I Love.....

I love it when Daddy asks the kids who would like to go hunting with him and my little "princess" girl has her camo on and is out the door before her brothers can respond.

I love it when my littlest boy has to be next to me all day, "I need you , Mommy....I need you."

I love it when my boys come in so filthy that they look like they just escaped a near death experience.

I love the thump, thump, thump.....swish...of the kids playing basketball.  It makes our home seem just so American!
Thank you, Dad (Grandpa), for the sweet hoop!

I love it when my husband, trying to sweeten a hunting deal, brings me flowers.  What he has yet to really understand is that I love hunting season almost as much as he does.

I love it that three of my children are totally digging a new computer math game.

I love that my girls sound so beautiful playing the piano.  Maybe Eric will sound as good on his guitar in 30  a year.

On that note, I love that Eric's guitar teacher totally gets Eric.  Two peas in a pod, I'm tellin' you!  Kinda scary, now that I'm thinking about it ~:o(

I love reading aloud to my kiddos and I love that they love it.  We are in the middle of Charlotte's Web.  The book immerses me in farm life and a reliving of my childhood.  Animals can talk you know!

I love that my 4-year-old thinks he's a hummingbird.
Upon waking from his nap, "Mom, do you have anything tasty?"
"Yes, Dom.  I will cut you up one of God's candies, a yummy pear."
"Mom, have you ever fiwed a cup almost all de way wit sugar and then put warm water on de top and stirred it wiwy good....dat's weally tasty."

Mmmhmm, then you flew south to Mexico without stopping, right?

Haircut Update

Maria ~ here you go.  It's not as bad as it seemed last night, but it is still a bit shocking every time I look in the mirror.
And Nickles called me "Daddy" this morning.
Ugh.
I should have known I was in trouble when the stylist began talking about fake bang clip-in thingies!  Shannon thinks I should dye it Billy Idol blonde for a couple weeks.  His suggestion was that since I felt it was that bad, I may as well have fun with it for a while.

Fun....hmmm....I would have to go to Mass elsewhere for a while!

Lamp of the Soul

When we were young and Mom was still cutting our hair she would tell us that the eyes were the lamp of the soul.  I believe this was while she was evening up our bangs to about, oh, an eighth of an inch long.  She had to come up with something that would make us feel better about our total lack of fashion ~:o)
Not that I had, or have, any desire to be on the cutting edge of fashion.  It just would have been nice to curl my bangs occasionally without burning my forehead while using the 1/4" barrel.

I do jest.

So, I went to get my hair trimmed today.
Trimmed being the operative word.
Since then I have told myself at least 465,234 times that the eyes are the lamp of the soul...the eyes are the lamp of the soul, the eyes......

The stylist "trimmed" my hair so short that all you can see are eyes...and from the back...my fat neck.  Shannon told me there are worse tragedies but I am not so sure.  It's going to be me and a hat from now til Christmas!

The animal man

Neighborhood pig roast ~

Shannon is acting interested so he can be first in line ~:o)

My boys and Halle Jo

Fall swim

Sasquatch...or at least Dom's depiction!

Send Me a Pigeon!

There are so many means of communication anymore ~ phone, cell phone, fax, email, text, Facebook.  At times when I am telling someone to get a hold of me, I'll just tell them to send a pigeon.  When one arrived on our deck the other day with a band on its' leg I thought maybe someone had sent me a pigeon.  Alas, it was just a racing pigeon , with no super-cool message attached....darn it.  

Eric was able to get close enough to catch it.  It may be missing several feathers now.  No crucial flight feathers were missing so a couple hours later it was good to go.  The boys thought it would be tremendous fun to put it somewhere that Auntie Margaret would have to visit, such as the bathroom, but we put the kibosh on that lest she die of a heart attack ~:o)

Oh, Margaret, you have no idea how close you came! 

Bella

The day following my post about our kitty, Butterscotch, he unexpectedly died.  The kids, and especially Annika,  couldn't understand how they could care for something so well and have it meet an untimely end.  As with many other things this year, it became a conversation about death being part of life, as difficult as that may be.

We began immediately searching for a new kitten as Butterscotch was not just a pet, but also served a purpose around the house.  Annika and her cousin, Mary Rose, ended up finding sister kitties.

I did not realize how occupied animals kept my boys, especially Nickles.  I may begin campaigning for a fenced pasture, a larger barn and more creatures.
Shhh, don't tell Michaela I said that!

This poor little kitty (named Bella)  has endured much in the past few days at the hands of the youngest cherub in the house.  He has bathed her, followed by a roll in kitty litter, wrapped her into a tootsie roll to protect himself from well-deserved scratches, locked her in an empty drawer to hide her from his siblings, and the list goes on and on.  Bella doesn't seem to mind too much.   She is almost as good natured as her predecessor.

Annika & Bella

Nickles & Bella

Nickles, now that he has taken charge of dressing himself.  

He no longer cares if it is a top or a bottom, 

just so long as he can get it on.

Exhibit A ~ long underwear top as pants.  

Now, if only I had a belt.....

Funnies

"Mom, if you had another boy baby would you name him Butch or Brian?"
Is that actually a choice?

"Mom, I'm finished with school for the day, except for science, phonics, spelling, history and English."
That's optimism!

While riding his bike on the driveway Dom says, "Kafrine,  guess what? Guess who I have a cwush on?"
"Who, Dom?"
"Amy, but don't tell her."
Katherine responded, "Dom, you can't. Amy is married to Joe now."
"Oh, that was HER wedding."
I have no idea where the crush-subject came from because that is a forbidden topic in our house, thanks to Daddy!

While browsing the classifieds this morning looking for kittens Eric runs down to Michaela, "There is a free horse in the paper!"
Michaela, excited beyond belief, races upstairs to check it out for herself.
"Eric, it isn't a free horse.  It says Free Horse MANURE!"

Like father, like son....

you gotta have bathroom reading material.

Teaching Daddy how to play games on the iPod ~

Pets

Shannon is slightly opposed to pets.  He feels as though our home is jungle enough without adding actual animals.  Much to his dismay we do have a dog, just a little sweet dog.  And there are the chickens, his girls. Not ideal pets but another creature that the kiddos enjoy.
Of course there is the continual requests for chameleons, fish, a larger dog, a horse (or seven), a cat......and the list goes on and on.

We told Annika years ago that if we ever had a barn she could have a kitty, knowing one would be necessary for mouse control.  Not one to forget, as soon as Shan had our little barn built this spring Annika began asking for a kitty.

Shannon stalled and and Annika persevered.

Then we developed a rodent problem in our garden and lawn by the pond, at which point Aunt Missi inadvertently came to Annika's aid.   While discussing the dilemma with her she said that a cat would probably solve the problem as she had never had an issue with the pesky little creatures.

So now Annika has Butterscotch.
And this weekend Butterscotch endeared himself to the man of the house by killing his first vole!

iPods

For a long time I was opposed to any technology.  Shannon purchased an iTouch for me a couple Christmases ago and since I was expecting Nickels at the time, informed me that I could learn how to use it while I was in labor.
If looks could kill.....
With Nickles arriving via emergency C-section I didn't have time to educate myself on the many uses of the little device til I was sitting on the couch later on.  Actually, I wasn't too excited about using it at all because I kinda thought he had purchased it more for himself than for me.  Now, not a day goes by without it being used many, many times.  Lately, it has been the perfect entertainment in the car while I run hither and yon in these first couple weeks of school.

While I was making dinner this afternoon I thought I'd listen to music only to find my iPod missing.  The only person in the house was Nickles, so I began looking for him, knowing my iPod would be nearby.  After an initial response he was silent, realizing he had what I was looking for.  I found him lying beneath the coffee table, fishing.....the naughty little boy!
It is hard to believe something I was so opposed to has become so indispensable ~

I Want a New House....

That can be sung to the Huey Lewis song, "I Want a New Drug."
Yes, I know I should not have ever heard that song, but my rock-loving husband made me listen to it once or twice.  I was going to say "old-rock loving husband" but that kinda dates us

Shannon is currently building a home that has me itching to build again.  Unfortunately, the workload would fall on Shan and he is not too hip on the idea!

We watched them swing some timber-frame trusses into place yesterday and it was simply spectacular.  The photos certainly do not do it justice, but framed against Montana's big sky it is going to be an amazing home.