My helper

By default, she's my helper. Sometimes this works better than other times. Sometimes it doesn't work at all. And sometimes, the universe interacts with her in ways that just boggles my mind.

Our local K-Mart is closing, which is a sad thing because it means Mal-Wart wins.

So we went. Just to see what was left, and we found some foam swords. Foam swords! Thus commenced a great battle in the summer-fun aisle. Me and her, with much giggling and squealing on her part, to the great delight of all kinds of old ladies meandering past with their shopping carts. I'm sort of disappointed none of them grabbed a sword to join us.

Then I got distracted by a blow-up bounce house for small kidlings, because I often wish I had a padded room to toss that girl into. It would be good for both her and me, actually. On clearance it was still a ridiculous $200. But you know, I have a job now and so it was slightly tempting anyway. While I was deep in thought imagining how cool it would be to throw her into such a contraption for half an hour, and the great many things I might be able to get done, and how it could perhaps be worth almost $200...

That was when it happened.

"Ka-WHOMP"

The girl? She'd been bravely swinging her sword up and down the aisle like any good warrior.

And she'd been captured.

By a stack of 9 evil plastic pools.



And what did she say?

"It's dark in here"



Looking for the Simple Moments with my friend Brooke. "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, 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.

Valuable lessons

She was searching for lipstick. I told her I thought I had one somewhere... maybe it was in the bathroom, or a coat pocket, or a camera bag. After we searched, and searched, and searched, I re-thought what I had previously thought. Then I thought perhaps I had thrown that one tube of lipstick away. Then I tried to remember the last time I might have used it. Meanwhile she continued to search for it.

"Mom, what's this?"

It was a can of shaving cream. Half-empty. Almost as old as she is.

The way I saw it, there was only one thing to do.


Four minutes is about how long it took me to post that picture on facebook, in the other room, by the way. Meanwhile, a couple of valuable lessons were simmering.

Being the Swedish Chef is good, but there's always more imagination to be had. Fun is good, but more fun is better. Pretend bugs leaving their footprints all over the table is good, but bugs walk on the walls too, so obviously that's better.

Lesson number one: Don't turn your back on the shaving cream.


Lesson number two: Shaving cream will take the finish right off the table.

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

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.

Clearing my conscience

My husband was in China a month ago, and I gave his side of our bed to a cat. It wasn't premeditated. I wasn't even certain the spur-of-the-moment kitty acquisition was actually happening until my dear friend put the kitten in my car and my confused kids said "What?". It might have been appropriate to wonder what my husband would say, since we already had a herd of one indoor and three outdoor cats. Then I remembered that I am the crazy cat lady, and my groom was well aware of that when he married me.

As it turns out, I had no need to worry. I was about to pull off my best yet "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission" moment. Not that I try to make it a habit or anything. See, as we were on Facetime attempting to gently break it to him that we had brought a new animal home in his absence, he jumped ahead of my words and assumed it was a large animal that eats grass. A donkey.

He was so relieved that it was only a cat.

Excuse me while I high-five myself in the mirror...



Paw-lee looks an awful lot like Bad Kitty, but with extra toes on her gigantic adorable feet. However, if the tragic events leading up to the cat re-homing incident had a title, it would definitely be Bad Doggie.


The roller coaster of emotions was rattling at top speed.

My own kids were angry and in shocked disbelief that I had executed our Red Rooster while they slept the night before. Despite my 20 minute top-of-my-lungs sobbing under the stars I was nowhere near finished grieving. It may have been Game Over but that doesn't mean it wasn't horribly upsetting or that I didn't love that ornery rooster dearly.

My friend's family was reeling from the violent death of two of their other kittens from the week before, which had followed yet another one, which had followed the inexcusable death of their sweet beloved Momma cat just days after her babies were born. Bad, bad doggie.

Now that the remaining one is ours, I feel so guilty that I wasn't more strongly insistent on taking a time-share of bottle feeding that batch of kittens when they were tiny.

For the record, The Old Nichols Farm has officially reached it's quota of cats.

For the record, we're in love.



My husband is in China again, and I think it would be pretty darn funny to borrow someone's ass (the four-legged kind) and park it in my corral just to mess with him when he gets home.

Summer

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


{some of us don't have tan lines}

Definitely.

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

A few things

Way too many orders of business for one blog post. But what the heck, here we go. Feel free to bail out at any time.

1. Scavenger Hunt at Ashley's
I've *ahem* lost the battery charger for my big camera. Tragic (or fortuitous?), I still have my old camera. And after falling off a 100 year old chair, which earned me a 5 inch long dandy of a bruise on my thigh, and tossing that XTi across the room where it left a quarter inch deep gash in the table... it seems to be working better than ever. Lucky, lucky me.

Stacked up:
(this was taken with my full frame)


Winter Wonderland:
Look! We got some snow! What a bizarre winter.


Sweet:
I think Arnold has a girlfriend.


Hole:
Hey Bean, were you trying to get that cupcake into the big hole on your face? You missed.


Frozen:
I mean, not really.... frozen. That hen could be in my freezer, you know. Not that I would do that, or anything.




2. Clickin' Moms

Friends, that button on the side of my blog, the one that looks something like this...


That's an affiliate link. If you decide to become a member, and if I have been the one to introduce you to Clickin' Moms, please... please. For the love of all things photography.... click through my button when you join so I can receive credit for referring you.

If you have questions about the forum, email me. oldnicholsfarm(at)yahoo(dot)com

I'll convince you that your photography will become fabulous overnight, and you won't have to put any work into it whatsoever (at all). Ha. Hahaha! But really, it is an amazing resource.



And, yes, they have a week-long trial membership for only $10.


3. Flickr

I thought it was obvious by now, but apparently not.

I. am. on. flickr. Add me as a contact, friend, whatever. Really, it's okay.

When left-clicking is enabled for a photo on my blog, it'll take you straight to flickr to see activity/comments on that image over there. If you care about such things.


4. Project 52

There is a tab (button thing, click!) under my blog header that says Project 52. This is my little year-long photography project for 2012. Just something to keep pushing me. I'll update that page with a new photo weekly - probably Saturdays since I am a master procrastinator.


5. Carsen's Courage

I love this beautiful lady. I love her sweet family. I love her adorable kid. Her selfless determination to give him the very best of every opportunity is inspiring to say the least. Life isn't easy for Carsen, but what he has overcome already... brings me to tears.



I'm not only lucky enough to know them in real life, but to be related.

Kelly is hosting a Thirty-One bag giveaway - a great excuse to check out her blog.

If nothing else, read this post: Carsen's Courage.
(if you click, read the entire page, and have a box of tissues handy)