Benjamin and the Kookamunga Lecture

As a parent, I have been breaking new ground with Benjamin this last couple of weeks. For the first time, he has a girl that he really likes, and is trying to create excuses and opportunities to spend time with her. He has even asked for permission to bring her along on family outings.

So this week I had to break out the Kookamunga Lecture.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Kookamunga lecture, I'll explain. (Mom, Tiffani, please forgive me if I have the details wrong.) Several years ago, before Tiffani was 16, she was asking for permission to attend a "get together" that involved equal numbers of boys and girls pairing off together at the event. Mom basically said that Tiffani could call it anything she wanted to, she could even call it a kookamunga, but that if people were pairing off it was still a date and Tiffani couldn't go.

Mom had a good sense of humor. I remember her approach totally diffusing the situation, and that even Tiffani laughed.

It worked just as well for me. I told Benjamin the story about Tiffani, and told him that the Kookamunga lecture applied for him as well. He also had a good laugh.

So, thanks a lot Mom!

Fairest or Meanest

Yesterday, our family went to the Eastern Idaho State Fair in Blackfoot, Idaho. Brendon's mother, Kay, lives a couple of blocks from the fairgrounds, so we parked at her house, and she walked over with us. We had a great time looking at the animals, eating the food, riding the rides, and looking at the exhibits.

As we were walking home, I stopped to admire a yard filled with wildflowers. The woman who owns it was out weeding and I chatted with her for a minute. As we were leaving, Gavin told her "My mom sure loves flowers". He is right I do. And then he said, "She's the meanest in our family". Sadly, he is right about that too.

Reading & Knitting

For the past several months, I have been doing a lot of reading. I like to keep track of what I read on a website called Goodreads. So far this year, I have read 114 books. My goal was to read 125, so I think I will probably make it.

One of the series I have been reading is a cozy mystery series by author Maggie Sefton featuring a character that knits. Reading about this character made me want to knit too.

When I was a girl, my Grandma Buck introduced me to knitting, but it was years ago, and I really couldn't remember how to do it. So after waiting a few weeks, (to make sure I really wanted to knit and wouldn't buy something I wouldn't use) I bought a DVD on how to knit (through Amazon of course).

I really love the DVD. It's called "The Complete Beginners Guide to Knitting" by Nici McNally. The instructions are very clear and it makes getting started super easy. After a bit of practicing I have started knitting a scarf. I think it will look nice with my black wool coat this winter.

Gardening and Exploding Ants

Since I am no longer working, I have been doing a ton of work in my vegetable garden. It really needed it. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that bugs had totally destroyed all my tomatoes, peppers and the little watermelon I was trying to grow.

I had read online that ants were killed by baking soda, so I sprinkled a bunch on the nest in the garden. It didn't really work, so I purchased some bug killer that can be used in the vegetable garden and sprayed the garden down. Then I did a bunch of weeding and replanted the tomatoes and peppers. I also had to purchase pumpkin, squash and zucchini plants as my seeds didn't ever sprout.

The radishes and green onions have been ready to pick, but because of the bug spray we had to wait a week before we could pick and eat any of them. I have been doing more weeding (it never really ends) and am still noticing tons of bugs in the garden. So I went back online to see if there are any other things I can use to kill insects that wouldn't prevent the kids from being able to pick and eat stuff right out of the garden all summer.

I discovered that in order for baking soda to work I have to mix it with powdered sugar. Apparently ants aren't interested in eating baking soda, but when mixed with the powdered sugar, they will eat it. The baking soda is supposed to react with the acid in the ants stomach creating a gas that will cause them to explode.

So, yesterday, I mixed together some baking soda and powdered sugar and sprinkled it in my vegetable garden. Today while I was weeding, Gavin asked me what the white stuff was and I explained what it was, and what it was supposed to do to the ants. A little while later he came back to me and asked if he would hear a "boom". You know, when the ants exploded.

Socks or Gloves

Yesterday, after all the household chores were done, Brendon and I took the kids over to ISU to go bowling. As we were getting out of the car, I asked all the children if they had remembered to wear socks. Everyone but Gavin said yes. Gavin shrugged and said, "sometime I get socks and gloves mixed up." Sure enough, when we took off his shoes to change into the bowling shoes, he had knit gloves on his feet. BTW, shoes don't fit so good, when you wear gloves instead of socks.

Sick Kids and Sandwiches

The past several days, I have had sick children. It started last Thursday when Gabrielle threw up in the very early morning. She threw up again on Friday morning, and then slept a ton on Saturday. Sunday she seemed to be doing much better so we took her to church and had a pretty normal day. Then on Monday morning she complained of a really upset stomach.

Since she hadn't had a fever any of her sick days, and the symptoms seemed most pronounced on school days, I decided to take her to the doctor. I kind of thought that she might have some anxiety about going to school that was manifesting itself physically since there was no fever. The doctor checked her out and said that he thought she had the stomach flu, and I think he was right. Shortly after returning home from the doctors office, Gabrielle started having diarrhea. (Delightful, I know) He thought she would be feeling better later this week, and I am hoping she can go back to school tomorrow.

Yesterday, I was feeling like we were probably getting to the end of things, but then, very, very early this morning, Gavin started throwing up. I think it's going to be a looong week.

The thing that frustrates me the most is that Gavin told me today how much he loves being sick. I'm guessing he likes being able to watch TV all day, drink 7-up, and eat crackers. I know he loves to stay home and not go anywhere, but I'm thinking to myself "Gavin, if you love being sick, you don't feel sick enough"

And now in lighter news, (again because I am sooo sick of cooking dinner) we are having sandwich week. We bought lots of different kinds of meat, breads, cheeses and condiments and are experimenting to see what kinds of sandwiches we like.

Pizza Week and Painting

This week is Spring Break. The weather has been miserable, but we have been getting a lot of painting done inside the house.

Normally, I plan to do painting inside the house in February. But this year, February was unusually busy, and I just couldn't get to it. I took last Friday off from work and used the day to get started on painting over the green in my front room, kitchen, staircase, and upper level hallway. (It was extra nice that I had arranged to take the day off, since Gavin threw up that day. I'm sure I would have been taking the day off anyway.)

Brendon helped with painting after he got off work on Friday and on Saturday. About the time we were finishing off the hallway, Brendon told me that he had really been wanting to switch the kids bedrooms around.

The girls have been sharing a room again for the past several months. (We have put them in separate rooms, but they are unhappy apart, and usually end up sleeping in the same room anyway.) Since, Benjamin had the largest children's room all to himself (it even has 2 closets), it made sense to switch the rooms.

The girls' bedroom had been purple, so of course then we had to paint the children's rooms. We worked really hard all day on Monday and Tuesday and got both the rooms completely painted and switched around.

I think they are all pretty happy with the changes.

Also, since it is Spring Break it is pizza week. We started last Friday and it has been fantastic to eat pizza every night while we have been painting. I totally appreciated the time off from cooking while I've been so busy.

Gabrielle's Baptism Pictures

Gabrielle was baptized earlier this month. We had a nice day and enjoyed the family that came to support Gabby.

Breakfast Foods Week

Several months back, our family ate pizza every day for a week to determine which pizza place our family liked the best. The kids really enjoyed eating pizza all the time, and have asked if we could repeat the experiment, trying different pizza places this time. We are planning to do another pizza week during Spring Break this March.

Because pizza week was so popular, (and because I am crazy tired of fixing dinner and need to mix things up a little to find some enthusiasm for cooking) we are having Breakfast Foods for dinner week. We started this past Saturday, and I am planning to serve breakfast foods for dinner for 7-10 days, depending on how many ideas I have for dinner, and how sick of breakfast foods we become. I could use some suggestions for preparing eggs. I am hoping to prepare eggs a different way for each night's dinner. Our menu so far had been as follows:

Saturday

Biscuits and gravy

Bacon

Scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese and ham

Bagels w/cinnamon cream cheese spread

(We had both biscuits & gravy & bagels because Brendon and I didn't communicate very well about what we were each planning to do for dinner.)

Sunday

Waffles w/strawberry sauce (I made danish dessert into a fruit sauce and added frozen strawberries) & cool whip

Fried Eggs

Pineapple

Monday

Breakfast sandwiches (english muffins with eggs, sausage, & cheese)

Sliced Apples

Chocolate milk

Tuesday

French toast, spread with peanut butter & topped with corn syrup

Sausage (again because Brendon & the kids loved it)

Yogurt

Bananas

Wednesday

Poached eggs

Toast

Bacon

Orange juice

Thursday

German pancakes w/powdered sugar or nutella

Sausage

Grapes

Chocolate milk

Friday

Omelets

Hash browns

Juice