moving

i'm moving. new address: homeofthebudds.typepad.com :)

a couple days ago we got a card from this really great sixth grader we know telling us he's graduating from high school! holy crap i feel old. my first year of teaching little kids at church he was in kindegarten i think. its funny that i only feel old when i see other people growing up.

my blog broke yesterday. i wasn't too worried - mostly i was just frustrated that i couldn't blog about it :) but when someone in the help group recommended i delete it and start over i decided i better call in superhero bryan and he fixed it right up. and recommended i think a little more quickly about moving the blog over to something like typepad. so i guess i better get on that. thanks again bryan!

new discovery

"mom! when i sneeze, if i snort like a pig, the sneeze (snot) goes back in my nose!"

score!

on our library trip today I was quite pleased to discover that they were having a book sale. this was as many as i could grab in the time allotted (by the children of course) while staying within my budget (cash i scrounged from my bag). i found a couple of deck building/designing books for dave, lots of kiddo books - they had a buy one get one free special (although they didn't really mention that the free books were in a special box over in a corner.) and the really exciting part - three old school dessert cook books. i saw two "joy of cooking" books and thought about buying them because i keep hearing that everyone should have that one. the first was published in the 60's and was going for $20, and the second was ten years younger and the bargain price of $6. both exceeded my budget. just look at these beauties. i wonder if cake mixes were relatively new at the time this book was published. it has all kinds of varietes i've never heard of and all kinds of great things to do to them. and the pie book doesn't really look delicious (it's a good thing cook books have gone color), but i can imagine that i'm gonna gain several pounds due directly to this book.

hand me down

remember this picture? isaiah's a bit more active tonight than ellen was on that night. he wasn't at all interested in holding still. i suppose a flash would have helped, but then it's weird lighting. but you get the point - this, i think is the only article of clothing that will be handed down from ellen to isaiah. i suppose it should be obvious, but it was funny to dave and I that it fits them differently. for instance the shirt was always long on ellen, but poor isaiah's belly keeps peaking out.

summer solstice/redesigned park party

tonight we went to a summer solstice party (wasn't that yesterday?) in a nearby town that was a citywide event and had dual purpose of debuting a recently redesigned park/rec area. the park was pretty outstanding. it's pretty huge and among various athletic fields they had super cool playground equipment that i've never seen before (and that's really saying something) and back to back sand and water play areas - so it would feel like the coast. (you can tell i'm becoming an oregonian because now i say coast instead of beach.) the event was completely free and they promised and delivered free dinner (hotdogs, hamburgers, chips, drinks). the only problem was that about 800 people showed up and there was one lone guy working one lone grill. the food line was insane. that was pretty much the main attraction. it took two hours for us to reach the front. i say us, but really it was just dave. ellen and isaiah couldn't take it, so i took them to find something exciting. the city brought in a drumming group that was somehow associated with the park designer. they were pretty impressive. and the kids loved them of course. ellen and isaiah found some kids to dance with. ellen did some serious dancing. and here was the great reward for dave's two hour wait: one of the great rewards, anyway. we also scored another hotdog and a hamburger and two chip bags. definitely worth it. :) actually, in typical dave style, he struck up conversation with the guy next to him and now they're best friends and we're supposed to go visit them soon. and after dinner, our favorite storytime lady, Teresa, entertained the kids for a bit.

cakes

dave's company has very casually hired me to be the official birthday cake maker. this works out great - i get a chance to bake and try new things, other people eat it for me and then tell me its great, and i get a couple bucks to boot. this one is the second one i've done so far, and there's another coming up in the next week. and, i also made a cheesecake for the first time today. it came out pretty good. i've decided that new york style cheesecakes are not beautiful picture worthy things, so i'm sparing you that. isaiah did not see me make it, but must have heard the mixer cause while it was cooling in the oven, he started banging on the oven door and wouldn't rest until we had sampled it. (word to the wise, warm cheesecake - not so tasty. much, much better cold.)

permission

me: ellen???!? (looking for her in the backyard. and then finding her in the front filling up the watering can) you need to ask permission before you go over the gate. ellen: i did mom. me: you did? who did you ask? ellen: me

mom knows best

ellen: mom? me: yes? ellen: can you remind me? me: sure. about what? ellen: i don't know. you know me.

reading party (minus the books)

the library had a summer reading party today, complete with animals, games, pet rocks and... free ice cream!!

self portrait tuesday

on sunday while i was uploading the gazillion pictures of cherry picking fun, dave and i had way too much with the alpaca sample and making fake mustaches. unfortunately for this picture, but fortunately for me, i have no stubble to hold it in place, so i had to scrunch up my lips to keep it still. there's about fifty more very similar to this one.

technology generation

ellen is such a technology generation kid. in her magazine we read tonight there were arrows in a maze, pointing the way to go. she kept calling them "clickies". (you know like a mouse clicks on the computer)

little stud

sometimes i sing isaiah a little song that goes something like this: "isaiah budd, you're such a stud" sung to the tune of part of "down by the bay" i think the last time i sang that to him was at least a week ago. Today, ellen was calling Isaiah, trying to get him to come back into the kitchen. "Stud! hey little stud. come here little stud. Stud! come back in here stud. Good job little stud."

it's summer (almost)

my plants are growing up. we've got cherries and berries galore. we saw baby alpaca's this weekend. and now i've got some baby spiders on the way. i'm not sure what to do with them. they're right by the front door, and i'm not really thrilled with that location. i'd really like to hose off the whole front porch but i don't want to just kill this poor spider mom.

after a wonderfully, summery fathers day dinner of papa murphy's, watermelon and cantaloupe we went outside for some cherry picking and major weed pulling. ellen wanted to make sure you all saw the "nut" the beautiful garden. dave says this is the sort of picture the grandkids will see and remember me by.

things are growing!!!

we have two cherry trees in our backyard. Last year we got nothing, but this year they're everywhere! here's my zucchini popping up. you really must appreciate how amazing this is that I'm intentionally growing something and it's working! this little guy was not visible when i took the previous picture. two hours later there he was! i know this is ridiculous, but i'm really dreading the idea of thinning my crop. (for those of you non-gardeners, you're supposed to plant a lot of seeds and then thin out what comes up so they're spaced well and can grow properly.) I'm rather attached to my little plantlings and i'm really quite sad about the idea of picking some to throw away. and the corn is growing too. well, one row is. the back row isn't really working very well. oh well, lesson learned for next year.

alpaca

driving home from church today we saw a sign directing us to an alpaca gift shop. we thought that sounded like tons of fun, so we drove a bit farther than we expected to and eventually found the farm/gift shop attached to a house. we let ourselves in the shop and the farm and looked around to our hearts content. dave and ellen started calling the alpacas and they started coming in. this kinda thing always freaks me out a bit if there isn't someone around who knows the animals and if they're friendly. (dave thinks i'm hilariously ridiculous.) The owner lady saw us and she and her dog came out to give us the official tour. it was quite interesting and she fed the animals so we could see them up close. we learned an amazingly lot about alpacas. For instance, if we wanted one as a pet, we could have one for only $500-1500. But you should never buy just one, because they're highly social, so we'd need two. $1000 bucks and we never have to mow the lawn again. that doesn't sound so bad to me. After the tour and information, I felt I should buy something, so I purchased two high quality skeins alpaca/merino wool to make a scarf or hat with. I was told that once i used alpaca, i'd never be satisfied with anything else.

starwberries.

today we went strawberry picking at a local farm. they weren't as tasty as i was hoping, but ellen and isaiah didn't seem to mind a bit. isaiah was a mess after a few minutes but did a great job getting strawberries in the box. and ellen had a wonderful time too. and we could be done whenever we wanted (who knew bending over to find tasty strawberries wouldn't be the most comfortable thing to do for more than five minutes. poor strawberry pickers.) we got a nice two pounds for 1.70

another zoo trip.

isaiah really got thrilled with the penguins dave made friends with a goat talking to the chickens. isaiah did a great chicken impersonation. we missed a picture of ellen's current zoo favorite - the scorpian. dave and i decided we finally figured out the perfect vacation. half going somewhere fun and half tooling around at home. it's quite nice.

dress up

luann has several little girl halloween costumes that she let ellen play dress up in. here she is as a waitress. she waited to get back in her "normal ellen clothes" before she would take our orders though. and here's princess belle ellen can actually walk in heels. a feat i am still trying to understand and accomplish myself. she went down steps and over things and everything. my daughter is, once again, obviously a genius. and cinderella and of course, cleopatra. here ellen demonstrates her newly learned princess wave. isaiah spent this time dusting. poor isaiah had a rather rough trip. he wasn't really happy for more than about five minutes at a time. he got sick, he got some weird rash all over his body and was incredibly clingy - even when he seemed to be feeling okay. we think he might have been overwhelmed with all the people and that he might have missed playing with ellen. (how sad!) ellen, on the other hand had the time of her life. i think she said about five things to me the entire trip.