Noah's Ark was a prophet.

Uno gave another talk in church today -- her third, I think, or fourth if you count the scripture she recited a month or so ago ("If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God"). When her turn came, she marched right up to the microphone -- the very picture of bravery! -- and began:

[Throat-clearing noise]

Noah's Ark was a prophet who built a big boat. There were bad guys who wouldn't make good choices. Noah's Ark said, "I'm going to make it rain," but they still wanted to be bad. So it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. It washed the trees and the houses and the bad guys away.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

As usual, we brought elaborate props to help her remember key parts of the story: This time, a toy ark and several pairs of animals. Her favorite part of the story while practicing had been enumerating all the animals that "Noah's Ark" brought with him on his big boat: A girl giraffe and a boy giraffe; a girl elephant and a boy elephant; a girl horsie and a boy horsie; a girl parrot and a boy parrot.... But, though she plopped the bag of animals on the podium with the boat when she began, she neglected to mention any of them in the story. And she left out the promise of the rainbow, which had also made it into earlier practice sessions. Go figure.

Still. I was relieved that, while large chunks of the story were missing from her rendition, the pieces that she remembered to include were more or less accurate. Mostly. And I was thrilled to see her so confident in her speaking ability again. She did great.


~RCH~

Fishing, photos, a brain on the fritz

We spent much of last week up in Island Park, ID (just a little south of West Yellowstone) impressing the visiting ILs with all the fabulous Western scenery and outdoor opportunities. DH and his dad went trout fishing (they caught three or four), and we took the girls to a kiddie pond to try their luck (for some reason, the girls' loud voices and insistence on throwing rocks in the water scared the fish away; I can't imagine why).

Here are a couple pics of that adventure with the girls:





I took this photo of the pond that same evening, just moments before it got too dark to bother sans tripod:



I thought I might add an inspirational quote at the top -- something subtle, so as not to distract from the scenery -- to scrapbook and/or to order as a large size print. But I can't decide what quote to use. I've played around with Psalm 23 and Job 12:7-10 (both from the KJV version, whose language I love the most), but it doesn't have to be Christian or even scriptural. Do any of you dear readers have a favorite quote about nature? Water? Beauty? Reflections? Twilight? Anything at all that would relate to and enhance this photo? Please leave me a note in the comments section.

You know, I used to have all sorts of things like that floating around in my head: Snippets of poems (or entire poems), song lyrics, literary quotes, lines from movies and plays, famous quips from Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker.... I'm amazed now that I can even remember Ms. Parker's name. :-P I hate to join the camp of those who say that motherhood makes you stupid -- I hate those people; they're terribly offensive -- but honestly, I feel like my brain has gone to mush in recent years. I used to be at the very least a convincing pseudo-intellectual; now the pseudo part is all that's left. If that. It's not even that I've forgotten things I used to know -- I feel like I've lost the ability I once had to simply think. But not, apparently, to angst. (Or to randomly turn nouns into verbs.) ;-)

Ah, well. If that's the price I get to pay, I'll pay it.

Anyway, leave me a note with your best idea for a caption for that third photo and I'll love you forever.


~RCH~

The perfect breakfast

One sourdough or whole wheat English muffin, split in half and toasted. Cream cheese schmeared over each half. Several tomato slices piled on top and lightly salted. Add a stick of sharp cheddar cheese and a granola bar on the side, and voila! The perfect breakfast.

I can't decide if it's healthy or not, though. It sounds like it might be, what with the fresh produce and all, but I like a lot of cream cheese (fattening, right?) and I probably use too much salt (though my blood pressure, even while pg, remains miraculously low, thank you very much). Plus the granola bars I've got are the chocolate chip kind, lol.

Oh well. It's tasty and I like it.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to K2's kidney!
Happy birthday to K2's kidney!
Happy birthday to K2's kidney!
Happy birthday to you!

And, as always, my condolences to Uno Kidney on the loss of hers. :-)


~RCH~

Uno among the flowers

Taken yesterday, June 20, 2007.


~RCH~

It's not nice to kick old ladies, and other ramblings

Ponybelle. Ugh.

(For those of you who hadn't heard the update -- or did I blog about it already? -- Tres is definitely a Ponybelle and not a Joe Bob. As I suspected all along, DH doesn't make Joe Bobs. Email me for the name, if you're curious!)

Somehow pregnancy -- starting at about the half-way point, which I'm a little past now -- morphs me into a 90-year-old woman. After sitting or lying down for any length of time, I can't simply rise to the upright position like a normal person. Oh, no. I get these wonderful twingy pinches in my lower back that cause me to hobble around, hunched at a 45-degree angle, for several moments while I work through the pain and hoist myself to standing.

Darn babies.

The hobbling was particularly bad last night -- so much so that DH couldn't help chuckling any time I stood up (rude, yes, but in his defense I really do look funny doing it) and Uno created the Oh! My Back Hurts game wherein she and Dos wandered around the living room hunched over, moaning faintly and rubbing their lower backs. Just like mama. How sweet.

Not to be left out, Ponybelle decided she should get in on the act: Nearly every time I had to get up to use the bathroom last night (which, as you know, for pregnant ladies is quite a lot) she'd kick me rather forcefully as I struggled to stand. When she gets here I'm going to have a little talk with Miss Ponybelle about why it's not nice to kick 90-year-old women. Especially pregnant ones.

In other news, I'm beginning to contemplate the new baby's room. This is the first time I've been able to do a real nursery nursery: The first time, we were in an apartment (Uno shared space with DH's "office" -- she may have felt cramped, but I like that she was surrounded by books from the very start); Dos had a place of her own, but we had no money to make it anything more than a crib in a square room; this time we have new furniture -- frivolous, I know, but I love it! -- and a budget for paint and accessories and an actual design plan. Um, if I could figure out what that plan should be.

Here's the room. The arrangement feels tight because of the bed, where Dos currently naps and which I insist on keeping for night-time feedings, and because of the placement of the vent. Kind of annoying, but oh well. I don't like the previous owners' paint choices, baby poop green on the bottom (apropos, sure, but still...) and white on the top. But I found a cute sheet set (see below) and hope to pull a couple of nice yellows out of that.



I've got it narrowed down to ~12 paint chips:



I'd like to play up the colors of the orangey-yellowy butterfly, with a darker yellow on the bottom half of the room and a lighter yellow on the top and ceiling. Keeping in mind that color never translates accurately from real life to the screen -- and more particularly that I think my monitor is wonky so these pics are probably a terrible representation -- anybody have any ideas for me? LOL.

If any of my design-savvy, DIY seesters or friends would like to come up and help me rearrange furniture for a better fit, choose colors, and/or help me paint the room (it's small; it won't take long!), you are more than welcome!

All right, and now for my final ramble: Father's Day. We had a lovely one yesterday; DH slept in while I made an actual breakfast (as opposed to our usual Pop-Tarts or off-brand toaster waffles), we gave DH our gifts after church, and for dinner I made him steak and potatoes and deviled eggs (as opposed to our usual hot dogs or frozen pizza or desperate leftovers).

I gave DH a few things for being the father of my children: A couple of framed photos for his office, and a new George Foreman grill that I found on sale (the one we've had since we got married is the small kind that only cooks one thing at a time; this one is more practical for a family). Pleasant gifts, sure, but nothing spectacular. The honor of spectacular present-giver actually goes to Uno, who found this trophy at Walmart and just HAD to have it for her dad -- at first, simply because it's a trophy and trophies are cool, but even more so after I read her what it said. It may be cheap and plastic and kitschy, but she thinks it's the most beautiful, unique, special thing in the whole wide world and obviously the only perfect present to give to her daddy. She'd been keeping it a secret for four whole days, and she looked about to burst as he pulled it out of the Happy Birthday gift bag (hey, we recycle). She's adorable. Her belief in the fabulousness of the $3 trophy (lol, can you believe it cost that much?) is what made it so. :-)


~RCH~

Splendor in the grass

Dos sat down in our next-door (absentee) neighbor's tall grass this evening, just as the sun was starting to set. It made such a lovely picture that I told Uno to keep her there ("and both of you, no talking to strangers or bad guys!") while I ran inside for my camera.

Of course, party-pooper DH made me check both girls for ticks after we finished our photo shoot. Apparently they have those here. I don't think they did in the suburbia of my youth -- or maybe ticks just don't like more manicured lawns? Eh, who knows. In any case, no ticks for the girls. *Whew!*

I had to shrink the picture down in order to fit the blog's column width; in case you can't read the text I added, it says: I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. -Walt Whitman


~RCH~