Happy Moth Day

Once again, Jeremy and the kids threw me another wonderful Moth Day, or Mother's Day rather. I got to sleep in* while Jeremy and the kids made me a breakfast spread of scrambled eggs, biscuits, and croissants. Strawberries, orange juice, and fresh flowers completed the table. And I was told that Blair, always so sweet and thoughtful, was up and had the table set before anyone else was even out of bed.

* By "sleep in", I mean I got to hang out awake, with an awake Elise, in Elise's room after sleeping the last few hours with her on her floor. It's better than making taming the herd and making breakfast though!

Jeremy arranged my plate for me. When you look at it from the side, you can see that it is anatomically correct with a big belly (and quite perky boobs, I might add--I'll take those, thank you very much). I wonder what he's trying to tell me about those thick thighs though...

After breakfast, I was presented with all the kids' homemade gifts. They were so excited to share them with me.

Reid's gift is a picture of him holding a collage of 25 adjectives and illustrations that describe him. And a question-and-answer sheet about me. My favorite from "The Scoop" is:

• My mom was voted #1 Mom because: she makes the best food. This, despite the fact that he regularly tells me that Ms. Duncan, the school lunch maker, makes mac n cheese better than I...makes grilled ham and cheese sandwiches better than I...makes scrambled eggs better than I...makes everything better than I...I did win corn though, so take THAT Ms. Duncan. (I think you can click on the picture to make it bigger to read the others.)

 

Blair made me a "Flower Job" card. On the back of each flower is a way that she can help me around the house. Her jobs, which she frequently helps me with, are change Elise's diapers, feed the dogs, clean her room, get her sisters dressed for church, and clean the dishes (although "clean" is a relative term when she completes this chore. Lucky for her, sometimes "clean enough" is sufficient for me.)

 


Sloane made a flower basket that says "I can brush my teeth by myself." However, when she was "reading" it to me, she read, "This says, 'Thank you for helping me with the dishes. And thank you for helping me with (inaudible). You are special.'" It was such a sweet moment listening to her come up with that off the top of her head--I got all misty eyed! She also drew me a picture of our family. Well, part of our family--not everyone was lucky enough to be included--but she described what was (as well as what was not) on it: "this is a cross, so you know who that is....this is Daddy, but I didn't write any balls on him....this is Reid...". 






Elise's gift was her cute little handprint made by her teachers at school.















It was then time to get ready for church. Sloane wanted to help me by getting Elise dressed for church. Nice socks and shoes...that are 4 sizes too big.















Later that afternoon, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and headed out to the lake to eat and walk around, followed by an ice cream treat. We weren't able to get a good picture of everyone in one shot--these days we just try to get everyone in the picture. Looking at the camera or smiling are simply a bonus.

This would have been a great picture but Blair was too busy being a pill and refused to get in the shot. She was mad because I wouldn't let her walk on a wobbly pier for fear she would fall in. She's not the most graceful person after all.

If you re-read last year's Mother's Day post, you'll see that we went to the lake then too. However, we were in a severe drought and the lake level was incredibly low...so low that we were able to walk out onto the lake bed and find shells and dead fish! Amazingly, this year, it was back up to normal, as seen in the picture below.

Welcome to Summer Break

Today's the first day of summer!

I was awakened at 5:45am.

Thanks Elise.

Day at the Zoo (the actual zoo, not our house)

Blair's class was going on a field trip to the zoo. Since I still have 2 little ones at home with me, I can't often make it on field trips. However, this was one field trip I could attend, while still taking the girls with me, so off we went. Unfortunately, it appeared to be "National Schools-at-the-Zoo" Day, so it was packed. I've never seen so many school buses at the zoo, or so many people. And because of the crowds, it was not quite as easy as I had hoped or anticipatd it to be to find Blair there. We were able to meet up with her for lunch, but then couldn't find her again until we accidentally ran into her in the bathroom before she boarded the bus to head back to school. So that was disappointing, but everyone still had a good time despite not being together.

This was Elise's first time to go since being aware of her surroundings and what she was seeing. She was completely awestruck by the rhinos, giraffes, and apes. She went right up to the fence with big giggles and "ohhhhhh!"s. It was cute to see her so excited.

 

Sloane wanted to see the frogs first, so we headed to the reptile house. While there, Elise kept holding her arms out wide saying, "Hug? Hug?" No, you can't give the snakes a hug.

The only time we got to spend with Blair.

This ape was such a ham. He sat there the whole time interacting with the kids. At one point, I thought he was trying to give someone a kiss through the glass, but on second glance, he may have just been eating a bug. Not quite as sweet.

They now have a deck where you can feed the giraffes. They come right up, lean over the fence and get so close to their feeders!

See the baby! So cute! I was surprised at the number of new zoo residents on this visit- -a new giraffe, elephant, okapi, chimp, tigers.

 

I usually don't visit the tigers because they're always so hard to find in their habitat. But on this visit, they were right out in the open, wandering around and hanging out.

Berd's birds

We noticed a robin had built a nest above our rain spout by the garage. Eagerly, we waited for something to happen. Finally, one day, it did!!

4/16

4/17

Robins lay one egg a day up to 4 days. The mama bird sits on them for 10-14 days so starting at day 10, we were checking every day.

 

4/27 (13 days after first egg was laid)

 Finally, some cracks! After the initial crack, it takes about 24 hours for the babies to fully hatch.

4/28

 Happy Birthday birdies! ...Or, uh, furry pieces of raw chicken? 

4/29 (2 days after beginning to hatch) 

4/30 (3 days old)

They're already getting bigger and more defined. Check out those eyes!

5/02 (5 days old)

Bigger and more feathers!

 

5/03 (6 days old)

On this day, we actually got to witness the mama come back to her nest with a long worm in her beak, and the babies open up wide. But I got so excited and shrieked that I scared her away.

5/05 (8 days old)

My goodness they grow fast.

5/08 (11 days old)

Already overflowing from the nest. 

5/09

I guess this is where the term "empty nest" comes from.

It's been 4 months. That must mean...

Well, I haven't posted in 4 months so you know what that must mean...yep, pregnant again! When that fatigue hits, I can barely get the kids in bed before I'm falling asleep on the couch, much less get on the computer. Well, and it didn't help that our computer crashed and we were without it for a couple months. But now that I think I see a little bit of light coming over the fatigue-horizon, I seem to sometimes have a little bit more energy. So here's to seeing if I can start posting again!

A week of Days

Last week was Red Ribbon Week at the kids’ school, so the theme of the week was Say No to Drugs. Each day highlighted the message with a fun dress-up activity.

Monday: Pajama Day “Don’t let drugs destroy your dreams.”

 

Tuesday: Hippie Day “There’s nothing peaceful about drugs.”

Blair almost didn’t dress up because she was so worried about “looking silly.” Her outfit ended up being her normal clothes that she wears all the time, with the hippie addition of a flower in her hair. So I guess she “looks silly” every day? Silly girl.

 

Wednesday: Silly Hat Day “Put a lid on drugs”

 

Thursday: Nerd Day “Be smart, don’t start”

(Blair didn’t want to “look silly” so she didn’t dress up.)

Sloane and Elise had their Halloween parties at school on Thursday, so they got to dress up too. Elise’s unicorn costume was sent to us by my good friend Jill (thanks again!). She looked so cute in it, so I was happy that she didn’t try taking the hood off, although she did have a little trouble walking in it since the head was top-heavy. :) Sloane dressed as Sloane—which means she wore exactly what SHE wanted to wear…yellow and blue dress, black pants, pink shoes, and a green striped sweater.

 

Friday: Crazy Clothes Day “Don’t be crazy, don’t do drugs.”

Reid received this shirt for Christmas last year. I thought it was cute and thought he would like it, but he refused to wear it, saying it was too crazy. So I pulled it out for Crazy Day this year. After school, I asked if his shirt was really all that crazy, and he finally admitted it was not. (aha, I won!) Blair, as you can guess, didn’t want to look too crazy so she wore this dress. When I asked her why she didn’t dress crazy, she replied, “Hel-looo, I’m wearing a polk-a-dot dress with pajama pants and brown shoes and there’s no brown in my dress. That is crazy!” Well, excuuuse me!

 

Monday: Halloween Costumes “Don’t let drugs disguise you.”

Blair was originally going to be Minnie Mouse or Wonder Woman for school, but after the Halloween Festival at our church, to which she wore Cinderella at the last minute, she decided to wear the same dress to school too.

Oh, and to back track a few days, their Fall Program at school was 80s theme so we had to come up with 80s outfits for them. This outfit, accompanied with a side ponytail, is the most Blair would wear because, and I hate to sound like a broken record, she didn’t want to look too crazy. (Funny how she is so concerned with looking silly or crazy, yet there are some days where she doesn’t match a bit, and when I try to tell her she looks silly, she refuses to believe me.) Reid wore Jeremy’s Hammer pants from his high school days. Yes… I’m sad to say my husband actually wore those things out of the house! In fact, at one point in the evening, Reid said, “I found this paper in the pocket” and handed it to us. It was a movie ticket stub from a showing of Misery in 1990! Talk about a blast from the past.