Saturday Afternoon Nap

This video is for audio purposes only. I used the baby monitor to listen to what the boys were doin after Wy climbed in the crib for the second time during their 'supposed' nap time. The stow-away's first attempt landed him somewhere on the body of his pleasantly sleeping brother. Of course, he woke with the fear of God registering all over his face and let out a huge scream and then lots of cryin. When I went in to get Wy out of the crib he had his arm around JD and was tellin him, 'it's alright, Jair-rett. Go to sleep.' When Wy looked up at me, he had that pitiful look on his face and he said, 'I wanna sleep wiff my brudder.' My heart melted like butter on a hot biscuit! It was so hard to take him out and explain to him that he was such a good big 'brudder' but that JD was sleepin and he needed to stay out. The visual part of the video is our maple out front where we live our life. Please excuse the static in the monitor and the birds singin. Earlier today the boss told me that the birds were talkin to him and singin to him.

The rain, I have to say, is gettin to be too much. The boys have that stir-crazy, cabin-fever attitude about them. I've taken them out to the garage to play, we've played in the rain a number of times, but there's just somethin about not havin that sun shinin. A good thing about the rain though, is that my flowers are soakin up the water! Everything's so green!





This spider's wort or sleeping flower is just about ready to pop out with blooms:

Here you can see just a hint of the color that's comin:

The sweet william have all bloomed and they look so colorful against the drab old wood fence.



The vinca look bright and cheerful!



My labrador violets will soon be sportin their new look too with delicate purple faces:

Right now they look a little blah though. My flags, or irises, are lookin tall and proud:



Little by little the color is coming!

Somethin' 'Bout a Pickup Man

Not that I desire our boys to resemble this song, but it was kinda funny it played on the radio right after they got in the truck.



Don't get me wrong here. I've got a 'pick-up' man. I can't imagine him not bein a 'pick-up' man. It's somethin I love about him. Seein him drivin a car would just be weird. I'm a 'pick-up' kinda woman myself and I'm pretty sure our boys will be 'pick-up' men too. That's a good feelin when you see your hubby drive up in his pick-up. Makes the butterflies start doin their flips in my mid-section. And I've a good suspicion he likes seein me drive our pick-up. Oh? What's that you're sayin, Babe? 'Scuse me, HIS pick-up. He likes to gripe about me drivin it and I think that's why he's not bothered to charge the battery for so long now but I know it really doesn't bother him at all. He just likes to act like it does.
I think I may just get out there and charge the battery after all!

Friday Rain Bahs

Ugh! I'm thankful for the rain but I'm so tired of it! I want the sun to come out! The boys are goin stir crazy not bein able to be outside! Playin in the garage just doesn't hold a candle to bein out-of-doors!

Talkin bout bein outdoors. Tuesday evening and Wednesday evening I got bites on my legs and one on my hand from somethin. Somethin that I can't see and can't feel. The boys and E never got any bites so whatever it is, it seems to have a personal vendetta against me, and only me. Maybe that's because I'm the one that sprays the yard and deck for little organisms that bite, just like them! Last night, E and I had a date night (we can't even remember the last time we had one!) so I wasn't out on the deck to get any more bites. Hopefully all the rain will go away soon because I plan on sprayin the deck off with apple cider vinegar. ACV is a miraculous wonder-all, fix-all ingredient that stays in my pantry in huge volumes. I used it to help dry up the molluscum contagiosum (red bumps that many kids get-a virus that just takes it course and then leaves) that Wy has had for more than a year. It's finally on it's way out! And just in time for summer. I give ACV to the dogs about once a week to ward off fleas and ticks and keep them from gettin bladder infections and/or UTI's. Buster is the one that gets them about every 3 months. Humans can take ACV too for a variety of ailments. I used it to help dry up these mysterious bites. Just like vinegar and peroxide ACV is a must in my house.

Last Saturday I had the awe-inspiring thought to mop the wood floor and tile. I have no idea why because we've had nothin but rain before and since Saturday. With 2 dogs and 2 kids, and a hubby that works construction and me, who can't stay inside for more than 2 hours, it was a futile attempt to clean. Oh well. At least it was clean for 40 minutes!

With this rain I feel the urge to make up some pretzels. I think we might have pancakes for lunch. Yesterday I used 15 lb test line to re-string my wind chimes. I figured, here in Kansas, 15 lb test line should be sufficient to keep the thing together in our wind.

Tonight E has a steak feed to support a local boys baseball team so I'm plannin on takin some time for me tonight after I get the boys fed, bathed and in bed for the night. I'm really lookin forward to it! I had a friend ask if I wanted to do somethin tonight, since her fiance (our very good friend) will be at the steak feed too. I apologized but explained that after I take care of the boys and all that I'm takin time for myself. My! How things change after the babies come! Ha! It wasn't but 3 years ago that I would have had all the girls over or we'd have all gone out and had a drink ourselves without our guys. Most of us are startin a little later than usual with the family thing. It's been nice to have the rest of them catch up to us in the nap/supper/bed schedule routine. Now we schedule all our get-togethers and cookouts and horseshoe parties around our kids' schedules. It's been a fun change for each and every one of us. This summer we'll have even more kids runnin around with all our dogs at the lake!
Where oh where are the warm and sunny days?







I can't wait to go fishin on the river...

...and the lake.





I know it's comin and like I said, I'm thankful for the rain, 'cept that my garden has been drowned and I have carrots poppin up in places that I did NOT plant them in! I have to start a bunch of new flower seeds too because the torrentially strong rain washed out the seeds! I'll be amazed if any of the seeds have took hold. Usually, I have problems with too many plants and not enough space but I have a feelin this year is goin to be different. I also think it's goin to be a really hot summer too, but what do I know? I'm just tryin to keep my seeds in their respective areas and enjoy the beauty of life when and wherever they come up. I'll be happy with whatever! At least if they have been washed away I won't have so much time-consuming watering to do!

Thursday Morning Calm

This morning I had visitors with my cup of coffee. It was the good kinda visitors bein that early and all in the mornin. I only wish Wy would've woke up early to be out there with us. I know that I've been wantin him to go back to his old schedule of sleepin in but this mornin was different. It was a pair of ducks from down at the creek. They've been nesting in our neighbors yard and I guess they decided they needed an early mornin stroll through everyone else's yards to scroung up some grub.







There they go. Thanks for sharin the mornin with me. It was the calm before the storm for the three of us. Quite literally for them.

Hope your morning chow was as good as my cup of joe!

Trouble in Twos

Man, this kid...I'm talkin bout the boss kid. He's one of the best things that's ever happened to us, obviously, but blast it! He's so stinkin ornery! Yesterday, when the boys were s'posed to be nappin I heard a bunch of bangin: on the wall, the window, and then on the crib. I waited, and waited, and waited. The bangin on the crib kept comin every couple minutes. I'd hear Hoss laugh and giggle. Finally, it came to me. Wyatt had climbed in the crib. So, I thought, if he got in there, then he can just fall asleep in there. Problem was, they weren't wantin to go to sleep and were pretty fussy. When I didn't go in to get them they started cryin. Loud. Then I heard them both start cryin my name. 'Mama! Mama!' I knew they weren't gonna go down. When I walked in, I also knew to bring my camera and here's what I found:

It's plain to see they were feedin off each other. They've been doin that a lot lately. Like brothers will do. I know more is comin. JD seems to think he can't fall asleep if Wyatt isn't in bed either. It works out alright because Wy never falls asleep for his nap as fast as JD and Wy's been gettin up earlier than usual, unlike JD who's been sleepin in later than usual.
Here's some more orneriness from the boss:





He sure beats all, I tell ya. The imagination this kid has is huge. He loves to play finger puppets while I'm nursin Hoss before their afternoon nap. My mom brought out a set of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears the last time she was here. We always play Dora, Diego and Boots though. At first, he kept wantin to be Dora. I told him he should be Diego because of the gender factor. He didn't so much like that. So, I initiated the game the next time and said, 'Diego! Diego! Where are you? It's me Dora!' Without missin a beat, he sticks up his index finger and says, 'Hi, Dora! It's me! Boots!' I wasn't expectin that at all! He was fast!
Today, as I was nursin JD before nap, Wy asked me if I wanted ice cream. Then cookies. For the cookies, he had to reach up and get them out of the cabinet and he said he couldn't. So I told him (all pretend, mind you) that there was a ladder right beside me and he could set it up and get the cookies. He told me that the ladder was too big. Okay.....come on mom....think! I told him I had put a step stool in the corner and that would work. He told me it wouldn't. Then he got the 'ladder' and said he wanted a BLUE ladder. I don't know where he comes up with these things!
Today, the boys were giggling more than usual and I walked in to find Wyatt in the crib again. When I reached to get him out he just gave me that ornerier than the dickens look with a huge grin that twinkled his eyes like stars.

Severe Sunday Continued and the rain barrel is full

Okay, it's not actually a rain barrel. It's a muck bucket. It's not used as a muck bucket either but a toy for the boss to play with and in, like this morning, when it looked like this:

He was soaked in 3.948 seconds of walkin out the door. The kid just can't leave water or mud alone. Not only was his arms in this bucket up to his elbows but his pants somehow got wet up to his knees, with no mud on them. He had overturned one of the dogs' big water dishes, actually a rubber tub for grain, and used it to stand on to dip his legs into the water.
After the first round of storms yesterday afternoon the roots from the maple all stood on end:

Then around 6 p.m., after there were two warnings of tornadoes, each within 7 miles from our place, the second storm came rollin in. This time we got to see clouds! And it was beautiful!









And it was dark!







We had high winds but not the straight-line winds that folks close to the storm had.

Our winds blew the rain into the louvers of the vents under the eaves of the house. We had some dripping on the stairs and some pooling up in none other than....a light fixture. Yeah, I went to turn the light on over the sink this mornin and it didn't work. It was dark so I didn't even think to look up. At lunch it was dark in the house because of all the cloud cover and I remembered it didn't work so I looked up and saw this:

Very safe. And since the house has been wired a little differently, we have to shut off all the breakers in order to drain this thing. I'll be honest. I'm a little jumpy.
Signing off and thankful to have a somewhat dry but not burned down house!
P.S. After draining that one, we've since found another light fixture in the same condition. This time just half full of rain water.
P.S.S. This has only happened in one other storm in the 7 1/2 years we've lived here.

Severe Sunday

The meteorologists have said that today the storms could be the most severe we've seen yet this season.

Ominous, dark, heavy. Severe. Watches. Warnings. Most of that describes Hoss, otherwise known as JD. I wonder if it has anything to do with the weather because that's exactly the adjectives for the weather outside right now. We've had no sun. None. It's been overcast the whole day with no definition to the clouds. We haven't been able to see the storms roll across the prairie like we usually do witht the huge bright thunderheads.

Yesterday there was a line of storms from just west of OKC, up through Wellington and Winfield, on up through Andover, Augusta, El Dorado and on to KC. At the racetrack last night, the Nascar Truck Series was in progress when they had to call a halt to the race and 30 minutes later a tornado was spotted in that area and went by the track.

Today there have been a handful of tornadoes already to the west of us 'round Greensburg and Pratt and farther south in the panhandle of OK. Our whole state is in a tornado watch with some already in the warnings. The cells today are poppin up farther west and south than they did yesterday, which, when you think of polo, 'man-line-ball', you just have to switch it to 'town-line-storm' and that's how it happens out here. Generally speakin, if the storms are headed in a NE direction and Guymon, OK and Anthony and Harper, KS are lined up in there then we're gonna get hit too.



Definitions of the day:

Hail:half dollar sized, golfball sized

Strong/severe winds: as in 70-75 mph, tornadic

Lightning: cloud to ground, like the one that just hit 6 seconds ago. Hello cable! Please stay on!

Heavy rain: as in 'it's rainin like a cow peein' on a flat rock' kinda hard or as in 'rainin buckets' or 'rainin cats and dogs', torrential

Tornadic activity: the 'weather ones' have said that today is a perfect set-up for severe storms and large, violent and long-lived tornadoes.

It ain't a kitten out there tryin to play. It's a big mad polecat stretchin her claws and flexin her muscles. The thunder is comin in loud cracks followed by giant rolls. The raindrops are huge. Okay, now the rain is just plain torrential. I can't see more than 100 yds away. The tv is strugglin to keep cable so I'll probably be shut down here soon from rain or lightning.

The street is flooded slightly:

Our front yard is flooded more than slightly:



Hold on, the sirens are goin off.....okay, the warnings are for 4 miles to our east and on up in a NE direction. No tornado yet, but strong rotation.
Portions of our side yard look like it's in dire straits:

Well, the grass seed in the front yard might be gettin the required 2" today!