Making Stuff

All 3 kids have made or helped make something this week. Older Daughter made Lemon Chicken for dinner tonight (yummy) from a recipe she found in one of her magazines. Earlier in the week, while we were looking through 'Taste of Home' magazines, Younger Daughter found a recipe she wanted to make - Cheesy Chili Bean Bake - or something like that - which was *really* surprising since she won't eat chili or beans and that's what it was for the most part. She had a blast helping to cook and she loved the food (so did Daddy - both dishes are in permanent meal rotation now).

Then earlier today The Boy handed me a pair of earrings and I told them that they weren't mine they were Older Daughter's (she had been making jewelry earlier in the day). He informed me that he had made them for me! And they're beautiful! I'll upload a pic soon - Blogger's being stupid about uploading and we have yet another thunderstorm coming and my connection is getting intermittent.

Edited to add picture:

Update on The Boy

For all those who asked in the comments - his face is back to normal after the line-drive, but the first day of baseball camp he was playing first base and got run over by a high schooler (he's 9). He came home with an ace bandage wrapped around his waist to hold the bandage on the 2" square abrasion on his waist. But he kept playing and has been practicing sliding along with everyone else all week. He's much toughter than his little sister who needs a band-aid if she even thinks about blood!

Slowly....

Very slowly getting back into the swing of things. It's been such an mild spring then last week summer hit and my MS took a hit along with it (causing mostly tiredness and "bugs" - random itching all over).

The boy had baseball camp this week and Older Daughter has been taking a babysitting class at the YMCA, thus leaving Younger Daughter more bored and whiny than usual.

We've also made several trips to the vet - Holly had to go to the Animal ER after she and Wilma got into a tussle. We're positive that Wilma was trying to play and Holly didn't want to , but it's happened 3 times and it sounds fierce! Wilma flips Holly over on her back and then Holly snarls and yaps. That first time Willy sank a tooth into Holly and the vet wanted to put in a drain to prevent an abcess. We declined and instead kept it clean and put warm compresses on it every 3 hours for 5 days and it has healed well. Shortly thereafter a cyst on Shadow burst - another trip to the vet and an estimate for surgery (and more gross wound cleaning that Older Daughter handled amazingly well.

Next week is planned as Quiet Week -- the only trip planned is to the Library, otherwise we're going to hang out in the backyard and splash in the pool and have picnics for lunch. Come join us!

Guess who caught a line drive?

With his face!!

They took him out of the game to stop the bleeding and ice his face but he refused to stop playing, so he finished up the game playing first base.

The worst part of the experience was when he got home ( I wasn't at the game) and his mean Mom kept making jokes that made him laugh (ow!). He had soup for dinner but by the next morning he felt fine.

comic

Blogger *refuses* to let me upload the comic strip I want to - so here's another one.

Little Boys and their Toys

Today is my sister's birthday. She has two boys and the 3 year old has always had a fascination with trucks to the point that you had to correctly name the truck before he would relent (lest you go insane). Now he's getting into trains - just try to remember that *that* black train is the Pennsylvania 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive! Fortunately for him his Grandpa runs a train store and can actually name them for him. I'd link to the shop website, Dad, but it doesn't seem to be live at the moment. Here's the link to the "Made in Maine" episode in which the shop was featured.

Anyhow, the reason for this post was to upload a relevant comic strip but Blogger won't let me so I'll try again tomorrow...

This is the Sport that Doesn't End...

...Yes it goes ON and ON my friend...

We have gotten some much needed rain during this, the last week of baseball and softball. However, it has also caused several games to be rained out and postponed until this weekend or next week.

Blogging has been and will continue to be light until next week. MS has knocked me down and I'm sleeping 12+ hours a day. The hours that I'm conscious I've been wrestling with my laptop which is going to be getting a clean install of Windows this weekend - just as soon as I back up 25 GB of data....

In other news, Merck's cervical cancer vaccine was approved by the FDA

All-Star Games

The Boy was voted onto the Baseball All-Star Team. There are four All-Star teams at his age in the league. Yeaterday The Boy's team got off to a rough start. I missed the first 2 innnings but evidently the other team (Blue) did some damage early on. But The Boy's team (Red) hung on and pulled ahead in the 5th and 6th innings (they play 6 innings)to win 17-10. The boy pitched the 6th inning.

Today's game was between the Red team and the winner of the other game yesterday (Brown). I stayed home with younger daughter, who's feeling icky, and just picked up the phone to check in. It's been cold and rainy - they had taken a rain delay around 4pm and at one point they were behind 7-0 - and I was wondering how things were progressing. It was the bottom of the 6th with 2 outs and bases loaded. The winning run was on first base. Now my ear is bleeding because of all of the yelling into the phone when the winning run was batted in.

Go Red!

Goings on

Bought a treadmill that needs to get moved upstairs. Bought a big air conditioner for the bedroom so the aforementioned treadmill can actually be used in the summer (and so that we don't melt...) which needs to be moved upstairs. Are you seeing the trend here?

Planted two of the garden beds finally and I have the sunburn to prove it :o( The dumb bunnies ate half of the peas and most of the spinach. I tore out the peas to plant tomatoes but the spinach is rebounding. Tomorrow I want to find some eggplant seedlings (which the dumb bunnies also ate - before I even got them in the ground!) and plant the sage that I bought today. I also have some jalapeno peppers that I'm going to plant in pots on the upstairs deck - it gets so hot that they did great the first year when I grew them up there. Last year I planted them in the garden and got 3 whole teeny peppers.

We spent Saturday installing 900 feet of radio fence wire for the dogs. We haven't tried using the collars on them yet but I suspect Shadow is going to need the "Stubborn Dog" collar. I accidently shocked myself with the regular collar and I doubt he would even be annoyed by it.

The Boy will be playing in the baseball All-Star game next weekend (he's *slightly* excited about that) and both he and Younger Daughter got signed up for soccer which starts in July (ugh!).

Only 3 more half days of school left. Pray that I don't go insane before August 28th...

Oh, and I'm playing around with HTML...

Awwwwww!

My studly husband

Here he is showing off one of his many talents - catching quarters off his elbow. He's such a Potsie [bonus points if you get that reference!].

Fortunately I am not related by blood to this lady...

A children's trowel is not the choice that I would make for moving 6 cubic yards of topsoil. But to each his own....

Tonight

The Two-hour LOST finale starts at 9pm AND we have no ballgames to get to. Woohoo!

Quick! Get me a padlock!

Report Card Time!

The kids will be getting their report cards on the last day of school which is (gulp!) June 2nd!

But guess who recently flunked out of Seeing Eye Dog School? Wilma! So we have yet another addition to our Menagerie (and we have reached animal saturation!).


The Husband and his sister went to get her yesterday and last night we let her up on the bed with the other two dogs. Now she thinks she owns it and doesn't wait for an invitation. She woke me up this morning by sitting on my head (she thinks she's a lap dog...and a head dog).

Everybody is getting along just fine. Willy and Neo really like each other but Willy is a little too exhuberant for a 2 lb. bunny so until she calms down a little she stays on a leash when Neo is out of his cage.

Anyone want to come over and help install radio fence wire???




Does anyone else see the resemblance?

Trees

I got the fruit trees planted - they're the spindly little things with the white labels. They didn't look so small in the store but out in our yard they nearly disappear. Two dwarf apples, two dwarf peaches and a full sized pear tree.

The St. Peter's Collection - Collect 'em all!

The church that we attend most often has a tradition for Mother's and Father's Days. They Choose a month and a date out of a hat and two of those attending with the child born nearest that date recieve a gift handmade by a church member. Last Father's Day was the first Sunday we went and The Husband was greatly embarassed to be one of the recipients of a tray made with wood from the old church organ.

This morning, as soon as they pulled the month of October I knew it was coming. Sure enough, we now have a tissue box holder made with the same wood. I hope the church runs a raffle for something good soon - I'll buy one ticket that's sure to be the winner :o)

Hallelujah!

My laptop returneth!

My cheese is amused:

Perhaps because it's yellow, not white.

HI !