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.

We’ve got orange guts. It must be Halloween!

 

Ahh, the smell of Halloween. There’s nothing like cutting open that pumpkin and smelling that, um…pumpkin smell…

As always, each of the kids got to gut, design and carve their own pumpkin, with a little help from mom and dad.

 

Sloane drew her usual smiley face.

So cute.

Blair used hers as a canvas and covered it in art.

I think there are a couple dogs on there, a few different faces, and even some words.

Reid had to make his just perfect.

It could almost be confused with a fake one from a craft store!

Ooh, spooky!

And Reid carved a tiny little one—we’ll just call that one Elise’s.

And Blair would not let us stop until we roasted pumpkin seeds. We did salted ones and cinnamon and sugar ones. I thought they were disgusting—they don’t really break apart when you chew them, which I’m quite certain has to do with me having no idea how to make them—but she loved them!

Halloween 2001—Part Boo!

So the church Fall Festival is behind us and we're ready for the big night. The big game. Showtime! It feels so good to actually have all the costumes put together and to not be running around the afternoon of Halloween, like a headless chicken, trying to make final arrangements. And what a relief it will be to not have a huge creative mess waiting for me after a busy night of trick or treating. Wait...what'd you say? Jeremy really does want to dress up after all but he still needs a costume? And Blair is changing costume ideas yet again? And how much time do I have to crank this out, get everyone fed, dressed and out the door? A mere two hours? Yep. That’s how we roll at our house...  All kidding aside though, I was super excited that Jeremy was letting me make something for him so he could dress up. The kids really wanted him to, and I know he secretly likes it, although he won't be too loud in admitting it. And, well, Blair finally settled on my old Minnie Mouse costume, so how could I say no to that? And it's not that any of these things are difficult to make; they're just difficult when you're pressed for time and trying to do 20 other things at the same time. In the end, the incessant “Mama! Mama! HEY!” for snacks, cartoons and potty assistance, and my “That’s it, I quit!” proved to be worth it. We had a fun-filled night of trick or treating with friends and everyone was happy with their costume.




Unbeknownst to us, Elise had a "really bad bacterial infection"
(per the dr the following day) so she was not up for a good time.
She was carried the whole night. I tried to put her down at the last house so
at least I could say she T-O-T but she cried even for that.
She did get to eat a sucker though--it was the only thing to keep
her quiet and some!

 

We scrambled to make the ears at the last minute.



We liked the spooky houses.

 

And there were plenty of them in this neighborhood.



Couldn't run from house to house fast enough.



The Three Musketeers--we T-O-T with them every year.



The Three Musketeerettes holding hands down the sidewalk.



What???



I bet you didn't gnome he would dress like this.

Rainbow's little legs couldn't quite keep up with the big kids.



The biggest little people you've ever seen.



Forget what I said about not having a huge creative mess
to clean up after a busy night of T-O-T...