A Week of Firsts

The week isn't even over, and yet we've had enough firsts this week to last a month or more.

On Monday I made my first large mistake on the quilt I'm sewing for our bed. Turns out I didn't make my pieced border long enough and so in trying to cover up my mistake by skimping on quality I made the problem even worse. If I thought the quilt project was a big undertaking, I was wrong; righting this mistake will be even bigger.

Tuesday, I took our new kitten, Diamond, for her first emergency visit to the vet. It all began with an early morning check on Diamond; she sleeps in a kennel in the garage. Grace and Ray were playing with her and some how everyone's feet became entangled causing Ray to trip and fall squarely on Diamond. Ray had a bloody nose and a dime sized abrasion on the side of his nose. I quickly cleaned him up because everyone was crying that something was wrong with Diamond. Indeed something was wrong with Diamond. I knew immediately upon seeing her laying on the concrete floor that I needed to get her to a vet fast. As I drove to the vet I thought for the first time, Why can't we find a vet closer than a 30 minute drive? After the vet checked her out it was determined that she had a fracture in her right front leg, misalignment in the jaw, severe concussion and major lung trauma. After evaluating the options for care and cost, I chose to have the vet give her IV fluids, a steroid shot and an antibiotic shot and to bring her home. The first 24 hours were crucial. I am happy to report that she survived. It's now 36 hours after the initial accident and she is walking, pottying, eating, drinking, meowing, purring and generally in good spirits. She isn't walking completely straight, nor is she cleaning/licking herself. But she's alive and we all survived our first big incident with Diamond.

On a lighter note and in the area of nature study, we have been amazed for the first time at the size of a toad's stool. It's BM. It's #2. For a 2 1/2" toad, I think a 1" turd is quite large; we all think it's quite large. Think about that. If we pooped one proportionately, it would be about 2 feet long.

For the first time Lou told me about her cantering cat. Can you tell she also loves horses?

I also had my first realization as to how the sand got into my bed sheets. Last night when I climbed in I wondered out loud why I felt sand. DH felt sand, too. Must not have been too bothersome because I woke in what felt like a couple minutes to find it was morning and I was still sleeping in sand. I'm assuming it came from the tractor/loader that was on the sandpile yesterday and was found in my bedroom today.

While shopping at Goodwill yesterday, I was told by Lou for the the first time that see through, leopard print tanktops were not my style. Good thing!

Also, while shopping at Goodwill, Lou almost lost her first tooth. It did finally come out today in the van. I can't believe it could hang on by that thread for so long. Anyway, tooth fairy tonight.

Ray traced numbers for the first time. He knows how to make a mama smile.

Grace and her friend Sara harnessed up Twig to a mini pull cart for the first time.

Lou had her first piano lesson.

Lee played at his guitar teacher's house with her nephew for the first time. And rode his bike to the beach for the first time. The bike riding is a big deal to me, because as a kid I rode my bike everywhere - to the gas station, to the city pool, to all the parks and playgrounds in a 8 block radius, to friend's houses, to work, to the icecream shop, to school. We live in a rural area where the only place they can ride to is Grandpa's. And although I love living where I do, I have to admit I miss being able to ride my bike to a real place. So, when my kids get a chance to take their bikes to town and ride to a real place and leap for joy. They are experiencing something from my childhood.

A week of many firsts. Some great, others required a bit more from me. Taking each one in stride and thanking God for each opportunity and experience is the only way to get through it all.

In the Garden

Time in the garden always refreshes my soul. Weather forecasts are showing high 80's and low 90's starting Sunday and continuing into midweek, so I figured best do the garden work now when it's fairly cool. The breeze today made it so we could weed and hoe in relatively pleasant conditions. I headed out this morning after I'd started the dishwasher and laundry, started a loaf of wheat bread in the bread machine and read a chapter in Guerrilla Learning, which I'm finding to be fascinating. The kind of stuff you know, but need to be reminded of, especially as you plan for the upcoming school year. At the end of each chapter I absolutely love the for the parent and for the child exercises. Really makes one think about being a learning role model in a learning environment. Anyway, I started out alone in the garden, humming a tune as I hoed. Gradually the kids congregated around me. Grace came with a second hoe and pail for pulling big weeks. Ironic that Grace would be the first one out, but the first question out of her mouth was, How long do you think we'll be doing this? Until it's done, I said. Lee came next and plopped down in the shade with stories of escaping deer flies, dead stag beetles and a new bird with a yellowish breast at the feeder. Lou came down with Diamond and Ray showed up with a tractor. I managed to coerce Lee into getting the wheel barrow so we could pick up some trash I raked from the garden edge. He did that while Grace and Lou pulled weeds from around the electric fence and Ray played with his tractor near the entrance to the garden, near the tomato plants. I hoed the entire garden and managed to only step on corn twice. That's a record for me, especially with all the commotion surrounding me.

What drew the kids to the garden? I'd like to think it was me being there, but there's definitely more to it than that. The breeze, the new life springing forth, the cool soil between the toes, the tangibleness of it all when the job is done. You can see your progress. There's nothing more beautiful than a nicely weeded garden. The fresh black dirt, the bright greens poking out, the excitement of what's to come with each vegetable and flower. And of course, just being a family, all working towards one accomplishment and the silly songs I sing as we weed help keep us merry when quite frankly, we're tired out and want a Popsicle now.

The pictures are not from our garden, but from around the yard. Enjoy!

Super Summer Science

Last week Lee spent the better part of a day releasing his painted turtle, cleaning the terrarium and preparing it for a toad. Well, the toad died while waiting for its new home and the terrarium has been staring us in the face for too long. Poor Lee, he's had despairing moments when he thinks he'll never find another toad. With a flashlight and net in hand, he tried last Friday night and had an almost captured toad. Dad has gone with him to the tin shed looking with no luck finding one. I looked with him down on the marsh; we heard many, but found none. I did catch a lightening bug, my first one ever. So we're sitting at supper last night and Lee teared up, saying I'm just taking the terrarium down; I'll never find another toad. We all encouraged him to keep looking, one will hop across his path when he least expects it. So, we're fishing last night, Lou is playing with Diamond and she starts screaming for Lee. I found one, I found one! Lee I found you a toad. Praise God!, I said to myself.

Now comes the Super Summer Science part. Using the Golden Guide Reptiles and Amphibians guidebook we identified it as an American Toad. We also read info about toads from, Northwoods Wildlife: A Watcher's Guide to Habitats and The Kingfisher Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia. But the most exciting part of keeping a toad is watching it eat. Lee and Grace caught two deer flies this morning, one got away in the transfer process and the other was quickly spied by the toad. How incredible to watch as the toad focused intently on the deer fly as it flew around the terrarium. The toad would hop once, stop and watch, then hop again in the appropriate direction. The deer fly didn't seem to notice is was being preyed upon. Then in two quick flicks of the tongue the fly was caught and gone, all in a split second. The toad tongue was larger than I'd expected. Well wider than expected and it was pink. Not an experiment type of science today, but definitely interesting and very informative. So, find a toad, put it into a terrarium, clear rubbermaid container or gallon size glass jar and then feed it some insects. Definitely worth watching.

Choir Camp

Grace began Choir Camp yesterday, which is a big commitment on my part. Each day this week she needs to be in Marshfield from 2:45 - 4:45 pm. Which means we have to leave at 1:45 and don't get home until 5:30 - 5:45. And as we travel in a pack the rest of us need to find something to do while she is singing her heart out. A quick search of the Marshfield Visitor Center gave us a list of places to go and there is always grocery shopping to be done, too. While we were shopping at Target and then dodging the sheets of rain at the Wildwood Zoo, Grace was singing about animals with 30 other kids. It's an annual program run by the Continuing Education program at UW-Marshfield Center. Three age groups of kids meet for 2 hour choir practices and then give a final performance on Friday night. This year's musical is A Carnival of Animals and as Grace said yesterday, I can't wait to go back tomorrow, I made a new friend named Rachel and my teacher is really nice. It must be going well and I'm glad they are allowed to bring home the songbook. She's singing the lyrics all the time, reading time that's fun and useful. It's hard to get Grace to read just for fun. She's not a nose in the book kinda kid. She's a, I made a new friend, I'm going swimming, when can I go___________ (fill in the blank) kinda kid. So anytime she has to read, as is the case in choir camp, it's a bonus.

Plans for our week include:

*visiting Jurustic Park

*swimming at the local pool

*shopping/looking at Fleet Farm (Lee's pick)

*playing at the castle park

*stopping in at Thimbleberries (used and rare book store) (my pick, of course)

*Foxfire Botanical Gardens

AWESOME!!!

What would make an eight year old boy say,



This is AWE-SOME!



I bet you can't guess, so I'll just tell you.



I let him use the new rechargeable weed trimmer. He's trimming around the swingset and the house and his little cranberry bed and anywhere he feels the grass is too long. And then, finally, the battery was drained. More fun awaits tomorrow when the charge is full again.

Thoughts on the Day

There are just some things I never imagined I would have to or need to say to my kids, like this one

Grace....Lee....your sister is not a beach toy.

Then talking with a friend about this she had another good one

Caleb! Don't lick the boat trailer.

Crazy....the things us moms have to say.

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After examining the "foods" my kids try, I had to ask myself, what nutrient are they missing? See, in the past year Lee has tried chicken feed, dog food, dog treats (which he claims have a sort of peanut buttery flavor), horse treats (two different kind) and now the latest is kitten chow. He's not alone, his siblings have tried their share and today to top it off I had a fight, yes a gimme, pulling, threatening, two year old fight with my two year old over the hummingbird nectar. I have it mixed in a milk jug and labeled for all the readers in the house, HUMMINGBIRD. Ray decided that he was going to drink that stuff and unless I put up the fight of my life he was going to win. So I had to stoop to his level and just fight it out. I won. He had milk and now every time he opens the fridge he points to the red nectar and says hummy birdy rink (drink).

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Father's Day

What did we get for the Father of this house? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not because he doesn't deserve the absolute best, but because nothing is the best gift of all. Nothing means a day where all we have to do is go to mass and eat. Nothing means the kids will present him with a homemade acrostic card and some snacks which are the props to a cute little message they have for their daddy. Nothing means we might sit outside and sip lemonade. Nothing means we might take a boat ride in the pond. Nothing means he can do whatever he wants while we vacuum and wash his personal truck and marsh truck. Nothing can be a very lovely something.

Strawberry Season

First we picked these

Then we bought this
Then we did this
End Result: 26 half pints of cooked strawberry jam and 10 half pints freezer jam

Super Summer Science

The title is my attempt at creating a catchy phrase for my kids to latch onto and remind them of our plan to deliberately make weekly scientific observations. I love science. I majored in Biology, minored in Chemistry and Health Education and received a 6-12 grade teacher's license. Human Anatomy and Physiology was by far my favorite in college (I know that sounds a little funny); next up came Microbiology and Biochemistry. Then I became interested in Geology slightly, after being hired to teach Earth Science. And it didn't hurt that I met my honey on a Geology field trip. That in itself perked my interest in rocks and minerals and later in gemstones. I was a textbook science lover. Nature study, kitchen chemistry, science related read alouds, none of those things were part of my childhood. If someone would have asked me what is science? most likely I wouldn't have had an answer, until the fourth grade when Mrs. Hall encouraged me to be the leader in our dissecting group. After one look at that cow eye lens, I decided then and their that Biology would be my major in college. No one else had ever gone to college in my family except for an aunt who went for 1 or 2 years without graduating. Now she's a registered nurse working with kidney dialysis patients. But I knew that college was for me. I loved textbooks. I loved regurgitating memorized bits of info at test time. Fast forward thirteen years and I became a science teacher who still loved textbooks and knowing something just for the sake of knowing it. Most of my 7th and 9th graders did not share my enthusiasm. I needed to think quick and find ways for them to make real life connections with science. Fast forward another 5 years, our children are 3 and 2 and I'm very pregnant. Preschool, Kindergarten it was all approaching much faster then anticipated. I'd heard of homeschooling, but didn't know much about it. Checking out everything on homeschooling our library and inter-library loan offered, I read and read and read. Then I talked and talked and talked to my husband and finally he was convinced that homeschooling might work for us. Fast forward another 6 years and we're at today and other than Math, textbooks are for the birds. There are so many wonderful resources, why read dry, compartmentalized textbooks? So on to Super Summer Science. This past year we did work through Behold and See 3. Mostly we used it as a guide, just to make sure we were hitting all the important topics. I've found that most science textbooks assume that elementary aged children are having their absolute first encounter with science when reading/being read to from their text. So wrong, kids use science everyday without knowing it. Bubbles (surfactants), merry go rounds (centrifugal force), tub time (density of objects), eating snacks (human physiology) and the list could go on forever. Science is more fun to do than it is to learn about. It seems I've come the full circle. Back in fourth grade I was doing science with Mrs. Hall and now I'm doing science with my kids. So what is Super Summer Science? Basically it will be a weekly list of how we found science when we weren't even looking. Actually some days it will hit us over the head and other days I will have specific ideas I want to introduce to them so I will sneak it in when they're not looking. Pretty tricky, huh? So here's today's list.

• Lee released Tordy the turtle, completely scrubbed the terrarium and readied it for the next toad to cross his path.
  
• Lou helped me plant tomatoes and we talked about germination and pollination.
  
• Grace attended a 2 hour Horse Science class at an area horse stable sponsored by the UW-Extension.


• We all witnessed the miracle of life by visiting and holding (oh he's so cute) the newest cousin in the line up.


• Lee checked all his toad houses for signs of visitors.


• I read Pick, Pull, Snap! Where Once a Flower Bloomed by Lola M. Schaefer, a lovely book focusing on the fact that before any fruit or vegetable is beared, a flower bloomed. We discussed pollination by bees and wind and then went outside to look at the cranberry bloom. Here's what we saw:
  

Cranberry Bloom

More Cranberry Bloom

Diamond the Kitty

To recap: I will be posting one Super Summer Science idea each week. Of course, there will be so many other observations, but I will post one fun idea each week of the summer. I believe summer is the best time to do science because of the unhurried pace (on most days). Summer days allow for the uninterrupted observation time necessary to develop a love of science. And science is best done outdoors and summer is the perfect season to be outside. Still, school year science has its place, snowflakes and frost patterns come to mind. But check out a few backyard science books from your library and join in on the Super Summer Science. If you have any ideas that were just super fun (Lou's favorite phrase), please leave them in the comment box. Happy observing.

I'm Totally Pumped

I'm totally pumped. Now that line ages me; I think it makes me a teenager of the late 80's, early 90's. Anyway that's what I said to my family as we drove through Sandhill Wildlife Area last night. First things first, the earlier part of the day. The morning went as planned, morning jobs were done and we were reading by 8:30. During the last month of school we got away from beginning our day with read alouds. I desperately wanted to get back to it as we started out the new year in late August. Why not now? So, I announced last week that I would be reading from Little House and a picture book read aloud and they (a.k.a four charming kids) should meet me at the picnic table promptly at 8:30 every morning. We would read for 30 minutes before moving into the unstructured part of the day. Anyway, we read, played with the kitten and at 9:00 they watched Bob the Builder while I showered up. We headed to violin; Lee stayed home with dad and mowed the lawn. We picked up friend Sierra and headed home. The girls gathered eggs and then did their house chores, Lee came in to do his chores too. We all had egg salad, macaroni and melon for lunch at the picnic table and then went swimming. Ray is such a daredevil. He's not even 3 and he just floats and swims around, bobbing under and gasping for air and spitting out pond water as he comes up, but still he does it again without any tears or fear. Seems if I so much as blink he's already far enough away that I have to go into that snapping turtle, pine snake, mucky bottomed pond, too far for my comfort. The kids just laugh and call me a girl. Finally Ray was wore out from the sun so I whisked him off for a quick rinse off bath and a nap. Hot and tired everyone else came in to watch Barnyard. I made Kentucky Potato Soup, from the family cookbook, altering it slightly to fit my tastes. Yes it was 88 degrees F yesterday, but soup was on the menu and the menu is there so I don't have to think up a fabulous meal daily. I just go to the menu and make whatever it says, no matter the weather. Anyway it was delicious and with rolls, blueberries and grapes to go with it, we had a terrific summertime meal. Lots of other things happened - I watered flowers, did laundry, the kids had a tea party, they took a 4-wheeler ride, my Current order arrived via parcel post, I planted a few more annuals I picked up at 50% savings due to the hail destruction of last week and Sierra went home. We had supper and then the real fun began. DH took us to the drive-in for ice cream. There's nothing better than chocolate chip mint on a sweltering day. Only a few drips made it to the van carpeting, which is probably a record for us. DH suggested we take a drive through Sandhill; we are so glad we did that. Lee and Lou fell asleep which is really to bad because the drive proved to be quite enlightening. I'm sorry to say I didn't have my camera, though. First we saw three bucks in velvet and since they are used to people driving by, just stood still and looked at us as if we were the wildlife and they the onlookers. Then many more does as we drove the 14 mile loop, the most fascinating site was a blackbird of some sort perched on the back of a doe. Even as the doe walked around that bird hung on tight. No doubt picking ticks. Once we got to the buffalo (Ray calls them the buppala) spot we did the usual slow drive by, straining our eyes to see behind every shrubby tree and past the prairie grasses way off in the distance, hoping to see something, anything that just might be a buppala. We approached the wallowing hole and were awestruck. At least six buffalo and two young calves. They are definitely wild and didn't stick around for long, just long enough for us to get a good look at the enormous bull and darling burnt sienna (Crayola) colored youngens before they made their way over the ridge and out of sight. Wow, in the 10 years of driving through we've seen a buffalo only once and a few almosts or maybes. Then on we continued seeing a scarlet tanager, pair of swans, ducks, blue heron, black squirrel and then we came upon a truck and some people collecting and measuring turtles. We stopped to ask a few questions and hit the jack pot. The director of education and a few volunteers were happy to share what they were doing which was gathering info about turtles. At hand they had a Blandings Turtle, which was happy to pee all over the director who then wanted to hand to DH in the van. I quickly put a stop to that, but he continued to explain how they age the turtles based on the rings (just like a tree) of the scoot (spelling?) This particular female was 19 years old; they don't become mature until 15 and often live longer than 25 years, but in sand country it's hard to age them past that because the sand acts as sandpaper smoothing the scoots making it impossible to distinguish the individual rings. They were also marking the turtles using a triangular file to give the turtle a number. Then each year as they collect, they can track the turtles to see how often they lay eggs and if they frequent the same or different spots. This particular turtle was coming to the West field every other year for about 6 years now. Then he invited us to stop in to his office and talk turtles if we'd like. Now, if that wasn't enough for one evening as we finished the drive, nearly dark now we came upon a chunk of wood, but at the last minute it flew away. Definitely not wood, but a Whip-poor-will. Then another, which we stopped for in time and just watched for awhile and tried to get it to call without luck. That was the perfect ending to a perfect day. I'm totally pumped!

Homeschool News

HomeSchoolBuzz is a great website to check out if you're wanting to find homeschool news. Greg is always posting the latest and also allows for comments. He tags his items, too, so if you want to find news from only your state it is quite easy to do. They also have a BlogWatch which I have just been made part of. This is a list of homeschooling blogs that might be of interest to other homeschoolers. It also lists the titles of these blogs latest entries. It makes it easy to read on a certain topic or to find ideas of what other homeschoolers are doing.

Tuesday Night Movie

Last night's movie pick was Barnyard. Pizza was Portesi freezer pizzas, our all time favorite. I threw in some baby carrots and water for good measure. We were hesitant to continue with movie night since dad had to fertilize and irrigate our marsh, and irrigate and check in at his brother's marsh. He and his wife just had a baby on Monday. Dad was tied up until 10:15 when he finally had a chance to shower and have his own late night pizza. He said go ahead so after violin the party began. Lou spread our the blanket and got out the paper plates. Lee got the movie ready and Grace took care of the pizza. I changed a poopie diaper and then we started the movie. When it was over, we all just looked at one another and said Well, that was.....good. I couldn't place my finger on what made this movie just good, despite some hilarious scenes involving a rapper rat, cow tipping, boy tipping and the nosy neighbor (not all at once though). After reading the review at PlugginIn I realized it was its lack of new material that got me. The conclusion in the review explains it quite well.

What I've Been Up To

June 7 - It was my birthday. And I share it with Danielle, no wonder I love her blog so well. My family treated me to lunch at Shaw Lee's where I immediately filled my plate with sesame chicken and beef and broccoli and egg rolls and wontons and.... My family started off with the chinese french fries, chinese chicken wings and watermelon. We had a great lunch and as a bonus, no one spilled their drink on me. I made a hauling on practical gifts - bird seed, bird feeders, hammer, candy and a insect/spider field guide. The day ended with a terrible storm which just missed us by the hair on our chinny chin chin. Hail the size of softballs (I saw them with my own eyes, right from a friend's freezer) pelted the nearby towns destroying cars, roofs, windows and many skylights.

June 8 - Grace spent the afternoon at the horse stable. Lou had a surprise ride on Twig, the miniature horse. If only I had had my camera. DH and I went to a movie Friday night and then out for a drink and a taco to boot. I'm almost embarrassed to say I saw KnockedUp. The pregnancy, baby, shopping for baby, labor was all cute and brought back so many memories. But the movie didn't stop there. The swearing and drug use was unbearable. At one point I leaned to DH and said I can't believe I'm watching this. I still haven't checked to see if it's rated PG-13 or R. I can't imagine a thirteen year old seeing such a film. *Edit: I just read the linked review and it says it all and it's definitely rated R.

June 9 - Grace had violin and then we went grocery shopping. The afternoon was kinda lazy until it was time for Zack's graduation party.

June 10 - The highlight of today was getting the long awaited kitten, which Lou named Diamond. I planted the garden, late and slim in the area of variety, but none the less it's in and hopefully in a couple months we'll have something to harvest. Here's what I planted: Yukon Golds, red potatoes, yellow onions, carrots, cucumbers, pie pumpkins, corn and a couple rows of flowers. We had a "last dinner before baby is born" dinner at my father-in-law's, in honor of Rod and Jan and their soon to be born baby.

June 11 - The baby was born this morning. A boy. 8 pounds 1 ounce and 21 inches long. Healthy. Grace and Lee went to Parade of Pets at the Humane Society. They combed cats, walked dogs and toured the facility. After dinner the kids set up the tent and camped for the night.

June 12 - Here we are at today. I made dinner rolls from frozen dough. Grace started on a couple of bibs for the newborn cousin. Now Ray's napping and the others are swimming trying to beat the heat. It's 86 here today.

These are just some of the highlights. Of course, there's been the marsh work and daily living stuff like fishing, turtles, kitten care, dog care, chicken care, reading, housework, watering the flowers and yard and keeping up with mail and magazine reading. I just got Faith and Family and Family Fun within the last couple days and now I'm full of ideas, we'll see what comes to fruition.

Movie Night

This week's movie was Facing the Giants. DH saw a news clip about this movie and thought maybe we'd like it; I placed a hold on it through the library. It'd been so long that I'd forgotten about it until last week when it arrived. It's rated PG for thematic elements. No mild peril or crude humor like most other PG movies we've seen. So we saved it for last night's movie night. What a movie! We all sat watching, riveted by what would come next. I'm not going to give details, but I will share a couple of observations which prove just how good the movie is.

#1 - It's so good that when your sister puts her head on your floor pillow, the one you got for yourself from the corner, you don't even realize you're sharing because you are so engrossed in the movie. It's so good that when your other sister takes half your blanket, you don't even realize your legs are uncovered and you're cold until the movie's over.

#2 - It's so good that I cried, clapped and sat on the edge of my seat during the last quarter of the football, yes, staged football, game. I'm not a big football fan and have never considered crying over a win or loss of any football game, much less a small town highschool football team in a movie.

Now go rent this movie; you won't be disappointed.

More Audio Books

We've discovered audio books again. And we're loving them so much, we're actually looking for places to go. I know we could just listen to them at home, but in the car I can give myself permission to listen intently. At home I always seem to think of others things I should be doing. Then I do the shoulda, coulda, oughta thing and I either listen without being there fully or get up and do the shouldas. Either way I miss out on the fullness of the book. So the car is the perfect place for listening to audio books.

Our recent reads

Charlotte's Web read by E.B. White himself. He has a soothing voice and played up the part of the geese wonderfully. The story of course, is so sweet and when it was over we talked about living up to the labels given to us and how important it is to be encouragers and not discouragers. As I say almost everyday to at least one of the kids: Are you helping or hurting the situation?

Because of Winn Dixie by Kate Dicamillo and read by Cherry Jones. I'd seen bits of the movie, which I thought was good and something I had wanted to see in its entirety, but it definitely can not compare to the book. And the storyteller's voice is absolutely addicting. The general storyline is this: a little girl in an unfortunate situation finds a way to feel better about life by befriending other unfortunate souls and bringing them together, all the while learning how to not be judgemental. Lots of lessons are addressed in this lovable book, even ones that us adults need to be reminded of now and again.

Moms Make Mistakes, Too

Kids say the cutest and most honest remarks and I blog as many as I can remember. But today's entertainment is my own tongue twister.

while watching Extreme Home Makeover

Me: Wow, look at that hummo limmer.

That's hummer limo in case you couldn't figure it out.

I Totally Agree

Grace: You and dad need to go somewhere so we can have a babysitter.

Traditional? Conservative?

I don't know, but he better watch his mouth around here.

while watching the driver line-up of the Indy 500 last weekend.....and counting three, oh my gosh, three girl drivers

Lee: There should really be rules about that.

Tattling

And it's only 7:22 a.m.

Mom, Ray let out all the chickens.

Mom, Ray threw the feed scoop at me.

Mom, Ray stuck out his tongue at me.

Mom, now he threw his toothbrush on the sandpile.

Mom, Ray's trampling the new grass.

Well, now he's off the grass, but he's drowning the flowers.

How old is Ray? 2 years, 10 1/2 months, enough said.