Papa to the Rescue.

That is right. Papa came to the rescue. Yesterday I received a phone call at work from Olyvia's teacher. She told me that Olyvia pulled out her tooth while looking in the mirror in the classroom. The problem was that the mirror is over a sink, of course, and that tooth had gone down the drain. Olyvia was quick to inform everyone that this wasn't a problem. She explained that her daddy and Papa were plumbers and they could fix this. So she insisted that her teacher call me to see if her daddy or Papa could come and get her tooth. Here daddy was out on a job of course, but Papa happened to be in the office and so I informed her teacher that I would see what I could do. She told me that time was important as Olyvia wasn't allowing anyone to touch the sink and the janitor was waiting to clean it but Olyvia had told him that he couldn't until her tooth was recovered.

I told Papa the problem once I got off the phone and he went to her rescue and recovered her tooth...too cute. No matter how much those two pick on each other, they sure do love each other.

Maggots in Flour.

As I sit and type this I have a total feeling of disgust for flour. I have just gone through a process of throwing out all the flour in this entire house which included white flour, whole wheat flour and whole wheat bread flour. It is all gone. You may ask why, or maybe you wouldn't and you are applauding my action. Either way, what I am about to tell you will most likely disgust you.

This afternoon my youngest got the fabulous idea that I should make a pie after she had a talk with my sister who exclaimed she was making a pie or had made a pie. Either way, the result of the conversation was Ellie explaining to me that I "needed" to make a pumpkin pie for her. Once home from our day of run around, I decided that since I had all the ingredients for a pumpkin pie, I would go ahead and make her one. Together the two of us put all the ingredients for the filling into a large bowl and with great care and decisiveness...wait, who am I kidding? Let me rephrase that. With great speed and vigor, Ellie proceeded to stir the filling. If you had ever wandered if Evaporated milk, sugar and pumpkin can fly...I assure you it can. We cleaned up the mess and continued stirring. She was slightly slower this time. The filling was ready.

I gathered the ingredients for the crust, opened my flour (having just purchased it one week ago) and started to measure it into a measuring cup. As I was doing this, I saw something in the flour. I looked into the bowl and realized that I didn't just see one something but a whole lot of somethings. As I began to scoop these somethings out of the flour and put them into a bowl to better analyze them, I realized what they were. This is where my stomach started to churn and my hate for flour started to build. They were some sort of maggot like wormy thing. And there were at least twenty of them that I had scooped out of the flour. I don't even want to know how many more were in there. Then I started to wander how they got in there and were they in there the last time I used the flour? Most likely. . .OK, sick feeling getting stronger. Then I got to thinking that they were probably little eggs in the bag of flour and they had recently hatched and were eating the flour as their food.

I really can't type anymore or I may vomit. The result of this discovery is that I decided I didn't want to take a chance on any of my flour and I threw it all away. You may be wandering what we did with the pie filling....we baked it in the pie plate without a crust. It turned out wonderful. I may never make a crust again.

Children are amazing.

Recently good friends of ours welcomed into their lives their very first baby. Watching them adjust to the new little one and seeing an infant again reminded me of when I became a mom and got me thinking about our role as parents. What an amazing thing!

As a mother I realize that I am not perfect, that no mom can possibly be. This realization has also brought to light the fact that as children (and sometimes even as adults) we expect our parents to be perfect. We often give them a hard time, especially as teens. We expect more from them than we should. I fear that as a teenager I most likely fell into this camp. I am very greatfull to my parents for putting up with me and continuing to see that I learned what I needed and put me on a path to become the woman I am.

So I send out a resounding CONGRATULATIONS to all you new parents or soon to be new parents. What an adventure you are embarking upon. Enjoy every minute of it and don't be too hard on yourself.

A Day With My Girls.

Today was quite a day. When I went to pick up Olyvia from horse lessons today I was informed that she didn't ride today because she was too upset over Jackson. Jackson is the horse she has been riding and who she loves very much. Today she witnessed Jackson being loaded into a trailer to go to the clinic because he is very sick with colic. She was totally distraught over the whole thing. She isn't totally clear on what the outcome will be and was insistent that she will need to call and check up on him. My heart was so sad for her.

From there I got home and we took Button to the bathroom. She of course proceeded to get into something that made her smell completely horrid. We gave her a bath. What a treat that was. If you have read previous posts of mine about what I feel my role in taking care of a dog is, you know that bathing them is definitely not on my list of duties. However, my lovely husband is out of town today and there was no way I was going to leave this task to my 6 and 4 year old so I dove in. Literally. By the time I was done it looked like my bathroom had at one point been filled completely with water and I smelled like wet dog shampoo. I decided not to change. Just went and doused myself in some VS perfume and called it good. Nothing quite like dog smell covered up by Victoria's Secret. Fabulous! I call it 'Scent of Mom.' If only that was marketable.

After we had her somewhat dried and pretty much on her bed, I then thought I wasn't having a fun enough day so I would take the girls to the grocery store. By this time it was just after nap time, although no naps had been had. In the car at the store I was very firm in stating that the girls would be getting nothing in the store. We were only purchasing those items on our list and that is all. My youngest was OK with this. My oldest however seemed to think it important to explain to me over and over and over and over that she was STARVING and NEEDED something. I stuck to my decision though much to her dismay and by the time we got back out to the car with the groceries she was practically whithering away to nothing and I had of course forgotten 5 different things that were on my list. ARGH! There was no way I was going back into that store with my two girls in tow and the dog in the car with the rest of the groceries. That would definitely not end well.

Now home from the store, more laundry to do, groceries to put away and really all I want to do is cuddle on my couch with my girls....maybe we can paint nails. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that.

No More Babies.

I don't have any more babies. Last night my husband and I are making dinner and in the blink of an eye our youngest daughter is on the counter sitting there and munching crunchy noodles. I didn't think much about it until my husband said, "did you see that? Ellie, get off the counter please." She then got down. "Now get back up there." She vaulted herself up onto the counter and started munching away at her crunchy noodles. I couldn't help but start laughing. She is definitely out little monkey. This morning she climbed into, yes into, the fridge to pick out her own yogurt.

Above all else this has brought it home for me that I no longer have babies. My beautiful girls don't need my help as much as they used to. They are getting more and more independent as the days progress. It is sad but at the same time, oh so exciting. I love to watch them grow and learn more things and they are so excited to show me all that they are learning. I can't wait to see they next thing one of them comes up with.

It has been too long.

I really need to get a post up here. I just realized we are almost a full month since my last post. The holidays were busy but wonderful this year. We spent a lot of time at home which was fabulous. Over New Years we were able to get a ton of stuff done around our place that I have been wanting to get done forever including cleaning out the garage and taking loads to the dump and recycling.

There are definitely stories to tell and when I can steal away a few minutes I will post something longer. Maybe something about the things I was able to get Robb to get rid of. I mean do we really need magazines from the early 90's? I don't think so. Or how about glass etchings he made in grade school. He loves them so much he keeps them hidden in a box in the garage so you can imagine how beautiful they are. That doesn't even scratch the surface of what we were dealing with when we battled the garage.

He is on to making me shelves now. Finally! A project he has been talking about for a couple years now. I am getting to the point that I almost don't care what they look like I just want them up. I need shelves to put things on. I am so happy though that he is getting to it and taking the time to make sure everything fits right. They should be wonderful when they are done and I will make sure to get some pics up once we have them complete and filled. :)

Dead Pig Smell - Yum! Yum!

TAKE NOTE: When you take a container out of the fridge that has obviously been in there for WAY too long and what used to be pulled pork is now unidentifiable, no ordinary person would open it because there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO OPEN IT. My husband is not an ordinary person and my office now smells like dead pig. Grrrr!