke down and let her start reading Twilight. Heck, after having to have the sex talk with her what's the big deal about a little teen vampire romance?

Here is Mama, I mean Marcy. Sadly, there are no pictures on my camera of my costume...sigh. Marcy said I looked like Flo from the show Alice. The best part about our old lady costumes is we could pad ourselves up and let our guts hang out! Much better than all of those trashy devil and hooker costumes you see for women in the stores. We only needed about 12 pairs of socks to fill out our Dollar Store double d's!

I'll try to get more pictures. It was pretty funny. They had the squeemish kids screaming and running away and the daring kids saying it was cool. Amber didn't think it was scary since she knew that Dracula was her Papa and Daddy was the "pink nightmare" bunny from A Christmas story, and Chris was the scary skull masked Jester at the door. Don't try to put bugga wings on her though. Thems fightin' words right there.

Winner, winner no fish dinner!

Look who won the fishing derby this time up at Nana's house! I'm glad too because otherwise my life would have been miserable! You see, Amanda won last time and Evan was bent. This time Evan won and Amanda was bent. Can't you just be happy for each other? It's Labor Day Weekend and lots of kids would just be happy to BE here!!!

By the time they were judged those poor fish were kind of dried out and gross. That's fine by me cause I'm not cooking fish in the 5th wheel. Plus it's lake fish so there is a bit of nasty that you can't get rid of. I'm a firm whitefish from the ocean kind of girl. Even then I prefer it battered and smothered in vinegar and tartar sauce...

Let's Go Dragons!

Evan started playing soccer this year. Thankfully, he loves it! He ended up staying on the under 8 league since his 8th birthday was just after the cutoff. We decided that was ok since he'd never played before outside of with Dad in the front yard. Better to be the older kid than the youngest kid on your first year! Most of his teammates are in first grade and are first year players. You can't really tell by their heights. Evan is a shortie and blends right in! Skill level is a different story though. It makes me realize how much he's matured in the last couple of years
The soccerama day turned out to be HOT. Poor kids were melting at their scrimmage game. Where's Fall when you need it?

We found some shade while waiting for the parade to start. Ugh! This little guy next to me is on Evan's team. Tears started after his mom left so I felt bad and sat with him.

This, though, is my favorite picture of the day. Can you say 9 year old drama? Heaven forbid if she does something for her brother...even after he sat through practices and games for her softball career last Spring. Actually, she's getting off light since his practices are twice a week for an hour and hers were 3 times a week for 1 1/2 hours. His games are also only 40 minutes long. She better stop complaining! Wait, I'm not sure that's possible. What is it with 9 year olds anyway?

Poor thing! She's being tortured!

Evan's new bike

Here is Evan's birthday present. He was finally ready for a bigger bike...barely. The seat's in the loooowwwest position. He thinks he's big stuff now since he has gears and hand brakes.

How come they need a new bike every couple of years? Evan looked like a giant on his old bike. Chris, being a bit of a bike snob, requires their bikes to come from the bike shop. He detests heavy, cheap bikes and spent so much time fixing their first bikes from a mega chain store that we aren't allowed to go there again.

Happy Birthday!

Summer memories

I'm playing a bit of catch up on my pictures this week. Lately, every time I try to post pictures it fails on me. Today it worked! As I looked through my pictures, I'm always reminded of my childhood and what summer was to us. We spent most of our time outside getting dirty!

We spend 4th of July each year at Marcy and Sean's house doing fireworks and drinking beer(the guys anyway). The kids LOVE the fireworks and since we can't do them in the county we live in we are fortunate to have this tradition.

Boy, the sparklers really suck now. When we were kids we had the grey ones with metal handles that really sparked. I think I even have a picture of when we'd "write" names with them in the air. Then someone complained or sued since they got to something like 800 degrees on the tip and kids were burning themselves...us kids didn't...maybe we knew not to touch the glowing end...dummies...what's next? Make flaming marshmallows illegal?

Here is Amber enjoying the 4th as well. Nothing like bellying up to a bag of BBQ chips. I'd have done it too but someone needed to take the picture...

They enjoyed some water fun while waiting for it to get dark. Remember asking when you could start? It seemed like the longest day ever!!! I remember when we got some illegal fireworks in Wyoming on a road trip we took with our parents as kids. Who said bottle rockets were unsafe? Um, they are kinda scary. I think we waited until New Year's to light them off. They were cool! Did I mention my brother was somewhat of a pyro as a kid? Must be a boy thing. Evan's eyes were glazed over the entire evening and was running around with a lighter lighting anything that had a fuse on it. It was too funny!

Another part of my childhood was having purple hands for a couple of months. Every time we'd walk past the blackberry bushes we'd stop and pick. Nature's candy! Yum! Never mind the road grime and spider webs. We'd eat it anyway. My parent's road used to be dirt so you can imagine the added "flavor" they had. The kids and I went with grandma this week to do some picking. Of course the first thing we made with them was blackberry pancakes. My fav! Now, you can't get me to use maple syrup on said pancakes. Talk about wrong. We made blackberry syrup to go with them.

If there is one thing I learned from Grammie Crabtree, there isn't anything better to cook your pancakes in than a biggo dollop of butter. I, of course, usually spray a light coating of Pam on my griddle. With berry pancakes, all healthy thoughts go out the window. The only thing that keeps these babies from sticking is butter, and lots of it!!!! Talk about golden brown and flavorful! YUM!

Guess what the best part of the homemade syrup is? Wait for it, wait for it...today I smashed the rest of the berries up and mixed them in the syrup. Now we're off to the store to get the fixins for some homemade blackberry ice cream. I'm using my Daddy's recipe and there's none better. So many memories. It really takes me back to standing in the kitchen after listening to the ice cream maker turn and turn on the back deck, waiting for the paddle to come out of the can so we could lick it off, dripping all over the place. I have a feeling I'll be mopping later today. But first...showering! Have a great weekend everyone!

Oh, a few more thing. Sheesh I downloaded a lot of pictures today.


Here, in the garage, we have a fridge that is waiting for a new electrical outlet so it can be plugged in. I guess Chris is going to have to hurry and get this done on his vacation next week.

And you say, "Why is this so important?"

This is why. About 4am I heard a major bang out in the kitchen. Here is soda can #2, blown up in my fridge on Tuesday morning. He tried to get huffy at me and say that he set the oven timer so when it went off I could remind him to take it out. Hello! I was with the kids over at grandma's house swimming Monday evening so I never HEARD it go off!!!! Here's a thought...put soda in the fridge when you take the last one out and you won't have a problem!!! He is now banished to the garage fridge. Annoyingly, it is Friday and I still have stalactites and stalagmites in my freezer. Hello, we have a deep freeze that he could transfer the stuff to so he could clean it. He is obviously waiting to see if I'll clean it. I'm slowing wearing down. He has more patience with filth than I. Hey, it does get annoying when I take things out of the freezer and frozen bits of soda fall on the floor and melt into little sticky droplets. Since I'm grocery shopping today I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet. And he's going to have to climb in the attic. I clean, he wires.

What's this? The kids got my camera. Yet another Webkinz to add to their collections. This is the Grey Arabian they bought with their own money. Actually, Amanda bought Evan's for him with her money. She said it was his birthday present. Does that mean I don't have to buy him one?

Since Amanda is obsessed with horses she's hired the cat to practice on. Are they bored or what? Talk about memories...Marcy and I used to catch my cat and stick her in the oven I had and sit out in front of the door singing, "For he's a jolly good fellow" over and over again. Then she'd shoot out and we'd do it again. Poor cat! I can't remember what cartoon we got it from, but I remember a group of men catching a tiger or something and carrying it on a pole hanging upside down, all the while singing that song on their way back to camp. It seemed like a fun idea at the time...

Here is Molly, all saddled up and looking like she's ready to buck.

She didn't really get too annoyed until Amanda tried to put the bridle on her. That was more committment then she was ready for. Goofy cat.

Ok, now I'm done. Caught up for the most part. Have a great weekend!!!

Fruits of our labor

Here's what we've been working towards with our garden. We've been busily storing up for winter. The first picking of green beans yielded 16 quarts and we're in the midst of doing pickles in 3 or 4 flavors. So far we have dill relish, dill pickles, golden glows, and zucchini relish. The next batches will be bread and butter and more dills, but more of a kosher kind. I'm learning a lot about estimating amounts needed and methods used...ice bath, lime bath, pickling salts, soaking, rinsing, flavoring, the possibilities are endless! What kind of recipes does your family pass down? What little tricks do they use to make their veggies shine? We want to know!



We're really trying to get done with this stuff to make room for when our tomatoes really come on. They've been slow to ripen due to the mild weather we've been having. When they do come on we'll be in trouble!!!

Here is my little helper. He made sure I did dill pickles, since those are his favorite. His other favorite that I showed him this year is to take cucumber, slice in spears(which he can now do by himself) and sprinkle with salt and pepper. He probably eats a couple of large cukes a day!!!

Thebest thing about all of these veggies? I don't have to buy them to use on my South Beach diet I'm doing! In phase one you can have lean meats, veggies(non-starchy), eggs, and low fat dairy. That means I'm eating a lot of veggies!!! I am getting a little tired of zucchini and bell peppers though! The great part is I've lost 10 pounds and get to start phase 2 which means I can have fruit again! Have a great week! We're headed out of town on a camping trip.

More randomness

Summer food...steak and roasted veggies. Yum

Outdoor discoveries. Wooly bear catepillars.

Summer projects. Amanda's doll with her clothes almost done. It looks like she's wearing a kimono. I tried to talk her into thinking this looked cute, but she didn't buy it. I guess I have to hem them soon.

Here she is in her underclothes. We'll get her eyes on sooner or later so it doesn't look like she's sleeping all the time.

Lobstah pahty

Uh oh. Men standing around steaming pots of boiled alive crustaceans can only mean one thing. Yup, it's time for another Maine Lobstah Pahty. My Dad turned 75 this June and that kind of thing warrants getting his favorite food.

I'm not a lobster fan. Maybe it shoving them in when they're still alive, or the fact that it's eyes are still looking at you when you're eating it, the tenacles touching your neighbor's plate, or the sucking of the legs, or the stomach gunk that people gave a charming name to so it wouldn't be offensive to eat(tamale, which I always thought was funny since they really don't know good Mexican food up there)...In any event, it looks like great fun, but not my thing. The kids all tried it. Evan and Grace had Aunt Lorna and Marjorie help them get theirs ready, took one bite, and passed it off to the next bidder...I was proud of them. Amanda, however, wanted no part of it. I wasn't surprised since she doesn't even like chunks in her yogurt.

These two were more on my wave length. I'd just as soon skip to the cake and ice cream! Raspberry!!! Yum! Since I made the cake I decided to let them clean the frosting off of the bottom edge. We always tell them they are told not to touch it, but I thought just this once wouldn't hurt. Right? Hey! I'm just the Aunt! Let their parents retrain them, right? :)

Summer finally has hit and lots of various activities as well. I'm going to try to catch up today so be ready for randomness...