Another Installment

Here are a few pictures of the kids working on shoe boxes. Katie was very particular about stacking them just so.

James' official job is to load them into the truck. Katie and Tyler help carry them out.

He is an expert by now.

P.S. Beyonce the Monster Truck has now been used to transport not only our family, but these shoe boxes, and on Saturday, our ill-fated chickens. 

It's official! Tyler has a bike of his own. He...OK, I...dug into his coffers and used his cash to make the purchase. When I went to buy it, all the bikes were $80 and plastered with various licenced, trademarked, commercialized characters. I had a hunch that if I found a plain bike it would be cheaper. They had one, and it was $40! I am pretty sure I could buy a whole lot of Lightning McQueen stickers with that extra $40, but he doesn't know the difference anyhow. He just loves having his own wheels. Now if only his mother will get him a respectable bike helmet, so he can stop wearing his sister's purple princess helmet! 

And here is the generator box turned pirate ship I made for the boys last week. Did you know how beautiful a generator can look when it is coming up your driveway on a FedEx dolly? While it didn't help us during the hurricane, now we have backup next time the power goes off. We have finally joined the growing number in our neighborhood who are investing in generators due to fairly frequent power outages. But back to the boat, I saw the idea somewhere and have been looking for a good box ever since. This one worked out nice, and I used a broom handle and some PVC pipe to rig up the sail, which gets rolled up and down, depending on their navigational preferences. Argh, matey! Shiver me timbers!

Real, Live Pictures!

I just uploaded pictures from my camera. Yikes! I am usually pretty good about that but there was a month's worth on there. Today I will post the pictures from the hurricane. This was our first hot dog roast, complete with fire wood provided by Sandy, and collected by our kids. 

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Random picture of a chicken. Who is now in my freezer. Incidentally, this one had so much fat it was amazing. Mom said she had never seen so much fat in a chicken. And she had no eggs in the shoot. I know you are dying to know, so I will tell you. Laying hens have eggs of various stages of formation in the hopper at any given time. The other chicken we butchered had a soft shelled egg (her signature), a yolk, and several smaller eggs brewing. She also had some weird tumor-like mass, which might have been why she had difficulty laying? Hmm, its just like high school anatomy, only I am not shooting sheep eye lenses across the room at a boy named Dennis. He's probably still in therapy for that one, but I couldn't resist. He was rather obnoxious, but when it came to dissecting stuff, he was incredibly squeamish. I am sure he loved having a part of an eyeball flying at him at rapid speed.

This was the power line above our yard. See the three wires twisted together?

This is what caused the problems: our neighbor's tree. It snapped the pole in half. 

The siding Jeff secured in the storm. Glad it didn't fly off!

I am totally done with hot dogs for a long time. Maybe forever.

And an awesome picture I forgot I took. This is me, smelling of Slim Jims, days without a shower, and starting to go stir crazy apparently. Scary!

My 'kitchen' during the storm (note our dining area to the right)

Katie was also going stir crazy, and resorted to donning multiple pairs of undies as accessories

Ramblings

James brought home his first test this week. Test! A math test to be precise. Let me tell you, the boy loves math. LOVES it. And do you think he got that from me. That would be a big fat NO. But the test...there were 17 problems (or parts of problems) and he only got 1 wrong! They no longer give letter grades so the scale is different, but he got a 4 which is the highest, meaning my boy is ADVANCED in math. He can thank Jeff for that one. He is also enjoying reading and declared tonight that he loves school. Yay!

Katie the Crafty is at it again. She went to work on a plastic shopping bag, cutting a little here, a little there, until she proudly, and with a bit of humor, presented me with a bra that she made me. It was a wee bit ill fitting and not all that supportive when tried over my pajamas, but those details are trivial.

Tyler's latest hobby is to ride his tricycle full speed back and forth along the patio, making hair pin turns at the end. He will do this over and over and over again. Yesterday it was raining all day so I let him ride his bike in the garage. That was, until he crashed into the dryer one too many times.

Jeff has been having loads of fun studying for his FE exam. (Note the sarcasm there) Every night he sets the timer for 1 hour and works diligently through his practice tests and study notes. I even caught him cozy-ed up to his calculator manual. I thought those things were meant to be put away in file cabinets never to be seen again.

And with those updates, here are a few pictures from the last several days:

This is the Wendy's James built out of Legos. I was quite impressed. It has a patio with overhang, complete with lego hamburgers. The car could drive through and the interior had its own light and table.

On Saturday we went to Howell Living History Farm for their Fall Fest. I loved it! They showed you the whole process for growing wheat, from seed to baking as they did more than 100 years ago. This was a steam engine which was used to run the threshing machine. Tyler was scared to death of it.

The team discing the field after plowing.

Here is the steam engine hooked up to the thresher.

This is the thresher. The chaff went straight into the barn for animal bedding.

The kids got to grind wheat. Right after this picture Katie let go of the handle and it knocked her off the platform. Oops.

We walked out into the woods where the original homestead was and helped churn butter in the old kitchen. They had fresh bread, honey and butter for everyone. And we got to take home a bag of flour to make our own bread.

There were a ton of fuzzy caterpillars.

Hand holding on the way back. Can't beat that!

Fun Pictures

My friend Michelle and I attempted to photograph our children yesterday. I saw attempted because, well, if you have kids you know what I mean. Getting three circus midgets to smile at the same time is nigh onto impossible. To top it off, yesterday was the day from H-E-double hockey sticks. The kids fought constantly and I was about ready to apply for early retirement. It was one of those days where your kids act like you never, ever discipline them and you expect Super Nanny to swoop in at any minute and tell you how much you stink as a parent. Today was much better though, and I have removed my ad for 'free children' on craigslist. Just kidding! No such ad was ever posted. Fortunately such rough days don't come around often. I was surprised we even got them to smile and act civilized, but we did manage to get a few nice pictures. Michelle and I decided to go back another day and try again. Her kids weren't terribly cooperative either. Next time there will be much bribery involved....

Don't you just want to pinch his little cheeks?! This is his 'say cheese' face.

Ben was doing a jig behind the camera, which of course the kids thought was hysterical. I love James' toothy grin.

I think this one is my favorite. I love it so much. 

See, look! You CAN get along! 

And here's my little sunshine :)

P.S. I edited these in PicMonkey, and while I generally eschew photo editing, it was kinda fun to play around. :)

Bacon Roses, Etc.

I think we've all settled back in nicely after the craziness that was VBS and having company. However it seems I keep forgetting I have a blog, thus the lack of updates. Here are a few random bits from the last few weeks:

Shelly had seen bacon roses somewhere and wanted to try them. Why not, I say! So we hit the grocery store for bacon and the dollar store for fake roses. They were remarkably simple to make, and pretty hilarious. Shelly wants to make her prom date a bacon corsage, so we decided that her qualifications for finding a prom date now include the willingness to find prom attire at the thrift store to avoid ruining a suit with bacon grease.

So...these pictures...it all started when we finished the wolf shirt (post here). I was taking a few pictures of Shelly in her flashy new shirt, and it all went south from there. He, he! Johnathan took the pictures and we just goofed off for the camera. Shelly scored the sombrero at Amish Walmart for only $3. Everyone needs a sombrero, right? The funny thing about these pictures is that the whole time, Shelly kept saying 'you have to post these on facebook! They're so awesome!' and I kept saying 'I'm too old for this! I can't post ridiculous pictures of myself on the internet like this!' In the end, I did post a few (she has the photo shoot in its entirety on her page...) and it totally made her day. :)

While the kids were here we took them to Five Mile Woods, which is a pretty nature preserve near us. I decided not to tell Johnathan that salamanders lived there, because I knew he would stop and turn over every.single.log in the place. That kid is a critter magnet. Although I do aspire to actually see a salamander in this area someday. I have only heard they exist...

Other than that, we've been keeping busy sitting in front of the air conditioner, visiting the library about every other day, or more, picking stuff out of the garden, and finishing TWO chapter books! (By The Banks of Plum Creek and Old Yeller...if you must know)

**P.S. I think I am up to almost 70 pounds from the garden so far. I am nearing the point where I will be hauling stuff in by the bucket every day. And I've said it before, but eating fresh garden tomatoes every day, all day, is one of my favorite luxuries!

The Saga of the Cheese Steak

Note: We spotted one of the few remaining pay phones in the US. An overly helpful homeless chap informed us rather loudly, not once, but three times! that that pay phone didn't work.

Yesterday we put our niece and nephew back on the plane for Colorado. I have mixed feelings about all that. Shelly and I had a blast together, and I miss her already. When the other kids were in VBS, we went off on a few adventures. One day, we dropped the kids off at 9am and drove straight to South Street in Philly. South Street is this eclectic, funky, edgy place...not really sure how else to describe it. It is home to the famous Jim's Steaks. If you are in Philly, the first thing you think of when you hear 'steak' is not a steak in the traditional sense...as in T-Bone, rather it is thinly sliced steak fried on a ginormous griddle and thrown in a hoagie roll along side some 'whiz, as in cheese whiz. The thing you must know is that you can't just meander into the place, spend an hour gazing at the menu, and then mosey up to the counter to order a 'cheese steak with cheese whiz, and...oh, mushrooms sound good. And peppers! Yes, that would make a mighty fine sandwich.' Jim's is usually incredibly busy and manned by some pretty intimidating grill sergeants. Ha, ha! I just made that up. Anyway, the first time we were there Jeff took too long to order and got yelled at. I was so afraid of the wrath of the steak man that I ordered exactly what I heard the person in front of me order. Usually the line at Jim's is out the door and it takes a while to get to the counter. Guess what?! There are precious few people brave enough to eat a steak at 10:30 in the morning. With only one group in front of us, I was feeling pretty fine. Then, one of the GINORMOUS grill sergeants looked at me and said 'Ma'am, with summer school in session we aren't allowed to accommodate school age children until noon.' Now I was taken aback and thought for sure he must be kidding. I asked him as much and he looked at me and said 'Do I look like I'm smiling? I'm serious.' Well, he sure wasn't smiling and he sure looked intimidating, but still! I asked him one more time if he was serious and he said yes. I asked him if I could buy the sandwich and leave the store with it. He gave me this 'I'll let you just this once look' and said yes. I was mentally shaking my head, but also didn't want to tick off GINORMOUS grill sergeant so I just stood there. After a minute or so, he looked at me and told me he was just messing with me. Oh, funny, funny! So I ordered our steak 'wit wiz' because that's the way a Philly steak is meant to be I'm told. My GINORMOUS grill sergeant buddy then harassed me about not ordering a beverage. He kept heckling me about it, but all I could think about was that I was approximately an hour and a half away from a bathroom that wasn't infested with herpes, and didn't want to push my luck.  But how does one explain that to your new-found but intimidating buddy? You don't. After a little back and forth, he went to the fridge to get Shelly's water, and grabbed another one for me. It's 'on me' he said, just in case you get thirsty. Thanks, GINORMOUS grill sergeant buddy, thanks!

P.S. All our adventures were part of our YOLOcoaster campaign. I am not really up on ye old young people's vernacular, but apparently YOLO is the new slang for 'You Only Live Once,' which can surely be used as an excuse to indulge in all manner of sketchy and destructive behavior. We, however, used it as the motto for all our fun adventures, and bonus points for actually being able to remember it all later and with no time spent in the slammer. Woo!

Lancaster Photo Dump

The view was quite nice!

The farm cat napped under the tree by the door. Tyler was obsessed with the cat. I don't think the feeling was mutual,
however the cat did stick around and put up with his antics.

Swing and playhouse right out the door

Finally got a cat to make friends with him

I don't want to hurt you, really I don't.

The innkeeper went and dug this out of the barn for the kids. It ended up causing a lot of fights and we had to put it away, but that's another story...

Pretty flowers (and the girl is pretty darn cute too!)

Swimming in the pond

Tyler spent his time relocating the baby frogs back into the water where he thought they wanted to go. He ended up squeezing a few a little too much.

James was in heaven!

Katie wearing the bonnet I wore as a little girl

One of the little frogs. They were everywhere!

Catching frogs and tadpoles

Neighboring Farm

Old-fashioned Fireplace

Circus Surprise

On Saturday, we loaded the kids up in the car and told them we were going someplace for a surprise. Of course, they were making all sorts of guesses but I knew they would never figure it out. When we pulled in to the parking lot, James looked over in time to see the perfect clue: a real, live elephant! His eyes got all big and he said 'Is that a real elephant? Is this the circus?!' Perfect. The kids loved the circus. Jeff and I, not so much. It was, I imagine, a bit of a low budget circus (all things considered). They had 7 tigers, 3 elephants, and about 10 performers total. There were some really cool things, but there were several stunt 'fails' and uncooperative tigers. A lot of people left at intermission. Fortunately we had found a really good deal on tickets so it wasn't like we paid a bunch of money to see a guy fall off his horse. And really, the kids absolutely loved it and it was fun to watch their faces.

P.S. James had a little incident where he high fived the ground with his face last week. He was running along a rocky part of the green belt and tripped and fell. He managed to skin up his nose, forehead, and even UNDER his nostrils. Impressive. I even had to take some schmutz out of his nose. Of course, every one and their uncle have been asking what happened. Katie told him that he needed to tell people that he got attacked by a 'wolve-ween'. 

Attempted Family Picture

When Erin was here, we made a few noble attempts at a family picture. Do you realize how hard it is to get five people to look at and smile for the camera? 

Tyler was not having any of it, and neither was Katie.

Why, let's try it again, shall we? This was part of a green wall that ran down an entire corridor. It was pretty cool. Too bad Tyler didn't want to be seen with us.

Almost!

Random picture of Tyler touching the water

And again...the kids dunked their heads in this.

Looking out over the topiary garden

And here she is, the best of all the shots. No one has a finger up their nose, and no one is crying. Yep, I think that makes it a great family picture! :)