Scary Hairy, too-- (or lessons in Monkey see, Monkey do)

I spent all that time last week doing hair for people for the annual Crazy Hair Day.  Well I leave to take the girls to Activity Days, leaving Caleb and Jonas home with the little three.  And this is what I come back to.  Anastasia gave Elijah Scary Hairy.  Only can it really be Scary when it is this cute!?!?!?!?!

Anastasia's tooth

Anastasia was very worried about Dad not seeing that her tooth was coming out.  So here it is Dad.

Actually, all the girls are subconsciously (mostly, sometimes conciously) concerned that Dad isn't going to come home.  I spend my days reassuring them that Dad will come home.  Yes, even if we don't know exactly when, he WILL come home.  And that he still loves them even though he is gone.  And he misses them, too.

Spring has sprung, grass is risen, Miriam is in right arm prison

Keith, we went out to work and had to take a picture break because we saw these...

From the peach trees

The pear trees

The rhubarb.  I've never see it flower like this.  Not sure if I should do anything about it.

I think these are more pears.  There were a few on the plums too... mostly leaves though.

While I was doing this the kids were playing in the north forty.  Miriam slipped off one of the downed trees, caught her shirt on a branch and scratched up her arm pit.  And I mean a good 8 inch scratch right smack dab in the bottom of her arm pit.  Not deep but definately very painful.  And  pain to bandage.  We else all think that she did it on purpose so she didn't have to move rocks.  And she did admit that she would rather have a big painful scratch than work in the garden......  I personally would rather work in the garden than to hold my arm up over my head until that heals... but to each his own.

We did get most of the sticks moved out of the pile in the garden and most of the rocks.  There are a couple huge ones of both that I didn't think was worth a back.  I also got a bunch of scotchbroom and blackberries dug up there.  We are ready for a tractor.... any time.....

Scary Hairy

Today was Crazy Hair Day at school.  The girls were all soooooooo excited about it.  They spent yesterday dreaming up ways to do their hair. They told their Daddy all about it on the phone last night.  So, Keith these pictures are for you.  Everyone else is free to look as well.   Due to a coughing boy I didn't wake up as early as they wanted me too.  This is what they all finally decided on.

MIRIAM

Those colors are purple and green. (Don't worry Dad, it washes out-- in fact, I'm glad it isn't raining)  She wanted it curly on the ends but we ran out of time.

KRISTINA

I had her hair ratted up pretty high, but I think she got scared and smoothed it down with her hands.  Oh, to have thick, curly hair like that.

ANASTASIA

She had me do pony tails all over her head and then had me gather them (at least the ones that were long enough) into a ponytail at the top.

ALINA

She wanted pony tails all over her head, too.  And she wanted the one in her bangs to stick up straight.  She was very paranoid about it falling down and wanted me to let her take gel to school in case it does.

JONAS

Jonas wanted half of his hair sticking up and half lying down.  There isn't a whole lot you can do with hair so short.  I tried to talk him into letting me color it green (Like Miriam's topknot) but he didn't want to.

And everyone together. 

I love that my kids have so much fun!  But careful it is catchy, so don't get too close.

A day late and a dollar short, but I promised

And you get a cheap cell phone camera image... because guess who was still sooo worried about keeping track of the money and the cookies (and the girls) that she forgot the camera, again.  This was our last cookie booth.  No one remembered their Girl Scout vests, and it was FREEEEEEEZING cold.  There was a wind tunnel where we set up shop.

The blanket that Miriam and Kristina were holding was supposed to be a "table cloth" but fashion gave way to function.  And we only sold 43 boxes here.  Sooooo glad cookie time is over (well, nearly over).

Have I taught her well??

So, I'm with Anastasia, Alina and Kristina by the QFC selling cookies and they keep asking me questions about the Operation Cookie Drop (we had an empty box for the cause).  In case you don't know what that is- people may buy boxes of cookies to donate and the Girl Scouts will get them to the troops.  Anastasia got very concerned about soldiers. 
I have already explained a million and a half times since we brought them home that Dad will not go into the military and get killed because his job is in computers.  In Ukraine every male has to serve his time in the military (2 years, maybe?).  If you adopt boys you have to be careful with taking them back to Ukraine when they are a teenager as technically they are still Ukrainian citizens and required to serve.  I expect I'll have to explain it a million times more before they really believe it.  That is because of a composite of their orphan background and their Ukrainian heritage, I'm sure.
Anyway, I explained her that they chose to do that as their job.  That they don't like to kill people but they work hard to protect us from the people who want to kill us.   I then told her to, when he comes out, tell him thank you for keeping us safe.  So he comes out and (very generously) buys some cookies.  I said, "Thank you.  And thank your for your service."  Anastasia pipes up in her cute little Ukranian accent, "Thank you for saving us!"
Made me want to cry.  I hope I can teach her and all of them to view soldiers (of all ages) as the cream of the crop and give them respect and deference and gratitude that they deserve (Thanks, Dad).
The soldier for his part, very humbly said "Glad to do it," when I thanked him.  But when Anastasia thanked him he was close to tears himself, said, "That has to be the cutest thing I've ever heard."

*I was going to get some pictures of the girls in the Girl Scout Uniforms but I was too stressed about the cookies/ money/ girls to have the presence of mind to pull out the camera.  Maybe you'll get some later, or maybe not.  I don't seem to have the presence of mind to do a lot of things lately

Spring Projects

I'm tired just thinking about all the things I should write about our spring projects,

so I will just hightlight a couple.

Potty Training
Long overdue, I know.  We were waiting for a more convenient... well, I'd settle for less crazy, time to train Elijah.  But have finally admitted that that is NEVER going to happen.  So we jumped in. Cold. Turkey.  Well, maybe not completely cold turkey.  We put pull-ups on him at night and on Sundays.
We had 3 weeks of accident after accident after accident.  Lots of laundry and frustrated people.  I finally decided to try the buzzer thing.  And it worked well.  As long as I set the timer.  And if any of you know my memory you'll know that was hit or miss.  We did train him Pavlov-style to drop everything go at the sound of the timer, but at least we were having some success.  Then on Saturday something clicked.  And since then he has had only 2 accidents.  And that includes night time.  Whew!  Not completely potty trained but waaaaaaaay better than it was a week ago!

Clean Mom and Dad's room
Since we brought the girls home our room  has become home to all things dangerous, riot-causing, breakable or otherwise untouchable.  It is so bad that we only have little paths to the bathroom, bed, drawers and closet.  It depresses me every time I go in there.  Which is why I only go I there to sleep, get dressed, take a shower and get Ryah's clothes.  So I'm taking one cubic foot each day and cleaning it.  So far I've gotten 6 cubic feet cleaned and lost 2 when more dangerous, riot-causing, breakable or otherwise untouchable things moved in.  But hey, that is a net positive, right?!?!?

Dog Fence
We are very tired of Sheba leaving wet deposits on our floors.  The kids have scrubbed (as the Mystery Chore) the floor so much that the carpet is fuzzy.  So in order for her to spend more time outside and not tormenting the neighbors, we took the plunge and bought a "Humane Contain," an electric fence for her.  Caleb and Jonas took one Saturday (while the rest of us were planting trees and clearing blueberry patch) to run the wire a long the neighbor's fence side of our property.  They worked hard and did a great job!  But that is as far as it has gotten.

Plays and Science Fair
I think I talked about Caleb being in the Aladdin play.  This is the second year they are doing Aladdin so there isn't much costuming and I think I've gotten them mostly done. 
The science fair is coming up.  Of course all three kids that qualify to be in it want to do some extravagant experiement.  I've got them talked down to the following: Miriam (and her friend Mimi) are testing which kind of sugar makes the best crystals, brown, powdered or white.  Kristina is testing which medium makes the best invisible ink (there is a list of about 10 things she is trying).  And Jonas is doing something with boats and floating in different kinds of water or something like that.  We haven't even started his yet.

Well
The well has been on the list for a while, so by default it moved from a winter project to a spring one.  There are a lot of things standing in the way of the well getting done.  Not the least of which is the most knarly, tangled, vicious, menacing patch of blackberries you ever did see.  But there is also a fence and a couple huge chunks of concrete in the way of the truck that needs to get in to fix the well.  Oh, and then there is the need to come up with a cement mixer to pour a foundation for the new "well house."  The age old dilema, do you buy?  Do you rent?  There are an inordinate amount of excuses reasons stretching out in our future for a cement mixture purchase plunge... so then, which one to you buy?  Do you go larger to do big jobs quicker? Do you go metal drum to last over the plastic ones?  All the while jacking the price up.  Decision-making at our house is a long and arduous process, sometimes stretching into years.

Greenhouse
This hasn't materialized yet for many reasons (and seasons), which I have next to no time here (as kids are waking up) to hash out.  Suffice it to say, I gave up and planted seeds in trays that we now have all over our house.  I do this every year.  Call it spring fever, whatever.  I get a hankering (usually about 2nd week in March-- I'm early this year) to plant something.  I drive Keith nuts with this.  But he humors me and lets me do it every year (he is wise to allow me to keep my sanity).  Often many of the plants don't make it to the ground, but he is still very patient.

Generator
We have had a generator sitting in our garage, looking very pretty and useful, for about a year now (we got a good deal at Costco).  Waiting on the purchase (or rental) of a cement mixer to pour a pad for it.  Of course we are through most of the power-outage-food-thawing-winter weather, and there it sits, looking useful.

Blueberries (and trees)
I already discussed this in the last post, so I will just say that FINALLY our "orchard" started last year (well, technically 10 years ago) is all planted.
And we are in the process of clearing to plant the blueberries.

Piece de resistance
(Pardon my french or at least my french spelling).  All that and much more, once again, leads to the need (or desire) to purchase a small tractor.  When I said that decision-making at our house is a long and arduous process, I really meant it.  And buying a tractor (a "BIG" purchase) is definately no exception.  We have been threatening trying to buy a tractor for about 13 years now.  I think this time it just might happen.

So our spring plate is spilling over.  But at least we have a lot of this going around

to keep everyone happy, if not sane.