Roses in Bloom

They won't stay this giant and lovely for long, so I thought I'd share them on the blog. Valentine's Day is still showing its stuff! :)

Da-dat-dattle-dada-dat-dat-da-da!

My neighbor probably wouldn't like this photo of herself, looking for her husband to arrive at the circus :) She however, isn't on this blog, so she will mind less! She texted me a month or so ago and told me the local homeschool group was heading to the circus--for free!! She added our names to the list and off we went to our huge section. I had no idea there were so many homeschooling families in this neck of the woods--or how many we know! So funny to see the kids greet each other and then mix into various other families that they've gotten to know. By the end of the show, we had kids from four different families in our row and friends from choir (and the church we've started attending every other week :) scattered about nearby. Everybody knows everybody in this business, lol.

The guy in purple (with the cotton candy Mohawk) is a friend from church. His dad directs a ministry to the Deaf, so it was fun to see the kids try to communicate in ASL across a loud and crowded room with him. Obviously he just came over to chat eventually :)

Cotton candy! The boys did their poop patrol early, so had cash in hand to flag down the sellers of such sweet fluff! One of the little guys who sat with us belongs to our friends the K's. His mama sat next to me (with sweet baby D) and said, "Not too many treats for my boy." But my kids couldn't hear over the noise of the circus and so were kindly sharing away down the row. Finally we said, "No more for A!" which Brennen heard as, "Give the whole bag to A!" He was confused, but obeyed and then couldn't figure out why we looked frustrated, lol, poor kid! In the meantime, A's eyes were round as saucers and he was in cotton candy heaven! Our neighbor communicated with B from the row behind (I guess we haven't learned the sign for cotton candy yet ;). B retrieved his treat and A came down to ask his mom if they could "please have cotton candy again this year." She said, "No." Ha! Parenting is so funny sometimes :)

We may have gotten an abbreviated, *practice* version of the circus (I mean, it WAS free :), but this was a treat! When they announced the performing bears, we thought it would be dogs dressed in bear costumes. But nope. REAL bears! The one lady bear in the red tutu looked so embarrassed as she sat in her chair waiting for her turn to perform. By the way, no one was holding her leash! See how close those people are down there on the floor? It was also a show for the special needs community. Can you imagine how frightening it would be to have a bear on the loose? They must be mighty well trained bears! I mean, I guess they can ride bicycles :) Video to follow . . . We thought it was neat that there was a live orchestra in black tuxedos playing the music for all the acts. And the children were appropriately flabbergasted by the inappropriateness of some of the ladies' costumes. The bear gal, well, as my friend Glory said, "She needed to put on her pants!" I don't know though--if I were working with bears that big, I'd want nothing hindering my sprint if anything bear related went south ;)

The elephant show was also impressive! Usually, they just have them walk in a circle, pick people up and stuff, but these three laid down to take a nap, sat down in unison, and one even balanced all four feet on a shiny silver ball with a lady perched on its neck! We also watched tigers jump through flaming circles of fire (that was redundant . . .)

Look--it's like those back massage chains we used to do after volleyball practice :)

When the event concluded, we stopped by the box office to get our next set of entertainment tickets (fee free). One of the performers from the jump roping crew (which was way cooler than it sounds) ran over and gave G$ a high-five. G was stoked!

Like I said before, when we arrived home the old washer and dryer were gone (by the way, I looked up the song the new ones play--it's about trout fishing in Germany :).

Buck and the boys had one more stop to make--Buck picking up the early 40th birthday present he ordered himself at the gun show. Happy guy! Happy me--he's been dropping hints for nearly a year and when his officer buddy got one for Christmas and posted it on facebook, he might have teared up a little . . . hee hee . . . just teasing, honey ;)

So Excited!

I had to capture just a little of the boys' fun watching the bears do beary surprising things! :)

Throwing in the Towel

For the probably zillionth time--our dryer broke. No heat. Two loads left to go. Ugh! So, it's of course been in the plan to get a new pair, but I was hoping we'd have the money in the bank before we HAD to. Even the repairman emailed back, "You might want to think about just buying a new set of appliances." And we are good business for that fella! The crazy thing is that I sent the credit card and furniture card pay-offs from all of last year's broken goods literally the day before the dryer broke. This means we did not have the cash in the bank, but that the new washer/dryer go back on the furniture card. Hopefully, this will just be temporary til our tax return returns ;)

One thing I was bummed about was that all the cheap models (cheap in the most expensive sense of the word :) come in white. Boo! I want pretty if I have to do a zillion loads of laundry each week. I really like my blue ones (just not that they break all the time). So imagine my excitement when a pair of Samsungs (our Samsung fridge has held up great all these years, and so have our phones--well, sort of ;) in BLUE were marked down as a discontinued (last year's) model! We went ahead a got a three year protection plan for $100--normally we don't, but this is totally free repair, whether we are here, there, or anywhere else :)

Seriously--buying these new black-eyed beauties was way too easy . . . you just talk to the sales guy, he brings up your account number on his little tablet thingy, you digitally sign, and delivery happens--for free--the next day! I dig that next day thing; it meant I didn't have to miss a laundry day. In fact, those new two are singing (they play songs at the end of each cycle) away behind me as I type. Our only *worry* was that delivery was scheduled while we were scheduled to be at the circus. However, since it was a free show, and Buck had the day off, we decided he could stay home and wait for delivery and then just meet us later.

Well, to our whoop-whoop they called half an hour early and were delivered, set-up, old ones moved to the driveway (for scrapper pick up), while we ate lunch and left on time, together for the circus! What a deal!

By the time we returned from the *Greatest Show on Earth* the scrapper had already been by, saving us $30 in haul away fees. He's probably wondering what we'll toss next--he's taken our old pots and pans, our dishwasher (probably both of them), our basketball hoop, a grill, and now our washer and dryer; he may have taken the TV too. Our broken stuff is good business for him, so I'm glad someone is happy our stuff keeps breaking, anyway :)

Oh--cool feature I haven't used yet . . . the "no iron" dryer setting! Yes! I REALLY hope it works, because I REALLY am not great at ironing . . .

Will You be Mine, Valentine?

Our kids really like Valentine's Day! I don't decorate for many occasions any more, but Valentine's Day is easy--put up the banner, attach the pink swirly things throughout the house, and boom! Decorated! :)

Morning surprises! From Grandma Judi, from us to them, and Valentines from them to us too :)

Brennen made Lego-mini mom and dad, so cute! Graysen built and painted the picture frame behind *us.* He started the project at that home show we went to last week and finished at our actual home. Pretty sweet!

Buck left after breakfast for work. Graysen questioned everyone in the house to help him remember exactly what dad put on that morning. He ended up dressing the same for our visit to the eye doctor :) All six of us--Valentine's Day eye appointments, whoohoo! Four are good to go, mine stayed the same (what?) and Gabby's got worse. There are three pairs of glasses on the way. Buck and his mini-me got plenty of smiles as we walked around the building. I love that G's still *little* enough to enjoy thinking up and doing special things like this!

It turns out that work was pretty slow on the day of love :) Buck was able to get off really early--so early in fact, that I didn't get a chance to finish his gift. He asked for a digital picture frame to take to work, so I got him one, but had no idea that it could hold so many pictures--I'm at over 1,000 and that's only half full! Every year from 2004-2016 took me an hour to load. So my 30 minutes between arriving home with groceries and finding out he was on his way with Jimmy John's (our Valentine's Day meal ;)--not enough time! But I gave him the frame anyway, and he gave me this cute *I love you necklace.* Jojo wears one frequently on the Fixer Upper show, and I mentioned it was cute while we were watching one night. Now I have one of my own :) In fact, we watched Fixer Upper for our Valentine night date--with my candle, purchased in Waco at Magnolia Market making the downstairs smell delightful (a rare occurrence with all these animals running around :)

Our Valentine's Day extended til the next, as a package from Maga arrived. This picture was taken shortly before G$ opened his second heart ("Wow, that's a lot of chocolate?!") to find . . .

Didi!! It's been gone since we went to visit Buck when he was working and staying at my parents' house this summer--seven months? He's slept with this tiny blanket every night for 8 years. Somehow it got stuffed between the couch cushions at Maga's! Hooray, reunited! I took a video, I'll see if I can get it to load :)

Happy Kid!

Hamster Invasion!

Buck and the kids started working on this Fort (a gift from Pam's homeschool supplies) waaaay back at the beginning of the school year . . . or was it this summer? Anyway, it's been a long time. This week, Graysen spotted the unfinished product on the high shelf in the classroom closet. He reached it down, finished it off, and set the hamster loose :) It is really funny to see the little fur ball twist through the teepees and sit on top of the armory. He's hard to get a picture of, but I thought I'd include the photo finish of the fort with this unique hamster flash of fur.

Peek-a-boo . . . the hamster sees you!

Surprisingly sturdy :)

Stay-Cay-Day-Tres (that's a silent "s" in Spanish ;)

I suppose it could be four, but it was our third day off together in a row, so we'll stick with my fun, catchy title (hee hee :)

SO that toy I bought the gerbil? It was a complex system of tiny, colorful sticks held together with tiny, colorful pegs inside of which a wooden ball was enclosed. If you think of those plastic toy balls that shrink down really small, but can expand up to an exercise ball size--you'll kind of have a picture of what it looked like. Graysen dropped the toy in the cage for Gandalf to play with--30 minutes later the critter had COMPETELY disassembled the entire thing and had buried the pieces in his cage. This furry guy is seriously high energy, constantly trying to dig his way out, chewing on his water bottle's plastic lid . . . things that make you go, hmmm?

We did some reading (ahem, after the fact) and learned that gerbils are meant to live in glass aquariums, in wooden houses, with no plastic to be found in their cages. Drat. Yes, you know what that means!!! Ugh!


First we sat the boys down and explained how we hadn't done a very good job providing the kind of home our gerbil needed. We gave them the option of taking him back and swapping him for some of the (freaking adorable) little dwarf hamsters we'd had our eye on (I think this is what Buck wants for Valentine's Day :) For awhile, they were willing to make the switch. Then I reminded them, that we'd made a commitment to take care of this new animal. We probably hadn't prepared as well as we should have, but that was our mistake, not his. Is it right to quit on something you made a promised to because it isn't working out the way you planned?

They decided, no, they should take care of their new (high-energy) pet. Well, sometimes our mistakes cost us something . . . in this case about $60 to completely re-gear the critter and provide him a new home (you realize that this means we once again have an EMPTY cage in our house . . . augh!! :) So, three of the four pitched in money and Buck and I covered the rest. Brennen tried to reassemble the toy Gandalf made quick work of, and we built a shelf into the giant block stand where the hamster is now housed. Musical cages, these critters are playing :)

After all that got settled (Gandalf seems much happier now) and the other cages were cleaned (our new Saturday chore--by *our,* I mean the children :), Buck rounded up all the target practice gear and to the backyard we went. Graysen has been asking to use the bb gun for weeks (he's wanting to practice calling in squirrels with his squirrel call from Christmas, so he can hunt them with the bb gun). Buck recently purchased a new bow for Caelan and Gabby, since the other bow seems to have shrunk since we received it ;) They tried that out with the bright pink arrows first, then moved on to the bb gun targets (which I think looked like Elmo, lol!)

Around three o'clock, the girls' friend Elaine came over to stay the night. They've been planning this baking/neighbor blessing party for WEEKS! The funny thing was, when she arrived, the neighbor kids were out playing in our cul-de-sac, so they all came in too, to meet Gandalf. Our kid population doubled in about five minutes and I told Buck, "We're being invaded!" He said, "I know," and pulled the blanket over his head on the couch :)

Because we have three ovens, the girls decided our house was the best place to bake the five different varieties of cupcakes, shortbread, and treats they have been dreaming about. I'm sure 500 texts have been exchanged on ingredient lists, craft supplies (they also made treasure bottles with treats and encouraging notes in them), and rock painting materials. They got right to work! And--they were very good about including the boys. Brennen was in charge of keeping the phone lit up to read the recipes from Pintrest while the girls were getting everything mixed and the ovens heated. Graysen was reading a book, but he later helped with the decorating, I'm told :)

Buck and I snuck in before five and put together dinner for the kids. We had made plans for our Valentine date, and okayed it with Elaine's mom for the girls to be home alone, keeping an eye on the boys. She was fine with it, so Buck and I left around 5, planning to get dinner before our painting class. Ugh. I guess everyone in town decided they wanted to eat at the same time as us. The first restaurant (which didn't take reservations) had a 40 minute wait; we walked next door--lines so long we could barely get in, so we drove to the sushi place Buck has been wanting to try. I was worried about this, given the kids were home and if he had any issues with shellfish exposure, we'd be in emergency status with a guest over and it just seemed too iffy.

Well, we were seated almost right away, and then we waited and waited. Got some soup (it was not very good) and waited. We were hungry. So at 6:12 our waitress said it would be another 20 minutes. Our painting class was at 6:30. It was a 15 minute drive away. So we left. Still hungry. I was so disappointed and frustrated; I was not a good Valentine's date (in tears). We'd gone to that side of town because it's the only place we can pull cash without a million dollars in fees, and we didn't even have time to get that accomplished!

So, we drove to the painting shop. We were the only ones there, besides the instructor. She said there was just one other couple and they were running late. She was friendly and upbeat, so I told her about our evening thus far. She said, "Just order from next door! They have amazing food. You can eat it while you paint." My mood immediately shifted. I was picturing us having cereal at 9:30 PM in a house full of kids who'd been baking for hours . . . nope, a quiet dinner, just the two (three, if you count the paint lady) of us. Buck ordered fish and chips, I ordered a Reuben, and she was right--it was delicious!

Our nearly complete backgrounds

Our very black trees

Our surprisingly cute final product!

The other couple eventually showed up--by then we'd just painted our background. It turned out we didn't have enough paint to saturate the canvas, so we ended up repainting our background and were right on track with the other couple. Then we had to paint our background again, because the second round looked really splotchy.
The paint lady gave us a huge puddle of glitter-teal paint, and that fixed us right up!

We spent the next two hours painting happy little trees, pretty pink petals, and a carved heart that meets in the middle. What started as a very emotionally challenging night out, ended up a nice time together, trying something new and different.

When we arrived home--the kids had cleaned up! The dishwasher was running, the baking sheets were in the sink, plates of goodies were lined up on the counter, the root beer bottles we've been saving for weeks were all decorated and stuffed with treats--wow! Everyone was happy, everyone did well; my internal turmoil at leaving them home (which contributed to the stress of the earlier evening) will hopefully eventually fade.

They all headed to bed and we returned Elaine and a whole lot of goodies to her parents at church this morning. Now the boys are playing football with the neighbor kids in the backyard, and I'm catching up on the blog. Not a bad week for our crew :)

Warmer Stay-Cay Day

The next day was all kinds of warm! We surprised the kids with a trip to see the new Lego Batman movie (lots of funny parts, but how many times did I catch myself thinking--I'm watching a movie about toys . . . I paid to watch a full-length movie about little plastic toys, lol!) By the time we left the theater, all traces of snow had left the ground (and left that ground plenty muddy and squishy!)

This was the best picture I could get, ha!
It was unusually sunny :)

We'd eaten a late brunchy kind of breakfast/lunch, but didn't have a dinner plan. Buck suggested we try the Papa Murphy's take-and-bake pizza place, so we did. It ended up being really tasty pizza! Buck tried grilling the chicken, spinach, artichoke on his Traeger. We think it would have gone better on a pizza stone rather than the paper baking sheet they provide (there's no flame with Traeger, so we thought we'd try). Next time we'll go stone. Live and learn!

Brennen had a really bad headache all day--I finally broke down and gave him Tylenol. It fixed him up quickly, and the headache never came back. I think he's growing because his hip socket is bugging him again too like it was when he was playing baseball last summer.

After dinner, the girls took the dessert they'd made (they have been on a baking craze lately--Grandma Beryl's scratch chocolate cake, graduation mints, banana bread with chocolate chips, peanut butter bars with oatmeal, peanut butter bars with chocolate frosting, mint/chocolate brownies . . . and wait til you see what they did yesterday (photos to come--unless you're reading this top to bottom, and then you already know :) Shoot--I totally got off track with that sentence and never finished it, ha! Okay, so they took the chocolate chip cookie bars they made to a homeschool teen social event (yes, Uncle C, I can hear you laughing from here :)

This is a group they've been invited to which gets together twice a month. The past two times we've either been sick or the weather was too bad to drive. However, this one was at our favorite local ministry, so nothing could stop us!! (except maybe that I really just wanted to stay home and read a book on the couch with Buck because I now had the headache B had earlier :)

Brain Games was the theme of the night--kind of a team event combining Minute to Win It games, Bible trivia, Family Feud, and physical challenges. Our girls knew some kids from choir and some from church, but most were new faces. I hung out for a while to see how things ran--but it was mostly the kids keeping things rolling, so that was great! Both girls were chosen as their team captains--Caelan's team even named itself after her (not her idea).

After about 30 minutes, I decided to head to Target to get my Valentine shopping accomplished. So, so weird to be alone. So, so weird to be shopping alone! I also needed to get birthday gifts for the boys' friends to whose party they are invited next weekend, and I needed to get our new little critter some toys. Yes, for real.

Target did not have these, so I went to the place from whence Gandalf came (it wasn't too far away). I expressed the children's concerns that gerbils are supposed to have buddies, not to be alone. Well, the second lady confirmed what the first lady said when we bought him--not the guys; that's a girl thing. So, I spent several minutes perusing the gerbil toys (you'd be surprised at the selection), then caught a worker passing by and asked, "Do I really need to buy pre-packaged sticks in a bag or can I just cut them off of my own tree?" She said I could if it was a "safe" tree--umm, yes. "Then freeze the branches for 24 hours." Okay, so I've already begun a twice weekly washing of a *pet load* of laundry--now they've got my freezer--augh!

Tasks accomplished, I headed back to the ministry hq and waited for the girls to finish up. C's team was in the finals. Gab's was watching nearby. That is why I only have pics of C and not Gab. As her team captain, C had to participate in a tie-breaker for first place in the Brain Games--bottle flipping. Have you seen this craze where kids spend hours flipping half-filled water bottles to get them to stand on end? On top of cars, on porches, on roofs, on benches? Okay, so Caelan is probably one of the last remaining teenagers on the planet who has never played this trending game. I don't think she landed a single bottle :) But her team didn't mind.

Too much height on that bottle flip?

The girls jabbered all the way home about the events and the fun they'd had--and when I told them one of the upcoming events was a mock trial (and then explained what a mock trial was :) they got super jazzed about participating in that too!

It's been nice to be able to *add* a couple of things here and there after subtracting so many. Karate starts up again next week, though, so I guess it's time to get moving!

Stay-Cay

This week has turned into a bit of a stay-cation for us. Buck had Tuesday off, and we went to the zoo and movie and lunch and all that fun stuff I wrote about before. Wednesday we had a mini-blizzard and the roads in our 'hood didn't get cleared til lunch--which meant no music lessons, which meant a snow day! (from all but school ;) However, with Buck also having Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off--school wasn't a huge focus this week (although we did sneak in three days' worth).



Thursday morning, Buck had a doctor appointment over the river, and I went along. Afterwards, we went to Trader Joe's and bought more than I have purchased there probably ever :) However our coconut from Thailand, our dried apricots from Turkey, and our giant Inca corn from Peru made us feel very multi-regional in the kitchen :) We just so rarely get to TJs, we decided to stock up!

All of this was before noon, so by the time our TJ trip wrapped up, it was lunch time. We found a delicious Mexican restaurant not too far away--they gave us all five salsas to try and they were soooo yummy! Plus a hot bowl full of corn AND flour tortilla chips (I guess the restaurant is also a tortillary--ie?). Seriously, it smelled so good in there! We were stuffed after our street tacos--which were tiny and adorable :) Definitely at the top of our Mexican food list for this area, and we  have tried A LOT of places to get good Mexican food.

We arrived home and found the kids did great in our absence--so we took a nap in the living room :) They played outside a bit in what was left of the snow, and then we debated our evening plan. Eventually we decided to eat early--except Buck and I were still stuffed from lunch. So, the kids worked together to make the casserole I had planned for that night--they can take over ALL the cooking now, lol ;) We let them munch, and then we half drug ourselves back out to the van for an evening sojourn.

Sometimes our get up and go seems to have gone ahead without us. Free tickets is a big motivator for me, and since we had two (provided by Buck's office) that cut our entrance fee pretty much in half--it was enough motivation to get the wheels rolling. We did have to borrow some cash from the kids to pay for the parking (oops, $3 short :) Then as we were walking in a lady behind us said, "I've got discount coupons if you haven't bought your tickets yet." Whoo-hoo! Then when we got through the doors a guy was standing there handing out the free entrance tickets Buck and I had--so we all got in for FREE--whoohoohoo!

Basically, the event was a giant home and garden show--but there were all kinds of other things there too . . . like honey and beef jerky and bounce houses :) We quickly realized that the tote bags handed at us constantly along the route were meant to be filled with freebies. Think--varied industries building at the fair :)

Before long we had a headband with a feather, a wooden bow and arrow set (not free :), seats at an wild animal show (the speakers were so LOUD, but the kids enjoyed seeing the kinkajou--I did NOT enjoy the python or tarantula, no I did not), neon orange yard sticks, a Jamaican seasoning rub (also not free), jewelry cleaner (I've been looking for some for ages, and wow did this shine up our gold!), Home Depot wooden building projects for the boys (I'll have to get pictures since they've painted them), flower and vegetable seed packets, helium balloons, a pocket mirror, pens with maze games in them, and more brochures and bobbles than I can count.

Perhaps the best part of the night--a free chair massage! I've had two massages in my life--both were pregnancy massages, one for a newspaper article I was writing. This chiropractor and his LMT were standing around looking bored, there was a rescue dog exhibit nearby; Buck and the kids went to the dogs and I went to the 5-minute relaxation station :) I liked the lady doing the massage, she reminded me of my sis in her college years. She said I really needed a massage, I figured it was because I was toting all the coats and aforementioned bags of freeness (well, not all the bags all the time, but some of the bags most of the time :)

My mini-massage was the grand finale--we headed home just in time for everyone to head to bed. It ended up being a fun evening . . . sometimes you just have to throw yourself into motion and see where you end up.

One Apiece

Yes. That's right. We now have six pets! (I told Buck, I'll claim the window toad, he's low maintenance :)

G$'s pic of our pet crowd :)

We took a little homeschool adventure yesterday to work through an aquarium field trip book I bought for LAST year's curriculum. Perfect day for the zoo--too cold for anyone but us and a handful of others. 

In the aquarium, the touch tank was open for business! I got to pet several star fish (they are hard and bumpy, not soft and squishy like I expected). Once I started getting my hands wet, the kids were more willing to pet sea urchins and the like, too. Boy, that water was cold! We need some tropical star fish on display--the Pacific Northwest crew has some polar ice melt going on that my already frozen fingers were not too excited about! :)

After we watched the penguins get fed and the divers scrub the shark tank, we headed to the movie theater for a bit of Jacques Cousteau -- how perfectly did that fit our field trip theme? Whoohoo, ocean stuff!

Next we used some gift card action from Buck's boss. He gave the office three, each a cash card and we used ours to get lunches out as a family :) Hooray for free lunch!

Then--with much cajoling and promises to love and care for more--we went to the pet store. Once again, I signed the adoption papers, and this time a gray gerbil has joined the other cages in the classroom. It seems that any time we buy a new cage, the old empty cage just waits to be filled. Caelan even had a plan for where to set it, since the others have just about taken up our homework turn in space. She built a platform of giant blocks in the corner--so the hamster and the gerbil can see each other and be friends ;)

So . . . here is Gandalf the Gray (Gerbil) . . . his eyes are kind of pink (which I think is so icky), but the other option was like cotton candy pink, and Ain't Nobody Got Time for That! in this house . . . shudder. I'm sure he'll grow on me like the others did. He's bigger than the hamster and has a long tail. He's super fast, and I guess enjoys toilet paper rolls :) Ahh the things you learn about nature, lol!

This Makes My Heart Happy

How precious that the little cousins can be pen pals? They write each other prayer requests and fun things about their lives (and from our end--pets :) The roar of the mail truck's departure accompanies an inevitable, "Is there anything for me!?" So fun!