Willow's Chariot and Computer

The majority of the week, Jayden, Willow, and I walk Jayden to school.  He rides his razor scooter, Willow walks for about 5 minutes, then jumps in the stroller for the rest of the way.  Once Jayden is at school, I fold up his razor scooter, tuck it under the stroller and Willow and I walk back.  Ever since Jayden took the training wheels off his bike, he has been begging me to ride bikes to school.  The problem was my bike trailer has been broken and Willow can't ride more than 100 feet without getting off her bike.  So, Royal to the rescue!  He finally fixed the trailer and it is now safe and operational!  And today, we rode bikes to school!  I said to Willow, 'Hey Willow, jump in the trailer so we can leave!'  She said, 'No!  I no like trailer!'.  I said, 'You don't like the bike trailer?  Well, it's not really a trailer, it's more like your chariot.  Like a princess chariot.'  That won her over.  She got right in and put on her 'helmet crown'.

And on the ride to school, I heard a few, 'I'm the queen!  I'm the queen!' coming from the chariot I was pulling.

Then, while cooking dinner tonight, Willow told me it was time for me to go to work, because she had things she needed to do on her computer while I was gone.  Guess she thinks that's all I do while Royal's at work.  :)

Fall Suncatchers

Royal and I undertook a gigantic project yesterday.  I have been battling a ridiculous moth infestation in my pantry, pretty much, all summer.  They make me so mad, and Royal has squished them all over the walls, which also infuriates me.  But I haven't been able to find where exactly they are coming from, and my pantry is gigantic.  It's bigger than my closet.  It has a window in it, it is so big, and I need a stool to get anything off the top shelf.  It's big.  Finally, yesterday, I'd had it.  I started taking everything out of the pantry, all 6 huge corner shelves, emptied.  It took me a good hour or two.  Then I made Royal go in and kill all the moths, and wipe down all the shelves, and all the squished moths on the walls.  Then it took me another 2 hours to reorganize the whole thing, and wipe down any can or box or anything that the moths might be hiding in.  I actually put 2 moth jackpots back in the pantry without even know it.  Luckily Royal found them later that night and got rid of them, and so far, we have been moth free!  Hallelujah!   But with all the work I was doing in the kitchen, the kids felt a tad ignored, so after dinner, I decided we should do an art project.  An art project I found while cleaning out the pantry!

Snoopy sun catchers!  I had forgotten all about these little suckers.  I found them marked down like 80% last year when we were out doing our Christmas shopping and had gotten them thinking they would be so much fun to do in the fall.  And if I hadn't had to clean out the pantry, I might not have remembered them at all!  Thank you little moths!

This was a really good project for Royal and I.  We are both, very definitely, color inside the lines kind of people.  And kids, well, they just don't color in the lines.  Sometimes, they make Snoopy's head orange.

Both of us had to keep reminding the other person to just let the kids color them however they wanted.  And that if they squeezed too much colored glue in one area, it really didn't matter.

Sometimes, I really need to just give up a bit of control.  What's the big deal anyway?  I control so much of the kid's lives, why in the world do I need to control how they create something.  And I'm sure the kid's probably enjoyed themselves more without me trying to hover over their shoulders "helping" them.  All I did was put tips on the color of the glue they wanted next, and use a toothpick to help spread glue piles that got a little too high.  I think they turned out great!

Jayden Sings :: A Fish Song

It has been almost a year since I posted a video of Jayden singing!  He sings all the time, at home, in the grocery story, in the bathroom, standing in the street, riding his bike down the road, swinging in the backyard...I think you get the idea.  He sings songs he knows and lots of songs he makes up.  I get funny looks from people when we are in stores, but my response back to them is, "Life's a musical when your 5!"

Here is a song he picked up at school.  He is coming home with lots of new material to belt around the house!

Riding on 2 Wheels

The hot weather has finally broken!  You could feel a change real early in the morning, mostly before the sun came up, there was a slight coolness in the wind, but it was still crankin' above 100 during the day.  We endured 54 days over 100, the first being in April, the majority of them in July and August, and the last of them in September.  It has been. So. Hot.  But it looks like it's finally over!  Saturday was 105, then a thunder storm came in the evening and when we woke up Sunday morning, it was 65 degrees outside. 65!  I wore pants to church!  And since then we've just been hanging out in the low to mid 80's.  It feels so good!

We have been playing outside pretty much non-stop for the past 3 days with all the kids on our street, and Jayden decided it was time to take the training wheels off his bike.  He actually learned how to ride a bike without training wheels last Christmas when we were in Washington, but hasn't been ready to commit to it on his bike here, until this weekend.  I wasn't even around when the wheels actually came off, but Royal said he only crashed once and then he was off and riding around everywhere!

And I give the nice weather about 2 weeks, and then I figure things will start to ice over..... :)

Kid Quote :: 16

Willow : Hey Dad, give me fifty dollars.

Royal : **silence** and looks at me with eyebrows raised.

Willow : You say, "Yes, ma'am".

There are going to be some long and expensive years until Willow is out on her own....

Pumpkin Hat 2011

I made Jayden a new pumpkin hat this year.  I thought he could use an older kids version of one...well, let's face it...I had orange and green yarn and wanted to make a ribbed pumpkin hat, so I made up an excuse that one of my kids "need" one to justify me making, yet again, another pumpkin hat....

It's been done for awhile now, but Jayden really doesn't care that I want to take a picture of it on his head.  So, this evening, I bribed him with an M&M.  Yes, just one.  I know, I kinda suck.  :)  But he said, he'd do it.  So, he let me take one, just one, picture.  And he wouldn't even turn around for it.... I guess that is what I get for only offering up one measly M&M...

Then he sauntered off to the table where his dad was eating his dinner and started stuffing his face with crackers.  But he left his pumpkin hat on!  And I have this fantastic lens that gets me up close, even when they are way far away....

Then I started saying something about, why are you eating so many crackers?  you just finished dinner (a huge amount of salmon patties, watermelon, and pattie pans - which he promptly took one bite of and then pretended to throw up on his plate).  jayden?  hello?  are you listening to me?  are you still so hungry?  i can get you more dinner if you'd like?  hello?  jayden?


To which I get this look and a, "Are you talking to me?!?"   And a picture that just cracks me up!  And a laugh I really needed today too...

"No.  No more dinner.  Just crackers"

At least he left his pumpkin hat on.  Although, I'm kinda wishing I would of made it like an inch longer.....wonder if I have enough yarn left over for one more....

Sam the Stealer

Our garden, this year, has done pretty well, I think, for how hot it has been, and the lack of watering on my part.  You see, when I plant my garden, I give my plants a talking too, and I tell them that I am busy and won't have tons of time to devote to them.  They will get watered in the morning with the sprinkler system and then I will try my best to come out once during the hot, hot day and pull some weeds, train them up trellises, and water them, but that I have 2 busy kids to look after and they might not get as much love as they should.  So despite their neglect, we have had a pretty good year.  However, we have had a few things go missing this year.  Our tomato plants grew really well with lots of fruit and for a couple weeks we were getting quite a few tomatoes off of them everyday, then all the sudden the ones that I saw orange the day before weren't there when I went out to pick them.  I blamed Royal.  He denied it.  I was still quite skeptical.  Then one day when we came home from church, there was a vine up on the porch, a cantaloupe vine.  We had like 5 cantaloupes growing and ripening out in the garden.  When I went out to check on them, they were all missing, and then when I went out in the yard to pick up all the dog poo,  every pile looked like a homemade pinecone bird feeder, full of cantaloupe seeds.  Sam had been sneaking into our garden and eating all our cantaloupes, and also eating only our red tomatoes.  You see last year, Royal and I tried out a couple topsy turvy's, so the tomatoes were much more in Sam's reach, and he ate all the green ones as soon as they were big enough to pluck off.  We thought we got smarter this year and planted our tomatoes in our garden with a fence all around it.  Sam, I've decided is like Houdini, and can get into and out of whatever he wants.  I swear he can fit through a 2 inch opening, because I guess Sam got smarter this year too and waits until the fruit is just barely ripe enough and then somehow gets into the garden and eats the fruit right before we would pick it.   I found our last ripening cantaloupe, and Jayden's one and only growing pumpkin, and set them up on the top rung of the trellis and hid them behind leaves.  Sadly, a few days ago, Sam managed to get into the garden and would of had to jump, but obviously he was desperate, and pulled them both down and devoured them.  All we found were scattered pieces of orange pumpkin all over the yard.  Jayden was furious and demanded we take Sam back to the Humane Society.  :)  I've decided next year to build a taller and stronger fence, and for now, I've given into Sam's love of fruit and feed him the end pieces of our watermelons.

And before you go thinking how healthy of an eater Sam is, in my adventures around the yard picking up Sam's piles of poo, I've also found evidence that Sam is eating Royal's ear plugs.  Bright, neon, green ear plugs.  Yummy.