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Ever since I met Mr Bird he has had one dream that has never faltered.
He has wanted to be a train engineer.
The man loves everything and anything to do with trains.
We attend the annual reenactment of the driving of the golden spike every May 10th.
We pack up all the kids, enough food for the day and blankets and drive an hour to get to the absolute middle of nowhere to witness this celebration.
We visit our local train museum on historic 25th Street in downtown Ogden (with and without the children) at least once a year.
We attend the local train convention where collectors from all over the country convene at above mentioned 25th Street museum.
They set up the most elaborate model train sets you could ever imagine.
Every size, shape and color.
Every year Mr Bird drools over their master pieces.
In fact, when I first met Mr Bird, he had a model train set in his bedroom that went along the top perimeter of his bedroom.
I still remember his excitement to show me his train running along the tracks.
I still remember his disappointment when he took it all down so we could move into our very first house together.
Well, guess what Mr Bird?
I may have found something cooler for you than being a train engineer.
How about a world-class balloon pilot!
Check this out!

"March 5 at dawn, National Geographic Channel and a team of scientists, engineers, and two world-class balloon pilots successfully launched a 16' X 16' house 18' tall with 300 8' colored weather balloons from a private airfield east of Los Angeles."

What do you think?
I smell a new hobby for my lover!
Click here for more amazing photos of this Disney Pixar inspired project!

The Circle K

"Strange things are afoot at the Circle K..."
(name that movie)
Or should I say, strange things are afoot the the Weavers!
Let me give you a little background.
Baby Cakes (whose not a baby anymore) is always telling Mr Bird and I (and anyone who will sit still and listen) all about his "friends".
I assumed they are imaginary since he has yet to have a play day at a friends house without mom.
He's always saying things like, "I do math at my friend's house." or "My friend let me play with his motorcycle when I was at their house."
When we ask him about said friends he tell us they live in his secret lab, and apparently there are millions of them and they come in all kinds of colors.
It's a well known fact that his "secret lab" is a space under the bushes in the side of our yard that the kids hide out in during the nicer days when the sun is shining.
A while ago he started saying things like, "One of my friends died tomorrow."
(tomorrow is the word he uses for any reference to time, weather it be yesterday or next week or last year.)
Then he started telling me that the ghosties let him play with them and that the ghosties were his friends.
I know, weird right?
So what do you think, little kid with a great imagination or do I need to be worried?
Well, I have not been too worried, until this morning.
We were starting our morning devotional to get our school day going when all of a sudden there was a noise upstairs in the bathroom that's getting a face lift.
I looked around the room to see who had snuck out and was upstairs.
All of my children were looking at me with wide eyes.
I listened more closely.
It was music.
Mr Bird and I had done some work on the bathroom last night and had left a radio plugged in.
Spontaneously, it turned on and was playing Cold Play for our listening pleasure.
I sat there in stunned silence for a few moment, trying to rationalize what had just happened.
No logical explanation came to mind.
Then I thought of Baby's ghosties.
Could it be?
Then get this!
Just as I started typing this very post my Internet browser turned off.
No warning, nothing, just poof!
All that was in front of my face was my cow screen saver.
Luckily, Blogger had saved my draft (most of it) and I was able to click on Firefox again and continue my post.
If the radio were not enough, the Internet has me really freaked out.
So help a girl out, what explanations could there be for these erratic occurrences?
My imagination?
Baby's ghostie friends?
Want to know something else weird?
I just noticed this week that the convenience store near our home is a Circle K.
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do!
(Twilight Zone theme music playing in my head)

Pregnancy Sleep 101

I think I may have found the cure for 3rd trimester night time restlessness.
You know, that feeling of being beyond exhausted, dreaming of your bed and falling into a deep slumber only to lay there and toss and turn, without a comfortable position to be found.
The hips ache, the belly is huge and cumbersome, the back is off limits.
And to top it all off, restless leg syndrome.
If you've never experienced that, count yourself lucky.
You lay there and for no apparent reason the legs must move.
They will not stop, even if you're just moments away from a really good dream.
Those legs will pull you out of dreamland in an instant with those uncontrollable jerks.
It would literally take hours to even fall asleep, and then if anything awoke me during the night it was literally impossible to get back to sleep.
Then there are the leg cramps, don't even get me started.
Want to know my secret to 3rd trimester sleep?
It's actually a combination of things.
I've found that if I leave one of these things out, my night is over.
Step 1. 1200mg of calcium with magnesium an hour before bed.
My midwife says dark chocolate is one of the highest source of magnesium in our food supply.
Man, I love that lady. Now I have an excuse to eat chocolate before bed. Every night!
Step 2. Sleepytime tea 15-20 minutes before bed.
Warm chamomile and other wholesome herbs with a touch of honey, need I say more?
Step 3. Light leg stretches just before you hop in the blankets. I've omitted this one time to time and I literally have to get myself out of bed, usually an hour after I've gotten in, and do the stretches. Then I get back in bed and am asleep in minutes.
Step 4. Boppy Total Body Pillow. Enough said.
Mr Bird got me one for Valentine's day. I was skeptical to say the least. I've had body pillows before and found them huge and cumbersome and suffocating. The first night I snuggled up to the Boppy I was in heaven! No joke. I have slept better the last 4 nights than I have in the last trimester of any of my pregnancies combined. I wondered if it was a fluke the first night, but the same wonderland sleep has found me every night since. It has been heavenly. I feel rested and almost human again. I wish I had this 4 babies ago.
And no, this is not a paid advertisement for Boppy, just a recipe for a good night's sleep!
Sweet Dreams!

The Homeschool Roller Coaster

I must start by saying how much I love homeschool.
I love having my kids here with me and going for a walk on the parkway on sunny days after lunch.
We love to see the ice cold river and the winter birds that did not fly south for the winter.
We love the contrast of the winter trees as compared to the vibrant summer colors and the cool shades of the fall leaves.
I love it when Beano reads to me and begs to do "just one more chapter".
Then, before we know it, he's read the whole book.
He likes to read to me so much because he thinks he's really reading to his baby (which I guess he is and which I also really love).
I love it when Doodle plays me piano songs before breakfast.
If she had to go to school she'd be rushing to get ready for school instead of making beautiful music.
I love reading scriptures from the New Testament with my children.
It was the New Testament I fell in love with first, it was the first volume of scripture I ever read on my own.
I fell in love with Christ and I love reading and teaching His stories to my children every single day.
I feel like I'm finding that part of myself again in the process and it's truly magical.
But just like everything in life, homeschool is a definite roller coaster.
We have incredibly great highs.
Highs that make me feel like we could (and will) do anything.
Then there are the lows.
This is when I struggle with my sanity.
Questions whirl through my mind.
Am I doing enough for them?
Are they learning all they need to know?
What do they really need to know?
Do we play too much?
What curriculum should we use, or should we just wing it and learn what we want, on our own time table?
Am I even doing this right?
I struggle with these questions, some days more than others.
I worry my kids only practice their writing skills because I make them and not because they love to do it.
Yet I am at a loss as to how to inspire them to truly love writing.
I love writing, but how did that passion grow in me when I was young?
I honestly don't remember.
Maybe it didn't come until college.
Homeschool can be really fun and really hard, all on the same day.
So how do I combat the homeschool roller coaster?
I pray.
I look at Charter schools online.
I look at "What your 3rd grader should know" on google searches.
Then I realize I'm not doing as badly as I thought.
I listen to them as they read and make notes about where they need more focus.
I look at their writing and see their continued mistakes (like contractions) and we have a mini lesson about contractions.
We take a break to reevaluate our goals and methods.
Sometimes we take a whole week and do no school work at all.
Then I really start to feel the heat.
I feel neglectful of their education and for some reason that fuels my fire to want to do better.
I talk with other home school moms and find out what works for their kids.
But mostly I pray.
And then I lock myself in my room and have a really good cry and pray some more.
Then we eat lunch and I pray in my mind as the kids chatter away with food in their mouths.
I relish their noise.
Then I feel peace.
That is, until the next thrilling turn of the ride.

Of Men and Angels

When I was in Jr. High and High school I walked home from school every day.
That does not seem that uncommon, right?
The thing is, I walked 3 miles in blistering heat, rain, and even hail storms a time or two for 6 straight years (starting at 12 years old).
I was not one of those kids whose parents bought them a car at 16.
I was lucky if I had an umbrella.
I did have a job later in high school, but the money was spent helping my mom with rent and utilities on our tiny 2 bedroom apartment.
There was no extra moo-la for a car plus insurance and gas.
No matter the weather, I walked.
For the most part I enjoyed my walks.
I enjoyed the smell of the air when fall came.
I loved shuffling my feet through the fallen leaves scattered on the sidewalks.
I enjoyed smelling the smoke being sent up in big billows from the homes in the neighborhoods when winter came.
I enjoyed watching the dogs in the back yards yip at me from their 10x10 fenced yards.
Sometimes I just liked to be in the sunshine and watch the puffy clouds go by.
I enjoyed the uninterrupted silence and the chance it gave me to dream about my future.
What can I say, I've always been a dreamer.
It gave me a sense of independence and hope for my future.
There were many times in my youth, including my alone time on my daily walks, when I felt I had angles literally following my every foot step.
They seemed so close some times that I felt I could just turn around and start talking to them, yet I knew no one was there.
Even typing this now, over 15 years later, brings back the same feelings I had back then.
The town I grew up in is one of the worst in the entire country, as far a crime rates.
Yet, as a teenager I did not know that.
I do know that on several instances strange men in unfamiliar cars stopped and pulled up along side me, offering me a ride.
I did what the text books say and avoided eye contact and kept walking.
That worked for all but one guy. He was relentless and seemed bent on me getting in his car.
It came to the point where I stopped walking and entered the side yard of one of the houses in the neighborhood to get away from him.
I was praying no one was home, which ended up being the case, thank heaven.
I waited in that strangers back yard until the car finally sped away.
I think I walked faster the rest of the way home that day than I ever had in my entire life.
I have often wondered what could have happened that day if he had not left.
My mind does not like to go to that place.
Last night I was browsing the Internet and I was curious about the crime rate in our local area.
I found some crime reports on the Internet and was actually shocked at how high the rate here is.
I had considered our area pretty quiet.
Then, I went to the crime reports for the town I grew up in.
I found some daunting facts.
It turns out, and I quote, "This city is safer than 2% of the cities in the US."
Talk about bottom of the barrel.
It also says if you live in Stockton you have a 1 in 63 person chance of being a victim of violent crime.
But this is the one that nearly scared my socks right off.
Every year in my beloved home town there are a whopping 407 crimes per square mile.
These stats made my new place of residence seem like utopia.
And to think, I walked thorough 3 of those miles every single school day of the year for 6 years.
OK, that's not true, on the rare occasion I had some spare change I rode the city bus.
But I can honestly say I think I was better off walking.
And yet not a hair on my head was ever harmed, scared to death a few times, but never did anything bad ever happen to me.
So about those angels I was talking about.
I used to think maybe I was a little crazy for thinking I had angels in my midst.
Now, I realize that may have been the only way I ever made it though all those years unscathed.

Stream of Consciousness

I have hundreds of random thoughts going on in my head this morning.
I think this calls for some serious bullet points.

• I put a pregnancy count down thingy over on my side bar. All the cute mommy blogs have them.
• I can't decide if I like it or if it's going to drive me crazy over the next seemingly endless 75 days.
  
• 75 days!! That's still so far away. *sigh*
• It'll probably be even more for me though, like 85 if I'm being realistic. I'm not one of those women who goes into labor even a minute before my due date.
• Why is it that as soon as the 3rd trimester hits I feel absolutely enormous? It literally happens over night.
• Are you tired of hearing about this pregnancy yet?
• But guess what? All in all I have really enjoyed being pregnant, I almost don't want it to end.
• Except that I really want to hold my baby.
• Do you think the kids will be mad if I don't share?
• Can you tell how conflicted I'm feeling?
• In other news, I have been sewing and crocheting up a storm over here. I just can't sit still.
• I crocheted the cutest little baby sweater.
• It's brown. If my baby's a girl I'll add little pink flower buttons and attach a crocheted flower to the lapel. If it's a boy it gets little tan buttons.
• I can't wait to put it on my baby.
• In yet other news, the kids have made an indoor mailbox. They write each other letters and leave them in there to be found by their siblings.
• It's the funnest thing to see their letters. I have even received a few.
• School is starting late today because Doodle's still in the shower and I'm blogging. :)
• After school we're headed to Wild Wednesday at the nature center. On the program today is Eagles in Winter.
• I'm sort of obsessed with eagles, they are so majestic and bold.
• I plan on finding out today where they nest in the winter (I know it's somewhere in our mountains) and taking a trip to see them in their natural environment next week.
• We'll bring binoculars and trail mix and have a good old time.
• Oh, and snow pants and boots and maybe even our sleds.
• Anyone want to join us?
• I have been craving roast beef and red potatoes for a week.
  
• I finally bought one, but can't make it until tomorrow. My mouth is watering at the thought.
• What's your favorite way to make roast beef?
• Winter is starting to wear on me.
• I am really missing hiking in the mountains and walking along my river pathway.
• And the sunshine, I miss the sunshine.
• And friends. I miss play dates at the park.
• Anyone want to plan an indoor play date? You can come with your children and destroy my house while us big people have some much needed grown up conversation.
  
• Anyone up for a sewing day? I still have lots I want to get done in the next 85 days.
• See? Very random today...
  

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Mr Bird and I belong to a couples book club.
We meet once a month (for over 3 years now) and have a pot luck dinner and discuss fabulous works of literature.
We've read Shakespeare and Dante and C.S.Lewis, among many, many others.
This month we decided on a light, fun read.
It was Mr Birds turn to pick and we had listened to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with the kids quite some time ago.
It turns out the book is ever so much better than the movies (imagine that!).
There are little pearls of wisdom that were far before their time.
Take the Oompa-Loompas songs for instance.
In the books they have morals for each of the greedy, naughty children.
My favorite by far was their song for Mike Teavee.
Read the words.
And keep in mind Roald Dahl first published this in 1964.
As you read, think of how much more meaning it has in today's world filled with video games and texting and ipods and iphones and wiis and all the other mindless gadgets we have invented to take away from letting children be children.

"Mike Teavee..."

(from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

"The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set–
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotized by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all the shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink–
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSES IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK–HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY...USED...TO...READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic takes
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy–Winkle and–
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How The Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole–
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks–
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something good to read.
And once they start–oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hears. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.
P.S. Regarding Mike Teavee,
We very much regret that we
Shall simply have to wait and see
If we can get him back his height.
But if we can't–it serves him right."

If you want to read all of the Oomp-Loompa's songs (which I highly recommend) go here.