Big Ideas

I get big ideas once in a while. OK, I get big ideas pretty often.

I have the idea to write a young adult series of books.
I have an idea to write an chick flick novel.
I have an idea to weave great things - decorate my house in them, use them to make clothes, and to sell them.
I have an idea to build several looms by myself.
I have the idea to cross stitch my youngest child's stocking.
I have the idea to grow a really nice garden and can the harvest.

There are many more big ideas. Many, many more.

I never have a lack of ideas. What I do have is a lack of ability to do most things. It's frustrating sometimes, but I guess as long as the ideas keep coming, one day I'll be able to make one of them a reality. And that is a nice idea.

Less than picturesque

On Monday I took my 5 squirmy children to have pictures taken. I hadn't done that since kid #4 was 10 months old. We picked out some nice clothes. They all had on t-shirts, but they were red, white, and blue and it was the first time all the boys had worn their shirts, so they looked nice.

The photographer produced something of a miracle. She managed to capture a few pictures where Peanut was not crying. Peanut love to have her picture taken and squeals with delight when she sees the camera. Not so for the photographer who she didn't know and was trying to make her sit when she didn't want to sit. Peanut cried most of the entire time.

My oldest son was the most cooperative, but he messed up a few otherwise nice photos because his fixed smile turned into something more like a painful grimace. My second son was good and mostly cooperative. Princess daughter refused to smile. She will not smile for anyone who asks her to, even me. The neat thing about her, though, is even if she isn't smiling she has a pixie like face that is really quite pretty when it is pouting. I call it her mysterious model face. My youngest son was really quite good and if you can get him to do a real smile, it is one of the cutest little smiles you will see.

So, between all their personalities, we ended up with a couple of really nice looking pictures.

But, between you and me, with the way the little ones act and the cost of the pictures, I won't be doing this again anytime soon. But, it has been almost 2 years since the last photo session. Perhaps in 2 years I will have forgotten the pain of family photos and be ready to try it again. Maybe....

Helpful girl

My Peanut is 15 months old now, almost 16 months old. The time is flying by. She can be so sweet. She is really starting to talk to us now and has a small vocabulary of "real" words, but she can speak an entire language I'm unfamiliar with. It is so funny to listen to her talk. She speaks her language with intensity. Each word is very deliberate. I just wish I understood Peanut Gibberish. I would absolutely love to know what she talks about.

She has become quite helpful. Or rather, she tries hard to be very helpful. When it is time to set the table, she wants to help, so I'll give her some cups. Sometimes she will put them on the table. Often she will wander off with them. She loves to help me with the laundry. She will hand me clothes to fold. Most of the time, however, she will hand me armloads of clothes I've already folded. She can undo an entire stack in one movement. When the laundry is done being folded, she wants to help put it away. She will grab and armload of laundry and walk off with it. I have later found stacks of half-way folded clothes in the hall closet and/or in the drier. The other day she wanted to take the wet diaper I had just changed her out of to the trash. She did it.

Saturday, at the store, she help unload the cart and would put cans onto the checkout counter. The cashier wasn't moving fast enough and after Peanut had put the last can on the counter, she began to take them off and put them back into the basket.

I love how eager she is to be helpful. It's tough because she really can't help much and I end up cleaning more because of her helpfulness, but I'm not going to squash it. She will become very unhelpful on her own soon enough, when those tough threes hit.

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We are the Champions?

My three year old loves the song, "We are the Champions". He sings it all day long. The problem is, he only know about two lines of the chorus. He is very creative with his singing this song. He makes up his own lyrics.
It started out sounding like this:
No time for ya ya
'Cause we are the bo bo!

Sometimes you will hear him sing:
No time for tickle
'Cause we are the baby

Today I heard all through lunch:
No time for fingers
'Cause we are the hot dogs

No, it makes no sense at all. He just adds whatever words, real or nonsense, that he likes. I have got this song suck in my head all the time now, too.

AAAAAHHHHH!
Now, I must sing:
No time for blogging
'Cause I've got some laundry
TO DO!

Cake Contest

It all began in 1979. My brother and I were little, 2 and 4 years old. Mom made a cake for the 4th of July. She took a picture of her cake with us standing next to it. She did it again the next year and then, the Independence Day cake was put to rest, until about 6 years ago.

My brother, who was in the picture with me in 1979, and his wife decided to make their own Independence day cake. The next year they had a contest with each other for the 4th of July. They did this every year. The winner got fame and glory (among the family), the looser had to do the "Carlton Dance". If you don't know what that is, go to YouTube.com, and type in Carlton dance. It is from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

OK, this year, the contest was opened to the entire family and, since we were all together for a big reunion, the cake contest was huge. Secrecy was the word.

On July 4th, we pulled out the cake pans, the icing tips and the Patriotic music. There was lots of laughter and in the end, we had 5 amazing cakes, but only one winner.

This is my sister-in-law's cake. We were all quite intimidated by it. It looked like it could be from a cake shop. It had a flag topper on the cake, but somehow, I didn't get a good picture of it. It was really beautiful!


This was my entry. Cake balls!!!


My sister's cake. It is her depiction of the Revolutionary War, complete with food coloring gore. The little mangled people were made from Fondant.


President Obama, captured in cake. It was pretty amazing to watch her and my brother put this thing together.


My mom's entry - a John Deer tractor.

So, which one won? Take a guess... ready? The Revolutionary War cake! It was very popular among the kids. (I voted for it too). My cake? Well, it received one vote and that was from my good hubby. Oddly, my cake tied for last place with cake #6 - there was no cake #6! My dad, the wise guy, put that vote in.

So, everyone, except for my sister and her husband, did the Carlton Dance! It was great fun. Now I've got to start thinking, what can I do next year? Hmmm, maybe a bust of George Washington.... stay tuned next year to hear how the Annual 4th of July Cake Contest turns out.

unwillingly back

Well, I drove home on Saturday. It was 12 hours in the van with just me and the kids. The DVD player has died. We had no movie entertainment to help pass the hours. What we did have was Harry Potter book 7 on CD to listen to. That was great, for me, but it did nothing to help Peanut, who was trapped in her car seat all day long. She made sure to let me know how much she didn't like that arrangement.

I started in East Texas and drove a long, long straight road. I watched the green grass and tall beautiful trees pass. The trees became smaller as I went further west. Soon, there were mesas and green bushes. Hours later there was orange dirt and scrub. Finally we arrived home to the land of tumbleweeds. I miss the green.

I had a much longer post typed up, but it was sad and depressing and I try to avoide that here as much as possible, so I erased it. The truth is, I didn't want to come home.

I've been quite depressed since returning. I miss the green. I miss my family.

Leaving on a funny note

I'll be going on vacation for a couple of weeks. I'm really looking forward to it.

Still, no matter what is going on, my kids keep me hopping.

Yesterday, Peanut was very busy. I didn't find this out until later, but she climbed up on the chair at Hubby's laptop. She popped off about half of the keys. It's incredible what she can do. She also got a hold of a pen and drew on my arms while I was working on paying bills.

Just a little while ago I went into my bedroom and it smelled very strongly of air freshener. I found my 5 year old daughter and three year old son in the master bathroom. They were using the Oust to clean the mirror. I was ready to pass out when I walked in there. I took the Oust and the Oust-soaked washcloth away from them. Well, the bathroom smells fresh and will smell fresh for a long time.

Have a Happy 4th of July all.
Thanks to all of the service men and women who serve and have served our country.
God Bless America.