Today

Today I made muffins for breakfast.  Not only did I over-bake them, I also left out the salt.  Every bite of those tasteless muffins left me pondering "ye are the salt of the earth."  

Today I put two more quarts of purple hull peas into the freezer.  We ate the rest with our veggie lunch.


Today I picked two more zucchini (though not as big as that last one) and an armload of yellow squash from our garden.


Today I watched my big boys playing with toy cars in the kitchen, and taking care to include their baby brother in the fun.


Today my sister took my boys for their (almost) daily trip to the library and then on to the Dairy Queen for their free ice cream cone for finishing the reading program.  I tagged along.


Today I actually took a quick little nap.  Napping is rare for me, even though I do love sleeping, so I've decided to give it a little try for the summer.  Those late-night baseball games (Texas Rangers) and early mornings don't mix too well.  And Alan is an irresistible cuddler. 


Today I stuck my knuckle in Tyler's mouth and discovered ... he has a tooth!


Today I drank iced coffee and played checkers with Dale on the porch.  I won the first game.  The second game grew to be too long for his attention span and my patience, so we called it a tie.


Today I scooped up my baby and kissed his little head after he took a tumble and bonked it.  I expect to be doing a lot of scooping and kissing in the months ahead.


Today I learned that 'cuddler' and 'bonked' aren't recognized by spell-checker.  I guess I speak my own brand of English.  


What did you do today?

Have you EVER?

I have never!

Time flies....

Would somebody

please

tell

this baby

he is 

only

5 1/2 months old?

Thank you!

Everybody say 'Cheese!'

It isn't very often we gather the family around for a posed picture.

And every time we do, I remember why we don't.  

For one thing, Greg isn't a big fan.  He prefers candids.  But I can see why.  

Mean, ol' me, I made him kindly requested he sit down for a picture with his boys on Father's Day right quick after church and before lunch.

We took four, and, believe it or not, this is the best one:

In addition to Alan hamming it up, Dale's hair sticking out, and Tyler's diaper bulging, you may also notice that Dale's shirt is untucked (I gave up fighting that battle a long time ago), and Tyler looks a little skeert.

But hey!  Greg looks great!  

How often do you try to gather the fam around for a posed shot?  Any tips?

Monkeying Around

Sportin' jungle tattoos courtesy of the first milestone at our Library's summer reading program.


During which we are, ironically, checking out way fewer books at each visit than usual.  


But then, we are visiting every day.  So it all comes out even, right?


Are you reading anything good this summer?  Or maybe you got a new tattoo, hmm?

Bumps & warts

I believe my exact words were, "That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen."


To which he replied, "It looks like it could be a monster on Veggie Tales."

It was even uglier and fatter before it sat in the sun and shriveled for two days. 

Thankfully, most of what we are getting from the garden is much more attractive and edible. 

What do you think?  Can you picture it terrorizing Bumblyburg?  Have you eaten any garden-fresh goodness yet this summer?

Joyfully Chaotic, Indeed

Greg and I realized something about ourselves this week.


Have you ever seen a little chihuahua that thinks it's a lab? Those little dogs don't know they aren't twice the size they really are, and they behave accordingly.


That is us. We are a 'little' family of five that thinks we are a family of at least 8 or 9. We buy peanut butter and salsa in bulk. We do head counts before we go anywhere. And our perspective of what constitutes 'lots' of kids is a little higher than average.


Earlier this week we had the privilege of meeting Suzanne from The Joyful Chaos and her wonderful family to play at a water park and playground.

Between us, we had four adults and eight kids.  And we didn't think a thing about it.  The kids played together so sweetly, with biggers taking care to include littlers, while the dads chatted and the moms visited about approximately 47 different topics while jiggling babies, making sandwiches, watching climbers and applying bandaids.

It was joyful.  And it was chaotic.  And we loved every minute of it!

Rock-a-bye, baby?

I'm not sure, but something tells me we just might be the only parents to ever use this video to lull not one, but TWO of our children to sleep.




That's what happens when you are married to a musician.

A child's view of a liver transplant

As I mentioned earlier, our 5 year old nephew, Aaron, is staying with us this week.


The first night he was here, he and Dale and Alan were all getting dressed for bed, when the following conversation occurred:

Aaron, pointing to Alan's surgery scars: I see where he got cut.

Me: Yes, we call those his 'train tracks'.  

Aaron: Why did he get cut?

Me: He got a new liver.

Aaron: What is a liver?

Me: It's kind of like your heart, but it has a different job.

Aaron: Oh.  What is its job?

Dale: Your liver cleans your blood.

Aaron.  Oh.  Well why did he need a new blood cleaner?

Me: His old one quit working.

And that was it.  With that little bit of information, he was satisfied, and we all went about our business of getting everyone to bed.


Alan stood watching and listening to our conversation, fingering his 'train tracks' the whole while.  


Later I realized I have been wrong in my imagination of some day sitting Alan down and telling him the whole story.  He'll know his story as well as any of the rest of us know the story of the day we were born (was it snowing? raining? windy? the middle of the night? a hurried rush to the hospital?).  


But He will learn it bit by bit, as it is told to others, as he lives each new chapter, and as he asks questions of his own.


And at the heart of his story will always be two things: God's miraculous intervention time after time, and one precious donor whose family said 'yes'.  

Sunshine... on my laundry... makes me VERY happy!

How in the world it has taken until my 3rd baby for me to learn this I'll never know.  I wish I could tell you how incredibly thrilled I was the day I discovered this.  Seriously... made my day.


You know those terribly awful stubborn breastfed baby poop stains?


I know how to get them out!  
(If you already knew this please be nice and just play along, okay?  Okay. Thanks.)


After a run through the washing machine, don't dry, but put the item out in the sun.


I laid out three hearty yellow stains recently, to come back only TWO HOURS later and find them GONE.  


Gone.


Laundry duty will never be the same!

This post is linking to Works for Me Wednesday.

Can it really be that time already???

My recent trip to the store:

This post is linking to Wordless Wednesday.

The more the merrier!

We have a guest buffalo in the herd this week.

(Is there a real agricultural term for that?  A visitor to a herd?  Something tells me probably not.)

At any rate, our nephew Aaron is staying with us for a visit.  He is 5, smack dab between Dale and Alan.

  

They haven't been together even 24 hours and are already having loads of fun.

  

And we haven't even gotten to Bible School yet!  Yes, VBS is also this week.  

Does that make me crazy?  Adding an extra kid on one of our busiest weeks of the year?  

If it does, that's ok.  This kind of crazy sure is fun.

Fun Stuff for Father's Day

Father's Day is just 2 weeks away!

We've never done the same thing twice for Father's Day.

When I was a little girl, my dad picked out a new weed-eater one year.

When Dale was a baby we framed his hand & footprints with a poem.

One year we made a chocolate cake (with yellow icing).

That one was Dale's idea. He read it in a book.

I'm not sure yet what we'll be doing for the Dads in our life this year.

But I do know it's time to get busy!

Here are a few ideas Greg and I liked

from Christianbook.com.

• I think this plaque is so sweet!

Dad, A Short Title for a Really Big Job Plaque

• Greg is a big coffee drinker, so this travel mug appealed to him. (Hmmm.. duly noted!)

His Strength, Stainless Steel Travel Mug

• If your man is a reader, we highly recommend Wild at Heart, by John Eldredge. I know, I know.... it may be old news. But we still like it. And think every guy (and his girl) ought to read it!

Wild at Heart

• Or maybe your man needs something new for his IPod? You can find all sorts of
  MP3 Downloads.

For more ideas, head on over to shop through all the

Father's Day Gifts at CBD!

New & improved!

A few months ago we 'downsized' some of our expenses.

One of those was our internet.

We changed companies and went with the cheapest option they had.

Cheapest = slowest, by the way.

It wasn't dial-up, but it surrrrrre.... seeeemed.... slooooooow.

Anyway, today we upgraded and doubled our speed!

It is so fun to be back in the world of fast internet again!

To celebrate, I decided to upload a video of Tyler! We set up his exersaucer this week and he is loving it! Here he is this evening, doing his thing:

Rub-a-dub.... dink?

These days I much prefer the good ol' kitchen sink for Tyler's baths instead of bending over the baby tub in the big tub.

Incidentally, Tyler seems to like it better too. 

During one of these recent sink baths, Alan was milling around watching the action and, as usual, talking, talking, talking.

At one point, I thought Alan asked, "Did I have baths in that sink, too?"

So I answered, "yes."

However....

... evidence following that exchange has strongly led me to believe that I actually answered 'yes' to this question:

"Can I have a bath in that sink, too?"

Because a moment later, as I was busy rinsing the soap out of Tyler's hair, I looked over my shoulder to see Alan standing in the kitchen completely naked.

Wearing nothin' but a big ol' grin.

And ready for his bath in the sink.

What could I do?  I had already said 'yes', you know.

Shopping, anyone?

I am happy to announce I am now an affiliate for Christianbook.com!  Better known 'round these parts as "CBD". 

CBD is a great resource for 

gifts

music

homeschool

and much, much more!

I am excited to share with you more in the months ahead the great resources I've gotten from CBD - it truly is one of my favorite online places to shop!  And now, any time you buy from CBD after clicking any Christianbook.com link on my blog, a little bit of that comes back to us here at the buffalo herd.  Which means more shopping for all of us, right?  Thanks for helping us out, and have fun shopping!

Summer!

I love seasons.


I love how the change from one to another is so gradual and yet often seems so sudden.


I love making the most of the unique experiences each season offers: colorful, crunchy, falling leaves in the crisp fall, snowflakes and hot chocolate and bundling up in the winter, puddles and rainbow and new growing things in the spring.


With today being June 1st, and Memorial Day bringing in the 'unofficial' start to summer, I have decided to intentionally put a little bit of summer into every day - starting today!  Even the smallest things build great memories, sometimes even better memories than the big stuff.


Daydreaming of the summer ahead, I can see us picking fresh corn and tomatoes from our gardens, setting up the sprinkler in the backyard, eating outside under our big shade tree, playing with sparklers on July 4th, and putting lightening bugs in a jar past sunset.  Ahead on our calendar we have summer Vacation Bible School, the Library summer reading program, and a summer trip to Grandma's.  Summer time is also full of opportunities for all kinds of water play, crafts, and science & nature experiments.


I can't wait to get started!


What activities and experiences speak 'summer' to you?  What are some of your favorite summer childhood memories and traditions?