Representative Hoot

Tada! I made this.
One down, two to go.
Jude is modeling Mimi's Owl Costume.
Why? Because Mimi asked me to. It's good to have little projects.

I Wear Green Well

I have an Ellie.

Many people have an Ellie.  An Ellie is an elder sister who is kind of practically perfect in every way.  She has a great little family.  She has born her baby problems well (she has preg issues).  She has a nice husband who is a great dentist.  She used to be an army wife – her husband was at war in Iraqi for 18 months when Griffin, her eldest, was about 2.  It was awful and tragic, but they made it through.

Ellie is great at church things.  She has lots of friends whom she rarely offends.  She’s a nurse. 

If I didn’t like Ellie so much I would hate her.  But I like her.  And I want her to be happy and have a great life.

Which is why I was only hap-hap-happy when she BOUGHT a house down the street in the same ward as the where I was living when I lost my marriage and my (ugly rental) house. 

Today I went over and saw Ellie’s new house.  Maybe I burst into tears, but I wiped them up before she arrived because really, what do I have to be jealous of?  Haven’t you seen MY new home?  Here’s a pictorial.

Ellie’s new front door.

My new front door.  It’s in the Dutch style and allows plenty of air flow.

  

Ellie’s new rose bush.

My new rose bush.

Likely place where Ellie will put her future hot tub.

My already installed hot tub.

Ellie’s new three car garage.

My new garage.  The contractor hasn’t put the doors in yet, but he’s coming next week with a pick axe.  I’m sure it will be lovely.

Ellie’s new lovely backyard.

My new lovely backyard.

And the piece de resistance, Ellie’s new curb appeal adorable house.

And my new gutter appeal house.  I’m thinking of remodeling the right wall so that I might be able to lay down inside, but that probably won’t be for another few years.

 

While Ellie was out I took the opportunity to greet some of her new neighbors.

 

Ellie’s New Neighbors.

My new neighbors.   (Let me at least pretend, ok?!)

 

Alright, so I’m a little teensy weensy bit jealous of Ellie’s fabulous new house.  But really?  She’s my sister and I think she deserves the very best.  Go you Ellie!  Happy New House Week! 

And if you run out of sugar or eggs I’m sure David Bowie from the Labyrinth or those creepy Dinosaurs will be happy to share.

Sweet dreams.

The Summer List Day 2

There's 104 days of summer vacation
And school comes along just to end it
So the annual problem for our generation
Is finding a good way to spend it
Like maybe...
Building a rocket
Or fighting a mummy
Or climbing up the Eiffel Tower
Discovering something that doesn't exist (Hey! )
Or giving a monkey a shower

As you can see
There's a whole lot of stuff to do
Before school starts this fall (Come on Perry)
So stick with us 'cause Phineas and Ferb
Are gonna do it all

A friend pointed out that The List is kinda like the plot arc of Phineas and Ferb.  Yep!  Good idea stolen!   Mimi officially starts Kindergarten at the end of this summer, so this is our big moment as the three minions are all little and free from responsibility. 

Perhaps it’s just my serious emotional problems with having Mimi start Kindergarten.  Never was a kid more ready for school, but I’m totally afraid of the structure that isn’t based around naps.  As academic as I am, I’m a little bit Kindergarten-phobic.  Most people are stoked when their kids start school, I’m nervous to have to wake everybody up so early and have somewhere we must be five days a week.  I’m not ready!

But school hasn’t started yet, so onward with our summer plans.

Today we made Robots with our friends Max and Jody.

The creation process meant a trip to Home Depot and raiding Grandma’s spray paint collection.  What, your grandma doesn’t have a spray paint collection?  Then I guess your grandma doesn’t run a Children’s Theater.

Assembly.  Duct tape, dryer ducts, wire.  

The finished products.  The children walked around pretending to be robots all afternoon.

Max is our playdate buddy.  He looks like he could be one of my kids – also mixed Asian ethnic heritage.  He’s Vietnamese/White and my kids are 1/4 Thai and White.

Mimi wanted a TV on the back of her robot.   Jody did a lot of the robotic assembly.

This was tiring.  We needed naps.

After naps we headed over to Brentwood to go cherry picking!  Another item crossed off our list: visit a farm.  This counts as it was a Cherry farm.

The kids lugged their own buckets and picked 10lbs worth of cherries.

We met cousins there from Paige’s family, Celia’s, Ellie’s and Phil’s. 

Silas, 2 1/2, climbing a tree to grab cherries.  He was only about 2 feet off the ground but he was a good little cherry picker.

Paige’s kids are by far the best cherry pickers.  They know exactly which trees and have specific picking rules:  only the dark ones and leave the stems on.  They’re cherry picking ninjas.

Kids with buckets.

Jude braving the ladder to pick.

 

After the cherry picking we swung by JoAnn’s for supplies for tomorrow’s activity and then I made a pie with some of the cherries we picked.

Oh, we also took a Surrey Ride down to get ice cream with Grandpa.  More on the surrey later, that deserves it’s own post.

All in all an excellent summery-type day.  Check off Make a Robot, Make something with tools, and Visit a Farm!

The Summer List

Summer vacation began early for me and my kids.  We cut out of preschool a month ago when we moved (to Nowhere).  So it’s just me and my kids all day every day and we needed a plan.

I am so very very grateful for my Some Guy husband and Houdini for working hard and contributing to the financial upbringing of my children.  I love that my work is them and I know how lucky I am to not be forced to work and leave my children, except when I want to work.  Thank you, both of you, for working hard for the money. 

If they’re going to work hard I figure I need to work hard at raising children, and that means going beyond feeding/caring/clothing and lots of love.  Working hard for me means eliminating screen time and focusing on activities.

Thus, I have instituted The List.

My goal is to complete every activity on this list.

I figure we can probably do about 3 or 4 every day. 

Today we:

Went on a Nature Treasure Hunt

The Nature Treasure Hunt included racing leaves down the gutter.

Made Homemade Play Dough and then played with it.

Made Pudding.

Made Popsicles and ate them.

Went swimming.

Then we had a Reading Party.

Ellie checked out our list and said, “This is pretty much your normal life.”

Yep, it is.  But now we have an agenda.

Tomorrow is Build a Robot and Visit a Farm.

It’s going to be the best summer ever!

How to Not Make a Decision

We are still a gypsy family.  We have no residence.

It’s been about a month and a half.

There are so many, many factors that need to be properly balanced so that we can maximize happiness. Thus, we have resorted to inputting our criteria into graphs.

This is a generic Pugh Matrix.  It resembles a house.  Should we move there?

It has gotten us Nowhere.

Well, nowhere other than every weekend somewhere new and fun!  In the last month we’ve been to Utah, Los Angeles twice, this weekend we’re going camping (ok, glamping), San Rafael, really all over the place!

But we are going to eventually have to agree on a place to live that works for everybody.

Thus far we agree that, like Meat Loaf, we would do anything for love.

 

Unfortunately, the decision cycle we are currently in looks more like a Daft Punk song:

“Work It Harder Make It Better Do It Faster, Makes Us stronger More Than Ever Hour After
Our Work Is Never Over”

We go from decision to conflict to this member of our 7 family will be happy to this member will be getting the short end of the stick.

These five kids love each other.

We just want some arrangement that works for everybody.  We thought we had that.  It blew up in our faces.

We just want to be a family.  All seven of us, at least 50% of the time in one place where nobody brings us drama.  Is that so much to ask?

My stepsons Julian and Jordan contributed their dance interpretation of our failure to make a decision:

We go around and around and we don’t seem to be able to come to a solution to our housing problem.

Here’s our decision graph.  We add to it daily. 

I’m about to start grabbing strangers by the lapels and asking them what to do about our living arrangement.  We need to decide before Mimi starts kindergarten in September.  All of the criteria seem equally relevant.  Our prayers have just made us more confused about where to move. 

If only we had been able to weather the storm of nastiness in our previous town. 

Running away may still be an option.  Does Mars have good schools?

In the meantime, thanks friends and family.  We couldn’t do it without you.