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Pumpkin Patch

Once again the girls Great Gramps grew them a patch full of pumpkins, and once again I made the girls do all the work while I took pictures.

The pumpkins have turned into a tradition for the girls,  you can see a how some past years have gone on last years “Pumpkins” post.

This year while the picture taking was fun as always. Clara, just up from a nap, was not so interested in getting out and finding pumpkins. She was unsure of the whole ordeal until I showed her that there were bugs on the pumpkins. I’m not sure if we predisposed her to her love of bugs by nicknaming her Clara Bug or if it was bound to happen but give the girl an ant, a few squash bugs and a worm and she’s a happy camper.

She and Granny found all the pumpkin bugs, but it look like they were a little unsure of some of them.

Ivy on the other hand was the big pumpkin carrier this year.

Good thing because Gramps needs lots of help sometimes!They loaded up pumpkins until the cart was full and headed off into the sunset.Clara didn’t want to get left out of the ride……but my serious little girl picked an unsteady seat and Great Gramps tipped her on the first corner.

Pumpkins, they are all fun and games until someone falls off!

Pumpkin patch pictures are some of my favorites, the orange pumpkins, green grass, soft fall light…… you can even take a picture of your stockbroker with a few pumpkins and it turns out great!

Doing Dishes

Since the dishwasher broke seven million years ago I have spent three bazillion hours washing 17 quadrillion dishes.

Approximately.

This morning when the girls wanted to help I handed the whole shebang over without hesitation.  As they were stripping down I was told they had to be naked because otherwise their clothes would get wet. Yet when they got redressed it was in different clothes, which is a whole different problem. That problem is called reason 3,001 why I do too much laundry, because when the kids take off damp clothes and throw them on the floor they are then dirty and they refuse to put them back on even though they get just as dirty on a daily basis. But back to the naked dishwashers…

I left them alone and did some work in the other room while listening to them sing songs about waterfalls, swimming and soap bubbles. Fifteen minutes later they had had enough. When we were done cleaning up they were clean, the chairs were clean, the counter and floor were clean and one spatula was clean. It’s a start. Tomorrow I’m going to see if I can get them to wash a spatula and a bowl!

Bring Your Own Chair

I’m afraid I’ve got a problem.

It started off innocently enough, John and I and our cats bought a little house in the country.

Then we got a dog. Her name is Piper, you may remember her by her other name, Best Dog Ever.  Piper, being a Great Dane, takes up a lot of room when she lays down, and Piper, being Piper, requires something comfortable to lay on.  The choices were to get the most gigantic dog bed ever and put it in our tiny house or give her the couch. We gave her the couch.

The Best Dog Ever is spoiled.

Don’t even think about taking her couch or she’ll give you the stink eye.

Then came Storm, Storm is only half the size of Piper and will lay on the floor, like, you know, a dog. But when Piper sleeps on the couch how can you begrudge Storm the recliner?

Along comes Trip. Once he was finally deemed worthy of being allowed into the living room Trip sized up the situation,  and found a recliner of his own.

Now my living room looks like this:

I live in a 1200 square foot house with my husband, two kids, three dogs and cat.

The only upside I can see is that if they were all on floor at the same time I wouldn’t actually be able to walk through my house.

For Rent

Do you have a long solo car trip coming up? Feeling kind of tired? Thinking you should cut back on the caffeinated beverages? Look no further, we have the solution to your problems.

For Rent:  Two young girls to ride in the car and keep you awake on your long car trips.

Rent them separately!

Clara:

Clara will talk to you non-stop, but that’s not all!  To keep you awake and make sure you are paying attention she requires a response, a real response, to everything.  Keep your brain working by puzzling our her mispronounced and unclear phrases. Can’t figure out what she’s saying or getting to sleepy to respond with more than a mumbled “mmmmhhhmmm” to her query of “See Cow?”

She’ll wake you right up with:

“See cow?”

“See cow?”

“See cow?”

Until you finally say: “Yes I saw the cow!”

getting a response of :

“YEAH!”

that’ll shake any cobwebs that might have been in your brain right back out again.

Or Ivy:

Ivy will also talk, and talk and talk.  She requires less responses for more talk time but you never know what you’ll get. It could be a discussion of her Disney princess friends and their pet lemurs. It could be a recital of the last story/movie/book/thing she saw. Or it could require a little more participation. For example a conversation could go like this:

“Mom, tell me about deer.”

“What would you like to know?”

“I want to know what they like to eat and what they like to do.”

Clearly there is no nodding off behind the wheel when you are racking your brains for any and all deer facts you’ve ever heard.

Just in case that isn’t enough Ivy comes with one more special feature to keep any driver awake.

Imagine quietly driving down the road and all of a sudden…

“SANDHILL CRANE!”

or

“GOOSE!”

or her personal favorite and one I guarantee to keep any driver awake:

“HORSE!”

Think that’s not enough for you? Worried that one girl might fall asleep jeopardizing your ability to stay awake? Don’t worry if you rent one you can rent the second for half price!

On your road trip with both girls you can enjoy the benefits of each individuals keep-the-driver-awake-techniques, often at the same time!  With both girls along if that’s not enough you can always resort to the oldest, most surefire technique. Get one new toy and throw it between them.

Say good bye to energy drinks and hello to your new backseat driving friends.

Serious inquiries only.

Not responsible for: Tickets incurred while swerving to pick up toys off the floor, hearing loss, potty breaks or temporary insanity.

Too Quiet Part II

And then…

Ivy cleaned up the sleeping room, Clara played nicely by herself, John came home and took them to the feed mill and I found this:

Ivy wrote it for me sometime last week, in case you can’t read four year old letters here is a translation:

“Mom, I’m very very sorry for yellin’ and bein’ naughty. Ivy”

Or so I was told.

Now me, a house that’s not too quiet, a Diet Coke and a good book are going to take a break.

A happy break.

Quiet… Too Quiet

You know how they always say that when you can’t hear your children, you should be worried. Well, that had never been too much of a problem for me.

Until today.

Today the girls are making up for months of playing quietly without getting into trouble.

The first mistake was when I let the girls watch part of a movie while I made lunch.  I entered the office to get them, only to find the door of the dove cage broken and ripped off and dove seed scattered all over the office.

I was, shall we say… unhappy.

Not to be taken in by the same trouble twice, I did not let them return to their movie, and after lunch we got ready for naps. I can only blame my extreme sleep deprivation that I never thought twice about putting them to bed together.

I should have known better.

Over an hour later when it had been so quiet I actually thought they were either asleep or reading in their beds like they were supposed to be, I heard a huge crash and a scream.  After ascertaining that everyone was alive and in no mortal danger I took in the situation. Clara’s bed (which is just a crib mattress) was stripped of blankets and sheets and on top of Ivy’s bed. Ivy was also on her bed, standing up and pushing Clara’s bed off the end. And Clara was crying on the floor as she extracted herself from the rocking chair that she had crashed into when Ivy shoved her off the bed with the mattress. Naked. Which is unfortunate because it’s a lot easier to get scratches all over your body while tangling with a rocking chair when you don’t have clothes on. In fact I’m pretty sure that’s why people started wearing clothes… so that when older siblings shoved them down they sustained less damage. Then I noticed the crayon across the walls and the books strewn everywhere.

Clearly it had been too quiet.

I continued to be… unhappy.

It’s about an hour later, my girls have not yet napped, Ivy is grumpy beyond belief and Clara has entered the stage of complete and utter over-tired-manic-crazy-girl. Unfortunately having tried all other solutions to get Clara to bed I have again put them down in their room together. But I’m not worried about them yet, I can still hear them jumping on the bed…

Summer Reading

It’s been months since I’ve posted a book review, but trust me I’ve still been reading. According to my calculations, otherwise known as the little notebook I write down all the books I’ve read in, I’ve read 36 books since Shanghai Girls.  The problem is my book memory is so pitiful that some of the titles I read in June are already only vaguely familiar to me, only the very good and the very bad stick out.  This is one of the reasons I write titles down when I’m done with them, I’d never remember what I have and haven’t read otherwise. That being said, I”m not going to break my brain attempting to give you a mini review of any of them but here is a list of the books that I remember being recommendable:

The Spencer books by Robert B Parker, Potshot and Cold Service were my favorites of the ones I’ve read recently.

Joanne Harris books, while they are all good my favorites of hers are Five Quarters of the Orange, Chocolat and The Girl With No Shadow.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James

The one book that stands out of my list as my least favorite was, as I brace myself to make an enemy of my husband among others…

A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony.  If you’ve never read fantasy, don’t start here. Unless you are an adolescent boy, then it’s probably great. Otherwise it’s every bad stereotype you’ve ever heard about fantasy books all rolled into one.  Skip it!

How about you? Favorite books from the summer? Any horrible books none of us should read?

Winding the Bobbin

Watch it as smoothly grows.

Dream about the project.

It could be great, it could be fun, it could be perfect. Or the bobbin could jam when you put it back in the sewing machine and create a mess… but you don’t know that yet.

You are just winding the bobbin and it’s beautiful.

Bedtime Conversation

In honor of having working internet but no actual time to do extended fun blogging things today I thought I’d relay a conversation with Ivy.

This conversation occurred at bedtime sometime in the last few weeks.  John and I were in the kitchen and Ivy was at the top of the stairs out of sight while Ivy and I carried on this very serious conversation after she was supposed to be in bed. John scribbled down the conversation while attempting to suppress his laughter.

It went like this…

Ivy: I need you!

Me: What do you want?

Ivy: I just need three things. (Now keep in mind I couldn’t see Ivy but from her tone of voice  if I could have seen her she would have been looking exasperated and gesticulating with both arms by this point)

Me: What are they?

Ivy: Well…first thing is…..

I need you.

The third thing is….what about the rain.

The last thing is…. why is Dad fixin’ the lawnmower?

Yeah, just those three things.

Hooray for working technology cross your fingers it stays this way!!!