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.

February 10 on 10

He's creating a masterpiece drawing on the iPad. What kind of masterpiece, you ask? The kind with a rocket ship that suddenly lights on fire so all the frogs have to jump out and then you draw parachutes on them, of course, because frogs can't fly very well on their own. Mouth open concentration required. Cute sister optional.



We were in a blizzard warning, or blizzard watch, or prepare yourself HERE COMES THE WIND, or church and 4H cancelled or something like that. I was confused. But then I saw Marshall hunkered down in the chicken coop and figured something must be brewing. The critters always know.



More creative concentration in full swing...



Then, instead of a blizzard, the sillies arrived. What else do you do on a so called Snow Day when someone "accidentally" smashes a plant?

Mom: "Hey, all you need is a toga!"
Kid: "What's a toga?"



I call this one: "Brave children onward through the snow"
Alternately titled: "Mom kicked them straight out the front door"



Kids outside, peaceful house inside, my Ellie slinks out of the attic temporarily.



Two hours later, he's nowhere near ready to come in yet... and by the way, for all my Southern friends, it was so warm out the dog was panting. True story.



Prelude to bedtime. How do you comb a Dad's hair when he hasn't got any hair to comb?



It's obvious what this is, right?

What, you can't tell?

Hello. It's a Christmas Tree.



The commute to my virtual office is a short one. Blowing snow and ice has Interstate shut down? Whatever.

Not all online chat agents barely speak English and live in India. Sometimes they live in the middle of North Dakota. Some forward-looking companies want their customers to have someone knowledgeable to walk the aisles of their online stores with them, except, in a less creepy way. And if you (by some act of God, or perhaps lack of regard for normal safety standards that most humans have) smashed your Nikon D90 at an off-road race in SoCal... I'll promise we'll get along okay, even though I love Canon. And I'll tell you the Mack Diamond warranty might be nice for "normal and abnormal wear and tear" but it's too bad it'll only cover your gear and not your personal injuries. And then I'll sell you a sweet new Nikon camera.

I am really loving this job, it's such a perfect fit for where I am in life right now.



Oh, and dual monitors? Kicks butt.

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

Smack

So this new kitty of ours is going to be a big one. I swear she's already the size of a small raccoon. My oldest boy told me I'm not allowed to call her fat. Because that's mean. Ms. Paws is officially "round". But being round doesn't slow her down any, because, she's just... big all the way around.

And if you challenge her? She will bring it.

The smack-down starts innocently enough:


Soon enough you realize that her roundness only adds more power to her punch:


(or maybe it's the extra thumbs?)


Game over.

Summer

Would we be this uncivilized if our nearest neighbor wasn't a mile away?


{some of us don't have tan lines}

Definitely.

Friday in random

Beans in the crockpot.

Not The Bean. That would just be wrong.


{not winter - July}

Banana muffins in the oven. I set the temperature to 350 degrees and it bounces to 450 and then 225. It's a wonder I manage to successfully cook anything in there. I've generally stopped complaining about it because shopping for a new one will be painful.

Cats in a pile. This is what they do when it feels like winter. Just outside the barn, in the sun, out of the wind. I'll never get a good picture of it, because they scatter when they hear the door. When the cat-heater is involved, it's similar to this:


{imagine a couple more felines and you've got it}

Winter in North Dakota?

We've had days here and there that felt like winter, and most of one week with a couple inches of snow on the ground that looked like winter. Really, it's been a gorgeous November, December, and first part of January too. We've gone below zero (F) maybe twice. I finally gave up on my last mini-greenhousesometime in early December. Parsley, if you must know.

Overdressed in January:



Now that it finally feels to me that our unseasonably warm days might be over, and winter has possibly tried to settled in... this is still not bad for mid-January here. Not bad at all.



Selfish me wants to say, "We totally deserve this after the last three winters (and Spring flooding) we barely survived dealt with." But it's far from over yet. Or maybe the last few years have been so harsh that I've completely forgotten what winter can be like.

Internet in warp speed!

Last night we actually measured what we're getting with our Wildblue Satellite Internet. Yeah, that's right. I'm finally gonna come right out and say it. They're way over-subscribed and their service stinks. We should be getting 0.512 Mbps downloading and 0.128 Mbsp uploading. That's what we're paying for.

Guess what we actually have?

It doesn't matter if you don't even know what then numbers mean. It's still impressive. We measured at 0.17 Mbps downloading and 0.05 Mbps uploading. That's what we have.

But Monday! Oh, sweet Monday when our fiber optic is hooked up and we're set free from this pain... 20 Mbps glory that I can't even imagine!

Liar in confession...

Forgive me. I lied, and I'm pretty sure I knew it. This image is really my favorite of my best from last year.

Late to the party

Scavenger Hunt at Ashley's!

1. What is it?



It's Arnold, the flying-trapeze circus chicken. That's what it is.

2. Children or Fur babies sleeping



3. Joy

This one only comes out of hiding when the house is very quiet.



4. Window

Taken through a wet window. Oh, MalWart, how I love to hate thee.



5. Half

When selfies go bad

When Christmas-is-almost-here weather does not feel like Christmas is almost here...



When blazing direct sunlight fires the remote shutter release camera's timer randomly...



When I'm confused because my camera seems demon possessed...



When helpers are very... ummm, helpful...



When I realize a gigantic bruise on my thigh is just a bit sore...



When one second per frame on an animated gif doesn't render (or whatever the correct term is) properly...



That, my friends, is when selfies go very very bad.