Party in a Box (or two) from Grama!!

My Birthday Girl!

This is my Birthday Girl - OLIVIA HONOR!
She is 2 today! She and sister wanted curlers in their hair last night, and this is the "do" they ended up with today:-)
I was pretty impressed that the curlers stayed in their hair all through the night!

Brother's were eager for Olivia to see her birthday treats - especially the Punch balloons;-)
Daddy Bug and I decided long ago that since we weren't going to make Christmas a gift exchanging time with our children, that we wanted to have each Birthday be a really special occasion. I made Olivia's apron last year when I was pregnant, and working on one for my niece Eleanor. Starting with Zachary, it has been a tradition for me to make an apron for the 2nd birthday. I don't know how long this tradition can last as we add more nieces and nephews, but I was glad to have planned ahead for Olivia. It's been a crazy last few months!
Speaking of which... it made the most sense to me NOT to attempt another sewing project two days before her birthday, so NO, I haven't gotten to touch those colorful fabrics yet.

One of Olivia's favorite gifts was the books she received. She is my book girl (and is also my hardest on books. Sigh...) but today she was in her glory " 'at Olie's" she kept saying which meant "this is my very own book... my VERY OWN!!!"
We will enjoy cake later in the week since today was a late work day for Daddy. We had the pleasure of sharing dinner together, but I wasn't prepared to serve four tired little Bugs SUGAR right before putting them to bed! -I know... Spoil Sport! (but then, this post isn't labeled "call me crazy"!)
I have much, much , MUCH to be thankful for as I remember the birth of my precious daughter:-)
I love YOU Baby!!







You're My Favorite OLIVIA!!!

Much Ado...

Did I mention that Daddy Bug has been out of town this week?
I have missed him terribly, and would say that it's been a long week, except that I had mile-long list of things to accomplish while he was gone, and hardly made a dent in it because it took the whole week just to keep up with regular chores!! I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

What I DID do, was complete Carolina's birth announcements and get them addressed and stamped. (They're still not mailed yet, and she's now four and a half months old, so don't get your hopes up!) (At least you know she was born!!)

I also called my brother and sister-in-law and enjoyed visiting with them for a spell - something that's hard to make time for, but I did it!

I bought and tried painting three more paint colors on the living room wall (that's in addition to the two I already ruled out!)
The sad thing, is that I don't seem to be any closer to a decision, and that scares me! What will Daddy Bug say to FIVE different colors of paint on the wall!!

Ummm... I made breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Come ON! I had to have gotten more done than that! ...Does laundry count?

Oh Yeah, the little Bugs and I went Birthday shopping for Olivia today! We were actually successful, AND after reading certain people's posts about frugal shopping, I took twenty dollars worth of "stuff" out of my cart at the check-out, and felt very pleased with myself!

Besides Birthday shopping today, we also went to the grocery store (I've never had the urge to keep a price list, before, but today I was sorry I didn't have a pen and pad with me! -Thanks a LOT!). Actually I was pretty glad not to be jotting down numbers, because I would have needed a third arm. I pushed one cart full of girls, while Zack followed behind me with the cart for groceries, while Clayton tried to simultaneously NOT step on my heels, and NOT get run over by Zachary at the same time!
Saturday is NOT the time to attempt this feat, if you are tempted. I wouldn't be surprised if we caused several wrecks because people were more busy watching our circus than where they were steering!
All in all I was very pleased with my children's performance (no pun intended - really.).

You can skip this paragraph if you want, but I'm putting it in here because of it's pertinence to mothers of many.
When we left the grocery store, three of us had to use the restroom - really bad! (Do I hear groans? Thank you.)
Several months ago the amazing Daddy of the Bug clan decided to get a hassock to keep in the van which has kitty litter, bags, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer in it. It is a MUST-HAVE I do tell you! We are so fortunate to have a Sprinter van which we can stand up in, so we can actually use this thing INSIDE the car, if you can believe it!
It is way easy to use, dispose of, and keep clean. I was hard to sell it to, but now I'm hooked! (And VERY thankful not to have to troop myself and five children into a yucky public bathroom stall. Assuming, of course, that we could all fit!)

Moving on to better things, we rewarded ourselves with lunch at Burger King, and were lucky enough to arrive seconds after an entire girls soccer team! Well. My children insisted they didn't mind waiting, and were great sports. So I would say it was a successful venture:-)

Did I get anything else done this week? Not much worthy of note, but I will say that this was the nicest day so far, and tomorrow will be even better because Daddy Bug will be coming home!
That's always the best!:-)

Spring Colors!

Fried Egg Friday today! We had a special day reading about Dinosaurs in the new books Daddy Bug ordered from Kent Hovind's site. We also made a T-Rex and an Iguanadon out of modeling clay, but the boys destroyed their creations before I could get a picture! Oh well. There will probably be more - what do YOU think?

THIS is my spring color! Not exactly what you might expect, but it's about as much color as I can find around here at this time of year. I plan(ned) to make something for Olivia's Birthday, and haven't got to the actual sewing project yet, but had fun sorting the fabric!
I am new to using a digital camera and getting really hooked. My beloved, the Daddy Bug, is not pro digital camera in general, but he researched them and bought the top-of-the-line for me when we decided to move away from our dear family. That is why my posts are mostly full of pictures. What a great way to keep in touch! (I doubt that this picture of fabric will give the grama's the warm fuzzy's - so for YOU, Grama's, there're a couple more at the bottom!) Hugs from me and the little Bugs:-

Pygmies in Colorado?

There were Pygmies here today. Little white-skinned ones running around in their underwear!
PYGMIES? Yeah. That's what I said too. I mean, I'm the only contact these children have with the outside world, and I don't remember anything about Pygmies!

There has been an all-consuming interest in dinosaurs in our home recently, and it turns out that something Daddy Bug read to Zack last week had reference to Pygmies who have spotted living dinosaurs. I was just glad to find out that Daddy was the instigator (albeit unwittingly) of the Pygmie fascination:-)

Apparently my son would love to get to know some pygmies so he can go on a dinosaur hunt with them. Dad said he would go, but further study illuminated that some of these dinosaurs are not affected by gun shot.
We are well aware that swords worked perfectly well for the Knights of old, but Zachary is a sensibly cautious fellow, and declared that he isn't interested in getting close enough to a dinosaur to kill it with a sword. Smart man!
Daddy Bug wonders where Zack got it into his head to KILL one anyway. Wouldn't it be enough to just SEE one of the magnificent beasts?

We actually found some Youtube video of pygmies playing some interesting instruments, and yodeling. However, when Zachary asked if we could type in "Pygmie with a Dinosaur"...

It would seem that the World Wide Web has it's limitations after all!!

Where'd IT Go?!!

I have realized something about myself.
I have a depleted sense of humor when I'm in the nursing season. Isn't that sad? If I ever needed it, it would be now especially, when I am running on fumes.
I have had the easiest nursing babies - they have all nursed a couple times through the night until 9-12 months, and fall fast asleep right after nursing. It's not that I have to be awake so much of the night, it's just that my body doesn't ever make it into that deep restful sleep because that refuses to happen in three to five hour stretches!
Yea-yea, I know I'm preaching to the choir. Thanks for listening Choir.
I'm hoping the Lord will help these tensed up muscles relax, this uptight momma unwind, and maybe (just maybe) I can find a little more humor in the craziness of it all!

I feel better already!

Call it School!

We made Neiman Marcus cookies yesterday. They always turn out amazing for a chocolate chip cookie, the reason we don't make them more often is that they seem to be a bit time-consuming. These have special memories for me making them with Super Momma when we were about sixteen or so. (Have you made them since then, Super Momma?)

One of the great things about them, is that one recipe makes a lot of cookies without having to triple the batch for a big family or husband with a sweet tooth that brings home his bachelor friend!

Here's the recipe for any chocolate chip cookie loving person! I freeze the cookies that don't get ravaged on the first day (that would depend somewhat on how hungry that husband of yours is:-)).





















NEIMAN MARCUS Cookies

Cream together:
2 C. butter
2 C. white sugar
2 C. brown sugar

Add:
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla

Mix with:
4 C. flour
5 C. blended oatmeal (this is first measured, then blended in your blender. It turned out fine for me yesterday without having blended the oatmeal.)
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda














Add:
24 oz chocolate chips
3 C. chopped nuts of your choosing (I like pecans, almonds, or a mixture of both)
8 oz Hershey bar grated (grating this is tricky for me, but well worth the effort!)

Roll into balls, flatten slightly and place two inches apart on cookie sheet.
Bake for 10 min at 375 degrees.
Makes about 112 cookies (I don't know for sure about this one, it was a little hard to count with how fast they were disappearing!)

And... VIOLA! The Look pretty scrumptious, don't they? (The cookies, that is!;-))

SaturdayFun!

Our Saturday was pretty nice:-)
It started off with Zachary making his recipe (last post), and the little girls going to breakfast with Daddy Bug. Susanna told me later that she had an English muffin with poison-berry jam in it!
(I'm glad she's okay!)

We all took a little drive to scope out the lay of the land. It was a lovely day, and while we decided that Colorado Springs wasn't to our taste, we did discover a quaint rural town that had a park with a playground! Here's some pictures to show the fun:-)

Initiation

Yikes! I got my first "tag!" (Thanks for inviting me to sit at the cool girl's table with you, Suzanne!)
I am going to try this out once - just for fun - and I hope I can figure out how to do it as well as Suzanne did, though my post won't be nearly as fun or interesting as hers!
After this, I'll probably be a stick-in-the-mud for these kind of games, since I can barely get to the computer to post a regular blog:-)

Here are the rules:

• 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
• 2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
• 3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
• 4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

All righty then...

1)I am an artist, and have loved any art medium since the beginning of time. Right now I mostly draw with pen and ink because that's all I have time for.
When I was about six, I talked my brother into letting me cut some of his hair to make paint brushes out of. I actually made them (though it was a little difficult to get the hair to stick to the sticks with rubber cement!), and while I DID get into trouble and never have lived down the episode, my mom actually saved those paint brushes for a laugh!

2) We have a beloved rooster still living at home in California. His name is Fancy Pants, and the children love him even though he has attacked every one of them! Daddy Bug loves him because he is self-maintaining, and has taught our boys how to stand up to a bully, and protect their sisters.
I guess those are okay reasons to keep him around, but who lives on an old farm with no animals except a mean ol' rooster?!

3) I like my Safeway Rocky Road ice cream best in a mug, with milk poured over it, and always eat it that way with a soup spoon.

4) When I was about fifteen I remember telling a friend "whoever marries those Love boys are going to be the luckiest girls!" Then, three years later, the cutest, smartest, most wonderful one... married ME!!!

5) I know how to milk goats. I milked many. I milked them often. I don't care to ever own one. Unless someone else milks it, that is.

6) I am the oldest of seven children. I have changed LOTS of diapers - most of them rubber pants covered, diaper pinned, cloth ones. When my first child was born, my husband poo-pooed (pun intended) the idea of using cloth diapers, declaring the cost to be a wash (another pun intended!). I never have calculated it, since I'm not interested in proving him wrong! I'm just thankful to be enjoying the luxury of disposable diapers still:-)

7)When I get to enjoy all these gals who are at their best while blogging -women who love and fear the Lord, who are fun and witty, and freely offer their real selves in friendship - It makes me really look forward to Heaven!!! Thanks Lord!

Do I even KNOW seven people to tag?

Super Momma at 2homeschool

Molly at Hightowers (my sweet little sister #1!)

Diane at The Diane Story

Mommy Reg at Mommyhood Adventures

Momma K. at The Pea in My Pod (My sister-in-love, the other lucky Love wife!)

Audry at So This is Heaven on Earth!

Morgan at Momma Loves Papa

Banana Split for Breakfast!

The girls went to Breakfast with Daddy, so Zachary came to me with this recipe he had created and asked if he could make it. I thought You'd enjoy seeing it, and besides, it turned out surprisingly (only surprising to me) good - you might want to try it yourself!

This is what his recipe says:

*Sliced in half, one banana
*1 bowl for the banana split
*A little bit of granola
*Just a little bit of sliced fruit
*A Tablespoon of sugar

Here's how the recipe actually played out:

*1 Banana sliced in half
*1 Apple diced or sliced
*About half cup of granola
*Cinnamon sprinkled on
*A dollup or two of whipped cream
*Another sprinkling of granola on top as a garnish

You see before you two happy cooks, but not nearly as happy as they were digging in to this dillectable concoction!
(I will add that the cinnamon was a tasty touch - way to go Big Z!)