Happy Valentine's Day

Young lovers, without much

Save each other, isn't that enough

Paint the future, a little day by day

Making plans with no regard for what might come our way

This cup fills up so quickly

There's so much on our plate

Between the living and the learning

Some things must wait

So we never got to Paris

And found the café of our dreams

But our table holds a whole world of memories

No, we never went to Venice

And strolled the streets alone

But we built our worlds together and we got the best of both

There's still wonder in our eyes

But we see each other in a different light

Yet the future isn't always clear

Now the question is where do we go from here

This cup fills up so quickly

There's too much on our plate

Between the living and the dying

Some things must wait

So we never got to Paris

And found the café of our dreams

But our table holds a whole world of memories

No, we never went to Venice

And strolled the streets alone

But we built our worlds together and we got the best of both

We may never get to Paris

And find the café of our dreams

But our table still will hold a world of memories

If we never get to Venice

And roam the streets alone

We'll hold our worlds together and we'll keep the best of both 

So We Never Got to Paris by Out of the Gray

Listen to the song here

We have arrived

Poor Daddy has had to wait a long time for this day. Small people to play videogames with!

If you own a blog, read this

It seems there's a huge wave of adult sites trolling blogs right now, and nobody really knows why. To post spam comments? To download the pictures?

Anyway, Patrice at Everyday Ruralty has a big article on it. I recommend everybody reads it and checks their site traffic.

Forecasting the unborn

I've been closely observing the activities of this latest kid. She's due in April, so I have about ten weeks to go. I wanted to write down what I thought she'll be like, and check back after she's born to see if I was right.

First off, she never sleeps. NEV-VER. I imagine she sleeps at night when I'm asleep, but I wouldn't know because I'm so used to her attempting to break my pelvis.

Second, she's nosy as heck. She was flipping and kicking and being generally busy as we were trying to go to sleep one night. So Ryan start patting my belly to get her to calm down. All of her movements focused on the spot that he was patting, and she tried to kick or pat him back. If anything else pokes or prods my belly, she moves over to that spot and investigates it.

She knows her siblings' voices and starts moving around if they start talking.

She loves being read to.

Once she's born, and she finds that she can't roll over and move however she wants, she will NOT be a happy camper. I'm expecting her to cry a lot and only sleep when I'm either walking or rocking her. This prospect does not fill me with joy. Possibly she'll also have colic like Alex did for the first three months. Hopefully I know more about managing babies than I did with Alex, so it won't be as bad.

So that's my baby forecast. We'll see how close I got once she's born and I've had time to get to know her little personality.

Sunday at the park

It was such a gorgeous day today that I made it a park day. With the ulterior motive of going to the mall first. :-)

Anyway, it was about 65 degrees today, and I got to sit in the sun until I felt my face start to burn. It was wonderful. The munchkins got to run around like little wild indians. And climb slides from the bottom up.

I'm so glad Holly's finally big enough to enjoy the park. She was running around with the bigger kids, totally unaware that she's not even two yet. The big girls there thought she was adorable.

Alex, my gregarious one, ran around and helped this other little kid build sand castles with a bucket and tear them down, over and over.

Then this girl showed up and graciously let them play with her sand toys. I made sure they asked politely first, and told her thank you when it was time to leave.

All in all, a very nice day at the park, even with the jillions of people there and the impending birthday party. Fortunately we got out of there before the party started, or I'd have had to explain to my munchkins why they couldn't have any cake.

Spring books

Do you have books that you can only read at certain seasons? Like, books to read in the winter, books to read in the spring, and so on.

I've been wanting to read my Spring books, and I might just collect them and start chugging through them. Here's my list:


The Secret Garden. Oh man, this one is TERRIBLE if you have spring fever, because you want to get out in the dirt so BAD. But it's a lovely spring book.

The Four Story Mistake. For some reason I read the various books in the Melendy series seasonally. Winter is The Saturdays, spring is the Four Story Mistake, summer is And Then There Were Five, and fall is Spiderweb for Two. If you've never read the Melendy books, treat yourself and pick them up. Just fun, funny, beautifully-written kids books about a squirrely family and the adventures they get up to.

The Dalemark Quartet. This one is a recent addition to my Spring books, probably because I first read it in the spring a few years ago. Or maybe it's because the first book, Spellcoats, takes place in the early, early spring. Oddball fantasy juvenile fiction with almost no magic, and yet has a great deal of magic. And the last book has time travel! What's not to like?

Lord of the Rings. This is more of a winter book, but usually it's almost spring by the time I finish. I like to read it when it's dark and cold, because then I can imagine that I'm out with Frodo and Sam in the cold, and when it's cloudy, it seems like that cloud of darkness that comes from Mordor in the last book. Not something to attempt if you have issues with depression, though.


Gray Dawn. Another of my favorite spring books, because it starts out in the springtime when Gray Dawn, a collie puppy, is the lone survivor of an unfortunate litter. And he goes on to be an absolute terror, and it's so very hilarious. You go the whole book wondering if he's a really smart dog, or a really stupid one.

I know there's more, but that'll do for now. Do you have any books you read seasonally?

Kid's eye view

Imagine you are this goofball almost-four-year-old.

Imagine Mommy has taught you how to take pictures on her camera, and then tosses you outside with it.

There were a lot more pictures than this, but they were either very blurry or extreme closeups of mystery objects.

Like this.

He just adores my camera. He runs the batteries down in it every time I lend it to him, and that's with the flash turned off, too. I think he has the makings of a real good photographer.