Attack of the chicken

AHHHHHH!

Finally downloaded all the pics on my camera to the computer.  This guy about made me jump out of my skin.  Ha ha.  Kids with cameras. Always fun.

Catherine requested that I post these pictures of the new stuffed animal wardrobe collection that she has been feverishly working on all weekend

The pictures don't do them justice.  Really adorable.

Fix-it day

#1 Repair  Door

So do any of you out there have children that, as sweet and adorable as they are, CANNOT help but lean (or put their leg up on or hang) on cabinet doors when they are open?  It seems to be an innate practice, because I have 4 such children.  We constantly say, 'Guys, that is straining the door, it isn't meant to have pressure on it from the top' or just 'stop it!'.  Alas, we find none of these things work.  It seems that the best teacher is experience.  We lost our first door to our first born this week.  When it fell, Milla gave me that teeth together, sides of the mouth pulled down and back look that I associate with Wallace (the one with Gromit) that says 'Oh, crud, did I just do that... and did mom see?'  Yes, yes I did.

Luckily it was a joint that gave way, so Milla and Papa used wood glue magic to put it back together again today.  Let's hope that's enough to hold up to a few more years of abuse.

#2 Repair  Lawn Mower

Sean mowed the back lawn yesterday morning and then left the mower out for Milla to finish the front.  She came to me, frustrated, 'Mom, I can't get the lawn mower to start"  I'm thinking, 'Muscles Milla!  Gotta use those muscles!" Well, it turns out I couldn't start it, and papa couldn't start it, and Sean couldn't start it.  Hmmm.  We bought this mower just last year after the move, but it had never run tremendously well.  What to do.   I was determined NOT to pay for someone else to fix it.  After all, this wasn't a $15,000 vehicle I was dealing with.  How hard could it be?  All day Brandon and I tinkered with it; cleaning out any thing that looked like it could be cleaned out, emptied the oil, replaced the oil, checked the gas, pulled the cord harder, pulled slower.  No good.  Eyeing the spark plug, I knew it was next.  But I had tried to avoid it.  Scary spark plug.  So I went to the fount of all knowledge, Youtube, and found some videos.  All I could say was, 'Really'.  All you do is pull the wire off and unscrew it?  $3 later (this was for the spark plug AND the little tool that helps you measure and, if needed, adjust the 'gap', we had a running mower.  No kidding.  And we did get to do some little 'gap'adjusting which made the experience all the better.  Since it seemed I had actually learned a skill.  Once started, the engine did burn off some oil.  From somewhere.  But Youtube guy said this was expected and having gotten some oil somehow in the cylinders was probably part of the reason we were having trouble starting it.  I'm just glad it was fixed before dark, because I don't think our forest of a lawn could have waited another week.

Sean's 13!

 Mythical Creatures

The theme of Sean's birthday

Our dragon cake with his hoard of ring pops and bones...  We thought, after flipping the jello cake out of it's pan, that the green and brown was perfect and naturey looking for setting the rice krispie treat dragon on, so we left it au natural.

Wanting Sean to choose her present to open first, and somehow remembering that Sean liked to open biggest to smallest, Rin wrapped her miniature present 5 times over.  Lastly inserting an entire pillow into the bag.  We have traditionally wrapped presents in pillowcases, but this is taking it to the extreme....

Ahhh.  Gotta smile at brotherly love.

Modeling the new shades.

Storm Update

See that small river skirting our house and then running down to the street?  That is drainage working properly.  Yeah!  And taking the picture is a very ecstatic homeowner with a dry basement and empty window wells.  :)  (Ecstatic enough to brave the torrents for a picture)

Friday, the day after my storm post, the Aurora Chief of Police convinced both Cherry Creek and Aurora Schools to close so they could better deal with emergencies (and not have so much traffic to deal with).  So we had our first ever 'Rain Day'...both for school and work (and got paid for it to boot!).  Although our neighborhood only got a few rushes of rain, and they were mad rushes, many of my co-workers were swamped: window wells filling completely causing the windows to blow inward, water several feet deep completely covering yards and filling garages, many many roads impassible.  Still gorgeous skies though!  So it's ALMOST the perfect place to live.  I'll take it.

Catherine's Birthday Post (a few weeks late)

Sweet Catherine.  She was more excited about her birthday coming than anyone I know.  Camping the weekend before was the beginning of birthday week.  Below is present morning ;)

Rin pleased with the requested Nyan Cat cake...finally, an easy one

She didn't actually ask for a gumball machine, but Brandon and I found it when perusing and knew she would love it.  Both using it and the fact that she can make money off of the other kids.

Catherine 'discovered' Harry Potter a couple of weeks before her birthday.  A week before, after plowing through bks 1-4 she was quite frustrated with us that we only owned the first 4 books and the library had a surprising lack the rest of them (mostly lost and not reordered).  Thank goodness for Charles and 2nd! (Our new used book store that we spend almost as much time in as the library).

Birthday dinner was 'Build your own Crepes'.  A great success.  Mine is below: Sweet Cream filled and layered with berry sauce, fresh blueberries and strawberries, topped off with roasted almond slivers. MMMmmm

The following week Catherine had her first horse show, a small one put on by her stable.  Below she is modeling the vest and tie that I just finished making (this was after the show...for next time) This horse is NOT wearing her actual ribbons... a 3rd and 4th place.  She was disappointed at not getting 2nd (as red is her favorite color), but we were proud of her for working so hard.

Trotting around the bend, they are supposed to remember form and stay right on the rail.

On Anna preparing to enter the ring

Storm

The rains came down and the floods came up....

So today I headed off to work oblivious to the fact that we were in a crisis.  When I began seeing blocked of roads and sirens all around I was like, 'what the heck?'  Finally arriving at work 30 minutes late (more than double my normal commute) I sat down, powered up my computer, entered in two names, then....nothing.  Power out.  I guess it WAS raining a little hard.  I guess my shoes WERE sopping wet from walking through 3 inches of water in the parking lot coming in...  All beginning to click now.  Apparently there were floating cars all around the city, over flowing rivers, even a few deaths from the torrents of rain that began last night.  This is the second time that we have had to hang out at work with with power out.  Brandon called after about a half hour to let me know about all the school district troubles he was dealing with.  Finally at 12:30 they decided to close the building so we could go home.  Yeah! Only a half hour early for me, but I was relieved as my phone was run down, and everyone was running out of stories to tell and food to eat.  I made it home fine, but immediately got a call from the schools saying to 'come pick up your kids if possible as a worse storm is imminent' So now we are snuggling, drinking hot chocolate and enjoying having a cozy home to stay warm in.

Field Trip!

So last week Catherine came home from school with a permission slip for a field trip to the Plains Conservation Center (or Çonversation Center as she likes to call it).  She was so excited. 

"Mom! You have to come! Only 2 parents can chaperone and it is the two that get their permission slips in first and you always said you wanted to take us there so you have to fill this out RIGHT NOW. (and yes that was in all one breath)

Sooooo, I filled out the slip, and then worked out some flextime for work.  The evening before the fieldtrip, I checked the weather forecast and saw our 90 degree weather was suddenly changing to 60 degrees with 70% chance of rain.  Hmm.  It actually turned out really nice.  We did have to duck into the blacksmith shop to avoid one shower, but for the most part it was very comfortable.  

So this is a nature preserve to show how the land in our area looked back in 1887 when 160 acres per person were offered to anyone that would come out west and stick it out for at least 5 years.  Apparently less than 1/2 that came decided it was worth it.  Below is the sod school house (which, we were told, was brought in from home depot...).  The sod home was made the more traditional way with larger sod squares dug up, a couple feet wide and much deeper that what we view as 'sod' now.

In this picture (I know, I am awful at taking pics...) Catherine had just lauched a ball over the school's roof to the group of kids on the other side that are supposed to try to catch it.  This was their 'recess' game of 'Annie, Annie, Over' that followed the lesson inside.  Catherine claims that school in 1887 was much cooler.  You get to stand each time you are called on to speak, write with chalk, and hold your nose against the chalkboard while standing on your tiptoes for punishment.  

who wouldn't want a piece of this? Stretches on forever.  As long as I have a bathroom and washing machine, I would

So of course I didn't remember to take out my camera until the end.  Here is Catherine decending from the kids loft in a 'rich' prairie man's house (it had 2 rooms)