Busy Days

Now that summer is in full swing, it seems like the days are busy. When I think about it, its not like we are doing anything fancy. Our days are filled with playing in the backyard, going to the park, the farm, etc.. Our latest acquisition is the 'Apple Slide,' named by James. (Because its red, of course...unlike the yellow banana slide of my youth.) This water slide has already provided several hours of entertainment. We have also been baking things, including Jeff's 30th birthday cake. (More on soon...it involves Tyler the sneaky ninja and the cake...pictures too!) As you can see from the pictures above, Tyler makes sure to get in on all the action too. We also, pre-4th, got a couple packs of sparklers for the kids. They loved them! It made me feel all nostalgic for the days when we would go to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the 4th and Grandpa would always have sparklers. We cousins would camp in their backyard and talk until Uncle Ron (AKA the voice of God) would tell us to 'GO TO SLEEP!!!'

Childhood Memory: There's a What?!? In The Front Yard

I was reading James a little about owls early and it brought back memories of the time when a Great Horned Owl came to live in our weeping willow tree. The tree branches hung over the sidewalk and that owl would look down at us as curiously as we looked at him. Or maybe he was thinking we were the biggest and tastiest looking mice he'd ever seen. I must have been pretty young, because that owl seemed so big to me. When leaving for the bus stop, I would look up to see if he was there. I don't know how long he stayed, but Dad said that it wasn't long before the rabbit population disappeared. I do remember picking apart the owl droppings with a stick to see what it had eaten. Just a handy little thing I learned from my Sunday School teacher, Mr. Harris. If you ever want to see mouse bones, you know where to look! (You can thank me later :) Another thing we found occasionally in our front yard was a random assortment of livestock. Our neighbors horse had a knack for unlatching the gate and would sometimes come over and graze. One morning I walked out for school to see what I am pretty sure were cows in our front yard. (I remember cows, but it might have been horses) They looked like giants to me and I ran back in the house. I was so scared. I remember my parents telling me just to walk around them and go to the bus stop and sure enough, they did me no harm. You just never know what you are going to find in your front yard!

If I Haven't Apologized Already....

Coming up with new bedtime stories each night can be a chore. Often, it involves dredging up long forgotten stories. The story I remembered tonight was one that made me feel like perhaps the worst sister ever. We used to go out tramping in the fields. We would find toads along the irrigation ditches. Did you know that toads make little burrows in the mud along ditches? Pretty cool. We would search for toads, and we perfected our technique for capturing them without letting them pee on us. A very important life skill, but I digress. One of the things we did with the toads was make Rachel kiss them. Yes, that was very mean, and yes, I feel very bad. (Sorry, Rach!) We would tell her that if she didn't kiss the toad, we would leave her out in the field. Since she was the little sister, the prospect of being left out in some alfalfa field alone was quite frightening to her. We got her to kiss a lot of toads that way. Maybe that's why she made fun of me relentlessly in high school. Alas, we both survived to be the best of friends!

Memories

I haven't written a 'Franch' post in a really long time. I just pulled this one out of my mental archives for James, who would sit and listen to 'little girl' stories as long as I can tell them. This one isn't particularly thrilling but you East Coasters will get a laugh out of it. We loved to go over to our friends, the Folkestad's, house. They had horses, sheep, cattle, a pond, and other assorted creatures from time to time (most notably, a friendly raccoon named Cheech). We spent a lot of time over there swimming in questionable places. One place we liked to swim was the 'cow pond.' Yes, we shared a swimming hole with a bunch of bovines. We would fill our rubber boots up with frogs and crawdads, then empty them out before we came home. It was good times, I tell you. The bottom of the pond was very squishy, if I recall correctly. However, the story I told James today was about a cow tank. Their dad put a big, round cow tank out by their back porch. He would fill it up with water and we would have our own personal swimming pool. Many an hour was spent swimming in there, mostly in whatever clothes we happen to have been wearing at the time. (Cut-off shorts, anyone? :) Incidentally, it was the same tank that we would stop at to give the horses a drink. Good for one and all! I also have vague memories of the tank being full of feed corn, which was really fun to play in. And while we are on the subject of things we used to do over at the Folkestads, one time Meg and I were riding horses and we decided to race each other up and down in the silage pit. I remember asking her if that was OK with her dad, and of course she assured me that he didn't care. Needless to say, we got in big trouble when we got home. He was not happy. Which of course reminds me of the time that we got a little crazy with fireworks and gasoline. But that's another story for another time...

Random Story From My Childhood....

When we lived in California, my Dad planted some sort of flower in a pot on the deck. Our house was set against a hill in the woods in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. We had a big deck that wrapped around about half the house. We generally kept our dog, Stealth, tied on a long rope at the edge of the deck. That way, he could go on the deck, onto the hill, or cool himself under the porch. But back to this potted plant. The plant was growing pretty fast, and of course we looked forward to seeing it flower outside the dining room window. Yet each day, another leaf would go missing from the plant. When my Dad noticed, he immediately thought that somehow we kids were causing it. I think we were accused of letting the dog mess with it when we took him for a walk. We denied any involvement in the mysterious, daily disappearance of the leaves. I think we were questioned again the next time Dad noticed another leaf gone missing. Again, we vehemently denied any involvement but we were under suspicion nonetheless. Finally, as we were sitting at the breakfast table one morning, the mystery was solved! A fluffy gray squirrel came hopping onto the deck, climbed into the pot, and nibbled off a leaf. We kids were glad to finally have proof that we were not involved in the plant’s demise!

Dress-Up! (And a few bonus pictures of a beautiful baby!)

When James went for a 'sweep overs' at Grammy and Chappy's house this weekend, I pulled out the dress-up clothes I had stashed away for Katie. It was the perfect time! She loved getting dressed up and clomped right around in her sparkly little shoes. I can see the beginning of a lot of fun dressing up! I loved dressing up when I was little and have fond memories of Mom donating some of her old dresses to the cause too.


This is the 'I can't believe Grammy took James and left me and I think I might be a little miffed' look.

Does the cuteness know no bounds?!?!

And speaking of absolute cuteness, deliciousness, scrumptiousness and all that is beautiful in this world, check out my baby! (How's that for bragging, Candi! :)

I love taking pictures of Jeff holding our babies. His hands always seem so big in comparison to the baby.



And this one is the boys snuggling on the couch!

Today was terrible, Mama

Yesterday was one heck of a day. And not in a good way. It all started out innocently enough with a quick trip to the store. The kids were crabby, but unless I was going to resort to taping napkins to my daughter's hind end I needed to go out and get some diapers. And milk, eggs and a few things. We made it through the trip withonly moderate fighting over space in the annoying kiddie car shopping cart. (Are they really made for two children? I think not.) I loaded up the groceries, the kids, and low and behold, the truck wouldn't start. Nice. I got all my kids back out, went to the customer service desk and called Mom. She only had the truck, so had to drive to exchange the truck for the car, and come and get me. After loading all three car seats into the car, barely, we went home. Two hours later, we walked into the door. Phew! You'd think it would end there, right? Wrong. When Jeff got home, the whole idea was to eat dinner, go see if we could jump start the truck (Jeff thought it was the battery at first), and go the old house to get the dishwasher and the last few things, and go home. Well....not so. The truck started, then died, then started again. Jeff hauled off toward home thinking he could make it back (only a mile or two). I got stuck at a light, and didn't see that he had to pull over on a road he doesn't usually take, because the truck died. Thus I ended up driving back and forth and all around looking for him in the dark, with my tired screaming kids in the backseat. I finally had to go home, call him and see where he was. It was a fiasco. Dad ended up going to help with his truck which was so nice. Thanks, Dad! As I was tucking the kids into bed, James told me in a very sad and serious voice, 'Today was terrible, Mama.' When I asked him why, he said 'Because we couldn't find Daddy.' I remembered the time when my Dad went mountain biking and got caught out in a really bad storm. Mom threw us three kids in the van and we went out looking for him in the dark storm. I remember being very scared that my Dad was out there somewhere and we weren't quite sure where. I told James all this and I think he felt a little better. We both decided we were very happy when we found them!

When you were a little girl....

Every night, while tucking James in, I tell him a story, pray with him, and sing him a song. For the last few months, all he wants are 'when you were a little girl stories.' He loves to hear stories of snow forts and our mud pie factory and the multiple times that we baked plastic spiders and flies into Grammy's muffins. I've told him of the tree houses we built in California, the camping trips where we found tadpole eggs, and the time I opened the front door to walk to the bus and found several horses grazing in my front yard. At this point, its getting really hard to come up with stories. I know they are there, somewhere in the depths of my memory, but its getting harder every night! On top of that, he wants me to sing 'when you were a little girl songs' to him too. Songs I have long forgotten have been dredged up. Songs such as 'Give Me Oil In My Lamp,' along with its accompanying verses such as 'Give me gas in my Ford, I'll keep truckin' for the Lord' and 'Give me hot sauce on my taco, I'll keep preachin' in Morocco.' Good stuff. Fortunately, James likes hymns and I know a lot of those. After all, I can only sing so many choruses of 'And if the devil doesn't like it, he can sit on a tack!' before I go nuts.

Proselytizing, Bombs and Destruction of Property: Mormon Style

Last night, when we should have been sleeping, we got to reminiscing about our childhood shenanigans. I think it was a nice diversion from thinking about the P.O.D.. Jeff told me a story I only vaguely remember hearing, and I couldn't stop laughing. It revolved around the legendary 'Elder Felt,' a Mormon missionary who set himself to proselytizing Jeff and ended up corrupting him instead. Somewhere during Jeff's high school career, he met up with Elder Felt (or is it Felts?). Soon, Elder Felt was pointing out the finer points of various bomb making techniques, a must-know in order to get into the fifth and tightly guarded level of Mormon heaven. (just kidding, I think) It soon came to pass that Elder Felt needed to take care of some dirty work. Who else would he ask, but his potential convert and willing participant, Jeff. The problem was that Elder Felt's fellow missionary, Elder X, had a tiny little television stowed away in his room. What's the problem, you ask? Well, those pesky little TVs are forbidden for missionaries and Elder Felt had his Jesus Jammies in a bunch about it. He had a plan. When the missionaries went on a trip, Elder Felt would leave the backdoor unlocked and Jeff was to dispatch the TV for him. Jeff, being the cunning little braniac that he is, took the TV apart, cut the main power cord from inside, and burned the end of the cord to create a burned electronic smell. Then he reassembled the TV, and left the incapacitated tool of the Devil for Elder X to discover when he returned. He would be none the wiser, attributing the untimely demise of his TV to the smell of burnt electrical wiring.

Asparagus Picking: Franch Style

As children, we used to walk up and down the country roads, looking for pop cans to collect. We’d find as many as we could, and then at the end of the summer we would cash them in for something like a whopping $4.86 at the recycling center in town. (Imagine $4.86, split three ways!) Between this endeavor and our mud pie factory, we kept ourselves fairly busy. We were so industrious back then! (maybe it has something to do with supplementing our $1 a month allowance…he,he,he!) We would walk along the irrigation ditches looking for cans, and a familiar site in the spring was asparagus. It flourished along the ditches and was seemingly ubiquitous. Sometimes we would pick it and bring it home, but I don’t ever remember eating it. I know my Dad doesn’t like it all that much. Now, I only wish I could wander along an irrigation ditch and pick a bag full of asparagus! That stuff is expensive!!!! I am hoping to establish an asparagus patch in my backyard next year, and while it will eventually produce some asparagus, I don’t think I’ll ever have the opportunity to pick bunches and bunches of it along the roadside. And I don’t think I’ll ever want to wander the roadside collecting pop cans.

Good Old-Fashioned Fun: A Franch Tale

At our church growing up, we had an ‘Old Fashioned Sunday.’ This day was one of the highlights of our summer/fall. Everyone would dress up in old fashioned clothes and we’d have potato sack races and three-legged races. Mom made me the most beautiful Laura Engalls dress ever. I still have it. Having one of these Old Fashioned Sundays also meant that there would be a pig roast. This was and remains one of my favorite culinary events. If there is a pig a roastin’, I’ll be there! Being a PK (pastor’s kid), and living on church property allowed us to be privy to all the goings on prior to the shindig. This involved two fine gentleman camping out in the yard so they could start the grill in the middle of the night. The day before, they would bring in the pig and get it ready. This involved a pig head. I remember one of the guys, probably to gross us out, wrapped it in a sheet and used it for a pillow to take a nap on the grass. Little did he know that we were not deterred by dead pig heads. I do believe we later participated in a rousing game of kick the pig head around the yard. Yes, that is the classy sort of activity us Cheyney kids participated in. Of course, along with roast pig, there came an assortment of mystery jello salads, all you can drink KoolAid and lots of other yummy things. After eating a round or two, or six, at the kids' table (which was always placed in front of the enormous world map in the fellowship hall…that map is still there, and is now quite outdated….USSR anyone?), we would head outside for more potato sack races and other fun. Sometimes we would even take our friends out back and stand at the edge of the ‘deep ditch’ looking down at it. It was forbidden to go too close to the ‘deep ditch’ so we felt we were living on the edge by taking our friends to see it. Such fond memories of those afternoons spent with KoolAid mustaches and greasy hands, playing till we were worn out.

***Re-reading this, I realize it is terribly full of run-on sentences, grammatical mishaps and rambles. I don’t have time to re-write it so hope I didn’t drive anyone nuts! ***

Dr. Haffly's 'Magic' Brownies

No, its not what you think. These aren't magic in the traditional, uh, sense. They are magic because they were quite possibly the sole reason I passed 7th grade algebra. You see, math is not one of my gifts. I had the most awesome teacher in seventh grade, Dr. Haffly, who was very patient with my math antics. He spent long hours trying to teach me fractions and percentages. He tried to so hard to teach me his methods. Much to his dismay, I never really got the percentage bit. To this day, and you can laugh at me Math Nerds (Merry Jo!), I divide the number by 100, then multiply by the percentage number I want to figure. I actually do know how to do it the right way, but its a habit now. To sort of 'smooth the way,' I made my teacher some brownies to help earn myself some...he, he...brownie points. Really, the brownies had nothing to do with my passing or failing, but they have since become legend. I have even shipped them cross country. Dr. Haffly has sadly passed away, but the brownies continue to have a life of their own. I have made them so many times I have the recipe memorized. And just in case you need a little help passing your math class, or just want to eat some darn good brownies, here is the recipe:

Dr. Haffly's Magic Brownies

1 C. flour
2 C. sugar
1 C. crisco
4 eggs
3/4 C. cocoa
1 C. chocolate chips
2 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt

(...and chocolate chips and peanut butter for topping)

Mix all ingredients together. Yes, there is only one cup of flour. (No one said these are good for you, they are just plain good.) Bake in greased 9 by 13 pan for 25 minutes or so, till done. These are fudgy brownies, by the way. Then...and here is the magic part...when they get out of the oven, sprinkle the top with a couple handfuls of chocolate chips. Then, drop spoonfuls of peanut butter about every two inches apart, more or less. Note: I actually buy a special jar of the extra-creamy, partially hydrogenated type peanut butter for these....the natural peanut butter is not as good for this purpose. After you add the dollops of peanut butter, sprinkle on some more chocolate chips. Let sit for 5 or 10 minutes. The chocolate chips and peanut butter will start to melt. Spread and swirl it around with a butter knife till top is evenly covered. These are really good warm, and really good cooled. Just make sure to share!

This one made me chortle....

OK. So maybe the word 'chortle' makes me chortle, but this book does too! Just the title of it is a giant OXYMORON! I am a PK (pastor's kid), and I have heard more than my fair share of church jokes. They are all lame and most are not even deserving of a courtesy laugh. Here are a few that I remember:

• Where in the Bible does it say that the husband should brew his wife coffee? Hebrews. Huh. Get it? He-brews. Yep. I told you these jokes were bad.
• Where was a car mentioned in the Bible? 'And they were all in one Accord.'
  
• Where is baseball mentioned in the Bible? 'In the beginning.' Get it? Big-inning. Yep, from bad to worse.
  

I had many better things to do with my time as a PK than to share cheesy jokes. My siblings and I were too busy rolling our offering money down the wheelchair ramp and exploring every knook and cranny of our nearly-hundred-year-old church building. As we got older, and more devious, we spent our CA years perfecting the art of breaking into the church via the nursery window and racing down the hall to disarm the alarm before it went off. I also may or may not have hung a picture of dreadlock Jesus in my Dad's office before prayer meeting one morning. I do remember one joke, however, that I don't think they put in clean church joke books. It came, strangely enough, from my Dad. He told us one day 'What do you get if you cross an elephant and a rhino? Hell-if-I-know.' We couldn't believe that Dad would tell such a joke, although we were pretty impressed. He did swear us to secrecy though. Don't tell anyone, but Pastors have a sense of humor too.

And James Strikes Again...

Last night Jeff had his co-worker over for dinner. James heard me say that I was making brownies. When they came out of the oven, James ran into the kitchen and said 'Mommy, I want a hash brownie!' Uh, we don't serve those here, Chief.

Now that I think about it, it does remind me of the time that a girl brought 'magic brownies' to the church potluck in hopes of impressing my bro. Yes, nothing says 'I have a crush on you' like bringing magic brownies to the pastor's son. Fortunately those brownies didn't make their way to the potluck. They got hidden in the janitor's closet where the girl who brought them ended up consuming mass quantities of them herself and getting stoned off her rocker. Such memories.

In Keeping With My "No Plan" Plan, I Now Present to You....

Children of the Corn: A Franch Tale

I will never forget the many summer evenings we spent tearing through the cornfields chasing each other, playing hide and seek, and just having fun. My parents were friends with a few other couples who had kids our age. We’d all get together and eat dinner outside, with things like corn on the cob, watermelon and pop, which was a big treat. The parents would settle in to their lawn chairs or around the kitchen table and talk late into the night. Us kids were all thick as thieves. We’d spent many hours together and had gotten into many shenanigans. While our parents talked, we’d chase the barn cats, ride bikes or sheep, play with gasoline and matches (that’s another story for another day), or play hide and seek in the cornfields. Playing in a cornfield is different then regular hide and seek. First off, it’s a big area to play in. Second, it adds an air of creepiness to the game. The sound of the rustling corn and the fact that you never know where someone is going to pop out…it just adds to the fun. We’d run through the field, between the rows, the thick leaves from the stalks scraping at our arms and face. Sometimes if you miscalculated, you might get smacked in the head with a ear of corn. In addition to playing hide and seek in the corn, we’d also run willy-nilly through the rows, chasing each other and laughing. One particular evening, it was dusk and we were all tearing around at 100 miles an hour. Several of us came bursting out of the cornfield to find a skunk in very close proximity to us! We all screamed and took off in different directions. Some of us ran back into the corn, and others jumped the irrigation ditch and took off down the road. Luckily, we all escaped the skunk un-sprayed. Things like this never deterred us. We thought it was wildly fun to narrowly escape danger, and got ourselves into many a tricky situation. Amazingly, no one was hurt during the making of these childhood memories!

Who says you need to be a smoker?

A few nights ago, Jeff and I were reminiscing about the old days and I remembered this story. In Kindergarten, we had the opportunity to make things out of clay. The teacher then had them fired and viola! We had ourselves some fancy-schmancy fingerprint-laden, only-a-mother-could-love pottery. It was up to us what to make. A vase, maybe, or a paperclip holder, or a cup. Or, if you were me, an ashtray. Some of the other kids were making them and I thought it was a great idea. My parents would love an ashtray! So, I painstakingly handcrafted a wobbly excuse for an ashtray. I painted it in delicate shades of red, yellow, and gray. We all relinquished our mini-masterpieces to be taken off to the kiln. When my piece came back, I was so impressed. The dull paint had become glossy in the kiln. The clay had hardened into something permanent. I just knew my parents would love it. I took it home and proudly presented them with their very own ashtray. Never had it occured to me that ashtrays were for smokers, which my parents were not. Despite the fact that their five year old just presented them with an ashtray, my parents acted like they loved it. I think it ended up being a paperclip holder afterall. I am sure they had a good laugh about that one after I went to bed.