Our Little Fireman

So I'm pretty sure that LeGrand is going to have a career as a pyromaniac. Every chance he gets he tries to eat the fire poker. Not the healthiest habit, I will admit, but doesn't he look adorable with all the ashes on his face??? No, this is NOT a habit that I'm encouraging, but he's a fast little booger, and I don't have eyes in the SIDE of my head (just the back); although I do need to develop them with him. I also need to develop better x-ray vision; since most of the things he does he waits until I am in another room to do. This is his look of "I know I got caught, but as soon as Mom turns around and leaves the room, I'm going to eat the poker again...".

Duckdate

It's an update on the ducks...

We're out of the duck business. No, they didn't ALL die... just two of them. I had no idea that a duck could drown. Aren't they supposed to be, like, the supreme swimmers??? At any rate... we lost one last week, and then yesterday, woke up to another one "sleeping" (and not waking up...) and I have no idea what happened. Soooooooooo... in an effort to let the remaining ones survive, I stopped at the neighbor's house down the hill (they're in our ward and have somewhere around 75 chickens and ducks) and asked them if they would please adopt 9 little ducknapped ducks. And so, they did. Margaret sobbed for a good 5 minutes, I'm just glad to get them out of the house. It was starting to really stink.

We're back to being chicken and cat farmers. One of these days, I'll get a picture of the kittens posted. They're awfully cute. All seven of them.

And now, I'm off to get the kitchen cleaned and the remaining strawberries frozen and the living room clean. I have one hour, and then I promised the girls (LeGrand doesn't care) that we could go to the free summer movie... The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything - Another Veggie Tales Movie. Next week they're showing Kit Kittredge, American Girl... (And another too, I just can't remember what it is. Our movie attendance is based solely on completion of chores during the week...)

Look for a movie review soon!

Make Way... for DUCKLINGS!

No, this isn't a book review, although that's an excellent book if you have time to read it to your children. This is, in fact, about real, live, in our house ducklings.

Last night, while working at the temple, we were informed that sometime during the night we might need to do some "duck relocation". A mother duck and her 11 ducklings had decided to make the reflecting pool at the temple her home. There are just a couple of things wrong with that:

1. Coyotes. They live around the temple and, because the city won't do anything about them (something about "habitat"), they aren't afraid of people anymore. AND, they're fond of duck. Since the reflecting pool is a favorite photography spot for brides and grooms, it was determined that they need to move.


2. Chemicals. I'm not a fan of chemicals in my water, and I don't imagine that the ducklings were either...


3. Lack of food... another of those essentials. Mommy Duck might have been able to find food, but babies were not doing as well in that department.


4. Add in there the little fountains that are inside the reflecting pool that the little ducklings couldn't get past, and all the little places for them to get stuck, and it just adds up to not a good place for ducks. Not to mention the poo factor. Who wants to have poo on their wedding dress?????

So... it was determined that they needed to be relocated. Since we have a farm (no, we have no pond), and there are other people in this area that have ponds that would LOVE to have ducks (no, I didn't ask, but if you're floating fake ducks in your pond to attract the real ones, that's a pretty good indicator), I volunteered to take them home. That also meant being part of the capture team.

At 2:30 this morning, we went outside to capture the ducks. We'd already put the ducklings into a box (no, they weren't quackers in the box for the coyotes...) hoping that Mom would just join them... no such luck. Instead, she was sitting on the ledge waiting. And the sprinklers were giving all of the ducks a cold little shower. Ducklings moved to a smaller, drier box, and the hunt for the Mom was on. An HOUR AND A HALF later... Ducklings said goodbye to Mom (yes, I know it's sad. But it would be much sadder to have the coyotes eat them...), and our girls woke up to 11 new pets. They're having a grand time swimming in the bathtub (we shower anyway), and all of the children are loving seeing them. Some more than others. (They started out by swimming in the sink, but when I needed to sanitize it to do the dishes, I moved them to a larger location.)

In our house...

Licking your plate is a sign of a fabulous dinner. One that ranks a #10 on a scale of 1-10... I, personally, don't like to get food on my face so I'm not a plate licker. Andrew has taught our children how to show their appreciation of food... I will readily admit that this type of behavior is NOT a frequent thing at our table (maybe that's a bad thing, if it's an indication of how good the food is...), but Margaret was thrilled at the raspberry sauce that went on her French Toast (and pancakes this morning as well...). Her plate was almost clean enough to put back in the cupboard.

Plate Lickin' Raspberry Sauce

Enough frozen raspberries to fill a small
saucepan (about 3 cups)

Sugar to taste (about 1/2 c.)

1 c. water to help with the cooking

2 T cornstarch

1/4 c. white sugar

1/2 c. water

Put raspberries and first sugar measurement and
first 1 c. water into saucepan. Heat slowly so that the raspberries melt
and mix with the sugar and water. In separate measuring cup, combine sugar
and cornstarch. Add cold water and blend well. Add to hot
mixture. Heat and stir until thickened. Can add 1 T lime juice
before serving. This is divine on pancakes with whipped cream
too...

Updated Cute Kids

It's been a while since I had all of the children playing at the same time when I had my camera out... (Timing is, in fact, everything). However - I took the camera outside the other day and caught a few really good ones. Savannah was hunting for flowers that had fallen off of the tree; Margaret was getting ready to go "shopping", and LeGrand was crawling as fast as he could towards the camera. The picture of Savannah will be her school photo - as soon as I get copies of it back from the printer... (which could, in fact, take a while since I haven't taken them to be printed... those of you who still haven't gotten last year's picture can understand the time frame here...). But... here they are on the BLOG... so you'll at least get to see them, even if you don't have them in your hand.

Feats of Daring

There are some things a mother should never catch her children doing... This is one of them:

This is what I walked in on after trying to get some photos ready for the website and for the actual clients to see. He's now confined to his high chair with the belt on... tightly. So far, it's working. A little about this particular photo... My flash didn't go off when I took the picture, so I had to add a little backlighting to it just to bring out the kiddo. Then, because it changed the color of the picture, I made it a Sepia colored picture and vintaged it. I kind of like the way it turned out... He kind of pops off the page - in my opinion.

Andrew and I keep telling LeGrand to sit in his chair... he was - at the time - sitting... On his tray. I guess this means the buckle from now on. At least he can't get out of it... yet.

Little Stinker.