Say What?!

Yesterday as we drove somewhere, Marian asked about the flowers along the road. Right now there are a lot of pink flowers on bare stalks just growing in the middle of nowhere. I told Marian how flowers grow, and then added that that particular flower happens to be called a "naked lady" because of the way it looks right now in its lifespan- bare, naked stalk with a lovely flower on top.

My mother was not present for this conversation. So she was slightly alarmed when Marian came to her and asked "Why are there so many Naked Ladies in Arkansas?"

Grandpa's new Zip Line

Yesterday Grandpa installed a Zip Line. Joshua had decided last summer that we needed one. There were grand plans about it, such as maybe it should run from the porch to the tree house, or we should build another tree house and run the zip line to it. It took this long to think about it, plan it, and then to purchase and install it. Joshua was quite pleased. Unfortunately, I am not sure it came out like anyone (except Grandpa) had envisioned. It SOUNDED like a great idea to have it zip from the tree house. Um.... the tree house floor is 7 feet up, so the zip line ended up being quite a bit higher than I expected. The kids were a little intimidated to say the least.





During the trying-to-see-if-the-kids-could-sit-on-it phase they were hesitant to even try. Look at the concern on Callie's face. Even getting her to sit and hold on was a feat here.

Here Grandpa is showing them its not so hard. Look how unconvinced they are! Marian actually got on it, then cried and backed off. Joshua didn't even get his legs wrapped around it before he chickened out. (I don't blame them! It is pretty high up!!)

Fine, Grandpa said, I'll show you how it works.

Whoops!!!!

And now Mom shows us all how its done.

Joshua got on, but only so he could be pulled from the bottom up. He's still not sure if this is fun or not!

Callie didn't start off at the top either. She just zipped back and forth from the bottom. But she's on it now, at least.

Marian is a lot braver. And she's pretty daring. It didn't take her long to graduate from sedentary rides from the bottom, to jumping off the top and flying down the line.

And now Joshua is feeling braver. It's starting to feel like fun!

It took the afternoon, but by last night, the 2 older kids had figured it out and were flying down the zip line from the top of the tree house. They have a pretty good technique going on which requires some sharing, which is pretty cool for me to see. And after church today, Dan helped Callie climb on and go down from the top. What adventurous and brave children I have!! Although I admit to having a small concern that we may have a trip to the ER in our future!

Faces!

This is my parents. this is them looking at their Mission Call! Yep, after waaay too long a wait, they received their call to....... Kenya, Nairobi! We are really excited. They will get to be in the MTC the same time as my aunt and uncle who will be going to Zurich, Switzerland! Hooray for Senior Missions!

Here is Joshua. It is pretty hard to get a serious picture out of him. I try to rise to the challenge anyway!

You may have been so distracted by his silliness that you missed his missing tooth! Yes! Finally!
A mere 2 months from his 8th birthday and he has FINALLY lost his first tooth. Whew! He discovered it wiggled and had the thing out in about a week, much to his satisfaction and my surprise.

This is my silly Marian. The child is feral. She really is. She goes outside and isn't seen or heard from till she comes in to forage for food. That may sound like this: "Mimi want ham-ham." She did not want her picture taken here.

Here is Callie. She was sad because she missed Grandpa's birthday cake. Well, she didn't really miss it, she just missed the singing. So we sang "Happy Birthday" again and all was well. How can it not be well when you have chocolate cake?!

Delaney thought Daddy's sunglasses were sooo cool. She put them on and pranced around the house. Look how pleased she is with herself!

Wasp Sting!

Poor Delaney. She was outside and some black wasps had decided to make a nest in the area she was playing in. One landed on her face and stung her. I didn't know she'd been stung- she cried, but it wasn't the "I'm dying" cry I would have expected. She didn't really even sound hurt! She's a tough cookie!

Here she is. You can see the sting there above her lip. She held the little freezer "boo-boo bunny" (fabric bag filled with rice that you keep in the freezer for times like this) on her lip and stopped crying quickly.

Shortly after, her lip started to swell impressively. She decided she was feeling self conscious about it and did not want a picture taken. This is her, avoiding a picture. But you can still see that her one cheek is a little swollen and red.

I admit, I was in stitches over her poor little face. She looked so funny, all distorted like that. She was a tough kid though. She never cried again, and was ready to go back outside. Grandpa took the wasp spray outside and took care of the overabundance of wasps. When I asked if her lip hurt, she would say "Bugga hurt my lip! Bugga hurt my lip!"

Here is another look at that fat lip. It went down again pretty quickly too. Thank goodness for my essential oils! By bedtime she looked normal, and only had a little puffiness around her cheek and eye. She didn't complain at all. She just repeated "Bugga hurt my lip!"

Differences in Military Branches Explained

I had planned to post some great pix of the kids today, but someone has run off with the camera they are on. So, I shall make do with this amusing bit instead. For those of you who have not seen this, I hope you enjoy it!



Marine Corps Rules:

1. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.

2. Decide to be aggressive enough, quickly enough.

3. Have a plan.

4. Have a back-up plan, because the first one probably won't work.

5. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

6. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun whose caliber does not start with a '4.'

7. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.

8. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral & diagonal preferred.)

9. Use cover and concealment as much as possible.

10. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.

11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.

12. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.

13. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating your intention to shoot.



Navy SEALS Rules:

1. Look very cool in sunglasses.

2. Kill every living thing within view.

3. Adjust speedo.

4. Check hair in mirror.



US Army Rangers Rules:

1. Walk 50 miles wearing 75 pound rucksack while starving.

2. Locate individuals requiring killing.

3. Request permission via radio from 'Higher' to perform killing.

4. Curse bitterly when mission is aborted.

5. Walk out 50 miles wearing a 75 pound rucksack while starving.



US Army Rules:

1. Curse bitterly when receiving operational order.

2. Make sure there is extra ammo and extra coffee.

3. Curse bitterly.

4. Curse bitterly.

5. Do not listen to 2nd LTs; it can get you killed.



US Air Force Rules:

1. Have a cocktail.

2. Adjust temperature on air-conditioner..

3. See what's on HBO.

4. Ask 'What is a gunfight?'

5. Request more funding from Congress with a 'killer' Power Point presentation.

6. Wine & dine ''key' Congressmen, invite DOD & defense industry executives.

7. Receive funding, set up new command and assemble assets.

8. Declare the assets 'strategic' and never deploy them operationally.

9. Hurry to make 13:45 tee-time.

10. Make sure the base is as far as possible from the conflict but close enough to have tax exemption.



US Navy Rules:

1. Go to Sea.

2. Drink Coffee.

3. Deploy Marines

3. Deploy Marines

House Painting

This week our goal was to get the High Street Rental house painted. However, the fates seemed to conspire against us and made it a very difficult task to accomplish. As of this moment, it is almost done. Fortunately, the majority of the work, and the most time consuming part is done. All that's left is to paint the trim.

Here is the house before we started to work on it. It is metal siding, and kind of a cute house. Up close you can see how flakey the pain was though. I wanted to paint it yellow. I wanted a cheery yellow. My mom said the yellows I chose would be waaaay too bright on a house. Fortunately, my cousin Liz (actually, her wonderful husband) just painted her house a lovely shade of yellow. So I copied her and went to Sherwin Williams and got a "Banana Creme" paint chip and took it to Lowe's, where they color matched it. We went with their Duramax paint, which is a primer/paint combo. Oh, and we went with the satin finish.

Tuesday, while the little girls were in preschool, Dad and I went out to scrub and pressure wash the house. It poured rain all day. It didn't matter much to us, we were washing the house, but the thunder and lightning gave us pause. Here is Dad, pressure washing the siding on the roof. You can't tell that its raining, but it is! I learned that I am way to pregnant and out of shape to be spending a morning with a scrub brush cleaning paint off a house!

Dad went back on Wednesday to start taping edges and removing windows. Since it is my rental house, I thought I ought to be helpful. I came, but had to bring all the kids because mom was gone. Here is what Dad had accomplished. It's looking a bit icky now!

Yeah, the kids were ZERO help! Look how sweaty they are too, and they are just sitting there. It was nasty hot and humid. After being no help and lots of complaining, I took the kids home. Then it rained. It rained all day on Thursday too, so nothing got done. Friday we had the water main break issue, and Dad had to work, so I got to hang out at home, waiting for the plumber, and we didn't deal with the house at all.

Finally, Saturday was a beautiful day! It was cooler, it was less muggy, it was great! Except mom was in Branson all day. So Dad went out by himself to paint. He called to say 5 gallons wasn't enough paint. So the kids and I went to Lowe's for more. We dropped it off and I tried to be of assistance. The 4 children tried as well. Dad showed them a spot to paint and they went at it with their brushes. Callie and Marian lost interest first. They discovered the scaffolding!

Joshua had a great time with the paining. He really, really wanted to paint. He loved this mini roller brush and he did a pretty good job. Then he too discovered the scaffolding.

Yeah, believe it or not, Delaney can climb up and down this all by herself! They thought they were pretty cool kids! And doesn't the side of the house look great?!

After enough trouble, I took the kids home, settled Delaney for a nap and got ANOTHER 2 gallons of paint for Dad. Mom was home about 3pm and Joshua and I went back out to paint a little trim before Dad was done. I decided to keep the trim white, and the blue shutters, because the roof and porch are a dark blue. Anyway, Joshua "helped" me paint the garage posts and I got the big front window frame painted. Wow! It looks sharp!

And here we have the nearly-done work. I think it looks great! I may not get another picture in of the completely finished product, but this is good enough! I still have to paint the door frame, about 10 more windows, the porch posts and 2 more door frames. I hope that's all! I've tired myself out now and I think I need a nap.

Aaaack!!!!!

This is what the back yard looked like this morning. Quiet, serene, green..... Somehow, my ever-wise father made the distressing discovery that there was a water pipe leak in all this pristine serenity. Apparently it was quite squishy when he walked out to the garden. I'm sure I would not have thought anything of it, since it HAS been raining daily all week.

I was informed at 8am today that if I wanted a shower, it had to be now, because the water was going to be shut off for an unknown period of time. So I hurried. Then I filled the tub with water for toilet flushing. Mom had filled a few pitchers for drinking as well. We got the water shut off and a call into the plumber. Then we waited.

There is a marvelous plumber here. He rescheduled his afternoon so he could come here and fix it for us. Thank goodness!

This was the yard around 3pm today. Bruce, the marvelous man in the tractor said yep, there is a leak, and he dug a bit to find the pipe. That gray circular thing there is the well. No city water for us! Nope, nothing but Arkansas' finest well water comes into this house. The leak was in that line from the pump to the house.

Bruce is the best. Here he hopped out and grabbed a huge worm for the kids. Unfortunately, he handed it to the one who actually is a bit squeamish. Marian or Callie would have been thrilled, but Joshua was not. Anyway, we'd hoped to just patch the pipe, but Bruce said it had already been patched.... with a radiator hose. So the whole thing needed to be dug up and replaced. Fun for all but the pocket-book!

Bruce was wonderful. He maneuvered his tractor around and kept an eye out on the kids, who dashed all over, getting in the way and checking out everything. And the dug dirt line got bigger and longer and deeper.

Finally the ditch reached the house line. Whew! Then it was on to removing old pipe and replacing it. He did that really fast too.

And this is what the children did while Bruce was working. I told them to stay out of the ditch, but Bruce said it was okay, so they had a fantastic time rooting around in there.

Here we have Dad and Bruce, working on the new pipes. The kids helped dump dirt back in after the pipe was down. Then Bruce and the tractor filled in the rest.

Here is what the back yard looked like at dinnertime tonight. I think it will get a bit smoother before its all done, but the grass will still have to regrow. On the plus side, we were only without water from about 9-5 today! Whoo-hoo! And it was such an exciting adventure. It also got the kids out and having a good time for the afternoon. Yay for Bruce!

More with the Chickens!

I seem to be much busier than I expected to be this summer. I didn't mean to not blog till now, I've just been busy! I am planning a lovely series of snapshots of the progress to getting the rental house painted. Unfortunately, it has rained all week, and there has been no painting. Did I mention the thunder and lightning that comes with the rain? Yep, we've been getting the whole package, all week. I think its grumbled and rained every day this week. Wish us luck on the house painting tomorrow....

In the mean time, here is my new favorite picture of all the children!

They love the chickens. We've had to define what "chasing" constitutes because Marian claims she is not "chasing" them, while the evidence would imply otherwise. She managed to grab 2 of the poor things this day and made her siblings very happy.

The kids got a refresher course on the proper way to hold and pet the chickens. They really do a good job with them, but Callie tends to pull tail feathers while she's in hot pursuit. Not a good thing.

Delaney makes me laugh. She was so excited to pet the chicken. I wasn't sure she would, because she's so scared of most animals. These are really good chickens. Callie kept grabbing the red one's beak, and the bird didn't do a thing. They do not peck or scratch. They just suffer quietly. They'll be glad to see us go, I expect!

Thoughts and Pix

The thoughts and pictures here have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. If you are only interested in cute snapshots of the kids, you may want to scroll right past my ramblings to the pictures.

I have had a fun time enjoying the different atmosphere in laid-back Arkansas, as opposed to the nuttiness which is DC. One of the surprising things I have discovered is a neat little radio station that has some great political stuff on it. One of the things they discussed this week was Liberty vs Equality. It was an amazing light bulb moment for me. They mentioned that people tend to think one or the other of those 2 things is the most important. And while they can mutually coexist for a while, eventually Equality will infringe upon Liberty, or Liberty will infringe on Equality. So, which camp do you fit in? Is Equality more important than Liberty? Or is Liberty more important than Equality. I'm more firmly in the Liberty camp myself. I agree that we are all equal, to a certain extent. However, if I work hard, I want what i have earned. If you are a slacker, you do not deserve a part of what I worked hard for. My feelings of Equality do not extend that far. I do not believe that the government needs to enforce Equality. I think it needs to back off and let us have Liberty.

To be honest, I think this makes less sense now that I've written it and none of you have heard the talk that got me thinking about this, so I apologise if it is not clear. But that's okay. I just wanted to spew out this thought that has been rolling around my head all week. And now I am done!

And on to the pictures of some fun stuff from the week.......

The kids have had a blast playing outside. Somehow we ended up with algae and tadpoles in the fountain again. However, after last years Great Tadpole Rescue, the adults were not going to do a repeat, but the kids were quite actively attempting one on their own. unfortunately, their rescue attempts mostly included scooping water (with the occasional tadpole) and dumping it in the grass or on the driveway. That is cousin Sarah there in the life jacket. Don't ask me, I have no idea!

It started to rain and what did the children want to do? Play in it!! Delaney was such a hoot, running around in the rain.

And they did not let a little downpour interfere with the serious work of "saving" the tadpoles. I don't know if you can see the rain, but it was really coming down. I had to strip down 5 kids when they came in- everyone was drenched, and happy!

We went to the library program on Saturday. It was a cute sing-a-long and it was well done. The girls had a good time. Callie was so cute, getting into the movements and shaking her thing. She and Delaney were picked to come up and help out with the hula. They got to wear grass skirts and flower necklaces. Callie tried to do the movements, but Delaney just stood there- which is a lot more than I expected from either of them.

Saturday afternoon we went to the lake. The weather wasn't too cooperative, but the kids could care less. Delaney had a marvelous time, walking in up to her chin and back out. She dunked herself once, going under and floundering till I scooped her up. I thought she would cry, but she looked at me, big grin and said "I did it!"

We brought a bunch of floats and they liked that. Grandpa was the most fun, but after a while, I think they wore him out!

And here is Joshua, hamming it up for me! He had a good time and we made sure he was sprayed thoroughly with sunscreen. Last time he burned and peeled. No one got any red at all this time- yay!

Animal Crazy.... and just plain crazy!

Marian's very favorite thing about being here is all the animals. She is truly crazy about animals. she loves them... all of them. Not just the cute and cuddly ones either. She likes the reptiles and other funky things just as much. Well, almost. She told me today that kittens are her favorite animal, and lizards are her second favorite. She likes to hold the chickens because they are soft like a kitten though. Conversations with her are always interesting! Today she had the best day ever because it involved her most favorite animals!

We went to her friend Eva's house, and Eva has 2 kittens. I admit, they might be the cutest kittens I have ever seen, and Marian spent about 3 hours just holding and playing with them. She was so happy. The kittens seemed content to be mauled with love as well, so it was a mutual adoration.

Once we got home from Eva's house, Marian didn't quite make it into the house. She saw her nemesis, the lizard! She has been trying to catch this guy (or his friend) for a while now, and today she was finally successful.

But wait! It gets even better!

She found a frog as well! I love this kid. She is so great. She catches her little animals and is so careful about letting them go when she's done playing with them. So the lizard and frog were released back into the wild and Marian was thrilled with her day.

Until now, this had been her favorite moment. While they were canoeing last week, she got to see a lot of animals, but this butterfly was the only one she got a close-up of. Pretty cool, hey?!

And now we move from the animal craziness and into the general category of it......

This was the floor in my room all last week. Joshua slept on the twin bed you can see on the left. I slept on the futon bed that you can barely see in the top right corner. Delaney was ensconced in the corner you can't see, in her porta-crib, and these 3 girls sacked out on the floor. That is Callie, Marian, and cousin Katie. Most nights they went to bed pretty well, but there were one or two that made me about lose my mind (and my tempter!).

Joshua is crazy about Legos. He brought a couple here with us and has had fun with them. I never would have thought of combining Indiana Jones with SpongeBob, but Joshua seems to be having fun.

This is the "Awwww" moment for the day. My baby brother is now a Dad and this is his 5 week old baby. So cute. The kids all loved her and were very sweet and gentle. Callie was so pleased to get to hold her.

Uncle Monkey is crazy! And the kids are more than crazy for Uncle Monkey! I'm so glad I got to see almost all my siblings this past week. Everyone has left but Deborah and her 2 minions, so its not too dull yet, but the house is definitely quieter! 12 adults, 12 kids squished into the house was a lot, but it wasn't too bad. And it was a lot of fun!