****Updated with correct numbers****
How high can we go? It’s anyone’s guess.
Just what are we counting, tallying on a daily basis?
Mosquito bites on The Boy.
I should clarify that- “we” aren’t keeping count by choice but there is one of us who is very interested in the numbers and keeps us minutely informed.
Do you see eyes rolling?
To be honest, The Boy is effected by bites more than the average Joe. The bites tend to swell up on him and annoy him more than most. It leaves one to wonder about the constant…. complaining. Is it really bothering him or is he not dealing well with minor discomfort? Since he reacts so to them it’s hard to know. So we medicate him- mostly to relieve our own suffering.
I think we are up to 22, just in case you were wondering.
(Don’t worry, West Nile has not been reported in our county…. yet. Whoops! I was informed I was wrong- a bird was found to have it in 2006 but none has been reported since then.)
Our young lady friend was able to visit us again. She was off on an adventurous, fast trip to the other end of the state to see what she could see before she headed home. She spent the night and before she took off in the morning, The Boy asked if she’d like to climb up into a tree and see the baby robins. She said she would and climbed expertly up into the tree. Thus scaring the baby birds into flight before they were quite ready to be doing such things. Then commenced the Great Baby Robin Roundup!
There were four to be put back into the nest. Of course, there was the examinations to be made.
Making the hand off. She would put them back into the nest. This worked great until Baby Bird #4 – the nest was getting crowded with four teenagers so they decided to fly the coop again! So we rounded them all up again. I use the term “we” loosely here, I was taking photos.
The Col. had lots of “help”. Isn’t The Dog pointing pretty? It’s the bird dog part of him coming out.
And, of course, kid help also. They were fascinated.
Standing watch so we don’t lose track of one of them.
We decided to just leave them on the branches of the tree instead of stuffing them all back into the nest. Mission complete!
One can’t really call it Global Warming because this part of the globe is not warming.
Click on the photo to better see this panoramic photo that The Col. took.
Tuesday’s storm set a rainfall record in town; the .77 of an inch flooded the previous half inch record set in 1923. Also broken was the maximum low temperature record; the high of 50 degrees breaking the 59 degree previous record set in 1972 for our area. I hope none of the schools were going to the pool for end of the year activities! Burrr!
In the mountains the “rainfall” was not rain. It was snow. Lots of it! With areas reporting between 9″ and 14″. Yes- Fourteen inches of snow fell on June 10th. We saw chunks of snow lying on the freeway where it had fallen off of the trucks. Chains were required for awhile and the snow plows were out in force.
We were supposed to meet up with others at a local park to play. Ha! We were not that hearty and choose to stay indoors.
The low temperatures have been in the 40’s but on the 8th and last night, they dipped to 33 degrees. No wonder it’s so hard to grow things here.
Now, remind me about this cool weather in August when I am complaining about the heat.
We tend to weigh and measure the kids a lot. Why? They keep growing! And growing, and growing….
At the age of two, most children slow down in the growth department- not our crew. So I like to keep track of it all- I’m like that. Give me buttons to push and charts to keep and I am a happy camper.
So… because I know you all are dying of curiosity, here are the most current stats:
The Boy- 56 1/4″ (4′ 8 1/4″), 71 pounds. This puts him in over the 97th percentile in height. He is in the 90th percentile in weight.
Pixie- 46″ (3′ 10″) and 43 pounds. She is on the 90th percentile line for height and 50th for weight. And you wonder why I have troubles finding clothes that fit her!
Sunshine- 43″ (3′ 7″) and 41.4 pounds. She is in the 95th in height and 87th for weight.
I went back to the height predictor at WebMD to see if it said anything new. Since Sunshine was now 4, I wondered if it would change anything.
It assures me that The Boy will still be 6’5″.
Pixie will still be the shrimp of the children at 5’9″.
Sunshine is heading for 5’10”.
I will be the leaning post for all of them, I’m afraid.
I asked Sunshine what she wanted for her birthday (yes, this was BEFORE it happened!).
“A tractor and a shirt!” was her immediate response.
What color of shirt?
“Green!”
Green. Great.
I guess it’s better than orange.
I did buy her both items. The tractor was green too. (my apologies to a certain family I know who prefers implements of a different color.) She was thrilled with it.
Yes, she is wearing a green shirt. But not the one I bought her for her birthday. She hasn’t lowered herself to wear that one yet. It has green stripes but no fun tractors or Sesame Street characters on it- so it’s not hardly worth mentioning. I should have ventured into the boys department to find something more suitable. She is happily examining her tractor set here. This was after she kissed it.
It’s interesting to see how two little girls can be so different. Here is an example:
This could be titled “There is always one who doesn’t cooperate”. Here we are about to go to dinner at a friend’s house. Notice Pixie all color coordinated down to her “hair thing”. Then her sister’s fashion ensemble. The sensible shoes, green shirt with a tractor on it. She didn’t forget the accessories- the apparently fascinating necklace.
I just love watching their personalities bloom!
My Little, ever so Helpful, Pixie has decided to bring me my coffee in the mornings.
This started when her Father would pour me a cuppa (a little Australian for you) and bring it to my lazy bum me while I was still in bed. Little Miss Helpful would carry the mug in the last little bit to me. She was so pleased with herself.
Then there came the fateful morning when her Father had already gone off to work and she was up before me (unfortunately not a rare occurrence- she gets up early- yeah, that’s it!). She carefully poured cream into the mug and poured the coffee out of the thermos carafe where The Col. had left it for me. Her beaming face as she brought it into me was something to see.
Not that I was totally happy with the situation. We told her we didn’t want her to pour hot coffee out of the carafe on the coffeemaker. It’s pretty high up and we were afraid she’d be more likely to drop or spill it and burn herself. But she seemed to manage the other carafe well, and it usually didn’t have much in it.
Then I noticed a disturbing trend. Now, I like my coffee with milk or cream in it. Not like some of the members of my family where there are equal amounts of each but a dab will do- especially when it’s the cream. But I started to get coffee in the mornings that was getting a bit heavy on the cream. And cold too. I’d take a few sips, then put it down and when I got out to the kitchen, I’d add more coffee and heat it up. And then add more coffee and heat it up…. repeat. One day I was trying to tell her how to use the microwave because she said the coffee was cold. I know, not a smart idea to try to tell someone who doesn’t read or recognize most numbers how to operate the microwave. All I can say in my defense is that I hadn’t had my morning coffee. Finally I just told her to push the one button, knowing that the microwave would run for one minute. I figured that would be too long but I didn’t realize that the mug had only about a third of a cup of liquid in it. Scorching!
This morning I heard The Col. tell Miss Helpful that she should wait for me to get up to help her. Hmmm? I got up to find my mug on the table- half, HALF full of cream. I was sure glad that her Dad stopped her! That’s a little too much even for me!
Chocolate cake to be exact.
I didn’t get a good shot of just the cake. Since the focus was on a certain young lady’s birthday, I guess that isn’t a bad thing.
It looks like a regular chocolate cake, right? Little would you know that the frosting had one pound (16 ounces) of semi sweet chocolate in it. And butter. And 1 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream. Do I hear your arteries clogging? Are you drooling on your key board? Eeeewww!
It was yummy. The cake itself, made from scratch with my own two hands (and the electric mixer) was also very good. It had butter in it too, of course, and two kinds of chocolate. It’s an America’s Test Kitchen recipe and, oh is it good. You have to have a bit of patience making it though, as with most of their recipes. I made it without a standing mixer and thought it turned out fine; just be patient and make sure things get mixed well.
I had one part that didn’t go totally smoothly. The recipe for the frosting says to melt the chocolate and (separately) heat the butter and sugar, etc. then combine these two with the cream. It’s too warm for it to whip up at this point and so to cool it down you place the bowl into a larger bowl filled with cold water and ice. The tricky part is to get it to the desired temperature of 70 degrees. If it’s too cold, it will seize up, if too hot then it will not whip up all light and fluffy. I cooled it in the water bath for a bit then did the scientific thing of testing it with my finger. It was clean! (and then I got to lick it too!) I don’t have a thermometer that reads that low. I thought it felt pretty cool, and not wanting it to get too cool went ahead and started to whip it with my hand mixer. It wasn’t getting lighter in color nor was it whipping up all “fluffy” like. I mixed, and mixed, and mixed. I finally decided, after referring to the recipe again (and again, and again) that the mixture was too warm still. So I plopped it back into the water bath and continued to beat it. And then the miracle happened. It got lighter in color and fluffy in texture. It looked lovely and was great to work with when putting it on the cake.
It was worth the effort.
We were in Walmart (That Eeeeeviiiil place) looking at the clearance racks a few weeks ago when Pixie spotted a hat. It had princesses on it. It was fairly spendy. Normally, being the cheap frugal person that I am, I would have said “No!”. But… she put it on.
And I caved.
