Here are pictures from yesterday–Rosie and Ada love my best friend’s kids.  It’s worked out so that we had babies almost the same ages!  Rosie and Cade have known each other just about their entire lives, and Ada and Eli have also.  Too bad they live three hours away so we don’t get to see them very often.  They do come to Lexington to shop every few months, so we get to hang out then.  Tyler works so much we hardly ever get to drive out to Pikeville to see them.

Four month old Baby Hazel is not pictured.  She’s waiting for my Baby Boy to partner up with her.

Yes, we totally have secret plans that they will all marry each other!

Cade is is one month younger than Rosie, but Rosie is tall for her age.

Cade gave Rosie a heart necklace, which Rosie LOVES and is clutching in this picture while beaming.  Eli wanted to give Ada a necklace too, which thrilled Ada.

Rosie wrote Cade a letter, but wanted to give it to him now instead of mailing it.

Rosie and Ada loved holding Baby Hazel.

We dyed Easter eggs!

The kids were so happy to see each other, can you tell?

Ah, the true handiwork of kids who dye eggs with no help.  Note: not beautifully decorated naturally dyed eggs.  Just pure kid fun.

And…now Ada is late for her allergist appointment.  Testing round #2!  Must go get dressed.

We had a tragedy over here the other night.

Benny was fine when I went out in the snow and wind to put the roosters up for the night.  (I put the roosters in a dog crate covered with a thick rubber backed rug in the garage to block their crows in the morning for the neighbors.  It works very well.)

Benny got injured while we were at the beach back in October.  He got a random string wrapped around his foot, and it got caught on some brush and pulled tight around his ankle. I cut it off when we got home, but his foot has never been the same.  He had a limp that got worse, then better, and then lately worse again.  His foot was dark colored and not quite right, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.  It was just damaged internally.

This past week I noticed Benny was dirty.  He’d stopped grooming himself.  Ducks are fastidious groomers!  They keep their feathers snow white, even in the muddiest of mud. They can somehow make their feathers white by bathing in a mud puddle in my yard.  It’s quite impressive.  For any animal to look disheveled is a bad sign regarding their health.  I made sure he had plenty of food and water, and at night the ducks had access of the chicken pen once the chickens were in the coop.  They have an extra large dog house with lots of straw in there.  But they never go in it ! Instead they prefer to huddle in the snow and wind with their beaks and feet tucked under so all that is visible is one beady black eye peering out from each white bird huddle on the white snow covered lawn.

I heart them.  A lot.

I find this at my back door many mornings.  They await the toast and egg scraps from breakfast, daily.  Cheeky beggars!

Once it gets warm out I have to lock them off the porch and pressure wash it.  Downside to their awesomeness is their lack of anal sphincter.  Their poop just squirts out like mud.

Anyway, back to the tragedy.

We woke up the following morning after the snow and Rosie let the dogs out.  She yelled to me, “Mom there’s a duck laying down and not moving in the snow!”

I knew right away it had to be Benny.

Sure enough it was.

We already knew he was unwell, it wasn’t a surprise.  I was actually pretty surprised Benny had carried on with the injured foot for this long.  A lot of times when birds have a foot injury they die quickly. I think they know they will be slow and picked off by a predator before they can heal, so they just lay down quietly and die.  Birds have more intelligence and grace than most humans ever notice.

The sad part was that the other ducks were huddled around Benny’s body.  They wouldn’t leave his side.  We watched them all morning.

Benny was patriarch of their flock.  He led them everywhere, even with his limp they would stay behind him patiently.  June, the mama duck, was solely dedicated to Benny.

As we watched them we noticed that the other ducks would go off to get food and water, but June just laid next to him.  Duck Face would come up and nudge Benny’s body every now and then, as if trying to get him to stand up.

Honestly it was like something from Discovery or Animal Planet that you tear up while watching. I couldn’t believe how dedicated to him the other ducks were!

A little while later while we were doing school work we heard the chickens and ducks screaming.  The ducks have this loud warning quack, and the chickens do this repetitive honking cluck sound when they spot a predator.  I thought it was probably a crow or something startling them and didn’t bother to get up and look.

The next time I walked by the window I glanced out and I was completely startled to see that Benny’s body was gone from its spot in the yard!  There were no foot prints of any kind in the snow near him other than the duck prints.

Then I saw his body laid out on top of the little chicken pen.

Hrm.  That awkward moment when your dead duck relocates himself…

The ducks can’t even fly up on top of that pen when alive, let alone when dead.  I guess a vulture or something must have picked him up then realized a 15 pound frozen duck was too heavy and dropped him a few feet away.  That’s the only possible explanation I can think of.

His body is still out there.  I want to bury it, but I don’t know where.  He would just get dug up by something, which would be highly disturbing.  I have to do something with him soon because the snow is melting and he’s defrosting.  Ick.

Yesterday evening while Rosie was at dance class Ada and I went outside and fed the chickens and ducks.  Ada had a cup full of treats.  She was having so much fun I couldn’t get her back inside!  (Can you spot the dead duck?)

She had ketchup all over her face. I didn’t scrub her face off before we tromped out in the mud.  For shame.  Wiped it off with a dry rag and it didn’t all come off.

Ada’s thoughts on Dead Benny:

Upon realizing her attempts to pry open his beak and fill them with treats were failing:

Sorry Love, dead ducks don’t eat any longer.  :(

Let’s feed the live birds instead…

Our yard has some kind of weed grass that has web like roots under the ground and it turns brown and dies in winter, but it cannot be killed ever.  It’s prolific during the summer and invades EVERYTHING.  It kills all grass seed by choking it out.  I spend hours ripping it from my garden beds.  The neighbor next to us has nice year round green grass because the previous owner resod the whole thing.  Lucky them!

Ada’s fat cheeks kill me.

Hank, the baddest hound beast ever.  He’s so old lately. His face used to be all brown with just white freckles.

The mud makes me want to die just a little.  The weed grass is lying dormant and it will be up in a few months.

The remains of our beautiful, huge Bradford pear tree.

Devoting part of every day to reading and discussing school subjects with Rosie takes up a lot of time.  It’s very hard to keep Ada quiet and entertained while I work with Rosie.  I’d say that’s probably the most difficult thing about homeschooling.

The other difficult thing is finding a balance between what Rosie should be learning and what kind of subjects she enjoys.  For example we studied vikings for a week and they did not interest Rosie in the least.  Ada on the other hand LOVES vikings. Now we’re reading the next chapter and it’s about Columbus.  Also of no interest to Rosie.  Ada spent an hour reading the Columbus pop-up book to herself and exclaiming over the map.  At least someone is listening.  Hah.

Rosie’s favorite school book is this one book I hesitated over called Wisdom and the Millers.  It was on the reading list as part of the religious bit.  It’s about a Mennonite family and the evening devotions their dad reads to them.  We’re supposed to read a chapter every day.  Rosie thinks it’s the greatest story book in the world.  I have no idea why.  It’s about what the Bible says about being a tattle tale, for example, and then the dad tells a story about one time when he was a tattle tale as a kid and what happened as a result.  It’s a chapter book with one picture per chapter.  Today’s story was about how a good man cares for his animals while a wicked man leaves them to suffer.  The story the dad told his kids was about a time when he a little boy and he got angry with the goat for kicking over the milking pail then didn’t give the goats any water for a day.  Rosie is totally riveted by this book. It’s kind of funny to see her begging me to read a book about morals, of all things.

The good thing about homeschooling is that you have time to follow your interests.  However I also think it’s important to learn a little about a wide variety of subjects because you never know when you’ll need to be informed about something later in life.  You also never know when you’ll be surprised by your interest in something you didn’t expect you’d like!

Another good thing about homeschooling…we can walk around in our pajamas until we feel like getting dressed!  Ada and I like to wear our pj’s all morning.  Rosie loves to get dressed as soon as possible.

We usually eat breakfast and watch a tv show, then the girls play around for a little while before we start school work.

As part of Rosie’s school work we do a composer study where we learn about a different composer each month.  We “study” the composer one day a week.

This month we’re learning about Beethoven.  Today we read a little of a children’s book about his life.  We learned about his childhood and listened to the first song he composed and performed at age 10.

Then we listened to Moonlight Sonata while painting what the music sounded like.  Rosie said it sounded like a person pining away in love.

(I didn’t tell her why Beethoven wrote that song!)  She painted herself because she loves her best friend Cade and he lives several hours away.

Ada painted too.  They just kept painting and painting, as if we’d never painted before…?

We ran out of paint.

Once we ran out of paint Rosie washed her hands and ran off to play.

Ada had to be swiftly relocated to the tub.

Things got a little wild in there.

I informed Ada she had paint on her bum.

Shocking.

But pleasing too…

Nope, none on the tongue.

I didn’t photograph the next place she checked for paint.

Then we were very silly.

Ada *loves* looking at these pictures later.  Our computer screen saver is a huge slide show of pictures from the last six years.  The girls watch it for hours sometimes.

While Rosie went to dance class this evening Ada wanted to get out her new violin.

Rosie is going to start learning violin soon with me as part of school.  Ada kept asking, “Where is my own bah-oh-lee-ann?” (Kentucky accent ftw!)

Well her own bah-oh-lee-ann came in the mail a couple days ago.  It has been a source of MUCH pride.  Ada very delicately removes it from the case, practices holding it correctly, plays emphatically, then carefully places it back in the case.

Super bonus: The case is also a back pack!

When Rosie goes to dance class on Thursdays with Tyler’s parents Ada immediately takes advantage of the one-on-one time.

She wanted to play the violin for me tonight.

She warmed up her rhythm abilities with the drum.

Then, it was time to remove the beloved bah-oh-lee-ann from its case.

She has to do it all by herself.

Sunflare to the max.

She was in the process of yelling.  I think she’s calling out square dance moves or something.

She kept yelling, “Macaroni pizza!”

She wanted me to get out the banjo.  Alas my banjo skills are still a work in progress…a major work in progress. I can play a G lick! That’s about it.

Yes, I know, how many pictures can there be of Ada playing the violin?

The violin is just so teeny tiny and freaking adorable!

MACARONI PIZZA!

Only one day left until we leave for Atlanta.

I might die of nerves and excitement.  T is coming on Wednesday…that’s five days away.

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!  I didn’t anticipate this much excitement and nervousness.

The other day I took the girls to Goodwill because it was really hot and we were bored.  I found a new bread machine with wrapping still on it for $6!

I used to have a bread maker, but Tyler wouldn’t eat the bread out of it because he didn’t like the way it was shaped.  Yes, seriously.  So I gave it away to an older lady who had arthritic hands and could no longer knead bread.  She was super appreciative so I didn’t feel bad.

The bread machine  I found at Goodwill makes bread in the same shape as store bought loaves!  It makes up to a 2 lb. loaf, which is big.  I had to buy it!  After allergy testing I found out one source of my indigestion has been rye.  I’m severely allergic to it.  Not wheat or any other grain, just rye.  Did you know rye is in EVERYTHING?  Campbell’s soup has rye unlisted on the ingredient label under natural flavors and spices.  When I get “ryed” I have this specific horrible poop and burning in my intestines about 24 hours later, and it lasts for an entire day and night.  So I discovered the hard way that rye is in all kinds of stuff, like Cracker Barrel pancakes (omg I was so sick after).  It’s also in Nature’s Own 100% whole wheat bread. What the heck?  I keep getting sick after eating at places like Panera because they use the cutting machine to cut all kinds of bread including their rye.  Dammit.  Not cool!  Hence the need to make my own rye-free bread!!

I came home and looked for recipes online because the bread machine was missing the manual.  I finally found a dairy-free recipe–for some reason most of them contained dry milk.  (Lactose and my digestive system don’t like each other.)  I tried it with a few modifications and it’s amazing.  Even Tyler likes it!

Here’s the recipe with my modifications.  (Note: next I’m going to try more wheat flour and honey instead of white sugar…)

Put ingredients in the bread machine in the order listed for it to come out right.

1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons white sugar (or sub honey)
2 1/2 tsp of yeast
*Wait 10 minutes for the yeast to activate in the warm water and sugar. It will kind of bubble or foam. If nothing happens then your yeast is too old and your bread won’t rise.*
1/4 cup olive oil
3 cups flour (1 cup whole wheat & 2 cups white)
1 tsp. salt (plus a dash more if you use wheat flour)

Makes a 1.5 lb loaf.

The recipe calls for bread flour but I just had regular flour and it still came out fluffy with flaky crust.  It does fall a little bit on the top as it bakes, but it doesn’t seem to mess up the bread texture inside.  I used Kroger organic white flour, which for some reason makes the best textured bread out of all the white flours I’ve tried. I used King Arthur whole wheat flour, which I read has more gluten than regular flours and is probably more similar to bread flour.

If you don’t have a bread maker check Goodwill in a rich area!  Mine had several.  The one I got is Welbilt brand and it makes amazing bread, better than the one I used to have.

Only 12 days until T gets here!!!!!!

Here are my girls a few days ago…

(She makes that face ALL the time.  It’s hysterical!)

Today was another scorching day outside.  There was wind, but it felt like a furnace blowing.  It almost felt like the wind could burn your skin.

Of course this is nothing compared to the western states actually burning on fire, but still…it was very hot here.

The girls love to play outside in almost all kinds of weather, as long as it’s not pouring cold rain, but this weather for some reason irritates Rosie’s very mild asthma.  She doesn’t have trouble breathing that she notices, though at the doctor the tests showed she is actually getting less oxygen.  She just complains that her lungs and lower throat hurt really bad and she can’t take a deep enough breath to yawn.  I have a feeling the lingering firework smoke isn’t helping matters.  People have been setting off fireworks for hours every night for a week now.

Today there was a lot of whining and complaining.  The stupid fireworks are keeping my kids up way too late at night, and they are trapped inside feeling bored.  Rawr.

They were happy for a few hours today while watching the American Girl Felicity movie I got from the library.  Rosie is really into American Girl stuff lately.  I’ve been reading her the books in bed at night.  Right now we’re reading through the Kirsten books. I think she’s my favorite.  I also loved Felicity and Addie as a kid.

After the movie they played super heroes.  Ada was Owl Girl and Rosie was Super Cat.

It was kind of funny.  Ada is able to get all involved in imaginary games now, even though Rosie is still struggling with her dictator phase.  Lord help us.

Waiting is hard.  I’m still waiting for everything–for Tyler to get hired on, to be able to move, to ever get pregnant again, and now for K to get here, to see what happens with hosting and adoption.

All of the waiting really gets me down.  I feel like I am in control of absolutely nothing.  Because, well, I’m not in control of any of these things.  I can’t make any of it happen faster, or happen the way I want.  I just have to wait.  It makes me frustrated and depressed.

Today we went to visit Tyler’s Granny and her husband Paul.  We haven’t had time to visit them much lately and she’s 84 years old, so I told Tyler we’d better hurry up and visit more now before it’s too late.

I want to be sure the girls have lots of pictures with their great grandparents, for memories.  Unfortunately it’s very dark in their living room.

The girls love to visit her.  She still wears perfect make-up at 84 years old.  She lives in a gorgeous house, and it’s always perfectly clean in every nook and cranny.  Granny is a twin, and she was born very tiny.  Apparently she fit in the palm of her father’s hand.  Her twin sister was a normal size.  They didn’t think she would live and they weren’t even going to name her, but when she was alive the next morning one of her brothers and sisters wanted to call her Nancy, so they did.

Crazy to think that if she’d died Tyler wouldn’t have been born, neither would my kids.

None of these people would be here:

Kind of a hilarious outtake.  She had a bag of mini Oreos for Rosie and Ada to share.

She lives in a town home community.

This is her backyard.

My kids love to lay in the grass.

I can never get just one normal picture of them–they aren’t both looking,

It’s not for lack of trying.

I was mostly satisfied with this one.

My kids sat on her very white pristine bed with their dirty feet.

While I was posting these pictures she called me to tell me how much she enjoyed our visit!

She is a very impressive quilter.  She made this family memories quilt for her twin, and she made a copy for herself as well. It’s so cool!

She made the quilts for their 70th birthdays.  (Insane that was 14 years ago.)

The quilt has family pictures transferred to fabric, a family tree with their family’s pictures on it, and a map of where they grew up–their barnyard, house, and school.

This is an up close of the middle.

She sewed the entire thing by hand with one little quilting needle.

I absolutely love all of the tiny details.

She has shown Tyler the details multiple times, but he’s always happy to listen again.

Tyler said next time we go over we should pretend like we’ve never seen the quilt before and make a video of her explaining the entire thing.

I made a couple short videos of her talking about it today, which I will have to add here later because they are saying 100 minutes remaining on the upload.  Probably since I made them with my 5D Mark II instead of the iphone.

Last week we babysat Ada’s friend Alice for the afternoon.  Alice and Ada are almost the same age.  Alice is a few weeks older.

We played outside a lot.

Toddler face-off!

(Ada has a fantastically over dramatic frowny face she always makes, and lately it’s been even more dramatic by the addition of eye rolls with the frown and pursed lips.)

Alice tested out Ada’s new scooter.

Rosie played with her friend Hannah who lives down the street.

Bubbles were so exciting, and also something to fight over…

Rosie taught Ada to make this face, but I think it’s so rude.  I’ve been trying to teach them not to do it.  It’s usually accompanied by the stomping of a foot and a snort.  I hate it!

That is not the sort of attitude I want my little girls to ever have.  I don’t know where Rosie learned it.  She just started doing it one day and believe me I am quick to put a stop to it each time it pops up, yet it persists…

(Ada isn’t sun burned, her skin just flushes easily.  She’s actually considerably more than tan Rosie, Tyler, or me.)

Duck Face tastes everything.

Willow.

Pouting because it isn’t her turn with the bubble wand.

Duckling anatomy fail:  Big head and tiny little arms!

I am obsessed with Amish and Old Order Mennonite bonnets.  I totally have one in adult size too, and sometimes I wear it.

Funny adorable Alice:

That’s Alice’s uncle there behind the rocking chair, who was adopted from Eastern Europe a few years ago.

My chubby toddler drinking her “molch” as she calls it.

From one extreme to the other…55 degrees and bike riding to snow.  Our snow was wet, muddy, and overcast but still fun for the two hours it stayed on the ground….

This is what happened while I was putting the bikes away in the garage.  Ada has found a weakness in her plans for world domination.

And then the brief snow…which lasted only a few hours before being consumed by the ever present mud.

This has been a very non-wintery winter.

We saw some mysterious foot prints in the snow.

Rosie screamed, “I wish I didn’t forget my magnifying glass!”

Future roller derby champion? Watch out world.

Actually this was in concentration, following the mysterious foot prints to the woods.

Oh Ada.

The clouds were making it really, really gray and ugly outside.

What!  One set of foot prints disappeared completely under these trees in the shadows.  We decided the owner must have picked up his dog.

Ada always finds the bliss.  33 degrees and melting snow with drizzle?  Of course this is wonderful!

“I hongry Mommy!”

Sorry love, we didn’t bring snacks or a picnic today…

That’s ok!  Keep marching while singing The Grand Old Duke of York!

The foot prints led in a circle.  Rosie was disappointed.  And the snow was almost all melted.

Within half an hour of taking this picture it was completely gone and back to green grass.

Despite our warm weather, despite our stupid stereotypes…I still love Kentucky.  This is two minutes from my house.

Parenting fail of the day yesterday:

It was 60 degrees and sunny out yesterday afternoon, so we went to the park.

Gorgeous winter sunlight.

Just what everyone needs–a dose of vitamin D and fresh air.  Soak it up.

The girls ran and ran.  In fact they did almost nothing but run!

Rosie wouldn’t even stop to let me take her picture.  How dare a five year old want to have fun rather than be photographed by her mother.  Tsk.

Clearly no one has ever told her that it’s memorable to over zealously capture every moment in a photograph.

Ada is still well under my influence, thankfully.  When she outgrows it I will have to immediately replace her with a newer, tinier, more compliant model.

I was meeting another family there to do some one year pictures, so I brought this chair.

It ended up turning out that her kids weren’t into pictures that day at all, but I got great ones of my kids.  Maybe I have my kids trained to sit and look cute.

Sorry kiddos!

I play games with them like, “Here comes the mousey from the barny to the housey to get you!” then I jump back and snap a picture, or just plain old peek-a-boo from behind my camera sometimes works great.

Nothing matters as much as finding a sweet spot full of delicious light!

Their backs to the afternoon sun, and a few rays in the edge of the viewfinder.

Hello sun magic!  (This is almost straight out of the camera, I just warmed it up a tiny bit and boosted the contrast a little.)

The park is actually grounds of a local historical house and it has acres of open fields, woods, a creek with a babbling brook, and very nice playground equipment.

It’s just around the corner (have to drive across a busy road though) and there are rarely other people during the weekdays.  You get the entire thing to yourself, and as a bonus it has very clean flushing toilets.  My dogs love to run there too.

The house is an 1800′s plantation style mansion with slave quarters and original log cabins. Sometimes the older ladies who volunteer there come out in their 1800′s costumes to say hi.  I love that.  I fully plan on being one of those old ladies one day when I’m gray haired and my kids are grown.

There’s a field of cows across the driveway, big black Angus waiting to be steak. The woods conceal train tracks.  Loud trains go by every ten minutes, which the girls love to see.  We can hear the trains from our house but can’t see them unless we’re at this park.

Did I mention how nice it was to just get outside and play?  Despite the 25 mph wind the sun was still glorious.

I am not a fan of winter.  Especially this winter, where there’s been cool wet weather with little snow or actual WINTER.  Just lots of blah, gray days.

Sometimes I dream about moving somewhere that has no winter and instead has beautiful beaches.

Then I think it would be too hard to leave our families here.  The girls deserve to have grandparents, aunts, and uncles more than they would need to have warmth and beaches year round.  I think.

I have to snap pictures of them quick before someone gets up and runs away, so I don’t always get time to line up the shot perfectly like I’d like.

But the memories are worth saving, all the same…

Ada loves this sweater.  (Thank Sara!)

We got snow cones afterward, to celebrate a beautiful (strangely) sunny and warm January day.  Ada just had shaved ice, which I told her was snow.  She tasted it and yelled, “Oh MINE!”

That’s what she says instead of oh my, which I think is adorable.  Now Tyler and I have started saying it too.  Rosie is all like, WHY ARE YOU ALL SAYING THAT WRONG!

Rosie is a stickler for rules and correctness in all things.

After we got home I had to takeRosie to her piano lesson and my mom stopped by after work to watch Ada.

Apparently Ada was worn out from the park, and when I got home at 5:30 she started crying and couldn’t stop.  I tried so hard to keep her awake.

5:30 is not a good time to go to bed.  Bad, bad…unless you want to be up all night!

Then she nursed and nursed, and ate a piece of shredded cheese and completely spewed her belly contents all over me, herself and the couch.

And I gave up on keeping her awake.  She passed out cold in bed.

Parenting fail.

At 10:30 she woke up completely happy saying, “I hongry Momma!”

She was bouncing off the walls until 2:30 in the morning.

Toddler insomnia via Photo Booth on the iMac:

Me today, and well most days really thanks to Ada:

Zzzzz….