Mama On The Move

Katie decided she wanted to get her ears pierced.  I had told her she could do it when she turned 12 but she didn't really want to.  I have had my ears pierced three separate times in my life.  Each time they became infected and grew closed.  Emily has also had her ears pierced twice and both times they have gotten infected and closed. We just have super sensitive ear lobes in this family.  And apparently fat earlobes as well.  I've had to shell out extra bucks for both girls to have the extra long posts for "fleshy" earlobes.  In fact, the first store we went to last night did not have posts long enough for her ears and we had to go to a different store.    I'm putting both girls on an ear lobe exercise regimen starting next week.    She was a tad apprehensive.   I had, after all, told her it was going to hurt a lot - worse than a shot because it's not a nice thin hypodermic needle going through t...

We arrived in Illinois in the middle of a drought and the hottest summer in living memory.  We went on to freak snowstorms including ten inches of snow on the second day of spring. We've now made it to tornado season. Last night we were at church for the Wednesday night service.  We could hear rain drumming on the roof.  It quickly grew in intensity to the point where it was about to drown out the preacher.  (It was competing with some people in the sanctuary who feel the need to chat during the sermon because of course whatever they are saying to the person next to them is so witty and/or deep they just can't hold it in until after the service and of course they aren't bothering anyone around them who might actually want to listen to the preacher not to mention the fact that it's just plain rude and weren't they taught manners growing up or were they born in a barn ???)  Ahem. Then someone from the children's department trotted into the sanctuary a...

This weekend we travelled over to check out a college that two of Ben's friends from high school attend.  While he likes the school he is attending now, he's looking for a stronger Christian atmosphere and we used his Spring Break to go do some visiting. The college in question has a tumbling team.  Because Ben is currently a cheerleader and already knows some tumbling moves, they let him join in on some of the basic moves.  He did a pretty good job.  Most of the time.  Katie got called up and some of the tumblers did flips over audience members. After each couple of tumblers, they would add more audience members to make a bigger and bigger group to jump over.  Finally, even Kerry and I got called up to be flipped over. I was trying to be unobtrusive and let Ben lead how the visit would go. So of course, while I was trying to take my place in that group of folks sitting on the floor, I tripped over someone and fell flat across...

Kerry and I were laughing about how much our kid's Easter Baskets have changed over the years.  When they were little, their baskets were filled with Peeps, chocolate, plastic eggs filled with candy, and cheap plastic toys. In this day and age, our kids would not be willing to get out of bed to look in their baskets if those same items were in there.   Thus, the contents of the baskets has changed to reflect their current interests:  Now, among the basic candies, Ben's basket contains beef jerky, jalapeno pretzels, creme soda, Nutella, and a bag of Naga Jolokia, the world's hottest pepper.  Ben has talked about this pepper for a couple of years, I couldn't believe I actually found it.  Here is his Facebook post about it:   My Easter basket had a bag of dried Naga Jolokia, the world's hottest pepper. To give you an idea of how spicy these are, a pepper's spiciness is measured on a special scale called the scoville scale. A Bell pepper scores a 0,...

Wednesday was the first  day of Spring....... Sunday it started to snow. This is what Spring looks like in Illinois.   Thank goodness it isn't winter any longer, I'm not sure we could handle it.

After ten weeks away to attend school, Kerry is finally back home.  The dogs are always delirious when he comes back so we just stay out of the way until they've finished greeting him.

Katie walked by the front window this morning, glanced outside, and said, "Oh, WOW!"  We were surrounded by birds. Hundreds of birds. Thousands of birds. Front yard, back yard, neighbor's yards. Birds everywhere! Then all at once, they all took off. They must be heading north for the summer. Look out, Canada!