Sep 20
Everyone,
Shopping: This morning, after Butterfly said good bye to her grandparents and was shipped off to school, the rest of us went shopping! We also went out to breakfast. And the toy store (just to browse…all I bought was a new child lock to replace the one that broke.) And to the mall. Did you know that Christmas is less than 100 days away? Consider this a reminder.
Shrieking: Coming home from the shopping, we discovered vermin in our house. Again! Except this time it wasn’t a little field mouse like that last two times we’ve had mice. This was a rat. A RAT. In MY house. It was a young rat. And still fairly small. But A RAT! In MY house!
Lucky for us, Soot the doggie thinks that taking care of this for me is her ultimate job in life. I don’t argue with it. EVER. She made short work of the rat. Lucky for me, Grandpa was still here and took it outside to the garbage can. Ugh, a RAT!
(Side note, I know our neighborhood has rats. People just don’t clean up well here and leave piles of stuff all over. That brings rats, and rats breed more rats, etc. I’ve seen them walking around the neighborhood a lot bigger than the one Soot just killed. [This is her second rat.] I was hoping we vermin proofed our house a ton last time. Obviously not.)
Because of this rat, Juice actually cleaned out under our stairs. Talk about a pile of stuff! We found droppings all around the water heater so that’s where it got in. Now how to seal it off…
Sending: My parents went home today. I miss having them around. They make good company. Also, they can be quite handy. (See above.)
Suceess: We have a winner of my birthday giveaway! Congrats to my friend Valinda who was VERY enthusiastic of her promotion of my picture. And even though I didn’t win (boo hoo), Valinda won $45 to spend at CSN for her, and her alone. Happy spending Valinda! Check your email!
Safire
Safirefamily visiting, pests and critters, winnings grandparents, pests, winners
Aug 07
Everyone,
We have been busy here. Out playing! Today is a day to recover so I hope to get the rest of the pictures organized and maybe a nap. I am tired!
On Monday we were able to go to Annapolis with my friend Laura and her little boy Andrew. Butterfly and Andrew are a week apart. Included in this trip was a trip to the water front, a tour of public bathrooms with 2 newly potty trained 3 year olds, and lunch outside. We had a great time and apparently I didn’t take any pictures worth showing. So here are a few that Laura took.
Bee’s one request when she was visiting here was to go to the beach. Funny, that was Flower’s request as well! So we packed up the car and drove out to the beach. 
We had been there with Flower just a few months before. We had a few friends invited but they were unable to make it due to tire trouble. We still had a pretty good time. It was very windy that day and my little shade thing kept blowing over. We ended up taking down almost half of it which at least gave us a little square of shade.
We had to leave the bug netting off. I didn’t think it would be a big deal but apparently it was. The biting flies were ferocious! Poor little Professor got bitten on his head and he was UNHAPPY. I don’t blame him because they bit me on my ankles several times. Ouch! At least we had a tiny pup tent for Butterfly that I commandeered for the boys and they took a small nap inside.
Today at the beach was full of marine wildlife. Beyond the several seagulls (which Butterfly calls geese) and the tiny fish in the surf, we saw some baby crabs, a horse shoe crab, and jelly fish! The jelly fish were annoying. They were big and hurt! Both Bee and I got stung and we didn’t even go swimming that deep. The jelly fish also made it so Butterfly did not want to be in the water. We had fun playing in the sand and eating hot dogs and enjoying the sound of the water. Juice did not have as good of a time this time. It was hot, the flies were bad and I frequently left him with both boys to go play in the surf with Butterfly and Bee. I had a great time. So did Bee. But this is a big note to myself: go to the beach in June and not August.
In between playing around the area with Bee, we’ve been having some down days. We’ve been playing some card games and watching a lot of movies. It’s been great to have someone here to play with Butterfly. She has declared Bee her cousin and not mine. I apparently can’t have any cousins. I think it’s fun that she loves our helpers so much. It makes it that much easier!
Tomorrow we’re off on another adventure!
Safire
Safirebeach, Bee, family visiting, sights around DC
Jun 07
Everyone,
It’s been a whirlwind week for us. My parents have been visiting all week and left to go home this afternoon. This has also been a week-of-serious-car-buying. Yes, you read right. We are buying a car. Bought. Van. We bought a van on Tuesday. Okay so it wasn’t a week of car buying. Only two days of it. It felt like a week though. My dad and I furiously rushed around the local car places in hour and a half increments throughout the days. That was as long as the boys could go between feedings. I felt bad for my mom and Flower the last day because both boys were inconsolable towards the end. They did very good and allowed us to find a great car. Van. I mean van.
Butterfly wants to name the van Sally or Lightning McQueen. “Or we could call it Chick because it’s green! And Chick is green!” Our van is green. I’m leaning towards calling the van Fern but Butterfly won’t let me. Anyway, for all you car people, the van is a 2004 Kia Sedona with 14,000 miles on it. The miles were right. The size was a bit small but we can fit all the kids and us in it plus one. It does have a dvd player in it. The price was excellent. We were able to buy it out right. I love not having a car payment!
I also love having doors that slide so I don’t have to worry about hitting other cars with them. I love being able to unlock the doors from a key chain. (A funny story about that. Our friend Julien came to visit about a month ago and said he needed to check if he locked the doors of his rental car. He walked outside, took about 5 steps, and walked back inside. Juice asked him if he could see from there if it was locked or if he had a cool key chain thing. Julien said, “Juice, everyone but you has a cool key chain thing.” It was so true. And now we have one! Sweet!) I love that I can fit my strollers in the back (although I do have to take the wheels off). And I love that now we can actually go somewhere with everyone, including Flower. Yay for space!
So, all day Monday and Tuesday I spent driving cars. Wednesday we drove to the mall and got the kids’ pictures taken. (Super cute, email me for the password if you want to see.) And then we spent 3 hours trying to get home. There was a huge storm (go here for a video of it). It downed trees all over the area. And of course, we were trying to get home through the back roads. Which had more downed trees and downed power lines. We had to stop twice to feed the babies. (Once in front of our bishop’s house where a tree had smashed a car and their roof! No one got hurt thank goodness.) I had been in touch with Juice and we still had power but a lot of people didn’t in the area. It was nice to finally get home.
On Friday, our good friends who moved away to St. Louis, came to visit. We had a great time with them! And it just confirmed to me that boys will never grow up because Juice and Juilen spent the morning shooting each other with foam guns and missiles. Never mind that the kids wanted to play too! I really miss them and it was fun to have a morning to connect again.
I feel like we have been moving all day, every day. Add on to that taking care of the twins and Butterfly (could not have been done without Flower!), I am exhausted. But this is just the beginning of summer for me. And I love it!
Safire
PS- All local gals, we are invited to swim at the bishop’s kiddie pool on Tuesday at 10am! Hope to see you there.
Safirefamily visiting, friends, new van, storms
