no farms

I like to get on craigslist and look for stuff, jobs, rentals, houses for sale etc.

I was poking around today and Joe commented that he liked one I was looking at.  Then he added, "No farms.  I don't want to live on a farm."

"I like farms.  Why don't you?" I responded.

"Because, you hafta wake up at 4 in the mornin and feed the calves and lambs, turkeys, dogs, an chickens.  I just don't wanna do that!"

Sounds like the boy has some 4-H friends that live on farms and tell him all about it. : )

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I was sitting on the couch getting ready for work when Titus woke up on the other couch. He explained his dream to me:

"We were in a store and Mom was shopping for dancing clothes for Abbie. Me, Uncle Don, Gramma Betty ate a hotdog bun, with a hotdog in it. we had gross greenish juicy stuff to drink. Then we went to Tacobell and ate some tacos. Then we went to the sandwich-giver-outer and ate some sandwichs. Dad, what's the name of the sandwich-giver-outer?"

Dad: "I don't know."

Titus exasperated: "Dad...it goes like this" and he drew an M in the air with his finger.

Dad: "Oh. McDonalds"

Titus: "yes, we ate some McDonald's sandwiches"

Score one for the advertisers.

Well does she?

I was holding Abbey on my lap.  She was wrapped in a blanket from the chest down.  Gideon saw her with me and asked, "Mom, does Abbey have legs?"

not for the faint of stomach.

Silas was puking and yelled, "Mom come here quick."  That is normal.  For some reason Mom is required to stand in the bathroom and watch while children puke in the toilet.


I was in the middle of something giving Abbey tylonel or changing a diaper I don't remember and was taking to long for him.

Between pukes Silas yelled again, "Mom you've got to come see this."

"What is it?" I yelled back trying desperately to finish the job before I could get to him.

"There's something wrong!" 

"What?!"

"The color!"

Now I'm thinking what the heck do we care what color his puke is?  Unless it is bloody or something. 

"What color is it?"  By now I had finished and was just about to the bathroom.

"Brown!"  He yelled back panicked. "I think I might be puking my brains out!"

He was quite relived to know it was just stomach acid.

Just being silly

I don't know why he is holding that paper.

Sayings XXXV

All the sickies were starting to recover and Titus asked, "Mom, will you check the time under my tongue?"

Pigs in a Blanket

Abbey looks skeptical over pigs in a blanket for dinner.

I guess she changed her mind.

Decisions, Decisions

We recently went through a terrible sickness. Everyone was lying on the couch sick, with diarrhea, fevers and vomiting , well, everyone but Gideon.

Mom was busily caring for her brood and Gideon walked up to her and said, "Mom, can I have a drink of water from one of these cups?"

"No Gideon, if you drink after your brothers, you will get sick."

Gideon looked at the living room full of sick boys snuggling under blankets, eating popsicles, and playing computer games. Then he looked down at the cup in his hand...

Six hours later, Gideon was throwing up with the rest of them.

Sayings XXXIV

I don't remember who said these things. We've laughed about them for years.
Samuel or Josiah: "I have a splending headache"

Josiah or Silas: "I'm freezing hot" (he thought "freezing cold" meant very cold, so freezing hot must mean very hot)

Josiah ( I think): "Dad, you have a giant nipple on your neck."

Sayings XXXVIII

GidyBug handed Robin a used kleenex and said, "Here mom, I got sneeze in it."

Sayings XXXVII

Titus: "Open Season is awesome! It has a big displosion!"

Sayings XXXVI

Josiah recently had tonsilloliths (tonsil stones). Robin had a great time removing it. This evening, Luke said he didn't want to get close to Robin's mouth, because "you get tonsilloliths from breathing hot air."

Robin: "Where did you get that idea, Luke?"

Luke: "The internet said so."

stories from long ago

Kelly and I were reminded of a story yesterday.  I was about 8, she was maybe 6. My parents owned a manual Chrysler minivan.  We were parked in a parking lot and my parents were talking to an old friend, a postman.  The postman's truck was parked behind our van and he was leaning against it catching up with my parents.

Kelly was told she could turn on the car to listen to the radio, so she turned the key.  The car, without the clutch and brake on, lurched forward then back, slamming into the postmans truck behind us.  It narrowly missed pinning the postman between our van and his truck.  He had jumped out of the way just in time.

I don't remember any major damage to the vehicles, but I remember thinking of how serious it could have been.

Also when I was maybe fourish I almost choked Kelly to death.  It was an old VW bug with manual windows and door locks.  The windows were hard to unroll and the door locks were just as hard to unlock.

I had somehow rolled the window up with her head outside the car and her body inside the car.  Everytime I tried to unroll it, it wouldn't unroll and I just kept rolling it up tighter and tighter on her neck. Fortunately at the time, Kelly was a fairly loud person, and could yell at just the right pitch to get my mom to come running.  The car doors were locked (of course since Kelly and I had been playing in it) I couldn't get them unlocked to let my mom in to help.  I went back and forth a few times trying to unroll the window (meaning rolling Kelly's neck up tighter) and trying to unlock the door when finally my mom was able to get in and unroll the window.  Kelly didn't choke too badly that day but she did end up with a skinny neck.

Memories...  lots of things are coming to mind. ; )

Kelly can do just about anything she sets her mind to.  And if she doesn't want to do it, and you make her she can make you wish you hadn't.  Someday ask me about the time my mom told her to clean up her own on purpose throw up....

ok  back to the memory - My sister is athletic as an adult.  She can do more pullups than most men, runs marathons, dances, spins, but as a 5th graders she was chubby and ackward.  I loved to ice skate and it must have been my birthday or something and I had convinced my parents to take us ice skating. 

Kelly and ice skating was not a good mix.  She did not want to go.  Eventually someone must have told her to stop being a baby and go ice skate becauseey they had already paid for it.  Out on the ice she went, being drug by my mother the whole time because she couldn't/wouldn't move a single foot by herself.  She had made it almost half way around when she went down and my mother ice skated over her hand.  End of birthday ice skating trip.  Kelly won.  The ice arena had to fill out an incident report.

Near Death? I nearly had a heartattack

I was running some errands today.  I needed to go to the post office, make some copies, drop some stuff off, pick some stuff up etc.  I brought Josiah, Silas, Luke and Sam with me to help me.  One of the errands was picking up the elementary school soccer ball that had been kicked over the fence and then blown 2 blocks down to our house.

We finished all the errands but the copies.  I pulled in near the tree in the picture, put the car in park and ran in to make the copies.

looking east

looking west

I had my copies made paid and then saw a friend.  We chatted for a moment until Sam opened the door and whispered to me, "Mom, the car sort of came out of park."  HeartATTACK!

I ran outside to find the van stopped about a foot in front of the propane tank you can see sticking out at the edge of the white building on the left hand side of the picture.

The inside story:  One of the boys decided to try to make a goal between the front seats with the elementary soccer ball we had picked up.  The ball hit the gear shifter knocked it into reverse and the van started going backward.  Sam realized the car was in reverse jumped out of his seat, read the gear legend on the dashboard (he didn't know which pedal was the brake or how to put it in park), and threw it in park just before it hit anything.

My legs are still weak.

Another small town fact

The elementary school doesn't have a lost and found box.

and...

One of my boys left 15 dollars in cash in full view in his school cubbie for 2 weeks.  Nobody took it.

My Valentines Day Card from Matt

"Dear Sweatie, I love you.  Marrying you was the best decision you ever made for me."

He also gave me a dozen roses and took me to dinner (and Sam's club and Walmart twice.)  We also learned that a VW  bug full of groceries for 10 people is a deterrent to making out in the car.  ; )

Sayings XXXV

Titus "Mom, I'm putting on my new shirtleneck to keep my neck warm."

Also, I have to go to the elementary school and home 4 times today.  I'm really thankful they are only a block away.

Sayings XXXIV

Gideon: "I'm not chewing because I'm not dead."

Sam as I have never seen him before.

Alright - we paid the 5 bucks.  It will be paid for after 99 clicks on the ads in our side bar.  Peter Brown clicked on one for me so I am only out $4.95 at the moment.  Thank you Peter.

Anyway, there is a casino called Sam Boyd's Town.  Uncle Don is buying it for him a piece at a time.  I sent Josiah and Sam to take pictures of the stuff Uncle Don sent.  This is what I found on the camera later.

upgrades?

We are actually thinking about spending money on our blog. Since we ran out of room with the free account, we did some research and it will only cost $5 per year to have more space. The way I see it, if I was buying a diary or a scrapbook to keep my memories in, then I would spend more then $5 on the blank book. So, maybe its worth it.

We'll see.

Sigh.  Matt - I am not pregnant.

Although I did vote.  I voted for twins.  Maybe a surrogate mother??

Boo Hiss

Cannot add a blog picture today.  We used up our storage space. ; (  Maybe Matt has a solution.  but I will have to wait till he gets home.

He made it!

Our sweet friends Dan and Michelle sent us a care package this weekend.  Michelle sent us some treats, a jacket for me, and other fun items including a shoe we had left at their house in August.  One of the treats was a pound cake that she had baked a metal file into.  It was in celebration of Matt getting promoted from the prison to DOC headquarters.  Matt thought it was great!  We had actually squirrelled the pound cake into our bedroom before the kids got to it.  It was so funny watching Matt cut into it and wonderingly pull a wrapped up shank out of it.  

It was the best pound cake I'd ever had by the way.

BBBBRRRR

This morning the temperature was -39 with windchill.  Can you even imagine 70 degrees LOWER than freezing?  The difference between 100 and 30!  Whoo!  The district started school an hour late and it was still minus 26.  The boys walked to school but they were bundled well.  

Titus is wearing his backpack hoping I will send him to school.  Wishful thinking : )