Did you ever hear the story . . .

of the lady and her chickens?

Once upon a time there were some box elder bugs . . .


Well, "some" isn't an accurate count . . .

Once upon a time there were A LOT of box elder bugs and they were everywhere. There were so many that they drove the lady kinda crazy . . .

She came up with a plan . . . that included a very innocent looking shop vac . . .



and a bunch of chickens.

You see, the bunch of chickens LOVE to eat the little bugs. It's like candy to them. Such a treat. Since the lady loves her chickens . . . she vacuums up as many bugs that she can find . . . and she spoils those chickens by feeding them the little nuisances . . . I mean bugs. It makes both of them very, very happy . . .

. . . well, happy until she carries the innocent looking shop vac filled with bugs into the chicken pen.

Here is where the story gets a little fuzzy.

The lady claims she just carried the vacuum into the pen . . . but the chickens tell a different story. They squawked and fussed at the sight of that shop vac entering the pen - it was terrifying - and so they went right over the fence . . .



I think I overheard one of those chickens claiming that the lady had the vacuum over her head and was going . . . blllttttllllblttttt . . . as she came into the pen.

I just don't know who to believe . . .

But now there's a problem . . . the chickens are on the wrong side of the fence . . . and the lady ain't too happy anymore . . .

She called in reinforcements . . .

Be vewy, vewy quiet . . . I'm hunting chickens . . .

armed herself with her professional chicken catching tools . . .


and went chicken hunting.

Oh, how I wish I had video . . . to watch 3 grown men (Buff and his dad were in on it too), a grown woman (armed with a laundry basket), and a 10 year old boy get outsmarted by a chicken . . . I bet it would have won me money on AFV.

Unfortunately, I was being shadowed by this guy who turned out to be terrified of cockleburrs. Talk about a chicken . . .



and so I missed a lot of pictures of the chicken running through the woods this way . . .

and this way . . . (I know it's the same way . . . but that's what made her so tricky to catch.)



but in the end . . .

The hunt was successful and everyone is back on the right side of the fence.




The moral of the story . . .

Don't count your chickens . . . before you feed them box elder bugs from a shop vac.

This is what my kids did this summer! :o)

Summer is over . . .

I miss you guys. I miss telling you guys about our insane life.

So . . . I think I am going to ignore the fact that I have a house guest coming in 10 hours and that I will have a whole house full of people tomorrow (to come hang out with the house guest). Instead I am going to sit and talk to you for a while.

Of course, I am going to do what no gracious hostess should do . . . and go on and on about my life and my kids . . . but I'll never know if you click that exit button up in the corner . . . so feel free . . .

Summer. It finally arrived in Wisconsin - now that it is September and it's time to get back to school. Not that I'm complaining . . . I loved the cool nights and comfortable days. My garden complained quite a bit . . . but that might have been the gardeners fault . . . but she's blaming it on the weather.

It was a good summer to be busy . . .

Owen played t-ball . . .



and had the time of his life . . .



his energy level was amazing . . .

he had an absolute blast . . .

Yes, I believe she is doing what you think she is doing. He didn't even know her name.

Like I said . . . he had an absolute blast.


Carra got to play soccer . . .

And she was the star of the team . . .

Here she is keeping the grass warm . . .


Guarding the goal . . .


And holding up the goal post . . .

I don't know what they would have done without her.


In case you were wondering, this is what she would look like if her head were a ball . . .


And this is the only proof I have that she touched a ball . . .


Mikayla was in a play during summer school . . .

She LOVES the drama . . .

She is supposed to look scared here, but saw me lift my camera and is actually saying to the girl behind her, "Oh, great, my mom is taking a picture of me . . ."

I think she missed the class on staying in character.

And then there was Brice . . .

He did summer school too.

He built rockets. Something he was NOT at all excited about.


Rocket 1 . . . had to be built exactly as instructed. They could paint it and name it whatever they wanted.


The Black Knight . . .

Blastoff in 3, 2, 1 . . .

Guess what he is doing while waiting for launch . . . yep, he was jumping - and the countdown started at 3.


Blastoff!Success!

Rocket 2 . . .

This one they could build anyway they could imagine . . .


The before rocket . . . The Silver Dollar . . .

The after rocket . . . all the kids in the class thought Brice's was the best and he was soooo lucky . . . because his caught on fire!

I fear for our future flight programs if these kids are left in charge.



And so now summer is over . . . and we move on. Thanks for sitting and listening to me ramble on about my kids. I'll be back eventually . . .

What did you do this summer?

The things they say . . .

My nephew, Jonny, was over for the afternoon. As he walked through the room, I noticed an unpleasant odor following him, so I asked, "Jonny, are you stinky?"

Owen was nearby and came to the rescue, "I'll check, Mom."

He leans over, sniffs Jonny's backside and states, "Oh yeah, Jonny stepped on a duck."



No, I have no idea where most of his comment come from . . .

Baby Girl's First Steps

They must be homeschooled . . .

I have accumulated quite a collection of highly intellectual tidbits from my kids lately . . .

***
One child was watching Bugs Bunny. Bugs is tunneling along and pops up into the screen and is bewildered about where he is. Come to find out he should have taken a right turn at Albuquerque . . . but that is beside the point. He looks around and spots a few familiar sights such as the Eiffel Tower and various French road signs. He perks up and begins to munch a carrot as he states, "Oh, I must be in Paris!"

My child turns to me and remarks, "What? I thought the Eiffel Tower was in France?"

***
Carra wants to know why everyone in our family is white . . . but Owen is tan . . .

***
A child was looking for a specific book in the "For Dummies" series and went to search the library catalog. This child returned without a book, so I asked what happened.

This child stated, "I gave up. I couldn't spell the word 'dummies'."

I'm still giggling.

***
Carra peeled an onion and stuffed it in her pocket. (No, I don't know why.) She came to me a bit disturbed because she didn't know why her eyes kept watering.

***
We were reading a book together and a discussion about the Queen of England came up. The kids began to speculate about where she is from originally (too many Princess Diaries type movies - I'm wondering if they think all royalty is just "discovered"). One child pipes up excitedly . . . "Oh, I know where she is from. She is from Kentucky."

Seriously, of all the places to choose . . .

(In this child's defense, we had recently watched a PBS documentary on the Queen's visit to the U.S. and it briefly described her attendance to the Kentucky Derby while she was here. That was the only part of the documentary in which the child was listening . . . which is ironic because I stopped listening to the child explain this because I was giggling so hard.)

***
And as every cultured child should, Owen has learned a little poetry . . .




Yeah, they're homeschooled . . .

Chicago . . .

We LOVE Chicago.

Our friends are nice too.

But we LOVE Chicago.

Recently we went down to visit our nice friends . . . and being the nice friends that they are . . . they help us to enjoy Chicago without the extra hassles of parking and getting lost.

Okay. We LOVE our friends too.

The first place they took us was the "Bean."

Here is our family photo under the "Bean." I think I'm going to use it for this year's Christmas card. It was a good hair day and everyone was smiling.


Apparently . . .they glued the thing down because Brice and Owen just couldn't budge the thing.


In case you were wondering . . .

I was there too . . .

And there were lots of kiddos. I have no idea who those other kids are, but they were so happy to get their picture taken with my kids that I just couldn't say no.

Actually, they belong to the nice people who made this day possible. Don't you love the Chicago skyline in the "Bean"?

Brice pulled the usual Powers stunt . . . .

and landed safely . . .

Sometimes I wonder who is the bigger idiot. The one jumping or the one snapping pictures of it . . . must be genetic . . .

We then found a fun area for the kids to splash around . . .




and we were exposed to true Chicago culture . . .

Just so you know . . .
This . . .
is . . .
art . . .

We waited around and watched a guy's face twitch and smirk at us . . . and then act like he was spitting on us.

You just can't dream up memories like this . . .

And that's why we LOVE Chicago . . .