Literally.

The kids call him Spike and he’s a Katydid who found his way into our home sometime on Sunday.

We first saw him on the ceiling.  I was gonna tell Joe to get him and take him outside but our ceilings are high and it was late in the evening.  He’s not scary looking or anything so I just let him be.

The next day we saw him again around breakfast time.  The boys were fascinated with him, all hovering around him to get a good look.  I figured I’d let them look for a while and then have him banished to the out of doors.

That didn’t happen either.

He ended up on my plant.  My indoor plant.

I noticed that he was missing one of his long back legs and started to feel sorry for him.  I couldn’t very well banish him to the harsh outside where all sorts of predators are waiting for a crippled bug such as him.  So we’ve let him stay.
Then, last night I couldn’t find him and I actually started to worry about him a little.

What’s with me?

This morning Joe found him and stuck him back on my plant. I don’t know how long Spike will be with us, but he has added a small amount of interest to our week.

Our personal chef My delightful 15 year old daughter is out of town for the week and my boys are beside themselves with grief.

“What are we going to eat for breakfast?!?!?!”

So what did they do after complaining of hunger?  Did they scour the kitchen for good breakfast fixins?  No.  They went out back and played.

But the little boys weren’t so keen on not eating so after pestering their older brothers for breakfast my 12 year old, Joe, came to me one more time.
“We don’t have enough peanut butter for everybody to have a sandwich.  And there isn’t enough milk for cereal.  Can we have dry cereal?” 
I told him that I was sure he could come up with something better than dry cereal, and after I listed off a few ingredients I knew we had, he left the room.
Then, not 5 minutes later I smelled something.

And it didn’t smell bad.

My very non-domestic son was creating a breakfast for all of us.

Breakfast Ala Joe

Not only did he successfully create for us some sausage and egg burritos, but he did it without any help from me (aside from checking to make sure the sausage was cooked all the way).  He also informed me that this was the first time he’d ever cracked an egg, and he appeared quite proud of his accomplishments.  

The past few weeks of putting them hard at work in the yard, expecting them to do harder things is really teaching them something.  A month ago Joe might have just stood there staring at the ingredients, lacking the confidence to just start cooking.  Today he stood confidently in front of that pan, knowing he could do something he’d never done before. 

Like crack an egg.

This is what the boys got done on Tuesday.  From the angle of the picture the pile looks smaller but it was really pretty big.  We were holding our breath hoping it would get picked up with the Wednesday recycling.  And it did.

By the way, did I mention that we don’t have to pay for trash services here?  The city covers it.

While Ryan and I were at the store yesterday the kids, all 7 of ’em (okay, I can’t say for certain that Jesse actually did much), worked hard and got this done – with Kait as the ring leader.  We have 1 regular and 1 toddler picnic table and the house came with a picnic table.  So the kids busily raked and cleared for a couple of hours and created a picnic area for us.  Ryan and I had planned to spend a couple hundred on pea gravel or similar playground material for the area but after the kids were done we were quite pleased with the leaf-less ground. 

I can’t believe how soft the ground is.  Once the leaves, twigs, and weeds were pulled up it felt so good on my bare feet. We’re just going to border off the area and leave it.  Instead of paying for the ground cover we’re going to put that money into stringing up some cheesy lights to make it more entertain-ready.

That means all you peeps will have to come for a visit!  You can’t let all my kids’ hard work go to waste, now.

I smell bacon.
Time to get off the computer.

My husband came inside from working in the yard and asked if I had an axe he could use.

?

Yeah honey! And I’ll trade it to you for your eyelash curler. 

Around each of those big trees were the most unruly looking wild bushes you could imagine.  I wanted Joe(12) and Gabe(9) to yank them out but Joe said that Dad had already tried and hadn’t been able to yank one out yet. 

I said, as more of a joke (Dad’s a pretty strong dude), “So you’re saying you can’t do it?”  He just looked at me, not telling me no, but not saying anything else either.  I told him that if he and Gabe could get one of those bushes out it would be worth an entire box of Little Debbie snack cakes.  Hey, I’m not above bribing payment for a job well done.  They were gung-ho about that and got to work.

They not only got one out, but three.  Talk about a little motivation.

And with the help of Dad they whipped those gazillion saw palmettos into shape.  They actually look awesome now, whereas when we moved in I wanted them all gone, gone, gone.  They were seriously all over our lawn and really ugly, wish I would have gotten better before pictures so you could see what I mean.  With all the trimming and manicuring the guys did today I am really pleased to have them in the yard! (the guys and the palmettos – I’ll get better pics tomorrow when it’s not raining.)

Yes, the fence is really leaning over, that isn’t the camera angle, and it appears to be held up only by the row of bushes on the other side of it.  And that’s working just fine so we’ll leave it that way for the time being.

I don’t know what they’re planning on tackling tomorrow, but Ryan said they were planning on starting pretty early.

Glad it’s not me.  I’m just the decorator.

And where can a girl like me find a pink axe?

This is our new backyard.  About a 1/2 of it, actually. 

It has amazing potential but there will be a lot of manual labor involved in turning it into the yard of our dreams. This is good.  With 6 boys we are always looking for guy-work for them.  There are a ton of unruly saw palmettos, some scraggly bushes, piles of sticks and branches, and leaves that, in some places, are a foot or more deep.  We’ve learned in the last year that our two oldest boys can handle, and really need much bigger jobs than we’ve been giving them.  And we’re going to put their young, energetic selves to the test and see what they can really do.

So, as part of the first 9 weeks of school my boys are going to spend a lot of time in the yard learning a skill, burning off energy, and discovering the value of hard work. 
We have the entire yard planned out, and we have a ballpark estimate of how much it will cost.  And the boys, while I wouldn’t call them excited, do seem pleased with the idea of getting out there and working with dad and accomplishing more manly tasks.

They just finished working for today – with the rain now pouring – and I’ll post a picture or two of their accomplishments later on, and throughout the week as they progress.

I said water the lawn, not the line!

[12 year old brilliance]

I sent my boys out to clean the aquarium, which they did.  Then one of them dumped sand in it.  So another one of them decided to dumb the sand out. 

Right onto two large rocks.

Matthew (6) asked, “We can still use it, right?”

People wonder about us – we get questioning stares quite often. 
I used to think it was because I always had a large number of children following me around.  Then it dawned on me that maybe it was the petrified ketchup on my 6 year old’s face at 9 in the morning gaining me attention.  Or that one kid whose hair was overlooked by the comb.  Or that somebody in my lineup is still wearing batman pajamas – not because I was okay with it, just because in counting heads I often miss noticing the rest of the body.

I’m that lady with the 12 passenger van full of car seats.  The one changing a toddler’s wet pants right there in the Publix parking lot. The one wiping last night’s dinner off a 4 year old’s face in the middle of the entrance to the grocery store.

I can hear you thinking, “Oh. She’s that lady.”

Yeah.  That’s me. 

Feel free to wave.

I spent all day cleaning up my house.  Each room got a good scrubbing, the living room furniture got re-arranged (can you say dust?).  The kitchen floor was scrubadubdubbed by my two older boys.

It looked pretty good.

My friend came over and said, “Your house is awfully clean”. And I was happy.

But that was yesterday.

Today is different and I’m wondering why I spent all day yesterday working so hard picking up.  There are magnetic letters littering the floor.  Couch pillows tossed to the ground.  Foam from a bean bag floating around.  Junk mail, books, slippers, blankets, a half chewed dog bone, a machine gun, Little People, flash lights…

All strewn across my living room and kitchen floors. It’s enough to drive a person mad.

How does this happen?

I hear giggling.  Out of the corner of my eye I can see flashes of hair flying through the air as the little boys jump from the couch to the giant bean bag.  Jesse is hollering something unintelligible to some non-existent person on the other side of our large livingroom window – he is so cute I can barely stand it. 

I think to myself, life is so good.

Pinch me.

Almost one of the guys.

Almost.