Brain Dump!

Drainage.  Windows.  Driveway.  Order of priority.  Somewhere in there, too, is a back-up sump pump with a battery.

Four weeks behind on hats.  (Needing one per week to reach my year-end goal of 50.)  I tried 3 different styles/ patterns yesterday and tore them all out in frustration.  I don't want to make hats right now.  I want to make a shawl.  A lovely shawl.  So I started it last night.  It's lovely.  More fun than a hat right now.  I'll get back to hats later.

Charlie smashed his toe.  Beautiful job--prolific amount of blood every time it was bumped for 2 days.  Then I remembered butterfly bandages.  (I love those!)  I think he's going to lose the toenail. But he wears shoes now.

We "lost" a library book.  Five days of tearing the house apart and bribing the kids ("Five bucks to anyone who finds it!") and it was finally found at the the library.  I'd checked there--3 times!--but it took a sympathetic librarian--a sub!-- to find it.  She took it upon herself--believing my story of not realizing it was a book/CD kit and therefore only returning the book--Anyway, she believed me and made some calls to unlikely departments within the library (instead of saying, "well this is where it should be if that were the case, keep looking at home"--Arrgh!) and VIOLA!  She called me with the happy news 20 mins after we got home yesterday ("I knew it would drive you crazy.").  The book was in Tech Repair, no one knows why.  (Were they trying to make a new CD for it?)  I could have hugged her through the phone!  Francine is getting cookies.  (Though not the ones I made yesterday, they didn't turn out well.)

I'm all out of Trader Joe's PB cups and chocolate covered almonds.  It was a rough week while Nathan was gone.  We won't be near a TJ's until next weekend.  I guess that means next week will have it's own brand of roughness, huh?

This time it was Charlie who forced me to have to have to explain "baby snacks" to a confused--and highly amused!--friend.  Oi!

We were... okay, I was pondering adding a dog or a cat to our family.  But since I have to close the outside door 10 times--or more!--per day, I think we shall just have to settle for taming the flies and mosquitoes who come in if we need more pets.

Mary has decided to hold off on the guinea pig breeding.  There is a high financial risk and output.  It is more of a hobby than a business venture.  She was looking for a way to help pay for current pig's food and bedding expenses, but this won't be it.

One day while Nathan was in India I watched the kids of some friends.  14 kids at my house for about an hour.  Then 11 for another hour.  Then down to 9 for an hour.  Then finally just 8 until well past bedtime.  What got us through?  Popcorn and plasma cars.

Went through our food storage and organized it.  One of us will be able to survive a year.  I think.  I hope they share.

Sara and Hudson (and Mike, too) are moving this summer, back to VA.  She's mixed about it.  I'm sad.

Lil'Nathan is on track to go to 2 scout camps this summer.  He has already done the yard sale for this ward and they are going the first week of July.  The yard sale for our Salisbury ward is next weekend and they will be scout camping the last week of July.  I hope he appreciates all the driving we do for him.  Should I charge him gas money or just clean his room while he is gone?

I bribed my kids out of a ward activity tomorrow so we can stay home and do yard work.  The price was ice cream.  The reward will be a beautiful garden and yard.  And my happy little introverted self won't have to face a big party.  Sorry, but it's true.

Two bike crashes this past week.  Yesterday Joseph wiped out and slid.  Lil'Nathan, a few days ago, managed to do something that made it appear his bike ate him... and then ran over him.  Don't know.  But he's got a doozy of a burn (!) on his shoulder as a memento.

India did not kill Nathan. (see his post from last night) Though for a while the kids and I wondered if the jet lag had.  He brought home wooden elephants for the kids.  Elisabeth's is already tusk-less, and Joseph's has  a cracked trunk.

We were busy with a lot of family history work before Nathan left.  We found a sister to my grandmother's mother that no one knew about--though she was 14 when she died!  Weird.  Still can't figure out how or why we have the Estes' family bible, but we did learn that the couple who started this bible were listed as "married and died" at age 17 in his family's family tree.  Oookay.  Tough to see how they took my great-great grandfather and his sister in and raised them with their children 20-odd years later, then, isn't it?

Joseph knows about chords on the piano, but he knows only one.  1.  One, which he pounds again and again (and again!) as his right hand plays the melody.  Same chord.  Every song.  Works for "Praise to the Man."  Not so much for "Silent Night."  Someone please help me, er, uh, him.

Okay, enough babble.  Here are the photos you come to see.

Piano

Father and Sons Camping at the Joseph Smith Memorial

(Note the look on Lil'Nathan's face.  It's his favorite, lately, and he uses it whenever he can.) 

Joseph and the newt.

Not quite fast enough for the camera timer.

Pretty, huh?

Charlie and the newt.

Pretty much gives the camping attitudes of all, doesn't it?

This one, I couldn't believe myself, so I to take a picture for proof. Yes, that's a hack saw and a piece of wood and a folding chair and no shoes.  I'll use this next time he tries to tell me he has good judgement.  Right.

Spiffy little contraption Mary built for Elisabeth.

I just love the expression on her face.

And in case you missed it on the kids' blog, here is a video of what was going on in the background while Mary and Elisabeth were riding around so sweetly.

Charlie hurt his toe later that day by trying to pull a board out from under Joseph as he was coming down the ramp!  Joseph stopped in time.  Charlie dropped the board on his toe.  Hard to really feel bad for him, though.