Being Two

There are quite a few things you can get away with when you are two; walking around with nothing but your mudboots on:

Feeding your baby magnetic food:

Bending over and licking snow piled up in the backyard:

and curling up for a rest near the fireplace once the snow fun is done:

There is one thing you cannot quite away with when you are two though, and that is hitting the Smoosh and then the mommy, and then screaming No to everyone.  That is a definite time out.

Typical Family?

We had our favorite pet chicken, Sunny, inside the other morning before breakfast to enjoy some special treats before heading out with a friend to have her x-ray taken.

The boys thought it would be a good time to get some cradling practice in for lacrosse before hammering Green Day songs out on the piano...
















...and I started a "science" experiment for Smoosh to demonstrate why he should flush toilet paper, not napkins, down the toilet.  The bowls were our toilets and we "flushed" them every once in awhile by turning with our spoons. 







I'm pretty sure this isn't how the typical family starts their day out, but it was nothing out of the ordinary for us.

It's been a good weekend

It's been a busy weekend.  Starting early Saturday morning, we headed out to find a pair of bald eagles I had spotted earlier in the week on my drive to work.  With a bagged breakfast of bagels, OJ, and bananas, the happy little crew of kiddos and parents headed out towards Indian State Lake with high hopes of spotting the birds.  Unfortunately, it was windy and they were shy.  No go on the eagles.  We did, however, find a wood duck, geese a plenty, song birds, and a pair of red-tailed hawks.  I could not help but smile as I watched my kiddos eagerly sporting their binoculars in hopes of catching a sight of the bald eagles.  Even Squeaks, staring with the binoculars backwards, was mimicking what she saw the older kiddos do and would eagerly say "biwd, biwd" any time she saw a creature take flight. On the way home, there was eager talks about a scouting expedition for next weekend, maybe even earlier in the morning.

Before 8:30 a.m. even hit, we were back home.  Beans and I headed out with our neighbors to do some fabric shopping and some lunching.  Our neighbor's daughter has the same sort of passion for fabric stores that Beans and I do - ooh the colors, prints and patterns!  The zippers, binding, ribbons, egad!  It just makes me excited typing about it!  Beans and I then spent the rest of the day sitting at the kitchen table sewing and making a mess of thread and fabric scraps.  We were a frenzy of sewing production.  I turned out new summer pj pants for all kiddos, finished a few projects that have been lying around for awhile, and got closer to finishing a few project that have been lying around for much too long.  Saturday ended early in preparation for Daylight Savings and all the kiddos were asleep by 7 p.m., with the big daddy and I close behind.

Then came today.  Oh today, what a day it was!  For starters, I am starting to get Smoosh's cold or whatever gunk he has had sitting in his chest this past week, but we trudged forward with the day nonetheless.  We started out with church and, I hate to admit it, I got a good nap in on my gorgeous husband's shoulder.  AGH!  I often wonder how people can fall asleep in church and today I got my answer; be sick, very sick, and lean toward the man you love and PRESTO.  Sleep comes!

After church, we went looking at a farm.  Yes, a farm.  I feel like a farm has been a normal part of my dreams and conversation since I was old enough to realize that anyone could own a farm, not just farmers who were born on farms.  I just recently connected with my super good friend from high school and told her about wanting a farm.  To her, no big surprise "you've always wanted a farm."  Ahhh yes, I forgot how repetitive my dreaming out loud has been for years.  At times, the farm bug bites me really hard.  Typically, its during this time frame of the year; Smoosh and I have sown seeds in the basement "grow room" for our garden, our chickens have started lying a few more eggs because of the sunlight, and the book list from the library starts to include more and more titles such as "The Hobby Farm Guide," "How to Turn Your Farm into Profit," and "You Can Farm."  My backyard looks awfully small in comparison to such big dreams.  Ahhh...a farm.  So, we have been looking for one, off and on over the past few years.  Sometimes we get as  far as we did today; we actually find one that we think we could live on.  We think we can make it work.  And the price makes it just right to load up the family and go look at it.  And, oh my goodness, the land was beautiful.  The barn was old, full of holes, and in need of lots of elbow grease, but we could just hear the tree swallows in the rafters, the barn owl at night, and more importantly the happy sounds of animals living inside.  Same for the one-car garage and remains of the chicken coop, lots of potential with a lot of work.  And Joe and I kept thinking, we could fix that, we could do that, that's not a deal breaker.  But then we learned its not zoned for animals.  What is a farm without animals?  Not a farm.  That is what it is.  Dealbreaker #1.  Dealbreaker #2 was the house itself; small and unwisely planned out, we could not imagine how we would all fit in there, dogs, fish, lizard, toads, rabbits, and oh yes, I guess the children would need to be squeezed in there as well.  Even if we did build on additions, the house had less workable potential than the buildings.  Oh well, dear little not-farm, I hope you make some other family with less children and no animals happy.

Our next stop was the St. Patrick's Day Parade around Capitol Square in Madison (after a quick dash to Wal-Mart to get white-bottomed shoes for the little parade lady, a.k.a. Beans).  With wig on top of the her head, she pranced off and joined the other little Irish dancers.  The other kiddos did a good job of warming the curb and grabbing candy waiting for Bean's appearance.

Before...

...after!  Poof!

Little flock of blond-feathered bluebirds

An unfortunate accident with Squeaks had both her and I rushing towards Walgreens for diapers, mens' socks, and an upside down T-shirt for impromptu leg coverings and warmth after a very, very wet and soggy diaper.  The timing was horrid as I watched on tiptoe near the counter, eagerly trying to peer out the store window while keeping Squeaks from opening all the candy in the aisle, as the flock of bouncing curls doned in blue sweatshirts pranced their way past us.  Sigh.  At least the big daddy and brothers got to see her!

Its not a parade until a pink bunny comes around singing Irish diddies.

Professional curb warmers.  Note the upside down T on the Squeaks and men socks.  I think she is styling.

And, wait, there was still more to our day!  We headed to Monona Terrace for the CSA open house.  I am all about the CSA and supporting local agriculture, having been a happy customer of a local farm for a year or so.  My passion about soulful, healthy eating is helping out the above-mentioned desire to own a farm.  With the motivation of "scouting the competition," we headed to the open house to see what other farms were out there and if indeed there was enough need that I could make a profit from a hobby farm.  Teresa, the Egg and Poultry farmer, I like the ring of it.  But, alas, that dang chest cold and fever got the best of me and I looked with weary eyes at the big guy to give the signal it was time to go.  I did not get to ask all the questions I wanted or look at all the farms, but, that's OK.  All in good time.

On our way home, the best part of the day (so hard to pick from such a fantastic day!) happened.  We were about to cross the street when we ran into a bagpiper.  What?!?!?  Yes, I do love Madison.  Where else does a bagpiper still linger around the streets of the capitol hours after the parade?  Even better than running into him was the little wigged, smiley girl next to us who charmed a crowd of passerbys when the bagpiper asked if she would dance while he played. "Jig or reel?"  "Jig please."  Oh how I love me some Beans.  And - yes - I got video of it:)

In the background, you can hear someone honking at Beans (of course it was at Beans, I mean - duh!) but then you get to hear the honking of the chant "This is What Democracy Looks Like" as a few cars just drove around the capitol.  For the most part, protesting took a quiet back seat to the parade so all could enjoy a family time.  No matter what side of the issue one stands on, it is incredibly moving to see people freely speaking their minds about their government.  I felt very fortunate to be living through such a piece of history and have my kids there to witness it as well.  I can only hope it leaves some sort of impression on them with how free we really are here.  I had some spirited discussions with Otter about politics but once home, he disappeared to play Zombie hunt with a friend.  Apparently, mom and politics is not quite as cool as Zombie hunting in the backyard.  I did need some sleep and curled up with Smoosh for a little schnappers.  The day ended with big daddy grilling a delicious meal, sharing a fine glass of wine with the neighbor (because alcohol will help kill those germs invading my chest), and early bed times for everyone for the second night running.  Life is good.

Delighted

One of the great things about sewing is that it is a gift for both me and for the person I end up giving whatever I've sewn too.  I love the time I get in front of the sewing machine, playing with the fabric that is destined for one certain person, and just smile at the thought of how much they are (hopefully!) going to enjoy their new creation.  For Valentine's Day, I had a bit of camo fabric left for one particular gentleman and while camo and V-day do not necessarily go together, the big fat smile on his face of love and adoration when he got his new robe was definitely in the spirit of the day:

Since Valentine's Day, he has decided it is actually not a robe, but a cloak.  With his iPod tucked into the little camo pocket, he goes outside, grabs the sunflower stalks, and pretends he's Darth Otter.  I would say he is quite delighted with the whole new getup. 

Baby It's Cold Outside

Last week this time, it was -20 outside with the windchill.  Our gardens looked like this:


















While it was freezing outside, Smoosh and I were happily curled up inside doing what we love to do best this time of year; starting to plan out this year's garden.  Smoosh is at the perfect age of enjoying everything there is about gardening - he loves going through the seed catalogs with me, he loves talking about which plants we should grow, and he even loves have a part in helping me clean up the downstairs "grow room" to start planting some of our seeds for the year.  Otter went through this age and now sporadically will jump in and out of the garden conversations.  Beans will get more excited once she actually is able to see flowers and feel the warm air on her little cheekers.  Squeaks just enjoys undoing whatever it is we are doing at the moment, including dumping dirt onto a clean floor, removing seeds from where she thinks we have "hidden them" (in the dirt), etc.  But Smoosh, ahh, Smoosh is right where I am; he can dream it and imagine it and warms up just thinking about it.  One night, he came into the room around 8:30 (an hour past his bedtime!) but I was very happy to let him crawl into bed and look through the pile of seed catalogs I was already purusing.  For 1/2 hour, he quietly thumbed back and forth through the pages, every once in awhile saying "oh, look at dat" or "I didn't know you could grow dat stuff," even an occasional "hmmm, I wonder what dat tastes like."  I don't mind staying up way past a bed time if it includes happily chasing down the dream of this year's garden.

The next day we pulled the catalogs out again and this time actually started the planning.  There are the garden square plots that get printed up and names of plants penciled in, erased, and penciled in again at least 10 times before we can actually plant anything in May.  Smoosh has very definite opinions about what should be planted where and he loves to point at the different boxes and flipping the pages to determine where the plants will be going.  This is a process that will be repeated several times over before the plants are there.

Smoosh and I even pull out the seed packets that have been patiently waiting for us.  We pull out each one, rewrite how many seeds there are, which ones we have, and record the times for seeding, transplanting, and harvesting; as if we do not know by now how long each one will take....we then gently tuck in the container of seeds and tell them we will be back in a few weeks to start planting.

Valentine's Day

Our house makes a big hurrah of Valentine's Day, if for nothing else than it is another reason to create fun things, decorate the table and house in fun ways, and do fun things together.  Everyone had a few Valentine's Day books to read about:









Then there was the preparation of a fun cake and Valentine's Day meal.  The girls were very adamant in having a large role in preparing the food for V-Day meal.  Squeaks helped with baking the cake;

Dark picture, but just needed to show that Ellie had to be a part of the cake making too.

Ooohh yeah, got to make sure the batter taste correct (side note, nice thing about having our own chickens and eggs not even 2 hours old, you don't really worry that much about things like Salmonella....it just doesn't have a chance to grow and makes licking batter such a less death-defying adventure!).

Beans had been planning the meal for Valentine's Day for the past week.  Let me tell you, a lot of thought went into the menu; Macaroni and Cheese and Hot Dogs.  She put a lot of planning into everything for Valentine's Day.  She spent over a week creating bookmarks for her class and just about everyone else she knew.  The night before, she laid out her Valentine's Day outfit complete with matching heart socks.  She reminded Joe and I quite a few times to get all of the ingredients for dinner so she could cook it.  Quite adorable.  

Both girls helped set the table, full of hearts.

One of the cutest things to watch was the excitement Smoosh had over the whole affair.  When we were doing his Valentine's for his class, he would say for each one "I hope so and so likes the card I am giving dem.  I hope I get a card from dem too."  Then, when he came home on Valentine's Day, he was absolutely thrilled with his box of goodies and cards from everyone in the class.  Otter and Beans played into his enthusiasm for him - they are great older siblings....most of the time....

All-in-all, another fun day had by everyone...even Otter who is so quickly outgrowing this type of stuff but thankfully does not mind "pretending" to enjoy it all with the rest of us.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

As part of our snizow dizay, we made some yummylicious ice cream sandwiches.  Yummy.  Squeakers made sure to do everything just as diligently as the others; right down to making sure the utensils were properly "cleaned."

Here Otter, let me show you how to do it.  Obviously there is not enough filling in there.

Ok, where is everyone when it is clean up time?