Hodge-Podge

Here is the (random) rundown from the last week, in no particular order:

• On Monday, Jeff stayed home from work and we kept James home from school to go to the PA Farm Show. We even coerced Grammy and Chappy into going! It was fun to have them along, and although I could do without the zillion people there, we had fun. The highlight for us adults may have been the food court, where between us all, we managed to sample deep-fried mushrooms, beef hotdogs, pulled pork, fish, maple frozen yogurt, whoopie pies, 'toasted cheese' sandwiches, and a giant chocolate chip cookie. Going for round two was tempting. We got to see lots of animals, and peruse the newest farm equipment. $300,000+ combine anyone? The next day when James got home from school, he looked at me incredulously and said 'Can you believe that Mrs. R doesn't know what a combine is!?!?' Well, she does now I'm sure. That boy is destined to be a farmer.
• I let Katie choose her clothes today. She is dressed in what I can only describe as 'Psychedelic Mennonite,' with a long purple skirt, lavender shirt, hot pink tights, and sensible tennis shoes. All she is missing is the lace cap.
• Speaking of Mennonite, my mom grew up Mennonite in the far reaches of northern Minnesota. There are certain things that my Mom would make when we were kids that her Ma made them (German/Mennonite recipes). One of those things is Weronika which are cheese pockets. It is sort of like a peirogi but with a cottage cheese filling. I made them last night for the kids, complete with caramelized onions and bacon, and sour cream gravy and sauteed cabbage. It was delicious, and my arteries now have job security, at least for the next day or two. I also made sweet potato blintzes this week. I am not really sure what the difference between a blitz and a crepe is, but it was good. I've never made either before, but I have new cookbooks for Christmas and I am on a new recipe kick! So far everyone is happily putting up with my cooking shenanigans. 
• Tyler's repertoire of imaginary friends is growing. Today, I learned about his baby brother Frankie. 
• I made a grievous error in my last blog post...Jimmy Steward? Hello! I do know how to spell his name, I promise. I suppose that is what happens when you are quickly firing off posts in between peeling children off the bookshelves and such. Quality control gets a little lax.
• Have you ever wondered what would happen if you drop a brand spankin' new gallon of milk on the floor, from approximately waist height? Well, wonder no more. I will tell you. Milk goes EVERYWHERE, and then some. I was carrying in groceries from BJ's today and the box broke. The milk fell and split open. There was milk on the walls, the furniture, the ceiling, our clothes, the rug...basically all over the entire living room, and into the kitchen. It was epic. I can't imagine if the entire jug had spilled! 
• And one more thing...toothbrushes. I like to send toothbrushes in our shoe boxes, but I have had trouble finding decent toothbrushes and toothpaste at a decent price. Even though it seems trivial, I decided to pray that I would find some good deals on toothbrushes. Yesterday, my neighbor knocked on my door. He had two big boxes of toothbrushes that his sister, a teacher, had received in the mail. She was going to throw them away because she didn't know what to do with them. Um, hello! Besides the obvious answer which would be to give them to the intended students, I am sure there are a lot of people who could use them. My neighbor told her I might want them, and of course I do! There are 80 toothbrushes all together, and coupons with each one so I will probably get the rest I need for really cheap. When I prayed for toothbrushes, I didn't know they would show up at my front door!

Ramblings

• Apparently we are supposed to get slammed with 'Frankenstorm' soon. I had no idea til my neighbor asked if I had stocked up on supplies. Huh? My other neighbor talked to a manager at BJ's who said that bottled water was flying off the shelves. People around these here parts tend to freak out whenever there is a weather warning. On the other hand, if it is as bad as they say it might be, it could be bad. The question I must ask is WHY does a major storm always come the week before I do my big grocery shopping trip, when the pantry is getting low? Hey, if Armageddon hits we'll be eating a whole lot of jam and frozen peaches.
• James and I start Farm Hands tomorrow. Yay! We are both very excited.
• Jeff takes the FE exam tomorrow. Yay?! I am not sure he is excited about it, but looking forward to have it over with. It takes 8 to 12 WEEKS to find out the results. Insane.
• I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but I spoke in front of a large group of girls last week about Operation Christmas Child. I do not do public speaking, but I somehow convinced myself that I could do it, especially since they are school age girls. Turns out there were 35 school age girls, and a half dozen adults, but I did it and I wasn't even that nervous. I shared with them the letter I got from a girl in Zimbabwe this summer and they thought that was cool. After I talked, I had them make a bracelet to send to the little girls who will receive shoe boxes. Now I have 35 bracelets to send! I am also planning a craft night in 2 weeks to make handmade gifts for the shoe boxes. Since I am new to this, I have no idea what to expect. I might be sitting alone and forlorn, talking woefully to my hot glue gun. We'll see. 

Tyler, Sweet Tyler

We were at the store this morning and I was checking out. Tyler was in the cart and chattering away. I was not paying any attention to him. Next thing you know, things start to click and I realized what the little bugger was saying. Ever so matter of factly, he was telling the cashier that 'Katie have poop in her butt, and animals have poop in their...' and I cut him off at the pass. Thankfully the cashier didn't understand what he was saying, and I pushed the cart forward so he couldn't give her anymore helpful biology lessons.

In other news, Dad preached in church on Sunday. It was a superb sermon if you ask me, which you can listen to here. All week I had teased him about bringing my giant foam hand to wave around and yell things like 'Amen!' and 'Preach it, Brotha!' Shortly before the message, he looked so serious it was painful. He was in the preaching zone...Minister mode...the clergy cloud. OK, I'll stop now. Anyway, I wrote him a note on the back of a receipt and passed it over to him. He read it, smiled and went to pass it back. Then, he changed his mind and kept it. Mom and I looked at each other with an 'Oh, no!' look. Mom told me I was sunk. And she was right. Dad got up and said I passed him a note which read 'Dad, unfortunately I couldn't find my giant foam hand, so I brought my kazoo instead. I hope you don't mind.' And it felt just like old times.

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!

Easily Amused

I have always wanted to catch a salamander. When we spent the summer in Oregon we caught newts, which are a little different. Since I found out we have salamanders here, I have looked for one with no luck. We were at a birthday party a few weeks ago and found out that they have salamanders at the creek. You better believe I left some perfectly good adult conversation to go turn up a salamander. It was so darn cute, I made Jeff take a picture of me with my catch!

The Epic Sewing Project, and Walmart: Afterhours

A few months ago I was at a yard sale and I hit the jackpot. A 1950's pattern for a boys' Davy Crockett costume. All the pieces were there, and in the (almost) right size. And I got it for a whopping 10 cents! While the pattern was pretty simple (and came with no instructions) it seemed like it took forever. I suppose cutting all that fringe didn't help matters. 

Recognize that shoelace, Grandma??

However, the boy is incredibly happy to have his very own duds...

Complete with a real coyote tail hat. What would we do without the internet, people? I ordered that tail for $6 and paired it with some lovely fake fur from Joanns and voila! A hat! I'm now taking orders.

I also ordered this beaded medallion from the same seller. Pretty nifty! 

So now the kid can hunt in style...

And he is one happy camper!

And now on to my Walmart adventures. Last night I went grocery shopping after the kids went to bed. I generally try to avoid the Super-W on nights and weekends. There is a reason, after all, that there is a website devoted solely to 'the people of Walmart.' Alas, we were out of just about everything and I could wait no longer. Naturally being later in the evening there was a mixed crowd, but nothing too scary. As I was leaving,  I used the important life skills Jeff has imparted to me to spot a drug deal in the making. There were two guys in their late teens walking a little too close together. They were definitely violating the obligatory "I'm not gay" man-distance. If two girls were walking close together you would think nothing of it, but when two guys are walking shoulder to shoulder its a little weird. The one guy subtly but a bit too enthusiastically reaches over to his buddy and they made the 'exchange'. In his rush, he dropped the goods: a tiny little wadded up bag of 'the stuff'. Of course he picked it up really fast and they kept walking. It was at that moment that I really wished I had one of those signs the judges hold up to give ratings. I would have loved to rate the subtlety and finesse that (didn't) accompany their deal. If I were to rate it, I would have given them a '3'. Started out well enough, but an over enthusiastic hand-off resulted in a fumble which is not advisable when swapping illegal substances. It's not like they were swapping halves to a best friends necklace after all. Then I thought I should said 'Oh, let me pick that up for you!' but I don't have the nerve for that. Too bad Jeff wasn't with me....

SkyMall Delights

While I was on the plane, I amused myself by reading the SkyMall magazine. I was left to wonder: does anyone really purchase merchandise from SkyMall? I mean, it is a whole bunch of overpriced gimick-y nonsense. In fact, I believe they might make 'As Seen On TV' infomercials look reasonable. Here are some of the gems I found:

Portable Infrared Sauna The picture shows some sort of pop-up tent like situation, with a smiling head peeking out the top. It is unclear whether the tent actually allows one to stand up comfortably, but the model is smiling regardless. It can be yours for a mere $399.99 plus $21.25 shipping and handling.

The Porch Potty Rachel and Phil, I think Henry neeeeeeeds this. Below is the item description; they had me at 'scented fire hydrant'.

The Porch Potty gives you a clean grass area right on your porch, patio, or indoors. No more late night walks down the stairs or elevator to relieve your dog. Includes plush synthetic grass, scented fire hydrant, and outdoor self drainage. 

Pet Ramp/Staircase  Is Fifi is getting a little too old to leap onto your bed at night? Or perhaps you find that Fido has been packing away a few too many Beggin Strips and can no longer climb up? No matter! The Pet Ramp and Folding Staircase is here! Why make it hard for your pet to shed their fur all over your sheets? Let them walk right up in style and comfort! It's a steal, for only $179.99.

Hiccup Cure Sticks For only $19.99, you can have not one, not two, but THREE magical Hiccup sticks that are guaranteed to get rid of pesky hiccups in the blink of an eye. Is it just me, or are they charging $19.99 for three glorified popsicle sticks?

Protein Ketchup Do you find that you don't get enough protein from that triple decker hamburger you eat for breakfast every morning? Why bother eating eggs, beans, nuts, or meat...those traditional foods the rest of the world eats for protein. No! Start your day off right by guzzling down a tub of our specially formulated high protein ketchup! For only $1.82 per 1 ounce cup, you can get 15 grams of protein and two servings of tomatoes per serving! At $29.11 per pound, it is a great value for your money. Order yours today!

Justin Bieber Toothbrush I think this one is my favorite. You can choose from a toothbrush that plays Lady Gaga's I Was Born This Way, or two different selections from the Biebs. If they had one that played 'If I Was Your Boyfriend' I would so get it. Bieber fever!! Just kidding. I think that song is hilarious when he says 'I'll be your Buzz Lightyear'. Nothing like romancing someone with references to movies you loved when you were 8.

If anyone has ever ordered from the SkyMall, please 'fess up in the comments! :)

Ridiculously Random

Last Thursday, the phone rang. I answered and was greeted by 'Megan? Hi, how are you?' The voice was unfamiliar and I was trying to figure out who the heck it was when she introduced herself. It took me a second, but I realized she goes by an actual letter of the alphabet, instead of a name. As it turns out, this woman had ridden in a car with my Mom to Kensington on Wednesday. My Mom was going to speak to a women's Bible study group down there, and this lady was also along for the ride. Confused yet? I was. So she tells me that she met my mom, found out I had chickens, got my number, and before the ink had even dried, she called me. She wants chickens, and she wants them now! So I told her about the chickens and she asked if she could come over to see them. "Sure," I said. "When?" To which she replied, "how about tomorrow?" Um, OK. That was fine with me. We kept talking and it turns out that she is also interested in canning, sewing, gardening, and other freak ventures. She even wants me to teach her how to make cheese! After 45 minutes of talking to a complete stranger, I finally just invited her and her husband over for dinner. It was all so random and ridiculous. At that point I had no idea if she was going to turn out to be an ax murderer or what. Although, come to think of it, I don't think many of those types also frequent Women's Bible studies in the rough part of Philly. So, anyway, crazy chicken lady and her husband accepted my crazy invitation and over they came. They turned out to be super cool people. The husband is a mechanical engineer also so the men-folk had that in common. It was all so crazy, but really fun, and she ended up riding to the farm with me today. I have her sold! I am pretty sure I need some sort of referral bonus. I keep getting people to join the farm! :) Now I have a new chicken/gardening/sewing/fellow freak to chat with. This could be fun, or dangerous, depending on your perspective.

P.S. Not that I have been blogging terribly regularly lately, but I won't be posting for a bit. I am going to Florida, by myself, to see my Grandma! Yes, Jeffrey the Great is watching the kids for most of it, and my Mom will take them for a day also. I am so excited!

Miscellaneous Part 945.3a

These photos were found on Jeff's phone. The kids must have been having a lot of fun clowning around. In other news, I present to you....the bullet point list. So original, I know.

• James was less than enthused to ride the bus today, because he was afraid that he wouldn't know what to do/where to go/what bus to ride. He got himself all worked up, despite my best attempts to get him to cheer up. I could get him to giggle momentarily by reminding him of the many times Tyler has come streaking out of the room (literally) in nothing but his birthday suit, shouting 'I naked!' But as soon as the laughs were over, it was back to sobbing. When we got to the bus stop he started to really get scared, then started to cry. The moms there were so nice and encouraging. One lady asked her daughter to take James under her wing and make sure he got to the right place. The girl was awesome. Here's this over-sized first grader bawling his eyes out and she was totally unfazed. She walks up to him and says very matter of factly, 'C'mon James, you're gonna sit with me.' He didn't calm down and she looked at him with a 'Buddy, this ain't my first rodeo' look, and declared in a firm voice 'I've been riding the bus for three years now. It's gonna be fine.' We managed to get him on the bus with this poor girl, and he tried to bolt but the bus driver told him he had to stay on the bus. That's when I turned around and started walking home...and I started crying. There is something so awful about seeing your kid screaming for you and walking away that I just can't take, even if the kid does need to put on his big boy undies and ride the darn bus. Hopefully tomorrow will be much better.
• We are still looking for a car. Annoying, but true. Large non-mini vehicles are not so common apparently. We are going start looking at Nissan Pathfinders too. I want to find a car, and I want to find a car now! No more dealing with creepy used car salesman and shady scam-artists. And I won't even get into the 'Your Credit Guaranteed! As long as you have a pulse, we'll sell you a car!' people. Oi!
• Today is my sister's birthday...Happy Birthday, Rachel!!
• Tyler is in to mustard. He wants it on everything. A piece of cheese? Check. A pancake with blueberry jam? Double check...eew! Today, in fact, for lunch he went rummaging in the fridge for the mustard. He brought it to me and asked 'what can I have on my mustard.' Fine way to plan a lunch, my boy!

Miscellaneous Shenanigans

Here are a few of the latest shenanigans around here:

• Jeff recently got a smart phone. We now amuse ourselves by asking her all sorts of random questions. She gets an attitude sometimes and it is really funny. Here is a bit from the Q & A: Are you single? I don't answer questions about marital status. Do you have siblings? I guess that's always a possibility. Are you magic? No comment, Jeff. Can you sing me Happy Birthday? Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy over the love of you. I'm not sure. Let me search the internet for 'I'm half crazy over the love of you.' 
• Jeff recently created an Instagram account. We both thought it was a photo editing program. Jeff accidentally hacked some girl's Instagram account because she was using our email address. We now the proud owners of an account filled with pictures of legs, food, reciepts and other minutia. Oh, and a load of obligatory photos of girl showing off photographing herself in the bathroom mirror. You know the ones: hip to one side. Short shorts. Freshy coifed hair. Camera phone in hand. And a caption referring to how hard said person is going to party 2nite. lol. Despite all attempts to contact her, I think she thinks we are scamming her and instead continues to try and reset the password. When will she figure out that the password reset emails come to us? Who knows!
• Last night while James was getting a haircut, Tyler accidentally knocked one of the clipper attachments in the toilet. Then, thinking he was helping, he flushed. I took one for the team and plunged my arm into hopper but couldn't catch it in time. Now our toilet is flushing slowly. Not good. On the bright side, the conversation with Tyler went like this: Tyler, you can't flush things down the toilet. But we need to get it, Mom! No, we can't get it. It is gone. No, we need to break that open and get it. (referring to the back of the toilet) No, it's not in there. The water goes out of the house and under the ground. (Then Tyler went to bed....and first thing this morning...) We need to go dig it up in the backyard. Let's go get it!

Etc.

• Did you ever try googling your name before? Or the names of your relatives? Well, let me tell you. There is an Australian body builder that shares by name. She looks something like a female Aaaarnold. I don't. And when you google your relatives? Well, maybe you shouldn't. You never know what you'll find. Oddly enough, we found out Jeff's brother is part of a lawsuit against his parole officer. Who knew! You can also look up your relatives in who have spent time in the slammer via the department of corrections. Mug shots, height, weight, charges...they have it all! So next time you are looking for the perfect Christmas card picture.....
• There is less than a month til school starts. Waa! What happened to summer?
• I got to hold a 7 day old baby yesterday. She was delicious and I didn't want to give her back. I am now praying fervently that one or both of my siblings will have an 'accident' that results in a baby. ;) C'mon guys! I promise I'll make the baby piles of beautiful clothes and monogrammed burp clothes, and....just think! You might even end up with a kid that has my thumbs, and that alone is reason to have a kid! 
• This summer I have been doing an informal art lessons on Thursdays. Last week, we did tie dye! I will admit I was ridiculously excited to try it again, and I am now the proud owner of my very own tie dyed shirt. (Patchouli not included) Everyone's shirts turned out very nice, leading me to believe that it is hard to mess up tie dying which is a good thing when working with little kids.

Our First TV

As I previously mentioned, our first TV was from a hotel that was getting rid of stuff. I feel that I should write about it here to immortalize the story of it, if only so our children can someday look back upon it and laugh. We got this free TV, and since we were newly weds who owned two camp chairs and a hideous couch, we took it. This TV was, shall we say, special. Quirky, if you will. You could get a good twenty minutes out of it before there were any signs of trouble. After the twenty minute time period, the screen would begin to go fuzzy, like static. At this point, we would have to turn it off and let it cool down for 5 minutes. The problem was, after a certain point, it got to be watch 5 minutes, turn it off for 5. Good thing we have never watched a lot of TV. For some reason, we decided to have some friends over to watch the Sixth Sense. Now, I do NOT do creepy movies. Ever. I don't know how I got wrangled into this one, but I did. So we were all sitting around watching the movie and 20 minutes in, sure enough, the TV demanded a break. Around the time the movie got really intense, it was in 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off mode. Awesome! At least it broke up the scary parts for me. I mean, when there is a creepy kid saying 'I see....' **insert 5 minute break** '....dead....' **more static** '....people...' it kind of loses its edge. It's a wonder anyone stayed friends with us after that. Having them over to sit in camp chairs and watch creepy movies in fits and starts...we're classy that way.   :)

Family Tradition, And How We Accidentally Got Our Neighbors Deported

Jeff's mom used to have a police scanner. She would hunch over next to it and listen to the wild and crazy*  happenings in little Fruita, Colorado. *If there was a sarcasm font, I would use it here.* When something 'exciting' would happen, she would get in her car and drive to the scene to get a closer look. We always wondered why she would do this. Aside from the obvious bottle-necking, she had no driver's license or insurance and some illegal habits. Why would you put yourself closer to the very cops who could arrest you? That's one I never figured out. When Jeff and I got married, he got himself his very own police scanner. When we weren't sitting around in our camp chairs watching our hotel-hand-me-down TV which had to be turned off every 10 minutes to cool down, we would listen to the scanner. When we were first married, we found a nice-sized and affordable condo to live in. It happened to be affordable because it was in the bad part of town. Now, I will say that the bad part of town in Grand Junction is probably more like Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood when compared to parts of Philly. But alas, it was the ghetto to us. One night we woke to the sounds of an all-out screaming match a few houses down. It was a domestic dispute and sounded quite ugly. Jeff called the cops and then turned on the scanner. We listened both out the window and on the scanner as the cops showed up. (This makes us sound like total rednecks, doesn't it?) The police knocked, and no one answered. Um, duh. You are the only one with lights on at 3am. They know it's you! The police knocked and knocked and finally someone answered. In the meantime, they ran the plates on the truck parked outside. Next thing you know, we head 'Call in the INS van.' Oops. Turns out they were illegal and they got taken away in the van. Can't say I've ever witnessed that  before or since. When we moved here, the police scanner no longer worked. Something about going digital. Fast forward to last week. Jeff got an iphone from work, and guess what it has on it?! That's right, a police scanner. Now we can listen to various police departments along the east coast. Something tells me that 12 years and 3 kids later, we won't be spending much time listening, but its kind of funny that we have it. Maybe we'll have to bust out the camp chairs and reminisce about old times while listening to the scanner, and pass on the tradition to the kids.

I'm Having A Bake Sale

The farm house across the street went up for sale. It has TWO acres, which is quite a bit of land for around here. The house is huge and the kitchen is awesome. And it's only $425,000. I figure if I just charge $100,000 per cupcake, I will only have to sell 4 cupcakes. Any takers? Any rich uncles reading this? Anyone?

Put That On Yer Resume!

I must say that having chickens in full of adventures. I mean...skunk attack, wayward chicken wrangling and an accidental meat chicken. Exciting times, I tell ya! This week I had another experience to add to my chicken resume. I am currently trying to break my poor broody hen of her broodiness. After 6 weeks or so, she still hasn't figured out that she's not going to hatch anything. I have to keep taking her off the nest, and she is skittish and kind of crazy. I think it is a combination of her broodiness, her previous flightiness left over from when she was attacked, and the fact that she has pretty much isolated herself from the other chickens for the last month and a half. Anyway....it has been interesting, but I'm rambling. I had gone to check on her and found one of the other hens tethered to the chicken door. She had something around her foot, which was also wrapped around a stick, which was jammed in the door. I extracted her and took her out into the sunshine to see what the deal was. Turns out she got tangled up in some of the stupid garden netting we have (seriously...its terrible stuff...never buying it again!) It wrapped twice around her claw (toe?) and was really, really tight. I don't think she could feel it anymore. I had to perform some serious chicken procedure to remove the netting. I pretty much felt like a brain surgeon when I was finished and mentally patted myself on the back when I had some horse medicine to spray on her.** Now she's as good as new, and I am ready to perform surgery on anyone who needs it. Any takers????

**I have this around on the recommendation of my blog friend and Chicken Expert Linda and if she says it works for chickens...then I believe it!

P.S. Guess what we spent Saturday doing?! Sit down before you read this...we visited actual CAR DEALERSHIPS to look for a new ride for me and the kids. We even visited my old place of employment which was...strange. Have I ever mentioned how I am SO GLAD I don't work there anymore?! Regardless, we are (finally) looking for a vehicle with a) air conditioning, b) more space, and c) air conditioning. And did I mention more space? Oh, yes, that will be nice. Now, for those of you who know Jeff, I will answer your burning questions:

1. No, we are NOT looking for minivans. Have you seen pigs flying lately? Didn't think so.
2. No, we are NOT going to buy anything new or pick up a fancy-schmancy car payment.
3. And no, we are probably not going to buy from a dealership. He is looking on Ebay actually. And good ol' Craigslist. We just wanted to get a feel for what we wanted.

So the vehicle in our sights, as I am sure you are all dying to know...2005 Ford Expedition with the Eddie Bauer package.

VBS, Etc.

So somehow I got wrangled into doing the decorations for our church's VBS this year. I did actually say yes, and there was no gun to my head. I decided to do it because it was a way to use my artistic skillz, which have been sorely neglected since I had babies. That is the really nice thing about being at a large(ish) church. There are a lot of opportunities to use creativity. The thing to know about our church is that I think their motto for VBS is 'Go big, or go home.' I have been told that one year they transformed the platform into a Pirate Ship. No pressure or anything. This year's theme is 'Incrediworld' and it is a creation-themed amusement park. All I can say is that I am having a lot of fun working on it, and it's going to be cool. I'll post pictures when it's done. That is, if I have any remaining brain cells after the spray paint fumes wear off.

P.S. They gave me minions! All sorts of lovely people showed up over the last several weeks to do whatever I needed them to do. It was awesome, and I felt like jumping into the air and clicking my heels. Until I remembered that I'd probably break a hip or something. And don't worry, I refrained from calling any of them minions, although one girl asked permission to go to the bathroom. Um, yes! You can! No hall pass required. :)

In other news, James finished school today! Finally. He came out sad, and I asked him why. He found out his best buddy is going to be going to another school next year. :( I am sure he'll get over it but it was sad to see him so disappointed.

Running, Amish Walmart, and Other Delights

So I have apparently let the blog go. And now I'm back to spew forth loads of random tid-bits for you to suffer through enjoy. First things first...running. Jeff and I alternate mornings to run, getting up about 5:30am. Being out so early I see a lot of interesting things. I have found money on several occasions, discovered more about the mysterious ways of bucket man* and have seen more ground hogs than I need to see in a lifetime. I even saw a groundhog about 15 feet up a tree!! So much for the fence around my garden. Maybe I'll hang up a sign stating 'Protected By Smith and Wesson.' Hey, if they can haul their garden-pillaging butts up a tree, you never know if they can read too! But I digress. I have also been buzzed by a bat (took years off my life!) and  encountered two good-sized snapping turtles, the most recent of which was spotted on Sunday morning. I promptly went home and rounded up the kids in their jammies to go see it. Fun times. And this morning I had a very strange encounter with a bird. I heard a bird fly past me, or so I thought. (I am TERRIBLE at hearing where sounds are coming from.) I didn't think anything of it until I saw my shadow ahead of me, complete with the shadow of a bird flying precipitously close to my head. I turned around and it dropped back a little. I kept running, but heard it again. This time I turned around and looked at it, and it flew away. I am pretty sure it mistook my messy curly morning ponytail for a nest. Ha!

*Bucket Man is an older guy who wanders around the neighborhood swinging an orange bucket from his hand. We have yet to figure out what bucket man does with his bucket.

And now, on to Amish Walmart. We went to Lancaster for a few days which turned out to be a not so relaxing mini-vacation. One of our neighbors helpfully informed me that we went on a family trip, not a vacation. There is a difference! Anyway, while we were there we visited a store called Goods. My friend Erin described it as Amish Walmart, and that it is. It is a splendid place where you can buy a vinyl table cloth, fishing waders and Carhartt overalls. You can buy a John Deere hat, or an Amish straw hat. You could buy some toys, and a gun, and fabric all in the same place! There is also an entire aisle of canning supplies. I realize I am probably one of a select few who actually find that exciting. They even have the newly reissued pint and a half size jars. Woo! Living large, I tell you. It is quite the place, and we came out of there with one of those big tin stars they hang on barns and a box of pellets. Amish suspenders not included.

P.S. I went running while we were there and it was the prettiest run ever. The beautiful green farms, the huge white barns, roosters crowing and complimentary eau de bovine. I saw an Amish couple out picking in their garden. The woman had a five gallon bucket she was using to pick peas, and I could only look on in a combination of sympathy and wonder. Sympathy because I know that peas have to be shelled, and wonder because she would probably have them shelled and canned by 9am. Oh, and Jeff found a plastic Power Ranger in a (possibly Amish) graveyard while on his run. Random!

And last but not least, I do believe I mentioned 'other delights' in my title so I must produce. Would you know that Saturday is a big day? THE big day? Yes, it is when Chicken Dinner will pass through the veil (of gravy) and onto our plates. I may or may not have put a little too much thought into the method of preparation for El Pollo Gordo. I mean, if I'm gonna raise a chicken it better be tasty! The preferred method will be grilling at the hand of the Chappy Chapster. Anything he grills tastes pretty much divine, so I am expecting no less from our accidental meat bird. No pressure Dad! :)

Randomness

• We've been busy...
• As usual...
• Except we had a four day weekend...
• And celebrated my birthday (Jeff took the day off!!!!!)
• Tyler is doing swimmingly with potty training. He has even...drumroll please...been mostly dry after naps and bed. Does that even happen? Not with my other two. I could get used to this! 
• James has two days of school and then....no! Not the end of school, another teacher strike. Ugh! He will probably be off for two weeks, then have to go back for two weeks to finish up as if they will get anything accomplished after that. I have yet to run into anyone that is in the least bit happy. I won't go off on my soapbox about it, because I'd like my blood pressure to stay where it is, thanks. 
• Katie sounded out the word 'Staples' on a sign the other day. That girl is going to be reading before Kindergarten I think. 
• Today was the last day of Art Lessons and we did a little study of Piet Mondrian. The kids drew animals and filled them in using Mondian's style. 
• And last but not least, El Pollo Gordo, AKA Fat Chicken, or Chicken Dinner, is looking plumper by the day. It won't be long now...

Me and Toothpicks

I keep seeing these cool things on Pinterest revolving around food (like marshmallows or grapes) and toothpicks. The idea is for the kids to build structures by using the food as connectors for the toothpicks. I always see it and think 'oh, how fun,' followed shortly by 'but it involves toothpicks...never mind.' See, I have this weird thing about letting my kids (or not) use toothpicks for any reason. They kind of freak me out! When I was a kid, Mom gave us bologna rolled up and held with toothpicks. We thought that was a delicacy, and happily went outside to munch on them, while simultaneously swinging all over our swing set. It seems that we didn't think through the whole scenario, and haphazardly threw our toothpicks in the grass. Do you know what's coming? Oh, yes, I dropped from the swing set and landed with a toothpick at least half way into my foot. It wasn't one of those cheesy splinter-of-a-toothpick ones, rather one of the nice smooth, sturdy ones. It hurt, and I screamed. Mom stuck her head out the window and kindly recommended I pull it out, which would have been nice had it not been lodged half way to China. Let's just say that if my memory serves me, she had to pull it out with pliers. Makes me cringe just thinking about it. Ack! Aren't you glad you read the blog today? ha! So there is my reasoning for not wanted my kids to play with toothpicks. I should probably get over it, because statistically speaking it probably won't happen again, but still...

Lovely Weekend

We had a fun Mother's Day weekend. Saturday we spent pretty much the whole day outside. The kids played and the chickens roamed mostly free while I built a pallet fort and Jeff performed surgery on our tree. We have three beautiful Japanese maples in our yard, and one of them has a disease which led to cankers and apparently if you don't remove the affected branches than the whole tree can die. Hopefully it helps. And the pallet fort? For a while now, I have been looking for pallets and finally found some to build a fort. I will post pictures and story tomorrow.

  Today we drank the Bible Fellowship Kool Aid as I like to say, and joined our church.** It's about time, since we've been going there for a year and a half. After church, Jeff surprised me by getting hoagies (Italian hoagies from the best establishment-of-questionable-cleanliness around!) and taking us to Core Creek to picnic and play. It was quite nice. The kids made sure to tell me Happy Mother's Day about a hundred times, and I loved hearing it each time! :) Katie was determined to buy me a plant with her money, so I took her out so she could tell me to 'turn around and not look' while she carefully selected the most beautiful flower. It happened to be a Begonia. On the way out, she decided that she was also going to take me to ice cream. She is always saying she wants to take me, and while I would ordinarily try to talk her out of it I am learning that she loves to give and gets a lot of enjoyment from it. So we went. And the whole time, she kept looking at me with this big ol' grin on her face, saying things like 'You're the best Mom ever!' and 'I love you so much! This is so special!' How sweet is that?! I'll take it! She also made me about a dozen cards, and a few 'craft kits' which involved stuffing blank cards and envelopes into a paper lunch bag. Oh, and James wrote me a note in Sunday School which read: I love you because you make great cookies. :)

**Funny story, after we were introduced in the second service, one of the pastors shook our hands and told Jeff to 'come again when he couldn't stay so long.' Now, this is the Pastor who is always fiddling with his microphone, and as it turns out....his mic was on! Ha, ha! I am not sure if many people caught what he said but it was funny none the less.