Braden Logic

My 9-year-old-soon-to-be-10-year-old son, Braden just took a shower.  After he got out and dressed, he came up to me and gave me a hug and I got a whiff of his hair.  Gross!  Had.not.been.washed.  So I asked him if he washed his hair and he said yes.  I clarified, "Did you shampoo your hair?"  The truth was revealed, but he had good kid reasoning in progress.  He said no, but he had stayed in there under the water for a long time.  Obviously, the water cleaned him for him so he didn't have to bother actually using any sort of cleaning media.  I told him to get back in the shower and shampoo his hair and while he was on his way I asked him if he's bothered to wash his body with soap.  Looking appropriately guilty he confessed he had not.  REALLY?!?!?!  Double EW!  Apparently, we need to focus more attention on developing his problem solving and reasoning skills.

The Creativity is strong with this one..

Braden is constantly coming up with alternative uses for things.  This is the latest use for the monster truck with the long-since-disappeared battery:

He also likes to include all his siblings in trying out his ideas. ;)

Zekeyism

A few mornings ago, I made some hot tea for the kids after their breakfast and I overheard Zekey, in contemplative thought, saying, "There are real hiccups in my tea."  He, Braden and Lerloo were all trying to make hiccup sounds.  Apparently, the culprit for all of the "real" hiccups was the tea.  Gonna have to watch out for that tea, I guess. :)

Ailey and scissors and somewhere in between

Ailey found a pair of haircutting scissors that I had totally forgotten about in one of the drawers in the bathroom and decided she needed to give herself a "little" trim.  I think the normal response to seeing your child give themself a mullet is to come close to tears.  I had to try hard not to bust out laughing.  She is just following even further in my footsteps.  I nabbed a pair of my granny's sewing scissors when I was right around Ailey's age and got under the kitchen table and went to town on my nearly waist-length long pretty locks.  My mom apparently didn't take it well. ;)

I took some pics first and then set about trying to fix it the best I could...

 Self-inflicted mullet :)

 pixie cut...I tried to leave her with bangs, but there was that large chunk missing and no amount of combing over worked....

 So, I went with bangs just a tad longer than her cut line.  Little stinker looks cute with her hair like that. hmph.

Others who were in attendance of this event...

Rare Sighting!

SSShhhh!  Come with me...I want to show you something.  Something strange and wonderful has happened!  This seldom occurs in these here parts and I want to capture it...you know, for proof.  You have to be quiet, though, I don't want to scare them.  We need to capture them in their natural habitat.  Stay close, we may never have another chance at this.....

Look what I came upon right in the middle of the day!

I couldn't believe that I would have such an opportunity!  Let's go in for a closer look, shall we?

As you can see, it is currently unaware of our presence and has continued to remain in its untainted state.  This is a treat, indeed!

OH, NO!  Wait, what's happening?!  They have caught our scent!  They are in a panic!  They are using their defensive camouflage now....

Well, at least we were able to observe it for a moment.  There is always hope we might come upon it in its original form again...

Zekey making me roll!

The other day, Zekey went with me to get dinner and as we were driving along, he was busy pondering.  He has been in 1 million questions mode lately. ;)  He posed this question to me:  Does God make everybody?  I told him yes.  He asked me if everybody gets made at night....  I laughed out loud and told him that yes, I supposed most people are made at night. ;p

Since I'm tired today...

I guess I will do a post. :)  I have an update on the bunny situation.  Strawberry has calmed down quite a bit.  She doesn't feel the need to rearrange Shortcakes fur arrangement around the bum area now.  We also got a new hutch for them:

I like this one and they seem to as well.  Sam got a long length of cage wire and he made a big ring so the the bunnies have space to run around.  We put the table over the hutch like that so they would have shade from the sun as well as the rain until we can find a better solution.  We will probably end up framing out the run and building a lean-to of some sort...you know, in our sparest of time. ;p

I also managed to get into our garden beds to remove the plastic coverings and till up the soil.  

                             

I was really glad for the rain because it made that job much easier.  I planted some of the seedlings I started in ziploc baggies the other day, too....right before we had torrential rains.  I should probably go out there and see if any of them survived.... :)  The stuff on the end there is parsley, oregano and rosemary.   All of which survived the winter with no attention or intentional watering on my part.   The string in grid form is for the purpose of square foot gardening.  It very much appeals to my, um, "style" of gardening, which is basically, sprout seeds, plant them, make sure they have a water source and then leave them alone.  Theoretically, the square foot method will cut down even more on weeding because it basically doesn't allow room for weeds to grow once the crops get going.  Works for me!  We'll see if it all turns out.

Here are some other random tidbits.  One day, this is how I found Brea after her mealtime.  

Yesterday, I heard Ailey fussing and then calling me for help.  When I looked out the door to see what was going on, this is what I found:

Yes, I did go and grab my camera in both instances before I intervened.  It was necessary!

Shamefully Overdue!

Well, the title says it all.  It has been way too long since I have done a post.  Me thinks this will be one of my usual marathon posts, so you may want to go ahead and use the restroom, get a cup of coffee or cocoa to keep your eyes open and find a super comfy chair so your bum does not fall asleep.  Don't say I didn't warn ya!  Ready?  Here we go....

First up, here is our new bunny, Strawberry the 2nd:

This one is, indeed a girl.  Yay.  On the other hand, she is rather aggressive.  Not yay.  She chases Shortcake around and nips at her hiney and pulls tufts of fur off of her bum.  Poor Shortcake!  The funny thing is, shortcake still really enjoys her company...as long as they are in separate contained areas and can still see each other. :)  Anyway, this means we will have to have a unit with two separate living quarters for the bunnies.  Just keeps getting interesting!  I let them run around the living, dining and kitchen areas in the evenings because they will go back to their cages to do their business.  That's a plus. :)  Oh, and in all the reading I did the night Strawberry started getting all Kra-Z, the consensus seems to be in favor of getting them both spayed since I have no intention of breeding them.  They are apparently quite susceptible to getting cervical cancer.  Not so yay, again. :(  Oh, well, they are already part of the fam, so we will just figure it all out. :)

In other happenings, Brea is doing lots!

She is still very serious about her food and can pack it in like nobody's business!  Its quite amazing to behold, to which many who have been present during the process of this astounding feat can testify.  I think the most astounding part of it is that she is so stinkin' tiny and we are all very lost as to where she stores it all before it makes its way out of the southbound end!  Remarkable, I'm tellin' ya!

She is very vocal while she eats, too and will let whoever is feeding her know in no uncertain terms if she is not satisfied at the speed at which her food is being shoveled down her gullet.  Its pretty funny. :)  She is a bananaholic.  LOVES her some bananas!  She can also put away some grapes.  I'm thinking we need to plants some banana trees and some grape vines to keep up with her!  Whew!

Since I am really bad with the concept of time and keeping up with dates and all, I will just go with its been several weeks plus, since she started mimicking sounds.  Her first full word is Mama, but I'm pretty sure she tries to say banana, too, which comes out more of a Bah.  She is pretty equally partial to both Sam and I, so I'm working on her saying Daddy, too... ;p

She has been able to toddle along holding on to the edges of furniture for some time now, too and was able to stand up, unassisted for a second or two at a time for a week or so, but I just witnessed her do the whole shebang and then stay standing up all by her lonesome for many seconds 'til she decided to squat down to crawl some more this very morning.  She's getting there and then they will all be running around after each other.  Curiouser and Curiouser! :)

We have had a bit of craziness for the past 3 weeks.  Braden got strep throat, then antibiotics, then we went out of town to see Nina and Padrino (that will be a separate post after picture editing has been achieved ;) and the last day we were there, Braden's strep throat came back.  Ugh.  So, we traveled home and the next evening he was seen and sure enough it was a reoccurrence!  This time I requested the shot.  Braden tried so hard to be okay while it was being administered, but didn't quite succeed.  Poor little guy! :(  It did, however, make him feel better in a jiffy, so yay!  The rest of that week was a blur while I readied us to travel once again.  This time it was to East Texas for my Granny's surprise 80th birthday party (this, too, will be a separate post :).   I really went back and forth about whether or not I wanted to go, but I'm really glad we did.  We have double dvd players for the car that were bought quite some time ago, but for a time we could only use one of them because the cord that came with it would not reach across both rows of the van.  Bummer.  Then, at some point, said cord became lost in the shuffle that is the garage.  Double bummer.  So, I ordered two cords and this trip both players were in operation along with a set of headphones that got passed to whoever was sitting in the solo seat next to Brea.  We also had a set of legos that was great entertainment.  Both the drive there and back were quite tame and pleasant, I must say.  I think we may have found a winning combination.  I'm not willing to try it out again just yet, though. ;)

I have to mention something Ailey said the other day.  We were driving in the van and I had the windows rolled down and we got going at a higher speed and she said, "MOM!  You're blowing my head off!"  Hahaha!

We have a little wrist rest for our track pad and one day Zekey came up to me with it on his chin and said, "I'm a daddy."

 Then it became a mustache...

I honestly don't know what Braden was using it for....a sleep mask, perhaps?

Braden has taken to doing this, um, interesting facial expression with his face lately....Kid phases are so funny!

All the kids are doing well and really enjoy playing together....usually.  We do have the occasional non-enjoyable occurrences, of course. ;p  I will have to do a more detailed update later.  Right now we are so stinkin' busy and I'm ready for things to SLOW DOWN!  We'll see how that goes.

Poser Christmas Tour 2011

  So, I have noticed the web version of the Christmas Home Tours and I really enjoy looking at some of them and getting ideas. ;)  I thought, well maybe I should do one of my house.  Not because it is tour-worthy in any stretch of the imagination, but because it appeals to my sense of humor to do so.  So, without further ado, here we go:

 This is the living room.  I really should have a taken a picture of the other side of the room because it was a mess.  I basically just picked up in front of the couch for aesthetic purposes.

 This is the heavily-ornament-laden Christmas tree.  I plan to add some more to it each year.  Maybe one of these years, I'll have Sam fashion a metal cage shaped like a tree with tons of slots for hanging ornaments and we can just forgo the tree.... :)  I'm thinking  this might be our last year doing the fake tree.

 This is my nod to an artistic shot.  I laid down on my back on the floor and took the pic upside down.  We were considering getting a new tree this year because we really have a hard time fitting the width of the tree in our little living room, but I just couldn't see spending money on a new fake tree, if I could possibly use the one we already have!  So, I just left the bottom section off of it and put it up on our side table.  Works for me!

 An overhead shot.  Yep, I still haven't done any more to the wall since the starburst mirror project. :)

I got this idea from Apartment Therapy...see?  I think I may spray paint the stick white, so you can actually see it against my wall.

 This is in the bathroom.  I'm not crazy about it and I actually rearranged a bit after I took the pic.  It is still bothering me and I think it is the napkin turned table cloth that is under it all.  Its too dark and everything is blending together.  I'll figure something out. Sam is calling it my little shrine to Christmas....now I'm definitely changing it!!! :)

 A closeup for better observation. :)

 This in 2D looks like a hodepodgy mess.  In 3D, it looks only slightly better.  I think what really makes it all come together is the messy table and Ailey's addition of some building blocks and jingle bells, not too mention the reflection of the school wall in the mirror.

 This is supposed to be our Advent Calendar, but seeing as how I didn't even get it put up until around the 8th and its on a hands-off mirror, I didn't bother this year trying to make that work.  I've got to figure out a better place to put it.

 I got one shelf decorated for the season.  The rest...well, they didn't make the cut this year.

Thought it would be enjoyable to view the whole, um, scene. 

 I cleared the table just for this photo.  I have tried to decorate with things that I can use year round.  Since I have an obliging backyard with trees that don't hesitate to share their branches with me, I went outside and cut this one off of a MUCH larger limb.  Come to think of it, it might have been attached to the stocking "rod"....

I think the bright orange paper lantern lights in the background really add a certain ambience....don't you? 

 This is my wanna-be mantle that is really the top of our bookshelf, that is really supposed to be an entertainment center.  I'm totally not in love with this set up and I will probably arrange and rearrange it until it is time to put everything up.  I have a couple of ideas and it involves taking lots of things off and putting some white stars up there.  Along these lines:

and these:

from besthomeinteriordesign

We'll see....more project craziness. :)

 Yeah, there's a whole lotta no inspiration here....

 The top of the computer cabinet.  I'm completely underwhelmed.

This sits in the dining room next to the entryway to the kitchen.  Again, a whole lotta underwhelming inspiration going on here.

In addition to all the other paraphernalia going on in the above pics, I do have a wreath on my front door that I don't care for.  I would like to chuck it and do something like this:

theoriginalpopupshop

and/or this:

offthewallexpressions

sistersally's

I also like these for all the time:

grassrootsmodern

domesticfluff

CB2

I want to make this one only in the same way as the ornament ball wreaths above.  I want to get lots of clear and frosted balls in different sizes and make one and then I could just change out the ribbon I hang it with to go with whatever season all year long!

the nesting place (I really LOVE visiting this site! It pops up in the majority of my google searches.;)

Here's another one from the nesting place and I really love how large it is and how you just use paper....

Okay, I'm done.....end of tour...

For now....:)