A Party to Remember

I suspect that most people have situations which give them irrational anxiety. For me, it's company. When they're actually here I usually really enjoy them, but before they come I always get anxious and after they leave I realize I am emotionally drained. The degree to which this happens depends on the type of company. Family and close friends are fine-- if I have any anxiety it's negligible. Casual friends or acquaintances give me enough anxiety that I don't invite them over very often, but when I decide to do it the anxiety doesn't get in the way. Children, however, send my anxiety levels up to something I have to really struggle to deal with. I've been working on this for the last eight years since I gave birth to a highly social child who craves company. The worst possible situation for me, which sends me into an almost paralyzing state of anxiousness, is hosting a child's birthday party and inviting a group of children over to my house.

It took me three years to get up the nerve to have this party. I tried to put my boys off again, but since Bean was turning eight (a big milestone in our culture) I decided to face my fears. It hung over my head for weeks. Every time I thought about planning it, choosing games, buying favors, or making invitations, I just wanted to go to bed and suck my thumb. But I bravely went forward.

The funny thing is, I'm actually pretty good at throwing a party. I thought I was pretty creative with the party games and everyone had a good time. On one level, I was even having a good time, even though I was counting down the minutes until it ended.

The theme of the party was submarines. Could I possibly be the only person in America who has ever made three submarine cakes in three days for non-commercial purposes?

We started out the party with a craft: decorating their own sailor hats with fabric markers. These also served as name tags, since many of the kids did not know each other. Once everyone had arrived and made a hat, we played "shark tag" in the backyard with a costume shark fin I had bought. Then we had a fish-spearing contest with Swedish fish and toothpicks. After that we played "pin the octopus on the submarine." Finally, I got out my giant parachute and we played parachute games for quite a long time. There's a lot you can do with a parachute to keep a hoard of wiggly boys busy. When I finally ran out of parachute game ideas it was time for cake and ice cream and presents. The boys got lots of really awesome presents.

At the end of the party we gave out favors. The way we did it ended up being one of the highlights of the party. The favors were simply a little squirting shark and some bubblegum gold coins in a cellophane bag. I put them all in a chest I have that looks like a treasure chest. I put this under the parachute. We all stood around the parachute and shook it while the boys, one at a time, put on a diving mask and dived under the parachute to get their treasure out of the chest.

When they were all gone the house was suddenly very quiet. It was also a wreck. The Badger earned my undying gratitude by moving the entire dining set and scrubbing the dining room floor on his hands and knees.

I just went to bed and lay there, wondering when I was going to stop twitching.

The boys are already talking about their next party, and Roo's got hers all planned out. Will these ever get any easier for me? I hope so. I want my children to have as many wonderful childhood memories as possible. It would be somewhat helpful if I didn't end up in the psych ward in the process.

Me and Fred

Okay, so our big plan a year and a half ago was to move here to the prairie and make all our dreams come true by buying a hunk of land and growing lots of our own food and animals. I named this blog in anticipation of the day when it would be full of pictures and descriptions of life in the country with a young family. Sweeping prairie vistas with cute toddlers in the foreground, etc.

Well, the right country property has been very elusive for us, and so here were are still renting our little duplex.

However! I have friends who live in the country so I can still put nifty pictures of rural living on my blog on occasion. It makes me feel satisfied on one hand to see my blog be more what I originally envisioned it to be, and on the other hand it makes me feel a little bit like a wanna-be. Until I consider the animal droppings my Rabbit somehow gets into her mouth when we visit the country. Then I think that perhaps we're where we need to be right now.

But back to Fred.

Fred blew into my friend Shannon's life after the last big storm. A man came to her door and said they'd found this peacock in their yard after the storm and couldn't find who he belonged to. The man couldn't care for Fred, so he drove around looking for a residence that had chickens. He found Shannon, who said "We'll just throw him in the with chickens and see what happens." It was a successful throw. He seems very content and he's very gentle and holdable.

He's a pied peacock, which means he's half white and half irridescent. Love, love, LOVE that vibrant blue color on his neck!

Fred, you're gorgeous. And you certainly found yourself the perfect country home.

Maybe I'll get lucky like Fred and find the perfect country home one of these days. If I do, I'm going to get me a Fred.

2.3 Miles

My vibrant friend Marianne and I went on a long, lovely walk today. When we were through we wondered how far we had come and I figured there had to be some way to calculate it. So I got online. Sure enough, google maps has Gmaps Pedometer. I also found another site called mapmyrun.com. Either one will let you draw your walking route and calculate how far you went. We went 2.3 miles and the time flew by with Marianne to talk to. If I can do this every day I'll be in great shape in no time!

A Double Win-Win Situation

Sometimes you find an arrangement that is just perfect for everyone involved. Nearly a year ago, my friend Shannon was having a hard time feeding her new baby. Baby wouldn't nurse and could not tolerate formula. Well, nursing is how I lose weight. I jumped at the chance to donate my extra milk to Shannon. That was the first win-win. Her baby got what she needed and I burned more calories.

The second win-win happened when Shannon's chickens started going bananas and laying way more eggs than Shannon's family could even begin to eat. My family adores fresh farm eggs but we typically have to ration them strictly because they are pretty spendy for our tight budget.

So once a week or so I call up Shannon. "Got any extra eggs?" I say.

She often replies, "Oh my goodness, every casserole pan and mixing bowl I own is full of them."

So we arrange to meet and swap. I give her milk, she gives me eggs. She gets her fridge back, we get free eggs, her baby gets nourished, and I shed pounds.

What a deal!

The Bees

Alright, I promised pictures of Roo and the Vorpal Creature in their bee suits.

It was so hard to get them to sit still and impossible to get them to smile at the same time.

Even with Gretl in the picture we couldn't get them to pose.

Check out Roo's stinger!

It was a good Halloween.

Pumpkin Carving and Young Love

Thursday evening, while Julie and I were frantically skewering worms and adding toenails to dinner, Justin Schmoo singlehandedly carved my kids' pumpkins for me. He deserves a double gold star for doing this. Justin is an artist and he used his jigsaw to do the carving. They turned out really really nice. I'll post pictures of the finished product soon, once I find the cable to my camera....

But in the meantime, check out Bean and Lisl Schmoo romantically scooping pumpkin guts together.....

Making Friends

Since moving here to the prairie, we've been blessed with some absolutely wonderful friends. One of these is the Shmoo Family. I don't know what I would do without the Shmoos. Whenever I'm having a hard day I call up the Shmoo residence and they say "Come on over, we're grilling steak!" The Shmoos are forever feeding us, just like the Shmoos in the Lil' Abner comic strip (however, the resemblence ends there!)

One thing that has been fun to watch is the development of the friendship between Bean and the oldest of the four Shmoo girls. She is six months older than Bean, but they both love Narnia and swimming and Calvin and Hobbes.

These two can often be found curled up next to each other on the couch or huddled up in the same towel at the swimming pool. I even saw them holding hands as they were playing by the pool yesterday. Since neither of them have seen much by the way of explicit male/female relations on TV it's a totally innocent young love (though we are keeping a very close eye on them!)

Less soft and sweet is the emerging bond between Roo and the Vorpal Creature. Their friendship could be summed up as follows: Hysterical Giggles and Destruction.

Meanwhile, the Rabbit is trying very hard to develop a close relationship with my silly socks.

It's good to have friends.

Homeschool Week Three

Our third week of the school year wasn't quite as smooth as the first two weeks but I think it was still successful.

Monday went fine. We were on schedule and we did our math work. I've been noticing that Bean's attention span for school is usually about 40 mintes, but Fish will play with those math rods for hours if I'd let him. He begs me to get them down every day but I want them to have the special mystique of only being for Monday Math Days so he only gets to play with them on Monday mornings. I bet he's one of a tiny percentage of the US population that actually looks forward to Mondays.

Tuesday we had a field trip planned, before which I intended to read some more to Bean out of the non-fiction books we checked out on the prairie, but as he had an early morning dentist appointment to have sealants put on his 6-year molars the reading didn't happen. However, the field trip went swimmingly and I think it was very educational. We went to a local nature park that had great walking trails.

We went with my friend Julie and her two younger girls. Our kids all had a great time, especially here at the Turtle Pond where we made them pose for a picture.

Okay, so the posing wasn't their favorite, but they loved the turtle pond.

Tuesday evening I ended up over at Julie's (I'm there a lot!) watching the Olympics until midnight. That totally threw off Wednesday and made me realize just how much it helps my life to get up at 7 am. When I sleep in at all I find myself racing the rest of the day to catch up. No more Olympics until midnight, Birrd! We did eventually get some piano time in Wednesday afternoon, but it wasn't the best quality.

Thursday I needed to can applesauce with Naomi. Canning is a very involved all-day process but she wasn't coming over until 10 so I still managed to do reading with Bean for a few minutes after I got my kitchen all prepped for the canning. Bean read nearly all of a short story from a beginning reading book. I can tell he's still really struggling with reading but he also really wants to learn and he is finally finally FINALLY recognizing some sight words without having to sound them out. It is so rewarding to be right there with him seeing him learn. That's one of the things I love most about homeschool.

Friday we had to do more applesauce so we didn't get around to our craft project until afternoon. With all these apples kicking around the house I had the boys start dried apple faces. We peeled some apples and cut faces into them, adding cloves for eyes and rice for teeth. Now they have to dry for two weeks until they turn into Apple Monsters. As you can imagine the boys are extremely excited.

This coming week I am anxious to get back on my schedule. As I don't have any big projects on the horizon and since the Olympics are almost over I don't think this will be a problem. It just wasn't nearly as much fun trying to do school when our days were all out of whack and I was constantly wondering when I was going to fit it in.

The boys are still excited about school and eager to learn. So even though I'm still trying to figure all this out I'm definitely doing something right.

Squeezo Goodness

Squeezos really are wonderful. Look at that beautiful applesauce coming out of my friend Naomi's Squeezo:

Naomi and her Squeezo seem to keep popping up on my blog. I'd better post a picture of the two of them together. Here is the amazing Naomi and her astounding Squeezo:

Squeezo Naomi and I canned 20 quarts of applesauce yesterday. It would have been 21 except one exploded in the canner. Canning is very exciting that way.

Naomi left the Squeezo at my house and so the Badger and I canned another 20 quarts today. The Badger is a very proficient Squeezo operator. The boys love to help him turn the crank.

Squeezos are great fun. I've really got to get me one.

An Evening at the Ice Rink

One of the totally sweet prizes we scored from the library's summer reading program this year was free passes to the ice rink. The Badger and I took the boys and we went with some friends. There were five little kids who either had never skated before or had only been once, so there was a lot of slipping and falling and clinging to the sides.

We spent a lot of time coaching the boys on how to keep their feet pointed forward and glide, not walk.

Cynthia was also there. I tried to arrange a time to do this when she could be at the rink too and I was so pleased that it all worked out. It was so fun to watch her spin and twirl on the ice and then swoop over and grab one of the kids and take them for a ride. She was fabulous.

By the end of the evening even my little Fish was venturing away from the wall and out across the ice. It was amazing how fast these kids picked up the ability to ice skate. It was absolutely awesome to watch. We had such a fun evening.

A Garage Full of Chickens

Shane and Shannon, our friends who live in the country, recently got a whole bunch of chickens. They are currently living in their garage.

I don't think I've ever been around half-grown chickens before. It's interesting to see the way their coloring is developing.

They live right alongside the rabbits and they all seem to get along just great.

They won't be in the garage much longer though. Shane is building them a coop and yard out by his horse pasture. By the time they move out there, hopefully they will be starting to lay eggs. And hopefully Shane and Shannon will remember that they said we could have some of the eggs!

Horse Encounters

My good friend DeLynn owns horses. She has recently acquired two miniature horses in addition to her three "regular" horses, so that gave us even more incentive to visit her barn while we were in Utah.

Bean really enjoyed all the horsey attention.

This horse, Melita, thinks she's a dog. She follows everyone around wanting to be petted. She's very sweet and very soft.

Fish was a little apprehensive, but Melita still managed to charm him.

Rosco was keenly interested in the contents of my sling. My little Rabbit got her toes nibbled on a little bit. There were little bits of alfalfa stuck to them when we left! She enjoyed the attention.

One Taste and You're Hooked For Life

All it takes it one time on the back of a horse to get a boy started dreaming four-legged dreams...

The miniature horses are really neat and we really enjoyed them...

...but it was Rosco that captured Bean's heart. He got to ride him bareback all by himself and he did great. It was a landmark experience for him and I'm never going to hear the end of it!