Regarding Pets

I am a little 'under the weather' today so I have spent much of the day on the couch and not accomplished much. It has been one of those days you are just waiting to be over to you can move on to tomorrow, and hopefully feel better then. As I have been lounging around, though, I have been thinking about, and observing some things about, my pets.


Even though there are 5 people in this house I am the one the dog and the cat follow around. If I go into my scrapbook room the dog is usually right behind me and the cat will be along in a few minutes.

Today I went into my bedroom to do something and, feeling light-headed, I laid down on the bed for a few minutes. As I was laying there I heard this weird noise. Finally I figured out that it was my dog laying next to the bed and hitting the door frame with her paw from time to time. I just had to smile. Next thing I knew the cat had hopped onto the bed and, after sharpening her claws on my clean laundry (which still needs to be folded) she comes over and starts head butting me for 'pets'. (Soon after the boys came in and threatened her with their dart guns so she beat a hasty retreat.)

Right now the dog is sprawled in the middle of the living room floor about 3 feet from where I'm sitting. As I sit here, though, I have been quite amused to watch the interaction between my kids and the dog in just a few minutes time.


First, Miriam comes to give me a hug and jumps over the dog (something they actually have been told not to do, for fear they might land on her and cause damage) barely missing her and causing her to start and raise her head to see what's going on.


Then Joshua comes out, barely missing the dogs nose as he walks by, and plops down on the couch. Just a moment later Miriam comes out again and stands next to Joshua to look at the book he is looking at...standing just inches from the dogs nose. And does the dog move? Nope, but she does begin waging her tail (while laying on her side), just happy to have them close to her - one of the things I do love about this silly dog. Finally both kids leave to get ready for bed but Henessy remains, sprawled out in just the same position.

A few minutes later Miriam came out again, in her PJ's now, to show me something very important in her coloring book, and as she walked away she stepped over the dogs face catching the bottom of Henessy's jaw with her toe and moving it slightly. Not to worry, our dog is unfazed by such things and continues to remain sprawled in the middle of the room!

As for our cat, she gets dragged out several times a day from whichever hiding place she has chosen just to be carried around for a few minutes, which usually involves showing her to me and then she is let loose again before she becomes too agitated and starts to scratch her way free. She is also required to accompany Miriam to the bathroom whenever Miriam deems it necessary that she do so. Henessy used to be required to do this (and let me tell you, our bathrooms are really not big enough for that) but she has mostly been off the hook since we got the cat. That may explain why Henessy usually comes and lays down practically on my feet when Miriam calls her, though!

These things just make me giggle. I must say...I love having pets. And kids and pets are just an unbeatable combination. Few things in life can bring greater entertainment!

Here Henessy is sprawled out on the floor, taking up much of the floor space in our living room.

Here is the cat, under fire!

Here is Isaiah with the cat wrapped up in a blanket, a favorite way to bring her out to show me.

Here is Henessy wearing Isaiah's shirt.

And here is a shirtless Isaiah wrestling with Henessy.

Here is our cat, who thought she was safe on top of the cabinets in the kitchen but she did not take into account that my children are little monkeys and nowhere is safe! Lol!

Now I am off to clean the cat box before I retire. Did I say I liked having pets?

Game Feet

You've heard of putting on your game face. Well, here is Isaiah's game face...

Now that is a boy totally zoned out on video games

Skilled hands moving deftly ove the controls
(Is this something I should be proud of?)



Yes, he is totally absorbed in his task of saving the universe - or some such thing.
But here is what I find truly amazing, Isaiah's 'game feet'.

How does he even do that? Truly a talented boy! Lol!

Glamour Girl

The other day I bought Miriam a new pair of tennis shoes, a needed item and something you would think would be rather uncomplicated. Ah, but these particular tennis shoes (and they were chosen simply because they were the cheapest at Wal-mart at the time) came with...wait for it...make-up. Now, I really don't get how tennis shoes and make-up go together. It is obviously a scheme by the tennis shoe people to undermine the sanity of mothers who buy these shoes for their daughter.

Of course, it wasn't simply make-up but also three little containers of glitter, aka: pixie dust (these happened to be tinkerbell shoes) glitter, of course, is the bane of mothers everywhere - or perhaps it's just me.

The non-glitter portion of the make-up came in a cell phone shaped container.

Here she is, our little glamour girl!

(With as much glitter as possible smeared onto her face)

Oh, the joy of girls!

Crazy Christmas Capers

Joshua got a Nerf dart tag game for Christmas but Josh Sr. got the most use out of it on Christmas day...

First some target practice on his son. (Isaiah didn't seem to mind, though)

A serious attack going on here.

Take cover, Isaiah!

This picture is my favorite, you can actually see a dart about to hit my husband in the shoulder! (You can also see my daughters foot in the upper left hand corner as she climbs on top of the door frame between our kitchen and entry area)

Isaiah prepares an ambush

The infamous 'dart gun war' of 2008 will be a favorite Christmas memory for many years to come. What could be better than that!

Christmas morning

We told our munchkins that 7am was the earliest we would be getting up on Christmas Day (we were all up very late Christmas Eve) and yet they were up at 6am asking what they could do while they waited for 7 o'clock to roll around. Sleep seemed to be the logical answer to me but for some reason that didn't seem possible for them! I just wonder why...

Here are some pictures




Joshua collects plastic animals (and insects) so he was thrilled to get a giant beetle and two bags of plastic lizards in his stocking.

Miriam loves all things Littlest pet shop and similar such things, here she got some polly pocket animals in her stocking. (I must say that I get a kick out of them myself - lol)

Isaiah has been telling me I should buy him meat sticks sometimes because he really likes them so I put a pack that I bought from a couple that makes them locally in his stocking, you can see that he was quite pleased.

I put chinese 'finger-cuffs' in each persons stocking this year, here my husband pretends to be stuck (they were not very strong, though my daughter had to be helped out a couple of times)

Peace on earth - says Miriam (heehee) Silly Christmas present girl!

Taking the time

How often I allow myself to be too busy to take the small amount of time required to help my children on some creative project they want to do. Three things seem to work against me here:

1) I imagine that it will require more work on my part then it actually will and

2) I am concerned about the 'mess' that will be made (which is often, though not always, larger in my imagination as well)

3) I project my perfectionism on my children and want it to turn out 'just right' - when it's not even my project! How ridiculous is that!

Yet, when I finally let go and just take the time required to get them set-up to do their projects (more often with a 'fine, you can do it now' attitude than an 'Ok, great, let's get this project going' attitude, I hate to admit) I am always so amazed and blessed by my childrens creations, whatever they may be. They do not often turn out 'perfect' and there may be a mess but it is always so worth it to see what they do. Why can I not learn this lesson and just take the time to allow these things to happen more often?

As an example, this fall I taught some scrapbooking classes for ladies in my homeschool co-op and my neighborhood. One of the projects we did at the last class was a key chain album and my daughter really wanted to make one. I helped her get started in the little bit of free time I had at the class but since then I have continued to put her off when she wanted to work on it. Finally, I let her finish it this last week and it turned out amazing - and I did not have to do much to help, just show her what to do and help with the more difficult task of sanding the edges of the tags. Lesson learned...again.


Here is Miriam with her beautiful creation.


Inking the edges, a very important (and fun) step. She inked each of the four sides of this tag with a different color!

Miriam tied most of the ribbons onto the key ring herself, I just had to show her how with the first two. And, of course, she picked them all out herself.

Just so unbelievably adorable!

Introduction

Welcome to my blog!

I am a Coast Guard wife and mother to 3 munchkins, 1 dog and 1 cat. I homeschool my munchkins which naturally involves many adventures both large and small. I am starting this blog to share these adventures with family and friends who are far away, to have a place to put some of my thoughts down about life and all that comes with it and perhaps to meet some new people along the way. So here we go...