What do you want to be when you grow up?

A cowgirl like Nana.


Oh and a turtle.


Both totally reasonable.

My brain is 2500 miles away from home...

So today is a glorious day. My rock star husband made all of our travel reservations for our vacation and now I can think of nothing else. We are going to Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary this summer.

I am going to spend the rest of the day watching this.


Can't wait!!

Squeel!!

Why don't they teach this in school?

Someone sent this to my, but it's pretty profound. Especially where my family and I are right now in our lives.

Sad that we have to go what is considered extreme in order to live a healthy life. I know my parents think we're crazy for reading labels and not letting our kids eat that junk, but in short...it's bad for you. I'm just saying.

******************************


You know why we're obese? We eat too much! And we eat the wrong things.

For millennia, humans lived agrarian lifestyles. They worked the fields and ate what they grew. That usually included one staple whole grain (rice or wheat), a large number of leafy greens, fruits, berries and nuts. Much of it was eaten raw. Meat was used as a flavoring ingredient in small quantities because raising it was too resource-intensive for all but the very rich. And of course, everything was organic because there was no such thing as non-organic. This is how we evolved. It's how are bodies run best. The human engine knows how to process that mix of fuel.

Compare that to how we live and eat today. We hardly exercise. Whatever grains we eat are stripped of their essential nutrients (i.e. white flour, white rice). The primary part of our meals comes from animal protein. Fruits and vegetables make up the smallest portion of our diet. And everything is heavily processed and/or treated with chemicals that don't exist in nature.

Much of this is a product of wealth and industrialization. There are parts of the world where they still live the agrarian lifestyle of our ancestors. These are the undeveloped, rural areas without access to the modern conveniences. The way they eat has come to be known as the "Poverty Diet", and it is marked by the lowest incidence of disease in all human societies on the planet.

So, if you're over 30 and you eat fast food more than once a month, you're harming yourself. If you're not out walking at least a mile a day, you're sedentary compared to the blood line you evolved from. If the food you buy in the store has ingredients you can't pronounce, think about whether your ancestors ate that stuff, and then imagine why there's a huge increase in cancer rates over the last half a century.

We're killing ourselves, all while we've all been conditioned to believe that our lifestyles are "normal." Sure, "everybody eats at McDonalds," but that's why so many of us are fat and sick. A person who simply eats what the average human diet has consisted of for eons is regarded today as some kind of "health nut," whereas the vast majority of Americans eat like they're from some other planet.

My fantasy come to life.

Ok who hasn't been to San Fransisco and not wanted to do this? I could watch this all day.

An afternoon at OMSI

So all this week I sunk to the lowest of lows in Mommydom. Bribery. Bug has had some behavioral issues at school and his teacher sends home daily reports to let me know of the goings on in class. I told Bug that if he could make it through the entire week with a good report, then I would take him to OMSI (Oregon museum of science and industry((NERD HEAVEN!!))) So it was hard for him, but I just kept dangling that carrot, and he made it.

So today we all went out there. They have a really cool dinosaur exhibit with scale animanatronic dinosaurs. They were cool, but they scared the pants right off of Sunshine, so we didn't spend a lot of time in there, but we did check out all of the other exhibits. Bug had a blast learning a multitude of cool things. He's really science driven, so it is right up his alley.

We all had a great time.

The big garage sale

So the moment I have been dreading for the past couple months finally came. A nice Saturday to have a garage sale. My garage has been over run by boxes of kids clothes that have long been outgrown. But the annoying thing with kids clothes is that I feel like I have so much money tied up in them that I have a hard time just giving it to Goodwill. I thought that maybe.. just maybe I could have a garage sale and make a little of that money back. Unfortunately I never seem to remember just what a pain in the keester a garage sale really is.

But we set it all up and had a lot of people come though our driveway. I would just like to point out here that all those clothes racks in the pictures are all kids clothes. Plus I have tables set up that were also covered ONLY in kids clothes. But the sad thing is....I still had about 4 giant rubbermaids that were full and never got put out. Do you see the insanity here yet?

Well after all our efforts and a scorching sunburn, we have about $40 to show for our day. I was so annoyed with the whole thing that I bagged up about 80% of those clothes and sent it off to the Goodwill. I am tired of tripping over it. I made up a choice bag of girls clothes and boy's clothes as I have friends with babies that could probably enjoy some hand-me-downs. But other than that it's gone. And frankly...it feels pretty liberating to purge. I have been finding myself oddly attached to "stuff" and the time has come to break the need/want for stuff. Especially kids stuff. I think in a weird way I was holding on to a lot of those clothes for sentimental reasons.( even though I was selling them.) I guess I had to realize that once the newborn clothes were gone, then that meant the newborn stage was gone too. Silly I know. I did save a handful of clothes for my kids hope chests of their baby stuff. But it really isn't necessary to hang on to the whole wardrobe :)

So Stuff be gone!!!

Busted

So today I was assembeling some shelving units that I got for the boys' room and there were chuncks of styrofoam in the packaging. This is like the greatest thing on planet Earth in the eyes of Sunshine. Why, I am not sure exactly. But she wanted every chunck she could get her hands on. So I gave it to her as long as she kept it where I could see it. She has a really bad habit of ripping things to shreads like a little hamster. I'm not sure why she thinks it's so much fun to shread things, but I always find little piles of papers or tin foil where she has been playing.

So I go on assembeling these shelves. I got 3 of them so it takes me most of the afternoon.(Thank goodness I'm not a carpenter, I suck at this kind of stuff) She wanders in and out of the family room where I was working. It comes time for me to take these shelves upstairs when Sunshine comes out of her room......covered in what appears to be styrofoam snow. I can already see the writing on the wall.


Me- "Sunshine, where is all that styrofoam at?"

Sunshine- "I don't know." (eyes darting around looking for a quick story to come up with)

Me- "Did you take it upstairs?" (Looking her directly in the eye knowing she is a crummy liar and breaks down under pressure)

Sunshine- (After like a very awkward 30 seconds or so) "No......don't go in my room"


So what do I do? What any mental case mommy blogger would do....grabbed my camera....and then marched right up to her room.

This is the incriminating evidence that I beheld.

It was everywhere. In her bed, in the window sills. It was a big old mess.

So this afternoon Sunshine got her first crash course on how to work a vacume. She picked it up pretty quick.


Get it...picked it up?

Wakka wakka

Just another day in paradise :)

Sunshine "Turkey lips"

So for whatever reason I have this thing where I rarely call my kids by their actual birth name. I really do call Bug ,Bug. Peanut usually goes by lumpy (not sure why) or stinky (for obvious reasons). But Sunshine has a wide assortment of nicknames most of which make her crazy and she screams out "NO MY NAME IS SUNSHINE!!!" But she screams out her first middle and last names just to make sure there is no confusion. It got to be a game just because it bothered her so. (I totally expect a transcript of this blog post to be used in her therapy sessions)

Her nicknames are....

Sister Sue

Anne Oakley

Clamity Jane

"Sunshine" lue

Sassa-frass

But the most commonly used are "Sunshine" pants or my personal favorite (and her least) "Sunshine" Turkey lips. Don't know where I got it, but one day it just struck me as funny.

Whenever I call her that now she feels it nessicary to stick out her lips and try to gobble. It's really quite a sight to behold. It generally turns into a jumbled mess of muted sounds. It's pretty funny though.

I don't need no stinkin man!!!

So today I spent the better part of my day wrestling with a broken garbage disposal. Normally in situations like this I just wait for Rock star husband to get home to rescue me from my lack of knowledge of all things mechanical. However...today of all days I made my famous chili for dinner which naturally dirties every dish in my kitchen. So I needed to wash dishes to hold some manner of sanity in my already chaotic kitchen.

But as you know, no garbage disposal means no dishwasher. My plan was thrown off course. I fiddled and futzed and tried to do all the troubleshooting things that I knew how to do and to no avail.

Then I attempted the unthinkable....I went online to a "do it yourself" repair site. I learned how disposals worked and how they are assembled. I even learned how to take them apart and fix it myself. And so I did. It only took me an hour and a half, but mission accomplished.

I felt so awesome that I had to call my husband at work and casually bring it up in conversation about how I took it apart and fixed it.(Just because I'm totally snarky like that)He was pretty impressed too.

So one small step for ding-bat housewife I guess :)

Now lets just pray that nothing else breaks, because who knows if I can do it again :)

A day at the park

Another post by the husband.

Saturday I took Sunshine to the farm, but Sunday I took bug to a baseball game.

A co-worker had a couple tickets he wasn't going to be able to use, and he graciously gave them to us.

They were suite tickets for my companies box seats. So that was pretty darn nice.

So we loaded up our pockets with sunflower seeds, raisins, bottled water, hand warmers, and headed out to the park.

Once there, we had to buy peanuts, of course.

This kept bug entertained the whole time.

He lost track of the game (as I did at that age), but he still had a great time.

The Beavers mascot even showed up in our box at one point.

During the 6th inning or so, they had a "Loudest Fan" contest that the Beaver was judging.

It didn't matter that the beaver was on the complete opposite side of the park, bug started yelling: "WOOOOOOOO!"

He really wanted to catch a foul ball, and we almost got one. It just went over our heads into the box seats right above us.

Oh well.

It was great time, but it was pretty cold.

And as you can see in the pictures, it was basically just a reason for bug to learn how to eat peanuts.

Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary

This post is being written by the husband.

My sister and I took sunshine to a farm today. But not to play.

We went to Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary

It's a farm that takes in abused, abandoned, etc animals and let's them live out their remaining years in a virtual paradise with people who love them.

What we ended up doing was taking pitchforks and scraping out all the old hay out of a barn.

I can't tell you how dirty this was. You had some dry hay on top, but underneath was what they called "The Carpet."

They change the hay every two weeks, and the last two weeks, the horses and goats have pretty much just been inside.

It's probably worse then what you're imagining right now.

But we pitchforked it all out, they took it away via a tractor and spread it in a field as fertilizer to grow more hay.

Then we took fresh hay and spread it all over. This is where Sunshine loved to help. She got to knock the bales over and kick it around to spread it out.

They had a bunch of animals. 4 horses, a bull, a cow, 3 pigs (one was SUPER friendly) 3 donkeys, 1 mule, some llamas, a ton of goats, a ton of sheep, miniature goats, chickens, roosters, geese, a peacock, doves, and more misc. animals here and there.

It was fantastic.

After working for 3 hours we took a bag of apples and a bag of carrots and set out to give the animals some treats.

This was the favorite time for us, and for the animals as well.

The goats where trying to climb up into our arms in order to get at the carrots. They were so happy.

The pigs loved it, the donkeys loved it....

and oh yes.. the one horse that we fed loved it.

He loved it so much, that as we were leaving down this sort of fenced in 'alley,' he actually walked faster then us, got in front of us, and turned sideways.

Blocking our escape.

We got him turned around, I got sunshine out of there while my sister kept him distracted.

Then we darted out and shut the gate before he could get out.

He was just too happy and loved the food and attention too much.

Next time we'll bring more food.

The only bad thing was that it was really cold (it was supposed to snow, and we had hail at one point).

Sunshine didn't have gloves, so her hands got cold real quick. That was my fault, I didn't think about it.

So we wrapped her up in my sisters vest and coat as you can see in the pictures.

Sunshine also decided to collect some hay, so we stuck it in the coat she was wearing.

This place is great, and they're doing a wonderful thing.

If you want to help out, go to their website and look up the next volunteers day (May 3rd) and show up.

oh, and BRING BOOTS!!!

I can't stress this enough.

Sunshine's big day

So the day we have been looking foreword to with dread and and excitement finally came. It was time to get her first haircut. She has never had anything done to her hair except trim her bangs. There were spots that she could and did sit on. As you can see by the "before" pictures, it was really long.

But....the deciding moment came about 2 weeks ago when she was sitting on a potty at Costco. She looked at something on the ceiling and her hair touched the water. Now she hadn't done anything yet, so it was still (moderately) clean water in there, but it grossed me out enough to take drastic action.

Plus because of all the Cancer talk going around lately, I thought what better way to help out but by donating hair. So we are sending the required 10 inches to Locks of love. To make wigs for those who have lost their hair due to illness.

Plus it just turned out so cute in the end. Something about a spiffy new haircut to change your whole look.

You go miss SASSY thing!!!

"I'm sorry about your divorce"........

So I go to pick Bug up from school today and his teacher corners me and says very discreetly..."I'm sorry about your divorce."

Puzzled I say "who's divorce?" Then like an idiot, I think she is talking about my parent's divorce that happened over 30 years ago. I then respond, with "yeah well that was a long time ago. We've all moved on by now." Realizing how stupid that sounded the second it left my lips, I then ask "wait what are we talking about?"

She then informs me that Bug has been acting up in class and when she asked him "what has gotten into you?" He gleefully announced that " it was just hard at home what with his parents getting a divorce and all. "


..........?


Ok let me be the first to set anyone that may be as confused as I was at this moment straight here. Rock star and I are nowhere near getting a divorce. We don't ever fight or even so much as bicker enough that would even sort of look like a divorce was on the horizon.

I mean usually I AM the last to know these kinds of things and all, but C'mon!!! Could you help a sista out here!!

I then found myself desperately trying to convince her that we were fine.

"No divorce here. ....
and no I'm not saying that to cover up the real truth.
No really.
We're great.
Never better.
Seriously I realize thats what people say to cover up real problems, but seriously.
We're fine. "

I found myself digging a hole. Why is it you always look guilty the harder you try not to? Maybe it's the school teacher thing, but it was all very awkward.

Needless to say, Bug got a swift talking to when we got home.

It was completely a repeat of something similar that happened last year.

Most of his school year last year, his baby brother spent a majority in and out of hospitals because of his asthma. Bug also went to a Christian school. So every day they would throw out prayer requests from the kids and pray for families and so on.

Well it seems that Bug got a little addicted to the attention and prayer. So when Peanut went a good several months without incident, Bug started to miss the spotlight. So he told everyone that his dog had died.

Everyone gathered around and hugged him and made him feel special (as you would do in that situation I guess) .
Problem was....he was busted the second I came and picked him up from school and had Libby (our dog) in the car with me. I will never forget his face as I pulled in. He was busted and he knew it. I made him write out a formal apology to everyone who had prayed for him.

So really it's just another notch in the belt of the boy who cried wolf.

The lesson here...these things always come back to bite you in the end.

Sometimes with the teeth of a dead dog :)

Recovering from the funk.

No I'm not pulling myself together after a night with Parliment. (2%)




But instead I have been recovering from this mutant strain of yuck that has somehow penetrated my freakish illness shield. You see, I don't get sick. Ever. Like I haven't even had so much as a sniffle for probably over a year. I only get really sick about once every 3 or 4 years. I'm weird like that.


So now I am on the mend from this funk.


Not to be confused with this funk....Ok I'll stop now.

Bug's 7th birthday party

So today we had Bug's official birthday party. His real birthday was earlier this week, but it fell on a school day. So we just had to wait it out until the weekend. And boy are we glad we did! It was a beautiful day!! It was in the high 70's. A perfect day to hang out in a park.

We just pulled up some picnic tables and got some pizza and chips. Boom! Instant party!

It was a lot of fun. Bug had about 7 or 8 of his friends from school (and their parents) come so we had a pretty good turn out.

We pretty much just filled them up with cake and turned them loose in the playground. Aside from a couple water fights that broke out, everyone did a really good job playing together and enjoying the day.

He ended up getting exactly what he wanted (which was science stuff) so that made for a great birthday. The big gift of the afternoon though by far was the prized books about the universe with lots of pictures (from Nana)and a real life microscope (from Grandma and Grandpa). Then we topped it off with a family member ship to OMSI. (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry)

A good time was had by all! Happy Birthday Bug!!

Freeze!!!

Ok so I am getting the itch to get some scrap booking done and I am going through some old pictures to have printed up and stumbled onto this.

This was like 2 years ago, but still pretty funny.

This is what happens when you watch the show COPS a lot. I thought Bug would get an appreciation for law enforcement. I guess it worked only to find him cuffing his sister in the back yard over the sandbox. I was laughing so hard when I took this picture I could barely hold the camera still.

Finally!!!

Finally spring has arrived!! It took longer than I had liked, but it's here.

Today we hit almost 70 degrees. So after dinner we all headed out front. Bug and the Rock star grabbed their baseball mitts and played catch. Peanut and I were working the tricycle and Sunshine decided she was going to dig to China or something. She just started digging. Luckily I stopped her before she got too out of control.

Before long we all decided that it was a perfect night for Popsicles. Luckily I had some on hand. So it was a great end to a great day.

This never gets old.

I know it's sort of mean to laugh at my kids struggle with the ordinary. But some days laughing about it is all that gets me through.

I could sit all day and watch young children struggle to stay on a hammock. In my warped little mind it never gets old and it's always good for a laugh.

We need some Benny Hill music playing in the background and we would be set.

Poor Sunshine wrestled with that dumb thing for about 15 minutes. But she didn't give up no matter how many (and it was many) times it bucked her off.

I just love this!!!

I love that they take an every day schlumpadinka like (lets face it) you and me and make her look like this. I guess we all have this in us, some of us just need a little more photoshop than others :)

Sort of makes you look at what we see as beautiful differently eh?

Happ-it-y Birthday to you!!!

Today is Bug's 7th birthday. It sucks because he can't have cake. He has food allergies and doesn't tolerate a number of things. But his biggest problem foods are refined white sugar, chocolate and most colors of food coloring. So that pretty much cuts out any cake type thing that I can come up with.

So instead of cake here, he has a homemade cranberry orange muffin. It's sort of a bummer in times like this, but it is what it is. He knows what it does to him if he eats that junk, so he does a pretty good job policing himself.

Tonight we are just having a dinner here at home and giving him his present. His party is this weekend in a big park. He invited all of his friends from school, so it should be a lot of fun.

Haircuts and watercolors

Just another day in paradise for me. My typical day consists of a whole lot of silly trivial tasks. All of which rarely have and end product.

Today I did 13 loads of laundry
-washed, dried, folded and put away

cleaned 2 bathrooms,

washed 2 loads of dishes,

vacumed the family room twice,

set up a V-smile 3 different times,

brushed 4 sets of teeth (including my own),

sent 30 cookies to school with Bug,

killed 30 minutes driving around so that Sunshine could get a longer nap,

and

sent and received about 20 different ICQ messages.

But the only 2 things out of any of that was Sunshine wanted to do some "intense" painting. Her words.

Then I also had to give Peanut a haircut.

* Notice the before and after pictures.


So basically this is the only proof that I did anything today. No wonder people get down on stay at home moms :) I may as well have spent the day eating bon-bons. Because frankly my house is already thrashed again and my laundry hamper is filling up fast.

Again.

T-ball starts up!!

So I don't really have a whole lot to say about this, other that this morning was Bug's first T ball practice.

He's been excited about this for weeks. It's finally here!

Silly string takes another victim

This is where fun and games goes drastically wrong.

1 can of silly string
1 sister willing to do whatever you ask her to
equals
2 burning eyes and a now screaming sister
result
loss of silly string and a reluctant apology.


The lesson here, don't give a 7 year old a can of silly string and turn him loose in the back yard. No matter how innocent it may seem. It turns out that it is intended for external use only.

Duly noted.