Photo Update

I've been a bad blogger lately. So I figured I'd do a little photo update of what we've been up to.

Enjoying seeing GREEN again!
{Oh and this is reason 867 why we don't live in housing, this backyard is waaaaaaay better then the postage stamp we would have in housing.}

Playing on hay, because everyone does that in the spring right?

Lots of time enjoying the outside {except today, sadly, today is yucky and wet}.

Lots of "flowers" have been picked for me. They may just be weeds but my boys think they are roses and love to present them to me with a big smile and a kiss.

Personally... I'll take that over roses any day.

We've hung out with the cows some, fed them some bread, chit chated, moowed a little. You know.... the usual.

Check out the shirt...if you cant read it clear enough it says "My mom's blog is better then your mom's blog." ABW sent one for each of the boys, dash3 says "Blog star" and dash1's says "Every detail of my life is being blogged".

He wore it to the park and I heard one mom whisper to another... "Whats a blog?"

Lots of time at a new park, which means lots of time on the swings.

And dash 3 loves him some swings.

Dash-1 is now a Pirate! As much as we bleed blue, we will now bleed black and gold. Until football starts that is. Then its back to big blue.

So far, every at bat has ended up with a hit.

And there has been a lot of base protection.

And that's about that. Springtime around the flyboy house. Hope everyone is enjoying theirs as much as we are enjoying ours.

question of the day

One thing that has not escaped me since having kids is that they are not growing up in the same world that flyboy and I did. Not only have all of our kids been born during this war, but times and society have just changed.

I remember playing outside, when we were elementary age, with our friends and our parents merely peering out the window to check on us. I remember my mother leaving us in the car while she ran into the post office. Flyboy remembers riding his bike all over town after school, walking himself to soccer practice and school.

My kids won't be doing these things. They can't. It's a different time.

We have a giant yard surrounding our house, yet I don't know, if ever, when I'd ever let my kids play outside without me watching.

I'm sure if we're here when they are teenagers and are at the point where they can go bombing around 4 wheeling on the farm I'll let them go, but in terms of running out the door with a "see ya later mom we're going out to play" is that possible anymore?

When the weather is nice my boys are content to be outside all day. They collect sticks, play in the stream, feed the animals, climb on the rock piles, anything and everything, but I'm out there with them. This means that not a whole heck of a lot gets done on the inside.

I'm always torn, get stuff done on the inside or let them be outside, where kids should be?

There are days I wish I could just let them go out and play while I cook dinner inside, but I'm terrified something would happen. Someone could snatch them or some nosy person would be alarmed at the small children by themselves and call cps.

As a disclaimer, I don't think even if it were the good old days I'd let a five year old be in charge outside of a three year old. He's gotta be at least seven before he's in charge.

Eight to wield a stick AND be in charge.

So I'm curious..... what say you on kids playing outside alone?

Does it matter if the yard is fenced in? {to me not so much, our yard is big enough they can't make it to the street easy enough and well a perv can open a fence}

Does it matter if its in a neighboorhood? {but then someone is still watching right?}

What do you do at your house?

And don't even think about leaving your kids locked safely in your car {when the temps are nice} and you run into the post office or something quick, someone will break open that window and free your kids right quick.

You think I'm joking? That happened around here last year.

It seems like the world was simpler back in the day.

Sigh

Pictures from the blizzard

The dash brothers more then enjoyed the snow.

And learned a very important lesson on which snow is safe to eat.

{hint..... not the yellow stuff}

As you can imagine dash-3 sat out the snow and admired it from afar.

It seems that the cows don't mind the snow.

Maybe they too think its funny to see steam coming off their poop.

Not sure.

There is no arguing that it was beautiful, but what made it beautiful made it nasty.

The snow was so wet and heavy that it just clung to the trees and power lines, everything was coated with the snow for days.

And down went the trees and power lines.

What is a girl to do when her fridge doesn't work and she needs a cold beverage?

Stick it in the snow of course.

We had to toss a ton of food, we couldn't stick that in the snow. We live out in the country, I'd rather toss my food then have a bear sitting on my porch eating it.


See that little green thing sticking out of the snow?

That's the original well, used back when they used the outhouse out back, which by the way, I did not use when we lost power. The well pump still works.

Anyways, flyboy melted snow on the wood stove for two days, so that he could have spare water to flush the toilets.

After the storm it occurred to me.... why didn't we just go out to the water pump?

Not fit for drinking but more then fit for flushing.

I smell...

SKUNK.

Last night a skunk sprayed right by my brand new (well four months old) car. And for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of living in the country and inhaling the sweet scent of skunk, where they spray the scent is strong.

S.T.R.O.N.G strong.

He must have done it right by the doors because the back half of the car now smells like skunk. In fact its strong enough I actually was afraid the skunk was in the car.

However now that pesky new car smell is gone. We all know how old that smell can get.

And by the way thanks for coming out of the woodwork folks! I had no idea all of you were out there, stop by and say hi some more, I'm always up for comments. I live for them, they make a day filled with poop and skunk more delightful.

As if skunk by itself isn't delightful.

Flyboy got the shaft

We got ripped off by the wood guy. 700 big ones (dollars, denaros, mucho bucks) for five cords of wood.

It was delivered in a big pile when flyboy was away. This is just asking for trouble. I didn't have a clue what five cords in a giant pile should look like. And yes, it would have been easier had flyboy been here for the delivery but well, it would be easier if he were around for a lot of things, such is life.

So today he stacked the wood.... its not five cords. Its about three.

Isn't anyone honest anymore? Why does it seem to be the norm to get shafted?

Clearly the wood guy didn't pay attention to the Marine Corps sticker on the back of my car. Nor did he understand that he was ripping off a Marine who is a stickler for rules and doing the right thing.

And who qualified as an expert when he shot the range last month.

Dear fat cow

Dear enormously fat pregnant cow,

Please help a mama out.

Find the rooster. Sit on him.

Preferably before tomorrow morning.

Yours truly,
the other fat pregnant cow

So back to the knocked up cow

And yet again, I'm not referring to myself. I mean that term probably could be applied these days but we won't go there.

The boys and I went down to wander around fields the other day in my attempt to wear them out to explore and for the first time since the cows were moved over to their "summer house" (a wider field for them to roam) they were up by the gates. As soon as they locked eyes on the boys they hurried over.

If your thinking my children have some type of kinetic energy that attracts animals you'd be wrong. They often come bearing food. We're talking a strictly Pavlovian response here.

But this was the first time we had spied one of the preggo cows in a while. YIKES. I'm thankful I'm human. She was HUGE. And looking quite miserable.

I've never really seen a miserable looking cow. And, since living here, I've seen a cow slaughtered so that's saying something.

But back to the cow. We shared a moment. She looked at me and at my ever expanding midsection and she gave me "the look". The look that said, "I'm done, I'm cooked (although not literally and please don't tell the farmer that), get this calf out, by the way you look great I hate you bitch."

Ok so I added the last part, but really her look did kinda make me think she was a little jealous of my butt. But then again she doesn't have back fat or stretch marks so I'm jealous about that.

And I could sympathize with her poor expression. What her eyes didn't say her waddle did.

I mean I know cows are big creatures and don't exactly move with the speed and grace such as horses do, but really, this poor thing was waddling around. Trust me nothing can make you feel worse for a cow then watching it waddle around huffing and puffing.

And cankles. She had cankles, poor thing, a cow with cankles. And udders that would have put Anna Nicole to shame.

Great now that I can't imagine the searches I'm going to get now that I've used udders and Anna Nicole in the same post.

I hope she delivers soon and gets her svelte cow figure back. And an epidural.