Huntin' Eggs

We attended Aunt Heather's Grand Easter Egg Melee today.  It's more than an egg hunt.  It's a wild, over the top, more eggs than you can imagine free for all for anyone who could, by any stretch of the imagination, be called a kid.  My kids love it and look forward to it every year.  

 Believe it or not, my kids DO have cute Easter baskets, which would have made for more picturesque photos, but alas, they were full within moments and we had to ditch aesthetics for raw, powerful function.  Walmart sacks to the rescue. 

 Of course, our little friend Gabey was there, and he kept his cute basket.  (For those of you who aren't fortunate enough to know Gabe in real life, he's this baby all growed up!) 

 But the most surprising egg hunter of all?

Miss Girl. 

 I followed her around, figuring she'd need the most help-uh, nope!  No, she is a tenacious little hunter.  She found all kinds of stuff the boys didn't find and was willing to go through scratchy bushes or whatever it took to get that egg.  She probably found 6 or so eggs that were hidden hard, intended for teenage hunters.  And she just kept looking when others had moved on, just believing that there were more to be had if she looked hard enough.  And that's the thing about the Grand Easter Egg Melee, she's right.  There are ALWAYS more eggs to be had if you're willing to look.  Granted, they may be ones that never got found from last year, but never mind.

 And while the big kids hunted, Spencer and Gabey's little brother Lemon hunkered down and dreamed of the day when they would take part in the Melee.   (I think his real name is Joel, but I'm not sure.  I've only heard him called that once.  Maybe twice.  ;) 

 

Maybe next year, little buddies.

Happy Easter, all!

My Littlest Easter Egg

 So it's before church Easter morning and I'm in the bathroom curling Leah's hair.  I hear my three oldest boys whooping and cackling and cooing and cawing like a herd of old ladies who just won free dinner at a buffet.  I hurry out to see what could be worthy of such wildly expressive noises and I find this:

They have put Spencer in his Easter outfit and all three are tickled by the absolute adorableness of it.  Their hearts are bubbling over with love for him and they cannot stop themselves from laughing with delight at the sight of this chipper little Easter egg.

Oh my word, he is so cute, huh??

ZooBoise 2013

 Just a quick, "went to the zoo" post.  Mostly I have to do this so that my kids will know that we did fun stuff with them.   It was a pleasant trip, fairly benign, and I don't have any grand stories to tell about it.

 Playing house in a little mock African hut.  Doesn't Leah look every bit the pleasant African housewife?  And Cody, with his multi weapon tool at the ready, quite the African warrior.  Speaking of Africa, you know, there are a lot of Kiva loans in Africa...  ; )

And though I don't have any other grand stories or pictures, I DO want to document this moment: 

 Yeah, that's right.  Dr. Weed taking time to educate his son about the vertebrae of a giraffe. 

Pop Quiz:  Humans have 7 vertebrae in their necks.  How many does a giraffe have?

Think it o-ooo-ver  (haven't I been good to you)  Think it o-ooo-ver (haven't I been sweet to you) STOP in the name of love...

And the answer is:  Seven.  Just real big ones.

Second pop quiz:  How many vertebrae does a mouse have?

Duh nah nuh nuh duh nah nuh.  Duh na nuh nah NAH na nuh nuh nuh nuh ...  (Yes I just typed out the JEOPARDY music, howdya like that??)

Okay, answer:  Seven.  Just real tiny ones.  All mammals apparently have 7 vertebrae in their necks. And now you know.

The things you learn when you visit the zoo with a chiroman.



PS, I have updated my Mommy Snatchers post.  If you found the first part a little amusing, you might want to go back and read the update.  

Apparently I stink at explaining stuff

So, I'm not kidding you, I'm a little obsessed with Kiva right now.  I have quite a few friends who knew about this coolness before I blogged about it, and they all have commented positive things about it.  Buuuuuuuuuuuut no one else responded.  No one else has signed up, and this has puzzled me.  So I have hassled people who I know well enough to hassle about it, like, um, why haven't you signed up yet?

The first response I got was, "I have to check it out to make sure it's not a scam."  Well, okay, let's lay that one to rest-it's not a scam.  I have now made nine loans on Kiva (this includes some free loans and some with my own moolah.)  My money has gone to Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Ecuador, etc.  You can check the comments on my last post from people who have been doing it longer than I have-they've got nothing but good to say about it, and they've got years under their belt, so I'm pretty dern sure that it's not a scam.

Response number two:  "I'm too lazy to go find my credit card." 

Ok, stop right there, I must not have been clear in the first place:  It's Free.  You don't need your credit card to sign up.

How can it be free?  Maybe this is the part I didn't explain well enough:  some anonymous wealthy person thinks Kiva is really cool.  They want you to get on there and see for yourself that Kiva is really cool.  So they gave a giant donation to Kiva and said, "Hey, any new person who signs up, they can have $25 to give to the recipient of their choice."  Then when the recipient of the loan pays it back (and the chance is 99% that they will), that money doesn't go back to you, it goes back to that wealthy anonymous donor.

Sooooooo, the only way this little experiment will cost you any actual money is if you want to make a second loan.  If you, like me, think it's too rad to stop with just one loan.

The third person we asked about it said, "I thought it would be too much of a hassle to sign up."  Well, if you can stomach entering your first and last name, your email and a password, you're in.  That's not too bad, right?  I mean, I've had to enter more information to get a 50 cent coupon.

"But," said same unnamed mother in law, "I don't want them contacting me for money in the future."  I'll admit I've only been on Kiva for a short while, but I don't think it's like that.  (The only emails they've sent me have been when I've made a loan, just to confirm that I'm choosing to do that.  They're not like a fund raising group-people go on there to give loans because they want to.   I think I've already pressured you into doing it more than Kiva ever will.  :)  There's no commitment or obligation by giving out your free loan, it's really just to get people on there to see what it's all about.

And you know what, Ryan and I pay tithing to our church, 10% of everything we make, so I guess you could say that our charitable contribution is covered.  BUT that doesn't let me pick where my money goes and who it goes to.  With Kiva, I get to imagine how I'm helping a 20 year old chocolate maker in Lebanon.  Or how a lady supports her kids by selling coconuts in Kenya.  Coconuts!  Of all things.  AND I get to see their faces.  It's truly delightful.

Alright.  Are there more concerns that I haven't addressed?  Lay 'em on me.  OOOOOOORRRRR, get yerself on over to Kiva and sign the heck up!  

And now I promise that I won't post about Kiva again.  Except it will stay on my sidebar.  Because it is rad. 

Surprises!

(*This post was written a few days ago when Ryan actually was out of town, but I'm posting it now-now that he's back home to fend off any psychos who might think I'm home alone.  I'm not by myself anymore, psychos, so don't bother.)


If you know me, you probably know Ryan and if you know Ryan, you probably know that he's not a very surprising person.  Bless his heart, sometimes, very rarely, he tries to surprise me and most of the time, I figure it out or he accidentally tells me or somehow or other, it becomes not a surprise.  This is not to say that I don't appreciate the effort because I do.  In fact, I find it one of his endearing qualities that he's not very surprising.

But.

But but but.

The man has surprised me tonight!  He's going on a trip in the morning and he'll be out of town for four days.  He goes out of town about 3 times a year and I whine about it every time.  Now it's partly his own fault that I'm whiny-he is too helpful while he's at home.  If only he were less helpful, I might mourn his leaving less.  And it's partly my fault that I'm whiny about it and that is simply because I'm a wimp.  I am a wimp and four kids by myself for four days???  That's not great, you know?  But to his credit, he has been being very empathetic with me for the last few days about the matter, so I have felt ooooookaaaaaay about his going.

So on this, his last night before he left, he said he had to go to the store to get some trip snacks.  Now, if I'd been on my game, I might have thought to myself, "That's odd.  Ryan never buys trip snacks.  He doesn't care about trip snacks.  In fact, he doesn't care about food in general.  He's like a camel.  He could go days-maybe even months without eating and not really miss it."  But I wasn't on my game and I DO care about trip snacks, so I fully supported his going to the store to get whatever he felt like he wanted or needed.  The only slight thing I thought was, "Huh, that's funny, he went to the store for me this morning, why didn't he get them then?"  But then just as quickly, I figured he must have forgotten AND he offered to lug The Tank around the store, so heck, what do I care, go to the store, buy trip snacks, do whatever you've got to do!

He got home, we watched a show and were about to go to bed when he left the room and returned with THESE in his hand!

What?  Flowers!  How nice, as a sweet thing to cheer me up and brighten our house while I am husbandless for four days.  How sweet.  But then, he produced this:

FREAKING NANAIMO BARS!  WHAT the WHAT the, amazing!  I LOOOOOOVE Nanaimo bars and the man knows it.  What a SWEET MAN to leave me with some of my very favorite treats to comfort me in his absence.  A gem of a man.  A gem I tell you, a gem.  I was tickled pink.  And then he pulled out a little envelope with a heart on it.  I thought he had written me a sweet note, again, to bear me up in my upcoming times of trial.  I thought about waiting for the right moment to open it-certainly there will be a time in the next 4 days when I will be considering jumping off a bridge, and maybe his love note will be just enough to keep my on dry ground.  But eh, what the hey, I decided to open it now and THEN I found THIS::::::

A MASSAGE GIFT CERTIFICATE.  What the heck, I was laughing my head off as I cannot remember EVER being THIS SURPRISED by my sweet husband.  Maybe on the day he donned head to toe spandex in blue and orange, but I don't know.  I was pretty darn surprised tonight.  I expected none of this, and all three things together completely blew my mind.  You're surprised too, right?

Thank you, my good man.  I feel your efforts have ensured that we will all survive in your absence, if for no other reason than that I've got to be around to cash in on my hour long massage!  ;)


(*And since you were probably wondering, we did survive.  Thank you very much.  Oh, that's not to say that I didn't have a police officer knock on my door at 11:30 at night, scaring the livin' bejeejees out of me.  I seriously debated-do you answer a door when it's 11:30 and your husband isn't home?  I thought it might be my neighbor needing something so I opened it and then the first thing I saw on my porch at 11:30 at night was a uniform??  Well, that's heart stopping.  It took me a few seconds to realize that it's an officer that we know, and then really, he had just been driving through the neighborhood and saw that our garage was open-thanks kids-and wanted to let me know.  So everything was fine except for that little incident and really, that ended up being fine too.)  

Invasion of the Mommy Snatchers

As I mentioned earlier, I got my hair cut.  I waited two days to wash it, so I just got around to fixing it myself, and I made the bangs look more prominent than the stylist had.  After I finished, I came out to the family room, where Leah saw me and said,

"Oh mama!  You look so beautiful!

... ... ... ...
... ... ... ... ...
... ... ... ... ... ...
... ... ... ... ...

Mama?  Are you Mama?  Or are you a different?"  And as she said this, she gave me the shy, coy look she generally reserves for strangers. 

So of course, I had to mess with her mind all morning.  I was brushing her hair and she said, "Ow, you're hurting me!"
"Would your real mother ever hurt you?"

"Can you help me get dressed?"
"Would your real mother help you get dressed?" 

"Can we have lunch?"
"Would your real mother make lunch for you?" 

And every time I did it, she looked at me uncertainly.  Finally, she said, "You are my real mother."

"How do you know?"

"Be.. cause... you... sound like her?"  It was more of a question.  She still really wasn't sure. 

So what do you think?  Am I really Bethany or have I been mommy snatched?

(Now that I look at this picture, the bangs look very bangs-y.  Very 80's.  I think that's just a trick of the angle, but if not, perhaps that's where the confusion is coming from.  Leah's thinking, "Uh, my mom just transported back in time and this 80's chick came to take her place...)



UPDATE:

So it has now been a week or so.  This morning while sitting at breakfast, Leah asked me, "Where's my mommy?"

"Your mommy?"

Shyly, "Yeah, my mommy.  You know, my other mommy?"  

"Your other mommy??  Leah, I AM your mommy!" 

*Hides her face, too shy to speak to this stranger, or too confused to know if this IS the stranger or if it IS her real mommy, and which one of those gals IS in fact, her real mommy.*


Apparently, I'm back to looking like myself and not like that other chick, so she's wondering what happened to her.  I wonder which one she liked better.  Little did I know that by messing with her mind that day and planting even the tiniest seed of doubt as to my true identity, Leah would grow up forever wondering if she's got the original mommy she was born with or the new bangsy one or what.  I just hope that when she's a teenager, she doesn't slam the door in my face and say something like, "My real mom would understand!"

Girl Party

A while ago, I purchased like one of those Groupon vouchers for a Mommy and Me haircut and manicure.  Today we cashed it in.  How much do you know about Leah?  Do you know her well enough to know that something like this would completely rock her world???

She's too shy to do it out loud in public, but inside she was shrieking with girly happiness.

That second face in the collage says, "Can you believe how AWESOME THIS IS???!?"  The lady even had sparkly lotion (which I found a bit obnoxious on me, but Leah adored.) 

 She picked the most fire engine red polish in the shop and gasped when the first thrilling splash of it hit her nails. 

It was good girly times.  Thanks for coming to my girl party, sweet Leah.

This really is worth your time

Hi friends, so most of my posts probably are not worth your time, but this one really is.  So I've recently read the book Half the Sky.  Have you read it?  MAN, it is so good.  So good.  A MUST read.  It's all about the situation of women and girls around the world.  The injustices and brutalities and life threatening discrimination they face.  It's hard stuff, but good stuff.  Important stuff.  I can't say enough about it on here, so I won't, but one of the great things is that at the end of the book, it gives you suggestions for small things that YOU can do.  One of them is to get on Kiva.org and make a loan.  Kiva is an organization that makes small loans to people who couldn't qualify at a bank.  The people use the loans and pay it back, and then you can either take your $25 back or you can re-loan it to someone else.  So I signed up and it turns out that you can get a free trial of Kiva.  If you sign up through my link, you'll get a free $25 to put to whomever you want.  You can peruse borrowers and find someone whose story speaks to you, be it a Rwandan widow who sells rice in the marketplace or a group of ladies in Ecuador who want to buy chickens so they can sell the eggs.  (You know I have a soft spot for Ecuador, so you know I picked some Ecuadorian ladies.  :)  You can search by country or by specialty-it's actually really fun to go there and see what it's all about.  It's free to sign up, you get your first loan free, and you get the pleasure of choosing where you'd like to see that money go.  Then if you think it's as fun as I do, you might consider putting $25 of your actual dollars into it.  There's no guarantee that you'll get it back, but their repayment rates are very good (99%, I think.)  I'd just pretend like you won't get it back, then if/when you do, it'll be a nice surprise and you could have the fun of picking someone new to give it to.  :)  Anyway, here it is.  Peruse.  Sign up.  Read Half the Sky.  Watch the documentary on PBS, too.  Have a good day.  Kaythanksbye.

Celebrate the Girl

Well friends, it is again Saint Patrick's Day, thus it is again The Girl's birthday!

This girl.  She is so much like young Nathan in that things have to be clicking just right, and when they are, she's a dream.  She is reasonable and obedient and helpful and all the nice good things.  But when something is incorrect-some little cog falls out of place in her world-be it a brother who doesn't obey her wishes or a mother who wants to brush her hair with the wrong brush, she falls to grumpy, cranky, stinky, cry-y little pieces.   She's got a stink face that could curdle milk.  In fact, it could probably curdle cottage cheese, which is already kind of curdled, so that just tells you how severe it is.  But you can't tell it from these pictures, can you?  Nope, because all was goodness and sweetness and happiness on this, her 4th birthday.

After church, we took some pictures of the whole crew in their St. Patrick's Day green.  I feel that we should always celebrate this holiday to the fullest by wearing purposeful green (I mean intentional green, not just like, "Oh, here's a shirt that happens to have a little splash of green on it."  I like to get real GREEN shirts/skirts/ties or whatever it takes every year.  It seems like it makes Leah's day more special.  :)  

And oh, my friends.  The adventures of taking pictures of four kids.

Let me first tell you a tale of two pictures.  

 The first is a story of two charming boys, happily loving to look at their mother whilst she takes their picture.  What champions.  And so handsome.

The second is a story of two children who would rather rough-house and make stink faces than look sweetly and smilingly at their mother.  Naughtiness.

Sadly, it is the same picture.

This always happens to mothers of more than one child, and especially so to mothers of four.  Two of them are keyed in to mom, smiling, looking amazing.  The other two?  Well.

 

This is the best that can be done.  I can't exert that much effort any more.  I think I'm hoarse from hollering their names and making the most bizarre bird/baby calls to try to get Spencer to look at me.  And then, when he does?  Well, see above.  Completely thwarted.  I give up.

(And why yes, yes I did make the boys' bowties and Spencer's tie onesie, thanks for noticing.  No sew.  Holla for moms wielding glue guns and Wonder Under.)

 

After that, it was your basic family birthday.  

Piles of presents.  

Wishes and cuppycakes.

You know, the ush.  (How do you spell "usual" but shortened?)

Little Miss Leah Girl, we love you desperately.  Happy Birthday!

More beauty than you could shake a string of beads at

Fancy Nancy ain't got nothin' on The Beaded Weed.

This post is long overdue

It's the classic compare my children as babies and who do they look like??  (These are all somewhere in the 3-4 month range.)

I've decided they're all at least a little similar.  Face shape?  Eye shape?  Something.  What do you think?