Bigger than Life

The girls and I had a Hannah Montana 3-D concert pajama party in our living room. I learned that an at home concert with 8 little girls is just at loud as being at the actual concert however using 3-D glasses that are free from Wal-Mart is not the same as watching Hannah Montana perform live in concert. Chris escaped the estrogen fest and barricaded himself in our room upstairs, however, with the decibel levels downstairs he hardly missed any of the action. The girls consumed enough sugar to induce a diabetic coma then burned off all the calories giggling, dancing, and pillow fighting. I did have to break up a real fight between Taylor and Christine concerning who was going to marry which Jonas brother (the Jo-Bros were guest performers at the concert -a Jonas bonus for us which meant more shrieking from the girls) but we worked it out by drawing names and the rest of the party went really smooth. Finally the girls all hit a sugar drop and were ready for bed. Once the friends had all gone home for the night Chris decided to brave his way downstairs to help me get our girls to bed. All in all it was a rockin' party!

Talia - the 'T' is for Trouble!!!

So little miss Talia was at it again. After marking her territory in the bathroom (not in the toilet), dumping out two bottles of lotion in two different rooms, getting into grape juice (never very easy or fun to clean up), she then moved on to the mustard. What you can't see is that inside the air vent there is about 1/2 cup of mustard - maybe even a little more. But how can I help but not love that smile!!! She went on to also wet on the couch which was the last straw for me - oh did I mention this was all within an hour and a half - so I decided to put her in bed. She pouted as she slowly dragged herself up the stairs then pausing halfway up she turned and sat down and said in her sweet little voice "pweese mommy, don' put me in bed. I pwomise I not be wotten any more." Then she pushed out her bottom lip, cute as she was I couldn't handle any more messes. After a forty-five minute screaming struggle she fell asleep. I then spent the next hour shampooing mustard out of the carpet and pee out of the couch. Needless to say I embraced sleep with less of a struggle than she did last night. And it's a good thing I slept well because this morning she was at it again this time taking nail polish to our leather chaise! I am always grateful when she falls asleep and I have time to regroup, recover, and regain control of my house. Talia is definitely synonymous with Trouble, but most of the time she just makes me laugh - if I didn't laugh I would probably cry and life is too short for so many tears! I love that she is full of life and curiosity I just hope I have enough energy to keep up or at least enough to clean up!

Surviving the Winter

The snow got pretty deep this winter but we managed to live through it with the assistance of hot chocolate, warm coats, and a tow truck. Spring was wonderful but short and we are now well into our yucky-humid summer climate but when I see Sacramento temps hitting over 110 I think I might be better off with Ohio humidity even though we have no a/c in our 130 year old house. And breathing our clean country air sure beats the smokey Sac air quality. Sigh!!! But somehow I can't help but miss California! Maybe it's the wicked thunderstorms and tornado warnings that materialize when I least expect it that make me leery of this new climate, maybe I miss predictable weather even if it is roasting. All I know is that when I stepped out of the Sacramento airport a month ago wearing jeans and a 3/4 length sleeves the dry 90 degrees wrapped itself around me like a warm comfortable blanket and I couldn't help but smile. This was my kind of weather, I was home.

My New Year Resolution

Christine (4 years old) was trying her hand at photography and took this lovely photo. Sadly this was one of the only photos I had of myself - I will have to work on that!



My New Year Resolution was to begin a blog so here I am in July finally getting to it (with the assistance of my sister-in-law Tanya). Since we moved thousands of miles and began our new year in a very new place we have had many adventures, well they are adventures to me since I have never experienced rural living like this before. Dealing with a septic tank that needs repair (gross!), having well water that smells of sulfur and iron (and to me tastes like blood) also took some getting used to, as did the smell of our fuel oil heating system. Then there are all the mice, that I can't get used to. There is our neighbor "Bob" (not sure he wants his real name used - he's an interesting guy) and his pet tiger Nefertari that I pretend I don't know about. Sometimes when I'm outside and it's dark I have this mental image of her hiding behind the treeline ready to pounce. It freaks me out a little, it is a long walk from the garage to the house and I don't think I can out run her. But she is securely locked behind a series of fences - or so I tell myself... I have gotten used to stores being further away and in less variety. But I really miss sidewalks. The other night I was sitting out on the porch alone when the sky was just getting dark and across the open field in front of me were hundreds of fireflies. I sat there in silence breathing in the fresh air and watching the fireflies grow brighter as the darkness set in, uninhibited by light pollution, and I was truly moved. Maybe country living isn't so bad. Now I'll just have to learn to deal with the mosquito bites!