Our Christmas

Here are pictures from our Christmas in a nice little movie for your enjoyment! ;) We had a nice Christmas at home. The kids were up bright and early as evidenced in the pictures by their bed heads! I actually took all the pictures while still in my night gown, although you will NOT see a picture of me from Christmas morn! Dom gave me a new camera, which I was not expecting, since we weren't supposed to get each other anything. When we have "lots" of money, we buy each other gifts. When money is tight we don't and just plan to eat our favorite foods on Christmas, which means seafood!! But he has "owed" me a new camera since last Christmas when he took my camera to work with him and dropped it. I've been able to still use it, but the LCD is broken. So I was pleasantly surprised with a new camera. A very nice one that I'm not sure I will every truly understand how to work, because it is a little complicated.

Dom and I enjoyed our seafood dinner of peel & eat shrimp, crab legs, & lobster. Always look forward to gaining a few pounds from all that butter! The kids had their little smokey hot dogs, summer sausage and by request from Alex, mac & cheese. I usually make cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morn, but Alex had requested bagels which he doesn't get to eat on a regular basis, so it was an easy breakfast for me to make. After all the dozens and dozens of cookies I made the week prior, I was glad not to have to bake another thing.

I decided to make lots of cookies this year, more than ever before. I invited a few friends over to exchange cookies with and also for all of our kids to ice cut-out sugar cookies. The kids had fun and created a nice little mess, but my friend Tammy's oldest two daughters cleaned up for me. That was nice! I made way too much, as I still have tons of cookies after giving some to three of my friends, the mail carrier (who always gives things to my kids on holidays and lollipops on a regular basis), the nursing home where we went to sing Christmas carols, and I sent some to work with Dom for his co-workers to enjoy. I doubled every recipe and tripled a few things. There were buckeyes (tripled), PB cookies with a Hershey kiss on top (that some child keeps eating just the kiss off of and leaving the cookie behind), orange cookies (my sister's recipe), a chocolate cookie with PB in the middle, snickerdoodles, brownies with white chocolate drizzled on top of and then sprinkled with crushed candy canes, two-toned brownie with the chocolate part on bottom and a light brown brownie (minus the cocoa) on top with M&M's, this delicious chocolate/caramel candy thing that tastes just like a snickers bar, & peanut brittle (triple). I think that's it!!! Oh, and don't forget the sugar cookies with icing!!! Whew, was I tuckered out after all that baking!

The kids and I enjoyed singing carols in our neighborhood and going to a local nursing home to sing to the residences there. The neighborhood caroling was kind of a bust, since it was rescheduled to another night due to rain and then the night we did it, it was freezing!! Think 30's, burr. My neighbor put hay bales in the back of a trailer that we towed behind my car. So she and I plus my kids and her son rode around in the trailer. We only hit two houses for a couple of reasons, one it was freezing, two we got a late start because the song sheets she had printed were missed placed and we had to figure out which songs we were going to sing. The kids were a little disappointed that they didn't get to sing at more houses but we still had the nursing home to do. The day we were to do that, all the kids woke up coughing. Alex had already been sick and had been to the doctor, but then all the kids came down with it. But we went anyway, in hopes that I could at least deliver the cookies, but wasn't sure if I should go in with the sick kids. I met two other friends there and they went in ahead of me, while I stayed outside with the kids waiting for them to came back out and tell me whether the staff thought we should stay outside or not. They told us to come on in, just keep our distance. So the kids were able to sing, and were glad of that. I'm glad we were able to hopefully spread a little joy there.

I hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas as well! Here are those pictures set to music from Micheal W. Smith's Christmastime CD, a medley of I Saw Three Ships-Joy To The World. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas

May the blessings of our beautiful Savior be yours throughout the season and in the coming year.

Domenick the Christmas Donkey

Here is a song that Domenick found on the internet a few years ago. We got a laugh out of it then and continue to get one each Christmas when we hear it again. I wanted to share. I set the music to photos of the kids from the past few Christmases. Enjoy!

Jinginy Jing....

Happy Thanksgiving

From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.

Here are the pies I made yesterday, pumpkin, apple, and butterscotch. Quinn helped me cut out leaves to decorate the apple pie with the left over pie dough. The butterscotch pie is my grandmother's recipe that she used to make for the holidays. It has been years since I have had it and thought it was about time I made it! The pumpkin come from my friend Tammy who grew the pumpkins, processed it and gave me enough to make this pie. She also gave me a whole pumpkin that I will process later. We tried growing pumpkins, Seminole pumpkins which are good for this area, that Tammy also gave me the seeds for. But we planted them a little too late in the year, and although they were growing great and producing beautiful pumpkins, our last frost killed the plant and my pumpkins weren't ripe yet. :(

We are spending a quiet thanksgiving at home. It would be nice to spend it with family, but that's not happening this year, maybe next. (Hint, Hint)

So, I hope all of you are enjoying this day of thanks. We have much to be thankful for, health, family, friends, and I am sure there is more if I let my mind ponder longer, but its' time to start rattling some pans. Wishing you all the best.

The Bellavigna Family.

Cute Kittens

This is what greeted me this morning. Three adorable little kittens in my hamper. I had to go grab my camera.


Here is those same three adorable little kittens snoozing on my chair. If you remember another post way back in the beginning of CasaBellaBella when I introduced our critters these kittens look identical to those kittens. They are little "minnie me's".

Here is the mama cat. Notice what she is looking at, the gerbil cage. I have been chasing her away from this every morning lately. Now those adorable little kittens are not always so adorable. Remember my last post where I said I couldn't turn my back for a moment. That's right, there's a story there. I left my post in the kitchen to take a potty break, a girl's gotta go, I returned to a screaming little Anna girl in the kitchen and next to her feet on the floor was a piece of the gerbil cage. Ahh! I frantically started looking for the gerbils who were not in their cage. And we had three adorable little kittens running around. Quinn found the first kitten with a gerbil in it's mouth. I was hoping that we were quick enough to get the gerbil out of it's mouth before any damage was done. Not so lucky. Onto finding the other gerbil. Again, Quinn found that one and again we were not lucky enough. Alex had to bury his gerbils. :(

A few days ago, Dom brought two new replacement gerbils home. One is black and one is gray. I then had to research how to tell the sex of a gerbil, because Dom didn't ask at the pet store. And I was hoping we did not have one male and one female. The kids of course where hoping that we did. I think, after much research and much fondling of the gerbils, that we have two males. Whooo! New names for the new gerbils, Zack & Cody. We had to stay in the same theme as the last two gerbils.

Children Are A Blessing

From the Lord, right? That's what the bible tells me in Ephesians. "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward", Eph 127:3-5. I have to remind myself of that when something like this occurs.

Anna took a dry erase maker and colored all over my kitchen floor, walls, and doors. I can't turn my back for a moment. But do you want to know what I was thanking God for as I was cleaning up this mess? Mr. Clean Magic Erasers!

I Voted

Now all I can do is pray.

Quick Update

Yea, I know, there are still no "catch-up" posts. We've had a house full of sicky germs. The boys came down with a nasty cold last week and now Anna & I have it. But I have still been busy cleaning out my kitchen cupboards. It has only taking me three, going on four days to finish. I don't know why it has taken me so long, other than I haven't felt good and my children are major distractions. I have wiped them all inside and out and re-organized. It was overdue. I cleaned out the fridge yesterday, wiping it all down. I have one more cupboard to go, then I need to oil the outside of the cupboards with orange oil. I cleaned out my oven, which is easy since it is self cleaning, but when I was wiping down the door inside and out, a piece of a sponge fell into a vent hole on the top of the door and I could see it through the window. I tried to bang on the door hoping to dislodge it out of sight, but no luck. This thing was going to drive me crazy every time I looked at the door. I had no choice but to take the door off, which took awhile to figure out how to do, directions and all. Then I had to remove the screws holding the door together so I could get to that sponge. That accomplished, I put the screws back in and had trouble doing that. Although all the screws appeared to look alike, they weren't and I of course put the wrong screws in the wrong holes and couldn't get the last screws to go in. So I had to unscrew them all and redo that. This all took way more time than I had expected it to. But my kitchen is feeling good now. I should say, I am feeling good in my kitchen. I can ignore dirt for awhile until I can't stand it anymore and I don't feel "good" in a room with all that dirt that I know is lurking. Dom has this same problem although he can not ignore it as long as I can. I'm good at procrastinating, like right now, I should be emptying the dishwasher and wiping out that last cupboard, but I'm writing in my blog and drinking coffee instead.

The kids are so excited about today being Halloween. They have been counting down the days and can not wait to go trick-or-treating tonight. I hope Anna and I are feeling up to walking around. Hopefully it won't be too cold. We've had a cold snap this week with it getting down to freezing at night. It's nice to have a change of season compared to living down in Melbourne where you don't notice the change quite as much as up here in North Florida.

Dom's parents are coming for a visit and will be here next week. It is a nice motivator for me to clean those things I like to ignore, like kitchen cupboards. They will be here for Ethan's 5th birthday. Dom will be having surgery while they are here, so it will be nice to have babysitters available for me to go visit him in the hospital. I don't know if he really wants me to broadcast his surgery, but prayers for his well being are appreciated and if I didn't tell you about it, then you wouldn't know to pray. ;)

Well, I guess that is all for now. My cupboards are calling. Until next time.....

Momentary Insanity

Did that title get your attention?


I'm doing better, it's only been 4 days since my last post. I know that I need to do "catch-up" posts, but this isn't one of them.


This one is about my momentary insanity. You see, I have this cute little 7 year old boy. Pictured here.

If you notice he has a butterfly (a real actual living butterfly) on his head.

Well, he loves animals, all shapes and sizes, even the butterfly variety. He has been wanting a bird now for a couple of years and we have this wonderful porch on the front of our house, that for some reason attracts birds. A week or so ago, a bird flew onto it and got trapped as usual, and of course my sweet little boy wanted to keep it. He even called his dad at work to ask him to bring home bird seed for his new found pet. Well this poor little wren didn't last long, only a couple of hours. Unlike the times Quinn has caught hummingbirds in the same manner, trapped on the porch, whom lasted a least a day.

Here is one he caught. He made this elaborate "cage" for it from a sheet attached to his bedroom ceiling.

So, after this little wren died, I told Dom that I think we need to let him have a bird so that he will quit harassing the wildlife. Dom then told me that someone offered him a couple of gerbils that day at work, cage and all. I was thinking, "hmmm, maybe that would sustain his love for creatures for a little while and, better yet, they're free." So I said to Quinn and the other kids, "how about some gerbils, instead." Alex was all excited about the gerbils, he definitely wanted those. Quinn wasn't so sure. He still really wanted a bird. So, being the clone that he is of his father, he came up with this idea. "How about I get the gerbils, keep them for 10 days, then sell them and get a bird," he says. Anyone who knows Dom, knows that sounds awfully familiar and at the same age, no doubt. (Dom & I have this running joke where everything he did as a child, he was 8 years old. Because when he would tell stories about his childhood, he would always say that he was 8 years old, and I would say "oh, come on, you couldn't have always been 8." So now, it is a joke between us.) Anyway, Quinn still really wanted a bird, and now Alex really wanted the gerbils. So what are we, as parents, to do?

We let them have both. See my moment of insanity! I had a bird as a child and I always told Quinn, "no, you can't have a bird." Not because I don't like birds, but because I don't like the mess that they cause. But I just doubled my mess. Two cages, two sets of messes to clean up. What was I thinking? I know, I was thinking that I love my children and I want to give them some pleasure and memories in their childhood. I guess I will survive the mess.

BTW, the two gerbils have been named London & Maddie (think Disney's Zack & Cody show) and the birds are Bella & Bud.

I'm Baaaacccckkk!

Did you miss me, again? It wasn't my "fault" this time for not posting for so long. I have been without internet for about three weeks now. I really missed my web during that time. It is amazing how we get so used to something that is not a necessity of life, but seems like it is when it's not around. How many times did I think, "I'll google that," but I couldn't. I survived though and I wanted to send out a post letting you know that when I said that "I would do better about posting," I meant it.

It all began when our phone company decided to turn off our long distance. We had unlimited long distance, but they said we could not use it for our dial-up internet. Well, we didn't think we were dialing a long distance number for our internet. They said it was a "local" long distant number. HUH?! You see, Ethan loves to download games on the internet, but with dial-up, it takes forever. So we were connected for long segments of time and it must have flagged our account with the phone company, because all of a sudden, we couldn't dial-up anymore. What other options do we have for dial-up? None. There is no "local" number to call and we are not about to pay long distance charges to google something. So, we went back to our satellite service.

In some ways that is nice, but our satellite provider has the worst customer service, ever! Dom was on the phone with them practically every day for a week or two, before they finally reactivated our account and sent someone out to re-point our dish (it must have moved in the year it was turned off). The guy who came out to our house to reconnect us, was at our house for about four hours. He left and said we were up and running. Great, but when I went to the computer to check my email, it wasn't working. Not great! So back on the phone Dom went to talk to someone who could "help" us. Hah! Nothing they had Dom do was working and they said they would have to send a technician out again. Well, we knew how long that would take, forever. In the meantime, Dom kept fiddling with things trying to figure out why it was working, only to stop. My Knight in Shining Armour came to my rescue yesterday, and got me reconnected with my 915 emails. Isn't he smart? Yes, he is. He figured it out, and when I asked him how he did it, he said, "I can't explain it to you." And that is fine with me, as long as I have my internet. It had something to do with polarity? Enough said. So, you mothers out there, if you have children who want to take things apart to see how they work, let them. That is what Dom did as a kid, and it paid off, he can fix things, a great asset.

Stay tuned for "catch-up" posts.

I'm Still Here!

Have ya missed me? I have been busy. Sorry for no recent posts! Meg in Tally finally prodded me into, at least, sending a short post to let you all know I'm still with ya. Thanks Meg, for showing that you care! I was waiting for someone to poke me and say, "hey, where ya been?" I don't know what is with me today with all the "ya's."

I truly haven't meant to let almost three weeks go by with no post. I can't believe it has been that long. I won't have time to write all that has been floating in my head during all this time, but I wanted to write a short post. Now, if I could telepathically write my blog posts, we would be in business. I can draft a post in my head, while in the shower, but can't find the time to physically sit at the computer and regurgitate it back out of my head. (I think I watch too many sci-fi shows, Dom's favorite.)

Last post, I mentioned my goals of getting things done with homeschooling. Well, I have been working very hard on that and I don't get much spare time after everything is said and done. I haven't even been reading my friend's blogs and there is some sort of "blogging contest" going on, so they are writing a lot. Good thing I didn't join that contest, although no one asked me too. :( No, I'm really not sad over that. Who has the time? Not me!

Our tenant finally moved out of our rental property, so any "spare" days that I've had, I was cleaning and painting over there. Cleaning someone else's dirt, really isn't any fun. Good thing I'm not a maid by profession. But wait, I am, but it's my own dirt and that of my family's. That's a little different, plus, I really do clean behind my refrigerator more than once a year. Oh, you wouldn't believe what was behind the tenant's fridge. Ick!

With Dom's furniture leasing business, we went to Panama City Wednesday. I think that is the only time since I last wrote. So there is another "spare" day swallowed up.

I have been meaning to post pictures from a "field day" that the Monticello homeschoolers had a week or so ago. But those pics are still on my camera. Hopefully, I will get those pics to you soon with Alex and Quinn coming in first and second in the potato (or really feed) sack race. They had fun.

We have more babies at our house. My mama cat had kittens again, making it twice this year. Which is a first, she usually only has them once a year and that is in the spring. She's been busy. We have three look-a-likes under the house (where kittens have always been born here). They look just like our current Tiger, Princess, and Friskie (which isn't a stretch since we have three solid gray cats. Make that four). The kids have been under the house to see them, I haven't. I really don't want to belly crawl under there, not a pleasant thought. But maybe, I'll get the kids to take my camera under there for pictures. See, another exciting blog post in your future.

Well, that is a quick wrap up for you. I really will try and do better! I just haven't figured out where to pencil that time slot into my day yet, but I will work on it.

Disappointment

I was so excited about having a brooding chicken. I put books on reserve at the library to read to the kids about the developing baby chick inside the egg. I went online to find out how long a chick needs to be inside the egg, 21 days, and marked the calender accordingly. I cleaned an old chicken water container and food dispenser, in anticipation for the chicks arrival. I "made" the brooding chicken safer by putting her inside a dog carrier, or so I thought.

She made her nest in the barn, not inside the chicken coop. It was open to any would be predator and I was worried something might come and get her. I even lost sleep one night with that worry (a little bit of sleep, I still slept but did wake up on occasion and thought about her). So one night, the kids and I went to her spot and moved her and her eggs inside a dog carrier. We placed the carrier into the same spot she had already chosen. By day, the door could be opened and left open for her to venture outside. By night, it could be closed to keep her safe.

Yesterday was an exhausting day for me. Let me back up, last week was an exhausting week for me. It was "back to school" week. I decided I would get up every morning by the alarm clock!!! I know, that is a novel concept! Being a homeschooling, stay-at-home-mom, has some advantages like not having to get up at a specific time each day. But that can lead to laziness and I have been prone to just that. So I decided to get up everyday at 7:30, get in the shower and actually get dressed before noon!!! I had the kids start setting their alarms also, so that they would be up and dressed to eat breakfast all at the same time and not staggered through out the morning. I decided to start treating my homeschooling like it is my job, so that maybe, just maybe, I will feel like we are actually accomplishing something this year. You see, I have all this guilt that I'm not doing enough with them. After Anna was born, I had this whole health issue with my thyroid, and it has been a struggle for me to get back on my feet. This just happens to coincide with our first few years of homeschooling. Anyway, back to my point. Getting up early everyday, and setting goals (I have never been a goal setter) that we would get certain things done each day, and then actually meeting those goals, well, it exhausted me. So after doing our school work each day, and making three meals a day (why do we need to eat so much) there really wasn't much time for housework. I managed to get a load or two of laundry done each day, but not much else. So I decided Saturday would be the day we clean the house. I had the kids help me (hard for the perfectionist in me, but I'm trying). At about 3:30 we were done with the house, and I knew I needed to go out and clean a spot in my car that had started to mildew. So outside I went with our small steam cleaner to clean the carpet in my car. I thought it was just one spot, but on closer examination, it was several spots. I ended up cleaning the entire car, even removing the back seat and a plastic strip that was under that seat, so I could clean the mildew that was growing under that. I wiped down all the seats, etc,. etc., etc. During all this, I kept running back into the house to finish making a batch of bread, and to start dinner. I had Alex and Quinn stir the Sloppy Joes I was making for dinner, while I went out to finish the car. I was truly exhausted by dinner time when we finally sat down to eat. I told Quinn to go outside and lock our hen in for the night, along with a few other requests. I just didn't have the energy to do it. And I don't think I will allow kids to eat in my car ever again (famous last words).

This morning, Quinn comes in with all these broken eggs, saying, "you are going to be so mad." Yes, I was very disappointed to learn that my hen's house had been broken into last night and she and her "babies" were gone. I was very upset. I'm not sure Quinn managed last night to close the door to her carrier securely and I think a raccoon got her. So my attempt to keep her safe might have been the exact thing that got her killed. I had such high hopes for those baby chicks and their brooding mama. I was surprised at how upset I actually was about losing them. I have told my friend Tammy, who is new to chicken raising, not to get too attached to them, because they are easy prey and many get eaten by wild critters. But here I was, all upset over my hen. I had to remind myself, that it was just a chicken. My children are all well, my husband is all well, I'm all well. It's just a chicken.

This afternoon, I saw a raccoon on the back porch eating the cat food. I hollered "there's a raccoon on the back porch" for anyone who was in the house to hear. Alex said, "why did you say that so loud?" I hadn't realized that I had said it any louder than usual, but I replied, "because I could spit nails at it if it's the one that got my hen." Then Alex said, "Mom, there are three babies." And as I turned to look, not really all that interested, we've seen raccoon babies before, there was one that was tinier than we've ever seen before. It was so cute and adorable. I tried to get a picture, but they ran off before I could. How can something so darn cute, be such a nuisance when it comes to my chickens? I guess that is the cycle of life.

Birds, Birds, Birds

Today, was for the birds. Turkeys, humming birds, and chickens, that is. This morning, I looked out the kitchen window, because that is where I'm at most of the time, and I saw turkeys. I counted about seven of them. I, of course, called everyone over to the window to see them, Dom included. We all ohh'ed and ahh'ed, then Dom walked into the family room and said, "there's more out front." So we all moved to the family room window to see more. The ones from the back had met up with the ones in the front. I then counted about 19. As I was watching them, and Quinn was wishing he had a net to be able to catch one (which he does have, but I did not remind him about it), I remember my loyal readers (that's you) and went to grab my camera to snap a picture. By then they had made it over to the gazebo, as you can see here.


Not long after all that excitement, Quinn gets all excited again and runs out to the front porch. We now had another hummingbird trapped there.


Yes, we still have Christmas lights up. I'm not sure why, but Dom will take down all the lights from outside and store them until next Christmas, but has left the ones that border along our front porch, up. They have been there for about two years now. I guess we are not trying to impress the "Jone's" anymore since moving to the woods.

Of course, Quinn grabbed the first empty ice cream bucket he could get his hands on, and caught the little bird. I reminded him about what happened last time he caught and kept a hummingbird (see Joy of Living in the Woods) and Dom has told him, by the end of today, he will be letting the bird go.

Then to add even more excitement to the day (how can we contain our ourselves?) Alex tells me that he found the nest to my favorite laying hen. Since adding the chicken run to our coop, we have some chickens that fly the coop. Sometimes they go back in the coop on their own, some we catch and put back in, and some stay out most or all of the time. One of my best laying hens has decided to stay out. I knew she had to be laying eggs somewhere, but we hadn't found where yet. Until today. And not only did we find the eggs, but she has decided to brood.Here she is on her eggs inside the barn. Maybe we will have some baby chicks running around here soon. I'm glad God has provided my science for this homeschooling year! For a little while, anyway.

A Few Kid Follies

The other day, we were all gathered around the table eating dinner, when I commented about how our older two children both have dark hair and our two younger children both have light colored hair. Alex looked at Dom and said, "Yea, and Dad has Dottie Dog hair." LOL! (Black and WHITE like Dottie the Dalmatian)

Today, I had the kids sitting at the table doing some "schoolwork" (we haven't officially started back up this year. Next Week) and I was acting a little silly goofing off. I was just trying to have some fun getting the kids to laugh. ;) Quinn looked at me and said, "what did you do with my mom?" I guess that tells me something, like I haven't been silly enough lately!

I thought this was such an adorable picture with Quinn and his kitty. There's nothing funny about this picture, I have just been waiting for the "right" post to include it in. But I'm tired of waiting. I thought you all could enjoy it now!

Streams, Birthdays, and Snowcones

Yesterday, we started drying out, somewhat. There is still much standing water in places and some poor people have evacuated their houses because of flood water. We are fortunate not to have experienced any major flooding at our house. Official count for rain in our area was 19-20 inches.
This is a picture from yesterday. You can see our driveway again, as it was covered with water, as shown in Fay, Fay, Go Away . Dom and the boys spent yesterday doing yard work. Lots of sticks and leaves everywhere. They did a great job cleaning up.

Our footbridge now has an actual stream under it. :) It is normally dry, so this kind of nice. I did not help with the clean up, being my birthday, I didn't do much of anything. I talked on the phone a lot to family (Mom & Alisha) and friends (Jenny & Tammy) calling to wish me a happy birthday.

Here is Dom slaving away at making me dinner. A week or so ago, he asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I said, "do I have a choice," knowing that money was tight. He said, "no, but I thought it sounded good." LOL! So I told him just to make me dinner. And breakfast in bed. And lunch. And.....

So he did make me breakfast in bed. I was already awake and waiting for it, so there was no surprise. But it was still nice. The kids came in and gave me their lovely home-made cards. Later Dom ran into town to buy me a cake. By the time he came back, he asked me what I wanted for lunch, but I had already eaten.

And here is me with my very special birthday dinner. Dom had the kids set the table and I sat down to an empty round plate. Dom whisked that one away and sat down this platter full of food. This is what I had on my plate: a t-bone steak (my favorite cut); kabobs with scallops, potatoes, onions; bacon wrapped scallops; corn on the cob; sauteed asparagus; crab legs and cold shrimp. I was the only one with a t-bone and crab legs which made it special just for me. You'll be happy to know that I could not eat all that food in one sitting. Leftovers always make me happy, because then I get to enjoy a good meal twice.

Dom bought a chocolate ice cream cake. He put the candles on with one on the side, you may be able to see it. I thought that would be tricky to blow out with one breath, but I did it. The only thing is that I forgot to make a wish before I blew out my candles! ;(

Today was the scheduled play date for Fun With Water at my house. I shouldn't have titled it that because I think Fay got the wrong idea! I wasn't sure if anyone would come today, but I welcomed anyone who wanted to get out, to come on by. We had one family come. They are new to this area, so it was nice to get some one on one time getting to know them. The sun actually came out and the kids were able to go swimming (we are still getting occasional showers from Fay). I forgot to take any pictures and I forgot to offer them snowcones, until it was too late and they were leaving. :(

But here is a picture of Alex, Anna, Ethan and Quinn enjoying snowcones after lunch. This snowcone machine is the one piece of equipment we have left from our concession stand/restaurant days. Dom loves his snowcones, so we couldn't get rid of this! You don't even want to know the recipe to make snowcone syrup. Not that it's bad, as in nasty, you just wouldn't believe the amount of sugar in it!!!!! It's what keeps dentists in business.

Fay, Fay, Go Away

Today we are getting blasted by Tropical Storm Fay. She has done her damage in FL, flooding large parts of the state. My Mom and sister, down in Palm Bay, have already experienced 20-30 inches of rain from Fay earlier this week. Now Fay is hitting us here in North Florida and actually might still be giving Central Florida a few more showers. This storm doesn't want to go away and it is covering a huge area. The last count we heard for our area, was 15 inches of rain.We lost power last night at about 10:00 pm. It came back on briefly during the night, only to go off again. Dom got the generator running this morning so we could plug in our refrigerators and freezer. Then he and the boys went to work. Anna and I stayed home to manage in a dark house. I sat on the front porch watching the end of our driveway get swallowed up by water. When it started to get a current, I called Dom at work to tell him, if he didn't come home soon, he may never make it back since we live on dirt roads and they will only get worse the more rain we get. But he wasn't at work, he was already on his way home. Before he made it all the way home, our power came back on. That is how I'm writing this now. :)

While sitting on the porch, I watched a utility truck get stuck in the road in front of my house. Without power to watch TV, that was my entertainment. They were stuck for about 40 minutes before another truck came to pull them out. But while they were waiting, they cut some tree branches down to pass the time. I figured after they got stuck, they would just head out of here. Who wants to get stuck again? But not a half an hour later, I had power back on. These workers are to be commended, coming out in all kinds of weather and all hours of the night, so that I can have electricity. One such person lost his life yesterday in Quincy, FL. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I think it was a tree branch that fell. They are risking their lives for us and we should thank them.

Dom had his fate with a tree on his way home. He was heading down our street and a tree was down in the road. He thought he could push his way through it, but upon doing that, a branch that he thought would push up and over his truck didn't do that and instead cracked his windshield. :( But I'm glad that's all that happened and everyone is home safe and sound now.

I always get to celebrate my birthday with hurricanes. I remember, August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew was predicted to hit Melbourne on my birthday. Instead it hit Miami and I spent my 19th birthday scraping tape off windows. That's what you used to do, tape the windows in case they broke, the glass would stay together and clean-up would be easier. It is just a waste of time and you don't see anyone doing that anymore.

So tomorrow, on my 35th birthday, I won't be scraping tape off windows. But hopefully we'll have power for Dom to make me my birthday dinner. I saw crab legs in the fridge, not sure I was supposed to though. I'll act surprised! Yum, Yum. :)

I Did It!

I've been wanting to cut my hair because it is getting tooooooooo long. And I thought since it is so long, I would donate it to an organization that makes wigs from real hair to give to cancer patients who lose theirs during chemotherapy. I kept thinking that I would get online to see what I needed to do in order to donate it. But days turned into weeks, and so forth. Today, after taking my shower and fighting to get a comb through it, I thought, "I can't stand this hair any longer, I'm going to cut it." So I went online to Google "donating hair." At first I thought I would donate to Locks of Love. They wanted at least 10 inches of hair. I went and grabbed a ruler and measured out 10 inches. "Oohh! I don't know about that," I thought. I remembered that Pantene Beautiful Lengths only needed 8 inches. I measured out that and thought that was a little more doable. But here was my worry. No organization wanted highlighted hair, semi-permanent color treated was acceptable though. They take hair from about 10 different people, put it all together to make one wig and then color it all to match. If your hair has been colored often or highlighted, it won't accept the new dye very well and may not match the other donations. Well, the ends of my hair have been highlighted when my hair was nice and very short. So I was afraid of cutting 8-10 inches off my hair and having it rejected because of it having been highlighted. But I still wanted to cut my hair, so 5-6 inches came off.
Here is me taking a picture of the mirror with my reflection showing the length of my hair. It looks like 10 inches wouldn't be a problem, but that would put it above my shoulders and I didn't really want to go that short. I think this is the longest my hair has ever been. It's called, No Money to Get a Haircut Regularly, Look.Here is my 5-6 inches. I showed Dom these little pony tails without saying a word and his reaction was "tell me that didn't come from Anna!!!!"
Here is my after shot, that Alex took of me. I am being very brave posting this on my blog when I am not wearing any make-up in this picture!!! I still can't believe I'm doing it. I may regret it later.

The Joy of Living in the Woods

This is what greeted me outside my kitchen window this morning. It always bring me a little joy to see these awesome creatures in my backyard. This is part of the reason Dom and I always wanted to live in the country, to be able to enjoy nature and its wildlife. Of course, we didn't think about the deer devouring my rose bushes or tromping through the garden and nibbling on everything in sight. There were a total of five deer outside this morning. A couple of young bucks were part of the group, which is unusual. We normally only see does together and maybe a lone buck once in awhile. At first I saw two deer, one was grooming the other's ear. It was sweet. Then the groom-ee raised up on her hind legs to nibble on my crab apple tree. Once I hollered for the kids to come look, they discovered three more hidden in the woods. Then there is the pursuit of finding them as if we are looking at a Hightlights hidden picture book. And me hushing the kids and telling them that the deer can hear us inside the house.

We've also been seeing a lot of turkeys lately. They, on the other hand, don't bother my rose bushes or garden. Quinn has taken up the desire to catch a baby turkey. I don't hamper his desire, thinking he will never actually accomplish this task. But I also said the same thing when he wanted to catch a hummingbird. I said, "sure, if you can catch one, you can have it." Be careful what you say! We have since had three humming birds find themselves trapped on our front porch.Quinn has caught them and I had to eat my words. Hummingbirds don't make good pets, because they don't live long. They need to eat constantly and don't do that well inside a make-shift cage. But be happy to know, that I did not let him keep the first two birds, we released them. The last one, I finally gave in and let him keep it with the intention of letting it go, but it didn't make it even 24 hours. Poor thing. So, we'll see if he actually catches a turkey.

Fun With Dough

Monday, we had friends over to our house from the Monticello Moms group, that I have been a part of for a couple of years now. It is just a group of moms that get together so our kids can play and we can enjoy each other's company. I am hosting for this month of August. On Aug. 11th, I invited them over for "Fun With Dough." And it was fun, but also very messy.

We started off with dough to make Bubble Bread. Yum!! You pinch of a small piece of dough, roll it into a ball, dip that into melted butter, then dip it again into a mixture of cinnamon and sugar, (1 Cup brown sugar & 2 T. cinnamon), toss that into a bundt pan, and repeat. Once all your dough has become cinnamon/sugar balls, let dough rise for 30 minutes, than bake for another 30 minutes in 350* oven. Oh, this is so good right out of the oven, and is worth the wait. It disappeared very fast with so many little mouths to feed.

While the Bubble Bread was rising, we made play dough. Play dough is fun for the kids, but, oh so, messy for the moms. I should have taken a picture of the mess after everyone left. And the moms did help clean up before they left, but Anna kept playing and then Quinn and Ethan joined her. There was play dough everywhere in my kitchen, where I was trying to keep it contained.

I looked around at the mess after everyone left, and thought, "why did I bother to clean my house before everyone came?" But once I started to clean it up, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had originally thought. I was able to tidy up fairly quickly with help from Alex and Quinn.

I have a few friends who think my house is always immaculate. Hah! With four kids, is that even possible? I spent two days before anyone came over trying to get my house CLEAN. Yes, maybe by some standards it was already clean to some people, but I am a perfectionist and I want my house perfect. Which is really impossible to keep that way with kids in the house. I'm trying to find a balance to that, keep house simi-clean to my standards, but not so clean that I drive myself and my children insane trying to keep it that way.

Overall we had a fun day and I am happy to have had a messy house afterwards as proof of that fun. It was worth it. August 25th, everyone is invited back to my house for "Fun With Water." Don't you love how I've titled them as some great event? We are going to have swimming, sprinklers, and snowcones. I guess I could have titled it SSS. Stay tuned for pictures from that in the days to come.

Thief

I have a thief. I went out to the chicken coop this morning to feed the chickens. I turned around to look and see if I had any eggs where a few chickens have been laying them lately, not in their nest boxes. And what do I see? A SNAKE!!! At first, I was startled, but then I let my brain start to process what to look for. Do I see a rattle? No. Does it have orange stripes, like the poisonous coral snake? No. That's all I could remember for poisonous snakes. I was pretty sure it wasn't poisonous and I thought it looked like an oak snake or rat snake, so I breathed easier. I then stood there and watched my dumb chickens. They were curious about it and just stood way too close, in my opinion, to the snake and watched it. I thought, "you know, curiosity killed the cat or the chicken in this case."

Now back to why I have a thief. I am sure you can figure out why the snake was in the coop. I figured it might have eaten an egg. On closer examination, not too close, I see this egg shaped bulge in its middle. And I thought, "hey you stole my egg!!" The snake was trying to climb its way up and over a wooden wall. Here I thought, "can't you figure out how to get out, like the same way you got in. What, are you related to the chickens?" See previous post Chickens.

So I ran back into the house to retrieve my camera and a book to help identify the snake, hoping that the snake wouldn't get away before I got back to snap my shot. It was on its way out, but not before I took this picture.

It might be hard to tell, but in this picture, the egg is right where the snakes body turns around the wood on his way out of the chicken coop. I figure he might have a hard time getting through the chicken wire with that egg in his belly.

Before heading back into the house I opened my handy Florida's Fabulous Reptiles & Amphibians book and sure enough, I am correct, it is either a gray rat snake or oak snake, pictured here from that book.

I then looked through the venomous snake section of the book, and I was close to remembering all the poisonous snakes. I forgot about the copperhead. But I think if I had seen a copperhead, I would stay away. Pretty much anything with orange on it, I would stay away from. And definitely anything that rattled.

Haircuts

Besides being chief cook and bottle washer in our home, I am also the family beautician. I cut everyone's hair including Dom and myself. Today, I cut the boy's hair.





Here's Alex before I cut his hair. This was a challenge to get him to smile. He didn't want his picture taken. He is starting to act more like a teenager everyday. But he is only nine!














Here is the after picture of Alex. His hair is a challenge to cut. It is incredibly thick and is slightly wavy, making it hard to comb. It seems like I can cut and cut on his hair and never be done. I am always telling him to be thankful for that thick head of hair and that I hope he keeps it all his life.
















Here is Quinn's before shot. He looks kind of cute with that shaggy hair. I can always tell when its time to cut their hair because Quinn's hair is hanging over his ears. His hair is fine and straight so it shows its length faster than Alex's wavy hair.
















Quinn, after. I always joke with the kids about taking off their ears and re-attaching when I'm done. Those pesky ears are always in the way. Its hard to cut around them without actually cutting them.


















Ethan, before. His hair wasn't too long this time. I did a real number on him last time, cutting it quite short. Isn't he cute?















Ethan, after. Looks like he just won a race, doesn't it? His hair is very fine and thin, so it is the easiest to cut, but it also shows any of my mistakes the easiest. Quinn's hair used to be thin almost like Ethan's but thickened up in the last couple of years. Maybe Ethan's will thicken up here eventually too.

Here is sweet little Anna. I didn't cut her hair today, but did it a couple of days ago. Here she is after her bath today to remove chocolate ice cream from her hair. I don't have to contend with her ears while cutting her hair like I do the boys. I just trim the ends and her bangs. The challenge with her is keeping her still, but she's pretty good about it.

Children Are Expensive

One of my favorite quotes is "children are expensive," spoken by Pastor Reb Bradley about child training. Today Anna brought that quote to light. A few hours ago, the boys ran to tell me, "Mom, you are going to be mad at Anna! She flooded the bathroom!" I have to say, I could have been furious with her if she didn't have three big brothers who have already paved the way for her. She is not the first of my children to do this. I think all of them around this age have done the same thing. The most memorable one was Quinn when I was in labor with Ethan. Yes, I was having contractions, just hours away from delivery, when Quinn ran the bathroom sink over and I was hunched down on my knees sopping up water with towels on the floor. So, today, Anna's sink runnith over didn't hold the same weight. There was an inch or so of water on the floor, but Alex, Quinn and myself sprang into action. Out came the carpet cleaner to start sucking up the water. Alex took charge of that while I started drying out the vanity drawers and cabinet. Quinn supervised! In a matter of minutes, the bathroom was cleaned up and I was thankful that it was water from the sink and not the toilet. :)

So why are children expensive? That bathroom cabinet has been water logged so many times, its paint is peeling. Eventually the cabinet is going to need to be replaced. But I say that we should wait until the kids are old enough not to run the sink over anymore. Maybe in ten to twenty years? Sounds like a jail sentence, doesn't? ;)

And let me add that the last child who ran that sink over propelled me to remove the plug permanently. So without a plug, how did Anna stop up the sink? Toilet paper!

Chickens

I am under the impression that chickens really aren’t all that smart. We added on to our chicken coop so there would be plenty of room to make happy chickens and we also fenced off a portion for them to have day time play. In the morning we go out and open their little door to let them have some freedom out of their coop, it’s like recess. Well, a rooster flew his coop and can not figure out how to get back in. He has been on his own for several days now. Seems to me, he is not so smart if he can’t just reverse what he did the first time. He stands on the outside of the fence looking at all the other chickens. You know he wants inside with them, but he doesn’t attempt to fly back into the chicken run. I’ve tried to coax him into an open door, but he is too afraid of me to accept my help.

But not all chickens appear to be so mentally challenged. We at one time had a “pet” chicken. Not by our choice, we were chosen by the said chicken. As I’ve said before, we have had several batches of chickens that have gotten eaten by wild critters. One batch we had a couple of years ago was disrupted one night. When I went out in the morning to feed the chickens, I thought I had lost all of them, until a lone bantam came out of the woods. I could not figure out how this little chicken got out of the coop, but she did and she survived the attack. Smart chicken, right? Yes, but the story does not end there.

As the sole survivor of her flock, we did not put her back into the coop only to meet the same demise as her sisters. We let her free range and roost up in a chosen tree at night. Well, chickens are meant to be in a flock. They do not like to be alone and this chicken proved that. She started to incorporate herself into our family. She stayed on the back porch with the dog and cats. She ate the dog’s food. We even found her in the kids bathroom one night roosting up on the shower curtain. She somehow managed to get in when either the kids or dog came in (Dottie used to open up the screen door with her nose to let herself in). She even spent the night in the laundry room a few times without me knowing it until the next morning. She finally chose our front porch to be her roosting spot at night, right on top of one of my plants. I started calling her CC for Crazy Chicken.
CC and Dottie Dog on the back porch.


CC by the dog food, and she did eat it.


CC roosting on top of the shower curtain.


Quinn holding CC.


We eventually got more chickens and having “secured” the coop, reintroduced CC into the new flock. She even took charge in showing them how things were to be done. We let them out during the day and at night locked them back up in their coop. CC would lead them into the coop at night. It was so funny to see this little chicken leading them all in.

The story ends on a sad note. What we thought was a secure coop turned out not to be. A wild critter started getting in at night. She was the first to go as if she sacrificed herself for the other chickens. I was sad that she was the only one taken that night. Eventually we lost the other ones. This is why we started over with a new coop. It’s no fun to lose your chickens.

Family and friends told me I should write a book about CC’s adventures. I can see in my mind’s eye a children’s series about CC. But until then, blogging about her will have to do.

***UPDATE*** OK, I went outside to take a picture of the chicken addition and the chicken run. I was thinking as I took the first picture, “wouldn’t it be funny if that rooster was back in with the other chickens.” I took a closer look and sure enough, there he was. I couldn’t believe he was ruining my story! No, really, he just made it a happy ending. And I am happy that he is back in the flock.

Chicken Run. This is when I noticed that we again had three roosters back in the flock. They are in the middle behind the tree.

Three roosters by the door that lets them out into the chicken run. The middle rooster is the one that finally figured out how to get back in with the other chickens.