Our fingers are blue...

Today was the first day of blueberry picking season that was not covered in a HEAT ADVISORY, so we took advantage of the weather early this morning!

Usually we struggle to get one gallon before the kids get too cranky, but the crop is wonderful this year, and we easily picked TWO, and ate our fill, besides! I just LOVE this tradition, and look forward to it all winter and spring!

We'll freeze one for smoothies and yogurt and pancakes, and inhale the other by the weekend!

And now he is SIX...

Today is the funnyboy's birthday, sniff. sniff.

Before the sun came up, Daddy took him for his birthday breakfast at IHOP. When he came back he crawled into bed with me and told me he had a huge chocolate face for breakfast with whipped cream. Then he asked if he was too old to snuggle. NEVER.

I made him brownies all fancy with the powdered sugar sprinkled on top of the chocolate mountain we made out of them to send to his kindergarten class. We parked and the others waited while I walked him in with his treasure, and I started to cry when I kissed him bye!! He is so big, and I love the man he is in the making, but it is tough on a momma, too!

Ninnie will be picking him up from school for his birthday lunch. Have fun with that, Ninnie. I hear that he is going to ask to go to dales and get fried pickles. He is one of a kind.

Saturday night will be the million boy sleepover. Pray for us!

What is this??

Apparently part of mothering male children is finding strange things in your freezer.

Today we found a bowl of frozen brown gray icemuck, that we have now successfully identified after several rounds of "What is this?" and boy laughter. They are very creative. I admit that it has never before occurred to me that the water bowl sitting beside your paint tray could be frozen. It is not a pretty looking sight.

Last week Isaac conducted his favorite experiment with ice cubes and salt, but then froze the briny results, and for days I wondered what on earth Jeff had set in the freezer!!

Maybe I should give him his own shelf!

kaplink, kaplank, kaplunk!!

Last week we read Blueberries for Sal, the Blueberry Mouse, and Blueberries for the queen, and today we finally went blueberry picking!!

We got a ride on an atv out to the current picking spot, an racked up 3/4 of a gallon in about 1/2 an hour. Then the heat got to most of us, and a little rebellious attitude in one child got contagious!! It took another half hour to help them all get their hearts back in the right places and finish picking the gallon!!


Alyza probably picked a quarter of the blueberries all by herself, serious as can be.

After that she got overheated, took off her shirt and pants, sat down on an overturned bucket and ate a whole bunch of blueberries. That made the boys a little crazy, and I had to convince them that I was outpicking what she was eating. They were getting worried that we would never fill a whole bucket and go home to the air conditioning.

It wasn't just them, I got so hot I started to get pretty nauseas, too. It was fun, and if we still have another picking day without a HEAT ADVISORY, I'll go pick another gallon to freeze for winter coffee cakes, smoothies, and cereal! We were out of there by 10:30, but the heat was so intense that it has pretty well shot our day, and the kids are cranky!!

in which nothing and much happened...

I love the things that come out of the mouths of mothers everywhere. Things you simply should not have to say. Words that should not, in a sane world, be put in the same sentence.

"...So who glued the rocks to the patio?"

I should not have to ask. It sounds absurd once it comes out of my mouth, and indeed, I know the answer. But the why is always entertaining, even though for safety reasons I MUST NOT SMILE.

What things have you had to say lately?

Hopping on to Easter...

This year we are keeping our regular Easter traditions and adding a new one.

Monday, the boys and I gathered rocks and limbs and made an Easter tree. Each day we are doing a few minutes of additional bible reading and creating an ornament. I'll post pictures later this week, as we only have two right now!!

We are just copying some corresponding illustrations from Trystan's bible, pasting them on to card stock and hanging them with ribbon. If all goes as planned we will hang an ornament every day this week. On Easter Sunday we put all of the kids' goodies in one basket and hide it. Then we tie yarn to it and trail it all over the house. Around door knobs, under furniture, through the refrigerator handles.... every year we make it a little more complicated. The kids have the most fun searching for their basket!!

This year I bought some Easter Egg ornaments (we don't usually do candy eggs, the kids get their quota of candy from Ninnie on Easter!) too, and we are going to hide them and let them decorate the easter tree with them. It's just a gaggle of sticks in a pitcher filled with rocks, but He makes all things new, doesn't He?

Winter is Melting Away

We had a late season snow this weekend after a nice warm week. It was a nice treat here at the end of winter, but I am looking forward to the 70's that are forecast for later this week! We are hoping that this late winter weather didn't affect all of the crops here again this year. We are really looking forward to blueberry picking this summer and would hate to hear that the crop has been lost!

You can see the pictures of the snow resting on all of the spring flowers on our pear tree. That was the scene all over town. Almost all of the spring flowering trees were in bloom and covered in snow at the same time. It was beautiful.



The kids had fun playing in the snow for very brief periods of time. Alyza could only stand it for about 15 minutes at a time; her hands would get cold through her mittens. She liked it this year though, which was a welcome change from the snow of '08. Last winter she was quite certain that the white death had fallen upon us and all the earth was ruined. She wound up sitting in her swing bundled up like an eskimo looking at all of us with a sad and slightly fearful expression. What a difference a year makes!! She made snowball after snowball and came and dropped them on daddy's feet!

We had some friends over to play Wii that evening and even they couldn't help going out to make snow balls !! Isaac is getting better and better in the aim department, and he made more snowballs this weekend than I've seen him make in all of his eight years. He was a really good sport about getting smacked, too. You can tell from the photos how many times he got hit!! We made him go warm up in the shower when he came in!!



Trystan was spending the night at Ninnie's house so we didn't get to play in it with him until the next day. But here's a pic of all three of them in it the last time it snowed.












The kids enjoyed studying the snowflakes up close with magnifying glasses on dark socks I put on their hands. (that one was a surprise snow that only lasted a few hours) I'm hoping to do more nature study this year if I can get the kids excited in that subject. The new trampoline they got for Christmas has helped alot to get them outdoors more, and we have enjoyed it every day the weather has allowed!!


Don't think for a minute that we are in a deepfreeze here!! In just two more days the weather will be in the mid 70's, and just a few short weeks after that we'll likely be wearing shorts and running the air conditioner again!! This snow was just in honor of my Mom's birthday this week. She grew up in South Dakota and every year on her birthday in the first week of March there was a blizzard. Her brother called her to joke about it this weekend. No matter how far away she moves she still gets her birthday snow!! Happy Birthday, Mom!!

Rank Graduation

Last Friday was Rank Graduation at Top Notch TaeKwonDo. The kids had a blast getting to show off their mad martial arts skills for parents, grandparents and friends. At the end of the ceremony they received their certificates and the grand prize: their new belts. Trystan has graduated to a beginner yellow belt, and Isaac is now sporting an advanced yellow belt!!


The boys were proud to show off the fruits of their hard work to Ninnie, Mr. J.D., Grantee, cousin Julia, Uncle Jake and Aunt Christina, Ms. Latisha, and of course, Mom and Dad. Afterwards we celebrated with chips and dip, pizza, brownies and ice cream.

The highlight of the ceremony for the kids was watching a beginner red/black belt perform a bo staff exhibition. When that staff WHOOSHED through the air dozens of mouths dropped open and dreams of bo staff swooshing began. Isaac ALREADY wanted to learn the bo staff, this just gave him more ammunition. It gave Trystan a little belt envy, because you have to be at least a yellow belt to pursue weapons classes.


Isaac's belt group was called up and were given the opportunity to show off their ChunGee, which is a combination of nineteen moves with varying turns. Memorizing their ChunGees and executing it flawlessly was the test they had to pass to earn the last of the six belt stripes they had to have in order to graduate. Isaac had it memorized weeks in advance of the testing, and really impressed his teacher.
Trystan's class came up and rocked the house with their EEE-YAHS! The littlest white belt class is without a doubt the loudest in the building and they really put on a show. Their pint sized punches and snapkicks will make you cry for their cuteness, and they are really tough. The week after graduation they got to try some board breaking, and they are a tough little crew. They executed their moves with incredible precision accompanied by ear deafening screams, of which you could make out Trystan's voice at the top of the pack. He is probably the loudest white belt in the room, and he always makes his teacher smile with his enthusiasm when he is paying attention. I will never forget when he received his belt. He had to go back up to the teacher 3 times. He forgot his certificate, He forgot to give her five, and he forgot his belt. He just laughed with everybody else and shook his head.
These boys have always been dangerous little warriors. Now they have belts to prove this point.

Oh, and Trystan is made of rubber. Just ask him to do the splits and stretch forward. You will hear his head thump on the floor.