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.

Counting (again)

72. Packing peanuts. The starchy kind that dissolve in water. The kind you can lick and stick together to build all sorts of interesting things.



73. Crusty noses and milk mustache remnants. 'Cause this too shall pass.

It's been awhile since I counted these simple gift-type-things... I was all ready to post this last week. And then I accidentally broke my photo editing software. And then I accidentally got sick.

74. How much better a 99 degree fever feels than a 102 degree fever.

75. A husband that's totally my computer guy.

76. Shadow-masked pretend grumpy faces. Awesome, right!?


77. Shoving packing peanuts up your shirt.

78. Belly buttons.



79. Gravity. It never fails us. Except when we don't want certain things to fall down. Ahem. Packing peanuts? Ummm... yeah. That's exactly what I meant.

Joining my dear friend Brooke in looking for the "Simple Moments".

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

Hello 10th

Hello Kitty. Hello breakfast strawberry.


Hello schoolwork.


Hello snakeskin!


Hello Paw-lee!


Uh. Hello mess.


Hello sensory experience. (are you annoyed with the hello stuff yet?)


BUSTED! Caught shopping in Daddy's stuff.


Hello 14-inch circumference eggplant! (can't help myself - I tried, and anyway, Hello Kitty started it)


Helllllllooooo broody Mimi!


Hello "why am I missing a pic?" Hello whatever.

Hello linky:

This life

I hope my kids grow up remembering that their Daddy could fix anything.



My own Dad builds cabinets. Embedded deep in my brain is the sound of his saw, the smell of the wood, laughing as the air compressor blasted off the sawdust I had inadvertently collected on my skin when it was time to go home.



I wonder if it will be the smell of gasoline, the sound of the summer bugs and the toolbox drawers opening and closing, the happy sprawled dog panting beside them, the feel of wearing the shop floor on their dirty bare feet... but I hope it brings them right back.

The Mystery of the Multiplying Caterpillar

If a man jogs all the way down the road and happens to see that his neighbors are home, he'll stop for an evening chat. If the discussion turns to wondering about the battalion of fascinating black caterpillars that are marching through their yard, he'll say he doesn't know what they are, but he knows someone who does. If he gently picks one up and safely carries it a full mile back the way he came, he'll deposit the bewildered spiky insect in his wife's hands. If she has never seen one before and hasn't got a clue what type of butterfly larva it is, she'll click around online. If she finds the perfect match, it will be a species that lives in Europe.

Europe?

Wrong answer.

But if the online images of that butterfly's wings look vaguely similar (in pattern, but not color) to one that does live on the windswept North American plains, all that sleuthing might not have been in vain. And if I'm fresh out of Snapdragons but the apparently somewhat-slightly-related European critter likes Nettles, you know I grabbed a scissors, a jar, and a flashlight, and ran straight out past the barn, through the corral, and behind one of the gardens to a big old patch of Stinging Nettle.

Not literally, I mean.

Don't run with scissors. Ever. Especially in the dark, when half-grown cats are liable to come creeping along the darkest shadows of the garden path and ambush innocent seekers of Stinging Nettle. Stranger things have happened, believe me.

If the caterpillar happily munches away on that nasty stuff, I might mutter "Homeostasis is at ninety-five percent".

If a Bio-Dome quote randomly surfaces, there must be a former Pauly Shore fan in the house.

If that's embarrassing, let's pretend it didn't happen.

The critter seemed happy enough so I tossed the jar on a shelf for a day or three.

Welcome to the The Old Nichols Farm... where the wackiness level fluctuates between "coconut" and "fruitcake" depending on whether we had oatmeal for breakfast, the Earth's geomagnetic activity (honestly - I've tracked it long enough to know), and how many fireflies are loose in the house.

Fruitcake:

I have no idea what that thing is. She found it in the yard. I caught her just in time to save a very trusting cat (please don't ask).

So I know you won't be surprised. In the least. I mean, I wasn't. What? When I casually mention that we popped the lid off that jar a perfectly responsible amount of time later (cough, cough) to give our captive some fresh food. We carefully dumped the jar upside down and found...

Two?

What? What!

Yes, in our jar.

Exactly identical.

What on earth!?



My first thought was that someone had played a great joke on us. However, my awareness of our household having entered The Fruitcake Zone told me that much more fantastic options had the possibility of being true. Anything, people. Anything is possible.

Sure enough, that patch of Stinging Nettle had been attacked. Eaten up. We found a swarm of spikey black caterpillars all over the remaining plants. I somehow managed to identify our caterpillar so perfectly that I had inadvertently collected another one a few nights prior. And strangely enough, as many times as we had inspected that jar we had only ever seen one.

If you tell me something that bizarre can happen in The Coconut Zone, I'll tell you you're crazy.

Fruitcake Queen. I'm putting it on my resume.