Bikes and Scrapes

These were taken last week. The boys were riding their bikes and Ella did not want to be left out. We pulled out Porter's old bike and Ella sat on it while the boys rode up and down the sidewalk.

Porter took a tumble off his bike and scratched his lip and nose a tiny bit. There was a tiny tiny drop of blood coming from his nose, but Harmon was quite concerned. Blood=tragedy. I tried to get Harmon not to say anything so that Porter wouldn't freak out. Harmon disappeared into the house and the next thing I knew he was doctoring Porter up. Pretty sweet. Of course Porter then had to come to me to find out if he was going to live. I think the cowboy boots might have played a role in his wreck.

And this is just a funny picture of Ella. When you ask her where her nose is she scrunches up her face like this.

Retro Outfit

A few days ago I put Ella into an outfit that my mom made for me with I was about 6 months older than Ella is now. The elastic is a little shot in the legs, but it sure was cute on her! My best memory of this outfit? Putting it on Matthew (my youngest brother) when he was a baby. It has a matching bonnet that he wore also. HA HA HA HA!!! Oh he'd kill me if he read my blog. Should I mention the mascara too???

And this was just a cute picture of Ella and Harmon.

Pool Time

Harmon came and asked me if he and Porter could play in the backyard in the water. I said sure. Two minutes later I walked outside and miraculously the pool was already filled! Ella escaped while I was making dinner and I found her next to the pool trying to get in. At first I didn't let her because it was only about 80, windy, and the water was FREEZING. But she insisted and in she went. She was in heaven. All three of them had a great time in the water..

**I figured out that if you "click" on the collage it should enlarge.

Happy Birthday Porter!

Happy Birthday Porter!! Porter is a big four years old now! Here are a few of my favorite pictures of him.


Vocal from the beginning. The nurses asked us to keep him in my room at night because he screamed so much that all the other babies would start crying also.


Porter is very strong. From birth he could lift up his head, he rolled over at 2 weeks old!! and was walking by 8 1/2 months.



I've always liked this little sweet face.


Porter was about 3 1/2 to 4 months old here. He couldn't crawl but he managed to maneuver himself about 3 feet over to Harmon's french fries. We had been having a "picnic" in the living room. I left the fries while I put Harmon down for his nap. This is what I found.

For a long time we couldn't get a good picture of Porter. He always shut his eyes.



Porter's greatest love?? His train blankie that he packs around no matter how filthy it may get. I've started calling it "Frankenblanket" because it has so many random stitch tracks on it now. One day it will just *poof* disintegrate.

At the beach in Florida at 16 months old.


Matching mustaches.


Caught in the act! Hiding under his blanket while he pretended to be asleep so that he could eat his Halloween candy.



And....the big 4 year old birthday cake. He wanted a Transformer cake. I was pretty sure I lacked the necessary time, skills, and patience to create such a thing. Harmon and Porter like to pretend they are at the beach. In one of their favorite Backyardigan episodes the backhooligans (as micah likes to call them) go looking for Tiki beach to surf. So we created a Tiki beach cake. Thank you dollar store! They had all the accessories. tHappy Birthday to Porter!! We sure do love him!

Ella's First Piggies

She didn't feel like having her picture taken. But this is our first attempt at piggies. What an ordeal!

Porter was trying to help her look forward.

She doesn't look convinced, does she?

1-800-CARCASS Removal

North Dakota seems to have an abundance of prairie dogs, a.k.a. dakrats, ground squirrels, burrowing rats. There is a large population of these little rodents living on the Air Force base. They burrow and make huge ankle twisting holes everywhere. When we moved into this house we had a few living around the base of the house. Technically you are allowed to remove them by trapping them for relocation. Yah right. We have some little traps that we occasionally use and a certain pellet gun that "stuns" them into sleeping! *wink* Micah has successfully sent a message via the prairie dog grapevine that a certain corner lot isn't the safest place to try and live.

Two months ago Micah started his mission to rid the yard of these pesky little creatures. Around that time I had come home one morning to discover a large mostly dead dakrat in the front yard. It's guts were hanging out and two crows were picking at it. I walked around near it and it's little leg started kicking. I was pretty grossed out. I called Micah to have him come dispose of the wretched little animal. If half it's guts hadn't been pulled out I probably could have picked it up. But I didn't. Micah wasn't at his desk so I left a very nice message telling him about the grossness of the situation and sometime at his leisure could he could and dispose of the carcass for me. Little did I know that his message system at work is like an answering machine and everyone in his office could hear me leaving this message. They had a great time laughing at my request.

Yesterday I was out watering the grass early and noticed that we had two dead baby prairie dogs in the backyard. They looked like they had been dead quite awhile. I called Micah and told him that he had some more carcasses to remove. He said he would do it at lunch so I left the little bodies where they were. Later that morning we were leaving to go to cooking club and I had Harmon go into the back yard to turn off the water. He saw the dead bodies and decided that he had better take care of business. I was waiting in the van and could not figure out what was taking so long. I went around the side of the house just to see him taking off Micah's big work gloves.

I was so tickled that Harmon thought he should get rid of those dead animals, and glad that he wasn't too squeamish to do it. They were a little bloody. Too gross for me. It is pretty handy to have boy or two around. That's 1.800.Harmonator...your trusty resource for carcass removal.

What's my name?

I bought the boys some letters for their names. We decided to be ambitious today and try to get them painted. I let them paint each letter a solid color. Then they had to endure me doing the "finishing" work. It is tricky business painting with two wiggly chatty kathy's shaking the table at every opportune moment, intent on watching every brushstroke. We surivived and have some pretty cute letters to hang up in their bedroom. The colors match their striped comforters. As I painted each letter we discussed what we should do to decorate it. At one point, Harmon said, "yah, that's a good idea, all your ideas are good." What can I say...I must be a genius. LOL!!

Dirty Words

Tonight I heard Porter uttering a few choice words. Very unattractive, if I do say so myself. It was the GD phrase and I am not sure where he heard that one. He told me that he heard it from a clown...what??? I told him not to do it again or I would wash his mouth out with soap. Of course he said it again...and again. So upstairs to the bathroom we went.


I grabbed a bar of soap and told him to open up. He would not separate his lips for anything so I rubbed it along his lips a little. Then I talked to him about how it was inappropriate to say bad words and that Heavenly Father didn't want us to talk like that. I reassured him that I knew he was a good boy, that he had a special spirit and that I knew he wouldn't talk like that again. For good measure I also told him if I heard it again I would be sure to get his mouth open and wash his teeth and his tongue with the soap. This is where it gets funny. Porter then had this choice little morsel to say to me, "what will HE do?"

"Huh?" I had to think about that for a half second and then asked Porter, "do you mean what will
Heavenly Father do?"

Porter replied, "yah, what will he do?"

I looked at Porter, sighed, and said, "He will just be very sad."

That seemed to be good enough because then he started talking about his toys. Every once in awhile they sure take the wind out your sails. At least he won't be swearing like a sailor now...at least I hope not!

Van Gogh? Oh No!!

Micah saw this beautiful art drawing on the wall and was a tad bit mad. He asked the boys who was responsible for this mess! Their response?
H: "I don't know...maybe it was Porter!"
P: with a shoulder shrug "Uhhh...maybe it was Ella."
Micah: "Yah right, now tell me who did it!"

At this point I stepped in. "Uhh..it was Ella. I saw her scribble on a box the other day and those look just the same."

And voila...a masterpiece! Good thing it was washable marker.

Then Friday night Micah took the boys camping for the father and son campout. Ella was pretty mad about not getting to get in the truck with the boys. We waved goodbye and came in the house. She was still pretty hot and wanted down. As soon as I let her down she crawled over to the magazine holder and proceeded to empty it out and what did she find? A topless brown marker...that looked suspiciously like the one she must have used earlier in the week. She showed it to me, dropped down to her hands and knees and crawled as fast as she could (yep, she's not really walking yet) over to the wall. And this is what happened:

More Wicked Mommy

Tonight while I was on the phone with my sister-in-law, Serena, I said a few things that made her laugh and she suggested I include them in my wicked mommy moments. So here goes.

I believe a healthy dose of fear is sometimes need. My good friend Julianne opened up the idea to me. She is a FANTASTIC mom to 5 busy boys and she is anxiously awaiting the arrival of #6...a girl! She once told me that boys just think differently than girls. They don't think "hmmm, if I do that I might get hurt, or that might get broken." They think in the terms of "hmmm, I wonder what will happen if I do this. I think I'll try it." I have found that to be a true statement.

Once, while living in Washington, a group of us were on our daily walk. This usually included anywhere from 3 to 6 strollers, and 6-8 kids on bikes. We would rendevous near the end and our group would split into two, one going one way and the other the opposite direction. The kids knew that this was usually a great opportunity to play for a few minutes as the moms were busy chatting it up. One particular day the kids were waiting at the rendevous next to a strange truck with a stranger in the cab. We could see them but we were all a little nervous as we would have been too far away to stop something if anything were to happen. When we met up with the kids all the mom's started to talk to the kids about staying close, not talking to strangers, etc. But Julianne....boy oh boy did she pull out a good one. She said something like this, "Now kids, you can't talk to strangers, you never know what could happen. They might try to steal you, take you to Mexico and sale you." The look on the kids face was priceless. They didn't quite believe her but they just weren't sure. I thought I was gonna bust a gut.

I have taken a page from Julianne's book and these are the two things I told my kids tonight. They were exploring the microwave for the first time. Harmon, being the confident 6 year old newly graduated kindergartener, felt like he could operate the microwave. Harmon's nickname is Mr. Confidence, as he thinks he is capable of anything. Ella was screeching for dinner, I was on the phone (important stuff) and the boys wanted to reheat seconds of black beans and rice. I dished it up and told Harmon what to do while I went to attend to Ella. Then this is what I said, "Don't put the spoon in the microwave or you'll blow the whole thing up! Don't forget! No spoon, just your bowl!"
And the second thing happened a few minutes later when they couldn't get the microwave to run a second time. They had opened the door early and didn't know how to clear the time remaining. Rather than explain the intricacies of microwave usage I merely said, "Don't open this up until it beeps or the microwaves will burn your brain." Porter instantly put his hands upon his head.
Am I alone is tactic? I'm guessing not...it certainly has its moments of effectiveness.

I sound like a horrible mommy. I'm really not. Really...I swear!