Nineteenth Passage

Projects! We did some. I wish I had a before picture of our garage, but I do not. I can tell you though, that it was filled with stuff shoved in the back, and bikes were taking over the middle. Also, I had a bunch of food storage at my parents' house from when I lived with them, and I wanted to bring it home, but had no where to put it. So, we decided to build some shelves in the garage.
Luckily, David is a very handy fellow. He's made an electric guitar, (which is flippin' awesome), so tackling shelves was a cinch for him.

David!

 William and Owen "helped" too.

 And me!

We also built a bike rack of David's creation, using 2x4's and rebar. It works great, and the kids have a place for their bikes, and it's just great.

The finished product! I love having the shelves, and I actually get happy whenever I go in the garage and see it. Notice the bike rack on the right side.

 

This was before we brought my food storage home. Now there is a lot more of it on the right shelves. 

Post-it #31

This happened awhile ago, but I really want it blogged.
One morning, after feeding the kids breakfast, I needed to take a shower. I think I gave the kids the task of cleaning their room, or something, while I showered. It's always such a risk to shower while my kids are awake and with no one to watch them. So much fighting and destruction could happen in those select moments.
So, I finished my shower and was ready to venture out into responsibility again. I was heading downstairs and heard some of the things Morgan and William were saying. They sounded extremely conspiratorial.  I took a deep breath, braced myself for what I'd learn when I rounded the corner and into the kitchen.
This is what I saw:


The two oldest were sweeping and doing such a good job. Look, Morgan is even wearing protection so he can more clearly be my knight in shining armor.
Morgan and William told me that they decided to clean the whole house so that I wouldn't have to, amd could do whatever I wanted. Aww! They are so thoughtful. It really made my day. They had already picked up in ht living room

Yay for sweet helpers!

Eighteenth Passage

Our little destructo's are never done destroying things. Here are some of the more recent breaks.


A few weeks ago the kids made birdhouses. I still should blog about that. Anyway, I do believe this one is Morgan's, but happily, both Morgan and William think it is William's.  Unfortunatly, Williams was broken into many pieces when Morgan threw it on the ground with as much force as he could muster.

  This toy was Owen's. I do believe Morgan also broke it. That's what they tell me, though I don't know the story behind it.

 

Morgan got a little flashligh/glowstick thing last time he was with his dad. I guess there are two different colored lightbulbs that can be switched around. William tried to switch it around, and ended up jamming the lights in the tube incorrectly so that they are very stuck and you can't turn the lights on. 

 Hangers. I can't tell you how many hangers have been broken. I think Owen broke this one, but one time he and Morgan were reaching up to the shirts hanging in their closets and pulling on them until the hanger broke, or the shirt came off the hanger. What a fun mess that was to clean up.

 We have an xbox and two controllers. Awhile ago David and I noticed that the white one had the rubber picked off of the little swivel stick thingy. (I'm sure there is a proper name for it...) We didn't know who was responsible until today, when Owen was caught biting them up.

Remember this shoe rack? Me too. I remember it. The kids stood on it so often that not even gorilla tape could hold it together anymore. Now our shoes pile up by the door in a very disorganized fashion.

 

If I were you, I'd keep your valuables as far away from our house as possible.

Seventeenth Passage

On Independence Day, after returning home from camping and taking showers and baths, we went to David's parent's house to light off fireworks for the kids. 

One of the first things we did were the snakes.  We let the boys light some.

 Lydia wasn't too interested in the snakes, so she found a cat instead.

This cat has 4 kittens, and each child got to name one. William named his Cutie, Morgan's has been changing, but I think the last time it was Sweetie Pie or something. Owen named his Nana Sugar, after David's mom. Haha! Papa helped Lydia name hers Rover.
Lydia LOVES the kitties. Here she is currently torturing Nana Sugar, I believe.

We did sparklers, which is always a blast.

 Morgan

 William

 Owen

 Lydia

Then we did the normal fireworks. The boys took turns picking the firework, then helping Daddy light them. Then they would run up on to the grass where the rest of us were watching.

After fireworks we sat around the fire and made s'mores. It was a fun evening!

Sixteenth Passage

We went camping for several days about a month ago, and I'm finally going to blog about it. What was originally going to be several posts, I will condense into one, since it was so long ago that we went camping. Maybe two...

We left on a Friday. David took half a day off work. The car was packed pretty tight, and we had bikes on the back and top of the car. But most of our stuff was taken up by my dad in his gigantic trailer. Good thing too, otherwise we wouldn't have had room for our clothes or tents, or sleeping bags.

We camped on Buck Mountain. It was about a 4 hour drive and much of it was windy roads. Lydia got car sick and threw up everywhere.

We got to camp, where most of my family was already. We set up our tents and ate dinner.

We stayed from Friday, till Wednesday, and did lots of stuff. Here are some of the highlights.

Four wheeling:  My dad brought his four ATV's up, and we had lots of fun playing on them. At first, William and Owen were terrified, but they quickly got over that once they learned how fun it was to ride them.

 Don't worry, the boys didn't ride by themselves. They just liked to pretend.

You'll notice David's lack of facial hair. He participated in a contest with my dad and brothers to see who could grow the biggest beard by the end of the camping trip. This was the first (and last?) time that I've seen David completely shaven.

We brought our bikes and the bike trailer, so we did some riding. Morgan and William rode their bikes a lot, but no pictures. In the background of this one, David was helping my nephew Kaien, fix his bike after the chain fell off.

There were lots of wild flowers near by, and the boys were frequently bringing them to me.

We also did firewood collecting and the boys loved to help. They helped by finding fallen trees and lugging the whole thing to camp.

Us older people found bigger logs, but the chainsaw my dad brought was not really up to the task of cutting them up. David managed a few though!

Lydia had a grand time, and was constantly covered in dirt.

David brought his guitar and amazing singing voice, so there was fun with that.

My brother brought his dog, Shiloh. The kids liked it.

We also went on hikes/nature walks, climbed trees, explored old cabin ruins, played in a freezing cold creek, played volleyball, lots of board and card games, smores and campfire fun. I just didn't take enough pictures, since I used my phone as a camera, but didn't have anything to charge it.


A big lowlight of the trip was the mosquito's. There were SO SO many. We had to make a trip to Cascade for more mosquito repellent since everyone was running out. But it still wasn't enough.
Look at the blood suckers on Lydia's face.

The mosquitos seemed to like to go for the hairline. All the kids who apparently didn't know how to swat the mosquitos away had a ton of bites along their hairline.

Look at the poor boys. William and his bug bites, Morgan and his sunburn and peeling skin, Owen and his bug bits.

And Lydia's face and arms on the day we went home. The crazy thing is, Lydia's bites haven't gone away yet! They've gone down, but they are still there. In fact, I think they are flaring up again.

I think soon I will tell the tale of the creepy deer which changed the way I look at them. Like, I don't like deer anymore.

Fifteenth Passage

 CRIME REPORT:

Victim: William Poston



Culprit: Owen Poston



Weapon: Laundry Basket


Incident: As told from the mother.

It was about 12:30 P.M. The family had just finished eating lunch. My husband, David, came home from work for lunch, and before he went back to work, we decided to play our newest board game; Ascension.

 During the course of the game, Morgan, William, Owen, and Lydia all wanted blankets tied around their necks so that they could be super hero's.
(Super hero blanket-cape pictured below.)

 After tying the last blanket around William, I left the children upstairs with a comment, "Remember, Super Hero's don't make messes and are nice."

A few minutes passed with the boys playing upstairs, and David and I playing our game downstairs at the kitchen table. I overheard a comment from Owen. "I'm not a superhero anymore!"
We can only assume that that is when he decided to switch to the dark side. Now a super villain, Owen wasn't bound by the same strictures as a hero.

The cry came, loud and urgent. David and I looked at each other. I asked, "Is that real?" He replied in the affirmative. We heard William coming quickly down the stairs, wailing in pain. We knew this was more than the normal bumps or hits.

David saw him first. "Holy crap!" He dropped his cards and scrambled out of his chair.
Then I saw William hurrying down the stairs, blood pouring out of both nostrils, his cape trailing behind him. Also trailing behind him was Owen, repeating, "Sorry, brother. Sorry, brother. Sorry, brother."
William reached the kitchen and David and me. David tried to hurry him to the bathroom, while William expelled a distressing amount of blood from his mouth and nose during a cough/breath expellation.

(The blood drops on this picture of Lydia's is from said cough, but the huge pile of blood was cleaned up by mother before it could be pictured.)





David got William into the bathroom where he spewed more blood that had been dripping down his throat, and coaxed a frantic William into holding a hand towel to his nose.

(The scene in the bathroom.)
 

(The towel that the victim held to his nose.)

Meanwhile, Lydia was walking through the blood in the kitchen, and leaving bloody footprints everywhere. Owen was sheepishly hanging out in the stairway, and Morgan was gaping at the blood or watching David care for William. 

Since David had everything under control with William and the bleeding was decreasing, I set about finding out what happened, as well as cleaning up the blood stains in the carpet.

Morgan reported and Owen confirmed, that Owen picked up an empty laundry basket and pushed it into William's face. Owen was put into time out.

When William had stopped crying and the bleeding had ceased, David set up a movie for William and Morgan and Lydia, then the two of us followed the trail of blood to the crime scene.

(The blood trail went up the flight of stairs, down the hall a short ways, then into the boy's bedroom and up to William's bed.)

(This blanket perhaps captured the first of the spilt blood.)

 

Owen's help was requested while we finished cleaning up the blood stains in the carpet. 

  

 (A picture of a laundry basket after everything was cleaned up.)

A mini-court session was held with the two parents and the victim and the perpetrator. Owen pled guilty, and his sentence was left in the hands of the victim, William.  William could choose for Owen to be put in time out, to be spanked, or he could choose to forgive him. After the options were thoroughly explained to him, William chose to forgive his brother.

We are pleased to report that after the trauma of the early afternoon, William is doing much better. He's happy, not in any pain, and thank goodness, there is no blood leaving his body.