You Don't See That Every Day

It's time again to upload the pictures from my camera this week. The following are from a typical evening supper at our house. Around the table we have the cheesy faces, the ones thinking deeply, and those who don't want their pictures taken.   Of course, the littlest does whatever the older ones do...    We had our 2nd swim meet this week. Thankfully the weather was much better than the last one. We had a great day of sun, and fast swimming. Although the meet went on hours longer than expected, it was still a good time. The non-swimmers even had fun, eating and coloring.    My extended family has the tradition of going camping together around the 4th. Unfortunately, due to circumstances of our own household, we were not able to join my siblings and their families, and my parents, on the annual campout. So we set one up at home instead! I don't know how long we'll keep it up, better for now it's fun.  

During the school year I usually check my email first thing in the morning before all chaos breaks loose , er, before we start school. So in the summer I have been a bit more relaxed and don't always check first thing. Sometimes I actually wait until after lunch to turn on the computer! But yesterday, due to a busy schedule, my husband and I checked our emails early in the day. And I am so glad we did. Some body out there hacked our email account and sent spam-junk-grrrr-mail to a ton of our friends and family members.  I was a little worried throughout the day as to what information might have been compromised. I went ahead and changed some things on our email right away. So I am hoping this will be the last of it. But after getting through the worry-and-pray stage, I began to get angry. Why would someone do this? Why? Does this person have nothing better to do than type in stupid things and bother normal, upstanding, (and humble! ~wink~) everyday people? Are they just si...

  I made the first batches of fresh-berry jam earlier in the week! It smelled so good and strawberry-ish in our house that day! Today was the first swim competition for the summer season. And we woke up to the sound of pouring rain on the rooftops. The meet started at 8 am, and the sun finally came out by 10:45. Miss M. S-girl Not a good sign. It was a cold and extra wet morning, until the sun finally came out near the end of the meet. This year the 3 older kids are swimming, as opposed to last year when it as just 2. The little one did pretty well, for about 2 hours, and then she needed to get up and move! The Boy, on the return

I took Little K to the farm yesterday. My plan was to pull some more weeds, while the older 4 were at VBS (vacation Bible school) until noon. Thankfully the rain held off. -- that's not a normal sentence for the summer, except in Oregon. And Washington. So we got there and my dad directed us over to pick the peas! Woohoo! So pick we did. I lost count of how many times K asked for "Another one?" and then gobbled down the peas after I split open the pod. A productive morning for us, peas and lettuce and full tummies.

 Oh was it a 'holiday' this past weekend? Father's Day didn't get the same attention around here that Mother's Day got. Maybe that has something to do with Mom being the one who wants to GO somewhere on the weekend, and Dad being one who would like to finally stay home and relax. So the Dad in our home got to stay in and relax on Father's Day. The kids and I got him a hammock - and the kids set it up in the yard while Dad was napping. Then we woke him up (!) and guided him outside to surprise him. And he got another nap. But on most holidays we've learned not to go out to restaurants on that day. So we took my dad and mom out to eat last night instead. We had gone to this place for our anniversary last month, and we really really liked it - the service was great, the food was delicious, and naturally, the company was terrific. We thought my parents would like it too. My dad has German heritage, my mom is Polish, and so the food served at this r...

The younger girls were playing in the front room this morning. (The older 3 kids were out of the house.) A helicopter and some little people were involved in the playtime. The 'monologue' I heard went something like this (from my 6 year old): " Passengers? Passengers! Please make sure you don't have any bombs. We will be leaving soon. Passengers, make sure there are no bombs ." After a few seconds the girl continued on in her announcer voice, " Passengers. Please throw your bombs out before we leave. Thank you. " ((If only it was so easy!)) By this time I am laughing in the front room, but quietly, so she doesn't stop. And then I hear, " Passengers. We are going to take off. Please stop smoking and drinking and buckle your seat belts ." By then I was doubled over, trying to laugh silently. Because, you know, I always tell my kids to stop smoking and drinking and buckle their seatbelts, don't you? Where do they get these thoughts?...

Pictures! there should have been pictures on that last blog post!! The content would have made much more sense if there were pictures! Sigh. I don't know what the problem was/is. Maybe I will try and update the post tonight. Maybe.

We all scream for ice cream; because, really, what's better than ice cream to shout about? at least in the food arena...  And yes, that is a lot of ice cream cones. A lot . Guess what we'll be going through for the next few months? If you come to visit, we'll be offering cones for dessert. So we had a neighborhood ice cream party on our block this past Monday. I scored some great deals on Tillamook ice cream at the local Albertson's. You think you have great ice cream in your neck of the woods!? Oh no ... this stuff is so much better than anything else out there. Seriously, Tillamook beats them all, hands down. Try it, you'll see.  So anyway, we stocked up with a bunch of cartons, on sale, and then hauled them out to the street Monday evening. With some chairs, some whipped cream, and toppings from another neighbor's kitchen, we sat and waited. Since the kids had gone around the 'hood earlier in the day handing out invitations, we didn't hav...

School may be out for the summer, but I'm still making after-school snacks. Because these minions of ours just don't stop eating.Which is a good thing, I suppose! I tried a new recipe today, inspired by not having anything better to do (snort, chuckle, ha!) I got it from this awesome blogger otherwise known as Mavis . Of course the original recipe is what I started with, and like most things I touch, I didn't "stay-within-the-lines". I tweaked it to see if the final taste would match what my taste buds were craving. The recipe calls for flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. And then in another bowl vanilla brown sugar, butter, ripe mashed banana, and an egg. Finally add in the chocolate chips. So I had a ripe banana in the freezer waiting for a smoothie, but I decided to use it in cookies instead. And what goes better with banana and chocolate than peanut butter?! Oh yeah! So i scooped up two huge spoonfuls of peanut butter and added it to the recipe. ...

 We've been busy around here. Trying to be cool, by trying on Dad's aviator sunglasses. Oh we all had to get in on it. I mean who else is going to set the styles for the next generation?   But of course, Dad pulls it off the best. Very cool ...    and then they flipped the lenses - and we all laughed! I however, have been on a different quest - trying to get the bicycle seat onto the right bicycle. Today we finally got in our first "double rider" bicycle ride! K. was so excited to be back out there - she chattered the entire time I was getting ready.   We took a spin around the neighborhood until the chain fell off! And we walked home; but it was a nice taste of what's to come for us this summer. And oh, man, do my legs hurt! (and yes, someone was holding her while I snapped the photos)

G and I are considering a new project. Of course, the first one isn't done. When are home projects ever done?! G is making good progress on the upstairs. He and The Boy and S-girl worked to put on the last layer of mud. Hurrah - texture and paint are in sight! But the new project we are thinking of (and we both came up with this separately) is the Front Yard. When we moved in here, the previous owners had raised beds where they grew vegetables. It was quite a mess, no grass.  Over the years we have added and taken away plants. And once again we're at a stage of 'remodel'. G did some trimming of the wisteria recently - it was so overgrown and badly needed a 'haircut'.  So we have the wisteria, which we are thinking of cutting back, wayyy back. The bamboo needs some pruning. The cherry is tree is so beautiful when it is in bloom. The arborvitae hedge ... that's one we don't agree on. I like having the hedge of priva...

I hit 4000 swagbucks today! I'm on my way to earning more for gift shopping come the end of the year! And it hasn't taken any effort to get here. I joined Swagbucks sometime last year, and used some of my points last December for gift cards at Christmas time. All it took was searching things on the internet (which we do plenty of during school) and answering a daily poll every morning (which is kind of fun). You can watch videos or take surveys or play games to earn points too, and then when you feel like it you can redeem them for items. Very cool. Of course there are plenty of other ways to earn them, but the ones I mentioned are the few I have tried. If you want to join up, use my referral link http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/TinyElvis or check them out first at www.swagbucks.com

I think my husband is pretty awesome and handsome to boot. He's very smart. Out of all the family, I send the kids to him with questions. Because I make mistakes (and yes he does too) but I make common-sense mistakes; The other day I posted a not-so-flattering picture of my husband. And I need to apologize for that. The one I posted of him earlier in the month, well, I probably should've double-checked with him on that one too. But he is just so funny and can be so silly, and makes me laugh, I wanted to share it with you all. So, dear G. I'm sorry and we'll move on.