Toes!!!

We were all outside enjoying the cool evening (until I was being swarmed my mosquitoes) and Fern was of course in her swing! I had my camera out taking pictures of the leaves and bugs and such when Fern decided I should take pictures of her toes! She kept saying toes and pointing at themHere she is quite happy about her toes!
I had to steal one of her face up close, she still thought I was getting her toes in!
This one made her very happy, how cute is her foot!! For being as small as she is she has good size feet!

I have some great picture of leaves and spiders and such, but I am thinking of starting a nature blog to put such things on, it would be a good school project/resource! We'll see I am still toying with it, what do you think?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAN!!!

After our yummy birthday dinner of kale & kraut sandwiches, macaroni salad, and BBQ potato chips, we had DESSERT!Here is Dan and Jake with the birthday peach cobbler, we learned the hard way not to put candles in hot cobbler. They melt.
Birthday wish time! Last years wish came true, he is flying an airplane full time, I wonder what he wished for this time! :)
Group picture in front of the fish tank! Notice Dan's "Super Dad" birthday sticker!! :)
And Fern and mom this morning on the way to church in our pretty new duds from Mexico via Olveria St. in L.A. Thanks Grandma!!

Dan is Home!!

Dan got home this week, and we have been busy playing, (do we do anything else you ask)! :) I got fun treats from his travels! A little model of the Parthenon, olive oil from Italy, olive oil soap from Greece, and a painting he bought from the artist near the Leaning tower of Pisa. It is of the sunflowers Dan said are all over the Tuscany countryside! He said it looked just like what he saw! I really need to put some money aside to buy frames, I have quite the collection of art needing frames at the moment! :)
Dan's birthday is tomorrow, but we could not hide (or keep Jake quiet) our gift. So Dan got to open it the night he got home! See how surprised he was!!
It is a fish tank and all the fixings! Sometimes you have to splurge! He is lucky there is not a new kitty too, there were quite a few cute ones visiting from the Humane Society, and I wanted one too! :)
Checking it out!

He has it all set up now with the filter running, as soon as the water is all set he will be getting NICE fish. (I have specified no fish that may eat another!!!)

I had a great accomplishment yesterday, there are now curtains on every window!!!!! I finished Fern's yesterday!!! YEA!! I also found a magnetic curtain rod so I have a curtain on the little window next to the door! I'll put pictures up soon, it is REALLY humid and gloomy so not great for window pictures.

Backyard Fun!

For a snack the other day I cooked a couple ears of corn, and then skewered them on a chop stick. This went over VERY well! :)Here is cutie Fern so happy to be just like the boys!
YUMMY!
Mr. Snazzy eating corn!
And cutie patutie!!!

A really fun thing to get use to here are the sounds, so I thought I'd share. Video number 1 is during the day, you can hear our one lone cricket who chirps all day. He lives in my flower bed, you can also hear a crescending buzz, hum thing those are the cicada. They are up in the trees and sometimes they get really loud. It scared the boys at first but now they just go on playing! Then video number 2 is at night, also in the back yard, here you can hear the crickets and frogs (or toads I am not sure).

Girly Girl!

It is so fun to have a girl, boys are fun in different ways! Yesterday Fern was definitely my girly girl! After Fern's nap she and I and her three babies sat in the rocking chair for a bit, I then had to go to the bathroom so I set her in the chair. She stayed there and held her babies all wrapped up in two blankets. And then she agreed to a few pictures!
Do you see her little had holding so tightly on her baby. It was so sweet!
Fern flat out refuses to let me put barrettes or such in her hair, but she found this old head band and decided she would make herself so pretty.
Here she is painting with water, don't you love her hair do, it makes me smile!! :)

TRUCKS!!

So yesterday a friend called and asked if we wanted to get out, of course that is usually a good idea! So we went to their favorite place, The Trucking Museum! It is a great place for boys, and Fern enjoyed it too! Here are the four of us in front of the thermos truck!
And the 3 kiddos in front of my favorite, a cool VW truck! Even powder blue, our favorite VW color right mom! :)
Here is Jake in an antique fire truck, it was nice that there were a few they could get in! They also had a great little play area, books, play kitchen, cars, art stuff, lots of fun.
And Riley in a big rig that had one part cut out so you could really see in it, even the bed in back! Right around the corner they had a little area with tables so you could take a picnic, and they had cookies out for us!! Yummy!
Here are the kids with Tractor Mac. There is a local artist who writes a series of children's books all about Tractor Mac, so they had a display of his art on the wall and then a tractor like the one in his books, they even added eyes to make it look like the character!
Fern LOUDLY refused to leave her perch, maybe I could rent her out to a local farmer!

We also went to the Naugatuck farmers market yesterday on the town green, it was a bit smaller than I am use to (3 vendors), but I got local onions, peaches, and blueberries so it was worth the trip. We ate all the blueberries today for snack, and used an onion for dinner, stone soup again! :)

Talking Fern!

I have been wanting to get this for posterity sake, so here is a video of Fern saying some of her words!

Hope it makes you smile!

Playing!

This afternoon was just beautiful, 83 degrees, and only 35% humidity! So we played for a while! Fern just loves to lounge in her swing, it is her favorite thing to do outside, except to pick green cherry tomatoes!
This is a stone wall in our neighbors yard. These are all over Connecticut.
Aren't my flowers pretty!
Riley was having fun running around doing alot of pretending! He stoped for a second to say cheese in front of the Winnie the Pooh tree!
Here's the top of the Winnie the Pooh tree, leafy hu!
And this is what Jake did.

CAUTION!!!

MAJOR COVETING GOING ON!!!! Dan sent some pictures of his trip so far. Here are a couple.Dan at the Parthenon at the Athens Acropolis. Yes this is in our history book this year, and no I will probably never see this in real life.
And the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I am sure I am not the only one with out sympathy for Dan having to go back to vacation...I mean work! :) I LOVE you Dan (even if I am coveting)!

Fern!

Fern was just too cute today so I have taken some pictures to share! This is Fern getting ready for the day. I was trying to get the kids moving but Fern was so cute I had to slow down and take pictures!
I love this one! Look at those cute toes!
She was very proud of herself!

Then we all went to the LLL meeting, had lunch, Fern took a nap, and the boys have run off with neighborhood kids! So Fern and I have gotten some time to hang out together.
She loves to look out the living room windows, they are just her size and all the others in our house are quite a bit over her head.
I caught her looking back at me!
Then she came and sat next to me and told me no more photos, but what mama could resist!! What a cutie, even when she is giving me the "eyebrows"! :)

Last night we had a Young Women's, it was the first Wednesday activity I was in charge of. The kids behaved well, although they would not leave my side. :) We are all still plugging along, it was nice to get out and visit with other moms this morning!

Thanks Guys!!

Well thanks to these two cuties, who are sitting in what use to be my make shift blanket box I got my new one!!!! Way back in Anaheim Dan came up with some great plans to make a big wooden box for me to keep blankets in in the living room. And then he built it, and then it sat in the garage, and then we moved it, and then it sat in our very own garage. :) But thankfully it is now sanded and sealed! I got to move all my blankets into it shortly after these two destroyed my elegant cardboard one! :) I know I didn't get a picture of it, I will but for now you just have to look at my cuties and see all the fun they had! :)
I love this one, their expressions are great! These two are just so cute, I am not sure if it is because they are closer in age than Riley and Jake were or if it is their personalities. But these two have a special relationship, it is great. :)

I GOT IT!

I got tagged my my good friend Natalie, so here it all is! :)

Jobs I've held:
1. babysitter
2. SVC Tour Guide (it is a National Historic Landmark)
3. General Store Clerk
4. Realtor Assistant
5. Dental office staff

Movies I can watch over and over:
1. Footloose
2. Mona Lisa Smile
3. Indiana Jones
4. Pride & Prejudice (newer movie)

Guilty Pleasures:
1. reading ALL day
2. antique stores

Places I have lived:
1. Vista, CA.
2. Buena (B-U-naa)Vista, VA.
3.Carlsbad, CA.
4. Costa Mesa, CA.
5. Anaheim, CA.

T.V. Shows I enjoy:
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Dancing with the stars
3. ?
4. ?

What were most likely the first things you thought of when you saw your significant other for the first time?
What is that thing sticking out of his pocket? :) He use to have a "do not remove before flight" tag off an airplane on his key chain. It was like a foot long and 2 inch. wide, it hung out and down his leg. Romantic hu! :)

Places I have been on vacation:
1. Cayucos, CA.
2. Edmonton, Canada.
3. London, England
4. Upstate NY.
5. Washington DC
6. Rockbridge County, VA.
7. Puyallup, WA.

My Favorite Foods:
1. Corn on the cob!!
2. Dan's pizza!
3. green beans -warm from the garden!
4. cherry tomatoes -warm from the garden!
5. Chickpeas ala king on Dan's fresh bread!
6. Lorene's Chinese salad (w/out the chicken!)

Websites I visit daily: (or when your on the computer)
1. my email
2. Higher Up & Further In
3. Novella's blog (which is NOT updated daily!!!)
4. Cherish's Blog
5. Accuweather.com
6. Rima's Blog

Body parts I have injured:
1. knee #1
2. knee #2
3. various scraped/bruised/cut/smooshed pieces parts

Awards I have won:
1. Girl Scout Silver Award
2. Young Womanhood Award
3. Any more mom??

Nicknames I've been called:
1. Dan-dan
2. Banana
3. Bambi (threw you for a loop with that one hu!)

Now I get to pick 4 other blog buddies to do this:
1. Mary -my sister
2. Cherish -my good friend & old visiting teacher
3. Laura -my sister in law
4. Rima - my friend with 2 adorable girls!!

Now if any of you hit me again, you will pay, I hate these! But I will play along happily THIS time. Next time I may just pretend I did not see! :)

Fun & Dinner!

When I was a little girl my sister, dad and I had a special stone we kept in the cupboard and we would occasionally make stone soup. I think it originally came from my Girl Scout book. Well I thought we needed a little fun today so I took the kids outside to search for our own magical soup stone. And as we searched for it it developed a little more of a story, like there is only one magical soup stone in every back yard, and it is usually found near a tree. :) So my imagination has been a little more active since reading the last Harry Potter. Here is the magical stone we found in our back yard, it was under our Winnie the Pooh tree. Riley is quite in awe of it! :)
And here is our stone soup just about ready, it is just veggies & some black beans I had in the freezer, and a bit of cilantro at the end. We had this for dinner with some of Dan's bread made into garlic toast. MMMM! It is a good thing we have air conditioning, it was 96 degrees F. with 67% humidity, YUCK!!!!!

And we have been SUPER blessed, Dan left this morning for Florida, and the Dr. decided he wanted to come back tonight! So we get Dan tomorrow, and then until they leave for Europe! YEA!!!! We are very excited. :)

:)

Well we got a surprise last night, Dan got to fly home! He did not get in until midnight, but we all got to wake up to him this morning!! We are very thankful that it all worked out, we sure did not plan on it. So we get him for today and then he is gone again, but it is looking promising we'll see him for 2 days next week! :) Dan came bearing gifts!! You all are probably thinking , Ziploc's are a gift? Well these are the Ziploc Veggie bags that they do not sell in the U. S. anymore. Dan's captain Torry bought them for me in Canada! I was down to about 3, I wash them but they do eventually die. Torry bought me 2 boxes, so I now have 30 bags!!!! Yippee!! Then Dan brought us the sweets, in Nebraska there is a store called Licorice International, mmmmm, I love licorice! So Dan brought me black Kookaburra licorice from Australia, and fish licorice from Germany for the kids. It may be just after breakfast but I have already tried mine and they are amazing!! I'll let the kids try theirs after lunch! :)
Here is Riley's new haircut, it is funny there are sections of his hair that are lighter and some darker, and so now he has this round section of light colored hair on the back of his head. It is easy to see with it so short. Riley has been all about trying to ride his bike, he does not petal yet, but he is at least steering so he has not run in to the rocks and fallen in the flower bed lately. His bike is a bit too small though so that makes it a bit harder, when he trys to petal his knees hit the handle bars if he is turning! :)
This is Jake's, "I don't want to show you my new haircut" face. He was trying to keep his eyes away. :) But look you can see his eyes now, no sheep dog named Jake lives here anymore!
Walla!! If you've visited us you know that this side of downstairs was covered in boxes, you could only see half of the windows! But here are the beautiful shelves Dan made for me, and my new table (we love the "as is" pile at Ikea)! All the boxes under the table are filled with fabric (I am a Jenson girl) and the boxes in the corner are pictures, and then the picture boxes on top of them are so I can organize them. We found them super cheap at Ocean State which is similar to Big Lots.
This is the shelf on the left. This is my school shelf, see how nice and high the scissors, glue, crayons and markers are?? Do you think it will prevent little fingers?? We'll see! :)
And here is the shelf to the right, it is just for regular books, but the baskets at the top are also school, but they needed to be high also! :) As you can see I got curtains done for one window, now I just have to get the others done. Something for me to do while Dan is flying around Europe! :) That and curtains for the kids room, I finally have material for them! :)

I am now off to play with my family and enjoy my hubby!