double standards

I have been Netflixing the TV series, The Gilmore Girls. I have enjoyed getting a new disc in the mail and selfishly watch them during nap time, usually whilst folding laundry (except the socks...I hate folding socks). I have noticed several things this season...season 4, that Lorelai has SO many double standards. Her most recent one is when she is so upset about Luke moving in with his wife, the next county over. Lorelai is beyond angry yelling @ him about being friends, and how friends tell each other things etc. etc., while in his diner-causing a ginormous dramatic scene. She goes on and on and leaves the diner angry. In the next few scenes Luke is shoveling Lorelai's walk and he lets her have it. I was applauding Luke. Here she is yelling @ him about not being in the loop and yet she hasn't told him of her new love interest in Jason, her Father's business partner. This got me to thinking...how many double standards do I have? I am not one to cast the first stone, because I have my share, especially where my children are concerned, like the whole Twilight thing, for example. When is it right/moral to have double standards?
Clyde says when it comes to kids, all rules are thrown out the window. (He thinks he is Dr. Phil.)

raised garden

It's garden time here @ the brown house. Jacob, Penny, and I went to Lowe's this morning and bought the necessary things to get started. We found some nice treated lumber, had an employee cut it, got the bags of dirt and 4 tomato plants. We came home and got to work. It was alot of work, but alot of fun. The best part was telling the Wardlings about the composted cow manure that we put in the garden. We planted, tomatoes, ocre, sunflowers, eggplant, and green beans. We also planted some zinnias and some other flowers in hopes to bring some bees for pollination. I am hoping to build @ least 2-3 more flower beds to have cucumbers, bell powers, squash, watermelon, and pumpkins. When we were nearly finished our neighbor came across the street to tell us that he works @ a plant store of sorts and can get us plants @ wholesale. Good to know. I am looking forward to having some yummy veggies this year.

praxis

We are so very proud to announce that Clyde passed his Praxis! He did great, scoring in the higher percentile. I knew that he would do great. His essays were most excellent. Way to go Clyde! We are very proud of you!!

NC treasures

Last night was our ward's quarterly enrichment activity. Being the new Enrichment Leader has been fun so far. We have gotten loads of feedback as far as activites that the gals in the church would like to participate in. Last night we accomplished 3...summer salads with receipe exchange, along with a children's clothing swap, and learning about the wicked awesome things to do in NC. (Penny is modeling a few of my finds @ the swap. She is wearing a pink pr. of shorts, a black skirt, a dress, with a tank over top of it.) I must say that Googling these activities was a lot of fun. I learned so many things about our state. There are 7 light houses in NC; Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, Ocracoke, Bald Head, Oak Island, Currituck Beach, Bodie Island. Talk about history...there are tours galore with outdoor Lost Colony dramas. Not to mention all the aquariums, like the one in Fort Fisher that are @ the coast.

Then there are all sorts of museums...like this one in Winston Salem, this one in Raleigh, this one in Spencer, this one in Mt. Gilead, this one in Asheville, and this one in Cherokee.

NC is a most fabulous place to live. I am hoping to be able to visit a few of these places this summer with the family. Happy exploring!

spring concert

Erin had her spring choral concert last night. She and Clyde hung out after school, went to dinner @ the pure loveliness that is the grease @ sir pizza. They even walked @ the tiny mall in A'boro. Clyde said that he didn't miss the mall. They were able to spend some time with each other for the evening. The chorus did several Disney songs from Beauty and the Beast's "Be Our Guest" amongst others. Erin is always so cute singing in the group. Very observant of the Chorister and the crowd.

Clyde also met with Erin's IEP team and signed her IEP in place, which is good until 2013. Erin has had an excellent school year, which is miraculous considering her school years past.

the highness

My brother, K, and his wife, M, are having a baby boy in July. In celebration of this joyous event, my Mom, sister R, and sister-in-law T, and I threw K & M a baby shower last night. Clyde met me @ our old church building where the shower was to be, with Erin so that he could take the 3 younger wardlings home. Jacob was not happy that he couldn't stay for the shower. Clyde delicately explained that showers were thrown by women, for the women who were about to 'crap out a baby.' Jacob promptly said, "Dad, ladies don't crap out babies. Josh and I know, babies crawl out of women's the highness." Clyde was then at a loss for words...through the laughing.

baby copperhead

Clyde and I are going on this years youth Trek. In preparation we have been walking every night. Tonight, I decided to leash up Uno for our walk. We made it to the driveway, turned to walk up the street when I happened to look down and there was a baby copperhead snake on the curb. (Uno did nothing BTW.)
Thankfully our neighbor was outside and he grabbed a hoe and another flattening tool and chopped it into pieces. It's baby mouth was chopping as fast as it could to strike. It was smart of our neighbor to grab a 2nd tool to hold the snake down. This, of course, means two things...1-there is a mama somewhere and b- brothers and sisters are slithering free. We have already talked to the Wardlings about playing in the jungle and the importance of being safe. So, you've heard it here first, the snakes have begun to hatch. yipes!

i totally goofed

About a week and half or more ago, a friend asked me if I would embroider a few names on some towels, for the graduating High School YW in her ward. She gave me the list, with the names and the colors that she wanted me to use. I was so thrilled to be asked to do this. I love doing stuff like this. So, I set up my embroideries and began to work.
I was on my last one when I realized that I got 2 of the 3 towels wrong...well...embroidered the names in the wrong color. I couldn't believe that I had just totally goofed up. So, I called my friend to confess and offered to buy her new towels. I know I didn't have to tell her, but I couldn't live with myself to have snuck and done it. Plus, I wanted to give her the option of keeping the towels and just letting me work around them. That was the option she chose. So, I added ric rac and a few more details to them. Overall, I think that they turned out nicely...for a goofed up project.

I wasn't too thrilled with my photos of the towels...Emily's turned out to be my favorite one.

compromise

I was a bad mom this morning. It all has to do with Twilight. I have felt that our girls were a bit young to read the series. Especially when the series moves on to the last book. There are some things that I feel can wait until they are a bit older. I made an agreement with Libby that if she read the entire Harry Potter series, that she could start reading some of the Twilight books like one and maybe two.... (though 2 is so utterly sad for Bella.) I don't think that she liked that plan. All of her friends @ school are reading the series and she in turn has been pumping them for information about the series. I think by me saying that I'd like her to wait, it has fueled her curiosity and so she is sneaking around doing all but reading the series through her friends. Libby loves to read and I would like her to have other books read before moving on the the more teen to grown-up book series. Am I contradicting myself with asking her to read HP first?

She is trying out for a talent contest this week. She wanted to use Yiruma's River Flow through you, which to me is Bella's lullaby...(On the net before the movie and I love that piece of music) and Queen's We will rock you, for a jump roping routine with a friend. No biggie. Then this morning she is asking what Edward said to Bella when he told her he could play piano. And she made it sound like she was using the line as apart of her routine. That's when I questioned her about the jump rope routine and the Twilight books came up. I'm afraid that I got a bit loud. I made her upset. And all on the 1st morning of the EOG's. She is dying to fit in with her friends and I am preventing it. I am still strongly opinionated that she is too young for the books...she's 10! Am I being a tyrant overbearing mother and really when I ask that, I do not want an answer. Since she has seen the movie, would it be more of a compromise to allow the reading of the first book only?

fellas nite @ nascar

Our good buddy, Jessup scored some free tickets to last night's Nascar race. He invited Clyde and the boys to go. They talked and talked about how much fun they had and how loud it was. Thanks J for the earplugs for the boys! Josh did mention this girl with her 'big bossoms' and her shirt that was way low. Of all things to remember...it must have made a big impression. The wee wardlings had a blast with Dad and w/ Mr. Jessup. (This pic. was taken right beside the fence, so it was loud and late...10:30ish pm. No wonder Jacob looks tired.)

leveling things out

Above is my most recently finished knitted sweater and the remains of the celery green sweater. Hopefully there will be the most perfect sweater pattern out there for the green yarn.

Josh and C got together again yesterday for their bi-weekly scout adventure @ home. Rain had just left us, so we worked on the remaining tools section of their scout book, in our garage. They had to learn and tell about 7 different types of tools and how to learn a screwdriver and practice screwing in a screw. (I'll have to post a funny thing that happened that afternoon later.) I taught them the 'righty- tighty, lefty-loosey' rhyme for them to know which way to turn the screw driver. We talked about a level and how it works. Josh is making sure that the concrete in our garage is level. I think that the boys all have fun getting together.

***Now that my friend had posted her son's comment on their blog, I wanted to share it here. After Josh and C are finished with their scout activities, the little boys want to do what they did. While Josh and his friend were screwing in the screw, C's little brother said, "I want to practice screwing!" We got a good laugh out of that comment. :)

wednesday adventures

Yesterday, we went to the zoo with our Plus One, Plus One's sister and mom. The above photo (taken by the Lion exhibit) is my favorite of the day.

The giraffes, zebras and ostriches were really close today. We just learned that the new male and female giraffe got new names. {It would be cool if I remembered them.} There will be a new "Feed a Giraffe" exhibit opening soon. That would be fun to do again. Josh and I were able to feed a giraffe @ the Lazy 5 Ranch last spring.

It must be a boy thing to want to climb everything that they can. Jacob was climbing everything @ the zoo...railings, trees, statues, rocks anything that stood still- which got the girls wanting to climb everything. Boys! Maybe it is Jacob's new Mohawk that has given him his climbing inspiration.

Now...on the the main event....That's right loyal Star Wards readers- Mastodon. Clyde and his pal, P to the B, went to see Mastodon last night. Clyde said that he thought it would be funny to take me to this concert...concerts not really being my thing, because this group is EXTREMELY LOUD. Clyde said it would be hilarious to see me sitting @ the concert, knitting. I am so thankful to P to the B for being Clyde's concert buddy. Thank you P to the B!

After heckling the band with "Hot for Teacher," Clyde and P to the B, hung out after the show in hopes of meeting some of the band members. The drummer hung out and was way cool says Clyde. And- after seeing the flame tattoo on the drummers neck, it has inspired me never to get a tattoo on my neck. I mean is he so awesome that he is busting out in flames? And fellas...have you gotten your hearing back?

And the most important of our events for Wednesday happened around 4:30 yesterday afternoon... Yellow has made it safely home to us. She drives way smoother than before...and really she should after having @ least 9 new parts installed. The auto shop where yellow was repaired even delivered her to us...free of charge, along with all the parts and labor...all free. I am so grateful! Time to write a few thank you notes.

Welcome home Yellow. Welcome home.

pop art

I have wanted a pop art rolling pin for some time now. After learning that one of our speech therapist's husband is an awesome woodworker, I asked about making us a rolling pin. I am so very pleased with how it turned out. It is very heavy and close to 3 feet long. The woodworker came yesterday, with his wife, P's Speech therapist, and installed it for me. Oh it is so very pretty!

Here was our red lettuce. We made our first harvest yesterday and are looking forward to some yummy salads this week. Our herbs are plugging along too...see the oregano behind the lettuce! It survived the winter, along with the mint and rosemary!

Clyde's social studies classes are studying about Asia. He wanted his students to make a shirt with some Chinese writing on it. This is what we came up with for Mr. Ward. It says, Ward Clyde. It looked really cool this morning after the paint had dried completely. I hope that his class has fun making them this week after their EOG's.

it was all about me

What a wonderful Mother's Day Clyde and the Wardlings gave me...breakfast in bed was such a wonderful start to the day. {Looks like Josh is hungry huh?:)} Then my babies each gave me some of my favorite lotion...Warm Vanilla Sugar from Bath & Body works. It's my favorite. Libby gave me some Cucumber Melon to add some variation. I loved all of the handmade cards from my Wardlings and the nice blue bath salts from Josh. We ate a delicious lunch and once lunch was finished, I put myself to bed. I slept from 3:30pm til 7:30pm and then went back to sleep by 10:30pm and slept all night long. What an awesome day. I rarely take naps. I was just so sleepy @ church. It all caught up with me afterwards. Clyde gave me 2 dozen red roses too! All of my babies gave me flowers yesterday after church. They look so pretty amongst the roses. Oh -how I love my Clyde and all my Wardlings! You all brighten my day! I feel very lucky to have each of you in my life. XOXO to you all!

On a separate note...A family in our ward has their 2nd son leaving for his mission this week. (Two sons on missions @ the same time...are there classes for mother/ child withdrawals?) I was asked to make a couple of pillowcases, for her missionaries. She wanted the above saying on them. She was sweet in complimenting the 'CTR' pillowcases that the Primary gave the children last year. (That was alot of worthwhile work. That project couldn't have been done without Cheryl & Audra.) I must say how much I love my sewing machine! I didn't have a nice heart embroidery, so I embroidered these hearts by hand...didn't take but a few minutes to hand embroider. It was a fun project to start the day.

flirty skirts

Today was a Girls Camp meeting for the adults going to camp this year. I was a bit fuzzy on a few of the details, so I brought Erin along with me. The meeting was to last from 9 in the morning, until 5 in the evening. A long bunch of meetings...Since the class, recycling and sanitation, that I was teaching ended around 11:30, Erin and I left. I am really excited for Girls Camp. I haven't been to Girls Camp, since Libby was the baby. I went with the branch in Asheville...twice actually. Those were adventures I must say. I will love getting to spend some time with Erin. Plus next year Libby will be there, which will be even more fun...me and my big girls. Wicked awesome fun! While @ the Colfax Ward building, I took the opportunity to visit my Uncle's grave. He passed away last winter, when we had our nieces living with us. I didn't feel it was appropriate to bring 5 children under the age of 5 to his funeral, so we didn't make it. I did go to his viewing the nite before. So, since we were there at the Colfax cemetary, I showed Erin where he was buried. Then as we walked back up to the shelter, I saw these big Brunswick Stew signs and instantly thought of my Grandparents. They made brunswick stew and sold it, as a ward to raise money to build the church buildings and to pay their percentage of the Washington DC temple. Each ward was responsible for a percentage, hence the fund-raiser. So, I remember my Grandpa Cecil wearing his plaid shirt and baseball cap coming out of the ward building one day, giving us some brunswick stew. I just had to document a piece of history.

When Erin and I got home, Clyde pointed to the big box on the floor. Auntie Jul's package arrived! {major squeals!!} Let me just say how excited the Wardlings were to open the package. Auntie Jul was too kind!! She sent flirty skirts that she made for each of our girls. They fit perfectly to boot. Penny got 2! oh- Mandy- we love the fabric choices...way sweet!! Auntie Jul was so thoughtful to include Spiderman caps for Josh and Jacob! Heavenly! They all loved the gifts... & all the tasty goodies that were also in the box. Thank You, Thank YOU!! And Auntie Jul- keep us posted on the baby birds please!

Half-Blood Prince

I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to re-read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince before the movie was released. I, being totally bummed that it wasn't released this past winter, looked for the silver lining and took the time to re-read the book. I am oh-so glad that I did. I had forgotten about a bunch of the story. I am so excited for July...seriously can July 15th get here any sooner? I am hoping that there is a midnight showing of the movie.
This is a preview for the film. oh goose pimply!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6znjg7gWa1M

crunch pop crash

My brother and his wife are having a baby this year, which means a Baby shower. I have to give a HUGE shout out to my good friend Mary for making the fronts to these cards. Mary made them and all I had to do was adhere the fronts to the cards. Mary, you are way too kind and you did a most beautiful job! Thank you, thank you, Thank you!! (Look- she even embossed the fronts of the cards...ahhh the detail!)
We have had a toy basket in the living room for some time now. A few years ago, Clyde and I bought this old toy chest for $5 @ a yard sale. It does need some TLC. The wee Wardlings had fun re-discovering the toys that they haven't seen in a year. I plan on sanding and painting this chest a red soon.

I am being very strict about the removal of toys. What comes out must go back in after play. Otherwise there will be a toy chest worth of toys all over the floor and I don't want that. I couldn't bag up as many toys as I originally thought I could, simply because of the tears that began to flow as I bagged them up. That'll be a nite time thing when the Wardlings are asleep.

And now that brings us to Yellow. We love our yellow. Clyde signed us up to go on our Stakes Trek this year. We are a Pa and Ma. This past Sunday was a mtg for the trek. On our way to the Stake Center something happened to Yellow. There was a crunch-pop-crash-break sound. Of course I was driving and pulled over. Something just didn't feel right. Clyde drove yellow to the church and we went to our mtg. I felt sick in the mtg., thinking that something horrible happened and that we'd have to sell a kidney to pay for the repairs.

Clyde took part of Monday off so that we could take Yellow to our mechanic. They put Yellow up on the lifter and immediately told us what happened. The first question they asked was if we had just gotten a new clutch on Yellow. The answer was yes, the week we bought yellow a brand new clutch had been installed. Well it turns out that the people who put in the clutch didn't install it correctly. The mount holding the clutch in fell out, causing the upper and lower transmission mount to fall out and break, it broke the CV joint and shaft on the left side, and ripped out the radiator hose...oh and it caused the motor to drop by at least 2 inches. $1200 worth of damage...with 9 new parts that have to be shipped in from the VW factory in Florida. That's when we made a few phone calls. We called our dealer, knowing that we bought the car as is, but wanted help in pursuing the mechanic who replaced the clutch. Long story short, after the dealer, along with our mechanic help here in the Emerald City, Yellow is seeing the car dr and getting mended. Everyone- the dealer, our mechanic, the repair shop that installed the clutch, was super dooper helpful and hopefully this will be resolved soon, with Yellow in full working order. The down side to this whole situation has been only having one car. It has been a long week. I am ever so grateful for having 2 cars!

more spacers

It was Josh's turn to sit in the dentist's chair this week. Due to the size of the Wardlings mouths...little mouths big teeth, they all will need some type of appliance to help their adult teeth to come in straight. Libby got spacers about a year ago, Erin just got braces and now it's Josh's turn. He had his lower k9 teeth removed in the fall...big ordeal...ended up needing surgery to remove a root of one of the teeth that broke off during extraction, to make way for the spacers. His spacer was placed on his bottom teeth. The spacers are already working...he was miserable this morning.

artsy fartsy

What a day we had yesterday! After I returned home from the Women's conference after my shift in the nursery helping with crafts, Clyde wanted to take the family down town for a nice exploration of our Emerald City. We parked on the lovely Elm street and just walked. (Clyde also wanted some artsy fartsy photos for our collection. Since I didn't know about the photos, I didn't know to charge up our camera battery. Thank goodness for the photo taking ability on Clyde's cell.) We saw so many antique shops with some cool things, the tall buildings, some awesomely awesome downtown apartments and some hippie shops that Maylee would love. We kept walking to a square and saw some buddy's from church and didn't realize that there was an Hispanic Festival going on. I knew that the Highland Games were in town, but that wasn't supposed to start until 4pm. While @ the festival, the Wardlings ran through the fountain, pet a llama/alpaca, went inside a teepee, ate some banana italian ice, listened to some fancy music, and had a blast. On our way back to the van, we saw a yarn shop. I just had to go into it. The yarn is nicely, outrageously expensive, but it turned into a lesson on how to spin yarn. The shopkeepers gave each of the Wardlings a turn spinning some yarn. Fun! We parked by the perfect climbing tree, a magnolia. We just had to get in a climb before leaving down town. We were running late for a birthday party that Miss L was invited to, so we couldn't climb as much as we had wanted to. Miss L got to her party on time, we ate lunch at Moe's (thanks to 2 coupons) and then we saw Wolverine! No joke... X-Men's Wolverine. We circled the parking lot and asked if we could get a pix because nobody would believe that we saw Wolverine without photographic proof. We hit Costco, hit up some samples and then got Miss L. There she was up for her go cart race. So we watched her drive around the track. On the way home we stopped in @ REI, to check out some gear for the upcoming Pioneer trek that we are a Ma and Pa. We saw some friends there too.
Once we were home, we were beat. We had such the fun day exploring, seeing friends, going to a festival and meeting Wolverine! Most importantly is was spending the day together.