During the Month of June:

I bought a Chinese Checkers game at a garage sale and it has been a huge hit.

I know this because the kids fight about it constantly.

And marbles are everywhere.

Meg turned 5.

Elizabeth photo bombed one of her pictures.

Bryce’s family had a family reunion and we went to Crater Lake.

Where it was snowing.

In June.

The last week of June.

After we had driven an hour and half to get there.

In shorts.

 

We went to Emigrant Lake.

 

And we came home with sand in our bums.

Well, not my bum, but other people’s.

Mostly those under the age of nine.

Or maybe just Bennett’s….

Katie

Something is Better Than Nothing

At least that’s what I’m telling myself about this post.

Because it’s been a while since I’ve posted.

Maybe you’ve noticed?

If you’re still there?

Spring is a super busy time around here.

Which is exciting.

And exhausting.

Mostly exhausting.

Bryce says it’s because we’re homesteaders.

I say we’re not homesteaders.

He asks then, what are we?

I say we’re just an average looking couple who has a lot of stuff that causes a lot of work: yard, grass, weeds, garden, bees, children, chickens, house, money.

{Just kidding.

We don’t have a lot of money.}

So, in brief, this is what we’ve been up to:

Harvesting honey

Eating peas, raspberries, spinach, lettuce, broccoli, and cherries.

And eggs.

Lots and lots of eggs.

Jumping on the trampoline.

Eating dinner under the grape arbor.

{Which was recently outfitted with some outdoor lighting.

And is home to a mommy, daddy and two baby robins.}

Adeline got a duck.

We made a chicken run.

{Bryce loves me, but he was tired of chicken poopy being every.where.}

Washing, hanging and folding laundry.

Spray painting and regular painting.

Dishes, always dishes.

Bennett is crawling.

Spencer is always hungry.

Meg still doesn’t know her letters.

And Elizabeth and Adeline are done with school this week.

 

 

Hiking at Table Rock

 

 

 

 

How Adeline sweeps the floor.

How Bennett is the favorite.

How Elizabeth looked as Betsy Ross.

Hope you’re having an awesome week,

Katie

I Hope We’re Still Friends After You Meet My Children

We have these friends.

The kind of friends that when you stop by on a Saturday evening to drop off a cookie cutter, invite you to stay for dinner.

Which, of course, we did.

I was all settled down to dinner when I received an urgent message.

Via Adeline.

From Bryce.

Voiced in an alarming way.

A whisper.

“Dad needs you.”

“Did he split his pants?”

{Why did I think that was funny to say out loud?}

“I don’t know, but he really needs you up stairs.”

I pawned off Bennett and headed up the stairs.

Where I found:

Spencer - half naked.

Bryce - grumbling under his breath.

Dirty underwear on the floor.

A stench that you wouldn’t believe.

And poo spread pretty much from here to Timbuktu.

Which is a big deal.

But even worse:

The bathroom is white.

Top to bottom.

Marble bathtub.

Bleached white rugs.

White commode, toilet paper, counter top, flooring, walls and door.

Now all haphazardly, but fairly thoroughly, smeared with Spencer’s attempt to wipe his bum after a bout with the runs

……and I had used the rest of the wipies from my bag minutes before hand, had not a spare pair of underwear or a lone diaper.

The bathroom received a once {that’s a lie, it was like two or three times} over with wetted toilet paper - maybe a whole roll’s worth?

{Toilet paper and Bounty paper towels are not even in the same category for this kind of emergency.}

Did I mention Spencer had also managed to clog the toilet?

I don’t even know anymore….

So Bryce worked on that.

I put Spencer’s shorts back on him wrong side out.

{How the outside of his shorts were soiled while the inside remained unblemished is a secret Spencer will take to his grave.}

Plastered on a smile, and walked back to dinner, praying that the poo smell, some way, some how, magically evaporated on its own.

This is the kind of embarrassment only realized by parents.

Oh children.

Katie

Did I Say Monday? Because I Meant Tuesday…

The winner is:  Emily Morgan!

Thanks for all {twelve} of you that entered.

Quick question, the pictures for my blog aren’t showing up on my computer.  Anyone know why?

I will be back later this week with another post.

Promise.

This week.

For sure.

It’s going to happen.

Here’s a picture of my grandma to tide you over.

Katie

This Is Me Finally Getting Around to Posting…. {& A Giveaway}

But let’s be honest.

Spring is kicking my bum.

Which would be awesome if my gluteus maximus actually tightened up.

But it’s not.

There’s still a fair amount of jiggling going up and down the stairs.

True story.

It hit 95 degrees yesterday and I’m like, what the heck?

I’ve had enough time to barely get the absolute done leaving little remaining for anything ‘extra’.

What consists of absolute?

Laundry.

Putting Spencer in time out.

And meals.

Always meals….

The big to-do {and by big to-do I mean hours of manual labor from Bryce and myself, but mostly Bryce} has been the garden:

this what it looked like for the first couple of years.

And here it is today, mostly done.

Just needs more gravel in the paths and some rows of corn and fewer weeds.

We brought the doors with us when we moved from Colorado.

Which Bryce was not thrilled about.

 

 

 

 

 

It has a mini flower bed around the outside for cut flowers and marigolds.

It’s enormous and my favorite room in the house, well, until the weeds start up in full force.

Anyway, I did manage to stop at an estate sale a couple of Friday’s ago and picked up some vintage Radio News magazines from the 20s and 30s.

They were giving them away for free.

I like radio, in the sense that I almost never get to listen to it in the car and when I finally do it’s a song that I’ve never heard before, probably because I never listen to the radio….and so it cycles.

Moving on, I picked these up because I really liked the graphics on them and, again, they were free:

I dug out some frames that I got for Christmas two years ago.

Still had the ribbon and note and everything.

I’m pathetic.

I tore off the front pages, framed them and hung them on the ladder with S hooks.

I don’t love them there, but if we recap, it took me two years to do anything with the frames in the first place…so….

In addition to the radio magazines at the sale, I found this cute little book.

Which because of it’s vibrant pictures I thought would make a great paper bunting.

Like the one in the girl’s room:

So, if you made it to the end of the post, I’m giving you a chance to win the book bunting.

Leave a comment telling me your favorite picture book from when you were a kid.

The winner will be randomly selected and announced Monday, May 19th.

Katie

April: A Summary

First Up: Easter

We celebrated Easter in grand style with new dresses, lots of chocolate, thoughts on Christ and a visit from the Eater bunny.

Spencer has been asserting too much independence and the result is not pretty with lots of time outs.

And also concludes with most of his Easter Sunday photos with his hands in his pants.

Adeline

Meg

Elizabeth

Bennett

Family

Spencer (the best picture to work with….that kid….)

Easter Sunday dinner.

My grandparents wedding china.

Next Up: Disneyland

We’d been budgeting and saving to go on this trip.

We wanted to surprise the kids so we told them the night before we left.

I got the video camera posed.

And they didn’t believe us.

At all.

Not even shouts of ‘You’re awesome!’

In conclusion, the reveal was pretty anti-climatic.

I, also, thought we’d make our own shirts.

The idea was to dye the shirts blue and the silhouette would remain white.

It didn’t work.

So now we just have “white shirts that I bought the week before we went Disneyland” to commemorate the event.

Bryce’s parents went with us.

We drove down Tuesday.

We stayed at a house that was more ‘ghetto’ than ‘vintage’ but did have an orange tree.

We did three days at Disneyland.

I ran into a friend from high school.

Which doesn’t seem impressive until you think about how big and busy Disneyland is, that she lives in Idaho and I live in Oregon, how many days and weeks are in the year and that our high school only had like 220 students.

We did not see any of the characters from Frozen, as the wait time was anywhere from two to five hours.

We drove back Saturday.

Bennett worked on cutting three teeth while we were there.

The Sunday after we got back I took an 1 1/2 nap.

Regardless of how exhausting the trip was, it was really, really fun.

And a series of pictures of our family with people in costume.

 

(Could my front backpack strap be in a worse location?)

 

 

 

Spencer is not in this picture.

He was not happy that Goofy ‘kissed’ his autograph book.

 

 

 

 Lastly: Elizabeth’s Birthday

Elizabeth turned 9!

Hope your week has started out amazing, mine has: after I’ve cleaned the house done, six loads of laundry, put together some birthday presents, made homemade donuts and put Spencer in his room,

Katie