Wednesday, August 29, 2012

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday

This is an actual public service announcement from an area very near where I live...


...and, for the record, we don't live near the mountains. Someone needs to explain it to these mountain lions!!

Monday, August 27, 2012

Back to school....

Today is the first day back to school.

I can't believe they're in 8th grade already!!!

(and yes, Wyatt is that much taller than the girls now.)



Here's looking forward to a great year!!

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Wow.....that sucked

Sometimes the lessons we have to learn in life are not fun.






I had to have our cat, Rainbow, put to sleep last night. She had lost an alarming amount of weight recently and was having many other issues. After x-rays, it appears that she had cancer in and around her liver which was causing her much pain and discomfort. I know that putting her to sleep was the right thing to do for her, but it's still hard for me and to see the upset it causes the children.

This is a lesson in life (or death) that I wish we didn't have to learn.



Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Wordless Wednesday


Monday, August 20, 2012

Let the madness begin....

The kids are all back from Grandpa and Grandma's house.



School starts next week.




I guess it's time to go shopping for their supplies.




Let the madness begin!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Wordless Wednesday


Tuesday, August 14, 2012

A day with Buster

My boys spent some time on Saturday working on Wyatt's truck (Buster).



They decided to start with the brakes. Figured once they get the truck going, being able to stop will be important. OK, being able to stop will be important if it's just rolling and not actually running, so brakes first.

Sunday we dropped the kids off with their grandparents for one last hurrah before school starts.


Saturday, August 11, 2012

Country Living

We live in the country. And, really, it's great most of the time. It's quiet and eliminates a lot of the problems that you can have if you have neighbors close by, especially if they're neighbors that you don't get along with.

But it also has its drawbacks.

Last week Dax was out of town at a conference. One morning one of the dogs was outside and kept barking and wouldn't come in when I called her.

So I went out to see what she had found.

Say hello to my little friend.....

Okay, he's not really my friend. I hate snakes!!

He was curled up behind the A/C unit, probably for the water. It's really dry around here.

And then, a couple of nights ago, two of the dogs were in the backyard barking and one of them in the house was whining to go out (which he almost never does.) Dax and I were in the middle of a conversation while this was going on and I had to stop him and ask if he smelled anything.

He just thought I was nuts (as usual) but when I opened the back door to let the dogs in the aroma of skunk was overwhelming!!

Then, Abigail told me that Kuddles was out front. When she came in, the aroma of skunk was overwhelming inside the house.

Nnnnnooooo!

I had the girls go lock her up in her kennel before she got close to any of the furniture. But the whole house smelled awful.

I don't know what smelled worse, though. The skunk, or the mass amounts of air freshener that Kirsten sprayed in her room trying to cover the smell. When the other kids would walk in there we could hear them complaining that there was so much air freshener that it was burning their eyes.

On the bright side, I don't think the dog actually got sprayed. I think she was just close enough to get a lot of stink on her.

Then, we get up in the morning, and on our way out of the drive notice that someone has been through again smashing mail boxes. Gaahhh!! We used to try to by decent ones, but we don't anymore. We're getting tired of replacing them so now we just buy whatever is cheapest. But this time they totally destroyed the post it was on too. I guess it's back to square one.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Good eatin'

Earlier in the summer, the kids were at their grandparents' house. They were at my parents' house but were heading over to spend a couple days with Dax's parents. When Poppey got there to pick them up they hadn't had dinner yet and he told them not too worry because there were ribs cooking for dinner. There was some brief discussion as to whether the ribs were beef or pork.

Fast forward a couple of days.

The kids were back at my parents' house and the conversation got back to the ribs. When my mom asked what kind they were, Abigail said that she thought they were chicken.

As you can probably guess by now, we've had some laughs over that.

Well, when I was at the store they other day I bought some chicken breasts that were still on the bone. 'With ribs' it said on the package.

So a brilliant idea struck me.


On Abigail's plate I cut the breast meat off of the ribs so that she could have chicken ribs.

She didn't eat them!! Although I'm sure she appreciates my humor.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

It's noticed

Sometimes moms wonder if many of the things they do are even noticed.

OK. MOST of the time moms wonder if MOST of the things they do are even noticed.

Well, I have faith that it is, even if it usually goes unsaid.

I believe it's noticed and actually appreciated.

Why?

Because over the weekend I got a tiny little bit on confirmation.

It all started because Wyatt spent a couple of nights with one of his friends.

On Sunday, I went to pick him up. When he got in the car he was exhausted, because they had naturally stayed up way too late.

As we were heading home he quietly said, "I can't wait to have a decent meal." I asked what that meant and he told me that his friends mother doesn't cook and they are pretty much left on their own to eat junk food when they get hungry.

I think it was then that I heard the angels singing!! It DOES matter that I cook dinner almost every night. It IS appreciated that I make them eat food that's good for them. I AM doing something right.

Victory!!

Friday, August 3, 2012

Trouble

Yesterday, while the kids slept, Dax and I got to cause trouble for the police.


Here they are trying to get Dax to leave. They had already wrestled him out from under a picnic table and then they had to get him out of that tree.


I threw water in the face of one of the officers!!!


And in the end we didn't even get in any trouble.


It was fun. Those officers are part of a crowd control task force. They were doing training yesterday at an outdoor music venue and we were some of the volunteers that were there to create problems for them while trying to clear the area. 

Next week there's a group of rookies that will be doing training all week. I'm sure Dax will go volunteer for some of it. They'll be doing things like domestic violence calls, traffic stops, drunk and disorderly (I think you actually have to get drunk for that one), and other scenarios.

When we were telling the kids about it later, they were all disappointed because they would have liked to participate. I'm a little torn on whether or not to let them do it sometime in the future. On the one hand, it would help the deputies. But on the other hand, I'm not sure I want them to practice getting away from the cops and being disruptive in general. Ha!

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Wordless Wednesday