New nephew!

I have a new nephew! He was born on Monday. 7 lbs 11 oz, which is pretty respectable seeing as he arrived two weeks early! His name shall be James Ian. Nick names to follow. Maybe.
He is super cute, but you are going to have to take my word for it because the only photos of him that I have seen are on flickr and I can't grab them for some reason.
This is my first nephew and I am super excited to meet him!

In the mean time, I will leave you with another found picture of my first born.

All that I know was that it was raining. A radish harvest just took place. And that IS a lampshade on her head. Oh. And no alcohol was involved.

Random from the camera

I have kids. Every now and then they ask if they can use the camera to take pictures of something that they feel needs preservation.  I never know what I will find when I down load the pictures.

Here is a small sampling.

This would be garlic.

 

 

 

 

 

Liam and a mouse named Cheese

Strange strawberries and a strange boy.

a strange old lady

potato of course

He says he was cold. I think that he liked the pink.

Simon's grape sandwich

Remember ......

THIS?

This past weekend we went to the lake. While picking up provisions at the grocery store, it was impossible to miss that watermelon were on sale.
And seeing as we had a watermelon.......

And seeing as it was a hot day.....
And seeing as the desired wardrobe was bathing suits.....
And seeing as there was a large body of water nearby.....

I was the first

Liam quickly followed and did his best to look goofy. 12 year old boys are a strange thing.

Simon loved the helmet and wore it often for the remainder of the weekend.

The true ham in the family.

Here she is singing in to the "microphone"

I'm cute and I'm not afraid to use it!

Mira wanted nothing to do with the melon helmet. Instead she covered herself in mud.

Poor Bill. His head was too big to get into the melon helmet so he had to content himself with stripping paint off the porch. We were having a wee contest to see who could peel the biggest swath of paint off and I think  that this monster will be a hard one to beat!

Bike Bugs

The older kids biked to the farm yesterday. It was raining a bit, but they didn't seem to care. Which is a good thing this summer, because around here, if you don't want to get a little damp, most days you would end up huddled inside.
But I digress....
They all made it home at the appointed time and Mira comes in looking like this....

It seems along the way, they stopped and picked some cattail leaves/fronds/spikes/ whatever they are called, and stuck them in their helmets so that they would be like bike bugs. I had a really good laugh.

Mira's comment, spoken with great enthusiasm...."The cars all stopped for us! Every one!"

Small wonder!

Zorbing

We watched Bolt the other night. And as some of you may or may not know, there is a hamster, named Rhino, in one of those hamster balls that played a big part in the movie.
This led to a discussion of hamster balls and how fast a hamster could travel while in one. Having no idea, I googled "hamster ball" only to find that most of the top hits are for some video game. So I did the next best thing. YouTube. I think that I added "rodent" to the search mix and came up with several poor videos of hamsters in balls. But we answered our question. Those little guys can go surprisingly fast!
We kept on looking at various videos (it is so easy to get lost in YouTube land) and eventually we found Zorbing videos. Apparently it started in New Zealand.

Hamster ball for humans.

Who knew?

Seriously, click on the link.

There is nothing stranger than humans.

Legs on my camera

Nicole got a new pair of tights the other day. When I downloaded the photos the other day there were many many many pictures of these blue tie dyed legs! This is a girl who like clothes, unlike her older sister! In fact, the other day when I told Mira that we were going to buy her some new sneakers and Mira moaned (even though she agrees that she is in need of new foot wear), Nicole piped up and said "Mira, you should just go shopping! That way you can get used to it!"
I think that I am going to be in trouble!

It's been a while

Life has been rather busy for me as of late and many areas in my life have suffered from neglect. House cleaning is definitely one as is the blog. I have been making, working, taking classes, as well as trying to keep up with the day to day stuff like laundry, dishes, meal preparations, grocery shopping....well, you get the picture. This time of year is always hectic, and this year has been the worst in as long as I can remember. I have been weaving quite a bit and a lot of what I produced this year has left the house and my hands without having the proper documentation. Yup. That means no pictures. Lighting is always an issue for me and pictures are either right colour but blurry, or in focus and washed out. The scarf below is a good case in point. It was a commission from a friend whose husband liked my work, but wanted something darker. It is actually a midnight blue.
I hope to have something figured out in the new year so that I can actually start taking some half decent pictures. It is starting to become more and more important. I have decided that I am finished with my weekly market and while I am still going to sign up for three (or four) craft shows next year, I would also like to start to have a outlet online to start selling. Bad time to start talking about a new venture, but Etsy seems like it is a pretty inexpensive place to begin.

And while I haven't been taking many pictures, someone has been using my camera. It has a panoramic setting and the only thing that I recognise is Liam's bed and the Lego containers under it. What is happening in the first two thirds is anybodies guess.

And I have officially finished producing for the year. The tree that normally sits where the Christmas tree is, is where my loom normally sits and my loom is folded up and jammed in behind it.
Last year, Mamoo bought a second artificial tree in the after Christmas sale season, thinking that she would like to set one up in the sun room (I think). This year she decided that she wouldn't bother and offered it to me. The kids put up a fuss about wanting a real tree and I put up a fuss about finding fir needles in strange places all the way into the summer. And since I like to think that I live in a Momocracy, I over ruled everyone and accepted the tree. It was so quick and easy to put up. It even came with lights on it! Whoever decided to string up the trees with lights before selling them was a genius! It took about 4 minutes to set up the tree (after spending 4 hours getting the living room ready) and then I walked away and the kids took over.

I think they did a pretty good job. Now if I could just convince them to not put themselves under the tree.....

Poor Mr P

This is what I found in the living/play room when I wandered through there this morning. Poor Mr. P. looks like he is having a strip ripped off of him by Mrs. P. Although she is doing it with a smile.

Pumpkin Central

The kids all really like to carve the pumpkins. I have to admit a bit of a preference for pumpkin carving myself. When the kids were really little, I used to think that it was great. They drew a picture and I interpreted it on the pumpkin. Then we moved up to drawing right on the pumpkins. And I did the cravings, interpreting what they had drawn. The they got older and started carving their own pumpkins. And I had to start buying my own pumpkin. Nicole still lets me carve her pumpkin (as well as clean it out) but the older kids are all flying solo.
Nicole told me that she wanted two round eyes and a big smiley mouth. I added the notches so that the pumpkin took on a crossed eyed appearance. I think that it is kind of cute.

From left to right, Mira, Liam, Simon, and mine. Do you like the authentic spooky leaves and dead plants in the background?
Maybe it is time for me to clean out my little flower garden.

Over dinner....

Liam found a very interesting rock this summer. To me it looked like a volcanic rock. Several other people made other predictions as to its origins. Bill brought it up to a geologist at the university today and he said that it was most likely a volcanic rock. But that it might be a meteorite ( very unlikely, but possible) and if it was a meteorite, it might be worth a few dollars. Which, of course, got the kids speculating over how to spend this unexpected wealth.
Liam wanted to have a mansion and have a remote control that controlled everything. (That boy has big dreams)
Simon was undecided.
Mira said " I would make a little building to keep my bones so that they could rot undisturbed. I would paint it red and call it "Little Red Rotting Hut" "

Speaking of Little Red......

Has any one seen "Hoodwinked"?

Please do. Even after 16 times, I still pause and watch certain scenes.

Inquiring Minds Want To Know.......

Mira: (on the eve of the Boys birthday): If you had a dragon who has a birthday, would he blow the candles on instead of out?

Life In The Fast Lane

When life hands you lemons.... you make lemon aide, right? So when life hands you an inner tube (and cold, rainy, damp days) while at the lake? You make a WHAT? The SS Mira, as it was first known,


and soon the SS Liam.

Mira spent quite a bit of time paddling around on the tube and doing all sorts of interesting things. She explored the creek. She had been up and down it many times before, but apparently it was a bit different when viewed from the tube.
She also went paddling solo in the canoe for the first time.

She decided that she wanted to harvest some of the lake grass that grows in our cove and was pestering the adults to come with her. I finally convinced her that she was more than able to paddle alone in our cove and she harvested to her hearts content.


Keep watch for what she did with the grass. I was (and still are) amazed!

Mira's New Pet

Some assembly required.

Mira has become fascinated with bones as of late. When she went on a bike ride with her father and brothers a few weeks ago she found all sorts of dead things in the ditch. Thankfully they were all well rotted dead things. I am not quite sure where she is going with all of the bones but it will be interesting.
When she first started carting things home we had a bit of a talk about germs and so she is very careful when picking up bones. She wears gloves when gathering and everything is bleached before it comes in the house.
I am amazed how she has this thing all laid out. So organized. But then again, she is my one child who keeps her room clean just because she wants to so maybe I shouldn't be too surprised.
Plans are in the works to go and pick up some of a deer skeleton that they spotted on their trip last week.

What's that movie again?

We were discussing which movie to watch tonight and Nicole starts to give her suggestion. Nicole loves movies. Actually, I should have said, Nicole LOVES movies. Anyone with a VSP (very short person) in their lives knows how many time they can watch the same movie over and over and over and over, etc.

Nicole is still learning this.

N: Hmmmm. I want to watch.....Hmmmm....

Me: Don't forget, we have the power of veto.

N: Oh, I haven't seen that! That sounds like a funny movie.

While doing the dishes....

In the course of a family discussion the subject of pregnancy came up. This brought up the Duggar family, who on Mothers' Day made public that they were pregnant with their 18th child.

Mira: Do they belong to some special religion?

Papa: Yes, but I forget what it's called.

Mira: Is it "mouseism" or "bunnyrabbitism"?

Random moment in my life

We got a new thing that came in a large box.
As often happens, the box is the wonderful thing.

Nicole (with extreme whining): MIRA! If your face is in the corner, I can't get in!

later.....

Nicole ( with extreme agitation): MIRA! Your face in the corner is scaring me!

Just in case you were wondering.... I'm having a glass of wine (without the "h")

I think that bedtime is a good thing.

Tumeric 2 or Strange Child

Mira just came in and asked "If someone took a bath in tumeric water would they turn yellow?"

And after having dyed my hands a slight yellow yesterday while rinsing everything, I knew the answer.

Yes.

She was very excited by this bit if information and decided that someone doing such a thing "could play a carrot. They could dye their hair green and have it sticking up! They would make a great carrot!"

Haloween is only eight and a half months away!