Grumpy

For some unknown reason none of the boys slept well last night. Seth was such a wreck I decided to keep him home from school.

Fortunately sleepy boys equals snuggly boys and I'm soaking it in, despite the whining and crying.  


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Valentine's Day (after 9 years, with 4 kids and a pregnant wife)

For Valentine's Day this year Jed spoiled me with a new shower head, a bath mat and pillow for our bath tub and a new light for our living room.  It was perfect!  

For him I chose a BBQ theme since he's recently been watching a reality series on Netflix about BBQ competition which has lead to some (out loud) day dreaming about quitting his job to become a BBQ judge. Inspired by not wanting to crush his dream but knowing that a family of 7 would struggle immensely trying to live off a judge's salary (I think their only compensation is the food they taste btw) I ran with my idea.

I found a flavor injector, a fancy electric thermometer and a good sized "pork butt".  I threw together my first ever concoction to inject (its not quite as gross as it sounds) and my first ever dry rub, both loosely based on the show Jed's been watching and some of the Pioneer Woman's recipes.  Once I was done experimenting, my masterpiece spent all day in the oven.  

I spent the rest of the day running around doing the normal stuff I have to do on any given weekday plus all the Valentine's activities with the boys.   

Kane and I made homemade cards for daddy and his big brothers.  He proudly gave his brother's their cards when they got home from school.  Evan and Seth didn't have anything to give to Kane so they  dug through the stash of candy they got from school and each picked out something for him.  They went up to his room, put it up on his bed and then lead him upstairs to find his "Valentine's surprise".  So sweet and Kane couldn't have been happier! 

We had the pork for dinner, it was good but I'm already planning a few tweaks to my recipes.  Jed got to play with his new thermometer when we pulled it out of the oven, its quite elaborate.  

Later Joy came over and watched the boys so we could go out for dessert. Thank you Joy!  We're not big on fighting the crowds so we went to Dairy Queen.  Then we went to Lowe's to look at smokers before my body or more accurately my ligaments started screaming at me to call it a day.  

Jed took the older two boys to their first rodeo and I stayed home with the younger two.  Kane had a great idea for what we should do while they were gone but Legoland was a little impractical so we went with idea number 2, the popcorn store (Target) for hot mollies.

As we pulled into the parking lot of the popcorn store Kane shouts from the backseat,  "Mommy, does my hair look fancy?"  Uh, after I recovered from the shock of the proper use of word "fancy" from my 3 year old son, I said, "Of course it does!"  "Mom, does it look fancy enough to go to Joy's house?  I'll make it fancier if I can go to Joy's house."  Then proceeds to vigorously rub his hands through his hair, fancying it up I suppose.

The hair.

Touring the popcorn store in style!

How do I get this thing open?  

He ended up putting it on the ground and stomping it open.  Nice.

And we found Cadburry eggs too but mommy might be keeping those for herself. 

Ducky Update

We've had some weird weather here, its been in the 80s which is even warm for us and, despite this being the dry season we've had quite a bit of rain.  

Ok, so now that I've updated you on our weather, let me get to the point, a little over a week ago a storm rolled in (its cool to watch storms come across our pond!) and for whatever reason this prompted momma duck and babies to leave the pond for the first time since their arrival. I watched from our dining room as four ducks disappeared down into the canal.  

The next day Jed sent Evan out to feed the ducks.  A few minutes later Evan came inside and sat down next to me.  He said, "Mom, I have something to tell you.  There are only 2 ducklings today."  He was looking at me like he was waiting for me to burst into tears and wasn't sure how to comfort me.  When did my little Evan turn into a big seven year old man?!  

After assuring him I wasn't going to break down we went out to check to see if somehow the third duckling had gotten lost or stuck somewhere. Sad day but such is life.

 Since then our little ducklings have doubled in size and they're much more trusting of us, especially Seth who they allow to hand feed them!  They're still quite skiddish when the food runs out though.

 That's our disheveled porch in the background.

I think it's hilarious when a duckling steals a piece of bread intended for its mom and then can't swallow it.  Greedy little one! :)

So we've been quite content with our little family of three however you can imagine our delight when three more ducklings, and their mommy, appeared on our pond yesterday.  The boys were so beyond excited that before I knew it they had slipped almost an entire loaf of bread out to the newcomers (thank goodness it was the $1 loaf from Aldi, a few days ago I found them feeding the ducks the $3 artisan bread we had splurged on, yikes)!

  The new ducks actually look older than our ducks (less down and a tad bit bigger) so they must have been living on one of the other ponds in our neighborhood or made their way from the big lake on the other side of the forest.

So in an unexpected turn of events we're back up to 5 ducklings!  Woohoo!

And Her Name Will Be...

Isla 

(pronounced, eye-la)

It took us a while to settle on her name and after we did we considered keeping it a secret but we realized that her big brothers would make that hard.  

So you can thank Evan, Seth and Kane.

Super Bowl

I'm not a huge fan of football and I'm especially uninterested in pro football so the Super Bowl is a non-event for me.  However I live in a house filled with males who are into all things football so while they watch I worked on Jed's birthday cake (later I'll be settling into bed to read the final book of the Hunger Games!).  

My very old, old, husband turned 33 earlier this week.  I surprised him by having a babysitter lined up for the night and taking him to Outback, also for record sake, since someone has accused me of not getting him anything last year (neither of us can remember his birthday last year which I can blame on being pregnant but  whats your excuse Jed? :)), he received a UofM tshirt and a camping chair.  Anyway, back to Outback, dinner was fantastic, Jed loves their steaks and I love their cheese fries, yum!  After dinner I assumed we'd order cheesecake b/c that happens to be his second favorite item on their menu but we were both so full we couldn't imagine eating dessert. 

My poor husband didn't get a cake for his birthday and I felt bad so I decided to remedy that tonight with his most favorite cake in the whole world, German Chocolate.  

Better late than never right babe?! 

Love you, Jed!  I had so much fun celebrating another birthday with you!  Thanks for being the best husband and father!  

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The Things They Say

Evan: "Dad, if your master runs out of money can you stop going to work?"  

Kane: "Mom will you use the chomper on your hair today?"  Referring to my straightener. 

Seth: "Mom, I don't know if I want a sister because she's going to grow up and nag at me to stop playing xbox."   We don't even own an xbox but it somehow trumps a sister. 

Evan: "Mom, E from school told me that bacon is made from pig butt!  I don't care though bacon is delicious!"