Well, today was the first day that's not quite gone as well as I'd have liked.  I am not profecient in gymnastics, and the kids, while flexible, are just kids.  So we mainly watched a bunch of YouTube bits on different floor exercises & some on training & tried out a few.  We discussed the Olympics, and talked about where we might find the equipment we'd need to finish out the Cub Scout Belt Loop & Pin for free (we don't belong to a gym).  And that was that.  We spent the rest of the day doing housework, playing in the yard, swimming, etc.  Finished up the day with an episode of Doctor Who (still Patrick Troughton, at this point.)

:)

For our Celebrate the Senses Day, we did a whole bunch of stuff.

First we did a Smelling Test. I put sweet pickle juice, onion powder, vanilla, dill pickle juice, celery seed, smoked salt, maraschino cherry juice, tangerine juice, & cinnamon on cotton balls in little containers and had the kids smell them one by one and tell me what they thought they were. Ben said funny things like "I don't even want to know!" on the smoked salt and "It smells like an ingredient" on the vanilla & tangerines (we use them in baking). David (sadly, not on the chart) said the smoked salt smelled "like daddy's beans." Greg, when he didn't like something, wouldn't name it, instead saying things like "stinky" and "bad."



Then we did a Hearing Test. I went in the bedroom with a big stack of instruments, closed the door, and played them one by one and made them guess which one I was playing. They looooved this one. Afterward they locked me out and played me sounds and made me guess. :)



We did a couple worksheets, but they're getting a bit boring to post, so I'm leaving them out.

We read a feel-and-learn book, a look-and-find book, and then most of a book about the human body. They really loved that last one. We spent the rest of the day talking about how our bodies work and when Nick came home they explained it all to him. It was so cute (although talking about eyeballs at dinner? mm).



----------------
Now playing: Veggie Tales - VeggieTales Theme Song
via FoxyTunes

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

I had my doctor's appointment this morning, which took most of the morning, so we didn't do as much today.

One thing we did do was act out the Three Little Pigs, with shredded paper, sticks, & legos. We built houses & then huffed, puffed, & blowed the houses down. That was fun.


We also made paper plate plum pies and learned the accompanying poem about Little Jack Horner. Then we decorated three sets of mittens for the kittens that lost them (we tried to sting them up, but they kept falling down)



And we read all the nursery rhymes out of these two books from my childhood & compared the illustrations where the poems overlapped.

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

I lied. It's summer, and therefore there's bound to be interesting things to blog. More interesting than the school year, at least. I don't know. Maybe it's just that it is soooo much easier when I only have two of three kids to get ready in the morning. Or rather, I have the two kids least likely to fight. David & Ben fight. Greg & Ben fight. But David & Greg do not fight. Not because Ben is a fighter (he's really the most peaceful of the three), but because the other two see him as competition, him being the closet one in age to each of him. Poor middle kid.



Today was Love Day. Or really Loving Day, but I didn't know how to reasonably explain to a 5-year-old and 2-year-old that at some point in our country's past that people couldn't marry someone they loved if that person had different colored skin. Well, nothing besides "A whole lot of people were stupid all at once." So we made it like an alternative valentine's day.

Until Ben got there, we mostly played outside. Greg loves to jump on the trampoline and to twisty-swing, so we did a lot of that. Then we listened to love songs & got the Lovely Ladybugs started while we waited for Ben to show up. He was later than expected, but he and his Nana came bearing lunch, so I can't be upset about that. :) We shared two kids meals amongst the three of us fairly well, then we wrote a few love notes to people & did a "which doesn't belong" worksheet.



Greg actually napped today, which was fabulous & unexpected. I got the kitchen cleaned up and half the laundry done while Ben played Wii Sports & some Dora computer game (which, after 3 days away from any screen time, was happy for him).

We picked David up from scout camp. He did archery today & made an Indian drum & painted a boot & a rock & some other things that he's not mentioning, I'm sure. Boy stuff. You know. Tomorrow his den will lead opening ceremonies, which will be exciting for him. He likes to do skits & things.

Afterward we had some snacks & treated David's sunburn (forgot the sunscreen today). Then the kids watched a bit of tv & we read "love" stories.

As usual, there are more photos on flickr.com (you can click on the above to see them bigger).

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

A desktop wallpaper meme from telophase
1. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper on their LiveJournal. [Only if you want!]
2. Explain in several sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
3. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

Today was our first non-weekend day of our summer vacation. It's started off pretty well, despite the ongoing lack of the letter v on my keyboard (and the exclamation point). The kids were delivered to me just in time for me to turn them around and take them back out the door & into the van.

It was David's first day at cub scout day camp. Their theme this year is Texas. He has a really good den leader (not even a bit frazzled after a whole day of chaos. Must get pointers from her) and likes most of the kids in his den (somehow there's this one boy he's been trapped with since pre-school eerywhere he goes. *sigh*). His art project apparently did not go well (something about the wrong stuff mixed with the wrong directions), but he made a pretty cool leather flag instead, so we're happy all 'round.


Ben is still at his Nana's house for his "extra" day of Nana time (like David got earlier this year). He's having fun, he says, and will be with me again after another sleep. :)

So Greg and I embarked upon the Summer of Themes alone today. It was "Log Cabin Day" and so we did log cabin-y things. We measured out the approximate length & width of a real old fashioned cabin outside.

We made a log cabin out of two jello boxes, some peanut butter, and white & dark chocolate (it called for pretzels & crackers, but I had none).



We colored cabin coloring sheets. We read books about people who lived in cabins ("In Our Time" "Little House in the Big Woods" & something about Abe Lincoln). We built some not entirely successful cabins out of Lincoln Logs.

Then it was time to pick up David, so we gave up for the day. Everyone was really tired, so we came back to the house, ate some jello & watched some tv (I am blogging, but they're watching it). :)

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

Me: "I don't want to wear shoes today."
Ben: "You have to."
Me: "Why?"
Ben: "You made me wear them yesterday."
Me: "Oh, I see your point."
Ben: "Plus it's God's law: you must wear shoes outside."
Me: "I don't think God made a law like that. People back in Jesus' time didn't wear shoes."
(I try to put Greg's shoes on him)
Greg: "Yuck. God shoes. No wear!!!"

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

Ben: "Why do I always have to put on my socks?"
Me: "They're your feet."
Ben: "No, they're not!! They're GOD'S. He made them."
Me: "I don't think God will put on your socks for you."

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="240" caption="David's 8th Birthday - Click the photo to get to the photoset on flickr."][/caption]

We had a Star Wars Party for David's 8th Birthday on Sunday. For the official party portions, we made lightsabers out of pool noodles & duct tape, took the Jedi Oath, had dueling lessons, had blaster shooting lessons, talked about Jedi responsibities & hunted Droid Debris, then ate cake. We also hunted mini Death Stars (those evil spiky tree balls) before the party (with the kids that got there way early or had spent the night) and ran around yelling & jumping on the trampoline. Everyone had a great time, even the girls that spilled red cool-aid all over themselves. :)

I've become a Twitter/Facebook zombie and haven't had a thought of blogging lately. Ok, so maybe a thought...or two. But nothing solid, really.

The thing of it is, that I don't miss the blogging right now. I tweet several times daily (practically) and been doing my crazy memes on Facebook and that's really all I've got brain for lately. We've been busy, busy, busy and most days I'm too tired to blog by the time I've gotten a moment to do so. In fact, I don't actually have a moment right now. I'm concurrently listening to a David Tennant interview, having a lightsaber duel with my youngest, and typing left-handed.

Nothing big & exciting is going on. Not anything to speak of, really. We're working on random little house projects (new lights practically everywhere) and the gardens (because really, it's not just one garden, it's four or five little ones) and I'm always trying to catch up on laundry. When we're not doing that, we're busy with family dinners & playdates. I've been reading, but not keeping up with Good Reads. I should write a list. Umm. Sure. I've been organizing my photos & printing out old journal entries for scrapbooking. Yeah, terribly exciting.

So, if you're still interested in keeping track of me, I recommend finding me on Facebook or Twitter. Email me awamiba at gmail dot com and I'll tell you where to look.

TTFN,
Lisa

Here's how last week went: On Monday I got a phone call asking if I could watch a friends kid for a couple days, as her aunt had died. I said sure, but by Tuesday morning plans had changed and I was only getting him for one afternoon. The kids and I spent all that day making crafts for Tuesday, which was St. Patrick's Day, and my mom came up and we had a party for the kids.

Wednesday was mom's group. I brought the previously mentioned kid home with us and he was a holy terror. Tornadoes have left less mess in their wakes. I managed to cut open my thumb quite badly with a paring knife while watching the destruction. After dropping him off at his aunts house, I had a heart-to-heart with her about what might be his problem (I did not bring up this topic of conversation, actually, I was willing to let his misdeeds go as a sort of first-time-away-from-home-without-relatives sort of experience.).

Thursday was the Storybook Character Parade at David's school. He dressed as Darth Vader and his two good friends dressed as Jingo Fett and Count Dooku. I was one of three mom's (out of a possible 250ish) to attend. My mom came with and we made sure to compliment each and every child that went past us (which wasn't hard, as they paraded past us about five times). They were all so cute! Afterwards we had brunch at The Diner, which none of us had been to before. We were waited upon by my neighbor's child (who I had driven to work at the mall just a few months ago; apparently he's switched jobs). Took kids home; 45 minutes later my college roommate arrived with her youngest child in tow (which was a surprise, as it was supposed to be a child-free event). We took the kids to the park and let them run around until it was time to get David from school. Then we went back to my house and everyone played outside until Nick came home. Then Kay and I left, running around town trying to find something fun to do. Which was hard. All the nifty shops close at 6 and all the places with live music don't get started until 9 and we had a 9pm curfew (she was driving home that night). We ended up eating at this weird place where no one smiled and going to the mall afterwards to harass the Twilight fans at Hot Topic.

Friday we ran errands. Lots and lots of errands. Recycle center, produce stand, health food store, grocery store, etc. That evening we had a banquet for cub scouts. David won a trophy for his little box car. He was really happy about that.

Saturday we got up and drove out to Nick's folks house. I moved on shortly thereafter to help Nick's mom's school drama teacher with sewing costumes for Macbeth. I was supposed to be the helper rather than the experienced person there, but the other lady didn't turn up, so I mainly sewed a few hems and put together a few tunics. Nick helped his mom put food together for the baptism that was happening later in the day. The kids went out to chase the calves. After they left for church I went out to the local thrift store (theirs is much better than mine) and purchased some brand-new, original-tags-still-on clothing for all four boys, 22 items in all for $37. Yay me! (We're talking Ralph Lauren & Old Navy & Gap brands here). Saturday night was Nick's baptism. We had it at someone's house, in their hot tub. Nick and two other people we know were baptised and there were lots of family and friends and kiddos around. It was a really great night!

Sunday was finally a quieter day for us. Ben and I went to church alone (Greg was not entirely well & David was at his Nana's house). Then we worked on laundry & rearranging the smaller kids room. Nick worked on the yard; we're tilling all the weeds & putting in grass seed (and by "we" I mean "he") We got some bad news and then some more as the day went on. My 92-year-old grandma is having a biopsy. My dad's first cousin fell through the ice in Lake Superior and was in there for 45 minutes before he was rescued. Nick's parents eldest dog died (while David was there). Nick went to men's leadership club for the evening & I let the younger kids watch a movie while I rearranged David's room (& cleaned under his bed).

And now it's Monday again. My friend SJ & her daughter MJ came over for a coffee/playdate/visit. We ate cranberry-lemon muffins (made with yogurt; adapted from a Joy of Cooking recipe). MJ & Greg took turns stealing stuff from each other while we mama's kept saying "now you've got to share..." Ben mainly built a train track for the entire two hours they were here. I think I'm ready to go collapse now.

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

Today started at 3:30am for me and Greg, who really thought that it was morning already. We tried to sleep in my bed for about half an hour, but were keeping Nick up, and so went off to the couch to snuggle somewhere that his wiggly-self wouldn't bother someone that had to go to a paying job that day. By 4:30am we gave up and turned on the TV and watched infomercials. At 5am, Greg accidentally head-butted me in the glasses and my nose swelled up. I got really dizzy. About this time Ben came out and became convinced that I did not love him, as I was not bothering to put my ice pack down and snuggle him right away.

Eventually the morning moved on and I made a hot breakfast. I got distracted by the IM'er for a bit and when I turned back around I found that the children had eaten every last bit of breakfast (two 9 inch puffy oven apple pancakes, including cut off burnt bits) by themselves. Greg was drinking my coffee with a spoon. It was not pleasant.

A bit later we discovered an inchworm in the middle of the kitchen. By "we" I mean "me" and by "discovered" I mean "narrowly missed stepping on, thereby crashing into the wall with the already hurt shoulder." We scooped him up and put him outside the front door (because there was a dead rat outside the back door). This will be important later.

The playdate at DSP having been cancelled due to Weather, there was various and sundry watching of science shows on TV and playing of science games on the computer. Nick came home for lunch and I escaped into my book, having declared the day officially Not Worth Doing.

Once lunch was over and everyone had a second set of clothes on (I swear I don't understand why they must change clothes so often!), we left for the grocery. The earthworm was already on its way elsewhere. We attempted to buy things that had come out in yesterdays circular, but most of those things were already sold out. Yay. Came home and stepped directly onto the inchworm, which was oddly right back in front of the doorway. Smushed earthworm is not a pretty sight.

Put away the groceries. Got out the science kit. Played with MagicDrySand. Made InstantSnow. Started RainbowGrowCrystals. (InstantSnow & GrowCrystals are made of the stuff inside diapers.)Told kids that I was going to die if I had to interact with them any more for a while & sent them to their rooms. Went to start laundry & discovered wetness on floor. Grabbed the closest paper towel, the one I'd set out in case of scientific emergency, and went to work cleaning up the water. Only I wasn't cleaning up the water, I was making InstantSnow or GrowCrystals right there on my formerly glittery floor (Craft day was yesterday. We used up an entire bottle of glitter. For reference, know that we've only managed 1/4 of the bottle in 4 years so far).

So remember that I put the kids in their room? Remember that InstantSnow & GrowCrystals are made of the stuff inside diapers? Remember that the kids are allowed sippy cups of water anywhere in the house? Yeah. You do the math. (If you came up with NakedBaby, you'd be right!)

I've only been up 12 hours now, but I want to go to bed now. Please?

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

On Saturday I took enormous amounts of pain reliever and spent the day scrapbooking with my friend BB. We sent our husbands & kids to the park. It was freezing cold, so they didn't last there very long. Oh well.

What fascinated me was the vast difference between our scrapping styles. We both end up with similar end products, but the time we take and the order we do things is so different. BB thinks ahead and scraps chronologically. She has a book of layouts for 3,4,5, etc photos and she checks those out to see what one she might want to use. She has all her old scrapping magazines in binders and can cross reference ideas in them. She lays out all her supplies orderly, cuts all her photos, cuts her papers, uses a ruler to measure things. She spends ages looking at fonts and printing out just the right phrases. Eventually, after hours of solid work, she produces a lovely layout.

Me, on the other hand, I don't use pre-made layouts. Not usually. I get the magazines, flip through them, and then they generally sit there until the end of eternity. I scrapbook what I feel like doing on the day I'm doing it. I pre-choose photos and print out only the ones I want, then look at them to see what I might need, background wise. Then I dig through my stash, find something vaguely appropriate, and use it. I usually leave my photos in rectangles, or maybe I'll do a circle if the picture calls for it. Then I glue the photos down, make a title (usually out of stickers or by hand) and move onto the next layout. A 2 page layout will take about 25 minutes up until this point. A few days or weeks later, I'll come back to them (by then I'm done being tired of staring at them) and go back and add extras (I think my brain has to perculate the ideas for that long).

I drive BB crazy. Completely crazy. Me, on the other hand? Fascinated to see an orderly mind at work. :)

(Would anyone be interested in seeing photos of finished pages? I don't usually post them because I'm not sure if anyone's interested.)

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

...you thought I was just joking about this, didn't you. Well, not so much.



Here are 54 photos from my one week trip to Canada in 1991. Some of them are even labeled! Whee!



Here's the link to them.

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

Several things to talk about today, in no particular order, as I am sick and not to be held responsible for my weirdness.

1) Nick's great-uncle Buck died this week. He and his mom and his sister drove to Pensacola this morning to go to the funeral and hang out with family. I sent Nick with the camera. He has been charged with photographing relatives that we have no photos of. (He also was sent with a pair of earrings I picked up for his sister that I thought might match the pair she lost a while back, winter photos of the kids for his mom & sister, and spare photos of our whole family for any relative that might want one.) We'll see how that goes.

2) Me, Ben, and Greg are all plaguey at the moment. Cough, congestion, sore throat, possible ear ache (Greg's been pulling his ear this morning). Of course we interacted with several families yesterday and Ben went to MDO, so we're spreading it. Yay, Typhoid Marys! (We probably got it at mom's group on Wednesday though, and since there's lots of overlap between those groups, we don't feel as bad, really)

3) Comfort food. We've got it and we're not afraid to eat it.

4) We also received about a hundred dollars worth of organizational storage boxes (and some curtains and an over-the-door shoe rack) for free this morning. Freecycle rocks! Also being a good freecycler rocks. I keep up with people I trade with and if we ever discover extras that were left out of boxes or extras not intended for boxes that came to us, we're good about calling/emailing back and rectifying the situation. Which is how we got all the good stuff this morning. We had a cable they needed and we agreed to take everything in her trunk so she didn't need to make multiple stops. I don't know what I'm going to do with lavender curtains, but I'm totally excited about the storage stuff!

5) We had to skip the super-fun marriage conference we were supposed to go to tonight. :( But we'd have had to anyways since I'm sick.

6) There is no #6.

7) We're also not getting rid of Chloe this weekend. Nick's parents were going to take her for a while, train her up, wait out her puppy-ish-ness, and then give her back to us sometime in the future. Since his mom is in Florida with him at the moment and his dad is out buying calves (did I mention they're going to raise calves? yeah. I have no words), the dog stays with me. So I'm home alone with 3 kids, 1 cat, 1 fish, and 1 dog all while sick. Hence #3.

8) Cub scouts touring the hospital today. Nick was supposed to take them. He tried to get another father involved, but we never heard back from him, so I guess I have to do it. Hence #3, again.

9) Saw the new doctor yesterday morning, regardless of the old doctor not having sent my medical file over yet. The new guy was kind of wary of me, since I was so quickly changing doctors, but by the end of the appointment he was very pleasant. The whole staff was very pleasant, which made for a nice change. The new doctor told me that my RA is very well managed, in his opinion, and that I am actually really well off, physically. So we're staying the course with the medication. He told me that I could go ahead and eat a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet and that would be good for my RA. I can also do low-impact aerobics twice a week and very light weight training a couple days a week as well (like with 1 and 2 pound weights). Walking and swimming and daily stretching exercises. You know, everything the Arthritis Foundation suggests, but that my last doctor said wouldn't really help me any (but I've been doing anyways because I'm stubborn like that). So I'm pleased to hear that what I've been doing has been helping me and is good for me after all.

10) apparently the wordpress/LJ crossposter has been posting my drafts lately. So if you see some weird, half-way there post that makes no sense or is offensively something bizarre, just ignore it. I can't figure out how to get it to NOT post the drafts yet. *sigh*

11) Also this says that it saved my draft at 5:47 pm and edited it at 12:46pm, neither of which times it currently happens to be. I am not a time-traveling blogger, sadly. That would be awesome, though.

12) Tomorrow I'll post the really cool photos I found from my trip to canada in 1991. Why? Cause they were nifty. And I have no idea what the buildings were anymore. And some of you might like to help out with that. Maybe. Who knows. :)

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

I have a several small projects I'm working on lately. One is scanning the photos, which is going much faster now that I've installed gimp on my computer to edit them with. I can scan five photos at a time and dissassemble them while the next batch is scanning and it still goes faster than scanning one at a time (my scanning computer runs really really slowly).

Another project is needlework/beading. The first couple I did last month. They were just straight counted cross-stitch. When I get done finishing them, one will be an ornament shaped one and the other will be framed with fabric and made into a wall hanging.





I picked up about 9 little snowflake beadwork patterns for about a dollar apiece at an after-Christmas sale. Several of them are the same one, but I'm excited about it nonetheless. Here's how far I am on#1:



My other bit of project-ness was the eight bracelets I made for my ladies at mom's group. (I made seven identical ones at Christmas-time for the other group but did not take pictures of them.) This set was made from my bead stash, so each one is different from the others, except for the little heart-shaped clasp each of them has.




Last, but not least, I've been critiquing a few manuscripts for people. My best friend finally sent me her 350 pages of broken story, someone off my LJ friends list sent me 60 pages of her should-I-even-try-to-make-this-work thing, and my mom has been reading me her novel over the phone (she eventually sends me copies of it, but first comes the reading).

So life is never ever boring here. :)

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.

I was all excited last week because I got accepted at a new rheumatologists office and even got an appointment for this week. I called my old doctor's office and asked for a transfer of files and then sat around to wait for the next step in the process...which didn't happen until today. Because, of course, the reason I am leaving the last doctor's office is paperwork, it's taking them ages to get to mine. Won't be done until after the time of my appointment with the new doctor, despite everything at the old office being electronic records now.

GRRRRR.

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net.