Signs of Life

Fefe started answering yea to questions we were asking her last week.  At first we thought it was just coincidence.  Then I thought maybe she had just figured out what questions are and was answering yea to every question.  Yesterday she started responding with no at appropriate times so I finally decided she must have reached the "I'm Aware Enough to Respond to You" milestone.  I know it probably isn't very exciting to the rest of you, but I love it.  Along with the conversational like babble she started a couple weeks ago, it is pretty dang cute.

Laptops and Couches

Some of you may remember the death of our laptop.  The hinge broke and we used it that way for about a year.  It was a pretty big pain trying various ways of propping it up or trying to hold it up with one hand while typing with the other.  On top of that, the power cords were junk.  They fall apart pretty easily, exposed wires and such.  When our second cord bit the dust we decided it wasn't worth it to buy another just for a half dead laptop.  Then Carol came to save the day.  They have a similar laptop with different problems.  She offered us their laptop so we could try to meld parts and come up with one working laptop.  I very easily switched out the lcd and then ordered another power cord.  Said cord arrived today and I'm typing this post up on the resurrected laptop.  I knew I had missed being able to sit on the couch while working on the computer, but had not realized how much.  I'll still do the majority of my work on the desktop because that is where my heavy duty software is, but for general work and vacation emailing, this is absolutely fabulous.  Thanks Carol!

Children Are Wonderful

I love Mother's Day, not because of the pampering, but because of how wonderful it is to have my children constantly telling me how much they love me. They made their school gifts with such sincerity and were so excited for me to open them and read the cards they had made. It makes me feel so happy to know they love me so much even though I know I'm not a perfect mom. J also surprised me with a much better gift than I was expecting. On Tuesday I'll finally have a lens for my camera with a much longer zoom. Right now I have a 17-55mm and a 50mm. The one coming is 28-135mm. Now I can take really good action shots at the kid's games and other activities. We had yummy dinner at Aunt J's, it was mother's day, but she still cooked :) I'm still trying to digest it all and it has been 5 hours since I ate.

Strange Things are Afoot

Pig flu struck our district last weekend, so the kids had a couple days of school off. Luckily the CDC realized (finally) that it wasn't as bad as they thought, so it was back to school on Wednesday. We had taken the previous Friday off for the beach trip so the kids had a pretty extended break. It would have been nicer on Monday and Tuesday if it hadn't been raining cats and dogs.

Loofa came up with this outfit first:


Brother B liked it so much he needed a picture too:


Wednesday night we had an enrichment activity for church. I had arranged teachers for crocheting, knitting, and bracelet making. Plus I had a quilt all setup and ready tie. As a reward for all that work, one person showed up! Turned out a whole bunch of student families from the ward had gone camping that day and a bunch of others people are in the middle of sports season. All the more poppyseed bread for me (and my thighs). I really enjoyed learning how to make bracelets. I made matching ones for Fefe and Ephant to go with their easter dresses, plus, later I made a necklace for Ephant out of the same beads. It is so easy! I'm not a huge fan of wearing jewelry myself, but I don't mind accessorizing my girls. Everyone has to live throught their children, right?


On Friday I mowed the lawn on the shortest setting in preparation for dethatching. I've read about doing that forever, but hadn't taken the steps to actually do it all these years. I figured our lawn is pretty small so it shouldn't be too hard to do it manually. My back keeps telling me how wrong I was. Luckily J rescued me and did half of it when he got home from work. He is much stronger than me... Our grass looks pretty terrible right now from the scalping and dethatching, but supposedly this will really rejuvenate it so I'm looking forward to a beautiful green lawn in a few weeks.

J helped with the youth yardsale on Saturday. The good news is it was a beautiful day, the bad news is that J looks pretty red right now. We all got quite a bit of sun, sadly it is mostly farmer tans so when we go to CA in a couple weeks we'll look very classy :)

Beaches

I'm not a huge fan of playing in sand, it really is quite yucky. It sticks to you and anything you touch for days on end. That being said, I've decided it is about time I started sacrificing for my kids and take them to the beach more often. We met a bunch of other women from church at a place called Oswald State Park on May 1st. The weather was pretty decent for May in Oregon. This beach had an inlet, tidepool and a small cave so we were well set on places to play.

Starfish:

The inlet:

Urchins:

The cave (Brother kept making fun of me for not being very brave about touching the various sea critters attached to the walls):

This picture looks a little funky because I really turned up the fill light, but I wanted the details of the cave to stand out more:

Next time we'll have to remember swimsuits:

Loofa believes in carrying a big stick:

Worst. Parent. Ever.

Yep, it's me.  Click here for proof.

What Goes Down, Must Come Up

5am on Saturday I woke up with the beginnings of some type of stomach ailment.  It brought all the usual lovely symptoms with it.  I missed our Stake RS Activity as a result, which bummed me out a bit.  Poor J didn't sleep well the night before, so he was amazing to take care of everything like he did.  I mostly laid in bed moaning in between watching bits of Lawrence of Arabia.  Talk about a movie that could use some serious editing.  I felt a bit better by nightfall, although my fever still had not abated.  When I woke up Sunday I felt better, but halfway through sacrament meeting my stomach started hurting again, and my back.  That was the weird part.  By Sunday night I couldn't stand up anymore because of my back.  It was really weird, because I felt like my appetite was coming back so it didn't seem like I was getting sicker.  I finally called the doctor and he said I was probably just having some back spasms, so pop a couple of ibuprofen.  That did end up helping.  Who would have thought stomach flu could bring on something like that.

I don't think it was actually stomach flu, or gastroenteritis for you sticklers.  I ate some pretty old mushrooms on my pizza the night before.  J only took one bite of them before refusing to eat anymore.  I stupidly ate a whole slice.  I really do hope it was food poisoning because then the kids can't catch it :)

It was so nice to be back to my normal healthy self today.  Especially with how gorgeous the weather was.  I was able to mow the lawn and get some good playtime in.  Loofa has been dying to go to the skate park forever so I rode them over on my bike.  We didn't stay too long because Fefe decided to end it all with a well timed soiling of the shorts.

When the kids came home from school we pulled out the sprinkler, something else they've been dying to do.  I didn't bother to put Fefe in her swimsuit because I figured she'd be a wus, just like her older siblings were.  But no, she dove right in.  After we came in she didn't mind running around in just a diaper.

The nakedness ended up being fortuitous at dinner time.  She's in this stage where she won't eat unless we let her feed herself.  We had chicken divan for dinner, which is a dish containing chicken, broccoli and a curry sauce.  She did pretty well while we were sitting there, but when J and I left the table she decided to have some fun.  Lesson learned, do not leave child unsupervised with saucy casserole.

Ephant and Brother B have been loving playing at the park lately.  I feel alot better about letting them over there now without me.  They are a little frustrated with how crowded it gets, especially with older kids.  Kick ball is all the rage right now, except for it is played against a wall.

So the following video is some clips of Fefe in the sprinkler, some playing aftermath and the afformentioned divan:

No Wii on Sundays

The kids are perpetually trying to figure out what to do on Sundays when they are not allowed to play the Wii.  What did kids do before Wii?  Seriously.   It is now almost four months since we got a Wii, which means they have no recollection of life before the Wii.  It is great to realize that when they grow up, Ephant will be able to tell the younger kids about the early days when we didn't have it so well, back before the big screen tv.  I don't think any of them remember a time when they couldn't pause live tv.  Luckily, life has a way of inflicting emotional pain no matter how great technology gets.  

Anyway, here is what we did this Sunday instead of playing the Wii (you need the sound on for this one):

What is That Smell?

When Ephant and I got out of the van Tuesday evening, after yoga, I noticed this terrible smell, sort of like burnt plastic.  My first thought was the brakes are burning.  I hadn't been driving with the emergency brake on, so I was a little perplexed.  I decided I'd take the van in in the morning just to check it out.  However, I had second thoughts the next day and decided to wait and see if the smell reappeared.  Eventually I decided the smell was coming from the garage, not the car.  The only problem was I still couldn't figure out what exactly was causing it.  Nothing appeared to have spilled.  My answer came when I ran out of hot water that afternoon.  I went to look at the water heater and noticed the top thermostat was a little distorted.  When I took off the Styrofoam covering the rest of it, it was pretty apparent there had been an electrical fire around the top of the thermostat.  J replaced the thermostats a month or two ago, who knows what happened.  I set up an appt with Sears to come fix it on Friday, that meant two days without hot water.  Thursday I decided I couldn't live without a shower so I gave the cold water a whirl.  Fefe usually hangs out in the bathroom, but as soon as I started shrieking, she decided it was too hostile of an environment.  The worst thing was it took longer simply because the soap comes off slower in cold water.  The next day I went running in the morning, but refused to shower till the technician fixed the heater.  The hot shower that day was one of the most blessedly joyful experiences of my life.  Every time I use hot water, the gratitude just flows through me.

By the way, I'm up to 6 miles on my runs now.  Except for the waking early aspect, I'm really enjoying it.  It is amazing how much more fit I feel than when I was running just 3 miles.  I bought some new  running shoes to fit with my orthotics, but my foot still sits a little higher in the shoe than I'm comfortable with.  So I need to figure that out.

Friday night we had bingo at the kid's school.  I had to play cashier so I set the kids up with their bingo cards.  After the first game I went to check on them and they decided they wanted to come back and sit with me.  I thought it was because they wanted help, but it turned out Brother B had successfully won the first game without me even noticing.  They just love their momma and wanted to be with me :)  Sadly, we had forgotten it was Good Friday that day so the turnout was pretty bad. I imagine with how many Hispanics go to that school that quite a few of them are Catholic.

My big accomplishment yesterday was pulling out the washer and dryer so I could seal off the hole the mice are coming through.  It was a nice secondary reason to clean under them as well.  Turns out there was a pretty big gap where the dryer vent goes down into the crawlspace.  J wasn't too happy with my solution of duct tape.  He informed me that The Red Green show is just a show.  Hopefully the mice won't chew through the duct tape.

Since we looked pretty decent for church today I set up all my equipment really fast before church to get a quick family picture.  It is not the best picture ever, but it'll do until we have time to do another.  I ended up compositing three of them together.  Yay for photoshop!

There's Something in the Attic!

Yesterday morning, J and I woke up to a very strange noise, it almost sounded like a cat scrambling down the slide downstairs.  J ran down to see if he could figure it out, but it stopped right away.  This morning I woke up to some skittering noises and finally determined they are coming from the attic.  I listened to it for awhile, but couldn't decide for sure if it was mice, birds or something else.  We did have a gable vent put in with the new siding so it is possible a bird could have gotten in, especially with how many there are now that spring has finally shown its face.  We probably should just go up there and check it out, but with 2 foot thick insulation and no built in ladder it is a pain.  I told J that we should just toss Glen up there and let him take care of it, but we decided he probably wouldn't much care for the insulation either.  I did find mouse droppings on my laundry shelf, the stupid mice were scaling the teepee I had leaning against it.  The cat food hasn't been touched since the last dead mouse I found so who knows.  What surprises me the most is that Glen is not perking his ears up at all when he hears the noises above.  Maybe he thinks it is just another person living up there.

Speaking of the beautiful weather, we are going to have an early easter dinner tomorrow at Aunt J's so she can finally barbecue.  Supposedly it is going to be in the 70's the next couple of days.  We've let the kids run around outside today, even with it being Sunday, just so they can enjoy the sun.

Enrichment went great this past week.  Here is a recipe for a dressing that was a big hit:

1 container of strawberries ( ½ of the big ones they are selling at Safeway right now)
1 c. mayonnaise
½ c. sugar
¼ c. raspberry vinegar (only at Safeway)
2 tsp of poppy seeds

Hull the strawberries.  Place ingredients in a blender and puree.

I made two different spinach salads.  The first was just spinach and diced red onion.  The second was spinach, feta cheese and mushrooms.  Either one went great with the dressing, although I preferred the feta one.

I still love Ranch best, but it was pretty good combined with it.

For the babyshower game, I ended up buying some play-doh and making everyone sculpt a baby out of it.  It was pretty fun, but who are we kidding, the talking and food are the best part of the shower.

Speaking of the shower, when I was at Costco Friday morning to pick up the cake, Loofa really wanted to eat some.  I told him he couldn't because it was for the babyshower.  About 10 minutes later he said, babies are too small to shower.  I think he was hoping if he pointed out that inconsistency that he would get some cake.