My So Called Life

Boy, we had a crazy day. Yes, it involved one of these,

seven of these,

Two of these

One of these,

And one employee from here.

Let me start at the beginning. I knew from the moment my alarm sounded at 6:45 that it would be a busy day. We had a lot to do and no time to waste.

I got up, exercised, got breakfast ready, showered, dressed, cleaned up dishes, got the kids dressed, put dinner in the crock pot, made some sandwiches and snacks to bring with us as I knew we would not make it home for a noon time meal and left the house at 10am.

We had a fun morning at the library where we read stories, sang songs, played with bubbles and glued tiny bits of tissue paper onto ourselves.

After the library we headed over to Baby Cake's 15 month check up. It turns out he is still really little. He weighs 18 pounds and 12 ounces, that means he gained 2 ounces in the last three months. That makes his growth line flat, and puts him in the less than 5% of all babies his age. The pediatrician ordered some routine blood tests to see if there is really something wrong, like thyroid, or if he's just a small boy. We'll get those results some time next week.

After the doctors appointment the kids had a primary activity at church. I pulled up to the chapel and and sent the kids in. I had a small thought that maybe I should stay and be an extra set of hands in case they needed back up.

Then all the kazillion things I could get done with just one kid instead of 4 came to my mind and I made a bee line for the nearest farm supply store, where I bought 7 of the cutest, fluffiest baby chicks I have ever seen. I only went to get feed for our existing 13 hens, but as soon as I opened the door I heard them. I heard the cutest little chirps coming from the cages in the middle of the store and I knew they had gotten the first batch of spring chickens.

I could not help myself.

Since Mr Bird won't let me have another baby, I took out my mothering instinct on a box full of baby birds. And they are the cutest things you've ever seen. Don't worry, we will not have 20 birds for long, we have several hens that are no longer laying and so they will make their way into the crock pot soon enough!

So back to the church I drove with my SUV all a chirp with baby birds. As I enter the cultural hall to gather my own flock I was greeted by the primary president. She very gracefully came over to me and says, "I need to tell you what happened during the activity."

That is never a good thing to hear.

My first thought was who did Dubs hit?

She goes on to tell me that during the course of the activity Dubs came up missing. After a quick and thorough search of the church it was discovered that he was not there.

Panic bells were going off in my head as she is telling me this.

The search grew to out doors, where my nearly 4 year old son was found wondering toward our home, which by the way is not on the safest of roads.

Luckily some people in the neighborhood saw him and somehow a police officer was there with the crowd of strangers who had gathered to watch after my small lost boy.

When the primary presidency counselor tried to take Dubs back to the church he said,

"But how will I get home?"

She replied, "Your mom will come back and get you."

"Oh, OK!" was his reply.

I should have listened to that voice that told me to stay and be an extra set of hands.

We finally made it home around 3:45pm with a car loaded with 200 pounds of animal feed, some groceries, 4 tired kids, and 7 new baby chicks. I was ready to go into the nice warm house filled with the aroma of slow cooked soup just waiting to be tasted and salted and stirred.

Guess what I found instead?

I found 2 carbon monoxide alarms blaring, one upstairs and one down stairs.

It's funny how when things like this happen I panic and can't for the life of me think like a sane human being. I could not figure out what to do. I knew I should keep everyone out of the house. Good thing it was in the 40's today, or we could have frozen to death. It did not occur to me to go straight to the source and call the gas company. Instead I freaked out and called 911. They sent yet another police officer, who assured me he was not the officer that had found my lost child less than an hour before. Along with him came a real live fire truck. The fire men made sure none of us were sick and took some gadget into the house to test the air. They came back and assured us they did find gas and to stay out of the house until the gas company could come and find the source of the gas.

Long story short, nothing is wrong with our house, there is no leak. The gas company thinks it was from me running the car in the garage before we left and the fumes got stuck in the garage when I shut the garage door and leached into the house during the course of the day.

By the time it was all sorted out it was nearly 5:30 and I have never been so glad to have dinner in the crock pot. I threw some frozen rolls in the oven and we sat down to a very nice, warm dinner.

So while it was a crazy day like no other, I am more than thankful to be safe in a nice warm home with my kids.

The only thing that would make it better was if Mr Bird were not hundreds of miles away in southern California walking on the beach all in the name of 'work' without me.

*sigh*

Why do these things always happen when he's away?

I miss my lover.

*sad, cry*

It's Not Easy Being Green

St Patrick's Day is upon us. That means temporary green decorations.

I don't want to spend a lot of time on these little holidays, but then again I don't want them to pass unnoticed either. So here is what we are doing at our home.

After Valentine's Day I found a bag of all green M&M's on clearance. I also found a bag of red and silver kisses on clearance. I picked out all the red ones and used the silver for my candy dish.

Guess what we did with the rest?

We made these cute decadent clover treats.

Can I just say chocolate covered pretzels are awesome!

Here's what we did.First we covered a cookie sheet with waxed paper. Then we covered the cookie sheet with a single layer of pretzels and put a Hershey's kiss on each and every pretzel. Then we put them in the oven at 200 degrees until they were all warm and melty and oh so delish.

Then we took them out of the oven and put 3 green M&M's on each kiss. We put them in the fridge until the chocolate set back up. Then we added a line of green frosting to make the stem. The frosting was greener in real life, it looks really light in the picture.
They turned out so cute and ended up being a quick and fun treat for family night.


See how fun they are. Even the backs of them are so cute.

The only problem?

They did not last very long.

But alas, what is a girl without her one true love?

Um, er, that is, her *cough* chocolate.

Kid Quotes # 3,524

The following was overheard as the kids were playing good guy, bad guy. They play these make believe games way more than they play with any toys we have ever bought them, go figure.
Beano: This guy was a way bad guy.
Doodle: Ya, he was the baddest bad guy cuz he drinks red Coka-Cola!
Not red Coka-Cola, OOO, I'm shaking!

Who Cut the Cheese

I'm sorry, I could not help it.

It was either that or Cheeze Whiz or

Nacho Cheese or, heaven forbid,

Swiss is the holiest cheese.

I know, they're all lame, but what do you expect?

I'm stuck with the same 4 little people day in and day out with little to no adult interaction. My brain is turning to mush.

But enough about me, back to the cheese!

Last week we went on a tour of a local cheese factory.

I learned way too much about cheese.

Now I need to buy some whole milk and make some at home, I feel the itch.

That particular cheese that the owner of the factory is showing us has been aging for 3 years!

It's as old as Dubs!

He said the mold on it is fine, as long as it's not black mold you can just cut it off and the cheese under it is totally tasty.

And you know what? I believe him. Three of his different varieties of cheese won 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the nation last year. He rubs all kinds of things on the cheese to make them have different flavors. He sells most of his cheese at the health food stores, a local grocery store and to lots of restaurants in Salt Lake City.

He does not add any artificial color or flavor to his cheese so even the cheddar is the same creamy color as all the other cheese, not bright yellow like the ones in the store.

The best part of the tour, you ask?

The sample of course!

My kids like the cheese curds best. They were really fresh so they were really squeaky. Did you know the older cheese curds are the less they squeak? That's because all the cultures in the cheese break down the amino acids with time and those unbroken down amino acids are what make the cheese squeak.

Or something like that.

I don't remember the name of my favorite, but I do remember it had Cajun spices all over it and it cost $16/pound.

Ouch!

The 3 year old Parmesan was amazing too.

We had to bring home some cheese curd for Mr Bird to try.

We bought regular and Cajun.

At $10 a pound it seemed like a bargain.

Happy Birthday Dr Seuss

Green Eggs and Ham, anyone?

As soon as the kids found out that today was Dr. Seuss's birthday they insisted we have our traditional Dr. Seuss birthday meal (yes, we celebrate his birth every year).

Green eggs and ham, or course!

What else?

How did I get the eggs so green, you ask.

That is no food coloring, baby.

First I sauteed a green pepper, while that was cooking I put the eggs in the blinder with some fresh spinach. Then I poured them in the pan and scrambled them with the pepper.

The best part? The whole meal cost around $3, for all six of us. Can't beat that!

Are those not the most hideously green eggs you've ever seen?

It was almost too frightening to eat.

But he just had to try them. We had to!

"I do not like Green Eggs and Ham, Sam I Am!"

"Try them and you may, try them and you may, I say."

"Say, I do like Green Eggs and Ham, I do like them, Sam I Am!"

After dinner, for FHE we read one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books,

The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins

In the story there is a boy with a very ordinary hat with a feather in it. One day he is on his way to town to sell some cranberries when the king passes.
There is a huge procession and everyone bows to the king.


As the king passes Bartholomew he suddenly stops the procession and backs up right
to Bartholomew.
He is stunned to see that Bartholomew has not removed his hat for his Highness.
Bartholomew is baffled as he tries to reason how he had taken off his hat, yet mysteriously another had appeared on his head.

Throughout the story Bartholomew ends up taking off 500 hats.
I will not tell you how it ends, you'll have to find that out for yourself, if you don't already know.
I will tell you that during the story one of the things they did to try to get the hat off Bartholomew's head was to have an archer shoot it right off his head with a bow and arrow.


Since we do not have a bow and arrow we decided to try using a toy gun with a suction cup shooter to try to shoot our newspaper hat off of each other's heads.
We had to see if our aim was as good as a professional archer.


As you can see, Doodle is pretty good. Ya, I know, she's only 6 inches away from the hat, but still!

I think Mr Bird was a little nervous about the kids aiming a gun at his head, but he was a good sport.


What a fun night we had! We love Dr. Seuss!
What a funny, funny man.

Widgets From Heaven

Have you noticed my new widget yet?

The one that shows the weather.

I am loving it!

It has been very accurate so far.

I love knowing what the weather will be like.

And look, it's supposed to be 43 degrees today!

That's more than 10 degrees above freezing.

Yipee, the snow is melting.

But what is under the snow is not so pretty yet.

Just lots of old brown grass and pond sized mud puddles.

There is hope in knowing that soon all that brown will give way to tiny bright green buds and pretty spring flowers.

Soon the trees will be full of baby birds and spring blossoms.

I can almost smell them now.

The sad part about the weather today is that it's over cast.

Who can enjoy 43 degrees when the sun in not shining?

Oh, bother!

Raising Canibals

OK, one more encounter with kids I just have to share.

Beano and Dubs were running around playing some imaginary game this morning.

I was not really paying close attention to how this game was going, but Mr Bird caught a snippet that, taken out of context, was quite funny...and a little disturbing.

As the two super charged boys came bounding down the stairs Mr Bird hears the following exchange:

Dubs: I'll never be married to you.
Beano: Then how will you eat? (implying he has to be married to have some one cook for him, how rude! What is Mr Bird teaching our boys?)
Dubs: I'll kill bad guys for their meat.

That was just wrong on so many levels. But funny as all get up. Where they come up with this stuff, I'll never know.