Oops.

So I was cleaning up my Google pictures account after our trip to Yellowstone, making room for my family’s web album.   I came across an album with all of my blog’s pictures in it.  Mistakenly thinking that this must just be where the blog gets them from initially I tested out a picture, deleting it.  Nothing happened to the blog, so I went ahead and deleted it.  Big mistake.  I should have listened to my gut and left it.  It deleted pretty much all the pictures from my blog posts from the last 3 years.  I’m not even trying to fix the older posts, but as I try to fix the newer posts they might come up again on your readers.  Just FYI.  And as a side note, if you feel like you shouldn’t delete something, you probably shouldn’t.

Video

If you are using Google Reader, I don’t think the video from the last post shows up. You can view it here. 

So Blessed.

I was making dinner tonight and noticed that someone had turned on the TV. I went in to turn it off and saw this on the news(warning, it’s a little bit graphic and it might make you cry).

I cried through the whole story and then for a few minutes afterwards.  All of a sudden I felt so blessed for all that I have and so petty for worrying about all of the little things that I worry about on a daily basis.  Things like not having the right ingredients for a recipe.  Things like not having the house that I want right now.  Things like wishing I was skinnier. 

I have never had to leave my home to find food.  I have never had to see my kids go without.  My biggest fear in the world is having to tell my kids that there is no food left.  This is the main driving force behind my compulsive need to store extra food for times of need.  My heart breaks when I think of these mothers – hungry and suffering in their own right trying to comfort their dying children.  I pray that I never know the sorrow that they must feel every day.  I pray that my family and I never have to know that pain. 

The hardest part of seeing this suffering is knowing that there is very little I can do to help.  If I could, I would invite them into my home.  I would package meals and send them over.  However,  I know that my good intentions and sympathy won’t fill bellies.  My sympathy pains are hollow without action.  So, here is what I’m doing about it.  I’m planning on skipping the grocery shopping for this week and donating our grocery money for the week to UNICEF.  The kids are having a rummage sale, selling some of their toys and donating the proceeds (they may or may not know about this yet).  Here is my challenge to you:  Do something.  Anything.  Look through your pantry and see if you can skip grocery shopping this week.  Have a bake sale.  Have a rummage sale.  Look at your budget and see if there is any way you can squeeze out a few dollars.  Then donate it to UNICEF.  Or the U.N.’s World Food Programme.  Or Save the Children.  Or the LDS Humanitarian Fund. You can learn more about these programs and others here and here.  It may be just a drop in the bucket, but a drop is better than nothing.  Then spread the word and ask your friends to do the same.  Then hug and kiss your little ones and thank God that you were born where you were. 

The great outdoors

Typically, me and my kids are homebodies.  We love hanging out around the house.  While this is pretty low maintenance, it leads to pretty boring lives.  So, in an attempt to get the kids going in the mornings, and to get us out of the house more often, we sit down on Sundays and plan out fun things to do each morning.  Today’s plan was feeding the ducks.  We were all a bit disappointed when we woke up this morning to thunderstorms.  By the time we were ready to go, the serious rain had stopped and so we decided to gear up and head out.  I’m so glad we did!  We only found one duck, but she had some babies tagging along.  Super cute.   Since there wasn’t much duck action, we went for a little walk down the river.  It was really shallow, so I let the kids walk in it a little bit.  They had a blast playing in the water.  We found another Momma duck with her baby and a crawfish (which we thought was dead, but turned out to be alive – freaked.me.out.).  Then on our way back, we found a huge snapping turtle in a puddle!  I don’t know what people are talking about when they say turtles are slow, because this turtle was quick!  It stuck around for a few minutes of shell-petting and us trying to lift it up with an umbrella and then he was out of there.  He hightailed it back to the river. 

Did you know that snapping turtles have freakishly long tails?

Oh yeah, and all these pictures were taken with my new favorite app, camera+.  Love it. 

Farm Trip

Samantha’s class had their annual petting farm fieldtrip this past week and we all tagged along.  It really is a cute place, even if it is far away (it’s out past East Troy).  I was hesitant to bring Carter, I thought he would be pushy and make it hard for the littler kids to have a good time, but he fit right in, and did great.  He and Samantha spent most of the day like this:

He caught chickens for her:

And of course for himself.  And I totally regret getting him the transition lenses – they don’t work so well for outdoor pictures. You may not have known this, but Carter is a goat whisperer.  Actually, the goat was probably trying to eat his face.  The pony rides are always a favorite.  There was no hanky panky this year, like there was last year.  Even Ben got to ride.  He thought he was too cool to hold on though and then blamed the handler when he almost fell off.  Look at that evil eye. The hayride is always fun.  You know, they smash a thousand 3 and 4 year olds in a trailer and take us for a 10 minute ride.  Good times.  This is Sammy’s BFF of the moment, Anya. Mike has always wanted a pot belly pig for a pet.  Although the kids enjoyed giving this one a little bum rub, I can’t get over the nastiness of the whole thing.  There will be no pig pets for me.  And as a random side note, turkeys have to be the ugliest creature on the face of the earth.  This one looked like it stuck its head in a bowl of wax and then drip dried.  I guess that rules out turkeys as pets too.  Too bad, they could really come in handy as food storage…

One tooth-less kid

Carter lost his first tooth tonight!  It’s been loose for a little while now, and it finally came out tonight!  It’s a good thing, because he already has the replacement coming in behind it.  Here’s hoping that it straightens out now that it has a little bit more room!

He was so proud! Then he started feeling a little bit queasy…And it went downhill from there. He went pale, got cold and clammy and headed for the bathroom to hug the toilet.  Apparently the sight of blood makes him sick.  The kid can break a leg and not break a sweat, but show him a little bit of blood coming from his gums and he loses it.  Go figure. My baby’s growing up!

The princesses

I think that girls are hard-wired somehow to love princesses.  I personally don’t remember ever being in love with them.  That may have had something to do with the media black hole that is the 80’s and early 90’s for me.  Maybe I just missed them when I was at that vulnerable age.  Anyways, back to the topic… Me and the kids went rummaging the other day and Samantha brought along some of her money in case she found something that she loved.  She still had $8 in her pocket when we were done.  We had to run to Wal-Mart to pick up Carter’s new glasses (he broke the first pair already) and that money was just burning a hole in Sammy’s pocket.  She would look at anything brightly colored – at one point checking out the razor isle.  Lip gloss, brushes, you name it and she was trying to buy it.  Finally we got to the fish isle.  Turns out you can buy pretty much everything you need to set up a goldfish bowl for about $8.  Meet the princesses –Ariel, Aurora and Bell.  Apparently Bell looks like a grandpa to Carter.  Don’t ask me who is who, because it changes on a daily basis. 

I was trying to set her up for the eventual death of one of them by just mentioning how one would probably die fairly soon.  For the next few days, she would say “I’m just going to go see if one of them died”.  Then a surprised “they’re still alive!”.  I hope don’t expect them to last long with how much she feeds them and the trauma that they go through on almost a daily basis.  Who knows though?  Maybe they will last forever and she can take them to college with her.  Although by then she may have to change their names.