Citified

Today I worked (with many others) in the blueberry fields on my parents place. I showed up at 9:00 and started picking up bags with 4 kids in tow. Sam helped me for about 10 min. until he disappeared for most of the rest of the day to work with his Dad. Special.
Back to those three kidlets trailing behind me. They were, for the most, part crying but everytime a tractor came within a 1/4 of a kilometer their cries turned to wails. Oh, my poor little city slickers. The planting crew was chortling away and were even trying their best with, "hello baby" to stop the noise. If you know Cody you will not be surprised that he pulled out his poker face and tried to stare the kind gentlemen down. They chortled some more.
We stopped working at 5:30 to eat a excellent supper that Mom whipped up. Okay, that makes it sound a little too good. I did have a few breaks here and there.
Now at 9:25 I'm thankful to say it was a wonderful day working as a family and I'm sporting my farmer's tan....hmmm burn... with pride.

You've heard it said...

...necessity is the mother of invention?

You remember this? Today I decided to finish this project.
This is what I started with. If you so choose you may check out the reflective bike stickers and remnants of click-your-seat-belt stickers I foolishly added when I was a wee one. (Actually I was probably old enough to know better but sad to say, I did lots of dumb things back then.) It also had those nice brassy looking hardware.
Seeing as I had already painted the drawers a few weeks back all I had to do today was haul that puppy outside. Oh yeh, I think I had kind of forgotten that part. It wasn't too difficult to get it to the stairs but it didn't take me too long to figure out I would probably do more damage than good if I tried to get it down the stairs by bumping it along. For 2 seconds I considered calling Steve to see if he could stop by at home to give me a hand. I quickly dismissed it as a waste of his time. For another .5 of a second I considered approaching the next guy to pass the house on the sidewalk out front for help. I quickly dismissed it as foolish. So I did what I still think was my only other option. Out of necessity I invented myself a ramp. Of a sort.

I went outside and found a piece of plywood that was guaranteed to fit under the dresser. I moved the dresser back 8 feet (the plywood was a little long) slid the plywood into place and then slid the dresser onto the plywood.

You with me? I was pretty tickled with the whole business.

And then Sam chronicled this.

Please excuse my painting shorts. I think they're celebrating their 16th birthday this summer.

Let me tell you, that dresser slid down slick as... well I was going to say snot. Is that gross? Because I just said it. Please excuse me but that ramp did work swell.

And tonight, my incredibly strong husband carried it right back into the house (all by himself!)where I reinstalled the drawers.

I'm a happy lady. I'm sure glad we didn't go spend good money on a new dresser.

A morning of lovin'

Was actually already last week but Krista heeded my plea and went beyond. Not only did Ivan stop by for a visit but I actually got to babysit him! I changed his diaper...okay that's not real exciting, but I also fed him a bottle and snuggled him to sleep. So yummy! As you can see Cara and Cody also got some lovin' in. Nearly loved the poor boy to bits. But they're like their Mom, they enjoyed the baby fix and they're good for a while again.

Unless Krista needs us to watch Ivan for a while again this week, we don't mind an overdose!

Lots of love to go around! These boys can fight like cats and dogs but obviously when it comes to a video about huge construction machines, all hard feelings are swept away.

And for the thrill of garage sale-ing. Gramma scored some major Sammy points with this helmut and gloves find. I don't have a picture of him wearing the gear but there's a reason. His face was so shining with delight when he first put them on that all the other pictures, sweet or hilarious, are somewhat dull in comparison. And believe me, some of the things I've seen are hilarious. It's used as a football helmut. It was worn in the van for extra road safety. It's still quite big on him. But to see his gloves and stick set out like this after a bout of hockey with Cam this morning, I couldn't help but smile.

My grammer is going from bad to pathetic. I'm crawling into my nest.

G'night all.

We have raccoons around here. They get into our garbage.

Tonight Steve saw them while he was doing some things outside and came in to tell me about them. I grabbed a broom. I really wanted to scare them so good they would never return.

I chickened out. There were raccoons before and behind me and I didn't want to find out if they get mean when they're scared.

I just couldn't risk adding more stitches plus a rabbies shot just to try to outdo Leah.



Sometime next week I'll try to get around to posting something normal up here. It's been a few days.

On Secret Pals

I've been meaning to get to this for almost 3 months now. Kind of sad.

My last secret friend, who spoiled me for all of last year ended the year with this great gift. This White Citrus from Body & Bath is the most wonderful smelling soap/lotion/disinfectant gel. Ever. And it's almost gone. Kind of sad. But I will deal with it and move to something different. I will not stop washing my hands just because this yummy smelling soap is used up. I promise. You want to know who spoiled me? The name of my secret friend? Well it was my sweet cousin Teresa. I should have guessed. It only makes sense that she was the one to make such delicious pumpkin bread and Christmas treats! Again, thanks, Teresa.

Now my new secret friend. The one whose name I can't tell you because I just don't know it (and am trying to make sure I don't figure it out), well she already spoiled me too.

(Get the feeling I'm spoiled? You should see the huge bunch of flowers Krista brought by with a "get well soon" card in it. I'm spoiled - she's crazy... and sweet and she'll probably write a mean comment for my 1/2 mean comment. :) Love you, Kris!)

Back on topic. This is the first gift my new secret friend sent my way with some matching lotion. You see it's not too empty yet? Well, I really try hard to only have one bottle of this stuff in the shower at a time and so I'm still busy using up my shea butter wash. I'm treating myself and using this new stuff as bubble bath after a really hard day. Smells great and I can put it back in the cupboard once I have my bubbles.

This is the gift I recieved this past week. An adorable birdhouse on a pole. You know what the note said? "I heard you had a little run-in with a bird this week. Maybe this will help you remember what size birds are best for you." I like this lady. She made me laugh out loud! So thanks, SP, it's a great gift. Don't mind me though, I'm not messing with any birds, no matter how small. Once they're mad I'm sure they're all dangerous.

Plus.

Remember, I like to go off topic.

And because I can, I will.

I didn't know it was a contest but apparently, if that's what it was,

She won.

If you look to the upper right hand side of the picture you will see she is sporting 5 stitches up there. She ran into a tree branch. Not quite as exciting a story but certainly less traumatizing. I'm not sure what's up with the doctors here in Chilliwack, Mel, but apparently they don't like your dermabond. I even asked about it this time. I nearly called you before heading to the clinc. Maybe I should have! Well, due to my big mouth and dramatization of last week's story when I told Leah stitches were a possibility she started to hoot and holler in a really terrified way. I calmed her down with the possibility of glue and consolation of freezing but when the doctor tried to stitch her with surface freezing only she whimpered. And rightly so. I was very glad when he pulled out the big guns and froze her properly. I sure didn't want my baby feeling what I felt last week! Thankfully by the time we got home she was all excited and frozen and feeling a bit like a celebrity. She made a phone call to boast to her cousins and climbed exhausted into bed. Hope she sleeps all night!

When you feel constrained...

Do something about it, or at least that's Cody's theory.

Legs swinging back and forth he was quite sure he was never ever so comfortable before. Except maybe in the womb :) I saw my littlest nephew yesterday (but I didn't get to snuggle him) and my cute pregnant sister in law so I have babies on the brain. Krista, I think you have to stop by so I can get my fill!

Anyway, this isn't really what I was hoping to share with you but my camera batteries died and so I didn't get the required photos for the planned post. Try again tomorrow.

On a total topic change. I never did get back to last Monday's intended post and most of my thoughts are now fuzzy but I would still like to share this with you. Last Sunday we had Dr. Murray preach in the pm and he gave a sermon titled Our Incomparable God. Please let me recommend it to you, you can hear it here. There is none other who deals so mercifully with us and our sin but Jehovah God.

And from yesterday, Pastor Pronk preached from Isaiah 45. Do you know in this chapter of 25 verses the Lord, through Isaiah, says He is the Lord and there is none beside Him no less than 10 times? He is the Incomparable God!

Richest blessings to all of you.

Poor Guy

Speaking of road kill... I'm glad the kids weren't chasing it.Now how am I going to break it to this little guy? Poor guffer, he doesn't even have a needle on the end and is getting increasingly choked that his pumper thing doesn't stay over top of the little black hole on the ball.

Mama, it's NOT WORKING!!! Ps. See how wet he looks? I took video of Cam and Cara racing their sandbox toys through a sizeable puddle. :}

Do you remember learning this trick? :)