Strawberry Picking

Tonya took us strawberry picking Tuesday morning.

The berries were mammoth-sized beauties...
So sweet, so juicy.

Caroline ate her weight in strawberries.
And that's sayin' something.

While we picked the berries, our Sweet Caroline would take a huge bite of one,
then chuck it back into the basket and grab a fresh strawberry for a fresh bite.
Repeat, repeat, repeat...

When she tired of eating them, she would take one of the berries and
 pick, pick, pick all the little leaves off the top of it.
She would put her little green treasures carefully into the basket,
and then chuck the strawberry onto the ground.

She was lovely.
So helpful.

Meanwhile, Haley was giddy just to be hanging out with her Tonya.
Life doesn't get much better than this.

Caroline and Tonya and Haley before we headed home.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Pig Butt

We bought a big ham yesterday at the grocery store. The kids didn't even notice it until we were putting away groceries at home and they saw it sitting on the table.

Daniel stopped and pointed.  "What.  Is.  THAT."

I told him it was a ham.  And that they have all eaten ham before.  It's delicious.  He even helped cook it. 

Cooked it with my mom, of course.  I just don't have the culinary oompf to attempt big fancy dinners more than a few times a year.  I do ground beef and chicken.  That's about it.

So, naturally, the last time we had a nice ham when I was about to have a baby.  My husband and children always eat well when I'm about to have a baby.  Not because I'm nesting or feeling particularly maternal or anything.  It's beacuse my mom's in town and she feeds us awesome food.  Lots of it.

Anyway, back to the short but funny story.
"So it's PIG? Eww... Is that the HEAD???"

I laughed out loud and told him of course it wasn't. 
"It's just a part of the pig, Daniel. Not the head. Just some part of the pig. I don't know... Maybe a leg, ok?  I think it's a leg."

Then Haley said "If it isn't the head, and it's part of the leg, I think it's the butt.  It must be the butt. And I am NOT eating the butt of a pig."

Oh, good grief.

Boys Running

When we left Tom's sister's house yesterday, Dylan and Daniel decided to run down the hill in the rain instead of hopping in the van.

When they were done, they were pretty much soaked.  But they had a blast!

Ranger, like the rest of us, seemed amused by the silliness of it all.

Daddy Date

Haley and Tom went out on a date this past Friday evening.

Can you tell she was a little excited?

Painted toenails, painted fingernails, pretty dress, two purses,

berry flavored chapstick, various platic rings and bracelets,

her "personal space" rug, a baby doll, and jelly shoes. 

Ok, so may be she was

More Than A Little Excited.

But Caroline was

More Than A Little Annoyed.

Oh, Sweet Caroline...

Your day will come.

Mother's Day

When I was little my mom always said all she wanted for Mother's Day was for the nine of us kids to just be happy and get along with each other.

Same request went for her birthday.
And for Christmas.
Insert any possible gift-giving type holiday: Valentine's Day, their anniversary, etc, etc, etc...
It was always the same old thing.
Always.

And we never believed her.

You must want SOMEthing, we insisted.
But, no.  That was her story and she was sticking to it.

We all knew just as well as she did that that wasn't gonna happen.
No use in pretending it might.

So we made pancakes.
And paper flowers.
And spent two bucks of our babysitting money to buy her a card at Rite Aid.
All very sweet, yes?

Fast forward a couple decades and four children later.

I get it.  Holy macaroni.  That seriously IS all she wanted. 

Well, that and probably for us to leave her alone for One Freaking Second.  She never did come out and actually say that, but I think I'm about one more pitcher of spilled Crystal Light away from saying it to my kids.  (Oh Bedtiiiiime, where arrrre youuuu????)

So for tomorrow, happy Mother's Day, all you moms.  Particularly the saint of a lady I'm fortunate enough to get to call Mom.  How the heck she's always done it all, I'll never know.  She's fantastic. 

To my Mom and all the moms out there:
May you get that one little wish that I now make for myself, too:
That everyone will just get along for the day.

And for the icing on the cake, maybe they will leave us alone for one blessed second.

But if not, oh well.  These are the moments, right?

I think I'm gonna miss this....  Eventually.

Turtle!

A turtle was in our yard today.  Here's how it went:

I was ambitiously tackling some waist-high weeds.  Ok, maybe they weren't quite waist high. But they were getting there.

Suddenly I saw a green head on a long-ish neck and immediately assumed it was a snake.

I think I scared the heck out of him, and then he scared the heck out of me.  But this really is more of a Which came first, the chicken or the egg situation.  It's hard to tell exactly who freaked out first.

Bottom line is, I shrieked and he scrambled.

That's when I realized he wasn't a snake, he was a turtle.

But of course, I immediately thought Worst Case Turtle Scenario: a snapper.

After I took a breath and half a second to actually look at him, I realized he wasn't that, either.

I called to the kids to come over and check out the little guy.  We looked at him for a minute, then set him on the grass so he could go scare the pants off somone else.  Like an earthworm or something.

You can tell from our forced smiles that this was not a sad goodbye.  All parties agreed it was for the best.

 

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

Service Dogs of Virginia

Maybe I'm nuts-o for adding anything to my day.

You know, in addition to:

trying to raise four little people in such a fashion that they don't act like complete punks...

(at least not in public)

while "managing" a household...

(One time, The Bop got a hold of a pair of scissors while I was "managing" the laundry of said household.

That was fun.)

and teaching parents how to...
well, how to parent...

(Which seems especially ironic after posting the previous picture.

And this feat is attempted in only twelve informational
and action-packed Tuesday evenings, no less!

Yikes.)

Anyway, in addition to all of that,
I'm going to do this:

But I'd like to think that I'm not nuts-o.

Just really, really passionate.

That's sounds better.

So, in case you haven't yet had the pleasure of listening to me talk-talk-talking your ear off about this over the phone, just wait.  I will soon enough.  But here's the scoop in a nutshell:  I have started the process of becoming a puppy raiser for a service dog organization and I am unbelievably excited about it.  I am going to be volunteering with Service Dogs of Virginia. They train assistance dogs and partner them with clients who have disabilities to allow these individuals to achieve greater independence.  Fantastic!

The thing is, the number of people who request assistance dogs is greater than the number of trained dogs being placed each year. There is a large amount of time, work, and money, not to mention lots of love, required to raise a puppy to be a highly trained, working partner. 

They need money. 

Uh, no.  Can't help there.

They need fancy-pants trainers with tons of experience teaching dogs to do crazy things like pick up a dime, turn on a switch, balance your checkbook and change your kid's diaper... 

Just kidding on the checkbook and diapers.  But still, no.

They need puppy raisers who can be around to teach a pup how to be curious, calm, and confident.

Enter Kim!  And her passion.

I will post more as things develop.  But for now,

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!