I don’t think I told you that our grey cat died.
Of pneumonia.

My little Lacy was holding him as he took his last breath. She’s actually witnessed the death of three animals in her life (two birds and one cat). It seems like a lot for a little six year old, but it makes sense. She’s an animal girl. She loves them. They love her. I love watching it all unfold.

After Spatsy died, we got another kitten named Crissy. And then Fluffy had kittens and when we went to the pediatrician a few weeks ago this happened:
“Do you have any pets?” Asked the pediatrician who was more interested in getting Trenton to hold still than she was in his answer.
“Yeah! YEAH! Two birds and a fish and SIX CATS!”
Well, it’s true.
You can’t argue with cold, hard facts.

But I’ve neglected to share a few more additions to our home with you. I’ll get the worst over with first. And I’m going to be honest with you outright… this frog is now dead, so don’t get attached.

Three cheers for Trenton’s frog hunting skills though! Like his mother, he isn’t gifted with the natural ease and comfort with anything with more than two legs and/or wings.

We also added a beautiful dog that I love. I hope we get to keep him -time will tell! I’m not even going to try and tell you not to get attached because this baby is adorable. He’s made me a dog lover. Sometimes I just look out the window and stare at him. He’s gorgeous and he doesn’t bark and he loves me just the way I am.

Isn’t he lovely?

Moving on…
I’ve also taken on a pirate.
We call her Pudding Beard.

She’s NOTORIOUS for getting licorice drunk.

And in case you haven’t picked up on it… I’ve also added a slew of super heroes to my brood. Last night I camped out with Captain America and a few Cary Grant movies.
(yes I said “a few” it turns out I’m notorious for getting movie drunk. I’m of age, so don’t you judge me.)

If you’d like to come and see our new additions, you’re more than welcome.
HOWEVER, please keep in mind that the frog is dead. The dog may not stay. The pirate is cantankerous. And I have pink eye.

Carry on.

i am a endentpendet reedr i love it at scool i love mom

(Congrats to my first grader on her achieving “Independent Reader” status at school! She is SO excited, and it *almost* makes up for the fact that she got kicked out of the Black Widow Club today. And no, I have no idea what the Black Widow Club is. But she assures me that she’s now co-boss of the Monster Club. So all is well.) (Girls are funny.)
(and isn’t her first post awesome? She sounded everything out. You couldn’t tell, I know.)

So I’m 28.

I’m adjusting to life as a part-time worker woman, and it’s harder to keep up on stuff like the house and cooking… but I’m going to adjust. It will be fine. I feel peace amidst the chaos, and that’s a good feeling.

Last year for my birthday I got up early and went shopping for food (I was pregnant, it must be remembered). I took myself for a haircut. I painted my own toes (because I still COULD!) and I made my own cake. I took the kids to the Book Fair. I ate fish tacos for dinner while the kids played at Grandma’s house.
This year, I was just TOO tired to bother with any of that.

My husband asked me what I’d like, and I told him I’d like to treat the day like any other Friday. And he was very disobedient.
Very, very.

Thursday night, he gave me $20 and sent me away with a few women to make stuff with essential oils (and order some). Friday morning, I woke up to handmade cards that Dad helped them with while I was gone Thursday evening.
And the dishes had been done. While I was at work, my husband hand-delivered a professional bouquet of flowers from my favorite florist.

I felt so spoiled.
He was DEAD SET on me HAVING a birthday!

Danny got pretty weird about dinner… I couldn’t figure out why he was so insistent that the chicken BE BAKED as soon as possible, but as a nursing mother I didn’t fight the idea of Food Sooner Than Later.
“I found this pink cake mix,” I said, “I thought the kids and I could bake it and then they could decorate it for me.”
“No,” my husband said.
“Why? Why? Because you think I’m FAT?! So I can’t have CAKE?!”
**It must here be mentioned that I’m hormonal. Still working on balancing those babies post-baby. Get it?**
He assured me that it had nothing to do with that.
And then he looked guilty and begged me to please not mention cake again.

We all gathered around the table and I asked the kids what their favorite part of the day was -just like we do every day.
“When I helped JuJu make the cake!” Trenton said.
“What cake?” Lacy asked.
“The one Dad gave her to make for Mom’s birthday.”
My husband hung his head, rising only to offer a bleak, “surrrprise!”
“Ooooooops,” said Trenton.

It was a lovely red velvet cake, and a lovely small family gathering, and a lovely day all around.

****due to the whole “adjusting to life where I spend my mornings sporting a super classy Hansen’s Auto tee and fielding phone calls like I was BORN to, I am now finally finishing this post which I started two days ago. One day ago? Three? How old am I? Where am I? What’s my mom’s maiden name? Anyone?****
My birthday bouquet:

After the kids went to bed, Danny and I rented a movie through the Playstation.
Isn’t that just the MOST amazing couch potato tool EVER?! You don’t even have to GET OFF THE COUCH to rent a movie! We rented “Something Borrowed” which I’ve sort of been wanting to see. It’s a totally predictable chick flick about a girl in love with a boy who is going to marry her best friend.
BUT it was my birthday, so I played that card. And my husband was nice about it.
We both hated it. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but I have somewhat to say concerning THAT MOVIE. So message me if you want my rant which is both pointless and time-wasting. But convincing.
*ahem* ANYWAY.

Saturday morning, we went to Flagstaff as a family. Danny wanted me to get my hair done. I stressed out over this for a few reasons.
#1) Hormones.
#2) Last year. (the follow up post, oh-my-SAGA!)
#3) My hair matters to me. Some women are particular about their nails or their clothes or their baseboards. With me? It’s my hair.

My husband called me on the phone while I was at work and said, “I was trying to schedule an appointment to get your hair done for your birthday. It was going to be a surprise, but I’m messing it up. I called the Aveda salon and the stylist who fixed your hair last year has quit. What do you want to do?”

What do you want to do? A simple enough question. But that day it SET OFF AN ATOMIC BRAIN BOMB.
What DO I DO?!
I took to facebook with my plight, asking suggestions from friends, and I finally settled on going back to the Aveda Salon but only seeing a MASTER stylist.
I scheduled the appointment and said to the woman on the other end of the line, “Just so you know, I might cancel this appointment. I’m terrified.”
But I didn’t. I *almost* did, but I didn’t.

I showed up on time, but the stylist was running late. When I sat down, I showed her a few pictures of what I wanted and she informed me that I’d been booked for a cut and partial color NOT a cut and full and partial.
So I said, “That’s fine. I’d rather just cancel unless I can get exactly what I want.”
She said, “let’s see what we can work out.”
She looked at my formula, she looked at my picture. I said, “I want my hair to look exactly like it does in THIS picture” which was of ME and not Kim Kardashian. I just felt like I should say that… I wasn’t expecting to look like a celebrity.
Did I spell Kardashian right?  Does anyone care?

She assured me that the formula looked right and that my hair would come out looking like it did in the picture.
I ended up spending 6 hours in the salon. Okay, I LIKE salons, but I promise you now that if I have to step foot inside of one in the next 8 months, I’ll prolly barf.

I had my make-up done as well. Eets for fun. and birthdays. and I actually have no idea how to do my make-up right, so I need that kind of help.
I left the salon with dark hair. I thought maybe it would seem lighter when I went outside? When I got home?
As I looked in my own bathroom mirror, it became abundantly clear that my hair was not copper. or anything like unto it.
It doesn’t look BAD. I’m not crying this year (I’m PMSing but not PREGNANT, okay?) but I keep tugging at the purple-y ends going, “What the what?”

The left is what I have, the right is what I wanted to have.
I’m not crazy when I say they got it wrong.

It cost so much that I was up sick over it. I was just SICK that I’d paid so darn much over my hair and it was wrong… again. I didn’t want to go back for a fix because they’d have to bleach it and it would break my “no salons for at least 8 months” rule.  oh, and the “never ever that particular salon again” rule.
So I called the salon and asked for a refund on just the color. I love the cut. I love the make-up. It’s the color I’m not jiving with.

And this, ladies and gents, is why I stress over my silly hair. And the Lord punishes me for my vanity. Ha ha :)

I’ll get used to my dark locks. Right now I’m still freaked out and feeling very painted on, but it’s okay. I can live with it, especially since the salon was gracious enough to refund me and understand when I politely said, “I’m not ever coming back.”
It sounded nicer when I said it. Promise.

Other than that, we’ve been up to things I can actually tell you very simply. That’s new for me. I think becoming a working woman has caused brain maturating… aka Alicia Tells One Sentence Stories Now.
Wanna play?

Alice is eight months old, and wearing the dress my mom made for me when I was a baby. (okay, that was technically TWO sentences smashed together with a comma and conjunction. Baby steps…)

We visited Connor in the hospital just before they moved him to rehab in a different city, and the kids enjoyed the play room. (again with the TWO sentences thing. Come on, Alicia!)

Trenton posed with the girl he’s planning on marrying, and her mother confided in me that she prays for him because “he’s going to marry me.”

And I’d be a bad mom if I didn’t tack on a picture of what he looked like from the back that day…

A basket fell on Alice.
(THERE. I did it.)

Those of us with teeth got them cleaned on Wednesday.

The kittens are playful and perfect and fun, and we couldn’t resist spreading a blanket on the grass last evening and basking in the aswesomeness of New Kitty, Sunset, and Childhood.
(Okay, apparently I was wrong about Brain Maturation…)

After taking at least 20 pictures, I put my phone away and just played. played, played, played. and did voice-overs for both kitten and cat alike. and made my kids pretend to be kittens and bound through the wet grass like four-legged beauties.

Now.
BEFORE I GO. I’d like to share with you the fruits of both my googling efforts and my family relations.
While forming an ulcer over my hair situation, I read up on the best salons in the Flagstaff, AZ area. I found a review that has brought me more joy than a few of the Jane Austen movies I’ve seen.
I’m copying it here for you. Also, please translate it? Because some of it I JUST don’t get. Please note that it says the first review is in English. which makes me feel like I need to take a few more classez.

1 review in English

Review from Lando
4.0 star rating
7/9/2013 First to Review

Barbie and Ashley ROCKED MY SH*T!!!…

Love this place FOOOORRR DAAAYZ!!!

OMG…. *clutching pearls* Got my Urrrbrows DID… GOT my HUUURRCUT DID….got my Lauff on.. then… these cray-cray stylist made this trifling bag of walnuts a hotter mess. AKA…. I ready for any public event.. except of my “With Stupid” tee shirt and flip-flops.

Go…. Get DID…. and I’m sure Barbie and/or Ash will rock yo’ SH*T too.

————————————-
Okay, the most pressing issue on my mind: What does “clutching pearls” mean? Should I be doing this? Is it in now?
Also: the use of the word “trifling.”
These things are really bothering me, so please. If you can help, do.

I sent the review (found HERE) to my brother who promptly responded with a review he found and loves. It makes me happier than a few Carry Grant movies I’ve seen.

And Steve took it a step farther and sent me the link to an entire SLEW of awesome reviews.
Go. get DID.
HERE.
(PS: I’ve added the phrase, “Are you serious, Wendy?” into my day-to-day lingo. Just a head’s up. Maybe it will take hold and become as cool as clutching pearls.)

And in one final attempt to write a story in ONE sentence…

I wrote on a banana this morning.

Yesterday our little town was rocked.
Little western towns hate being rocked, you know. They’re full of conservatives with boots and guns and snail mail.

But despite their strict policy against change and upheaval, life sometimes -oftentimes -deals a rocky hand.

My cousin and his buddy were late to football practice. They were rushing to get there as quickly as possible on a quad.
They hit the side of a school bus -the very school bus my daughter was riding home in.
“Sorry I’m late, Mom,” she said as she bounded through the door, “I just had to switch buses about the boy hitting our bus.”
Say wha?
I probed to know more, but that was all she gave me. Minutes later the news came. The Boy was my cousin.
My husband came home from work -he works with first responders and the justice system -and gently told me how bad it was. He gave details I shouldn’t have wanted to hear but couldn’t rest until I did.
And then I did the only thing I could do besides cry… I hit my knees and prayed for those two Golden Hometown Boys on their way to football practice.

Pleading, begging, pleading, begging, breathing deep and acknowledging the Lord’s will. My husband gathered our family together and said a heartfelt prayer on the boys’ behalves. The news coming in was not good.
My cousin, Connor, had been taken by helicopter to the nearest hospital equipped to care for him. There was internal bleeding, brain bleeding, a skull fracture, the dreaded words, “it isn’t looking good.”
I took deep breaths and watched the clouds, the kittens, the cars on the highway flying by… all totally unaware that the world had just been rocked.

This morning we fasted and wore BLUE for our boys.

The word coming back now -I’m relieved to tell you -is good.
The boys are both in the hospital, but they’re recovering. My cousin, who suffered the bulk of the impact, had x rays and CT scans done. The result? All of the broken bones in his face are in the right place. They didn’t need to open him up for surgery. The CT scan showed no long term brain damage.

It
is
a
MIRACLE.

How great The Love: the love of a family, a community, our GOD.

I haven’t been SO busy that I haven’t blogged.

I’ve almost blogged so many times. But the thing is: there’s so much going on in my life right now that I feel like I can’t be 100% honest with you all. I feel like I’m showing you the shiny side of my life… and ONLY the shiny side.
And really: that’s okay. It’s not a good idea to go around dumping our dull side of life all over everyone.
My hang up is that so many sweet people have expressed longingly to have certain things that I do, and I always feel like I’m cheating them…
You don’t want what I have. I do. Even when life is dull or hard or ugly or mean, I still want what I have…

Even if what I have is what is making life mean and ugly.

What’s that old saying about how if we all put our hardships on the table? Yeah, I’d take mine back. They’re tailor-made for me. And they’re good for me… in the same way that boot camp is good, I guess.
But trust me when I say: you don’t want what’s going on up in here.

Someday I feel like I’ll tell you about it. I foresee a time in the future where I talk openly about the dull and mean part of my life. But right now is NOT that time. So what do I do? I hide.

In the meantime, please be patient with me. Please know that I am more than taken care of by my Heavenly Father. Please know that many of you have been his angels, even if you weren’t aware of it. I’m not hurting for anything or anyone.
In essence what I’m saying is that I don’t need fixing right now… I just want to hide out for a while. I’m sure you understand.
(I actually DO need fixing, but there’s only one person who can fix. And He has been fixing me when I put aside my pride and let Him.)

But things have been going on. Things HAVE BEEN going on.
Important things. Things you should know about. Despite the dull and wretched side of life, the shiny side of life has been in full swing.

The end of summer has always been my absolute favorite time of year. It makes my insides do high jumps.
Sunflowers and sunsets… it’s no wonder I had the genius to be born in mid-August.
Our teenage kitten is now a teen Mom. We have FOUR kittens squealing around our porch.

Every time I walk out of my house and see those little guys, it makes my day. They’re so sweet and new and darling.
And they’re not the only pets we’ve added to our family. Lacy saved her graduation money (Kindergarten graduation money, that is) and brought home Sarah… the Blue Parakeet.

Trenton watched Mulan too many times and has started quoting it, but he has mistaken the word “concubines” for the phrase “konk your vines.”
Trenton is awesome like that.

He also loves Root Beer… he’d been waiting all day to drink that and apparently didn’t want to part with the bottle even in sleep.

He has a cape, a shiny red cape. A few weeks ago, he put some extra clothes in it. They made a pouch in the middle, and he tied it to his waist. The pouch hung down over his crotch.
“Look at my sack mom!” he said. And I did. And I took pictures. And I held in the laughter really well. But I promise you this, Trenton, this picture will come out to play in roughly 10 years. Mark my Mother Words.

Alice turned SEVEN months.

My water pump and radiator went out:

We took a family trip to the Farmer’s Market and the Petrified Forest Gift Shops. And do you know that I’ve lived here my entire life and never visited the Petrified Forest? The gift shops are one thing, but the actual forest? Never been. Unless my Mom took me when I was too little to care or remember.

We feasted that night on chicken and fresh cherries and deviled eggs and homemade bread and summer squash sauteed with sweet onions, with my favorite kind of flower in the middle of the table:

Do you like my new table? Did I tell you about it already? And my new chairs?
And by “new” I mean “new to me.”

I love them.
In the month of July, the kids took swim lessons and were afraid to jump off what Lacy calls “the plank.”

Alice came down with a cold, and when we took her up to Grandma and Grandpa’s house to get a blessing, she took hold of a striped monkey and that was the end of the Monkey living with Grandma.
Alice kidnapped that monkey outright.

It’s her precious.

We put our feet in an irrigation creek:

And I don’t know what felt better: the cold water or the bliss of being impulsive.

I convinced the kids they had a chance of catching runaway rabbits, so they chased them with all their might while I sat back and thought about how tired they’d be at bed time:

We found a Freshie (a freshly dead butterfly) and took it home to mount and study. We drew pictures of butterflies and learned about all the different parts on them. We decorated our own butterflies with fabric and buttons and glue, and I named mine Lady Moxy and put her on the fridge. Because Moms still like making fridge art.

We celebrated Pioneer Day at the park.
We spent two weeks without Dad around because of work training. We made a lot of homemade bread and ate a lot of homemade bread and complained about our pants not fitting (that was just me, actually).
My sister and I went to Flagstaff for the kids’ wellness visits which went well, apart from feeling like I was less a mother of three well-behaved children and more the warden of three very naughty monkeys.
But still.
They’re cute.

We played at a park for a few hours to let the monkeys get their wiggles out, and while there I convinced the children that goblins live in the park trash cans. They eat the trash people throw away.
“I threw my gum away,” my daughter said.
“Did the goblin come up and snatch it out of your hand?” I asked. Her eyes widened.
“No…”
“Oh, I hope he’s not dead,” I shook my head, “That’s where trash goes! The goblins eat the trash. If they’re not eating it, we HAVE to make sure they’re not dead because IF THEY ARE we HAVE TO CALL THE POLICE!”
**It shall here be mentioned that Lacy is terrified of THE POLICE. Please don’t ask why. I have no idea.**
“Go!” I said, pointing to the trash cans, “Go knock on them, see if the goblin rattles around. If he doesn’t, that means HE’S DEAD.”
And then we sat back and laughed and laughed while the kids knocked on trash cans.
“They’re DEAD!” Lacy called out, so concerned, “They’re DEAD!”
Long live the Trash Goblins.
*head bow*

Life will be so boring when the kids quit buying into my crap.

I’ve given up watching “Switched at Birth” on account of the direction the show is taking (more sex! more drama! bleh, can’t we just go back to the days where everyone was just trying to learn sign language?)

I have two Netflix recommendations for you: Sweetland (be ye warned: there is a bare bum shown, but no sex. It’s a bathing thing) and “The Well-Digger’s Daughter” which is not in English, but well worth the watch.

And in other news, I’ve taken up employment at the local mechanic shop. I’ve always wanted a sleek secretary slot.

School starts tomorrow, and life is moving forward at a rate that makes Mom cry.
But the Lord is mindful of us and very, very aware. The Shiny Side of Life is wonderful.