A Proud Moment

We attended Ivy’s first parent teacher conferences recently and were happy to hear that she is behaving and doing well in school. Every day she brings home piles of papers (Really all you tree huggers, piles of papers. You want to save a tree? Talk to a kindergarten class.) and shows us what she’s been working on. She is reading, writing, making friends with everyone and having a great time.

Tonight Ivy found an old notebook and decided to show off some of those writing skills she’s been working on at school, it was a proud moment for us parents:

…a proud moment…

Thank You Honey!

We do a lot of laundry and while I have chronicled many of the reasons for the ridiculous amount  (look here) I’ve never really owned up to the fact that I’m terrible at actually doing the laundry (John does most of it) and my plethora of excuses for not getting it done.

Here is one of them…

…how can I fold laundry…

… when this cutie is playing in the middle of it?

It’s way more fun to play peekaboo…

…and where’s Waldo!

Which is why my husband is upstairs finishing folding that pile of laundry -Thank you honey!

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

I tried to read this while putting Jane to sleep.

Big mistake.

I started snorting and giggling and then laughed so hard I cried which not only had the opposite affect that I was looking for with Jane but brought the other two girls over to see what was the matter with me.

Foolishly the next day I figured that that was no doubt a one time event and so it would be safe to read the book while putting Jane to sleep because it wouldn’t be that funny AGAIN.

I was wrong.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Would I recommend it? Yes.

Mostly.

I think so.

As John said “It’s a bit over the top>” and it is in a cursing, ridiculous, hilarious way. If you aren’t sure how you feel about that check out her blog, (http://thebloggess.com/) first.

Clara Says It All

After an extended weekend away from home Clara, Jane and I drove the hour to my parent’s house in my brother’s truck to pick up both our dogs and my brother’s two dogs.

Why?

Because..

All our dogs were at my parents’ because the deer hunt is the one of the few times where I feel it’s better not to have the dogs along because they can’t run during the day and just find gut piles when you let them out at night so my grandpa was feeding all eight dogs (including my parents’) while we were up north. Tyler’s truck (F350)was at our house because Tyler’s camper needed to come to our house so we could get it ready for the trip to Kansas but the only vehicle that can pull it is his truck and so he switched trucks with my Dad so that my Dad could drop it off here, and when I went to get the dogs I had to be able to bring two kids, four dogs and an igloo dog house back home and I couldn’t fit all that in my Expedition. It was a good plan until I went to go home and the clutch broke on the truck and I ended up switching vehicles again with my Mom and taking her Explorer home and leaving the dog house (which honestly I would have forgotten anyway) and so tomorrow my Mom is driving Tyler’s now fixed truck back to my house with the dog house in the back to get her truck and my trailer and bring them back to her house so that I can put the dog house back in the kennel bring Tyler’s truck back to him this weekend and Mom can use the our trailer for a trip with her ski kids.

(Aren’t you glad you asked?)

Which is why when I found myself in the Explorer driving home with no dog kennel for the four dogs who had been cooped up for days and  Trip (my dog) was trying to climb in my lap while I was driving and Turkey (Tyler’s dog) was going over Jane to get to the front seat and Sunday (Tyler’s other dog) was alternately snuggling with Clara and also trying to get in the front seat while Storm (John’s dog) slept in the way back, and Clara was calling out locations of dogs, “Now there is one in the front, two in the back an one in the back. Now there is two in the front, one in the back and one in the back…” and she followed all her commentary up with:

“It’s a commotion!”

I laughed, because she got it right in one, whatever else this crazy plan may be, it is certainly a commotion!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Renewal

Weekly Photo Challenge: Renewal

During the process of renewal things often gets worse before they get better.

To demonstrate this effect I give you..

Drum roll please!

…a molting chicken!

Earlier in the week she looked awful, today she looks ridiculous and by next week her molt will be complete, her feathers will be renewed and she will be back to normal.

I have included a picture of one of her flock mates below so that:

A) In case you aren’t familiar with chickens you can see what she is supposed to look like (yes they have tails, wing feathers, no bald spots and a general fluffy bottomed look that the above chicken is missing) and that

B) PETA won’t try to come confiscate my animals because they think I’m abusing them.

She’s just molting, it’s a renewal thing.

A New Solution

Yesterday my Mom and I had a chance to go pheasant hunting together and the culmination of a morning of mishaps was when I looked down and realized I had lost the transmitter to Trips shock collar.

Not good.

Not good at all.

My much loved, daily used controller that not only “reminds” Trip to pay attention to me but also controls the locating beeps his collar makes was lost in a swamp full of cattails.

This afternoon after dejectedly looking one last time at just how much a new transmitter would be I made one last effort to find it. I headed back to the cattails and dove in.

A quarter of the way in I was certain I was on my trail from yesterday and Trip was hunting just ahead of me.

A third of the way in I was pretty sure things looked familiar and Trip was somewhere… perhaps off to the left…

Half way through I found a very dead, very old, very stinky, six point buck and was abruptly certain I was no longer on my path from yesterday and I thankfully had no idea where my dog was.

Disheartened I quickly pushed through the wall of cattails away from the carcass looking for my old trail, (and the dog) but it was the beginning of the end.  I was never able to pick up my path from yesterday or the transmitter.  Trip, however, was not as far away as I thought. He found the deer and took matters into his own paws.  Yes, my intelligent dog solved our problem with stink.

After that I didn’t need any fancy transmitter to know where Trip was – I could smell him.

Even when I couldn’t see him or hear him – I could smell him.

Not only did I know where Trip was but he solved his own problem at the same time.  After Trip applied his “solution” my whistle blowing was over and my cries of “Come!” turned to “GO!” and he was allowed to range out as far as he wanted.

I’m pretty sure he thought he was all that and more after solving our problems…

… until I got him home and it was bath time!

The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan

The Red Pyramid
The Throne of Fire
The Serpents Shadow

Young Adult Fantasy – what can I say I have a weakness for it.

At first I thought these would just be fun, fast reads – and they were. But I feel I should also mention that I’ve understood at least two references to ancient Egypt I would have missed since reading them. Fun, fast, informative…

Would I recommend them? You betcha! I also have read about Percy Jackson and the Olympians – and  I liked them… but I loved theses!