Just a quick note to all my friends who read this, I took the plunge awhile ago and joined Facebook (after much prompting from some church friends –*cough, cough* Joe & Jamie.) Anyway, if you want to add me to your friends — even if I don’t know you in “real life” — use my old e-mail address:

n9syu (at) yahoo (dot) com

You know the drill. Look forward to seeing you there, too.

Anyone else heard of the sport of extreme ironing?

It’s real. I’m not joking. Here’s their site.

Apparently, it’s catching on all over the world. It’s described as “the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt.”

You really need to follow the link. Their gallery includes photos of people ironing shirts on the sides of cliffs, underwater, in the middle of busy streets in New York City. Incredible.

It falls under the category of “why?” for me, but I’ve always been one to enjoy freshly ironed clothes, so I’ll let them do it however they like.

Just makes me wonder: does it qualify as extreme when I’m holding one baby and another is trying to climb the legs of the ironing board while I prepare everyone’s church clothes?! Just curious.

We’ve always been cautious not to tell our children what to pray, but to let them pray what’s on their own tiny, little hearts. Sometimes the results are amazing… sometimes we nearly fall asleep as they thank God for everything they can see.

“Thank you for the napkins, the salt, the pepper, my drink, Andy’s drink, Brady’s drink…”

I almost started laughing last night as usually-articulate Connor got a bit tongue tied while thanking God for the gourmet hot dog dinner I had made.

“Dear Gog, thank you for the gog-gogs…”

Maybe you had to be there, but it was cute.

Evan has recently picked up a new word. Her vocabulary is expanding rapidly. That’s exciting, but this newest addition is of the four-letter variety and it does not make me happy… at all.

Keep in mind that this is a word that her Daddy and I rarely use and we desperately try NOT to teach it to our children.

Yet, she says it over and over again now, daily.

I suspect she picked it up from one of her big brothers, each of whom should know better than to teach her such a terrible word. Besides, it makes her sound like the seagulls in “Finding Nemo.”

The worst part? She doesn’t even use the word correctly. In fact, the cell phone she carries around the house belongs to me, not her.

So, her use of the word “mine” is not always spot on.

I’ll forgive her, though. There are worse things she could be doing.

Here she is at the park earlier this week.
Yup, you guessed it… She claims this slide
is all hers, too.

Our house is fairly small, but our family and dogs are not.

We have two… dogs, that is, not families.

The first is a police canine German Shepherd and the other is a Boxweiler. (That’s a cross between a Boxer and a Rottweiler, for all of you out of the loop.) The point is that our dogs, like our family, require a lot of food. We buy in bulk across the board.

But, where to store 44 pounds of dog food at a time in such a small house? And where can we do it so the kids don’t play in it?

Taa-daaa! My solution was something like this. It’s actually a hamper, bought from a local discount department store (whose name may or may not rhyme with schmal-mart). It’s lined with vinyl, so the smell of dogfood in my kitchen isn’t overwhelming.

The one I bought has a faux woven fabric covering it and even has a cute rope handle. It’s so unassuming that it sits in the corner of my kitchen and just looks like an oddly vertical basket. But it was so much cheaper! (I think we paid about $15 bucks for ours five years ago.)

So, our pet food is easily accessible without sitting in a huge bag and without taking up valuable garage space. For the most part, the kids stay out of it, too… Though I have caught Connor sitting in it recently, but we won’t get into that now. Otherwise, hiding my dog food in a hamper works for me.

Want to read more ideas that are way more brilliant than mine? Head on over to the Works-for-Me Wednesday list at Rocks in My Dryer.

Next week we’re slated to officially begin our lives as a homeschool family. We plan on doing it pseudo-year-round, so I’m trying to squeeze every last drop out of summer this week.

I took the kids to a secluded park today. We’d not been to this one before, but we’ll definitely be going back. It was quiet and just the right size for my kids. Plus, there’s a walking trail around the small playground for me. Ahh!

Something about the artist in me just can’t pass up a chance to take photos of the kids at a playground. Maybe it’s the bright colors, or all the clean lines, or maybe just the free-spirited moment of it all. Whatever the reason, here are my wacky kids today:

Ferris enjoyed just being outside, but she also
liked the shady spot we found for her.

Evan still loves swinging, but relished the independence
of climbing up and down the playground steps
all by herself. There’s a reason we call her “Monkey.”

I had a bit of trouble getting Connor
to do anything but swing, so this was a rare moment.

Brady, who refers to playground locations by color,
really enjoyed scaling on the “ramoon” (maroon) mini climbing wall.

Here I am with my new Kindergartner, Andy.
Not many teachers get to kiss their students.
By the way, I scored major cool points with the boys
by wearing a baseball cap today. I hadn’t done that in years.

In a rare moment, I got them all to sit still:

My stair-stepped blessings.

Yesterday was one of those days. Thankfully, today is much better. But yesterday, whew! Let’s just say I’m glad it’s over.

It started like this…

… and ended with a migraine.

I’m so thankful that God’s mercies are new every morning.

Over at Rocks in My Dryer, Shannon’s hosting a fun haiku-writing contest. The prize is a whole bunch of cool stuff, but I only entered because I thought I had a unique idea for the content. Anyway, her contest required us to “write a haiku commemorating the whole back-to-school thing.”

Here’s what I came up with:

Rookie homeschool mom
Students don’t like new teacher?
“No soup [lunch] for you!”

So, what do you think? Am I the next poet laureate?

When you desperately need to do laundry and just can’t wait to play outside, wear Daddy’s firefighter boots.

Pants are optional that way.

Here’s reason #515I love my husband: He’s just plain funny.

Tonight during our spaghetti dinner, I asked each of the boys what sport they’d like to compete in for USA in the Olympics. (We can dream big, can’t we? They’re only 2, 4 and 5.)  They each gave me several answers and changed their minds a lot, but no one gave me the answer I was hoping for.

“No one wants to be a gymnast?” I asked.

Without missing a beat, my silly Nate piped up, “Don’t worry, honey, Evan can compete for China in four more years.”

So, watch out gymnasts! Our fearless baby girl Evan is London-bound in 2012!

Remember this photo? She was just 12.5 months old here
(back in February ‘08.) She’s a fearless little thing.