Its a world-record first.

I swear.

Jeremiah got a cut on his thumb.  Ya know the kind that a band-aid fixes?

He cried worse after I put the band-aid on it, and made me take it off.

Since when does a band-aid NOT fix a owie?????

Good morning

Getting back into the routine.  Of course we had a ROTTEN night with a capital R last night which makes getting into the routine extremely hard. 

Let's see.  Jer woke up.  Zeria's cat snuck into my bedroom and decided at 2 am it wanted out and meowed, and meowed and meowed.  I finally had to drag myself up and get outside.  *shrieks*

I was just getting to sleep after this and the dogs started barking, and barking, and barking.  It turns out the pony undid her tether.  The good news is the gate was closed so she couldn't get far and we didn't discover that's what they were barking about until this morning. 

I was just getting to sleep after this when Zeria came in to tell me she had a nightmare and her side hurt.  (She got a fairly big boo-boo last night--long story)

I slept with her in my bed until about 4:30 am when my back was hurting so I kicked her back to her room.  At which point Jer woke up crying cause he thought he needed a nurse.

We ignored him until 5:45 am.  He got quiet or we wouldn't have been able to.

At 5:45 Jer was awake for the day.  I nursed him, and then threw him at Rob and desperately tried to get a bit of sleep.

I hate nights like this.

So school.  I can do this.

Its very light, and low-key should be nothing to stress them or me out.  HA!

Good morning

This morning I'm going to church with a few nerves.  The family we invited a few weeks back finally had the husband show up last Sunday.  It was awesome to have church full.  

We were told by R the unofficial head of the church that he was getting together with them Friday to discuss the doctrine of the church.  I'm praying it went well.  I want it to go well so badly.  It would be so good for all of us to have another family--especially considering they have NINE children.  *beams*

We shall see.

Other then that it rained hard in the night, but appears to be trying to be sunny today.  Its our last day of vacation.  Rob goes back to work tomorrow.  And we will be starting school.  Math, Reading, and Writing.   The rest as I mentioned before is more unschool like.  I hope it goes well. 

And my kids are so silly.  There reading is good enough that I ditched there workbooks that they were coming to hate.  One of the reasons I quit school rather abruptly in the spring.  And Samuel the one who hated them the most tried to tell me he "loved" his old workbooks, and didn't like my new plan.  Throws something hard at the boy.  I don't think they listen to themselves.

Zeria is going through a new phase that can end soon.  Its the phase where if she gets lectured about something she says. so'h r  rry.  (sorry)  but drug out with this rude inflection that implies she's not sorry at all.  She's gonna be doing a lot of laps around the driveway for it.  Cause she's not sorry, she's mad, and disrespectful.  Mad equates running.  End of subject.   My kids are gonna be great when they get old enough for track.  ROFL

We had a nice relaxing day today.  It was cold 60 degrees, and overcast, but still fun.  Rob got a campfire going and we bumbed around it.  In the morning we headed to the beach for the first time since we got back from vacation.  It was a lot of fun, and the girls and I collected a nice little pile of beach glass.

Jamari and Kaylin invented a new game with seaweed. 

The smaller seaweed is the princess, and the bigger one is the queen.  And they were running around talking like they were people.  *snicker*

Rainee didn't have a pocket for her beach glass, and agate that she found, so mommy guarded them, and had to take a picture too.   Its like jewelry somehow, its funny cause really its just broken garbage.

Kaylin with Rob's help "decorated" her princess' so that they were Indian princess snakes.  Don't ask me, I just report it I don't invent it.  She ran all over the place going SSSS SSSSS

And a gorgeous picture of fireweed.  I'm actually intending printing this one off and putting it in a frame in my bedroom.  I have a flower picture up there that I'm not as happy with so I'll swap them out. 

This afternoon as I mentioned earlier we just sat by the fire.  At one point Rob told the two oldest to go carry a bucket of water over to Cricket as she's being staked out in the yard on a "diet".   Jeremiah was dutifully impressed by this and he found a bucket and decided to carry it to the pony too.  The only problem of course was there was nothing in it.  Regardless of this fact he walked quite a long ways for him to where the pony was carefully carrying the bucket.  He never lost the focus of the task, just headed around both of the old campground circles to the back where Cricket was and handed her the bucket.

Cricket was really hoping there was grain in that there bucket.  But there wasn't.  ROFL.  So she quickly lost interest.  As did Jeremiah.  I'm still amazed by Jer's attention span.  Our chickens are about a 1/4 of a mile away from our house through some fairly tall grass.  He went into the garage got a handful of chicken food and walked all the way over to the chickens.  Rob realized he was missing and went to find him, and followed him to the chickens.   Rob couldn't figure out what was clenched in his hand, and opened it up.  wala  Jer wanted to feed the chickens.  *beams*  Of course we have to watch him like a hawk since he's really too young to be wandering so far on his own.  Its a good thing the river and the highway are fenced.

And that was our nice relaxing day.

Good morning

Zeria had a lovely day yesterday, and thoroughly enjoyed herself.  We had the treasure hunt, and then a swim in the river.   And then they just wondered around the property entertaining themselves.

I'm told my youngest niece Ericka's favorite form of entertainment was to catch one of the chickens that was out, throw it up in the air and watch in fly back into the cage.

Somehow considering she's my brothers daughter this just doesn't suprise me.     My brother...is full of it to say the least. 

And I haven't broken my daughters heart yet by telling her Andria and Ericka are moving to Yakima on the first of August.   *sigh*  Its gonna be extremely hard on her.  She knew it was probably coming, but ugh.  I guess we'll be making more frequent trips over the mountains.  My brother was fired from his job (unjustly)  in April.   Its a long story, but the short of it is his boss found out shortly after they hired him how bad my brothers diabetes was, and was unimpressed.  So he came up with an extremely lame excuse to get rid of him.   The irony in this is my brother had a good job, that he quit to take that one.   So, after a couple months of looking he's got a paramedic job in Yakima compliments of my brother and sister.   It isn't the fire/paramedic job he wanted.  But it does do trauma (which his original job didn't), and its a job, which is the most important thing.

They will be temporarily renting their house out here, and renting a town-house there until they can come up with another plan.   Man, my family has always lived an hour away from each other, and suddenly its not that way.  Its gonna be a hard adjustment.   At least my parents and I are still an hour away (for now.)

We had a nice date night last night.  We drove to La Push and ate in the newly reopened restaurant there.  The food was excellent and the prices extremely reasonable.   We will be going back.  Its got a to-die-for view after all. 

I have no pictures as I mislayed my camera for most of the day yesterday.

Good morning;

Our house is nice and sparkling clean.  That would be cause my mom is coming.  ROFL.  Rob said he likes it when our moms come our house always gets extra cleaning. 

Zeria is having her belated birthday party today.  Her two cousins, her youngest sister, and her friend from Clallam Bay are coming over.   They will have a treasure hunt--which Rob and I just got done plotting/hiding.  And swim in the river if its warm enough. 

After that my mom has offered to babysit so Rob and I can have a date night.  *cheers* and throws confetti.

I think we will be driving to Lapush for dinner as their restaurant has reopened, and its my most favoritest beach in the world.  

We are on the tail-end of our vacation and soon I will start back on the r/p boards and play ketchup.   But for now I'm enjoying my family, my yard, and so on.

*waves*  and runs away.

Good morning

Its a quiet foggy morning.  The kids are out "training" the dogs.  One kinda has to feel sorry for the dogs.  LOL   Bill is Sam's.  Ricky is Zeria's  and Achi is Kaylin's.  Its the current game.

We have intentions of letting our kiddos do dog 4-H this coming fall, so their getting a jump on it.  Of course they haven't a clue as to how....but that doesn't stop them from the game. 

Bill was wonderful last night.  He just curled up on the porch and went to sleep.  No whining, scratching on the door etc.  Just lovely well-mannered dog.  *cheers*

Now, to de-hair him a bit.  He is extremely fuzzy and shedding his winter coat as he hadn't been taken care of quite as well as he could have.   His owner was going through a nasty divorce.   I actually researched dog hair--and people are making sweaters of it.  Bill's hair definitely is thick and soft enough.  *giggles*   Apparently his hair is valuable to certain people...

Today's project is to get the other half of our air-flow heater working.  We hope.  That way the boys and us can have heat in our bedrooms this fall.  *growl*    The cats broke it last year.

Speaking of cats.

We have two new kittens.  The kids found them today, they are about 2.5 weeks old by my guess. Sooo cute.

Quick does anybody see the sucker sign written across my forehead?  Anyone?  Do you see it?  Its huge.

Points at above picture.  Its a boy.

*snicker*

Can't have any more kids so we're collecting animals apparently. 

He's an American Eskimo, neutered.  I got him on freecycle.....

He's such a sweetie, and he's gonna be Rob's jogging companion.

I have a new favorite song.  I *just* heard it.  Its by Mark Harris. 

Good morning

My husband is a lawn mowing addict.  I swear.

We are still enjoying our home-stay vacation.   He has spent a great portion of it mowing.  We have about 5 acres of flat.   A lot of we couldn't mow due to the rain, rain, rain.  Also due to the fact that all we had was an electric lawn mower.  Well first my parents gave us their old self-propelled push, and then we bought a riding lawn mower for $75.    He figured  out how to get the riding lawn mower working the day we got back.  And he's out on it early morning to late at night.  Oh he takes breaks, and he's giving the kids rides, but oh my word the lawn mower's seen more of him then I have.

Today we are headed into Sequim to talk to the loan officer about a second.  We will also finally have Zeria's birthday dinner.    The kids each get to pick what they want for their birthday dinner.  There was no restaurant anywhere near where we were camping, so now that pay day has come, we will eat there.   Technically we're cheating as we would have had to eat out anyhow due to being far away from home at dinner time.  But don't tell Zeria that okay?  Our budgets kinda reeling still thanks to that lovely $700 van fix.

It was a bit cold yesterday so no swimming, and today there will probably be none thanks to the time our loan appt is scheduled.  

I have maintained the new weight for 3 days.  This officially means I've lost 20 pounds.  *yeah*    My baby goal is to hit 290.   It is just 2.5 pounds away.  It is what I weighed pre-Jeremiah.  I maintained that weight for almost 3 years.  I have no intentions of maintaining it anymore.  I vont to loose it.  ROFL.

When I originally started this journey I did it with a long discussion with Rob about realistic goals.  He was a saint in discussing it, plus he's a nurse so he could discuss it from the healthy perspective.  And his extremely realistic view of what healthy is.   He thought that my goal should be 250.  He knows how big my bone structure is.  Its those good Irish peasant bones.  *snicker*     I would be ecstatic if I got there.  I also would be ecstatic if I lost considerably more.   I know what I weighed in college, and I know what I weighed for several years outside of college. 

My dream-goal would be 180.   So a long long ways to go.  But 20 pounds hard won is still extremely exciting.