Silly

This kid of mine? He wants to have fun. Always.











Unless he's busy whining. He can fuss and whine like nobody's business. Otherwise he's all the time silly.

simple moments is about finding the small things that make up our everyday, things we want to remember and be thankful for. it's the little bits of our lives that might not be remembered when we are gray and old. so we document it, on paper, with a photo, in a journal, through a blog

March 10 (+2) on 10

She's getting braver. I don't know if it's the super-awesome fish treats, or if the kids have learned to be quieter around her, or if she's going senile. My vote would be for the fish treats.

Fish, Ellie? FISH!???



He's the mechanical-minded one - asked for a toothpick and went and got himself a light. Then he announced that if he spun the wheels backwards all that junk caught around them started to unwind itself. Not too bad for a six year old. Then again, he's always had an interesting connection with cars... ahem... having been born in one.



Our drive to church. Kind of bleak. Kind of still winter. Endless month of March. I'm totally okay with it this year, which is unusual.



Ye old styrofoam cup, always begging to be mutilated.

Peek:



And a peek back:



You have muddy pawprints on your sunroof too, right?

See the reflection of the little girl feet?



This was right before his head smashed into my lens... which smashed my camera into my glasses. My new glasses. My only-four-days-ago I got'em glasses. My I-gotta-go-back-and-get-them-adjusted already again glasses. My this-is-exactly-why-I-got-two-pairs-of-them glasses. I win, dear readers. I win.



She's three. But she's almost four. And when it gets deathly quiet, it's still a dreadful thing. Blue sand dunes all over the kitchen floor? True story. I lose.



Just try, ladies. Just you try coming through that door.

WHAM!



And there's most of the menagerie. What should we add next? Turkeys? Goats? Emu?



The spoiled floppy purring one. And there. All the cats made it into one blog post.



Did I mention she's still a handful? Some nights this is the only way (without tears) I can convince her to head into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Favorites of 2012

You know those two roads that diverged in a yellow wood?

It's true.

The one less traveled by has made all the difference.



The Battle

Featured in the "Why it Works" section of the January 2013 issue of CLICK magazine.


Captive

Yes, I am that Mom that rescues a turtle off the highway and tosses it in my son's lap while he squeals like a little girl.


Waiting

My beautiful baby sister and her belly!


Left Behind: First Day of School

Featured on Clickin' Moms blog and facebook wall


Enough Helpers?



Curiosity



What Remains

Featured on Clickin' Moms blog
Best of Show at our local County Fair


Summer Bliss



Childhood Memory



Epic Quest



Solstice

Problem solving

"Give me a five here on my foot", said the kid in the tree...






Oh, also? Those boys took apart a washing machine and a dryer, almost completely by themselves. And then? They partly reassembled them.


{yes one is in the dryer}

March 10 on 10

A very good day.

7:42am
So tough to stop playing long enough to eat your breakfast. Such is life.


8:46am
One of the boys has been begging to do this experiment.

The time is an hour off because we've been pushing our clocks ahead gradually all week. The Daylight Savings change is too hard on the kids (one in particular) otherwise. Today we ran the full hour ahead, which was much less confusing for this mom rather than the odd minutes we were off the rest of the week.

10:03am
Already a gorgeous day outside. The beginning of what is supposed to be amazing weather this week.

When the sun is this lovely, these birds sometimes toss a wing up in the air and flop a leg to the side, to soak up as many rays as is poultry possible. And they don't care one bit how ridiculous it looks.

10:46am
Okay. Not only did we have sun... we also had mud. Lots of mud. Did I mention glorious?


11:51am
Just part of a busy builder's pre-lunch project.


1:13pm
An exercise in symmetry?


2:48pm
So I gave the kids mini-marshmallows and toothpicks and told them to go crazy.


3:45pm
This. Wielding two and a half pounds worth of camera with my right hand. Holding a curious little Bantam upside down with my left hand. Dangerously close to my minimum focus distance, which calculates generously to a depth of field of less than half an inch. *dramatic curtsy*

Didn't bother to sharpen for web, but heck yeah, I nailed my focus.

4:39pm
Sad story here. I'd like to pull out my free-pass "damn thyroid excuse" please. I'll be spending some money on seeds this year, and I bought a nice plastic storage box so I don't end up with soggy seed packets again.


6:43pm
Squishy mud + crazy jumping + snow pants + little girl who wasn't going to waste time going to the actual bathroom when she can just do it in her pants. Clothesline. Fantastic day.



Linking up with A Bit Of Sunshine Ten on Ten Project

An Afternoon

We have the teeny tiniest bit of snow. It's almost comical. Last year at this time I'm pretty sure we had five thousand inches stacked up and blowing all over the place. I could probably dump a bag of flour on the ground and make a picture similar to this one. Except the dog and chickens are rude, and flour is edible. So, actually, no. I couldn't do this with flour.



I might have to try, though. Since I brought it up and everything.

Yet another January day that did not feel like a January day. I could so get used to this. Yet another weekday afternoon with merely an hour remaining until the school bus returns and I have to face the music. Four o'clock frightens me.

The singing competition between our two roosters became more interesting than drawing in the snow with naked corn cobs. We wandered that direction. Dust and I'd-rather-not-know-what-that-is sparkled in mid-air, caught by beams of light streaming through the barn. He was fascinated.



Sometimes I daydream about a vacation where I just sit in front of the barn, in the warm sunshine, with some of these fuzzy critters. The easy life. That's what this is. Especially when January is wearing March temperatures. Especially when you have a South-facing barn with white paint that creates a practically tropical micro-climate right there.



Did I mention planning my garden? I have big ideas for last year's sunflower stalks.



Did I mention how much we looooooove Arnold? We do. So much. Arnold, on the other hand, does not appreciate how much we admire his adorable little self. At all.

Run Arnold! RUN!!!


It looks like he's just standing there, but that is one of his legs up behind him. Running for his life.