Tweedle Dum

Silly and creative, isn't he?

Even a little freaky?
He and his brother were dressed like this for their battle. It was funny to see.

Growing up

Peanut is funny. Her best time of the day is after 8:30 pm. She is happy, loves to explore, play with toys, make loud noises with her girly voice, look at books, dance... she is just happy. I usually fall asleep before she does and she'll get where I'm trying to sleep and she'll jump on me. She learned a few days ago that if she rubs her head around on the sofa and then touches somebody, she will shock them. She loves this and thinks it is a great game to do with Daddy. He's a good sport about it and makes a good reaction for her. She keeps us very entertained. The rest of the day she spends screaming, unless Baby Einstein is on, of course.

You would think she is my only kid. Most of the pictures and all of the videos are of her. The other kids just aren't as cute or funny. :)

I will have to say this about my two oldest boys, though. Yesterday after school, they put their pillows on their heads, tied multiple blankets around them like capes, had another pillow for a shield, and grabbed their light sabers. They looked like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee getting ready to battle. You know the rhyme - "Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee decided to have a battle, for Tweedle Dum said Tweedle Dee had spoiled his nice new rattle." I'm not sure if any rattles were spoiled, but a few blankets and pillow cases were and they are being laundered today. I got a great picture of one of my sons. I'll will post it soon because it was so incredibly funny.

This week and next week I'll be doing school registration. Oldest son will be entering middle school!!! I can't believe it. Next son will be going into third grade, but here, that is a different school. I guess you could call it secondary elementary school. My lovely daughter will be starting Kindergarten. She is soooo excited. Registration begins tomorrow for Kindergartners, but we will do it Friday. On Friday is the 2nd graders track and field day, so we will be going do to watch DS2 run his races. After we watch the races, we will go to the office and begin the registration process. Oh the joy.

nothing to say

While there are a million things going on, but nothing really worth talking about.

We will be putting out house back on the market soon. It will be the third time. We had a few things done to make the inside look better, but nothing major. It took the guy we hired took over a month to do the work we asked him to do. Because we aren't there to push it along, he took his sweet time. We had hoped to have the new carpet put in about a month ago, but we wanted to wait until the guy was done with the painting and other stuff. So, the painting and stuff is done, the carpet is still the ugly pink carpet and we have lost two months. With school getting out soon, it is time to have the house for sale again, so we will be putting it back up, despite the pink carpet. Not being in the state, it will make doing the paper work required very difficult.

I really want this to work out, but I don't have much hope. It has been almost 7 months since we originally put the house up for sale. I doubt it will sell this time either. If it hasn't yet, why would it now?

The Garden

We have no yard. Apparently, in the neighborhood we live in, no one is allowed to have a front yard, just rocks. Then, because we live in a rented house, the owner decided it would be easier to have no back yard either, just rocks.

Last year I heard for the first time about square foot gardening. This idea intrigued me and I wanted to try it out this year since I have a serious lack of yard for a garden. We've modified things a bit from the "book" on square foot gardening for our circumstances. My dear hubby, received some free lumber, and with it, he built me 6 square foot crates. We are planting 2 cucumbers, two tomatoes, nine onions and 18 green beans.

In the tire, here in this picture, is several potato plants. I'm really hoping they grow. I want potatoes.

Here are several of the square foot planters:

In the white trash can is another potato plant. I heard you can grow them like this, so I'm giving it a whirl. Being new to this desert climate, I don't know if the black tires or the white trash can will be better. It can get so hot here in the summer, the white container might be better for the plants. It is an experiment and I'm very excited to see what the results will be in about 3 months.

This last picture is from Easter. It shows what leaving a hollow, chocolate bunny, in a car, parked in a desert climate for 24 hours will do. As you can see, it isn't pretty, but my son insisted that it was still tasty.

Help with these directions?

Can you help me with these directions? I can't figure them out?

First the spaceship is flying down
Second the spaceship is in your hand
Third the spaceship is flying, parachute deployed

It's as easy as 1-2-3!

Random weekend thoughts

We had a nice Easter weekend. Peanut kept us quite entertained with her first Easter.

Some random things and thoughts:
- My 5 year old daughter has a bad habit of getting up in the night and getting in bed with Hubby. He doesn't like it because our daughter, like all of our kids, is a busy sleeper. All of the kids kick, squirm, hit, and do random gymnastics in bed while they are asleep. So, to keep daughter in her own bed we are doing rewards. I asked her what she wanted for a reward and she requested stickers. So, last week, I took her to Dollar Tree and she picked out a small journal and three sheets of stickers. Being the girly-girl that she is, she got a hot pink journal and Barbie stickers. She has earned 5 stickers so far and she loves to put them in her journal. The really neat part is she is making up stories about her stickers. Under the stickers she will write a random group of letters, numbers and happy faces. They are her stories. She has read them to me. They are very cute and all about princesses and fairies.

-Daughter's latest favorite name for a Barbie or fairy is "Stumbleina" Yes, 'stumble' as in, to fall and 'ina'. It is like Thumbelina, but it is Stumbleina. It makes me laugh every time she tells me a story about Stumbleina.

-Daughter also has been asking me questions lately. OK, that isn't unusual. This girl asks a LOT of questions. However, lately, she will ask me a question like, "What color do you think Cousin Claire likes?"
I'll answer, "Oh, I think she likes the color purple."
Then daughter will answer back, "No Mom, I think she likes pink the best."
It makes me want to yell "why did you ask me in the first place?"

-Peanut has grown so much lately. If I could write all the things she has done since turning 1 a week and a half ago, it would take up a huge amount of space and take me all day to write. I've noticed with kids they will have not only growing spurts, but learning spurts too. Peanut is turning out to be a girly-girl too. I'm glad. She likes to wear necklaces. She will get a hold of one of her sister's dress-up necklaces, put it around her neck and prance around. She wore a bright colorful necklace all day on Saturday.

- Easter related thought. Well, it has nothing to do with the spiritual nature of Easter... my kids and Easter egg hunts. I've never seen kids so competitive with each other to find eggs. My 10 year old has no mercy for his younger siblings. When we open the door to do the outdoor hunt, he is blocking the door and sprints out when we open it. The three year old starts to cry almost immediately because before he can even step out of the door, his oldest brother has collected 10 eggs. My 8 year old son has never learned, even though we tell him year after year, to not follow his older brother when it comes to egg hunting. Ten year old will have gotten everything so if you follow him, there will be nothing left for you. We've encouraged him every year to run in a different direction, but he never learns. Instead, he follows his older brother and gets a lot less eggs. Five year old daughter really can't win either. As soon as she spots one and runs for it, the older boys will chase her, pass her and get the egg first. Then she starts to cry.

If two of them see an egg at the same time, they both run for it and whoever grabs it first shoves it into his bag. The other one claims it was his/hers first and grabs it out of the other's bag and sticks it into theirs. Then it becomes an argument. The ironic thing about our outdoor egg hunts is that we only use empty eggs. They gain no more candy by collecting more eggs. We don't even count who has more, but they still fight over who has the most. I'm seriously thinking of having two hunts next year, one for the older boys and one for the smaller group. Maybe it is time we make a rule that after 10 years of age, you can no longer hunt for eggs.

That would be so sad, though. My family did egg hunts every year and I did it well into my late teen years and I want my kids to have fun. They just turn it into a major competition and ruin the fun for all. Good thing Easter comes once a year.

Goose Eggs

One of my husband's co-workers has some animals. Among the animals are some chickens and geese. She has given us several eggs from her fowls and we have bought some too. The chicken eggs have been brown, green and light green in color. We joke the light green ones are cholesterol free eggs. Light eggs, get it??? Well, we thought it was funny.

I had never seen a goose egg and I was amazed at the size of it! You can see the difference with the four goose eggs and the one chicken egg in the middle!

Cooking a goose egg and a chicken egg.
Goose eggs are tasty. They are a little different in flavor from chicken eggs, but they are still really good.

Odd object attachment

Peanut has become attached to a used dryer sheet. She has carried it all over since last night. Why is this? Sure, it smells nice, is soft and easy to carry around in her little fist, but really, a dryer sheet?

Peanut is ONE!

Today is Peanut's first birthday. Crazy how fast the year has gone. She is really a sweetie, despite the screaming and poor sleep. Today, she is dressed in new clothes (size 18 months) and has a bow in her hair. She has opened one present - a book of nursery rhymes from great-grandmother. She was more interested in the wrapping paper, though - it has pretty ballerinas on it. She loves faces and pretty girls. She is a girly girl and I'm so happy about that. She likes to wear my necklaces.

She is taking a birthday nap right now and is sweet as can be. Later I'll be making cake for our party this evening. Sweet Peanut, happy birthday!

Holy Molars!

Last week, I noticed Peanut was getting two molars. Today I checked her mouth again, the first two are in and the second two are coming in. Four molars in 2 weeks!!!! She is chewing on everything.

Today is Peanut's last day as a baby. And what is she doing with her final day? Screaming. I don't think it has to do much with the molars. She is fine if she is in my lap, but the moment I put her down or try to do any little thing, she screams. Her screams are so ear piercing. They hurt my ears. They make my nerves jump. It drives me up the wall and I end up yelling at her to stop because I can't stand the ear pain. Why is she ruining her last day as a baby with all this screaming?

Old Story

I found this "book" among my old stuff. I told you, I've been writing as long as I can remember. Have I mentioned before what a terrible artist I am, too?

I have a boon a bat win Juesos wos born. Allow me to inturpret my very bad spelling: (OK, I'm not really sure what a boon a bat is, but I think it is "book about") I have a book about when Jesus was born. Molly, age 6


Jesus was born in a stable.


Now they are here, see?

That last page is my favorite! I'm talking to YOU, see?