So Funny!

The movie Fireproof in 60 seconds....it's VERY funny if you've seen the movie, and fairly funny even if you haven't. ; )

The Awesomeness of my Kids ; )

My kids have gone from one fascinating thing to another this weekend. (Possibly the week, too, but my memory is too bad to remember that far. lol)

Yesterday we went to my mom's for a little bit, and I helped mom cut up potatoes for planting. While we were working I could hear Emma singing to the little people in the back yard. : ) When I looked around the house she was swinging in the porch swing with them, and singing. She's such a sweetheart. : )

We brought the electric keyboard back home with us...technically it belongs to Mom, but we keep it so much it seems like ours, and we had let them *borrow* it back. ; ) Anyway, we brought it home, and last night Emma started picking out a song. I took a bath and I could hear them working through the first song, then going on to another. When Anna got into the tub later she told me about them working out the songs and said, "Emma said she needed me to help her!" She was so pleased with Emma saying she needed help it was sweet. : )

Today we went to a church meeting and they sang...a cappella and just the two of them....something I would NEVER have done as a child...or probably ever will do! : )

We decided to go out in the woods afterwards, and it was one discovery after another! Such fascinating things.....

Wild turkey eggs... and the poor little turkey which was left in one. We wondered if it just didn't hatch, or if a raccoon got in the nest and ate the rest. We buried it before we left. :,(

The girls wanted to bring the egg shells home for our nature shelf....I soaked them in bleach water; I'm not sure how icky they were, but they certainly seemed icky. I hope it's not illegal to have them....I know some bird parts are illegal to keep. Not sure about turkeys...might try looking that up online.

It's hard to see, but Anna found a tiny baby deer print.

And a Jack-in-the-Pulpit.

And Emma found a BIG spider! lol It was over her head in the old house we stuck our noses into.

Emma also found a BIG mushroom.

Hey...what's Jack doing down here?

Emma thought this plant was interesting, the little bug holes making a nice pattern on it.

She and I walked down a path, following the stream for a ways. It was Amazingly beautiful down there, with several waterfalls.

I Can Hardly Believe it Myself!

You won't believe......we saw a fox today! A red fox...and of course, I didn't have my camera. : P

We went to get water...we don't drink our home water, we get spring water from my grandparent's farm....anyway, we went to get water, and I walked about in the woods a bit to see if there were any mushrooms (found 20!) and saw a snake (he looked at me, and I said hello to him, but he didn't speak, so I walked *way* around him and headed back to the van, and on our way out we saw 6 deer, and a FOX watching them! It was SO cool. When we drove past the deer started running, and when I backed up so we could see the fox better he went into the bushes beside the field. I haven't seen a wild fox in probably 20 years.

Lazy-Stay-Home-Days

Friday I put my new batch of compost around my echinacea plants....it was BEAUTIFUL compost; might be the best batch I've ever made. lol
I took this picture Saturday morning, as we were on our way out to the Farmer's Market. I don't usually see the sun that early in the morning...it was still in the east. ; ) Anna got the Legos out yesterday, and made a nice heading for the rest of my post...(it says Fun With Legos, in case it's hard to read.)

She and Emma watched movies and played with Legos until almost 12 last night. (With a brief intermission to go to my mom's for supper and play with their cousins.) I'm not sure what all is going on in Lego-World, but Anna said, as they went to bed, "We'll battle tomorrow." lol

Musings for Today...

First, I'm contemplating measles and weasels. WHY aren't they spelled the same? ; )

We started off the day with the Farmer's Market. Woo-Hoo! It was GREAT...fewer early veges than I expected, but I bought a loaf of bread, a pack of fig bars and a 4-pack of sage plants for my herb garden. I was tempted by a carton of free-range eggs, but Daddy suggested we finish up the eggs we have in the 'fridge before we buy more. (It shouldn't be too difficult...Anna had 4 for breakfast yesterday morning. lol)

We came back home to get the girls (and I got Oscar, too) and went off to a rummage sale......VERY disappointing....after the way they'd advertised it, I thought it would be a BIG one...but not a lot of stuff, no good books, and mostly clothing, which we don't need. Anna found two dolls, though...a Cinderella Barbie and a small doll...someone Barbie babysits for, I think? lol. Anyway, after that, I thought we'd run to the grocery store to get cat food, then go home, so I could do some yard/garden work. But, NO......

I was kidnapped again. I swear...I'm going to start driving when we go out! lol I had read in the paper about a planned Earth Day clean-up, and Daddy wanted to see where it was (scouting for potential bottle dumps is what it was), so he went off looking for it, then he decided instead of going back to our town to the grocery store, he'd go to the town *in the opposite direction* to see if they had a better deal. (Now, do I know how much I usually spend on cat food? No, I do not. So who would know if it was a better deal? Not me...and certainly not him. Anyway...)

When we got to the grocery store, he had thought of another place he wanted to go, the junkyard ~over the mountain~ to see if they might have a van like ours, so he can buy a part or two. So we headed over the mountain. (Not too bad at this point......it's a good road, and lovely views.) When we got there the junkyard was closed. Now the oddness starts. He continues on up the road. It circles around and comes out near the school. So he takes the next road to the left. After about 5 miles he takes a different road, then another road, then another. Finally we end up on a dirt road, heading up the mountain. (Honestly...if he wants to cross the mountain wasn't the road we came in on good enough? Apparently not.) We started down the other side of the mountain, and there was NOTHING between me and the bottom of the mountain. Narrow dirt road, curvy as it could possibly be, and I'm looking down 1500 feet. Then the brakes start getting hot. When we got to the bottom (thankfully, we didn't pass another vehicle until we were at the bottom) he was all thrilled with his find...a new road explored! Yay!....and got kinda miffed because I wasn't as excited as he was. I told him the next time I felt like climbing a mountain I'd do it with both feet on the ground.

We did get to see an airplane up close, though, which was cool.

When we came out...we had circled around and come out at the school again. : P We eventually stopped by the grocery store (and I didn't want to buy cat food there, so I didn't, but when we went to get it later it *was* cheaper there. lol), and I bought sandwich stuff and chips, because Anna had left the house without eating, and by the time he got through dragging us over mountains starvation was imminent. Poor little thing.

I've decided that no matter how short a trip I expect, to take a full meal's worth of food with me. I did have some snacks, but nothing that appealed to Anna, except an apple, and she said it hurt her tummy. : ( I wish I could think of some good foods I could leave in the van, or at least leave packed for trips.

Poor Oscar was tired, too, after that trip....no running like he's the coyote after the roadrunner when we got home, just collapsed on the couch (with me lol), and he's not moved a lot since. ; ) He just wiggles and wiggles when we take him places...he wants to sit on my knee, with his nose pressed right against the window, which, of course, is a hard position to hold. So he slides around (especially the way Daddy drives) and he digs his claws in for a better hold and re-adjusts, then five-seconds later does it all again. And he only wants to sit with his Momma, too. No one will do except Momma. lol I like having him with us, but that's rather hard to put up with.

I've mentioned everyone except Emma. She didn't kidnap me, or get sick on the trip, or wriggle (at least not that I noticed). She talked, lots. She talked about how she'd like to have a house all her own to decorate just how she wanted, and how she'd like to find used things and fix them up and re-use and re-propose them. She talked about what she'd eaten, and what she would like to eat. She talked about how it wasn't fair Daddy didn't let her pick the mushrooms she found in the state park we were in. She asked me to look up online and see if it was really illegal to take plants from a state park. She talked about horses, and cows, and houses and history, and whatever else came into her mind. ; )

When we got home Oscar and I napped, Daddy watched the episodes of LOST he's missed and the squirrels played outside. When I woke up they had been...I'm hesitant to say fighting; neither mentioned a specific *fight*...anyway, Anna had been breaking the heads off Emma's Barbies, so Emma was throwing Anna's Barbie into the neighbour's yard. When I came outside, though, they were picking their dolls up and Anna was very unhappy because Emma's doll was broken and Emma went into the neighbour's yard to get Anna's doll.....I don't understand it, it didn't seem like a fight by the time I got out there, but obviously something had happened...but they seemed to take care of it by themselves. Anna was tired and unhappy, so she went to bed for a little while (I think she may be a little bit sick), and Emma read and listened to her new cd she won at an egg hunt.

Daddy and I went to *finally* buy the cat food, and when we got home I fixed supper. After a bit of food and a movie everyone was in good spirits for Oscar's walk tonight.......and this missive has gone on for such a long time, I'm going to end it now. ; )

(Nothing minute about THIS post! lol)

Apple Blossoms and a Grebe

Apples are starting to bloom...I LOVE apple blossoms! I stopped to sniff one....WOW! That's all I got to say about that.

And we found a pied-billed grebe. We've not seen one before....it's a shame this one was dead. I wanted to bring it home for a proper burial, but Daddy said no. It *was* kinda smelly. lol Funky-looking creature. We looked them up online, because although I knew it was a grebe I couldn't name the exact one. We got to listen to a recording of it's call, too...that's cool!
Read/listen here.

Eyebrows, Oak Trees and Pickled Eggs

When we got to mom's for Easter dinner Anna's eyebrows looked like this......
She said she wanted to try plucking them, so she shut her eyes, grabbed a batch of hairs with the tweezers and pulled. I asked if she wanted me to go ahead and finish removing them with a creme, but she said she'd just wait until they grow out. It's a *different* look, for sure! lol

She ran inside this morning to get me, to show me this....

She planted an acorn in their flower garden, and now she has a tiny oak tree. ; )

This is what I've accomplished today....

Pickled eggs! They're so pretty! I hope they taste as good as they look. ; ) That's my Poomba in the picture with them. Daddy bought him for me, and Anna named him. He reminds us of Lion King 1 1/2, when Pumba makes two nests and...oh...what's the meerkat's name?....Timon...and Timon takes the big one and Pumba turns around the smaller one and nestles down. Poomba just has the same look. ; )

Fun Day

My squirrels spent the night with my mom last night, today we all had lunch together and hunted eggs...at least, *they* hunted eggs. I watched. : )

He went over here by himself, and was picking all the eggs up, while the other kids were walking in a line, looking at the same places, over and over. lol He kept saying, "Oh, an egg!" He'd walk a couple steps and, "Oh, an egg!" ; )

After the eggs were all found they traded candy. Emma gave almost all her candy away. : ( I would have eaten it. ; )

Part of the Week in Review...

Thursday we had supper at my mom's, and this little cutie brought her Easter bonnet to show us. (Actually, I heard conflicting accounts about the ownership of the bonnet, but it was cute nonetheless.) Today I went with Daddy while he dug bottles. It was too cold and windy for me, so I spent most of my time sitting in the van, snacking and reading. To break up the monotony I got out three times and jogged down the trail we were near and back. I found these beauties at the end of the trail. I also twisted my ankle a little bit, not enough to hurt it, but it made my knee twist, and it *is* hurting.

I haven't looked these up yet.....I have no idea what they are, but they're lovely!

This is what we found yesterday.

I *really* wanted to go out mushroom hunting, but Daddy was wanting to hunt bottles. We decided to go and do a quick glance-around for mushrooms, but once we started hunting stayed about an hour. We had found mostly small ones...although Emma found a big one, the second one from the left in the top row...when we came out into a field and Anna suddenly dropped to her knees with a yell! She had been SO sad because she hadn't found a single one, then she was the first to spot a patch of 28! And 28 BIG ones. ; ) She was extremely happy for the rest of the day.

Today they went to an Easter Egg Hunt with my mom and their cousins, and now they're spending the night with her. I miss them so much when they're not here!

Museum Outing

Well, okay, so it wasn't *technically* a museum, but an antique store, but we had fun nonetheless. Anna took Great Pleasure in dressing up in the hats and furs she found...

and Emma found a hat she really liked, too. ; )

They're so weird it's funny. lol

Our Picnic...of sorts....

We went out for a picnic and (planned) hike. I ended up hiking by myself, because I wanted pictures of the flowers which were blooming. (Like this wild columbine...http://www.rook.org/earl/bwca/nature/herbs/aquilegiacan.html .)
I hiked up to the top of the mountain, then down to the bottom. I went alone to the top, but Emma went with me to the bottom. This is the view from the top...

This is why Anna and Daddy ended up not hiking with me. They found a trash pile. With bottles.

And sandwich glass plates.

"Can't hike now...too many bottles!" ; )

Two Days This Week...

On Friday we drove up behind Wal-Mart again, to show the squirrels what we had found. I brought my camera this time, and took a picture, because I like the way the rock layers look. Today we hunted mushrooms. This is Anna's mushroom (one of two she found). She put her hand with it to show its relative size.

This is one of Emma's. It was funny when she found it....

because it looked like this ....peeking out from under a leaf.

These are all the mushrooms we found, all lined up in neat little rows. ; )