October flies right in

Fifi is now my cuddly little girly girl. Beans broke my heart the other day when we were getting ready for Church and she informed me she 'doesn't like dresses.' WHAT? Next, she'll be telling me her favorite color is blue. Beans favorite thing to wear are jeans and her Hello Kitty! long sleeve tee shirt. So, we are all happy here the weather has turned and it's now in the 80's so she won't die of heat stroke in the name of fashion. I'm also not allowed to do anything besides put in a clippy into her hair. No pigtails. No curly ribbon pony tails. No french or other kinds of braids. No headbands. I can only look at other little girls and dream about the possibilities. Fifi is sprouting a little more fuzz on the top of her head, so the Crusty the Clown look is dissipating and I can actually get a little, tiny clippy to stay in for a while if I take every strand of hair possible, twist them together to create a rope, and then fasten it within an inch of her life to her scalp. Viola!

We spent this past Sunday at the Miramar airshow dragging a feverish 12 year old and four other winsome children around 25 miles of tarmac to look at things with wings. And see war games with real smoke and real loud BANGS! That Fifi didn't like last year, and you know what? She doesn't like them this year either. We saw the Blue Angels, but it was kind of a let down, after practically living with them at SeaFair forever in Seattle. Nice to have a little bit of home with us since we can't rely on the Dawgs to give us a warm fuzzy feeling. Can't wait to see the Notre Dame fans at the boys' football practices this week. It'll make for a long one.

Everybody run, 'Bina's got an AK-47 so some other pointy thing that holds lots of bullets. Zach was in HEAVEN. His latest fixation of learning-more-than-is-humanly-possible after his jaunts with dinosaurs, arctic animals, birds and owls is now warfare and guns. I have a lot of military shows that are impolitely taping over my Grey's Anatomy and House on the ol' DVR. He draws pictures and picture and pictures, reads all sorts of books and has Wikipedia bookmarked on his Internet browser.

All this collection of facts and his testing scores prompted a letter from the school letting me know that they are considering him for entrance into the Gifted and Talented program at school, and could I please take a moment to fill out this questionnaire. Great. You know what, people who make crazy rules? It is hard enough being a parent. I don't need the added pressure and catholic mother's guilt knowing that the questionnaire I filled out for my kid's consideration into a gifted program was so horrible that they decided not to allow him entrance. I won't know until later this week, I guess, but I'm already stressed about it. I waited until Hubby came home just to bounce my answers off him, have him analyze my handwriting (do I look too desperate if I slant it? I shouldn't heart my 'i's, should I?). For all I know, the school has tapped into my iPhone and it's already confessed that I'm probably not good material for a GATE parent. (which, btw, I CRASHED this afternoon. Seriously. The easiest piece of electronic equipment known to man? Something a monkey can operate - and I'm sure they have an app for that - died and won't open it's ever lovin' Apple eyes.)

Here is the Zman in front of something with wings that has some sort of significance. I'm sorry, I wasn't paying much attention, besides counting heads and sporadically screaming "Where is the BABY!" every so often and having various and sundry people related to me point out she was right next to me.

They are cute, aren't they? Or is it just my imagination? Football is going,... we got shut out this past weekend, but everyone is playing a good game and having lots of fun. That's what counts, right?

Deja Vu

The invasion of the football players. They may be small, but they have a tendancy to take over your life. We're feeling very European these days as we eat dinner as a family at 8:30 pm.

I'm feeling very '90's convenience chic as I place the crockpot, rice cooker and bread maker on the kitchen counter tops to do their orchestra of food preparation without me.

The dude in the middle of the picture is Z, #90. Also the only child to be able to take the 90+ heat while wearing long sleeve body armour. He's a real man.



Here's the sweet little 8 year old, K, taking down about three players from the opposing team. By himself. Because he visualizes his older brothers and it gives him THE POWER, that's why.




Here's J, the QB. He has a lot of responsibility this year, which is good for him - it might bring him out of his shell. Do I want him out of his shell? Maybe not,... Bringing the play to the field. Coaches are actually mature enough at this level to contain themselves sort of quietly, at the side lines.





Pass! Before he went down in a crumpled ball of bruises.

Otherwise, it's the same old, same old here in SoCal. Hot. Flu. Fire.

It's happening AGAIN. I watched the DC-10 and various airplanes make drops on the hillside on my run over to meet the family at the football park. Then, woke up dreaming I was camping, only to discover that yes, everything I own that is made of cloth smells like a campfire. Natch, wildfire.

Between that and being hyper cautious because of the flu, this is going to be a looooonnnggg fall and winter. J and S have been psuedo sick. Just enough for me to keep my twitchy doctor calling finger still. Fifi was up all night. Here's to hoping she doesn't vomit during the preschool tour of the Apple Orchard this afternoon.

LMAO

I'm sorry, I am laughing so hard, I can not type. Please check out this site.

It's now filed in my 'if only Id' thought of that first' drawer, along with the movie rentals and not buying stock in Sprint.

Me, of the birthday-cakes-gone-horribly-wrong set - ("what do you mean you don't know what it is? It's a cake in the shape of an electric guitar!') I am in love. sigh,...

I know, lots has happened,.. I'll blog again someday,.. soon....

Girl Power!

This weekend was an all girl weekend (okay, except for our next door neighbor. Who's a boy. But he doesn't count, because he lives next door.) OUR boys were all up in the woods foraging for drinking water, carrying freeze dried food and tents and wandering around for three days, all in the name of,... fun.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love to camp. With a cooler that contains my beer so it's nice and cold and my hershey bars so they don't get too melted when the roasted marshmellow is slapped on top of it. And the annual trip to REI? Fun! I like to slip a cute little skirt into the pile of water bottles, new filters, tasty freeze dried astronaut food and additional backpacks. New backpacks are required as the kids get old enough to carry enough stuff on their backs that they do not have to rely on their older brothers' unconditional love and mercy to carry enough food and water for them to stay alive too.

I do own a pair of hiking boots and they do have some marks on them. I am seeing my dog days of hanging out in non-yurts come to an end again since the baby of the house is almost two, and the man who fitted Jared this year at REI told Rob all sorts of wonderous stories about outfitting his clueless three year old and taking her hiking for hours in the forest. Yikes. My only hope is that I can distract Rob with the boys when he asks me that semi-annual question, "doesn't ice camping sound FUN?' If I never own something called a crampon in my life time, I think I might die a happy woman.

So, the girls and I are jam packing all our favorite activities into this weekend while we still can: sugar cookies with pink strawberry frosting and sprinkles baking, pizza making (the girls basically ate all the cheese and olives before it got on the pizza), going out to eat (SOOO much cheaper and easier when you just have three mouths to feed), mall hopping (Disney store princess action figures!), watching girl movies like 'Barbie and the Diamon Castle' to which Fiffi danced the whole time and Beans was riveted to the point I don't think she blinked the entire movie and Oak Glen pet farm frolicking.

I kind of forgot how present I have to be as a parent, since I have the older boys to really rely on every other time. This weekend I had to feed rats and the dog, clean the pool, take out the garbage, and break out fights over new Disney princess action figures myself. No sneaking away to do edits for my article due Tuesday; when the girls were awake, we were all about hanging out. Including eating meals at the little girl table, even if I absolutely didn't fit into any seats.



Posing in Oak Glen, where the Pendleton fire was just last week. The fires really depressed the tourists, which is too bad, this is a big weekend for them. We'll go back to get apples (big apple growing community) and pumpkins and Christmas trees this year.




Tire swing at the new park by the one room school house museum.





Pretending to learn something in the one room school house museum. The school closed in the early 1060's.






Interesting stuff,...

Okay, so this is an old picture taken at football, but it's a cutie.

This is another old pic from the summer when I took the two girls and Jared out shopping for football gear while the other two boys were in vacation Bible school. You can see why all eyes need to be on the girls, no attention can go anywhere else,...

Shopping with the girls. Beans knows the Starbucks sign now and requests to go there for Hot ChaCha.

Walking home from the boy's school a while ago.

Making cookies is a great way to break up a Disney princess action figure fight.

And then later that day we made pizza.

Yum!

Fire!

While we've all been worried about the flying pig flu (by the time it gets to this house it will have been born again into some sort of new super bug - I am just certain of it) and thinking about equipping ourselves with a certain kind of medically necessitated gas mask, we were surprised by two fires in the area and the need for a different kind of gas mask.

The first fire started this weekend up in Oak Glen, a cute little area that reminds me of Washington if for no other reason it has apple trees. Of course, this was one of the places I had slated to spend Labor Day weekend since the boys of the house are all going on some crazy multi-day camping trip. Nix this idea; there is nothing but charred remains from what the news sources say.



These pics are all from the SECOND fire that started yesterday afternoon about 4pm. Just when we all thought the other fire was containable and had dropped behind the ridge, some evil yahoo started another fire that is burning even closer than the last.



We live next to the regional park which has a resevoir, so the kids have been entertained by helicopters and fire planes all day. It made the morning dog run interesting, but man, my heart goes out to all the people who have been evacuated (good friends who just moved into the area included) and the hard working fire and Red Cross employees. Stater Brothers on Bryant Street was a staging area for many fire workers and trucks. The Community Center is the local emergency shelter. I feel like I'm back in Banda Aceh with all the emergency vehicles whizzing around.



DC-10. There were three flying around at one time; including a 747.



Schools are closed in the district due to poor air quality. Who knew you could have 'fire days'. Snow days, yes. The kids are praying for mudslide days and killer bee days now, too.





Kind of Armegeddony, don't you think?



The power went out for a bit yesterday, too, adding to the feeling of the world ending. But, as California always does, it'll rise like a Phoenix. Now, what to do with five kids when it is 100+ degrees outside and the air quality is so bad that school is closed????

All Work and No Play

Makes Karen a bad blogger,...

Toiling away,..

Happy Birthday, Kyle!

Well, he made it to eight! Congratulations K! Above is the birthday loot. Not sure why it's blurry because I've only had two cups of coffee so far this morning. I shouldn't be shaking yet.



I had to concede that I couldn't carry on with my normal activities AND frost 36 cupcakes for the Junior PeeWee Division I football players, a quadruple layer cake, decorate, make goody bags and wrap presents, so hubby took the five spawn and ventured to football by himself. It was heavenly being able to lick the frosting bowl all by myself.






Why a four layer cake? Because there are 25 kids on the football team. Do you know how many cupcakes you can get out of a cake mix? (I have five kids, I am not baking a cake from scratch. No time to measure.) 24. So, I have t make either 50 cupcakes, or an extra layer for the cake. I decided on 36 cupcakes and a very tall cake. Because you need a large canvas for all the mini oreos, sour gummy worms, regular gummy worms and jelly beans that must go on the birthday cake. I'm surprised that much candy made it on the actual cake, what with the five of them 'helping' to decorate it last night. (Let's just say they sampled all the jelly bellies and can tell you which of the 50 flavors they like best.)



So, today is pretty mellow, besides the sugarblast. Ice cream for breakfast. Candy ladened cake for evening dessert. Poor kid can't open presents until tonight when we are all together. (We're evil that way)



But we're traipsing to Big Bear with some friends on Saturday for jet skiing and attempts at water skiing in VERY COLD water. I will be hanging beach side insisting the babies need me so I don't have to get wet. Then, BBQ at the cabin with a candle in a marshmellow to celebrate.



HAPPY BIRTHDAY!