Our "Calvin" two years ago...

This is the 2nd anniversary of one of the most Calvinable moments of our youngest son. Thought I would reprint it here ;)

One never expects the destructive capacity of children....especially when they are less than 3 feet tall!!!

So it's a peaceful Saturday evening at the FunHouse, the family is fed and we are laying a puzzle in the living room. Well MOST of us are laying a puzzle. The children are wandering in and out of the room. they stop by and look at the pieces and try to fit a few in and then give up and go do something else, returning at regular intervals to scratch their little heads.

This continues for a while until we hear Leo from the kitchen (and I quote) "EEEETHAAANN!!!!!" Very exasperated and drawn out, almost whining. We realize right away that this cannot be good Rolling Eyes

So Daddio and I go into the kitchen to find that our youngest male prodigy feels really strongly about marinating the goldfish early. That is to say he has pushed a chair up to the counter and gotten the jug of olive oil, moved the chair in front of the fish tank, and then proceeded to pour about half of said bottle of olive oil into the tank! Shocked

The boy was promptly reprimanded and sent to the stairs to sit and "think about what you just did".....yeah I know he's two but what am I supposed to do here???? This is not one of those things that people write about in parenting books! Perhaps there is a market for such a thing? But I digress....

So we spend the next hour os so cleaning olive oil out of the fish tank....... at least our fish have been thoroughly anointed.

We finish the puzzle and go on with the evening. Ethanator feeling impish tries to help...*sigh* ok ok, we were not planning on keeping the puzzle together forever, but somehow I expected it to last the night. So much for thinking! Well it was a minor offense and close to bedtime anyhow....no big deal we let it slide.

Sunday......

We were laying another puzzle (Daddio has gotten on a kick with these confounded things) We had some popcorn and were watching the Star Wars movies while trying desperately to piece together a puzzle that seems to be made up entirely of small dots. So being obsessive compulsive people we do not notice the activity in the kitchen. Evie was starting to fuss so we called Leo (the baby whisperer) to come and try to soothe his little sister. He comes down the hall from his room and yells "WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shocked Shocked Shocked " AND RUNS INTO THE KITCHEN! This gets our attention. Pa goes in first and also exclaims"WHOA!!!! Shocked Shocked " Now it really has my attention!
I bet you are thinking...."olive oil again?"

HA!

No respectable 2 1/2 year old terror would pull the same prank twice in less than a 24 hour period!

Q: So what do you do when you are too short to reach the thermo-nuclear cooker and you want some popcorn?

A: obviously you stick the bag into the nearby toaster-oven.... it's practically the same thing right?

The scene in the kitchen was this: Pa had scooped up a terrified but unhurt Ebear and unplugged the oven, Leo was standing there shell shocked, and. there were FLAMES coming from the toaster oven !!!!! Shocked Shocked
Did I mention that this was right under the WOOD cabinetry??
Beeing a little out of sorts at this point I foolishly opened the oven door.
(I think I hear Johnny cash...." I fell into a burning ring of fire....")
I also foolishly forgot about the butter part and tried to blow out the fire...
("....and the flames got higher......") I won't need to trim back those pesky eyelashes for a while Rolling Eyes
Finally I regain my senses, perhaps due to the face full of flame, and dump the contents of the oven onto the sink....did I mention the sink was full of dishes?.... and extinguish the blaze with the dish hose! So now the whole kitchen is full of smoke and the new toaster oven is somewhat charred. I am sooooooooo glad I opted for the stainless steel model!

Guess it's time to install more smoke alarms.

Well we all survived no worse for wear, perhaps a little wiser, defiantly more suspicious of young children, and feeling rather blessed that we still have a house and not a pile of ashes.

Have a great week,
Dana

Garden fresh

First up, we have the romaine lettuce. This is one of two window boxes packed with several plants each. I'm going with the competitive space theory......not really. When I planted my seeds I really didn't expect them ALL to sprout:


Dozens of tomato plants with a couple of spinach sprouts in there.....I really gotta learn how to can now I guess. Big beefys and romas. Everyone in my family (except el hubbo) eats tomatoes off the vine, tomato sammiches, tomato sauces.........maybe I should plant more? Green house smells SO good when I water these baby's.

Yellow squash. This plant grows like something out of a Stan Lee comic I swear!
Parsley you succulent green garnish and soup spice rawr!

And cilantro. The latin rumba, the passionate tango of the herbal spices. Zinc out the wazoo here....look at how it beckons you......

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Last but certainly not least, the beautiful, but poisonous, Azaleas in my yard........

lets not eat the flowers 'k kids? ;)

Caterpillar hunt!

Be vewy vewy quiet. We are stawking callerpillars........



Caterpillars are very sneaky. They have great camouflage. Such bright colors. Looks like a crazy amount of eyes peeping up at you from a branch I think.

So so fuzzy. At first we thought they were spikes that would impale our little fingers like sticker bushes! But no, the little bug was fuzzy like our bunny. Look at how beautiful she moves with her feathery skirt.

When we first started talking to her she got very very still. Pretending she was a blade of grass, or some such. The quieter we were, the less scared Caterpillar became and we discovered she was friendly. Tried to give moms camera a kiss. You can not play with them cause they are fragile. No pet caterpillars, no petting caterpillar, no poking *sigh*

Not good for much these fuzzy bugs, but good gravy they are mighty tasty!





*no caterpillars were actually eaten for this post