I dropped an inch worm on the floor and it's really hard to find because theres also some top ramen and it all blends in.

2 down...2 to go

Kenzie is half way through with high school. She was freaking out waiting for her report card this time because she thought that she might have gotten an A- in one class and that would not be acceptable. I wasn't worried at all. I knew she'd have a 4.0 again.

She said Mom! I don't want you guys to EXPECT it of me. I don't want you to ASSUME that I will get all A's and be disappointed. I pointed out to her that she was about 15 years too late. I pointed out that shortly after she was born she had told me very clearly, yet without actually speaking any words, that she was going to do everything and anything 100% and be the best little type A personality ever born.

Her report card finally came and it's a 4.0 and she's relieved and we're half way through high school, hopefully heading toward some scholarships. She makes me so proud!

Helloooo, Ladies...

Hey, look at Dusty! He's looking good, yeah? I told you that Mackenzie said she's uncomfortable hugging him now. Not REALLY uncomfortable, but like, Uh, you're not fat Uncle DutDut, you're all hot and stuff kind of feeling. You know when the teenager thinks you look good, that you look good. He does look great, I'm proud of him. Way to go brother!

Why my 12 year old shouldn't be allowed to sit in the front seat of the car

We were driving home from mom and dad's house tonight when, out of the blue, Kai busted out the Sarah Palin rap from SNL. Word for word. Hand motions and dance moves included. I almost wrecked the car right in the tunnel. My strong reaction only encouraged her, so she moved on to the Katie Couric/Sarah Palin interview where Katie tells Sarah that she only gets cuter under pressure and when Kaila did the little guns in the air and the shooting sounds I really lost it.



My kids are funny.

17 again...except really tired...and wrinkles...and fatter

Kiki being the little Miss Type A that she is needed volunteer hours to fulfill her National Honor Society requirement for the year. She was excited to do some respite care for mom and dad so they could get away for the night. She was cute, because she really thought she would be all alone and when she found out I was going to hang around the general area she was a little disappointed. I don't know what she thought she was going to do. A raging party at my parents house? I think she just likes a break from all of the crazy over here.

Mom gave her a notepad and she followed her around taking copious notes about what GG's routine is and occasionally glanced at me with huge "I HAVE TO DO WHAT?" eyes.

Mom and Dad headed out to do what married people do in hotel rooms, except that they were with the actual people that they're married to which is always a nice touch.

Within moments Kiki had her pjs on (it wasn't even 6pm) and had scrounged around for a movie and found Lord of the Rings (very exciting for her for some reason that I don't understand). She got that movie going and her and GG sat there chatting the rest of the night. Chatting and watching SciFi. Wait, is that SciFi? Is there another name for that stuff? Fantasy? Some people's reality? Where was I? Oh, yeah, it was adorable watching Kenzie and her great grandma hang. She got to hear all about GG's mom's tilted pelvis. Several times.

My big plans got reduced to me walking to 7-11 and then driving around to find food for the 3 of us. Kiki wouldn't even go take GG to dinner with me! That's how content she was to sit on the couch and watch My precioouuusss. I love walking around Hillsboro. Or driving around Hillsboro. I try to stay in areas that haven't changed much. I did end up having to run to Winco at 11 and that was pretty much terrifying, but I had forgotten to pack toothbrushes for either one of us (I really did pack mine, but I didn't want to sound selfish, so I didn't tell her...and I don't want any cracks about me not even being able to FIND my toothbrush, cuz I totally did find it and it wasn't even in the yard this time).

I don't really understand who needs to go to Winco at 11pm on a Thursday night. There were 5 lanes open and long lines at every single one of them. What do they all need? I'm pretty sure they needed some hygiene products after standing in line with them for a while, but I, of all people, am not the one to judge them.

I'm starting to realize that I have nothing to really tell you about that night except that I had a great time. It was fun to be home. It was fun not to be a mom for one night. It was fun to wear my brother's sweats and sleep in my old room and laugh until 1 oclock in the morning.

My most daring move was eating some not-quite-ripe cherries in the back yard while Kenzie tried to convince GG to go to bed. And I stood out there and pointed and laughed while she flailed her arms and legs mouthing "what am i supposed to DO?"out the window at me and then turned to GG, completely composed, and sweetly tried to explain that she would be fine finding bedding for herself and perhaps GG should scoot on to bed now. I keep trying to convince Kiki to reenact her flailing for me so I can get it on film to look back at and remember later, but she's not cooperating.

Kiki was a perfect GG tender. She followed her notes and she spent the whole time talking to her and telling her patiently who she was and who her parents are over and over again. She only forgot one thing and it wasn't even important. It was just eye drops. Not prescription or anything, just drops, but she FREAKED out about forgetting. I hope she knows that it was a small error considering all that goes into GG's routine.

We're hoping to do it again sometime soon. Next time I hope to make dinner plans with a friend or something equally as exciting. Maybe I can convince someone to sneak out and meet me at 7-11. That would be REALLY like old times. I'm trying to convince Sam to come join in the slumber party and we can sneek out and peek in hot boys windows and get arrested for being peepers and go get fingerprinted together. Like that time that Heather and I got in trouble with the law and the intake officer looked at our driver's licenses, noted the weights being 120 vs 125 and started referring to us and "the fat one" and "the skinny one". Stick to your day job, Johnny Popo, we're traumatized here and you're making jokes. Jokes about teenage girls and their weight? Not funny.

Seriously, how fun would a cousin slumber party be? Man, I would love that. Sam has dubbed our idea "Operation can't end well". That's the best part of the plan so far. The name. Sam's so dang funny, how can it NOT end well!

I was telling Kiki later that I'm so grateful that my parents live in the house that I grew up in. That people still honk when they drive by. That my grandma is there and so close to visit. That dad still has a huge garden and cherry trees and I can still get in trouble for eating the cherries before they're ripe because I can never wait for them. It doesn't take much to make me happy.

I love summer

Look what Avery and I picked growing wild around this place! There are lots of the pansies and the blue things (forget me nots?) this year and I don't remember seeing them in the past.

The most beautiful princess

Avery has such a different personality. Different from Kai, MoJo, and GrantC. Not that different from Kiki. She reminds me a lot of baby Kiki. Strong willed. Smart. Quirky...ok, the quirky part is totally normal around here, but the temper on this kid is amazing. She IS the only one with an older brother and it shows.

Her biggest peeve is him calling her a baby. He knows this and uses it to his full advantage. Since he can't hit her, it's all he's got. They get into long verbal battles of You're a baby! vs. No, I a big girl! It's not cute. It's irritating.

She did come up with a pretty cute retort this weekend. They're sitting in the back of the van and he got mad about something and screamed OH, YEAH, WELL YOU'RE A BABY!!! and she shot right back with I not a BABY I a bootiful princess! Precious stuff right there. Plus, it's always exciting when I can fully understand what she said.

I think this picture shows just what a beautiful princess she is, too.

My little prince

Hey, mom, did you notice that I been really good today?

Yes, Buddy, I like that, thank you.

It's because someone didn't turn on my mean and miserable switch today. They turned on my nice good boy switch instead.

And...

Mom, did you know that Avery is a human?

Ummm, yes. Usually.

Please, Please, Please watch this

I know that this is a really long video. It has taken me over a week of watching a few minutes at a time to get it all in. This is the most important information that I think most of us don't know anything about. Of all the potential global catastrophes that we hear about, this is SO MUCH WORSE. The potential for this to end life sustaining crops is not something that should be ignored.

Watching it brought tears to my eyes. It was that overwhelming to me. The final minutes of the movie does provide some solutions, but the website has links to ways we can get involved. Here's that link: TheFutureofFood.com

Legal Advice Requested

I need to know under what circumstances and to what extent it is acceptable to beat a child.

Say, for instance, that you had spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars over the course of several years purchasing music on Itunes. Then, hypothetically speaking, one of your children deletes all of that music off of Itunes because they don't like any of those songs and they don't realize that it is not just "their" Itunes.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Beauty and the Beast Theme Song

Be Our Guest Clip

Great Quote

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

- Lao-Tse

That's a first

I just ran over a #10 can of applesauce. That's the big can, if you don't know that. After Kaila getting lucky at Costco last night we dropped the big girls off at church, so when it came time to unload all of the Must-meet-the-minimum-Costco-trip-required-$100-even-if-I-only-came-for-diapers groceries, we only had the two of us to help and I tried to carry too much.

I try to buy one of their big cans of applesauce every time I'm there. This is because a) My kids will eat it b) It is only apples. Nothing else. No sugar, no garbage c) It's perfect for my food storage AND most importantly d) It's only $3.27 FOR THE WHOLE THING and that's SO CHEAP. AND, when I open that huge can I can dump 2/3 of it into a few freezer containers and freeze it. The kids love eating the frozen applesauce that I have sat and scraped at for 45 minutes trying to get enough to fill their bowls. I believe it's because it taste sort of more like a treat when it's all icy and frozen, not just because they like making me work that hard.

I just got the Pampered Chef amazing can opener, too, so opening those huge cans just got way easier. Who's working hard now, punks?

So, there I am, trying to carry too much and yelling I CAN'T CARRY YOU IN! NEITHER OF YOU. THEN PUT YOUR SHOES BACK ON! CAN YOU SEE HOW MUCH STUFF I HAVE IN MY ARMS AT THIS MOMENT?! And I dropped the applesauce and the Gummy Bear Vitamins. The bears rolled far enough that after a lot of pointing and LOOK AT THE GROUND, MORGAN! RIGHT THERE. IN FRONT OF YOU! I was able to get help with those, but the darn applesauce was too far under the car for little arms to reach. So I left it. Just for a minute, you know. And I forgot, because I forget alot. You might think that afternoon kindergarten would be a good thing for me, because I don't have to rush around in the morning, keeping our 6 year old focused on getting ready for school, but it's not. It's horrible. I have all morning to forget to get her ready. It's too much time for me. I get really distracted and I'm sure my neighbor thinks that I'm a really protective mother because I drive my kid to school everyday, but really, I just forget to get her on the bus.

This morning Kiki overslept and I drove her to school, otherwise I wouldn't have left the house until Kindergarten time and I might have remembered that the applesauce was under the car by then, but being so early, I didn't. As soon as I heard the crunch I knew what it was, though. Luckily I had all the children in the car with me or I would have FREAKED out thinking that I had run one of them over. I'm so terrified of that. It's a constant concern of mine. I have very few fears (as you can see under Phobias and Fears), but that is a HUGE one of them.

The can wasn't opened, just pretty flat, so I froze the applesauce for later. I've GOT to start being more focused. Maybe an organizer. Or sticky notes. Or a personal assistant.

That's not appropriate

In the Costco parking lot...

Kai: Whohoo! Look, I found a lottery ticket! I'm gonna get lucky tonight!

I wish I could type the look on his face hearing those words come out of his pre-teen daughter's sweet mouth.

Chris: You're going to get GOOD LUCK, you're NOT going to GET LUCKY!

Ewwwww, it actually got worse

That wasn't dog poop.

I was cleaning up the yard just now. I was cleaning up mostly toys, but some clothes too and right there at the bottom of the slide were a pair of panties. Little girl panties and they were, maybe, 2 feet away from the "dog" poop that my son finally remembered stepping in yesterday after he checked the bottom of his foot and thought really hard.

They had lots of remnants of the poop still in them, so it was easy to identify that the poop matched and it wasn't just that someone had coincidentally dropped their panties there next to the poop. It was definitely matching fecal matter. These weren't any of our girls' panties, either, which pretty much narrows it down to Ainsley or the child that I hear screaming in our yard every night, but since that was cleared up when I realized it was just my husband's night wheezing, I'm pretty sure it was Ainsley. Plus, she's a repeat offender and at least this time it was in the yard and not up in the play structure.

I don't know why it's grosser to me that he stepped in his cousin's accident rather than some dog. We don't even HAVE a dog, so it could be any dog, too, but for some reason, human excrement is worse.

And I'm not complaining about my sweet niece. If I did that, then I would be inviting bad luck upon myself which would lead to one of my own children doing something similar, but somehow WORSE. It's happened too many times. Complain about one sister's loud kids and the next 3 of mine are even louder. Question the legitimacy of ADHA and end up with some serious cases of Shiny Penny Syndrome. Wrinkle my nose at little boys bathroom habits and get my own little wall sprayer. So, no, I'm not complaining. Just commenting. Sharing information. Helpfully pointing out to my sister that her daughter may be missing some underpants.

Leanna, do you want me to send these to you or would you rather drive on up and get them yourself? You could come Saturday and make a day of it!

Gross Mom Moments

The boy just came to me with no clothes on. While this in and of itself is not surprising or unusual, the fact that he had been clothed previously made me question it. Dude, where's your pants? He was like I threw them out the window, they got dirty playing outside. Mom sigh. You need to bring them inside and put them in the laundry. We have enough random clothing and dishes littering the yard, you don't need to add to it.


I didn't follow up on that. I was called away by Momo needing help on the front porch. She's learning to rollerskate and the porch is the only flat surface around. I sat down on the front step to watch and Superturd joined me. He asked for a cupcake (one of the two cakes won during saturday's cake walk, both still at my home, thanks alot Jeff). No problem, cupcake coming right up. But wait, your hands are so dirty. Son, we need to wash your hands. Look at that one, it got dirt all up the side and ALL over your whole thumb. He's was all Oh, that's just mud, Mom. That was the give away. Because I did think it was mud. Why would need to point that out unless it WASN'T mud?


The smell check confirmed what it was and an inpection of his back and leg and general butt area supported the fact that it was poop.

It turns out he had gone upstairs to use my toilet and by the time he got back down stairs he had forgotten to have me wipe him.


The part that was so gross was not knowing how long he had walked around with poop thumb. and skid mark back. We have that new brown couch. Sure, we picked it up at a garage sale last month so TECHNICALLY we don't know what all has been on it, but the point is that I can't SEE if he left any fecal matter on it. On our old cream colored couch at least I could have SEEN the evidence and rectified it. Rectified sounds like rectum, that makes me laugh. So, I don't know what all he's touched, or where he's been or how much E-Coli has just been added to my otherwise spottless home.

I asked him SON, have you been on the COUCH? He thought for a minute and scrunched his forehead up, but all he could say was I don't sink so.

I got him into the shower and handed him the bottle of Clorox bleach to scrub down with (not really, but Chris would like it if I did). Then I got him dressed again and sent him outside for his sandals. He couldn't find his sandals, but he did find a big pile of dog poop. He told me all about it. Then I had to ask him Son, did you step in the dog poop? He had to pause again and think and check the bottom of his foot, Yes, Mom, I think I did step right in the pile of poop.

I know it doesn't sound so bad, but if you could have seen the way that it was dried all on his thumb...trust me...and having to smell it to identify it. Not good.

Here's the upside: I have to clean out the chicken coop today. It really doesn't look so bad now.

One of Mackenzie's Songs in Beauty and the Beast