Jason purchased a “new” tractor. I have new in quotes because it is the same type of tractor we already have (from 1960’s) but a few years newer and in better shape. Jason and Masamo took an hour trip (each way) to check it out and pick it up. Now it’s not the best looking thing in the world but because Jason is the one who cuts our 2+ acres of grass, I can’t really complain about what he wants to use to get the job done.
The new craze of kids has also hit our household, Sillybanz. If you’re unfamiliar with them they’re multicolored rubber bracelets that when you take them off they spring back into the shape that they were before you put them on (i.e. animals, cars, etc.) I’m happy to indulge the kids in this one because it’s relatively inexpensive. My favorite banz are the animals. We’re not going out of our way to find them and the fad is already loosing its luster for my kids. Here’s Ella wearing her collection.
We had to take our beloved cat, Ghia, to the vet recently because he has been losing weight steadily for the past year. He is 14 ½ years old and so we were not too optimistic about his chases. Once at the vet he was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, which apparently is not that uncommon in older cats. He has a nodule on his thyroid and his T4 count in his blood was almost 4 times the normal limit. He was started immediately on some heart medication and a thyroid medication.
It’s been several weeks now and we can see so many differences in him already. He is not anxious to eat, he is gaining weight and is just generally our loving cat again. They’re saying surgery will probably be necessary in the future but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I have been taking it easy in my flower garden this year. I’m in maintaining mode, there’s just too much on my plate for anything else. BUT, I have had voles take up residence recently (or maybe not so recently and I’ve just started to notice them). Voles are basically mice that live outside. They have taken over the old mole runs in my garden and have opening to the tunnels all over the place. They’re eating at the roots and tender shoots of some of my flowers so that they cannot grow! Rrrrrrr, this makes me angry. It’s been war. I’ve been trapping them with mouse traps and (hopefully) been killing them with Juicy Fruit gum (it “gums” up their system and they die). I’ve also been blocking up the entrances to the remaining tunnels, which I can’t squish, with soil. This seems to be working but I have no real way to know if they’re really dying or just moving somewhere else!
Masamo loves to play in water and so recently on a particularly hot day I got out our little pool and him and David get in and play. They had a fun time for over an hour splashing and pouring.
Masamo has also found that one of his favorite outside toys is a spray bottle. He will stay occupied for 20+ minutes just going around spraying things. We’ve set two main rules, no spray bottle in the house and no spraying people!
In addition to the pool and spray bottle, we’ve got a unique feature to our old farm house, a working water pump. It is one of my favorite things about our house. The kids never tire of going over to it and playing with it and it comes in handy when I just need a little water in my watering can and don’t want to turn on the hose for the water. Here is Masamo playing with Boppy and the water pump.
Near the end of the school year, David’s kindergarten class was learning about different jobs/careers. I surprised David when I arrived at his school to talk about being a nurse. He had no idea that I was coming in to talk to his class and was very happy to see me when I arrived! I was a little apprehensive about my time with his class at first. I’m not fond of speaking in front of groups and I know just as well as the next mother how unpredictable children can be. Despite all this I had a good time. I went into the classroom with my scrubs on and a bag of “tools” I use when working in the operating room. I donned my hat, shoe covers and mask for them and it seemed to entrance them as to how funny I looked. I also tried to do a little education should any of them have to go in for surgery but I’m not really sure how much they picked up. The kids seemed to be more interested in telling me about any person they knew who had broken a bone or been to surgery. Their attention spans are short and hopefully I did some good for the nursing profession in my short time.
Recent conversation with David, we’ve had many similar to this one (I think he’s trying to expand his vocabulary).
David – “I feel glum.”
Me – “You do? What does glum mean?”
David – “I don’t know, but I feel glum.”
This past Memorial Day weekend we spend camping at our land. There’s not much to say about the weekend, which was beautiful! I’ll let the pictures and video do the talking. One story that I will share is that if we ever lost sight of Masamo we could find him sitting on one of the two small quads we have for the younger kids to ride. He would try and start it himself (which he cannot do, and neither can I) and sit there and just stare into space. I didn’t like him just sitting there by himself and so would redirect him to something else to do or else join him on the quads and we’d talk. He did get to actually ride the quad a couple times but only while under both Jason and my supervision. Jason had a dog leash attached to the back of it (yes this does work because the motor is not strong) and I directed his steering. He’s got some learning to do but the passion is definitely there!
These photos show the kids watching a box turtle that they found. They’re waiting for it to come out of it’s shell.
This video is of Masamo showing his “mad” face, you might recognize it from the first photos we received of him.
It was hot this weekend and almost everyone (meaning not me) got in the kiddie pool to cool off, whether they really wanted to or not.
Since the weather has warmed up and Memorial Day passed, these two facts equal that Mimi and Boppy’s pool is open! We went over recently to take Masamo swimming in a big pool for the first time. I am happy to report that he absolutely LOVED it! He loved holding onto Jason or me while we walked around the pool. He loved splashing, floating in a ring (holding Mommy’s hands), jumping into my arms into the pool, blowing bubbles in the water, and having Daddy swim under the water and touch his legs. Here are some pics from that day………..
Another first for Masamo was going to a Reds game! We were given some tickets by some friends of ours who could not use them. He was captivated by the big buildings downtown and seeing the boats on the river. At one point he saw a speedboat going down the river and called it an airplane. I corrected him and told him it was a boat. He came back with “Not boat, airplane boat!” I’ll give him that one, it was going quickly and sounded like an airplane!
The Reds did manage to hit a homerun which means they set off some fireworks (another first for Masamo). He just sat very still in Jason’s lap and looked like a deer in the headlights. They were loud but unfortunately not too bright as the sun was still shining. He didn’t seem scared just surprised!
The first day after school was out for summer, Mimi, Masamo, Ella, David and I went to a local butterfly show at the conservatory. I had not been to one of these before but combining my love of flowers and butterflies in one place was, to me, the recipe for a good time.
I must say, I don’t think one of us was disappointed. Everyone but Masamo held a butterfly (and that is only because he didn’t want to touch them). There were butterflies EVERYWHERE in the specified room. They gave us artificial flowers to hold to attract the butterflies and at one point had a lady there with a number of butterflies in a mesh-type box and she would take your flower and get a butterfly on it for you.
Afterwards we went and let the kids get their face or arm painted. They also had many other things that they could have done but our time was limited and the crowd was growing. Here are some pics of the show and the face/arm painting.
After some very long patient waiting, Emily is finally having her bathroom remodeled. Emily has a bathroom attached directly to her bedroom and ever since we moved in she has not been able to use it. The toilet was broken, the shower a mess and well, we have another perfectly good bathroom upstairs that frankly she is the only one who uses. However, my mother was insistent upon us renovating this bathroom and so without further ado we’ve started the process. Here are some shots of before and during what we have accomplished thus far.
WAIT! First let me give you a layout of the before….
Looking into the door you are looking straight at the window. To your left of the window is a closet and to your immediate left (across from the closet) is a double sink with a large medicine cabinet/mirror. To the right of the window is a shower and your immediate right is the toilet. OK, here are the pics.
BEFORE:
After the destruction of part of the closet wall.
After having moved the electric for the light and building the frame for the newer bigger closet!
Drywall and mud are up and on the new wall!
That's all the progress we've made so far. More to come in the future as time allows!
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More on getting to know Masamo:
*He loves to sleep in! Very predictable with his sleeping patterns, thank goodness!
*His potty training is going well. When tired or I forget to take him in a reasonable amount of time he may have an accident. For the most part he is telling us when he needs to go and I’m very proud of his progress.
*He is very into quads and monster trucks at this point. He’s usually carrying around one or both of them and playing with them. Also, when he goes to bed he reads a book all about trucks.
*He’s stringing together up to six or seven words in a sentence. He doesn’t do this all the time, mostly two or three word sentences but he can do it if he has the words!
*The most recent word he has added to his vocabulary is fire hydrant. He knows what one is and is constantly pointing them out to me when we’re in the car (along with every truck and motorcycle he sees).
*He likes to play “up down” in the car. We live where there are a lot of small hills and whenever we go up one he says “up” and when we go down one he says “down” and when we turn the car he says “turn”. It’s cute but the backseat driver thing is easily annoying. I bite my tongue and play along though, what more can a mother do?
Here is a video of Masamo that I found from earlier this spring. It’s so cute I had to include it. At one point he is wiping off the kisses that Emily is giving him and then once says “Ouch” in response. Again, we had to turn the view screen so he could see what was being recorded. I can’t help but laugh.
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