picture pages, picture pages, come and get your picture pages...

It's been almost a year since I've posted anything here. I still don't have anything to say. I do have pictures, though, so I figure I'll go all pictorial with my blog. That way you guys can see some of the stuff we've been doing but I don't necessarily have to come up with anything witty or coherent to write.

For witty and coherent, read Josh's blog. Damn overachiever.
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Here's the first round:

Give Peace a Chance

Well, the blogging bug has just not bitten me in a while, but I feel as though I'm neglecting this space, so I'm putting some words down even though I really don't have many to throw out.

September 21st is International Peace Day. We used our weekly park gathering today as an opportunity for the folks in our homeschool group to decorate Postcards for Peace which we will be sending to Congress next week. The postcards pictured were created by Poongin, our resident artist. The card in the upper right corner has a pop-up peace symbol globe and the design on the lower right is crafted entirely of yarn, of course. The "Peace Head", as we have titled it, is my favorite.

Thing 2 Turned Four Today

Everyone was tired and grumpy today, recovering from all the excitement of a visit from Gramma. However, we managed to pull ourselves together for a little teatime celebration in honor of Thing 2's birthday. He specifically requested milk, cookies and "the yittle muffins with the byack circles" which we finally realized meant poppy seed muffins.

As has become the tradition for the last couple of years, Daddy took Thing 2 out to run errands while the rest of us blew up balloons and laid out presents. Thing 2 was delighted when he got back home. "Bayoons!" he cried when he got in. I surprised him by putting chocolate milk in the teapot. There were earth-friendly handmade and handed down presents from the girls, Lego vehicles from big brother and an energy expending punching bag from the Mom and Dad; but of course it was the two dollar bop balloon that was the ultimate favorite of the day.

The Best Laid Plans...

Remember how Poongin had so much fun at Horsemanship Day back in April? Well, a new horse was born in June and a couple of weeks ago Camp Tonkawa held a birthday party for the newest resident. We thought it would be fun to go and hang out, ride the horses, have homemade ice cream, maybe swim in the pond. Several friends were planning to be there and we decided to meet some of them for berry picking before heading on to the Horse Party. That was the plan, anyway. But when does it ever go as planned?

The day went something like this:
--"out of bed kids! Time to go berry picking and then to Tonkawa"
--pack lunches, gather supplies
--"out of bed *now*, we're minutes from departure"
--load car, put dog in back yard
--"UP! UP! UP! It's not even early! We're supposed to be at the berry farm in one hour! UP NOW!!"
--children scramble into clothes and car, Thing 2 taken straight from bed to car
--seventeen million trips back into house by Rolthox and Poongin. Poongin moves the entire time as if this is a promenade down the boardwalk
--five minutes into trip, reach for wallet to buy ice for berry cooler
--turn back to house for forgotten purse
--back on road, *no way* we are going to meet friends on time
--complete halt twenty minutes into trip, some sort of wreck has both lanes completely blocked
--police, ambulance, fire trucks further block traffic









--10 minutes go by: oncoming traffic has found a way around
--20 minutes go by: countless people behind us have given up and
turned around, oncoming traffic continues to find a way around. We have nowhere to go and a great book on CD. We wait.
--30 minutes go by: Thing 2 is upset that I won't just make the car go forward. I realize I should let the kids get out and see what's going on. I realize that the bag containing Thing 2's clothes does not contain Thing 2's shoes
--Poongin's voice from the back seat: "You know, Mom, maybe we weren't meant to do this today."
--Kids wander highway, no one can really see anything except for
firemen sweeping the road and cops not trying to divert traffic in any way
--45 minutes later: we are moving again. We have accepted the fact that there will be no berry picking
--stop at Dollar Store for cheap Thing 2 shoes, Thing 1 complains because she's not getting any. Offer to buy small snacks for everyone, Thing 1 complains about these, too.
--Arrive at Camp Tonkawa, spend next three hours there.
--Rolthox is very loud and inappropriate--but surprisingly
cooperative--until exactly 2:00 p.m., the "official" end time of the
party, at which point he announces it is acceptable for him to request that we leave.












--Poongin happily rides horses the entire time.









--Thing 2 asks to be held a lot, climbs up and down the bars on the
corral seven hundred times, is generally happy. Austin of Camp Tonkawa gets a Mommy gold star for putting Thing 2 on a horse and leading him around the pen several times, all the while
talking to him as if he were a completely capable adult not a teeny leetle wee bug way up on a huge animal all by himself.









--Thing 1 spends all but twenty minutes complaining, begging, whining, crying, discovering she did not pack her swimsuit and blaming this on me, pouting furiously, accusing me of purposely steering her into ants as we walk around and even trying to push me off the end of the picnic table bench.









--Mommy endures Rolthox, it's nice he wanted to join us on an outing. Mommy delights in Poongin's quiet enjoyment of horse riding. Mommy thinks Thing 2 is too big to hold for three hours in the shining sun, but thinks he can't possibly be big enough to ride a horse alone! Mommy uses her absolute *last deep breath* on Thing 1, decides to drive the entire van into the lake on the way home, but then miraculously finds the magic sentence to speak to Thing 1 that enables her to be shiny, happy Thingie for the last 20 minutes.
--clouds roll in, lovely cool breezes blow, at almost exactly 2:00
p.m. raindrops fall and we are on our way home

Stay Tuned to This Spot for Further Messages

Life is returning to what resembles normal for our family. We are now in a different domicile and have added a puppy to the mix. I'm sure that the continuing projects of puppy-training and box-unpacking will keep my posts coming erratically. At the moment, unreliable internet is interfering the most. We're scheduled for fiber optic cable hook-up next week, though. Hope that helps. If I am able to reconnect after dinner, I've got a little tale about our Sunday adventures.

Easter

Other than Poongin falling out of a tree, Easter Sunday was rather uneventful. The kids hunted Easter eggs in the cold and ate excessive amounts of chocolate. T-Man called on the way home from his Easter gig and we met him at a restaurant for lunch. There was some playing outside, some escaping from a tree fall with only scratches, some movie watching, some napping. Then I got to spend the evening on my own which included some wandering through a bookstore and some eating dinner quietly with my new books.

We discovered that Thing 1 has nearly reached the age of six with no memory of ever hunting or dyeing real Easter Eggs. How sad is that? When I mentioned dyeing real ones this year instead of using plastic, she thought I was teasing her. She couldn't imagine how I would be able to get candy into them and became quite hysterical at the thought that there would be *no* candy filled eggs waiting for her on Sunday morning. (The baskets full of candy obviously wouldn't cover it.) So we did both. Plastic outside.
Real ones inside where it was warm.










And then I stole an idea from Ann over at Mason-Dixon Knitting and we all but abandoned the egg dyeing for paper towels.

Horse Fan

So, we've taken a hiatus from Camp Tonkawa this year. As much as we've enjoyed day camp every month, Thing 2 has tilted the balance of day camp pros and cons to the con-heavy side. I was able to withstand rousing everyone at the crack of dawn (that would be about 7:30 a.m. in this house). I could just manage to get lunch, snacks, water, chairs, hats, gloves, blankets and the five of us gathered and into the car. We can all share a laugh at the thought of me having any sort of breakfast ready at this point in the morning, and we won't even discuss me leaving on time. But that's what granola bars and 70 mph highways are for. I could even entertain Thing 2 most of the day.

Despite all the morning turmoil; a day in the woods with nature lessons, crafts, games and songs and a lovely nap for all four kids on the drive home made for happy times. Then Thing 2 stopped having fun. He went from spending the day sitting in my lap and contentedly playing in the dirt near my feet to wildly enjoying himself running about in nature until lunch time, then spending the rest of the day whining and falling about begging to leave.

Anyway, all of this is to say that we haven't been out to Camp Tonkawa in a few months and we've missed it. Thing 1's Girl Scout troop has been working on a pet badge and the opportunity to attend Tonkawa's Horsemanship Day came along. Poongin could earn the Horse Rider badge and half the requirements for the Horse Fan badge and Thing 1 could get an introduction to horses--although I realized it was entirely possible that she wouldn't even get out of the car. But she did. At times.

Poongin and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves despite the unseasonably bitter cold. Horse Day starts later than Nature Day and the boys were staying home with Dad, so that was a big help. There was a last minute scramble for gloves and hats when I realized just how cold it was and I was a little startled about 20 minutes into the drive when it dawned on me that we were driving through little snow flurries but they had disappeared by the time we arrived.

There were about 12 girls total attending. They learned about safety around horses (especially when the horse is very large and one is very small). They got to brush and comb the horses, learned the parts of a Western saddle and how to install it on the horse, how to tie a halter to a hitching post, what to feed horses, how to treat their ailments, the names of various horse parts and best of all how to steer and stop a horse. Thing 2 allowed me to guide her hand while brushing a horse but that was the only contact she was interested in. She spent a lot of time wandering about the field singing to herself or sitting in the van eating granola bars and, judging from the list of facts she rattled off for her father, she spent a bit of time listening to the instructors, too.

Poongin got a chance to ride three different horses and was in a heart stopping moment of excitement when her horse had a disagreement with another, which caused the girl riding the other horse to lose her seating and hit the ground right at her horse's rather agitated feet. I was fairly certain I was about to witness a mangling but the instructors instantly brought everything under control and had the girl back in her saddle and riding again in no time. At the end of the day, Poongin also got to lead her horse to water but could not make it drink--no joke--and then led her back to the hitching posts. Having watched two different horses try to break away from the instructors earlier in the day, this caused me no little bit of anxiety, but Poongin handled it with ease. (She's good with little kids, too.)

Poongin's thoughts on the day: "It was really fun. Number one, I didn't expect it to be that fun in the cold. And, number two, I thought that it might be scary to be around the horses."