Sunday, April 3, 2011

Happy Birthday Nettie




Today is Netsanet's birthday.  We are getting ready to keep it simple this year.  With 5 kids we learned from a good friend who has 8 to alternate parties each year to save money so only 1 of my kids will have a party this year. 






She wants to go to breakfast, then movies and then my moms house for icecream.  We are going to bake a cake together and take pictures.  Yesterday at a yard sale I found a gymboree shirt that says birthday girl, with the purse and bows and icecream pants.  Perfect if you know my daughter who is all girl.  I also gave her a ton of Barbies and other clothes from the yard sale.  I try to go to garage sales when I can to shop for presents.  I see nothing wrong with that. 




About Nettie:
She is 7  years old today.  This will be her third birthday in the USA.  She was born in Ethiopia and became a part of our family two and half years ago.  What she wants??  A compact mirror so she can look at herself anytime.  When I gave her the bag of used Barbie clothes she found a little Barbie sized compact mirror and came running intto my room, breathless with excitment holding this tiny, plastic, gold treasure and told me "This is every girls dream!"  opening her hands to show the smaller than dime size mirror!!





She is love all bundled into curls and smiles.  We thank God for her daily!! 

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Blasted Gophers





Warning if you are squeamish, mildly compassionate, under five or a vegan do not read this. The contents of this blog could possibly offend you. I even offend myself.


There is a happy ending though so please don't flame me and say how horrid I am.

Gophers. Pest. Varmints. Rodents. And.... mildly cute. Okay Okay, I think gophers are cute. I admit it. So it is with great disappointment in myself (a former devout animal activist and vegan ) that I turned my back on the hamster like creature, covered my daughters' eyes and let my husband whack one today as we walked the property (wearing my six month old in a Baby Bjorn and my two sons watching) Do you really want to know? Probably not..... With a shovel OKAY!!! (tears) a shovel for crying out loud!! I am ashamed. But if you must know the shame goes much deeper. I am actually secretly happy when he gets one. I have a sick tally running in my head. Gophers:9 thousand holes. Brains: 5 gophers. It is the real life version of Whack a Mole. Plus on the humorous side, when was the last time you saw a man wearing a baby in a Bjorn whacking gophers? Ummmmm funny. I don't care who you are.

This is the discovery of "said" "dead" gopher. Abby stepped in his hole and her foot sunk, the little bugger came out ready to take her down, when screams erupted from the peanut gallery Gary and I came to investigate. He (the gopher) went man to beast with my husband ( the G- Man) and tried to attack him. His squinty little eyes and yellow teeth bared flashing even the gopher was scared. hahahahah dadadumb.

Look what one gopher did to our house! Crimminey Justmas.

After irrigation, this is what one of those guys did. Really this is dangerous, if one of our kids crawled in this little cave it could collapse. Must I remind you of the Great Gopher Sink Hole of 1985, when dad slipped neck up in a gopher hole after irrigation? Or the Great Gopher Flood of 86" when a gopher flooded the basement of this same house? Something needs to be done.






Okay so I feel bad. I do. They are just trying to live ya know. So I made my husband swear we would do the catch and release next time. Which will require me to construct some king of gopher box and to use the shovel with more grace and gentleness and capture them somehow. Of course I will take pictures. (I used to capture wild birds for rescue, um how hard could this be after handling hawks and owls?) Please. I got this.

Here is another darling we found today living in the barn walls. I actually like snakes, especially this one because it eats gophers.

Abby and Mason handling the little gopher snake








Here are some more serene photos. Our little orchard is coming along nicely.



My grandpa Jo's favorite cart.  RIP


Not uncommon for a desert sunset

Blog Partay Peeps

Ultimate Blog Party 2011

To tired to actually fix the randomness of  this all, here are my kids in no particular age order.  Introduction to follow this nonsense. 
Mason my oldest 9

My  youngest Serenity 6 months



My middle Netsanet 7
My other middle Abby 7.5
My youngest boy, Judah 6



Well I am excited to try this for the first time.  I am still learning so much and getting back into blogging (FB took over) so I think I will be great to meet some fabulous people.

My name is Kim.  I am desert dweller and mother to 5 amazing (nutty) kids.  I journal our life as a way to keep history alive, but in the process I try to keep things funny and informative, hopefully slightly entertaining.  If you can't laugh at yourself then you are probably dead.  If you ever feel your life is unraveling, stop on by and sit a spell, mine is probably not only unraveling but the kids are probably running with the string and tieing each other up with it.


Our journey began with I DO, then 2 kids and 2 international adoptions and 1 more homegrown bun later we decided it was time for that farm we talked about for so long.  Our journey now is about self sufficiency and sustainability and of course the never ending gopher wars.  Of course the last garden we planted died.  I will not let stop me!!!  I will build a bigger one and reap much bounty!  TaDA.   (and of course photo journal it and write it all down, the good, bad and ugly.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

My latest thing, it is keeping me up at night.


I created these tonight, one I gave away the other I am displaying in my new house.  My plan is to display verses all over to keep them in front of me so that I can remember God's promises.  It really is a great artistic outlet for me.  I just wish I could sleep. 

On a different note, it looked briefly like it would rain.  Sitting back from my suburbia state of mind, realizing my "farm" life is mostly theory.  The idea of rain jolted me back to realizing, some things will be changed forever.  Rain, wind and sun now mean good things or bad things for what we planted.  As I walked into Safeway (something I hope to stop doing in the foreseeable future) a young girl took a deep long drag off her cigarette, staring up at the smokey clouds obscuring the sun she questioned through squinted eyes to avoid the glare, "Is it going to rain today?" deep sigh.  "I hate the rain" she exclaimed to her co worker.  I thought for a long while about this.  How could anyone living where we live hate the rain?  I hope it pours, we haven't been out to water the plants plus tomorrow the grader is coming and it would really cut down on dust if it were to rain. 

The scriptures are coming alive to me because of this little farm. 

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The Very Next Day

Abby wore her blue painter tape initial to school today.  (the one from yesterday) Yes with her holy camouflage tights that she refuses to take off with jean shorts and a hot pink tie die shirt and a big blue letter A covering her entire torso, just to finish the look off.  (What girl needs accessories when you have painters tape?)  I told her if the kids teased her to say that she was unique and that by wearing the A it made her original, and who knows maybe everyone would want to wear their initials in painters tape on their shirts to second grade.  Mason told her if the kids teased her she should just run for her life into the bathroom and rip the A off crumple it up and throw it in the trash.  (we are working on confidence)  Well about lunch time she did take it off, after what she described as everybody in the whole entire school staring at her and asking her why did she tape an A to her chest.  I think, what really ended the A was one girl who said "why do you have a giant A on your shirt?"  And Abby's reply was "A stands for Original" and the girl remarked back to Abby that Original started with an O.

Good concept.  Poor execution.  Or at least misunderstood.  She is only 7!

(Abby and I had our board meeting today.  We will not be getting a  mouse at this current time.  However we will reconvene in six months to reevaluate if having a mouse is conducive for her and make a decisions at that point.)

Sunday, March 27, 2011

today at red robins

if you notice that in my title there are no caps and nothing kitchy, cute or catching about it.  i feel it represents my mood right now.  Done.


I won't go into details about today.  I think that today should be wrapped up in a brown box, tied with a string, put in a steal lock box and buried far beneath the surface of the sea guarded by vicious,trained to kill, man eating sharks. 

I will say however my kids make me laugh and cry and scream and act crazy and laugh some more.  Here are the highlights.
Sometime in the evening after dinner at Red Robins.

After many angry looks and my meanest  firmest mommy voice, I sent the kids in the house to get things ready for school tomorrow.   I stayed outside talking to my friends (desperate for real conversation)  All of a sudden the four older ones come running, no bounding out of the house straight for the park with blue painters tape on their chest of their initials.  (they have done this before) but it was the order in which they ran...Judah, Abby, Mason.  Now, I may be slightly slap happy and ready for Monday, but... They spelled JAM.  Nettie was not included in the impromptu spellathon,  but if she were it would have spelled JAMN, now that would be funny!  No, Nettie was wearing one of my shirts, which she has been doing lately.  I think it may be a bonding thing, who knows, but she didn't get into the painters tape.

Nettie almost 7 going on 17,  feels the need to point and stare at every brown, African descent person she sees.  (IE the African American server) Not only is it rude but annoying.  I don't mind talking to her about her heritage but it is never polite to point and stare at anyone.  This was done at Red Robins today.  Yes I took five kids by myself to Red Robins .  It was easier than cooking dinner.

Which leads me to highlight my children's personalities.  Sometime mid afternoon.  After many of my angry looks and much yelling Abby decided to do something about it and took to cleaning the kitchen for me.  Mind you she is 7.  She did a better job than her dad and  heck, even me.  I paid her well.  She is still cheaper than a maid.  Which has given her control and Abby thrives on control.  Sometime just now (Bedtime).  She has just informed me to shut all the kitchen cabinets, rinse my cup out and that I need to make sure I make breakfast right tomorrow.  She has also informed me that she will be working in the kitchen more often and she wants a mouse( the kind that eats cheese) and a schedule.  We decided to write her wishes (demands) on a paper,  post it on the white board and hold a board meeting tomorrow to discuss these things promptly at  3:40 after she gets her homework done.  I think I made her night or month with all that organization.  I can't complain, she even arranged the four free coconuts (anyone want one they are still in their green skin?)  that Gary took off a tree and hauled back from Hawaii.  She also arranged my cabinets to make more space, moving everything around the way she sees fit.    hum.  Well at least I'll have one that'll keep their house clean when they grow up.
Abby's organized Coconuts

Mason is a persistent little  booger bugger.  He takes my breath away, and not in the good way.  He exasperates me at times.  To go to Red Robins for dinner they had to read ten books and I had to sign off on it.  Mason wrote the titles of his books on his certificate.  The two that I can remember were -  book of Since and josef and gipt. 
(The Great Book of Science and Joseph and Egypt)  The rest were even worster than that.  I get that  those are hard words to spell, but for crying out loud!  The books were right  in front of him.  He could have (gasp!) looked at them. ??? No, that would require effort.  Lord help me.  When he sees that Abby out spells him by a mile he says "Wow that's freaky man"  and that I didn't teach him spelling in homeschool.  I then go on to yell explain to him when I taught him spelling and how  hard we worked on it and what a big fit he threw everytime and how he didn't pay attention to me.  Only to find at the end of my lecture he wasn't paying attention to me.  I am met with a "huh?" so I meet his "huh" with a "SEEEEEEE!!!!"  and he meets my "SEEEEEE!" with the drawn, polished, sword of whimsical laughter that can only be wielded by an 8 year old boy, thereby winning the "whatever it was we were doing."


Judah, age six.  He is the man.  Butt he laughs every time I say anything to him.  My angry eyes and angry mom voice do nothing to this fearless lion cub.  This makes for a long, long, long day.  He thinks everything is funny and points to his eyes, then back to mine and mouths "I got my eyes on you."  He is constantly running around behind me, pulling up my pants which are constantly falling down.  (not from lack of fat, more like the hereditary inverted hips) Oh the fond memories he will have of his mommy.  I feel pity for him.  Butt.... like I said he is fearless.


Oh and Calamity  Serenity, almost six months old.  Please.  She yells and spits and nearly choked on two things at the table tonight at Red  Robins, crayons and  the plastic wrapper they came in.  She also pulled off my nursing cover partially exposing my left breast at Red Robins and knocked over Nettie's drink onto my lap and the floor.

These mind you were just the highlights.  I need to get off this computer and do my bible study while I still have one, deformed, half functioning brain cell.

In conclusion.


I am sure I am parenting wrong.  I am sure I am messing them up.   The experts in any book would agree and to be perfectly honest, right now I could care less.  And oh ya, I did laugh today.  I laughed when Nettie's balloon from Red Robins flew away.  I know I suck and I am terrible mom.  But she literally asked for it.  All through dinner she fell into uncontrollable fits of laughter throwing herself onto he ground hitting her head, etc.  Ignoring my pleas to stop the madness.  Normal  attention seeking drama for her.  She wanted everyone to laugh at her so when we walked out of Red Robins she declared between giggles, "Look guys I am going to let my balloon go!"  I don't know what she was thinking but then she did let her balloon go and surprise!  it flew away which sent all the kids, including me, into a roll of laughter, which made her cry, which made an old man and his four wrinkled, old people companions watching our freak show in the parking lot,  feel very sorry for her, which scored her a new balloon from the grandpa type onlooker, just as I was trying to teach her a lesson on consequences, behavior, and logic.  I promptly took it away and continued on with my lesson right in the middle of the Red Robin parking lot.  When she was able to see how crazy her behavior was she laughed at herself and in my opinion that is one of the best lessons you can learn.  Which earned her pity balloon back, which popped 10 minutes later which made her laugh.  In fact out of the four balloons plus the pity balloon that we left with from  Red Robins ( I am trying for some advertisement on my own terms for RED Robin) none lasted for more than an hour. 

Funny as I think about our dinner at Red Robins, the waiter didn't say goodby to me.  He said "Good Luck".

Oh and I had the delicious Burning Love HOLY peno burger with fries and a Oreo milk shake.  I was slightly embarrassed ordering this, I may have blushed. (not just because of the massive calories and I am on a diet)  Now that I am closer to 40 you just don't say Burning Love to strangers under any circumstances, especially young men.