You Don't See That Every Day

Spending time in the car gives me plenty of quality one on one with my kids. Now that The Boy is driving back and forth to school, I don't spend much time in the car with them. The drive to swim practice at 5:30 am doesn't count, because I am only awake enough to grunt or speak monosyllabicly. This weekend the three younger girls spent the night at their aunt and uncle's. So I headed there on Monday to pick them up. Which meant I had the radio to myself on the first half of the drive. But on the return drive, the child in the front seat with me took over. And I was ok with that. I learned some new music lyrics; I learned what she likes to listen to; and I heard my youngest child singing "wish I could turn back time to the good old days." That made me laugh! What are good old days for a five year old?! I found that I don't mind some of the 'new' music that my kids listen to. They don't always get 'my' music when I turn on the 80s radio st...

Friday night we stepped back in time. The Mr. and I had originally planned on doing a local scavenger hunt run by a local running store; but due to schedule conflicts and earlier-in-the-week-sickness, we decided to make it a family game night. After dinner I cranked out some chocolate banana peanut butter milkshakes and we had a rousing game of Aggravation. I came in 2nd to last ... yeah we don't just play until someone wins. We have to play it out all the way. So during the game, the Mr turned on Pandora to a oldies country station. And oh the good ol' memories that came flooding back with those songs. Songs my parents used to listen to, and songs I heard in college. As the kids watched in slight horrified fascination we sang the songs and danced. One that got to me was "Redneck Girl" - do any of you know/remember that one?! It was a favorite of mine!  At the end of the song, my daughter asked, "Can I get a belt with my name on it?" Score! The song live...

This summer marks the 14th year we've been going to our church. We love it; it feels like family.   We've been singing this song the past few weeks in church. And I love it. It makes me happy - just the sound sets my feet to tapping. One of my girls turned to me after we sang the third verse, and with a grin, said "I love that line!" - I think she meant the 'crushing' part .... Oh boy. Lately the sermons our pastor has been preaching seem to come to fruition the following day/week. Remember our adventure back when hiking season started for us? Learning humility and leaning on someone else, not just our own efforts, these were two of the life lessons we learned that day. Interestingly enough, that was the point in the sermon we had heard the day before. This weekend in church Pastor talked about change and the benefits of change. God loves change. People don't seem to like it so much. I know I don't! And wouldn't you know ... today at my husban...

The first day of Thanksgiving break around here. Nobody slept in. My body wanted to, but the children did not. The howling wind outside might have had something to do with the wake up time. So I had the older girls make bread today. From scratch. By themselves. With minimum input from the Top Chef (me). And the Boy made cookies today. I don't know if he has ever made them by himself before. I hope so. But, either way they turned out delicious. And our mouths and tummies were happy. We also got in touch with our Irish roots this morning, and had some jigging going on in the front room. We like to listen to Drop Kick Murphys, or Flogging Molly; I'll try and get that home movie up soon .... G and I spent the afternoon without children! We went out on a pseudo-date - to our son's school conferences! So we had time in the car to talk uninterrupted. We had time in between meeting with teachers; and we had time together on the long drive home. Long - because it is rai...

Do you ever get a song stuck in your head?! Of course! I have had a T swift song looping through my brain for the past week. Argh! Yesterday my sister in law posted the following video on facebook. I love it! Now this is a tune I want to hear and sing a lot! What do you think? http://youtu.be/W7q1bHK8te0

We went out to the farm last Friday, and spent a little while weeding. I thought I would mess around with video-making and see what came up.

I made another batch of strawberry jam today. Now perhaps the berry smell will be gone from my refrigerator. It was starting to get nauseating. I like to have some music on while I work and today's pick was Francesca Battistelli. (Is that Fran-sess-ka or Fran-chess-ka??) I have one CD of hers and I really, really, really like it. Really. I'm not technologically advanced to get her on an ipod or mp3 or other downloads, so I still buy CD's. The story here though is what led me to buy her CD. My 5 year old has a memory like a ... well, an elephant as the cliche goes. She can hear something once or twice and recall it exactly, days later. Which brings into question my habit of listening to country music while driving. This daughter of mine, along with her older sisters, have become big fans of Taylor Swift. So much so, that it became a concern to me and my husband. I happen to like T.S. (as the girls refer to her!) but having my little girls sing "you belong to me" ...