breathe

do you know how many mintutes a five year old girl can talk with out taking a breath?

4 and half minutes.

i know

i timed it

now i have two of these little motor mouths running in the background all day long

sometimes i have to beg them to stop.

just for three minutes

so i can remember what silence sounds like



now the irony of this situation is this....

as a youth my nickname was Jabber Jaws

i talked

alot

drove my poor mom crazy

no i am not kidding

she is crazy now.

in fact in highschool, Sara Barron, requested a muzzle for my mouth

made her request known in the highschool yearbook

it still did not deter me.

sadly my husband sees what the future holds for him

it is not pretty.

the natural order of things.

This is the way a kennel should really be used. the dog is fine. the dog does not wander, comes when called and it happy to fetch a ball for hours on end. the same cannot be said for the children. athough it is true that dogs pee in your slippers and poop on the most walked on spots in the yard, so do my children. well maybe not the peeing on slippers. we don't have any of those in our home.

Good Times

so this last saturday i told the boys if they were good and did all their chores and get the lawns mowed we could do something fun! they voted on shooting out at grandpa's and bumski's house. so they did that for about three hours. came in and grabbed a bite to eat. shot for about 30 more minutes. no tin can was safe with in a five foot radius. ya, they are not exactly crack shots. lol.
Puddin' got in on the action too. he had alot of fun shooting with daddy.

Daniel's buddy "forbush" came out for the fun too. he is such a funny kid. i love having him around. the two of them are constant entertainment.

Then when they ran out of ammo Ike got an itch to drive the tractor. he has had this itch for about five years. but the rule is you cannot drive the tractor until you can start it by yourself. this baby is from 1942. a gift from our dear Grandpa Ralph. she is a bear to start. it took many,many, many tries.

He finally DID IT!!! don't let the bubbles distract you. he is coolness personified in this shot. leather jacket and one steering with one hand.

It was a fantastic saturday. thank you so much grandpa and bumski for letting us come take over your afternoon and shoot up your garbage.

Ike's 5th grade program

i have a lot of video from this. it was so much fun to watch. ike got really into the whole 50's thing. it was so hot on that stage but he refused to take off his leather jacket. he was dressed and ready to go an HOUR before his program. we watched lots and lots of youtube of the songs so he could watch the dance movies.

HOW???

I am meeting with daniel's english teacher this morning. No, it is not so we can catch up over tea and cake. It is because he is FAILING ENGLISH!!



so now i ask, how?



how can a kid fail a language his is supposedly fluent in?



how can he ace world languages where he has to learn Japanese, French, Latin?

well i met with the teacher and i can tell you how now.......i guess you have to turn in your final assignment of the quarter that counts as HALF your grade instead of just leaving it in your backpack.

hmph. go figure.

what i have been up to for the past 20 weeks.

some time ago my bff, "princess,princess" told me about this fabulous idea for working out called "bootcamp" so we both signed up. she got injured the third night in and was out for six weeks!! she left me! with this man, ya the one in the picture who seems to be enjoying choking me just a bit too much. i have several names for him, El Diablo, Mr. Loudmouth, Meanie Pants, Father of Pain, Shut up (one of my favorites) and sometimes.......Ryan.

but in all fairness for all the pain and agony he put me through, he had to put up with my mouth. so i think it was a fair trade. he has this knack of showing you what you need to do and making it look believable. take for example: Ryan says " we are gong to do a push-up and on the "up position we are going to take our right leg, stretch it out under us and touch our right knee to the left elbow while balancing on one hand." (serious. this is the crap we did) and i watched him and thought to myself "hey, i think i can do that if i pace myself and consintrate. how hard can it be.?" well as it turns out, pretty damn hard!!

i learned that there are six different ways to do push-up and i hate them all!! i can now do crunches till i am bored. russian twists make my tummy feel wonky and jump roping was not as fun as i remember it being as a kid. that i can get sweat in my eyes but be working so hard that i continue with my eyes closed so i don't lose the pace i have set for myself. it was nice to find that drive again. i learned that my body is not designed for mountain climbers or pushing a 40 weight across a gym floor. my legs are too dang long and my arms are too dang short. sadly ryan does not see this as a handicap so i had to do it anyways. but i want him to know i felt very discrimated against and i will be calling Gloria Allred.

Dan joined me the last five weeks. It was fun to cheer him on and see his progress. and as it turns out you cannot dribble a medicine ball no matter how hard you throw it. i just imagine it is Ryan's head. it is very cathartic for me.

Gliders should be used very,very carefully or your face will become one with the floor. wax on, wax off young grasshopper.

Ya baby!! look at those calf muscles!! i actually enjoyed the resistance band training. but don't ever let El Diablo know that.

Bosu Ball. had not seen these things before. but they are a PIA to do push up on, to balance on with one foot and even tougher to balance your WHOLE FLIPPIN BODY ON!! turns out i am a tad bit top heavy. huh, who knew? must be all those brains.

This is Amy. Amy is trying to look mean in this picture but actually Amy is really, really nice. She is so nice that i did not even give her any knicknames.

Princess,Princess and I with Shut Up after our last workout.

So i am on my own for now. i have to push myself better, faster, stronger and the whole time i will hear Ryan's voice yelling at me in my head. Or maybe that is just the school kids yelling at me to get off their play equipment because it is recess time. either way, they sound the same.

you know it is monday when.....

you cannot see your countertops

you feel crunchy crumbs under your feet when you walk on the floor

your laundry basket over-floweth

there are spatters of toothpaste covering most of the surfaces of your bathroom

you try to get the kids out the door for school and cannot find one shoe or backback for miles around.

the table is covered in some sort of mystery sticky substance which you discover about 10 seconds too late.

there is no milk or bread in the house

although the children have been up at the crack of dawn the last two mornings, they deside to sleep in this morning

the kitchen sinks are filled to the brim with dirty dishes.

it seems like the perfect day to stay in bed and read.

the trash can is shoved so full it is almost impossible to empty it.

Pony Rides

Everynight the girls beg for pony rides to bed and some nights i feel guilty enough to give them one. the other nights their brothers give them pony rides. it dawned on me that i don't have pictures of me giving any of the kids pony rides. they all got them until they got too big. and when these girls get to big there will be no more pony rides. ACK!! and seeing how they both weigh about 40lbs each i got 80 lbs of bouncing love on my back, this pony may not last that much longer.

so to make a long story longer.......i had dan take some quick pics before the girls get too big for this fun.

then dan desided to take a parting shot. i told him, "NO PICTURES OF MY BUTT!!" he said, "i have to before it gets too big to take a picture of." he should out of the body cast in four to six months. as for he jaw being wired shut.......that could take years to heal.

easter

First off we take egg dyeing very seriously in this house. it is a science and an art. we had a huge easter egg hunt in the woods at the end of our block. we had 10 kids show up and 100 eggs for them to find. everybody was a winner.

Heading off to the egg hunt

Jakey!

on the hunt

Ike and Ray dividing out their goods

Anna found one!

Ria showing me her purple egg in her purple coat. the girl loves purple

The On Going Project

Whew! this has alot of pictures so i will be brief with my words.

we spent two days out at the homestead getting some spring cleaning done. i have a goal of spending a weekend a month out there getting stuff caught up and cleaned up in the meadow. we burned, cleaned slash piles, and helped dad finish his bridge. we just need to put up the ramps now.

Maria, Anna and Jakey watching the current flow around their sticks. i love playing this game. it is so relaxing.
Daniel and his buddy Jake Forbush hauling a small tree off to the fire.

Daniel feeding the fire.

A very well deserved lunch break.Still on lunch break and hoping to strike it rich paning for gold in Moon Creek. This is the old bridge by the way.

Ike and my parent's dog, tigger.

Still paning for gold. i am sorry to say that no one became rich that day.

Anna age 5

Moon Creek. it is so pretty down here, that is why i want to get it cleaned up so badly.

Our beautiful fire and Jakey heading off to gather more wood.

We worked for about six hours on thursday and it just wore poor maria out so she grabbed a power nap in the wheelbarrow next to the fire.

We took the opportunity to do a small controlled burn while we were working too. the boys manned the lines and had their buckets of water in their hands at all time.

Hard days work followed by what else.....roasting marshmellows in a fire!

The next day this is what was left of our grand bonfire.

our bridge to nowhere. ha ha ha

The mighty work crew. they did a fantastic job. i mean we got done so far ahead of schedule. i am so proud of them.

Playing in the coals and roasting fresh water clams on shovels. no worries, nobody ate them.

now we have to pull the metal pipes out that held up the old bridge.

it was a fantastic time. i love working out there. it is so more rewarding than housework. you get a job done, you do it well and stays that way for more than a day. i LOVE it.