That's my girl!!
She's building a "teeter-tot"

This is a Cecropia Moth. They are so cool. They can have a wing span of 5 to 6 inches. This guy (and yes we know it's a boy) has a wing span of about 5 1/2. The girl moth emits pheromones at night (Oh, love is in the air da da da dada), which the fella moth can detect with his big bushy antennae. (That's how we know ours was a guy.) He will then fly in search of her, miles if necessary. That is a lot of flapping for those wings. We kept him for the day in a jar.Releasing him in the evening,so he could find himself a little gal moth.

Sophisms

Mom: “Don't get out of your chair again until you finish your lunch."
Soph: “You're ruining my life!"

We're having a heat wave...

It's starting to heat up! Temps are reaching into the 20's and only dropping to the low teens at night. There for awhile it was dropping down around 0 degrees. And yes that's Fahrenheit. Our poor wood stove can hardly keep up at night.

 

Kitty on the War Path

 

Sledding in the front yard!

 

Our Kitty hates TP. It's the enemy! He'd kill a roll night if he could.








Bad Kitty!










Another wounded roll.

 

Good-bye 2006

 

After I "helped Santa" fill the Stockings on Christmas Eve. Si and Em crept out of bed and added a few decorative touches. They hung paper snowflakes all over the living room ceiling. It was a beautiful surprise on Christmas morning!!!

 

Merry Christmas!!

Who needs a star on top of the Christmas tree when you have a cat around. With glow in the dark eyes!

I'm as hungry as a monkey!

~Soph

Yesterday we started our second round of Chickenpox. This round involves Em, Ad, and Soph. From the looks of things Em might be our grand champion with the most spots. She is only a day and a half into it but has more spots than anyone has had at this point. Perhaps she will not get many more, not likely.

They should just be out of the contagious part by Christmas but still have all those awful scabby spots. Poor babies.

Friday afternoon I ran from my room to screams in the living room. Soph was holding her face. As I went to inspect the damage I asked the other two, Si and Ad, how it happened. Soph was jumping on the couch and fell, face first, into the coffee table. All of a sudden Soph blurts out Addey made me. At this her hand came down and the amount of blood shocked me for a moment. I quickly recovered and sent kids to get the usual stuff. I got the blood under control relative fast. And realized she had a nasty gash on the upper corner of her mouth. Now the hard decision, does she need stitches? It was about 4:30 so by the time I got to the town the Clinic would be closed and I’d need to take her to the ER. Combined with the fact that it was on the corner of her mouth, gapping pretty bad and the amount of talking she can do. I wasn’t she I could mend it, so we drove to the hospital. She ended up with two stitches and a couple of shots, and a stuffed bear from the nurse.Not to mention a Happy Meal with a milkshake from me. All better.

Today I found her standing on the edge on the couch preparing for a jump. Yikes, apparently lesson not learned!

Well it has finally happened. One of my kids has contracted the chicken pox. None of my kids have had them, not even Tirz or Em. Silas has mad it through but poor Tirz is right in the thick of it. The other girls have not shown any signs … yet.

Happy Thanksgiving four days late!!

I have been so busy this last week and weekend. We had a great Thanksgiving Day. We had a total of 26 this year. Our party grew too large for our house so we celebrated at a neighbor’s house who was gone visiting their family. We had loads of food and lots of laughs. A few die-hard football freaks fans in our group were even able to watch the game because our neighbor has satellite TV. We all had a great time.
We continued our celebration to the next night having a couple of families over for dessert. Rick built a huge bonfire outside and the adults sat the fire while the teens tried to sneak up on us in the dark. Nice try kid-os!!
Rick and I continued the celebrating one more night. We went over to a neighbor’s for a Texas Hold’em Party. We stayed until about 2:30 in the AM. It’s a really good thing Church starts a 2:00 in the afternoon.
I’d say back to our ordinary mundane life but we had a truck load of snow dumped on us, seven inches to be exact. That much snow always adds a twist of “fun” to the mundane!!

I am sitting in my chair!!

Well, it happened. It’s just good it happened later in life. It would have been difficult to handle at the tender age of sixteen. It’s just so embarrassing. It’s rarely seen. Well maybe in a movie. Of course, Hollywood is so dramatic. Today there are all the safety measures in place. It’s a wonder what they did in the past. I suppose it spewed everywhere and all present were faced with the possibilities of fire and a final explosion. It’s everyone’s fear at some point in life. It would have been nice to glimpse it happening to someone else. None the less, there it was the gas nozzle still hooked up to the car, the other end disconnected from the pump, dragging about three feet behind. All that could be done was to lift the nozzle from the car, scoop up the other end, take it to the attendant, and simply say, “It broke, sorry.” And walk away!

Summer Time

Summer is the time of year for science. Well life science anyway, specifically the study of insects and a few amphibians. We currently have two Pacific Tree Frogs, one green and one grey ; two Praying mantis, a boy and a girl; a California Root Boerer, he's a big one and he hisses too; and a Tree Cricket, a very loud "singer." The frogs are going to need to go back to the wild soon. We are feeding them flies but this is becoming a weary task. I’m not sure they are getting enough food either. The Hissing beetle (what some around here call'em) needs to go very soon, he is just plain creepy. A bug should not be that big! The cricket will probably become food for the frogs or more likely the praying mantis. It was fascinating to watch it move his wigs to make the chirping noise. It came in the house uninvited and interrupted our Jerry Lewis movie. We are keeping the praying mantis for a while. I just fed the male a bunch of moths. The female has a grasshopper left from yesterday. I would like to see if the female would lay an egg sack. It would be so intriguing to watch it hatch in the spring. It could be a little creepy too because there could be 20-400 little babies. Then we can let them go in the garden to eat the bad bugs.

A short conversation at Walmart

Upon seeing a single grape in the parking lot in the middle of a huge oil stain a very cute blond four year old shouted with excitement,

"Look mommy a grape."

"Yes," replied mommy, "but we don't eat things of the ground, remember?"

"I know. And we especially don't eat *food* off the ground, right mom?"

"Uhhh, yah."

What else is she eatting off the ground????

Pastel Palm Tree
Our beach doesn't have any palm trees but we enjoy it all the same. We (the kids and I) spent the afternoon at the beach splashing and playing.