Boys will be...laundry menaces

We had rain early last week. It was wonderful. I'll share more four-day stories later, but last Sunday (week) when J told me it was supposed to rain for the next few days, I started the slow-cry. I did not know I had been holding my breath during fire season, but the news that rain was coming (signaling the end of the season) overwhelmed me. I guess it's technically still fire season, but everything has had a good soak...we're not living in a tinder-box. I can breathe a little more easily.

Besides being very good news on the fire-front, it gave our boys a rare opportunity: MUD.


There's almost never mud. For me, as primary launderer, this is a good thing...although the sandbox is really just as bad. I decided that mud was in the "rare fun category" and let 'em rip.


There are reasons why in every load of laundry my boys average 3-4 outfits for every ONE of my daughter's.


Bud was happy to introduce Wombles to the delights. It's one of the jobs of a big brother, or so I understand.

Cabin Fever

We have been sick. Not terribly, painfully sick, but bad-cold-sore-muscle-headache-fever sick.

Let's be clear: I'd much rather blow noses than hold heads over bowls. We're OK.

But the serious-malaise sickness has gone on for four days now; no Bible Study Thursday morning (can't put sick kids in the nursery); J home from work Friday, and Pixie no Friday Night Noah's Club; Allll day Saturday; and no church today (fevers in so many directions). I think we're getting a little stir crazy. No, a lot.

At least there was football yesterday.

Wombles seems to know when it's Saturday; he wakes up and says "GeorgiaNotredamefootball!!!" And grabs his stuffed football and runs around the house playing against an imaginary defensive line. Yesterday he kept arguing (with a giggle) that MY Georgia shirt said "Notre Dame," and his Notre Dame shirt said, "Georgia." As a side note, he is really taking off verbally. At his 2-year checkup, in fact, his pediatrician was very pleased: "I would have expected the third child with two...chatty...older siblings would generally count on them to do the talking, and not talk so much himself. But he's really holding his own!" Bingo.

Wombles is terrific at holding his own, whether that's a Popsicle,



one of those special bathroom cleaning tools he grabbed while in the tub (eeew)



or a football.

He usually wears pants, I swear.

99-cents Asparagus

I will NOT tell you how long I spent searching my keyboard for the cent symbol. I began with a warm happy feeling of, "Yes! I get to use the cent symbol! I don't think I've ever used it before!". Then, a dark, growing sense of maybe, just maybe, that's because there isn't one. Nonsense. That would be so unfair...the dollar gets a space!

I have given up. If there is one, please don't tell me. But it seems ridiculous to spell out "cents." Also, I think it should be "99-cent" asparagus, but that plural (99, no less) induces me to use "cents". Obviously, I should be planning my Spanish lessons. Like you and everyone else, I have better things to do than figure out the two separate "cent" dilemmas (neither of which I was prepared for this evening).

I know at least one of my friends is an editor. Could you help...please?

All I wanted to do--really--was let you see what the Cov household looks like when Vons has asparagus on sale for 99 cents per pound.



It is so beautiful, you can use it instead of flower arrangements.


It looks very nice all lined up in mugs or pitchers.



It is so, so yummy.



This is how we could stand to throw some into quesadillas, for goodness' sake.

Oh, how I love asparagus.

This is the batch that J got late last week (#4, 350) when he was doing a late-night grocery store run (#4, 349). I had already gone earlier in the week and gotten plenty for me AND my friend.

Asparagus is one of God's special treats for us. Yum.

That's all. (See? The dilemmas came out of nowhere!!).

Reason #4,357

Jesse and I have a joke that started back when we were newlyweds. I think it started when there was something or other that I really, really didn't want to do...and he stepped in and did it for me. "That's why you buy one," he quipped. I protested--I couldn't buy one! My husband was priceless!



Months passed, and years. And the reasons "to buy one" just kept growing. Getting rid of spiders in the bathroom--#3. Calling the airline over some dispute--#137. Doing the driving on the road trip when I was really, really sleepy--#212. Shoveling the snow off the front walk so that I could get to the car--#564. That would have been at 6:45am. And on the day pictured below, I got all the way to school before I realized (thank you, empty parking lot!) that it was a snow day, and we could all have still been in bed. You can bet I didn't do THAT again.




Bringing me a banana and frosted mini-wheats in bed every morning for weeks when Pixie was on the way--#656. Cooking chocolate-frosted cupcakes on demand during the same time period--#670. A few months later, taking the diaper-changing duties in the middle of the night--#715.



And, just when you think there couldn't POSSIBLY be any MORE reasons to buy one (I have long since ceded the premise) out comes another one.

(No, not that he's in the kitchen making my very favorite drink right now--that was back several dozen spots on the list.)

No, reason #4,357 arose today at lunchtime. You know, following the on-the-way-home-from-church moment when I say, "I wonder what we're having for lunch today...do you have ANY ideas?" because I'm pretty distracted trying to keep Wombles from taking his entire nap on the way home, and because I'm pretty sure there aren't any leftovers I can heat up.

Reason #4, 357 to buy one is that he will, on just such a day, whip up yummy chicken quesadillas with ASPARAGUS and special sauce. And they will be wonderful.

Reason #4, 358 (FYI) is that when you tell him, as he cooks, that you just had a fun idea for a blog post, he laughs like this:



I love you, J!

The Fences are Down!

Last Saturday I was going on about Home Depot, and I didn't mention a very important item. October 3rd was Nite-Nite's birthday! Now, in case you don't know who Nite-Nite is, here is one of our early family photos (he's in green):



Did I say one of our photos?? Here are a few more while I keep looking for the one I was talking about:


We knew early on that Pixie was extremely attached to Nite-Nite. That's how he got his name.

We became afraid that she would wear Nite-Nite out from overuse, so we thought we should save him for bedtime only. "He's for Night-Night," we would say. "Just for Night-night time."

(We told her, at the time, that his name was Mr. Frog. Because we'd both been beaten with the creativity stick.)

She named him Nite-Nite.

My parents found a NN's twin for her, to try to spread the love around...but it came with a sound box inside. If you squeeze him then he makes a "ribbit" noise. Very cute.

And very fake. Pixie would just give a squeeze, feel the non-bean-bag belly, and toss it. "No wakey Nite-nite!!"

I have kept it, so that if Nite-nite goes the way of mortal flesh I can sew a bean bag inside.

OK, I can't find the early crib shot of Pixie with NN. I found those other ones while looking, though, and while perusing old photos and videos of my girl I have re-fallen in absolute love with her. I'm totally smitten. Even now, when she's experimenting with different attitudes.

You never know what your sweet baby's lovie is going to be. Thank you, Katie S., my 8th grade Spanish student in 2002-2003. Pixie still loves her Nite-nite.

Which is why we had a birthday party for him last Saturday (he was turning one...don't ask). We all agreed that nothing could make a little froggy happier than a Nile River cake.



I'm afraid the Mediterranean Sea had seen further damage from Bud by this point. And, Upper Egypt had gone home with our friends. Still, we had a great party.

Another party I'm looking forward to is about 3 weeks away...when we celebrate all of our neighbors moving home again. This post is a good example of how easily I am distracted these days. It started off to be a fences-down post (and I will stubbornly leave the title). I had the great pleasure of having Allison over at lunch today--these photos are of her house(s). We saw her drive in and Pixie asked if we could have her over for lunch, and went to extend the invitation herself. I'm loving this hospitality streak Pixie's been exhibiting (and painfully learning to get over my "I-must-have-the-house-clean-first" mentality.)

Anyway, here was Allison's house this morning, while the crew was taking down the fence:



And here was her house almost exactly 11 months ago:




And here it was 6 months ago:



Amazing, isn't it? Comparatively, things have gone very quickly ("comparatively" being the 14 houses on our street versus the remaining 257 or so total losses from the same fire). Looking back, I see that I didn't share many fire photos at the time. I will try not to go overboard, but I imagine the next 6 weeks or so are going to be a big processing stage for all of us around here. God has been so good...and it has been hard.

Have a great weekend!

Crafty Fun

First of all, I should know better than to post anything I've entitled, "Tired" without sleeping on it first.

Second, it's the first Saturday of the month! Which means we are gearing up for our monthly trek towards the land of big-box stores and large parking lots. It means we are headed to Home Depot. On the first Saturday of the month, they host a *free* kids' workshop...they provide the craft, you provide the muscle (and the children). We love Cyndi, who runs our local one.

Kids Workshop

OK, so today we'll be making a firehouse bank. Good...Bud's fire truck bank from last October is broken (October is fire safety month). The tile trivet next month looks cool, though!

The children love getting to wear their little orange aprons (also provided, to keep) and covering it with pins when they have finished the craft. If you have a 3+-year-old, I highly recommend getting out there today between 9 and noon.

Happy Weekend!

Tired.

I wish I could blame this 200-lb. weight-of-weary on the fact that I have a job, but I can't. True, it's a bit tricky to prep lesson plans when I have no idea, really, what level the students are on...will they be utterly bored? Or will what I'm assuming they know be way, waaay ahead of where they are? It should get better after this week. I have done this before. I still have to go and dig out all of my props and flash cards and posters (well, not all. Not the Christmas ones, anyway). They are somewhere in the (ominous music, please)...garage.

No, can't blame the weariness on Spanish. Perhaps some blame to be found in my procrastinating, which leads to late nights, which are unrelated to (yet coexistent with) not eating well, and being VERY grumpy. The father of lies doesn't have to work very hard when I am tired and hungry...I'm a pushover. I realized late this afternoon that I just needed someone to tell me something, anything that was true and good. Something to break in. Driving home from dropping Pixie and friends off at an activity, I found myself just saying the words: "Jesus loves me. This I know...for the Bible tells me so....I am weak, and he is strong." True. and good.

OK, so besides this little sidetrack from lesson plans (home school, currently) to do a blog posting, I have also become smitten with someone else's blog. Cakewrecks has nothing on The Pioneer Woman. Don't say I didn't warn you! :)

So, there's some of the procrastinating. And I wasn't that hungry for lunch...maybe because Beth and R. came over and we finally made our Nile River cake. They live up the street and homeschool, too, and are doing the same era of history that we are this year, which is fun.

Here's the cake:




We had an issue with my Wilton "copper" dye turning out to be much more......salmon. I didn't realize how pink it would be. We should have left the desert the plain cake. As soon as we added the pinkness, it looked more like an anatomy cake than a geography cake. We tried making it "sandy" with brown sugar. Alas, the "Red Lands" are pinky. And there's a waterfall into the Mediterranean. Whatever. Pixie and R. made mountains and pyramid out of sugar cubes with frosting...there's an idea. Sugar cubes frosted with royal icing.



While Pixie, Bud and I walked Beth and R. to the door, Wombles got serious about plunging his hands into the Mediterranean sea. I walked back in to find him with two handfuls (well, almost full) of blue frosting. And a little blue mouth.

I knew I should have taken a picture of that!

Anyway, lots of bits of frosting combined with sweet tea and leftover dessert from last night left me not-so-hungry. It was around 5:30pm when I realized that the whole super-irritable, grouchy afternoon I'd just spent was textbook why we DON'T let the kids have lots of sugar. (I am reminded of--was it Andree Seu who asked (in regard to TV and movies)--"When did we decide that only children are effected by what they see?" Similarly, when did we decide that adults don't sugar crash?? Ugh, was it UGLY this afternoon).

What am I trying to say? Hmmm. Maybe I'll trust this time that you can figure it out. Because, REALLY, I've got to get next week planned.

I will just take a moment to mention that I have a fabulous husband who gets it.

And, Goooo Dawgs! I can't watch--why did you have to go and CBS me? You know I only get ABC and NBC, plus Espn360 online. But I still hope you beat the tar out of LSU tomorrow.

Please, Notre Dame, Please don't fall apart against Washington.

OK, J says I need to GO TO BED. And I think he's probably right, lessons planned or no.