A Birthday Day.
Three. Our girls are now three years old.
The morning hours were almost Christmas-like, as they got up early and full of excitement and wanted to immediately open the gifts that had been accumulating from family. There were squeals of delight and the shredding of wrapping paper and the modeling of dresses for the camera. Big C. was a good sport about most of it - helped tremendously by the fact that a few of the presents also happened to be for him.







Later in the afternoon we were joined by friends for lunch and cupcakes and, as demonstrated here, a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday to You", led by the crazy lady in the bright shirt. Ahem.

While it looks from this photo as though the meal consisted solely of M&Ms, cupcakes and chocolate, we actually DID manage to eat a few healthy things, too...like, uh, marshmallow salad and, um, ham....



Can't believe they are THREE already. Happy Birthday Cutie Pies! You are absolutely wonderful!!!

News of the Arcane.
We've been inundated with machinery of late. Excavators and bulldozers and dump trucks and, as the mother of a toddler-boy, I can tell you the difference between a backhoe, a front-end loader and an excavator without batting an eye. It's this kind of arcane knowledge that keeps my wits sharp, I'm sure.
Oh? And please don't ask me to explain the Nemo outfit. It was chilly out so little Q. decided this would be a more logical choice of apparel than, say, a cardigan.


The local pond is being dredged, which has provided us with a series of late afternoons of entertainment. The smell, not so good, but the sights are, apparently, riveting.
Also, this gives the brood the opportunity to collect stones. For their stone-and-stick collection which is slowly building up in our suburban front yard. A vision I'm sure the neighbors appreciate. Aherm.

This looks like trouble, doesn't it?



Because it IS, my friends, believe me it IS....

Moderne Art
So, Big C. calls me into his room and shows me this:


"The big one is you, Muma, and the little one is me. Do you like it?"

Yes, sweetie, it's lovely.

Baby, It's Cold Outside....

Have you been paying attention? Because here is the last picture of last week's beginning of the beginning of the work on the farm...Ha. And if you actually followed that, I'm Very Impressed.



This is the installation of the drainfield. Meaning, we will be able to do crazy things like flush a toilet, wash clothes and even - gasp - bathe, and all our crappy water (umm, literally) will now have somewhere legally and environmentally friendly to go. Oh, and if you were wondering what our dear deceased previous owner did to, um, treat his erm, "waste water"? There's a trench covered with plywood over by the trailer. I kid you not.
Maybe we should plant roses over there.....

So, imagine you are standing roughly where the old grey house USED TO stand, and you are facing in the direction of the brick house, with your back to the main road.
Imagine a driveway, approximately, um, here. Where we've cleverly cut down the trees.

That's as far as we got last week....the bulldozer was to rampage on, for most of this week, over the stream that lies just down at the bottom of this hill (yeah yeah, there's culvert going in and it's all very environmentally responsible) in front of you, and then up up up the other slope, in a Very Gentle switchback, and then make a left towards the actual house. Which you can't see in this photo because it's too far away. And somewhere over to the left. In the bushes.

So, do you like what we've done with the place?

This is what happened to the old grey house and most of the trees.Yes, that's smoke, not "mist" rising up from that pile to the left of the excavator.
Wienie roast, anyone?

This is the "before" picture. As in, before winter and before we had even bought the place. And before we realized how much it costs to put in a new driveway when the driveway is more than half-a-mile-long. Also? Before we figured out what to do with the lovely grey clapboard house, which came! Free! With the property! Right smack in the middle of it!!



This would be the "slightly after" picture. As in, slightly after the bulldozers came for a visit last week. Note that we figure out what to do with the grey clapboard free! house. Also, all the dead trees surrounding it. And I promise to all the tree-huggers and forest gods that I will replant many healthy trees to replace the sad old buggers that were felled.

Yes, that's our daughter in the lower right corner, and you know what she's saying? She's saying "dude, you have GOT to be kidding me. We're supposed to LIVE in this dump?"

Erm, yes, sweetie. But I promise we'll get some plumbing, first.

The dollar store rocks. Because it has Easter Bunny ears and foam plastic swords, and at a buck a piece, you can have, literally, hours of entertainment. (That works out to less than a dollar an hour - a veritable bargain for the parent of the terminally bored toddler).




And the whole family can participate!


I'm so sorry Lambert, really, I am. But you do look cute in a sort of green-eyed-monster-bunny- kind of way.

Saturday - The Day Junk Food Ruled the World

So, we started out innocently enough - toast, strawberries, a little hot tea for breakfast...warming our backsides by the fire.



Lunch was pretty good, but dessert was better...


And then it all went to heck when we ordered pizza and ate it "camp style" (which, apparently, means eating it whilst lying under the table).


Tomorrow, we might just be eating tinned spaghetti in the bath, and calling it a cruise...

If you've ever wondered whether the playground is a multi-seasonal locale, wonder no more.
Our second day of true winter here in the south and Little Q. is up for demonstrating the proper technique for the Snow Slide.
Perhaps there's a future Olympic luge-gold-medalist in our midst???

When Big C woke up this morning, he was a bundle of awe. He looked out the window as I raised the blinds and gasped - literally, gasped - because the whole wide world out there was pure white.
"It looks like cotton bolls, Muma!" he said.

(I think he meant "balls", but we're still fine tuning the whole vocabulary thing).

So, it snowed in the south. Which, by way of further explanation, means that life as we know it, STOPS. No school, no work, just wee urchins running amok in hastily put together winter ensembles, screaming with glee and whipping snow balls at each other.
My own urchins demonstrate the technique, below.








They want to know if this means Santa will come again. Uh, sorry, kids. It's January.

The newest in Easter Egg fashion is apparently the "egg in the bag" methodology of colouring! Who knew?! A way to make Easter eggs all pretty-like without dyeing the childrens' hands a funky purple-brown by the end of the day! (Not to mention their immediate surroundings).
I'm here to keep y'all updated, you know.
Here, Miss.Q. holds the egg in all its pristine, pre-Easter glory. This would be the "before" shot for the hapless egg.


Easter Eggs.

Here, C. chucks an egg into a baggie filled with food colouring. His gentle massage technique quickly and effectively makes the egg look all pretty-like.



Miss. P.'s approach was more of a "shake and bake" technique, however, it produced equally effective results.



And - tada! We have eggs! And look! Almost no egg-dye on our lips or tongues or hands or hair or even on the dog! This is considerable progress when compared to the...umm...previous Easter...which we won't go into here....




Wait wait - AND WE ADDED GLITTER. Because when you live with three toddlers, you know, it's ALL ABOUT THE GLITTER.



Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!
Ours was colour-filled and absolutely lovely!

I Know, I suck.
I haven't posted pictures in weeks and weeks.
But the good news is, I finally downloaded some from my ancient camera to my crummy computer and now, to your eyes.
So, now I just have to decide where to begin....



So, we got a rocking horse for our second birthday.... as P. demonstrates, above.....

And not to be outdone, Q. also showers the horse with affection...as demonstrated, below...


And just last week, we colored eggs, as C. will demonstrate in the next post. But here's a teaser for you - the eggs start out looking like this:

This Rocks.
Happy New Year from the Three Amigos.

A series of December shots, in no particular order.



Here we are dropping off gifts to the neighborhood. We made fudge. Three different kinds.I cannot say what kind of condition the Christmas fudge was in, once it made it to our neighbors' homes, as it had been shaken, stirred and otherwise jostled more than Bond's martini by the time the children "delivered" it. However, in-house samples proved to be quite yummy.


Here the girls prove that the best thing about the holidays is hanging out in your pajamas. All day. While driving a firetruck. I'm not sure what this means for their teenage years.


What do fairy outfits, pirate ships and striped Christmas pajamas have in common, you ask? See above.



While delivering our Christmas fudge, we discovered one of Santa's helpers had preceeded us to our neighbors' doorsteps and dropped off their own treats. This caused the Big C. some distress, as he was uncertain if perhaps he should take the present already there and replace it with the present he was bearing. On the upside, - wow, our neighbors rock - we got at least 15 packages of wonderful-ness from them all and damn, southerners can bake!!!!For the entire week before Christmas, you'd just open your door and ta-da! - there'd be a little parcel of cookies or candies or cider. Better than Alice in Wonderland. Gotta love it, people.


Johanna, you know who you are. And you know you gave us the Singin' Snowman. And you know that someday, somehow, you Will Pay. If I hear "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" come out of that things mouth ONE MORE TIME...well, I know where you live.

Cheers, everybody!!!!

I considered the ubiquitous Christmas photo for the month of December, but then I thought, my, how predictable. And we all know how I feel about predictable.
So, why not this?



We have honed the art of"naked running" in our house. It is a nightly ritual, practiced by all three toddlers simultaneously, and generally accompanied by ear-shattering shrieks, piercing screams and the percussive shots of slammed doors accompanied by little feet. The dog may also join in. My role appears to consist of wrapping the damp bath-towel around my head and lying on the floor until the procession has exhausted itself. I'm not entirely sure that this is what the sleep-books had in mind when they recommend that one establishes "bedtime routines" for your children.
Perhaps this explains why that book deal on child-rearing remains elusive....

Hallowe'en can be remarkably intimidating. First, there's the putting-on-of-unusual-clothes. Closely followed by the approaching-of-strange-doors, and the reciting-of-odd-phrases.
This is generally forgotten in the immediate-ingestion-of-all-received-goodies, but still..

Little P. not only refused to wear the "hat portion" of the costume, but headed home as soon as all pertinent candies were collected and her job as "nemo" was complete. This Hallowe'en thing is a lot of work, you know.

Big Brother also kept an eye on Little Q., who wore the hat portion of this ensemble for about 37.2 seconds before ripping it off her head and flinging it into the bushes.

Big Brother as "worker-man" for the festivities of fall....Note the lurking presence of Guard-Cat, who patrolled the neighborhood and kept monkey-business to a minimum.

I love this image.

The girls have learned how to unlatch the gate, and now, the world is waiting at their fingertips.

I'm sure there's a profound metaphor or something lurking just beneath the surface here, but really, why ruin the moment?

We have been working hard to entertain ourselves. In a town where entertainment seems to consist largely of things for the testosterone-laden-21-year-old-Army male, this can be something of a challenge.
But today's adventure was photogenic, if nothing else....




We have collected the buds of a rare tree.




We have also plucked and consumed the berries from an unidentified shrub. Yum. NO! SPIT THAT OUT!!!!!!!



And we played with bubbles. And I would like to apologize to the neighbors, even though they are unaware of the fact that I had decided they were responsible for the disappearance of our bubble machine. Ummm, turns out it was behind the gas grill. It's just that assuming it was stolen and blaming someone else seemed so much more logical. At the time. Ahem.