My husband has amazing hair. It’s my favorite thing about him. When he asked me to borrow my mother’s hair clippers from her so he could buzz it all off I told him rather unkindly that if he wanted to get rid of his hair, I would take NO part. I told him I would not help borrow, and I hoped it would hold him off for a few months at least (because he REALLY hates asking to borrow things).
I underestimated him.

My kids stood by his side the entire time.
“Are you going to get the hair off your armpits?” My daughter asked.
“Why did you not get the hair off your nibbles?” My son asked (nibbles meaning, um, chest).
By the way, the day my husband gets rid of his chest hair is the day I’m moving permanently to the couch. Men OUGHT to have chest hair. Isn’t it in the Bible somewhere?
Anyway, at least hair grows back. But to get rid of what I love most about that man’s physicality just DAYS before my birthday?!?!
There’s only one word for it: cruelty.

Being a second child in our home is not easy. It doesn’t help that the first child is abundantly social, outgoing, attention demanding, AND starting school.
She’s getting all new clothes and approximately one million pictures taken of her. She’s getting hair bows and nails painted and special attention EVERY DAY to make sure she looks the best she can.
And here’s the sweet, side-lining second child who is NOT abundantly social, does NOT demand attention (as much, anyway) and is NOT outgoing.

It helps immensely that I get about 4 hours alone time with JUST him while the Girl is at school, but that will only last about 20 more weeks (give or take).
My husband and I are making sure to do our best to make sure he doesn’t feel lost or forgotten about. I make a big deal out of our time together. My husband took him out shooting a few days ago -just the boys. My son came home with a bullet burn on his neck (a hot shell landed on his neck). He went on to show his burn to his Primary class and say, “I got this from a BULLET.”

Which is fine. I mean, his sister had just got done telling the entire Junior Primary that she eats dirt.
Classic.
Anyway, we’re doing our best to make the best of it, but his behavior… oh, his behavior! He’s been SO naughty! It doesn’t help that I’m terribly pregnant. I don’t remember EVER being this moody or impatient, and I. want. to. stop! But I can’t seem to. I feel bad for people who have to be around me (except my husband -half his fault).
Yesterday while making apple dumplings for my dad’s birthday dinner, my husband ATE an apple slice and I went into outright hysterics. I had a dream last night that I was throwing chocolate chip cookie dough into the garden rows (cuz that’s normal, right?) and my HUSBAND, without any regard to my dough, started WATERING the garden!
The audacity.
I screamed obscenities at him, threw chocolate cookie dough in his face, and when that ran out… the stainless steel bowl I was holding was launched directly at his face.
This is the kind of crazy subconscious I have to battle every day, dang it. It’s awful hating yourself when yourself really isn’t YOU at all.
How grateful I am for a friend down the road (isn’t everyone in town just “down the road” from each other?) and her daughter that is just my son’s age. Her name is Jaydianna and my son has told me on multiple occasions that he’s going to marry her.
“What are you going to do when you marry her?” I asked him.
“Give her yellow flowers,” he said, matter-of-factly. That’s what marriage is, right? Yellow flowers!
Well, Jaydianna and her mother made some lemon zucchini bread. They had an extra loaf, and Jaydianna’s mom asked who they should give it to.
“Trenton!” she had said. So she did.

He literally TORE into it, as you can plainly see. I thanked Jaydianna’s mom and told her now much it meant to have someone think of JUST Trenton. She went on to tell me that Jaydianna prays for Trenton every night.
“Why do you pray for Trent?” Her mom asked her.
“Because he’s going to marry me,” she said.
Oh, sweet children. Sweet, sweet, children.
They always have a way of reminding us and teaching us. Yesterday was my worst attitude day thus far in this pregnancy, and as my daughter said family prayers before going to bed, she prayed for us each by name -that we could feel the Spirit… because, really: we couldn’t. Not with me around.
How humbling.

Here’s to my Number One Boy -who helped me husk over 5 dozen ears of corn. They’re all safely bagged and frozen now.
Thanks, buddy. We all love you so much.

Yesterday evening, I had a few errands to run. I stopped at the stop sign on Porter and Main… looked to the right for cars, caught a glimpse of Uncle Doyle standing in my great-grandfather’s truck with the sunset in the background… looked left for cars…
Turned left onto Main.
As I pulled farther and farther away from Uncle Doyle, I couldn’t stop thinking about the scene. The old white truck, the sunset, his signature blue coveralls.
It really was a great scene.
I drove farther.
Probably one I’d never see again.
But a great memory…
The sunset was coming through the clouds so perfectly.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I did a U-turn on Main and headed straight back for Uncle Doyle. I pulled into his drive, hopped out of my truck and asked if I could please take a picture of him. I’ll never forget the sweat beading down his face and the funny look he gave me. I didn’t care. I really didn’t. I’d face any and all amount of embarrassment if I could JUST capture that one moment.

Thank goodness phones are now cameras. Otherwise I would have had to ask someone nearby to borrow a camera -and don’t you think I wouldn’t have.

I now have THE picture that features not only the man who sealed my husband and I in the Temple… but my great-grandfather’s classic truck as well.  Priceless.

Every once in a while, something terrible happens to me. I don’t know if it’s a Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde thing or if it’s more like a Edward Norton/Incredible Hulk thing.
Basically, the awful monster-like qualities that I battle to keep across the way come out to play. They’re irritating and ugly and I really hate how much I indulge them.
Basically, I want stuff that costs money.
I know. I could just kill myself.
Alright, so it isn’t THAT bad, but I feel so horrible about it!
Guys, I want a house. I do. I want a house that I can decorate using inspiration from my “For the Home” pinterest board. I want to take a BUNCH of cash and spend it on cute maternity clothes so I can feel pretty instead of feeling, well, swollen and fat and frizzy. Also: I want to buy enough dresses that I can comfortably walk around without maternity pants that happen to sit RIGHT on my bladder and keep me from adventures because “oh, that’s no where near a bathroom.”
Too much info? Fair enough. Moving on…
My husband was the one who first raised the whole “Shouldn’t we have another one?” question. As I examined my feelings on the matter, I made him swear he’d hire me some housekeeping help.
That still hasn’t happened because (surprise!) we’re super poor. I thought the house was in bad shape when I had morning sickness.
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.

It’s so bad right now. I remember when I had hobbies and stuff. Those were fun days. Now I clean and gestate and eat. Lather, rinse, repeat. A friend recently pointed out a housekeeper in the area that charges $10 an hour. If I hired her for 3 hours and HELPED clean… oh the planets just might align!

Next: I want my blue wallpaper gone. I’ve had it for 3 years, and it bums me out. Maybe because it’s blue? As a homemaking mother, I get bummed out that no matter how beautifully clean the house is, that blue wallpaper smashes any and all fancy out of my dinner settings. I tried removing a small piece of it only to discover, much to my horror, that the upper half of the wall had been texturized and the bottom half (under the wallpaper) hadn’t. And they’re two different shades of white which you might think was crazy talk, but I know you’ve all been to the paint sample section at Wal-Mart. Shades of white, there are many.
I want this:

via designyourwall.com

It’s paintable wallpaper! I also love the paintable wallpaper that looks like bead board. But again: we don’t have money for things like that. These days we’re standing in the middle of Sam’s Club wondering if we should get toilet paper OR chicken (guess which ones wins out every time?). The farthest thing from our minds is how many yards of wall paper our dining area “needs”.

I used to make two week menus. I would sit down every day before pay day and make a two week menu and shopping list. It was a gloriously fun time for me, flipping through my old school cookbooks and jotting ingredients down.
Rosy were the days.
Now our budget is just big enough to cover everything we use up. Period. I want to make romantic dinners for two that involve pretty centerpieces and pretty lighting and gourmet food!
But I guess even if I DID have all of that, the wallpaper would giggle tauntingly as I light tea candles.
“You think that’s going to go with alla ‘dis?” It would say, snapping it’s fingers that were created somewhere around 1992.

I’m pregnant, so I want babyish things. I want to buy my own baby STUFF for once. We’ve always been on the receiving end of used baby stuff which is fine… I mean, how else does the world pay for babies? They’re bloody expensive! But I’ve never bought my own crib or stroller or play pen or bassinet or anything of the sort. I feel like I’m missing out on some kind of Parenting Right, and I wish I had $5,000 to play Gear Up for Baby. That’s a game, right?

I pretty sure this all stems from the fact that my husband and I are doing Dave Ramsey’s money blahblahblah stuff. I’m not really high maintenance, and I don’t love spending tons of money. But when you put rules where you don’t usually have them, all of the sudden you WANT EVERYTHING THAT COSTS MONEY.
It’s kind of awful.
1) because you don’t have money.
2) because greed makes you feel yucky inside.
3) because feelings guilty because you feel greedy makes you feel yucky inside.

Thanks for listening. You’re a pal. Getting that off my chest makes me feel like I can handle a few more hours of cleaning.

Alicia

As I drove my daughter to school yesterday, I thought about how cruel God is.
Eve was formed from Adam’s rib.
Children, I surmise, are formed from a piece of their mother’s heart. A chunk of it falls off, makes it way down to the womb area and there a child grows from it. Pieces of me -the life-giving, blood-pumping pieces -are walking around on four little feet, and I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THEM.
What if they get hurt? What if they break my heart? What if they DIE?! The emotions I feel toward my children are overwhelming, and there’s nothing I can do to stop them because my children are made up of me.
Dear God,
Why is parenting so hard and wonderful and hard and hard and hard?
Love,
Alicia

On the drive to the school, I started to tear up but I pulled it together. All I had to do was think about my first day of Kindergarten. I was so excited. I was ready. I’d been WAITING to go to school with all of my friends, and here was my sweet daughter in the same boat: feeling the same emotions, going to the same school in the same classroom with the same head of blond hair.
And once I remembered how I felt -the newness and excitement -I was able to stop the tears and feel her excitement instead.
HOWEVER, I still believe every Kindergarten should install one of those fancy rooms where the people in the room can see out but the people on the outside can’t see in… because I could have really used a room like that yesterday to camp out in. As it is, I had to be content with 90 billion pictures and a 7 minute video when she got home of how her day went (one of those minutes is made up completely of me filming nothing and yelling “I SAID GET YOUR BACKPACK! LACE! LACE! WHERE DID YOU GO? GET YOUR BACKPACK!” And it’s so irritating that I want to reach through the video and slap myself. But other than that, it’s pretty awesome.)

See how big that piece of my heart is getting? How in the world am I going to handle the day when it doesn’t need me anymore and walks out the front door and loads it’s luggage in it’s bumper-sticker covered car? HMMMM?!?!

She insisted on two ponytails, low, in the back, but still high enough to sit off her neck. And in an unexpected change of events, she wore the bow she made instead of one I had made.

My husband stopped by to see her off (sweetest dad ever).

The Girl’s best friend is in her class and her cousin is in 1st grade.

“I’m swimming, Mom…” she said, posing in front of the mural outside her classroom.

When I picked her up from school, she BOLTED out of line and ran toward me. See that little pink blur? It’s mine:

And speaking of my heart breaking off and sprouting new people entirely… the doctor says my daughter’s ultrasound was perfect. Her only concern? The baby is BIG.
I’m still ravenous and my dream last night was about me holding up a buffet line because I couldn’t get enough of everything… but then Tommy Lee Jones came in and gave me a cell phone -it made everything better.

This picture makes me look like I’m jutting my hip out and being sassy. I’m not. I’m just standing there trying to hide my second chin.
The Baby is very strong and very active.
I’m worried about the changes a baby will bring to my home and body, but I was able to stop by my friend Jewel’s house very briefly last night on account of my husband getting a bug stuck in his ear.
Jewel lives a few miles away from the Walk-In Clinic (don’t worry, my husband is fine).
Jewel just had her third baby, and Jewel looks amazing. Her house was clean, and after I left I felt confident that I COULD DO IT… everything will be okay! If Jewel can do it, I can do it!
Friends are awesome. Where would I be without them?
Without them, my eyebrows would still be one, my clothes would still not match, my house would be infinitely dirtier without their tips… oh, the list goes on.
I’ve been truly blessed in the area of friends. Bless you all for your unending patience.

My daughter starting school is a milestone of not just her little life -but mine as well. I feel the youth of my motherhood slipping away.
Growing up, I planned my life in my head. It went like this: school, graduate, college, graduate, marriage, babies.
Period.
I didn’t plan beyond babies because I think I honestly didn’t believe I would age past Young Mother. I couldn’t fathom it. Now The Future is staring at my face, grimacing and growling and I’m cowering in the corner with the tattered sock monkey my great grandmother made for me when I was younger than my youngest.
No longer is my time mine. I’m entering the scheduled world that mothers of children in school lead. No longer is my daughter constantly under my eye where I know exactly where she is, what she’s saying and who she is saying it to.
She’s going… OUT there!
I’m staying here to gestate and feign a housekeeper.
Time is marching on despite my valiant efforts to hault it at every turn. I’m not one to roll with change or with punches or at all, actually. Have YOU ever tried rolling a pregnant lady? Impossible.
I’m going to miss her terribly. Yes, it’s only a few hours. Yes, I’m being dramatic.
I know, I know, I know.
But if you knew my kids like I know my kids, you’d have your panties in a wad too. I said to my daughter, “When Mommy takes you to school, I will probably cry. It’s okay though… don’t worry. Mommies always cry over nothing. I will just miss my little girl.”
“But I’ll come home on the bus,” she said, giving me the What’s Your Deal, Mom? face.
“I know,” I said, “And you will have so much fun at school.”

I wanted to make yesterday special for her. I wish I was one of those On Top Of It All moms that makes banquet dinners for their kids, complete with matching place mats and gourmet desserts. I can’t even put together a small “Back to School” bash. I can’t afford to spend any extra cash… my daughter actually EARNED most of her school clothes money HERSELF and she’s FREAKING FIVE.
Besides, my house was still recovering from camping. I’d been trying to clean it up. I’d been trying to get everything back in order.
But I’m Alicia Version .5 right now. I do half the dishes and collapse on the couch whereas I’m normally able to knock out cleaning my entire kitchen in less than an hour -dishes included.
I really didn’t want to spend our last day of summer cleaning. Then something miraculous happened, and The Miracle Maker doesn’t even realize what he did for me.
Dad took my kids for part of the morning, and I cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. By the time they got back, I was able to spend time with them. When rest time came, I popped a movie in for them.
“When brother falls asleep, you and I can paint our nails for school,” I told my daughter. Well, the second her brother fell asleep, she went to work. She pulled out her table and made a beautiful spread of decorations (candle included). She pulled out her fake food and we went to work.

She painted my nails.
“When you take me to school and you start to cry,” she said, “You can just do this”
She pinched her lips together and closed her eyes.
“And you will stop crying and then you can look at your nails and they will make you SO happy!”

Well, she’s got a point.
My boy was still sound asleep (my daughter never sleeps… nightfall rarely stops this girl), so I thought I might pull out all my hair bow/flower making stuff.
Again: I’m not one of those moms who makes adorable hair thingies. I have enough stuff on hand to get by. Sort of.

Usually when I make something for my daughter, she hates it. Normally, I choose something I would like and make it for her. THAT’S why she hates it. I guess she isn’t me (light. bulb.) and so when I was picking through my fabric scraps I tried to think of what she might like… and I came up with the flower on the bottom right.
And guess what? It’s by far her favorite! I want to do some kind of happy dance.
I’m not like a regular mom… I’m a cool mom.
My girl made the bow on the top right all by herself! We were watching a bunch of made for TV girl movies, and while we were watching she picked up my felt and just started going to it! All I did was hot glue a center on (she picked it out) and hot glue the clip on the back. I am so impressed with her!

At the end of hair bow making, Lacy was beside herself with excitement. She gathered up her favorite hair flower and took off running. A few minutes later, she came back into the living room wearing the outfit she had picked out for the first day of school.
“Can we please go outside and take lots and lots of pictures?” She asked.
Could you have said no?

Half way through the shoot, she noticed that she still had the sizing sticker on her jeans. So she peeled it off and put it to better use.
On my belly.

Once we got back inside, we cleaned up our huge mess. She changed out of her clothes and into some that weren’t brand spanking new, and then Dad came home.
After eating a dinner of ribs (that my husband had cooked himself on Sunday), I talked the kids into playing a NEW game called “Foot Rub Game” where they each rub one of Mom’s (extra swollen, yipee!) feet until they hear the whistle. Once they hear the whistle, they switch feet.
They thought it was so awesome, and I was laughing so hard over it all (first of all that they BOUGHT my CRAP and second of all because they were having so much dang fun doing it) that I couldn’t pull it together enough to actually whistle.
The harder I tried, the harder they laughed at me which made me laugh harder… and on and on we went.

After The Foot Rub Game, it was PJs time. And we all gathered ’round for Lacy to get her first ever Father’s Blessing.

The Spirit was so unbelievably strong last night as my husband gave her a blessing. Heavenly Father loves Lacy SO very, very, VERY much! She’s so small! She’s only been here 5 1/2 years! And His love for her is, wow -breathtaking. It’s so humbling to sit next to someone so small and feel just how small they aren’t to our Heavenly Father.
The blessing was beautiful… absolutely beautiful.
And I couldn’t help but peek at her through the blessing and just fall in love with her and her hugging that giant Pooh bear in her flannel nightgown. Lovable.
After the blessing, Lacy said our family prayer and she BURST into tears. Daddy comforted her, and she went off to bed where I could hear sobs coming from her top bunk. I went in her room, made my way up to her top bunk, and took her in my arms.
“Mom, you might just be too big for my bed.” She said.
I assured her that the bed was SOLID wood that it would hold Mommy just fine. I asked her what she was so scared of.
“Bullies and missing my mom,” she said, her face was red and splotchy as tears ran down her cheeks. I went on to tell her about when I went to Kindergarten (in the same room at the same school) and how there were no bullies and how wonderful everything was.
“You will learn all about numbers and letters and reading! And there will be prizes if you read a lot of books! And you will have your own special chair and get to know tons and tons of new friends… you will LOVE it! You even get to have play time and you get to learn new songs and come home and teach them to me.”
After a few minutes of me explaining what she could expect at school, she settled down.
“Do you want to have some alone time and cry some more… or do you want to hop down and watch a movie and eat candy with me?” I asked, kissing her forehead.
“I’ll come down,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. I made my way to the foot of her bed and started to climb down the side of the bunk. There’s no ladder because the way the bed is built the beds serve as a ladder.
“Mom?” She asked.
“Yes?” I said and waited for her to say something like “Thanks for talking to me” or “I love you” but no.
“I just hope my bed doesn’t fall over while you climb down,” she said, her eyes wide and wild with concern as the bed creaked.
I laughed out loud.
Hey, hey, hey! I’m Fat Mama!

One and a half hours until the Era Ends.
Unless YOU can stop time…

Each night, we gathered ’round our fire and talked. Trenton took up telling us a series of stories titled, “When I Was a Little Boy.”
Danny would tell a story about when he was a little boy. Trenton would wait patiently for him to finish and then tell us his own story which was generally untrue, wacky, hilarious, and involved a lot of falling down.
Then Danny would tell another true story about when he was younger.
And Trenton would wait patiently for him to finish before starting in, “When I was a liddle boy…”
The trick was: we couldn’t get him to tell these stories while the sun was shining. He let me know, in no uncertain terms, that his Little Boy Stories were only to be told in the darkness of night.

Besides, who wants to listen to stories in the daylight when there’s cloud watching to be done?

Okay, one of those pictures is of a rainbow. You have to look REALLY close to see it.
And then there was the Supreme Cloud of Cowness… my son found it while he was fishing.
“Dat cloud is a cow, Mom,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, without turning around to look.
“Mom, LOOK at dat COW CLOUD.”
I thought he was just being a crazy kid. While we are driving, he’s always telling me how the clouds look like noses and bad guys, and I can usually get away with just saying, “Oh really? Cool.”
Not today. Probably because he was making a really good point.

Before tuning in to Trenton’s Nightly Story Series, we would make s’mores. The first night we didn’t have roasting sticks, so we wrapped them up in tin foil and threw them on the hot coals. It worked out really well -I think I actually prefer that method. The second night we had roasting sticks (compliments of the highly expensive country store down the road from the campsites).

The kids took some time to star gaze:

(Trenton hates the LED flash on my phone’s camera.)
And on our last morning, the kids had compassion on the myriad of washed up dead crawdads. I was glad. It was a fresh change from the cigarette bud counting they had been doing the day before.
“MOM! FOUR! FOUR CIGARETTES AND THAT MEANS SOMEONE WAS SMOKING AND SMOKING IS BAD FOR OUR BODIES!”
Well, it’s true.
My kids became professional crawdad hunters. They would find one (or pieces of one, either way the burying process worked wonders).
They would dig a very shallow hole and place the dead crawdad (or crawdad pieces) in it.
They would cover it with a rock and brush dirt over it to the best of their abilities.

We all returned to camp where the kids used tent poles to make “magic” tricks and my husband and I packed everything up.
It was a great trip. We were rained on everyday -but not to the extent that we had to hole up in our tent. Mostly, the rain just gave us pleasantly cool weather and a gorgeous cloud cover (mooooooo).
As we drove home, my husband pulled over on the side of the road to pick me a wild sunflower (my FAVORITE!) and the kids eventually fell fast asleep.

I made it home just in time to bounce in and our of the shower and make it to Primary.
I hope we can get away with just our little family more often… we never do. We always get away when it’s for something like a family outing with more than just “us.”
This last weekend make both my husband and I realize that WE need to make more time for our little family -and that time shouldn’t be in front of the TV (even though we all adore “Top Shot”).
I mean, if we hadn’t have gone camping we would have never known about Trenton’s past as a “little boy” and all of the monumental things he WENT THROUGH (hopping over fires, falling down four times, getting “fwee” scrapes that didn’t bleed but still had to be patched with band-aids).
I sure do love my family.
Good thing too because I’ve got one dirty house to muck up. Camping is not easy on the living room area -THAT’S for sure!

After getting THE ultrasound in the which we found out Captain America is a GIRL:

We headed out to lunch with my inlaws who made a long trip to be with us during the ultrasound. Per tradition, we always head out to Olive Garden after we find out the gender of our womb-ridden child. But this go around, Olive Garden doesn’t taste good to me at all. What DOES taste good to me?
Pita Jungle. I want their Mahi-mahi smothered in cilantro-jalapeno hummus and topped with pico de gallo. I want it everyday. But I can’t have it everyday, so I opted instead to smash tradition with a hammer and scarf an entire plate after finding out the baby inside of me is, in fact, a sweet little bundle of girl that eats exactly like a fully grown man.

After lunch, we took The Girl school clothes shopping. Boy, I’m going to miss the days when she’ll be able to start and finish her school clothes shopping in one place (Old Navy) and for under $100. Also: my kid already has her own style, and she’s got the hot pink GLITTER CLAD slip-on sneakers to prove it. School starts in two days. Until then, I’ll maintain my healthy level of denial that allows me to believe that time has temporarily stopped.
It actually felt like it DID stop for two days while we camped outside of Flagstaff at Lake Ashurst.

I’m not good at camping -it isn’t that I’m a priss that can’t stand to get dirt under her nails. It’s more like: I was raised in the country, and I never felt the need to go to a different country setting and camp to “get away.” Also: I never felt the urge to hunt or fish because Daddy raised beef, and I always had everything I needed right in my own back yard. I didn’t have to go to OZ to figure it out either… I always knew it (minus that one time I spent a year as a 16 year old).
My husband patiently taught me how to cast a fishing pole, and guess what? I’m totally mediocre! Which is to say: I didn’t fail 100% at it! As my husband would say: That’s good enough for the girls I date.
The kids fished, and it was all very Andy Griffith and country music all melded together in one adorable little fishing experience that we will never forget.

We only caught 6 crawdads (and yes, we fished Friday evening, all day Saturday, and even a teensy bit Sunday morning in a last-ditch effort to try and score a trout for the kids).

During the trip, my husband treated me with kid gloves. I felt like such a burden.
1) Because I’m not schooled in the ways of camping and I spent the entire trip sort of floundering around asking, “Whaddya do with dis?”
2) Because I’m pregnant and had to keep finding outhouses that I may or may not have ended up using on account of the fly issue.

The ultrasound tech was just doing her job when she plunged the thingy-maggig into my belly. But BOY HOWDY it brought on a whole slew of painful Braxton Hicks contractions.
Who IS Braxton Hicks, anyway? Satan’s right hand man?
Sheesh.
Anyway, by the time I rolled into my gigantic air mattress on Friday night, my head was throbbing. My back was screaming in pain. My chest was tight. My uterus was outright protesting camping in all it’s forms.
And sleep well, I did not.
I woke up early and rolled out of bed.
The Girl and I took a morning walk while The Boys went down the road to the country store for worms and bug repellent.

We fished all morning and within the few minutes we came back to our camp for lunch, I was out cold. I didn’t mean to be. But I was.
The rest of the family roasted “smooshmalllows” and hot dogs while I slept.

My son came into the tent and woke me up. And then he proceeded to fall asleep which I think is a little on the cruel side. My husband soon followed, and it was just me and the girl again. She wanted to play a game.
“How about we play Old Lady?” She asked, handing me a fat stick fashioned to look like a worn out cane, “And you can just sit there and be old?”
I may not be a fisherman, but I’m a helluvan old lady, folks. I NAILED that game.
Here’s a great shot taken shortly after my husband informed my overly-cautious son that there was a chance he could get stabbed by a fish hook if he wasn’t careful about staying out of the way of a cast:

Here’s me rockin’ the Old Lady game again:

And here’s a crane, practicing for it’s Swan Lake debut:

I’ve got to be off to a couple of appointments, so I’ll leave off here with two cliff hangers. Tomorrow you’re in for a real treat.
1) a picture of a cloud that looks exactly like a cow.
2) a series of pictures depicting the proper way to bury washed up crawdad corpses, compliments of my wee ones.

I’ve kept really busy with family lately, and I can’t pick just ONE happening to share. There’s too many.
There’s the day we played a little game called “Food Is Love.” I made it up myself and it is made up of cooking with my kids.
The girl made beingets for breakfast.

The boy helped me make dinner, which they kids both didn’t eat. We set the timer for ten minutes and told them if they didn’t finish their food before the timer went off, they wouldn’t get to eat an Oatmeal Cream Pie.
Well, the timer went off.
They both lost it.

Because those tears can really do something to a person, we gave them a two minute grace period in the which my daughter ate every bite… or so we thought. Half way through her polishing off her Oatmeal Cream Pie, we found corn all over the floor under her chair. She threw it under there.
So we asked her to please cease fire on her cream pie and take care of her corn.

Poor pirate. She really needs to stop throwing her food on the floor. And in case you were worried, we had JUST vacuumed. The floor was clean.
We have taken naps together:

Made music together:

Cleaned up old pioneer forts together:

Took Dad to the allergy doc to test him for all manner of allergies. Turns out he does have ALL manner of allergies. The nurses and doctors were all a-gawk.

We stayed too long at a friend’s house, and the kids conked out:

Jake, again: we are SO sorry. We owe you a case of Red Bulls, or something.
And we also turned 20 weeks:

Hello, Muffin Top.
Also: that is my natural hair… as in: that’s how it dries after I wash it. It’s so bloody indecisive. Am I curly? Am I straight? Am I a pain in the pah-tootie?
Whatever it is, it is getting whipped into shape in a few weeks for my big #27 birthday and I CAN NOT WAIT!
Speaking of things we can not wait for:
THE ultrasound is tomorrow at 9:20 in the morning. Captain America will reveal to us something we’ve been waiting 20 weeks for!
Is Captain America a sweet little girl with a killer left hook?
Or a strong, healthy little boy with a fancy for bladder bouncing? We will find out in due time.
YOU, however, will have to wait because I’m taking a weekend break from blogging. It’s our last weekend together before my sweet girl starts school.
I bought her two shirts the other day.
“Are you excited to wear your shirts to school?” I asked.
“So kids can say that I look cool or that I look dumb?” She asked.
“Who told you THAT?!”
“I don’t know,” she sighed and cradled her chin in her hands, her elbows on her knees, “Just a bully I think. I really hope there’s no bullies in kindergarten.”
Oh sweetness of all good sugar and spice, my DAUGHTER! I love that girl so much. I love her ever more when she’s covered in powdered sugar:

We meant to take two powdered-sugar covered beingets to the girl’s best friend, but the best friend wasn’t home. We brought the treats home, and my son stared and them. And stared at them, and stared at them…
“Mom, can I eat these?” He asked, fairly drooling.
“No, don’t eat those. They are for Hailee.” I said.
And then I went to the bathroom.
When I came out, the treats had been LICKED clean… no more powdered sugar on top.
“SON!” I said, “Did you do this?”
“I didn’t EAT them, Mom. I didn’t!” He proudly defended himself.
Well, that kids knows how to get what he wants. He got to eat BOTH of those treats. No one really wanted them.

I’m not a huge reality TV fan. I prefer TV that isn’t real because that’s why I watch TV -to escape reality. But there is a few exceptions.
Top Shot is one of those exceptions.

My husband and I both enjoy watching it, but the BOY more than enjoys it. He has a thing with guns.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked him last month.
“A cowboy,” he said.
“So you can have a big gun?” I asked.
“I awweady have big guns.” He quipped back.
Good point. You have a bin full of guns.
And it was really cute to watch him curl up next to his Dad as they had shooting challenges and slowly eliminated the team members. As we watched, my son would disappear into his room and come out with more and more of his toy guns. He was shooting whatever “guitargets” he could find (who wants to correct that, huh? No, son. It’s isn’t guitargets. It’s just targets. No way am I fixing THAT adorableness) which included the deep freeze, and, when he was practicing his fine archery skils, the bench by the door where we keep our shoes.

“Oh, he’s a dead eye, ain’t he?” (name that quote!)
He mimicked every stunt Top Shot had to offer, and THEN the contestants started throwing tomahawks.
Q: Where can a three year old find tomahawks in the bliss of his domestic home?
A: The silverware drawer.
The next thing I knew, he had emptied my fork and spoon supply and was pitching them at a 5-gallon paint bucket. It was just about the cutest thing I’d ever seen, so I took down a decorative board I have on my piano, used duct tape to put a guitarget in the middle of it and I let him go to it.

My daughter couldn’t stand being left out, and Dad and Mom were giving so much attention to the Top Guns Boy (he calls the show “Top Guns”) that she ditched her lowly Polly Pockets to join the game.
Being the lady that she is, she cleaned things up a bit -organized, so to speak. She dressed in red so they could be just like the show: a red team and a blue team.

She put up benches (one for the red team, one for the blue team -just like in the show):

The weapons were organized:

And then she went and found a RED team (cast of characters: Elmo, a Red Flannel Horse from Grandpa, and a red Angry Bird). Everyone was given a chance to throw:

Not to be outdone, the boy organized a team of his own:

Incidentally, none of this team actually got to play. Why would they, when they had someone as awesome as him?