F-Day

Sunday was the dreaded F-Day. Actually I had a fine time that day, it did not bother me, and I instead focused on my dad and our surprise gift for him. I also bought my BIL a bottle of wine from a local vineyard for being the twins' godfather.

My sister and her family flew out from Arizona, they are here for the week. She has 2 kids, Sophia who will be 3 in Sept, and Lauren who will be 1 in Aug. L&L turn 2 next month. So all four kids are close in age and had fun playing together.

Lm wanted to go down the slide while my sister pushed the other kids on the swings.

Here is my BIL, Frank, multitasking.

Lk loves his new orange water shoes. Lm's are red.

Hi, Sophia!

Here's me with my goddaughter, Lauren. She is borrowing Lk's hat to keep the sun out.

She wants my dangly earring.

Rita's on the left. She's 3 inches taller than me, so people have always thought she is older even though I have nearly 3 years on her. Fine by me!

All 4 kids together on the swingset.

Hi, Lauren! She has chubby cheeks like Lm. I've always thought Lk and Sophia look more alike than either do with their siblings.

With all the excitement, Sophia didn't want to take a nap, but she finally succumbed.

Mr. Serious and his cracker.

For my dad, we all pitched in to buy him a deluxe John Deere riding mower. I didn't even know they made mowers this expensive! But it has more features than most cars.

We arranged so that Frank and Mom would just disappear after lunch to get the mower, and then Rita and I would bring Dad outside so he could be surprised when they drove up with it. It's not easy arranging a surprise for my dad, who wants to know where everyone is at all times. He was really shocked, though. Here he's reading the card we all signed explaining his gift.

You would have thought he'd just seen the beatific vision when he beheld this sight in the driveway...

While the guys unloaded the precious cargo from the truck, my own precious cargo (L&L) found a mud puddle that they just HAD to sit in, despite our trying not to let them do that. Funny how my neices had no desire to roll around in the mud, but my boys did. I had to extricate them, and got all muddy myself, so later I filled the bathtub and all 3 of us got in.

But, before that, we watched Dad bask in the glory of his new toy. This thing even has 3 cupholders on the right side. If my dad were a beer drinker, he could drink beer while mowing.

At any rate, my dad really loves the mower. He stayed outside with it through the evening hours, and probably dreamt about it at night. He watched the DVD that came with it and read the manual cover to cover. He's learned all the new features on it. So last night when I came home from work and saw the freshly cut lawn, I asked him how it went. But here's the kicker: he said he used his old mower and is afraid yet to use the new one! I guess he wants to admire it for awhile yet first.

Cat /fighting, Part II

Nope, it was not me. While I love to watch Alexis and Krystle, I do not want to be Alexis or Krystle, no matter how much I am baited.

So, apparently there is someone else out there in cyberspace who thinks that picking apart a pregnant woman would be considered catty behavior. This must come as a terrible shock.

Really, aren't you like 50 years old? Even Krystal and Alexis had brought their claws in a little by that age.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

If you see my mom today, be sure to wish her a happy birthday! She turns 71 today. I don’t know what I would do without her. She means the world to me.

A couple of other random things:

I won’t be on email or the board until Monday, as I still have no home internet, despite numerous phone calls to Microlink, and am taking tomorrow off for a doctor’s appointment. Here’s hoping he can find the reason I’ve had terrible headaches for the past three months. And that the service call that is supposed to happen on Sunday, happens. Feels like living in the dark ages with no home internet. “I haven’t had internet service for over a week!” I wailed to the service guy on the phone, my voice filled with the urgency of someone in the dead of winter with no working heater.

On a totally different subject, I received this hilarious clip of a SNL skit with Steve Martin and Amy Poehler, called Don’t Buy Things You Cannot Afford. It’s so funny that I had tears from laughing so hard; it is a scream! It’s a husband and wife sitting at the kitching table wondering how to get out of debt, and lasts about 2 minutes. Definitely the funniest thing I’ve seen in awhile, and I wanted to share it with others!

http://consumerist.com/consumer/clips/snl-skit-dont-buy-stuff-you-cant-afford-252491.php

A New Building in the Storm

Yesterday Lky and his grandpa built this Lego building. The twins are at an age now (gonna be 2 next month!) where they love to stack things and build high towers, then knock it all down. I captured this picture before they had a chance to tear it down.

Saturday was a hard day. It was super hot and humid. I could not get our new pool up and running; I did not realize how large it was until I got it out of the box. I'd meant to just buy a kiddie pool, and this one is larger with a filter and everything. Toys R Us will not take it back, even though it's unused, because I opened the box. Then, Lm especially was super clingy all day to me. He wouldn't even let me go to the bathroom and be away from him for 10 seconds. Nothing would make him happy until after his afternoon nap, and when Lm is not happy, neither is his mother.

I spent their nap time shoveling dozens of dead, rotting birds over the fence and working outside with my dad to heft large tree limbs onto a trailer bed so they could be hauled out. No one offered to help, and my dad and I would rather die than ask for it. But he should definitely not be doing this kind of work at his age, and he won't listen to reason. I was seriously worried about him out there. So I hired a tree service behind his back--I was crying and just had to do something to get us out of this vortex of fatigue and despair--and they came out Sunday to estimate a bid. $200/hr which I thought was very reasonable for a crew and the machinery, but when my dad came out and saw us talking, he was apoplectic. Slowly, though, he came around to reason and agreed it is necessary.

Yesterday was better, I spent the whole day playing with the kids. They are so much fun! I love to get down on the floor with them and we tickle each other and I spin them around; sometimes they like to just dive on me. We play a lot of hide and seek. I have separate little games with each of them. Lm loves it when I crawl toward him and use a funny voice to say, "I'm coming for Lm! And I'm a'comin'!" Then he runs and I grab him and he's shrieking with delight while I flip him upside down. With Lke, I'll pretend to come in the room and not know where he is. "Where is Lk?" I'll say. "I don't see him. Where IS that little boy?" Then he ducks behind something and I look everywhere else for him, then finally, "THERE he is!" and he shrieks and throws his arms around me.

Last night after they went to sleep, as usual I went to check on them. Here is how Lm often looks, with his blanket wrapped around his head and no blanket on the rest of him.

I gently rearranged his blanket to that below. My nickname for Lm since he was born is "Bird." Because to me he looks like a bird in a nest when he is asleep, doesn't he?

Then I went to Lk's room. He was sacked out from a day of running around.

I love their new striped sleepers from Grandma!

Tornado Terror

Last night we were hit by a tornado.

Every year at this time, there is the threat of tornados where I live. Many a time, we've huddled in the basement over these storms. For several nights now we've had the threat of tornados, which have missed us by a few miles, and you're sitting there in front of the TV tracking the radar and just hoping the twisters will miss you and go somewhere else. We've been lucky the past few days, so perhaps it was inevitable that it would come to our doorstep at last. This time it was the real deal.

After I put the kids to bed, I watched the reports, hoping like all the other nights it would pass us and go somewhere else, but it was looking grim. Just looking out the window was terrifying, with the grey clouds, violent winds and watching lawn chairs fly through the air. We lost our satellite, so we huddled around one TV in my parents' room that has an analog local station. With the electricity still on, despite the baseball size hail pummeling the windows, there's still the illusion that it could pass before any real damage happens.

The statement that clinched it for us, on channel 7 was, "If you live about 16 miles north of L___, between D____ and C_________, we have a report of a twister on the ground and you should take shelter immediately." I grabbed the kids and fled to the basement with my parents. Believe me, only the threat of certain death would cause me to get my kids out of bed once they have fallen asleep for the night!

Then the power went out and it was pure darkness down there. That's really when the terror sets in that you are in serious trouble, when there's no more contact with the outside world, it's dark, and it's just you and the overpowering storm outside. We spent a good 40 minutes in terror down there, hearing debris fly against the windows and fearing the house was being blown over. Oh, if only I were L&L! They didn't notice anything amiss at all, and enjoyed running around the basement and playing with Grandma's canned goods and boxed mixes.

I just kept praying we would not lose the house, in fact I prayed that God would go ahead and take my life if He were planning to take the house, because I can't imagine living anywhere but the farm and building again seems insurmountable (not to mention unaffordable).

Afterward, we were afraid to look at the damage upstairs. The house was intact, but there are a lot of problems outside, with my front porch, lots of tree damage, part of my garage torn off, barn door roof partly missing, and some sheds damaged. Normally I might have cried while assessing the damage this morning with my camera in hand, but when I called daycare and she told me of the problems in C____, I could hardly weep for myself; these people have windows out, roofs missing, total loss of their homes, and powerlines in their driveway.

Here is what we woke to this morning.

Miraculously their swingset stayed intact.

My mom's peonies didn't fare so well...

I'm brokenhearted about this evergreen in the back.

My porch was hit hard, with a shutter missing and the glass globe light blown off with wires hanging down.

I'm so grateful the barn has stayed. It was built in the late 19th century.

Remains of the large oak tree, pulled out by the roots. My garage...

In case any of you on the east coast are wondering why we don't have trees out here, I believe I have your answer. Just look at the picture at the top of the screen.

Swing Set Up and Running

Wish I could say the same for myself! I felt so sick all weekend, still! I slept a lot, every time the boys were sleeping, so was I. My voice is still hoarse and I'm so tired. Luckily I slept well last night, getting up only once to cough, which, considering I took enough sleeping pills to fell a horse, is the way it should be, dammit!

On a brighter note, the swing set has been up and running for a few days. But they couldn't use the swings, so my wonderful mom bought them toddler swings this week and the kids LOVE them. They're getting braver with the slide as well, wanting to go down it all the time now.

They also have a mini picnic table and bench under the slide, and this is where the sandbox will go if I ever gain enough energy and patience to actually want to deal with the sand.

I had it built to the side of my porch. I guess I have fantasies that one day I will be able to sit there sipping chocolate martinis and reading while my boys play on their own in the yard. May be a few years yet.

As usual on Monday mornings, my boys cried when I had to leave them. They are used to having me all weekend and then cry when we must part on Mondays. I hate it too, but at the same time, they wear me out so much that at least on Monday mornings I am sitting at my desk and have a couple of minutes to myself. I don't know how sahm's do it. Still I do miss my boys when I am at work.