April Fools, etc

As I said ealier, my sister Trixie & her kids (AKA: my nieces & my nephew; AKA: Daralyn, Nakayla & Zander) are here visiting me from Seattle. There are 9 children in this house at all times. It is a lovely chaos. I am super happy to spend time with them & am going to miss them when they leave.

Aside from my sis' visit this past week:
~I've gone to band practice, which was incredibly fun.
~Jammed out with the TMC worship team, which was also a blast.
~Brother in law, Joshua, & his wife (AKA:Heather Jr; AKA: my sweet & lovely sister in law)also came from Seattle for a visit. They brought a very cute puppy with them.
~Made at least 17 & 1/2 trips with my sis to our fav hang-out: WalMart (AKA: the only place where they allow moms with 87 kids to come & shop & don't arrest them for opening up a box of Graham crackers to stuff into little mouths to get them to stop screaming before paying for them. And if you didn't understand that sentence, you are obviously not a mom with 87 kids.)
~Isaac, Daralyn & now myself, have gotten sick. Again. Not surprising with all the little walking petri dishes on legs, all jammed into a tightly enclosed living area & breathing into each others germy little goo-infested, but cute, faces. More little sickies shall develop in the coming days, I am confident.
~Had 19 people (including the above visiting family members) in my teeny wittle house for a yummy chicken ravioli dinner & some more sweet & happy chaos & laughter.
~Had a big family park outing in the beautiful sunshine.
~Haircut day happened. Zander was included.
~Had a cousin picnic in the back yard.
~April fool's day happened. I awoke to Jarod climbing onto my bed next to Isaac, just in time to stop him from drawing a mustache on his baby brother with a sharpie. Seth barely missed being doused by the cup of water Jarod had placed precariously above his bedroom door. I was almost fooled into believing the cat had pooped on the kitchen counter. Until I remembered what day it was & who I was talking to: Jarod (AKA: little prankster). You'd be amazed how similar-looking to a turd rolled up mud is.
~Since we actually had a couple days of spring weather, the boys naturally needed to collect worms to race in the back yard. If you've never had the immense privilege of witnessing a worm race, you just haven't lived.

CONE OF SHAME: the Sequel

I guess Toby was REALLY ashamed of his cone. I don't think I can tape THAT back together.

      This is SO much more dignified.

                                                    "Woe is me."       


                                
         Good choice, Toby. That stupid cone was just humiliating.

LOST: Mom's Sanity; Call Heather @ 555-HEL-PMEE If You Find it

Our yellow lab, Toby, went missing on Tuesday afternoon. He hadn't been neutered yet & I guess he wanted a fun adventure involving a female dog. He escaped out of our backyard fence, which was recently broken by some very strong wind. The boys & I were very worried about him. They made signs to hang in the neighborhood.

.

By Gideon

                                             By Micah

By Seth

                            Justin had the only working car (he's been working on one of them) at work with him. So we walked the neighbor hood & surrounding areas, looking for Toby.

                              We walked & walked & walked..................

         ......................and walked & walked & walked.................

         .........................and stopped for a minute.....................

 ......................and walked some more until we were so tired we had to come home for a break.

 We went out again for a while. We walked & walked & walked a whole lot more. When I'd finally had enough, we came home again & I made lunch. I sent Seth out on his own to hang up the signs he had made. A neighbor man saw him hanging up signs & asked Seth what he was looking for. Seth said, "A yellow lab." The man said, "I think I can help you. This dog followed me home." He gave Toby back to Seth. Seth hugged the man & said, "You're my BEST friend!!!" & brought Toby home. 

We were all SSSOOOOOOOOO happy Toby was home, safe & sound.

                  (Always with the freakin' bunny ears!!! Sheesh. Toby's gonna be SO embarrassed when he sees this pic. I bet he didn't even know Jarod was doing that.)



So I promptly went out back & fixed the fence. 2 hrs later, Toby was missing again. I don't know how. I think he may have magic powers because I did a pretty good job on that fence. It was back to the drawing board, worrying about Toby. Worrying about my kids' potential broken hearts. Worrying about MY broken heart. Anxiety ran high yet again. Seth re-hung signs. The boys prayed. I made phone calls to vets & the humane society. I put an ad in Craigs' List. (Or maybe I did that the first time....I can't remember.) My sister & her kids arrived from Seattle (which is completely unrelated to the doggie story, except that she arrived in the middle of it all). I was very excited to see her, but I left & went out looking for Toby till almost 3 in the morning. Couldn't find him. Went home & went to bed, extremely sad & worried, but OH SO EXHAUSTED. Next day, a neighbor brought Toby to us, asking if he was ours. We have some amazingly nice neighbors..........this guy had kept him overnight to keep him from harm. We were SSSOOOOOO happy to have him back home. Safe & sound. Again. I didn't take pics. Just scroll back up to Jarod & Seth's happy faces when Toby came home the fist time. It was just like that. Again.

 (Isaac & Zander: the "twin cousins"........only 3 days apart. More to come, on the currently on-going cousin/Auntie visit, in a future blog post.)

In fact, I was SSSOOOO happy to see him that I promptly made an appointment to have him neutered Friday. Don't feel sorry for him, even with those pathetic puppy dog eyes. He made his OWN CHOICES. This is what happens to little doggies who can't control their inner animal. They get their masculinity taken from them & have to wear (horror of horrors): THE CONE OF SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!! "Dun-dah-dun"

 I worked on some music in my "studio" this week. Practice for the band is coming along swimmingly. Except when it's not.

Jarod broke his arm on Thursday. Surprisingly, it's the first broken bone in the family. He was running & fell. Yup. That's it. Fractured his wrist & arm. Has to get a cast next week. At least he & Daddy got slushies on their father-son-ER-outing. I was glad my baby was OK, of course............but EXTREMELY glad that I didn't have to take him to the ER myself with all the kids this time.

                                      My 2 little invalids.

 Toby couldn't stand THE CONE OF SHAME any more. Our other dog, Scout, must have felt sorry for him because the teeth marks on the outside edge of THE CONE OF SHAME were most likely hers. Unless Seth felt sorry for him too. One can never be sure. But I found THIS outside today.

But I wasn't going to let that little setback keep me down. I paid an extra $8 for that thing, boy howdy!!! You thought the CONE OF SHAME was embarrassing before, Toby?

                                  How do ya feel NOW???


BTW......My Hobbit feet are swelling. Great.

Mommy Takes a Nap

 Sometimes I think that I can take a little nap. And sometimes I can. Other times.............

 .............................I get a sippy cup in my eye, an elbow in my chin...............

 ....................and develop mysterious breathing
difficulties. Sometimes the boys let me snooze a little while they calmly snuggle me. Other times they wiggle, batter my chin with their elbows some more, dig their toes into my legs, say, "Mommy, I fart!" (Isaac is learning potty talk quite well.......such a proud milestone to be crossing), honk their noses & check to see if mine honks too. That's when I go to hulu.com, find some Smurfs episodes, plop (I mean lovingly set) them in a different chair, go back to my chair alone & happily drift off to La-La Land. With the Smurfs in the background, it's more like "La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-laaaaaaaa" Land. But that's OK. A tired mama takes what she can get. And she LIKES it. Seth is studying close by, so I know the kids are being watched. I am happily drifting off. Just for a few minutes. That's all I want. Just a little cat-nap, thanks ever so much. That's when.........................  

                                                   
 ..........................a GIANT BOBCAT pounces on my GUT, from the window sill. Thank you, Tom. Really. Not so much what I meant by "cat nap".

 Tom needs to go on the South Beach diet with me. He's freakin' HUGE. But at least he's warm. He snuggles with me. I think to myself, "At least he's holding STILL" and drift off again. That lasts 5 whole minutes. Just when I'm nice & warm, he jumps off and...............

................................Gideon jumps ON to give me lots of kisses cuz he sees I'm not busy & cuz he loves me SOOO MUCH!!!!! Aw shucks. Didn't need that dumb ol nap anyway. I'm up. I'm UP!

Our New Home Away From Home

Isn't she pretty?

Lovely kitchen range.

Lots of cupboard space.

Dining room, living room & master bedroom (check out the COMFY matress)!

The couches & table turn into extra beds.

Um. This could be a bad thing.

OMG(oodness)!!!!!!!!! A CD player & an Ipod jack!!!!!

The boys' room! (So awesome: the door SHUTS!!!)

                    Mommy & Daddy's room: where all the magic will happen.

Or not.

Micah decided to climb down into the trap door/storage space.

Of course, Seth decided to shut him in....

                                                  ......and he disappeared!!!!

A knock on the front door: 

  Micah, AKA Houdini, found a side escape! Tricky boy!

                    Yup. We like it. Can't WAIT to go camping!!!!!!!!!!!
                                  Is it Spring yet? Please?