Our Summer In Summation

As the new school year approaches, I just thought I would share with you a few things from the summer.

Karmen's 5th birthday marked the beginning.

And Lizette turned 2 months.

Rooms were ordered to be cleaned,

But sometimes weren't.

There was an abundance of fish catching, fish frying, and fish cleaning. And wouldn't you know, my daughter has a softspot for fish. Yes, the little girl who tries to catch deer legs in a bag, from the hanging carcasses as we quarter and process them during season.

Lizette turned 3 months...

Baseball was practiced.

And coached.

And played.
Friends came to visit!

4th of July parades were attended

and windmill well fed stock tanks were swam in.

Karmen shot her first jackrabbit off of a 4 wheeler with Uncle John

(Grandpa)Uncle and Grandad taught her how to 'use' a magnifying glass!

Zeb and I had dinner with some great friends

and then adored our darling daughter as she slept in her sling.



Did I mentioned that we started putting our little chunker in cloth diapers? Aren't they to die for?!

Karmen and I strolled our babies, Lizette and Lily, together.

Then Lizette turned 4 months old

Karmen ran around the hospital with her twin cousins, Tristan and Blake.



She also learned about boiling crawfish!

To end the season with a bang SPLASH, we are going to Sea World this weekend! I'm sure that will require a post all its own!

Fairy Wings, Pixie Dust & My Grumpy, Grumpy Girl....

Yesterday was a busy, busy day. We went to shoot with my friend Tiffany Turk, who was needing to exercise some creativity, on her own terms. I'm sure that when your day job, occasionally night job in this case, is taking photos of other people want, sometimes you just want to shoot what you want, for a change. We had a really great time. My daughter played a beautiful, floaty, winged fairy, while Tiffany shot her photos. Then....came the grumpy face. And oh was is ever! I'm still not sure what her deal was. She was well fed, well rested and looking oh-so-cute. I guess enjoying my daughter in a good mood these days only happens on her terms, now. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted, anyway. Though I do hope Tiffany was able to herself some good shots. (P.S. I may have been a little grumpy myself, but only maybe! Shh!)

Not but a few moments after ariving home, post shoot, I walked into the living room and found this wilted, fairyish, heap on the rug. I guess she'd had a long day!

The nap must have done her some good because the moment she was awake, she was hungry for seaweed. MMM toasted seaweed!!

And I must tell you, as this video will support, Spinach is to Popeye as Seaweed is to my little fairylicious, eater of green algae...

>>INSERT DANCING VIDEO<<

(Hmm...well, I have a super great video of her dancing that should go here, although I don't have software that will let me rotate it from being sideways and I don't want to give anyone a sore neck. If you want to see this video...maybe you could suggest some downloadable, free software?? Then, I could edit it in.

And what was Baby Girl doing, while all of this was taking place, you ask?Sitting Pretty, of course! :)

Oh...and by the way, Bunny had this to say earlier in the day!

Once the baby went down for a while, my Big Girl made a 'Kitty 3,000 Hair Groomer' out of Bunny's Popatot. Poor cats. She chased them around, caught them and then proceeded to groom them. When it comes to bath-rebeling-dogs, they almost always feel so good, afterwards. But, when it comes to 5 yr old kitty grooming, I am (sadly)sure this isn't the case. I don't think they liked it so much. However, we don't halfway do things around here, this thing-a-majig was complete with all a groomer could ever need; brush, clippies, detangler, my favorite hat(remind me to wash that....) hair ties, and...that might be it.

Annnnndddd....that pretty much sums up our day!

All Quiet on the Western Job Front

DISCLAIMER: This is a huge rant. Huge.

Jobs suck.

Just kidding. I love working! I do. If I didn't just absolutely love work then I wouldn't hack it as a stay-at-home-mom. I remember, very clearly I might add, several occasions where I have said that I could never be one of those moms that stay home with their kids. "I would go nuts! I have to get out of the house! I have to have frequent adult interaction. I could NEVER be a SAHM!" Yet, here I am, shuffling along in this crazy 24/7, never-any-down-time-job that only a lunatic would try to keep up with. I'm telling you, my once always-painted toenails and fingernails have never been so neglected. I haven't worn heels in months. Oh gosh, did I REALLY just admit to that? I have about 80 pair of heels in my closet that haven't seen my cute little toes in what seems like an eternity! Here lately, I find myself struggling with my vocabulary, and talking to people like I never finished primary school. Please understand that my usual conversation is comprised of 60% elementary aged banter, 30% baby talk, and a slim 10% adult chatter. I've begun to realize that even my vocabulary/speech falls victim to the old saying "use it or lose it".

Please believe that my decision to stay home with my girls has not been based on laziness, as any SAHM can advocate, but rather a desire to take care of my family in a way that is rarely possible to do as a working parent. No offense to you working gals(and guys) out there. I'm talking a cleaner house, home-cooked healthy grub on the table for most meals, more quality time together as a family, errands getting taken care of, laundry staying done, cloth diapering, nursing and a whole list things that happen around here on a day to day basis. I am working my rump off 'round the clock and still the work is never done. I work ten times harder now than I did as a working parent, ironic isn't it? Maybe some day, when my babies are more self-sufficient and don't need as much caudling, then I will be ready to return to work. For now, I am not ready. In my mind, you will have to drag me away kicking and screaming and I will never be ok with abandoning my responsibilities to my family....all for the sake of money. Ughh, what a dirty word.

But here we are, facing the start of a new school year. I know my duties will only increase, with the to's and fro's of dance class, PTA volunteering, community volunteering, Fall Festival, holidays, blah blah blah... and here I am taking on a J O B? O' sweet Lord, what's life come to, that I'm thinking I can bite the bullet and abandon my babies go back to being a working mom. I'LL NEVER GO BACK!

I know what's coming. Harriedly getting ready to leave the house each morning, usually running late because I slept through the alarm again, out of exhaustion. The one or two days a week I'll take off will be a desperate struggle to do laundry, straighten up the house, and quality family time will be scarce. Constant fast food. No time to relax and find peace in this fast paced world.

Our minds crave meditation in order to function properly; whether that means sitting silently on your own and breathing deeply or relaxing in your mama's arms while she rythmically rocks you and sings to you. Despite my best efforts, I'll be short tempered, grouchy and just plain stressed. Not to say that stress is absent from my life currently, but I have better coping skills now, like more time to relax and counterbalance the stress.

I am absolutely not ready to be dragged away from my family, kicking and screaming.

I have defiantly refused to start the great job search. A smart person would start looking now, to better be prepared. I'm not yet willing to admit that working outside the home is the answer to this equation. I keep holding out for Zeb to get a big fat raise or a better job offer. I just think that there is a great probability that I will lose my ever-lovin' mind if I have to put my baby in the care of a stranger who looks after 12 other children everyday, gets paid minimum wage, and is ready to pull their hair out by noon. It scares me to death that something could happen or that they would not show her the proper love and care that Zeb and I give her at home. It doesn't help the situation that I've become close to manic the way I fret over her constant safety! Children, babies included, are deep thinkers. They are smart. It is up to us, as parents, to listen to them and understand them and encourage their growing minds. She won't get that in daycare.

I have some much more to say about this, but I won't. Thinking about it is stressing me out tremendously. I feel uber guilty already, and I haven't even left them yet. If I am this stressed about working, I wonder how stressed my husband is about me not working, you know....worrying about how we are going to pay the next bill.

Hmmm....sort of a catch-22, isn't it?

V + HC = Job Opening in the Miller Family

V
You know you are a mom when your 5 year old comes in the kitchen and vomits all over you, your kitchen table, chairs and floor and you just tell her to sit down, you drag the trash can around to her and then continue to feed your baby in the highchair because she is starving and this is better than listening to her scream from hunger while you clean the vomit....all the while trying not to look down at the chunks that are drying stuck to your legs and feet. A few minutes later, Lizette began to fall asleep in her food, so I decided to take her and put her to bed. I decided that the whole clean up process would be more efficient if she were sleeping, and yes, I cleaned myself up first. So here I am laying in the bed, getting her to sleep when.....
+
HC
I have this beautiful, long haired, calico cat who once was afraid to be in the great out-of-doors. Seriously, she was terrified of even the backdoor being open and would run away at the sight. Now, after a year of slowly coaxing her to finally enjoy being outside, our efforts have seriously backfired. Like clockwork, every evening around bedtime she comes in through the catdoor, from the backyard, and brings in some sort of creature. She then proceeds to let out several of these very loud, very familar, particular meows. As if to say "Look, mom! Look what I brought in for you tonight!" Everynight it is something....lizards, frogs, grasshopers, snakes....the list goes on. My hubby works nights and thinks it is funny when I give him the 'nightly creature text'. If I am not careful to remember to do a floor check around the house, before bedtime, then I have nice surprises awaiting my morning (barefoot) stumble towards the coffee pot. A few mornings ago I came into the living room, still half asleep and stepped on something. This something had sort of a squishy, cold, crunch to it...then upon looking down I noticed that as I had stepped on it, it's little head popped off. After careful examination, I determined the head once belonged to the torso of a (now pancacked) mouse. The next morning while describing this incident to a girlfriend, on the phone, I narrowly missed stepping on a rather odd looking, wet lump in the same spot as the mouse. It took me a while to figure out what it was; a headless, legless, wingless, mostly featherless, torn open bird body. I don't understand how a declawed cat can be such a predator, but alas, she is. You know what they say - "A lizard a day keeps the vetrinarian away!".

The other night I went to check on Karmen in the bathtub and she had a frog swimming in there with her, courtesy of our little domesticated lioness.

See....


(Have you guessed, yet, how these two stories merge into one? Vomit+Huntress Cat=?? Let me help you out here.)

=Job Opening in the Miller Family
(when...) I hear 'the meow' and come out of the bedroom just as she lets go of a locust in her mouth. It flies, she chases....they run through living room, she jumps...no backflips off of couch and knocks over a lamp...then chases it into the kitchen....RIGHT THROUGH THE VOMIT PILE. Chase ensues....

Now, I have kitty barf tracks from one end of my house to ...ugh, I don't want to know where all.

I won't show pictures of this, however. You're welcome.

So, I shall don my elbow high, cute rubber gloves, hold my breath and scrub-hastily. Ughh. Just ughh.

I Quit.

Did you hear me??

I QUIT!!!


And this is how there came to be a temporary job opening in our family. I say temporary because I just need a break- I will be back to resume my duties at some point. Sorry, it's not a permanent position. You can't keep the job, because kitty barf tracks and all, I am so totally in love with my life.

Although....I do wonder what sort of sound insulation my closet has??

Duty Calls

Okay, really. I thought I started this blog with intents to actually post on it. Hmm... well, after 7 straight hours today of cleaning, doing laundry and cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner it won't be tonight that I post.

Oh, and did I mention that it is 9 o'clock and both girls are sleeping? Wow... Seriously, WOW. So what am I going to do with this precious time? Make and freeze some batches of (homemade organic) babyfood, wash diapers, finish laundry annndd.... not the dishes. That's what. Ironically enough, I couldn't be happier doing these tiresome things. Ahh what a life!

See you in the A.M.!

Surfing Sans Sand & Sunshine

My kids and I need to start chenneling each other a little more often and finding out what things we enjoy doing together! Something that seems to be standing in the way of this, lately, is a form of channeling alright. Channel Surfing.

Call me crazy, but I think I need to start weaning my familly off of television. Not that I am against watching t.v. or anything, because I am so totally not. I love my shoes shows. Well...those that I actually get to watch. I think I have some shows that actually recorded months ago and I still have not seen them. And I want to watch them. I do. It just seems that there is always something else needing my attention more. But one day I will head home from the grocery store with a pint half-gallon of rocky road, call up a sitter and proceed to watch each and every show/movie that I have recorded and never watched. Ok...maybe not everything. I will probably take an hour break and give myself a pedicure!

I seem to remember once seeing something that said "watching too much television rots your brain". Ok, maybe I don't beleive that, persay, but there are a whole slough of a reasons why not to let your children watch too much t.v.; same goes for us older folks. Seriously, just Google it.

I am making it my personal goal...no, my FAMILY goal to keep the television turned off, more often. I mean, we've even begun to leave it on for ambient background noise and while sleeping at night, even though no one is watching it. (I believe this habit stems from a dire need to shush the ' bills ' and ' need to get done's ' from runing through our overworked brains.) Ouch, that can't be good for the electric bill!

Who knows, maybe this will get us into a more active lifestyle. Because let's face it, chasing after kids, doing never ending laundry and planning, making and cleaning up after meals isn't working for me! Maybe I can burn off some o those much unwanted post-baby calories. Soak up some Vitamin-D. Afterall, it is summer you know.

Err, maybe that's been the problem, actually. You know...a TEXAS Summer.