My Childless Day!

I love being a mother, and if I was separated from my children for very long I would be highly distraught. But for 36 hours? It was wonderful! My husband and in-laws gave me a great gift these last two days and watched my kids so I could run up north. Although Bet and Justin bought a house a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't yet been up to see it. This little trip up there was just long enough to see my family, explore Owen and Ashley's house (very cool old house they're renting!), help Pregnant-Belly Bethaney scrub her tub, and kidnap Olivia for a week at my house. I enjoyed myself immensely!

Orianna and Lily were so excited to see me, I felt famous. They loved showing me all the cool parts of their new house. (Why is it that Ashley and Bet both have ginormous amounts of cabinet space in their kitchens? I'm the one who's been collecting kitchen stuff the longest!)

They played so great together all day, while I helped Bet unpack a little more. Their Polly Pocket dolls see a lot of action.

Thankfully, I was able to go up Sunday evening, so I didn't feel compelled to be useful the whole time. There was lots of time for Wordthief.

I got to see Mom's official diploma! Yay for Mom!


I don't know which is cuter, the front or back of Lily.

We had to have a picture of all our cool Crocs. (The other sisters missed out, but there was Crocs in abundance.)

This morning, I watched the Amish bring their milk to Dad's bulk tank. The milk truck will only pick up milk from a bulk tank with refrigeration, so the Amish milk the cows and put it in big milk pails, then transport it over to Dad's milk tank until the milk truck comes to pick it up every other day.

And one of the best parts of this trip? The actual drive up and back. No one dropped their pacifier. No one argued over who got more fries. No one asked, "How much longer?". Instead, I bought a soda with caffeine and just drove! On the way home, Olivia was with me, and that was even better. Since this is the closest I'll get to a road trip for several years, we maximized the road trip moments.

Self-portrait taken of the road trippers. Check. (Additional note-- this is MUCH trickier with an SLR than a point-and-shoot!)


Pictures with signs. Check. Soda. Check. Singing along at the top of our lungs. Check. Nutritionally suspect foods. Check. What a trip.

Mother Nature cooperated nicely with lovely weather. I hate to tie myself to one favorite month, but June in the North Country has got to be the most beautiful time of year. I'm so glad I was able to go enjoy it for a bit-- and now I'm glad to be home with my squidlets!

Accentuate the Positive

I am a mean, nasty, grumpy mother tonight, so I'm going to write a blog post full of sweetness, light, and motherly love. Magically, I will then become such a mother.

It's worth a try, anyway.

I will start by posting pictures of our peonies from this week. To maximize their mood-lifting qualities, I'll post them in a larger format than I normally post pictures.

Ah, that does help.

Then there's this little ray of sunshine, in the new apron Aunt Lisa from Alaska made her.

Elliott, in his part of the package from Aunt Lisa-- a dress shirt that pleased him to no end. It's a little too big, but hopefully he'll grow into it by this winter. (I'm a mother who LIKES to see their kids outgrow clothes-- it doesn't happen very fast around here!)

Then we'll move on to industrious redheads who practice writing words around 17 hours a day.

GQ's latest cover model lunching with Miss Marilla.

The boy has STYLE! Actually, they were all a self-attempted effort to be brave around the sound of Evan's saw.

Evan, about three seconds before he said, "You know, it's just SO STUPID not to replace these windows while we have the siding off. They're single-paned, the glazing is shot, they have no seal..." So, we've ordered windows to add to the Continually Evolving Money Pit Restoration Project.

I think I need more peony pictures, thinking about the Money Pit.


Okay. Much better. I have been brutal and REALLY whittled down the backlog of pictures I have been wanting to post. So you'll have to leave to your imagination the Memorial Day potluck we hosted. (You're not missing much in the picture department, I forgot to take too many pictures.) We had a great day, though, and I don't know why we don't plan more potlucks-- need to shake off our laziness and congregate!

You'll also have to imagine the pictures of me (with a few other helpers!) heroically carrying boxes down a flight of twenty stairs as I helped Bet and Justin move out of their apartment. I got my exercise that day! I also have no picture of the incredulous look on my face as the landlord glanced in a few bedrooms and then gave them back their security deposit without coming within 15 feet of the kitchen. Literally! Oh, for such forgiving landlords in our renting days.

And, you'll have to imagine pictures of Cheyenne at a horse pull. (It REALLY bothers me that I wasn't there and couldn't get pictures-- IMAGINE the photo opportunities!) Anyway, picture a little girl, at "Jim's farm" (the neighboring farm to Mom and Dad) with her two aunts. She gets to watch Grandpa Lee load the weights on the sled with his tractor, and then watch the horses pull. She gets to buy food from the concession stand there-- including soda! She comes home sunburned and full of stories about "Bob and Babe" (they won the pony pull) and about how beautiful Jim's horses were, and how strong the horses were... The poor girl is stuck in Suburbia with her boring parents, and within her beats the heart of a farm girl.

I finally got on the stick, picture-wise, for Orianna's third birthday. (I don't think kids would know how to blow out the candles if there weren't sixteen cameras trained on them!)

"Hi, Nephew-of-Mine-to-be. Get used to the camera now, because between Mommy and Aunt Clover, you're going to be staring into a lens for a looooong time!"

Here is the masterpiece of a cake, compliments of Bethaney, who, incidentally, had moved that morning. It was as delicious as it looked, too.

The gorgeous three-year-old.

Her goofy sister.

Marilla being cute that Sunday.

Mr. Blue Eyes, similarly cute.

Cheyenne at the zoo for a field trip. I got to be a chaperone! Connor's mom brought him along as well, so Cheyenne got to hang out with Alex and Connor, even at the zoo!

Cheyenne, jumping up startled, when the penguin came right at her!

With some other little girls in her class, watching the elephants.

We had a library book sale here this Friday. This is what happened for a few hours after we got home. They were getting rid of most of their kid's book-and-cassette-tape bags, so we've been listening to stories since then!

Roxaboxen in Suburbia! Deprived of woods, and the attending twigs and stones, this is what my kids used to set up houses on the deck. (That's Elliott curled up in the blanket beside his water bottle and Max, the Cabbage Patch Kid.) Evan bought these panels for work (they're great floor protection) but the kids get to use them until Daddy has to take them to a jobsite.

Cheyenne building a room for the children's crib. She takes her responsibility of mother VERY seriously!

And now, for your reading pleasure, some of Elliott's most recent knock-knock jokes... These all started with this joke that we heard.

"Knock-knock."
"Who's there?"
"Interrupting Cow."
"Interrupting Co--"
"MOOOOOOO!"

Elliott and Cheyenne can be endlessly entertained by substituting other animals. Cheyenne seems to favor pigs, and Elliott likes doing a bear roar. Of course, Elliott's timing is a bit off, so he never actually interrupts, but it makes them happy. Now Elliott has branched out of strictly animal sounds and has come up with these.

"Knock-knock."
"Who's there?"
"Interrupting hymn."
"Interrupting hymn who?"
"Tell Me the Story of Jesus..."

"Knock-knock."
"Who's there?"
"Interrupting cheese."
"Interrupting cheese who?"
"Num, num, num!"

"Knock-knock."
"Who's there?"
"Interrupting fall."
"Interrupting fall who?"
"Ouch!"

And, the last one (he made it up after he saw me tell Marilla to stop her "fit", or tantrum!)
"Knock-knock."
"Who's there?"
"Interrupting fit."
"Interrupting fit who?"
"Waaa! Waaa! Waaa!"

I think the kid has a future in comedy. And hopefully, after dwelling on all this wonderfulness, I have a future as a Mommy who will get up in a more cheerful frame of mind tomorrow!

Skip the Clean House (and the Blogging!)

Yeah, today was the day I was going to blog in the morning and then clean my house like an avenging fury. Instead, I helped Evan blow insulation into the walls of our previously insulation-free house!This was my post-- opening up bales of cellulose insulation and feeding them into the blower. Marilla IS part of the setup here-- about 1/2 the time she was sitting on my hip. Evan took pity on his vampire wife and rigged up the umbrella there. Of course, despite putting on suncreen and trying to stay under the umbrella, my neck still got sunburned. Ouch!

My snazzy paraphernalia. A face mask is miserable, and safety glasses are miserable, but together they're deadly. Anytime you breathe out, the air goes up besides your nose and fogs up the glasses! (On another note, my house is so bad right now that this would have been appropriate attire had I cleaned house today.)

Evan got to drill holes in the top and bottom of every stud bay and feed the insulation hose in. Once he got up on the roof to do the walls of the kids' room, it seemed a good idea to him to take the kids up there. I tried not to have a nervous conniption, and the kids tried to see how often they could stand up and be told, "Sit down!"

They were quite pleased with themselves.

As was Evan, Master of All He Surveys. He's especially proud now that he's Master of a 3/4-insulated house! (We're saving the back of the house for next year, since there's a whole other set of projects to do back there.)

Rilla, on the other hand, was worn out and sad. Poor little bunny did pretty well considering Mommy was tethered to a machine all afternoon. Today was a morning nap only, which didn't fit in with parental plans real well. This picture was at the very end, when all hope of a normal world seemed evaporated in Marilla's eyes. She had stayed quite happy pushing her little shopping cart around the driveway and watching Elliott and Cheyenne meddle in Evan's work trailer most of the day. Despite the dust and work that was today, it is a very good feeling to think our little house might stay somewhat warm this winter without the furnace running non-stop.

Now that I've written a little, I really should go make some semblance of order in the kitchen and other essential area. I was remembering the naive, smug person who posted this post just a few short months ago (scroll down to the paragraph that starts, "I have always been a fairly organized person...")-- HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! On that note, nighty-night.

I Am Incapable of Editing.

So I sit down this evening, to write a blog post for the first time in almost three weeks. "Piece of cake," I think. "I'll just select ONE picture from each major, exciting event from the last couple of weeks, write a little bit about each, and I'll be done soon." Ha! I am incapable of not including cute pictures. How do you chose one picture of Orianna's birthday party, one picture of our Memorial Day get-together, one picture of my kids' coloring? You don't, not if you're me. The problem is, I've recently become incapable of staying awake past 10:00 p.m., thanks to Miss Rilla's new schedule. Therefore, I am writing one SHORT little piece tonight, and then tomorrow I let my house go to even further rack and ruin while I put up more pictures. Until then, here is tooth-achingly cute pictures of my three kids.

They were coloring together so peacefully (fully aproned from helping me in the kitchen).

Are these not the sweetest feet?

Rilla likes to color, too.

And get up on the table. LOTS of milk has been spilled lately because of her climbing-on-the-tables ability.

I forgive her, though, because she is so curly-headed and has such a big grin.

And he's just gorgeous. Simple as that.

Well, the computer shows that it's 9:57, so I have to get upstairs in the next three minutes! See you tomorrow!