Our Little World -- 12 Hours at a Time

This is how our world looks at 7:30 in the morning when Jeff is out of town. Cooper is fully dressed and ready to face his day, but he has to wait on the rest of us. Luckily, Maddie is totally at my mercy. She seems like she's ready to take on the day, but wait for mama!

Nick, on the other hand, would like to stay in his jammies all day...that's my boy. At least at that hour of the morning, he's still mellow enough that he'll share.

Here we are at 7:30 p.m. Cooper is helping Dad pick zucchinis and tomatoes out of their garden. Don't tell the kids, but the cake they enjoyed at Gram's was loaded full of the stuff. I've snuck one home, and will make the same cake this weekend when Jeff can keep them out of the kitchen. As soon as they find out there is a *gasp* vegetable in there, it's over!

Where is Nick, you ask? Inside, reading a book with Gram. That one is so my kid.

Meet My Road Ragin' Daughter

I see Maddie getting so big, that sometimes I forget just how little she really is. Today, she climbed up on the couch (no small feat for her, by the way) and pulled this most obnoxious toy onto her lap. It nearly covered her! Just like the boys, she loves this toy. Jeff's aunt and uncle got it a long time ago for Christmas, and it is a cool toy, but there is no volume button. Believe me, we've looked everywhere. Anyway, what makes it cool is the key, the steering wheel, the gear shift, and the not one, but two horns. It also has a walkie-talkie radio -- which Maddie uses as a phone. I'll tell you, though, when brother number one tried to take it from her so he could hear his precious "Cyberchase", this is the response he got.

Brother number two jumped in on this game pretty quickly, as you can imagine. He got the same response -- which just cracked him up. Nice.

This morning, the kids went with me to the gym for the first time. Everyone had to stick their heads in to see them. What they got was a show of three kids fighting over two ride-in cars. Guess who won. It wasn't brother number one or two, thank you very much.

It's Just Not Meant to Be

Well, I have a lovely post floating somewhere out there but I can't get any pictures loaded up. And that particular post will be useless without any pictures, so I'll just give a rundown of the last few days. (Strike that...I just got the pictures up, so today will be a two-poster day, I guess. The one with the missing pictures is just below!)

Maddie may have allergies. She's had a cough since we were on vacation, and it's never warranted a trip to the doctor, but while we were in there for a well-baby checkup, the doctor determined it may be allergy related. So we have some Zyrtec if it gets really bad, but so far, so good. It doesn't seem to bother her.

Nick loves his preschool. We went the other day to turn in the paperwork, and he walked in like he owned the place. He's really looking forward to going. I asked him if it would be o.k. if I dropped him off for 15 minutes or so while I go to the drugstore (they encourage us to do stuff like that so they get used to being left), and he said that would be fine...he'll pack a bag and spend the night.

Cooper is growing again. He's going to be one of the tallest kids in his 1st grade class, I'm just betting on it. I find myself looking at him sitting at the dinner table and wondering what he's sitting on. Uh, only his rear end. He also is ready for school to start. We have a back pack, we have a lunchbox. Ready to go, I say.

Jeff is going out of town tomorrow. He'll be gone through Friday evening. While we're going to miss him, I somewhat enjoy the prospect of spending time with all of our kids alone. (Ask me again on Thursday how I feel).

I have pink eye. Why not? I probably picked it up at the gym. Stinkin' gym.

That's it in a nutshell. Riveting around here, I tell ya!

These Kids are Strange

Summer is all about making your own entertainment, I guess. However, our poor neighbors, Jim and Rhonda, were the source of entertainment on Saturday. They were innocently in their own driveway, preparing their RV and car for a trip to Southern Indiana when the boys pull up their wheelbarrows and announce they are "relaxing". You can't see it in this picture, but they are faced directly towards the Jim and Rhonda's house. "Hey, Jim, what are you doin'? We're relaxin'. In the wheelbarrow." "Hey Jim, now what are you doin'? We're still relaxin'. Still in the wheelbarrow." "Hey Jim, why do you do that? Hey Jim, do you feel like relaxin', too? Wanna sucker? I don't have any to share...I just ate them both." "Hey, Rhonda, you'd better go help Jim."
It's a wonder these poor people have their house on the market.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After they were done relaxin', it was time to help Daddy with the mulch. It started out innocently enough, but then they got hot, so it was time to start stripping. Cooper asked if he could take off his shorts, too, but luckily Jeff put the kabosh on that.

When the dust started to fly, Cooper came in and got his sunglasses. Nick, not to be outdone, came in to get eye protection. Since his sunglasses weren't handy, he just found his goggles. Always the thinker, that one.

The look of a professional mulch slinger: orange swim goggles, pale skin, and Lightning McQueen Crocs.

Of course, one needs to take a break. In.the.middle.of.the.job.

Did I mention our neighbors have their house on the market? I wonder why.

Experiment #2 -- Be sure to see the other experiment post

Original
Juiced Up!

Original
Juiced up!

On these, Madam Rebecca, I even used the dodge and burn and sponge tools!! Look at me go.

Experiment Time

This post is mainly for the benefit of my good friend, Rebecca. She's been trying to enlighten me to the wonderful word of Photoshop to give my pictures a little bit more zing. So I got a moment this morning, and played. The original pictures (straight out of camera -- SOOC -- as they say) are in the post before when I talked about the Art Museum. All I did with these was straighten the first one (I tend to lean to the left with my camera) and then ran the "hard light" or "soft light" layers and then messed around with the saturation.

Wowza! That was fun!

Note, though, there are no little rugrats in these pictures. That's going to take a whole new day of experimenting.

The Art Museum

We are loving the best deal in town...the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It is completely free. We've gone as a family to enjoy the gardens (which are gorgeous), and Jeff and I tackled the museum itself last year, but last week, the boys and I went for the afternoon and wandered through the inside and outside both.

I was very proud of the boys. They behaved so well all day, but I have to admit, I was worried about their first time to the art museum. As Cooper said, they were a little bit bored at the beginning, until they noticed that in all the sculptures, they could see buttcheeks. Thank God they kept the giggling to a minimum.

They also really liked the impressionism (?)room, where pictures are made up of little dots...Nick said, I can do that! Their favorite, though, was the contemporary art floor, where they found an exhibit that was a floor made of hundreds of little people that they could walk on . Finally the boys had fun! I didn't take a picture, because I'm really not sure of the policy with cameras, but they were having a blast.

They also don't get some of the exhibits. When Jeff and I went there last winter, we left scratching our heads at some things. I was kind of interested to see what the boys thought. They didn't get it, either. I guess we're hillbillies at heart!

A New Look

I've been perusing a bunch of different blogs, and found that this could be fancier. So, because we are oh-so-sophisticated, this is the new look. Enjoy!

Our First Harvest

On a whim, last spring, we purchased some seed packets at the Flower and Patio Show. The hope was that if we planted and grew vegetables, the boys would actually eat them.

My green thumb is firmly broken, so this was quite the undertaking. And we don't know anything about "gardening", so our garden is truly an experiment this year.

The boys picked out two seed packets each, and on Memorial Day weekend, we planted: Green Onions, Green Beans, Cucumber, Watermelon, and sunflowers. (The cucumbers were for me!) Anyway, most of those items require a lot of room -- which we didn't give them, but pressing on, just yesterday, we were able to enjoy the fruits (or in this case, the vegetables) of our labors.

1 cucumber, 3 green beans, and 2 1/2 green onions. We would have had lots more green beans, but the rabbits got to the plants before we got to the fencing. And we have 2 1/2 green onions because the ground is so hard, we broke the top off the onion. Live and learn.

Cooper is exceptionally proud of his sunflowers. I can only imagine how he'll feel when they start to bloom.

The watermelon farmer (Nick) was inside for a nap. He's really not interested since I won't let him dig randomly and since his watermelons aren't ready yet. As a matter of fact, they aren't even blooming. At this rate, we'll be bringing watermelon to Thanksgiving dinner. And cucumbers.

Did the boys eat the vegetables, you ask...well, no. But there's always tomorrow!

I've been "Tagged"

This was fun to do! My good friend, Rebecca, tagged me through the blog. What you do is answer these questions on Flickr (a photo site) and pull an image off the first page and paste it into this photo mosaic. Fun! Really, I wanted to see how you make one of these mosaics...I've seen them on other blogs, and they are fun to have. I'll have to try one using my own pictures.

Questions:
What is your first name? (there is actually a town called Ronda, Spain, so this was easy)
What is your favorite food? (I said "cheese"...I don't know)
What high school did you go to? (Whiteland. Interestingly, this is my actual cousin, Sam!)
What is your favorite color? (lavendar)
Who is your celebrity crush? (Matthew McCona-hay-hay ...as Regis calls him)
Favorite drink? (sweet tea)
Dream vacation? (Hilton Head)
Favorite dessert? (ice cream, but this drink looks yummy, too)
What do you want to be when you grow up? (photographer)
What do you love most in life? (God)
One word to describe you. (mom -- there were lots of backsides of animals...I don't get it)
Your Flickr name. (or a kid's name. I obviously used Cooper)

By the way, if you click on the picture, you can see a larger version.

By Air By Rail

We went to the By Air and By Rail Festival on Friday. Of all the festivals, I think this is my favorite. We spent a grand total of $6.00 for the boys to ride the smilin' choo-choo, and they had a blast. This is the first year we were able to see the hot air balloons go up, and only because they were two hours behind the schedule printed in the paper, thanks to the mini-breeze that was blowing. Cooper, Brayden (our nephew) and Nick -- three faces of trouble, bonded for life.
Everyone got a chance to open the doors of the Lucas Oil Stadium Lego display. Thank goodness we didn't break it!
I believe Nick could stand and watch these trains all day -- he finds so many little details.

What's a night out on the town without a stop at the Frosty Boy?

May We Talk?

We'd like to have a word with the genius who scheduled Peyton's knee surgery for mid-July. Are you new here?

Art Meets Construction

Leave it to Nick to go to a "Crafting Camp" and find a way to bring in construction stuff. Our good friend, Mynde, hosted a "camp" for the kids, and despite my numerous explanations of the agenda, Nick focused on this payloader as soon as we pulled in the driveway. Luckily, Mynde's little boy, Sam, brought it over and started to paint it with sidewalk paint (read: can be washed off!!). Of course, what Sam started, Nick quickly finished. Actually, all of the kids worked on it, but I don't think anyone took their work as seriously as Nick. The boy is obsessed with construction.

Last night, I took the kids to the Johnson County Fair, and as we turned onto US 31, Nick lets out a whoop. It wasn't because we were getting closer to the fair; it was because we turned into a construction zone. Mark my words...Nick will be the one to go to college for 5+ years (partying all the way through), graduate, and find a job as a dirt mover. Nothing wrong with moving dirt, but I think it's going to be fun to watch him pretend to have a major in college.

Shhh...we're hunting wabbits!

This is Cooper's self-portrait. The child won't smile for me unless I've bribed him, but if he can get ahold of a camera, nothing makes him happier than setting the timer and putting himself in a picture. What a goof.

We've been trying to catch up in the yard today. We've been weeding the garden, trimming the bushes, and we'll tackle edging later (hopefully!).

Some of the gorgeous flowers around our house. I wish I could take credit, but these things take care of themselves:

We'd have more, if it weren't for the crazy rabbits around here. They think we have planted them their own little salad bar.