Heaven on Earth

Andrew switched schedules this week so that he could work during the day like a normal person. He has about 20 projects that he wants to complete, and he wasn't able to get anything done working the crazy schedule he was. First thing on the agenda was our POOL! We've had this thing sitting in the box in our living room for 2 months now, and all of us were getting a little crazy in the 110 degree heat, so Andy finally got it set up for us. Honestly, I was more excited than the kids! Finally, someplace to just sit, relax, and cool off. Who needs a vacation at the lake when you can get wet in your own backyard?

.

I have literally felt like I'm melting lately, so I pity the fool that tries to pull me out of this pool when it's so hot outside. Yesterday was our first swim, and the kids were ready to get out way before Mommy was. I can sit and have the water just cover my shoulders, while both of the kids can run around all by themselves without any help.

Like the title of this post says, Heaven on Earth!!!!!

Sexy maternity suit, huh? Emma found the only pink one in Motherhood & insisted Mommy buy it. Hey, it was on sale, so I'm not complaining, even though it's not very flattering & I totally despise pink!

.

Here's just a couple of random shots of the kids.

My little diva.

Do all siblings like each other this much? I'm so grateful that these 2 love each other. This is them watching TV together the other day. Goofy little monkeys!

Finally, my friend Ashlie took my kids out for a photo shoot yesterday. She's experimenting with her new camera and the photos she took are AMAZING! She's already posted some on her blog for me, but I should be able to see the rest of them soon. Beware, I'm gonna post a TON of pics because my kids look gorgeous in her photos. Hopefully she'll be done editing soon!

One More Step Back

Well, see? I told you that I thought my garden was cursed. I just posted about how great it's doing and now it's been eaten to shreds.

Yesterday evening I thinned out my carrots so that they can get nice & fat. Emma helped me, and dumped all of the rejects out in the bushes for our friendly neighborhood rabbits to dispose of for us. Apparently they really liked it because they squeezed in through a TINY little gap in the gate (last night was the first night ever that I haven't blocked it with a brick) and ate huge chunks of my garden. I'm not kidding- almost all of my carrots are gone, along with EVERY SINGLE leaf on my canteloupe plants and pieces of every other vegetable plant, too. I didn't think that I was being prideful by posting about my garden, I thought I was being grateful. But I guess the Lord just wanted to put me in my place.

All I can say is that I am SO grateful that I'm not a pioneer. I can't imagine how they must've felt when they had rabbits, or bugs, or grasshoppers eating the food that they absolutely had to have for the winter. It may make me sad, but at least I've still got Fry's just down the street. They probably wanted to just give up and die right then. Thankfully, they didn't, and now I can appreciate them even more.

As for my poor little plants, no more posting or pictures. It's just not safe, and I like them too much to invite any more pestilence onto our little acre.

Our Garden Saga, part 2

A partial victory?

Well, I thought I'd let you all know that patience & perserverence can pay off. I've been plugging away & working hard in the garden for the past few weeks, and FINALLY we're seeing some signs of progress. To be honest, the only reason I've kept it up is because we're supposed to TRY to be self-sufficient, right? Like my friend Cara commented on my first garden post- "Fortunately the prophet only said to plant a garden, not necessarily harvest it." So I've figured that I'm getting points in the good book whether it's successful or not. And now it looks like we may get a vegetable or 2 out of this venture, after all.

.

At first it was 1 step forward, 2 steps back, but now we've advanced to 2 steps forward, just 1 step back. My little gardens have survived all sorts of hardships. Mice (the original culprits that ate our seedlings), rats, windstorms that literally tore plants out of the ground, bugs, and dogs have all played a part in my garden stresses. However, after all this we've finally got blossoms on several plants and have even been able to taste the fruits (or radishes) of our labors.

.

Unfortunately, the watermelons that we planted in the wells of our mulberry trees seem to be cursed no matter what I do. They've been dug up by the dogs, smashed by falling limbs, and just plain dried up and quit. Amazingly, I keep finding seedlings that are trying to grow, so we'll see if they ever make it.

Andrew was very upset that we ate squash & zucchini from his parent's garden last week, while all we have is greenery. I keep having to remind him that we started completely over weeks late in the season. But at least he can't call it my "rock garden" anymore! Since we re-planted it flood-style this time, seeds floated everywhere and we're not even sure what's what. We've got clumps of plants in places, and completely naked dirt in others. Oh well. It'll be part of the excitement to see what comes up where, I guess.

.

We harvested our radishes yesterday. These and the carrots are the only plants that have survived every setback and have stayed healthy since our first attempt at gardening. I didn't want to rip them up, but my poor little "plants that could" had become infested with aphids, and I didn't want to mess with pesticides again. I decided to finally put them out of their misery (and mine) and pull them up. Emma had such a good time at dinner last night eating something out of our very own garden. She kept telling me "This is just so fantastic!" So I'd say my sweat & heartache has counted for something at last!

Hopefully the carrots will do as well as the radishes did.

So, judging by the blossoms and the look of the plants, we should be seeing some real live vegetables within a week or so. The canteloupes that have miraculously come up even though we never re-planted them will take longer, but that's the one plant that I'm most excited for. To be able to grow a good canteloupe seems like a definite stamp of success on our first summer of gardening. We'll see, and we'll keep you posted!

Can you say catastrophe?

Here's an age-old arithmetic problem:

.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

+ Love/hate relationships

+ What can go wrong will go wrong

______________________________________________

What do these add up to?

Family Vacation!

.

Andrew's parents just bought a "new" RV, and we thought we'd all take it out to the lake this past weekend. I still haven't quite recovered from all of our "fun."

I kind of have an policy of not writing negative things about family members on my blog, but both of my in-laws insisted that I document this epic weekend. I think that they wanted to see just how brutally honest I was going to be. I'll try to balance all of the negative with a positive and see how far we get.

.

Friday:

Positive- Grandma didn't have to go to work so we could leave earlier than expected.

Negative: It was still over 100 degrees when we left at lunchtime.

.

Positive- The kids were ready for naps by the time we left- quiet trip, right?

Negative- The RV started having mechanical issues about 1/2 mile from home. No sleep for the weary.

.

Positive- The kids were FANTASTIC, excited, and patient all day long.
Negative- We spent the entire day either broken down on the side of the road or waiting back at Grandma's house for the RV to get fixed so that we could continue the trip.

.

Positive- Cousin DJ was able to give us a ride back out to the RV once it was fixed.
Negative- Daddy & Grandpa had taken off in the RV and left Grandma by herself on the side of the road in the truck to wait for us.

.

Positive- Daddy & Grandpa were fishing at the campsite by sundown.

Negative- Mommy, Grandma, and the kids driving around an unmarked, undeveloped recreation area on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation until almost 9:00 pm looking for the campsite that not even Grandpa could give us directions to.

.

Positive- We finally made it safely to the campsite.

Negative- The family of skunks & swarms of mosquitos that beat us there.

Saturday:

.

Positive- Frank & Emma slept remarkably well for not being in their own beds.

Negative- Grandpa getting up at 4:30 am to go fishing & waking most of us up.

.

Positive- Beautiful lake.

Negative- Not one single place that the kids could get in the water & play.

.

Positive- The kids were perfectly content to play in the dirt while Grandpa & Daddy fished.

Negative- The broken glass, plastic, and trash that littered all but about 6 square feet of the campsite.

.

Positive- Naptime for everyone!

Negative- Grandpa only takes 30 minute naps while everyone else needs at LEAST an hour, usually 2. You do the math.

Positive- Daddy & kid time in the tubes. Emma caught 5 fish all by herself! Frank caught 1 (with Daddy's help).

Negative- Mommy & Grandma left sweltering on the shore to deal with the truckloads of people coming to scream, swim, and make out at our prime campsite.

Positive- A shower to clean my filthy kids in.

Negative- Not enough water for anyone else to bathe in. Can you say stinky?

Positive- Early bedtime!

Negative- (this is gonna take more than one)

THE A/C WON'T WORK!!!!!!!!!

Swarms of mosquitoes beating at the screens.

The family of skunks tearing up the campsite.

A VERY long night!

.

Sunday: Happy Father's Day!

.

Positive- Daddy loved the presents we got him.

Negative- It was about 90 degrees by 7:00 am.

.

Positive- All packed up & ready to go by 8:00 am.

Negative- NONE! Back to Thatcher by 9:30 am!

Positive- Grandpa got us a screamin' deal on a little commuter car for Andy.

Negative- It was leaking some sort of fluid all over the driveway before we even left for home.

Positive- Only wiper fluid, yea!

.

Positive- Making it back to Tucson as soon as we could with no problems or incidents along the way.

Negative- The GIANT hole torn in my garden fence & the tomatoes & squash left smashed on the ground from my dogs laying on them.

.

At this point, who cares? We're home!

.

Trying to look on the bright side, I'd say that all in all, it was a success. We were able to spend time with people that love us & adore our kids. We were able to get away from home for a weekend & Andy got to go fishing, his very favorite activity. Good times. After all, someone could've stepped on the broken glass, fell in the lake, or been bitten by a rabid skunk. None of that happened, and the kids had a great time no matter how miserable some of the rest of us were. I'm just glad we all made it home in 1 piece.

And Grandma & Grandpa, let's just hold off on planning that next camping trip until the memories of this one fade a bit, OK?

He's All Boy

I love my son. He is not only the cutest little man EVER, but he's so angelic that sometimes I just want to eat him up.

I know that there's a big debate out there as to whether our personalities are based on nature or nurture, and Frank definitely falls on the nature side. He came to me perfect, and he's stayed that way even though he's had Mom's bad example in front of him for 2 years.

Frank was born with an OBSESSION with cars, trucks, and anything else that moves, rolls, or flies. It makes it really easy to occupy him- all I have to do is keep at least 1 Matchbox car in my purse, and the kid can make it through anything. Clothes shopping, doctor's appointments, or church, this kid is happy as a clam if he's got a car in his hand. This is what he usually looks like if we're at home:

This is "Frank's Corner." It's in the dining room, and we just pile the cars in the corner. He spends a good amount of time every day here. He'll ask "I go play cars, Mom?" Who could say no?

Even at his birthday party, he was more interested in the cars than Chuck E Cheese!

Gotta love the boys!

My Life Should Be A Sitcom

I think that my life is a pretty good basis for a TV sitcom. We've got all of the basic characters:

The overly sensitive, frazzled mother.
The strong, funny father figure.
2 freakin' cute kids, both of whom speak their minds in hilarious ways every single day.
Neurotic pets that could probably be a show all on their own.

Over the past couple of days, my kids have been incredibly opinionated and funny. I'll share a couple of ideas for scenes from our TV show, and you let me know if we'd be a hit.

Scene 1-
Mom & Emma relaxing in the living room, Mom painting Emma's fingernails & toenails before bed.

Mom: So Emma, do you like this color?

Emma: Yes, Mommy. Now all of the boys will love me!

(This is where you'd hear the sound of car tires screeching, and the camera zooms in on Mom's stunned face.)

Mom: What exactly do you mean, the boys will love you?

Emma: I look so beautiful that now all of the boys will just love to look at me all the time, and the girls will want to be like me.

(Zoom in on Mom looking totally exasperated.)

Mom: Emma, what am I going to do with you?

Emma: Just let me be beautiful, Mommy.

After Mommy lets Daddy know what Emma's been saying, he declares: That's it! She's never leaving this house again, I don't care if she's only 4!


Scene 2-
The whole family is eating a peaceful dinner at the dining room table. Suddenly, Frank stands up in his booster seat and leans up over his plate onto the table.

Mom: Frank, what are you doing?

Dad: Do you have to ask?

Frank's face is turning about 5 different shades of red and purple, and he's making small groaning noises.

Mom: Oh, great. At the dinner table, Frank? Do you want to go use the potty?

Frank: No, tank you.

About 2 minutes pass, with everyone trying to ignore what the youngest Merriman is up to. Finally.....

Frank: grunting noise, then "Got it!"

He sits back down and resumes eating as if nothing's happened.

Mom: Oh, man. That one's yours, Dad!