Sunday Snippets

Our Week in Review 

Apr 29-May 5, 2013

Time is marching on and I'm not doing the best job of documenting it the last little while.  It might have to do with the fact that I still haven't found my new normal, or my sweet baby girl really likes my constant attention, or the fact that Isaac has really turned up the notch on his mess making skills and everything just overwhelms me. 

• Isaac's antics for this week include a new found pleasure in peeing where ever he wants just to spite me.  Pouring two brand new and rather large bottles of hand soap all over the house.  Eating almost two pounds of freshly grated cheese (while I was rewarding myself with a bath) and then barfing all over my bathroom the next day because of said cheese gorging.  He managed to find my canisters which I store my sugars in and while I was distracted with nursing a baby, he dumped water and sugar all over the carpet upstairs and now they are a matted STICKY mess!
• Dylan celebrated his 10th birthday.  I have been a mother for a decade and he has entered into the double digit age bracket.  By the end of his birthday we still hadn't given him any gifts.  I could tell he was really bothered by this, so being the opportunist that I am, I decided a good teasing was in store.  I said, "Dylan before we go to bed can you tell me what was the best part of your birthday"?  He quickly exclaimed that this was the worst birthday ever.  I did my best to act shocked at his declaration and then I did my best acting ever by pretending to be heartbroken.  I listed all the things I had done through out the day to make his birthday special, like donuts for breakfast, and birthday streamers hung throughout the house, I reminded him that we had just finished his requested birthday meal which I made from scratch, but none of my gentle reminders made him feel any better, so I decided before he exploded from my teasing that we should finally dig out his presents.  The look of relief on his face was priceless. 
  Happy 10th Birthday Dylan Dear, I Love You!
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Abrielle is three months old.  Time is flying and she is growing way too fast!  I had to box up all of her 0-3 month clothes.  It was rather emotional for me to think I'd never have a "newborn" again.  I love her  irresistible chunky bull dog cheeks.  I love when she looks and coos at me.  She is turning into a rather social little thing, giving smiles freely and laughing with her siblings (when they aren't torturing her in some fashion).  She teased me for a week or so by sleeping through the night, but this past week she's been getting up like three or four times throughout the night to nurse.  She seems to cry less these days, but when she does get mad or hungry or feed up with her siblings, she's learned how to turn the volume and pitch of her scream way up. 
• After 8 or so years I finally let this bad decision go.
  
  
   
  This my friends is one very expensive mistake.  In a dream world it solved all my problems.  I didn't have to go to a gym, I could workout whenever I wanted, I didn't have to worry about the weather or the season.  But in the end is suffered a fate most home treadmills face, it became a (very expensive) laundry rack.  When it was new and shiny and I had more free time and a lot more ambition, it got quite a bit of use.  But then the rollers got noisy and even though the treadmill worked great I didn't like listening to the noise.  After our free two year warranty was up it got to be to expensive to have the noisy rollers replaced, and it saw less and less use.  Then we moved and it got stuck in an unfinished basement and between the noise and having to stare at cement walls and absolutely nothing to look at to distract myself from the mundane-ness of running on a treadmill, it stopped getting used all together.  I insisted when we made our move to Texas that the treadmill came with us.  After all it wouldn't be in an unfinished basement and with the hot summers I was going to need a way to exercise and we paid way to much money to just get rid of it.  So we brought this monstrosity to Texas.  After a few uses here and there I finally came to terms with the fact that I was not going to use the treadmill and that I better let it go before it stopped working and then I was stuck with it forever.  So long story short:  I found a local charity that would pick it up for free.  Since it's still in great shape I thought the treadmill deserved to go somewhere where someone might actually put it to good use.  It's a win-win in my eyes since they took that heavy monstrosity of a treadmill of my hands (for free) and somebody can actually score themselves a very nice treadmill at a thrift store price. 
  • Last week our home teacher was kind enough to let us use his truck to get a load of dirt to finish filling my garden boxes.  I planted some seeds this week (corn, bell peppers and some more carrots).  I'm excited to see how they will do.  Growing things down here is a cinch.  But the bugs are something else, they can eat or infect a plant and the whole thing will be dead in less than a day.  Since pumping my garden beds full of pesticides sort of defeats the purpose of growing healthy food, I'm not sure I have enough skills and knowledge to keep anything alive long enough to have a harvest, but I'm going to keep on trying.  So far I have zucchini and crook neck squash (but they are not doing so well, the fruit starts to rot after a few days growth).  The tomato plants are doing gloriously so far,  We did have a few tomato worms that got away with eating a couple of stems off, but now I know they are there I can keep my eye out for them and pick them off before any more damage is done.  I had to tear out my spaghetti squash becasue it was so diseased.  My raspberry's have sent out new canes and my blueberry plants are looking good.  I chopped up our pumpkin patch so I could try spaghetti squash in that bed. 
  • The Mr. had his foot and ankle looked at.  The screw from his previous surgery on his big toe has started to come out.  He's hoping to get everything back to working order so he can get back to running and having a passion in life again.