The Fire Truck At Our House - Part II

If you missed Part I of the Fire Truck excitement, click here to catch up.




So we left off with Mike getting soaked by the kids. He went inside and changed into a swim suit and dry tank top, so he was prepared in case there was another chance of getting wet. Here's another Dad and kid who got wet during that little skirmish. I think Dad was having as much fun as his son!




After that bit 'O fun, Donny demonstrates the power of the water coming out of the truck. This is at only 25% pressure, and it'd probably blow you clear across the yard (the men were totally in awe, of course!):



Since Debbie was such a good sport about being the target practice on the last game, she got to handle the hose! Can you believe it? The fire truck party included water coming from hoses hooked up to the truck! The kids were told to get out into the yard, and here they are waiting - knowing they're going to get wet, but not quite sure how it's all gonna go down. I mean who's ever been hosed down by a fire truck, ya know? It's a mystery to them right now:




Now it's no longer a mystery. I just love the change in the kids poses and expressions in the picture above and below.



Now all the parents who wanted to were able to hose down the kids. And you can bet your bottom dollar that all who were able did. And the funny thing I noticed as I was looking through the photos is that without exception every parent had a HUGE smile on their face while doing it. Here are a couple photos of Mike and I hosing down kids (I really need to give Mike a mini lesson in how to use the auto-focus feature on my camera....and maybe a quick lesson in composition.)




In case you're wondering, there's a guy on the hose behind me. There's no way I could've held that thing by myself (and that was at a seriously reduced pressure. I have new respect for firemen who are operating these things at 100% pressure. Wow.) But the hose is rock solid while the water is coming out and you really have to brace yourself so you don't get knocked on your keister.


And just in case you were thinking this was like some sort of lawn sprinkler for the kids, think again..... (notice the cardboard box made into a little building? They're all trying to get inside of it)

The box is history, their cover ruined . . .

Eric is soaked, soaked, soaked

But don't worry. No children were hurt during the filming of this event. They loved it; wish I could bottle up their shrieks of laughter and excitement!



After all the parents had their fun.......well, OK, and the kids, we dried them off a bit then loaded everyone up on top of the firetruck to take a big lap around the neighborhood.







As we drove around the neighborhood, of course the horn was honked and you could say there was a bit of gawking as this fire truck goes on by tooting it's horn with a gaggle of kids on top and a bunch of adults hanging off the back! And guess who got to drive the fire truck?? Mike!! Talk about one kid being majorly proud of his Dad!




And to cap off the whole event, Donny gave each child a full-sized Beanie Baby Dalmation Dog, because he said that every young fire fighter needs a Dalmation Dog.

So Grandma Candace and Grandpa Jim - THANK YOU for the most awesome, once-in-a-life time kind of party! It was soooooo much fun!!

The Fire Truck At Our House - Part I

And the great thing was that our house was not on fire! No! The truck came to entertain us! Grandma Candace works at a school, and each year they have an auction to raise money. The man who owns this fire truck donates 2 parties, and Grandma Candace and Grandpa Jim bid on and won one of them! Yay Grandma and Grandpa!!

This was no ordinary fire truck party either……..well, wait. I’m getting ahead of myself here. Maybe we need to go back to the beginning of the day. Here are Eric and Charlotte waiting for the fire truck to come. I had booted them out of the house because they were driving me nuts with their whining-at-the-speed-of-light (e.g., “I’m so bored”; “When’s the fire truck going to get here?”; “What time does the party start?”; “What time is it now?”; “I’m bored”……”OUTSIDE WITH YA!”)

So the two of them set up camp at the end of the driveway on a stake out for a fire truck:

And then Eric thinks he sees something . . .

But no. Not yet. Donny, the “Fireman”, arrived just a few minutes before the appointed time bringing with him a couple of our guests who managed to hitch hike a ride on their way over to the party! Too funny!! They are the nicest couple and their son is so adorable! Here they are having some snacks:

The kids climbed all over the fire truck, ran all over the yard playing tag, then managed to find the three 5 gallon buckets filled with water balloons that Mike spent all morning filling. It took him at least 2 hours, plus enlisting the help of our neighbor, to get the job done. There were about 300 balloons all told, and they were gone in about 7 minutes. There’s humor in that somewhere….maybe it was when the party was over and he got out the shop vac to suck up all the little itty bitty balloon parts from the driveway and yard? Anyway, we got the kids fed, and I managed to catch a cute shot of Charlotte and one of her best friends from preschool (we’re so sad you’ll be going to a new school this fall! Charlotte will miss you!!):

The parents all helped round up the kids so I could do some individual shots of each on the front of the fire truck. Here are my two kiddos:

Now it was time to get WET. Donny (the fire man) got out these canisters filled with water. Debbie got suckered into “helping out”. At the time, she didn’t think it had to do with target practice. Shame on you, Donny!

Once the kids were taught how to work the things, mayhem broke out (click on them to see the detail):

Mike must have had a big bulls-eye target on him or something because he was soaked to the bone. At least the weather was sunny and hot for these kind of shenanigans.

Will Mike dry off? Do the kids get other adults wet? Will my lawn get more water? ? All this and more on . . .

The Fire Truck At Our House - Part II

Don't they all look this way?

Seriously, don't they??

A few months ago we instituted a Chore List for each kid. Allowance is tied to doing these chores. No chores. No allowance. Some chores. Some allowance. Do all your chores, you get all your allowance. We're all about teaching our kids how to function in real life here.

We're also trying to teach the kids about tithing. (We believe that God has blessed us with all we have; we may possess what he's given us, but we don't own it....He does. And he's asked for just a little bit of it back to help others learn about Him.) So out of our kids allowance, they take out 10% for their "God Money", and the rest they keep. You'd think with how greedy kids can be that they'd resent having to give up some of their allowance, but it's quite the opposite! They love being able to give their money to God. Eric loves it so much, that many weeks he gives more than 10% with such a willing and glad heart. He's an example to his parents, that's for sure!

But I digress.....

So, back in June the kids wanted to go to the store. They'd been saving all the fruits of their labors for a couple months, and their allowance money was burning a hole in their pocket. So we took them to the store where they both found an MP3 player that they'd been wanting and that was within their budget (you should've seen the look on Eric's face when I had to explain the whole concept of T-A-X to him.) Anyway, got them home, charged them up, and to get them started, I put about 80 songs on each of them. I loved being able to handpick songs. Some of that music out there.......seriously questionable for little kids! This allows me to do my job as parent and filter out all the garbage while they get a little freedom to listen to whatever they're in the mood for, be it rock, country, pop or easy listening (lol - Eric loves Jump in the Line by Harry Belafonte; who knew?!)

I. Will. Not. Smile. For. You.

I hadn't intended to take any photos of the kids. They're generally unwilling participants to a planned "photo shoot" of any kind, so if I want photos of them, I usually have to do it on the fly or while they're playing.

So, I was playing around with my camera the other day while the kids were setting up some imaginary town that had a festival going on (don't you love their imaginations?!) I was changing some settings on the camera that I rarely mess with and seeing the results they made. Here is one I happened to catch of Charlotte. The back of our living room chair served well as a backdrop, don't ya think? I admit, though, it's not really a great photo technically speaking (I was able to salvage it a bit with PSE6), but I just love the expression on her face! Nothing like capturing her pint-sized attitude in pixels.

Buttery Blueberry Cobbler

Ahhh, the blueberry. Seems we're constantly hearing about the wonderful qualities found in them! I'm sure you already know they're an awesome source of antioxidants, but did you know they boost memory - even reverse memory loss? They reduce your risk of cancer, improve urinary tract health and vision, clean the arteries, strengthen blood vessels.....it's quite possibly the most perfect fruit ever!! Now let's go ruin that by slathering on some butter and drowning them in sugar!! Wahoo!!

This is a recipe my Mom gave to me, and I've made a couple minor modifications to "make it my own". Here it is:

1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup sugar
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups blueberries (1 pint; fresh is best, but frozen works too)

Place butter in 1.5 qt. casserole dish, place in oven, and turn on to 350 degrees. Meanwhile, rinse blueberries and pull out any stems. Place in saucepan with 1/4 cup sugar and lemon juice. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Stir togther flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, milk, and 1 tsp vanilla. Stir till lumps are gone. Remove casserole from oven. Pour batter mixture over the top of melted butter. DO NOT STIR! When blueberries have been brought to boil and it looks like there's some blueberry juice in the pan, spoon that over the top of the batter (do not pour it out unless you're wearing an apron or don't care about that shirt you're wearing.) DO NOT STIR! Stick it back in the oven for 45 minutes or until top is lightly browned. Let cool for a bit and serve warm. It's incredible with vanilla ice cream! Enjoy!!

I love....puffy clouds

One of the many things I love are puffy clouds. I’m not sure what it is about them that I love so, but if they’re in the sky, you can bet I’m looking up to catch a glimpse of one of those cotton-candy puffs floating by. The scientific word for them is Cumulus Clouds. Cumulous means “heap, a pile, an accumulation.” The shorter they are, the more likely the weather will be fair, but the higher they climb, the more likely you’ll see thunderstorms. They can soar up to 39,000 feet in to the sky (that'd be one serious thunderstorm!) When they get really tall, scientists call them cumulonimbus. Whatever! I just like looking at them!

I call this one the Ironic Cloud.
Doesn't it look like an umbrella?

Brunch anyone?

Score serious points with your kids by serving some bacon and eggs for breakfast.







I can't take credit for this adorable finger food; I'm not nearly that creative! My step-sister's daughter brought them over for Christmas a few years back, and they made an impact on me.

So the recipe goes like this:

Pretzel sticks
1/3 cup White chocolate chips
1/2-3/4 tsp of shortening
Few dozen yellow M&Ms (if you can, go to a store where they sell the different colors. It'll take a lot of individual packages to get this many yellow M&Ms.)


Melt shortening and white chocolate together, and stir till smooth. On a cookie sheet (size does not matter), place two pretzel sticks together. Do this many times over the whole pan....two by two, place those pretzel sticks. Carefully drizzle small amount of white chocolate on the center of pretzel sticks. Do this to all the pretzel stick pairs. Wait a minute or two till the chocolate begins to cool. Then place yellow M&M on top of chocolate, with the "M" side down. Pop into freezer or fridge for several minutes till the chocolate hardens. Carefully pull them off the pan. I guarantee your little ones will be cheering you on to make bacon and eggs for breakfast all the time!

Life is a highway . . .

When I was back in my 20’s and early 30’s, odd or strange questions would pop into my mind, and I’d ponder on them. And I'd ask those around me to ponder on them. My friends and now husband would just roll their eyes and humor me. I haven’t really experienced too many of those “Cheryl Questions” in the past 7-8 years. After having children, something happens to the brain. I never thought it’d happen to me, but have had to come to terms with the fact that Children consume every part of you – body, heart, and mind. So sadly, those quirky little questions I used to get dried up and disappeared. But the other day as the fam and I were driving down the road, Eric asked how many miles were on the car. I said, “Oh, about 81,000. And come to think of it, you were in the car for most of those miles.” And then out of the blue, a “Cheryl Question” popped into my head, just like the good ole days. I started wondering how many miles I’ve traveled in a car during my lifetime. I’m guessing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of miles. How many have YOU traveled in a car?

My dictionary is so old.......

…..that the word Blog isn’t in there. What can I expect, when Internet isn’t there either. When you think about PC, what comes to mind? Personal Computer perhaps? When I looked up PC in my dictionary, PC stands for Peace Corps, percentage, postcard. Postcard ??? Hey, send me a PC next time you go on vacation, okay? I flipped till I got to personal, but there is no Personal Computer either. On a lark, I looked up Word Processing. It’s there……”automated typing and text editing equipment”. Did you catch that? The definition is equipment……not software. Anyone out there remember word processors? They came right after electric typewriters. I don’t think my kids even know what a typewriter is. Keyboards, a mouse, monitors..….they’re all over that. Typewriter? I can picture them asking, “What kind of game can you play on that thing?”

So how old is my dictionary, anyway? I flipped open to the front of the dictionary to see when this thing was printed. Egads! Copyright is 1981! This thing is an antique! There’s no way I can get away with this dictionary in the house as the kids get older. All the words they’re growing up with aren’t even in there – CD, Compact Disk, DVD…….fer cryin’ out loud, VCR isn’t even in there, an item that has already come and gone since I got this dictionary! I think the time has arrived to retire my trusty dictionary, the one that got me through high school and college, and just go online to www.dictionary.com.

It must be summer!

I occasionally visit a Christian Mom’s online forum and from time to time a blog challenge is put out there. A recent challenge was to post 10 photos of summer. I wanted to participate in the challenge, but really didn’t have 10 photos I was willing to share (that perfectionist in me.) However, the challenge ended up being a launch pad for another blog idea. My weekly photography assignment was to take a photo looking down. I was coming up short in the creativity department till it hit me to combine both challenges – summer and looking down!

Come warm, summery weather, I don my flip flops and sandals or go barefoot. I love freeing up those toes! Part of what has become synonymous with summer for me is painted toenails! I rarely paint them in the winter, because I’m always wearing shoes, boots or slippers. Why go to the hassle to look at them only while I’m in the shower, ya know? But come summer, I just love picking out a new color each week to give those pinkies some pizzazz. There’s nothing like painted toes to make me feel all girlie and to remind me that it is once again summer!

Barney

Yesterday after Charlotte’s ballet/tap class, we came back home for a 15 minute pit-stop before dashing out again. The kids had earned a free meal at Panera Bread from the summer reading program at the library, so I was taking them out to lunch followed by a movie (WALL-E). So we come back home for a quick stop so that I could get some stuff ready to go the bank, and a couple other quick things. Charlotte asked if she could watch TV, and I figured why not, it was only going to be for a few minutes anyway. She flipped on the TV and it just so happened to be Barney, that infamous purple dinosaur. Now, I really can’t stand him, and I think that’s an opinion held by most adults. I’ve watched the show with my kids; I really try to watch what they like just to see what it’s all about, then I know if it’s “mom-approved” or not. I had to think about why does this show bug me so much? Barney isn’t so bad himself, really. Then one day it dawned on me that it’s the kids on the show that annoy me. They’re way too old! I get that preschooler actors may not cooperate and do the skits as written, but man, these kids are in second grade or something. I wonder if they get beat up at school for participating on this show.

Anyway, Charlotte doesn’t like Barney either, and never has. I’m totally OK with this and haven’t lost any sleep over it, but I never really understood why she didn’t like Barney. There’s a lot of singing and dancing going on in this show, and she’s a singing and dancing fool. When she turned on the TV to PBS during our pit stop at home and Barney was on, I think I got a clue as to why she doesn’t like him. I could hear ‘ole Barney singing again, and for some reason I had an ear peeled to the song while taking care of banking business (multi-tasking mom here!) As it turned out, it was nearing the end of the show and Barney was singing his clean up song and talking about how fun clean up was, tra-la-la, skip-to-my-lou. I hear Charlotte mumble under her breath, “Cleaning is not fun.” Oh girl, no truer words were ever spoken from your mouth (if you could only see her room.)

Old Buildings

Photography is a passion of mine. What makes a hobby more fun is to be good at it!! The best way to understand photography is to take lots of pictures. To that end, I undertake one photo assignment per week which 1.) requires me to keep the camera handy at all times, not packed away in the bag; and 2.) trying different topics and subject matter while using different settings under different light conditions. Fortunately I can say I only used the auto settings on my camera for about the first month I owned it, and I haven't looked back since. It's way more fun to shoot manually, and makes me feel like I'm more than just an amateur. :-)

From time to time I'll post some of my "weekly photos", like today (lucky you)! The photo below is the result of this week's effort (which was an effort, since I got up at 5:45 a.m. to catch that less harsh morning light!) I added on a filter in Photoshop Elements 6 (PSE6 henceforth; please make a note of it ;-D), then reduced opacity. And there you have it - old buildings.

Happy Independence Day!

A special thanks to all those families who are sacrificing or ever have sacrificed to serve our country.
Thank You.

Almost seven years later.....

Breaking News!! Eric loses the first tooth he ever got! The first one broke the surface on or around October 1, 2001. And on July 3, 2008, it fell out during dinner. All I can say is, "It's about time!" He'd be wiggling that thing, laying it down flat, turning it this way and that...I wanted to yank it out of there; it was giving me the heebie jeebies. I had longed to get one of those adorable shots of him with that Big Gap where the baby tooth once resided. Alas, that is not to be. Eric's permanent tooth has been coming in for some time behind the cling-on baby tooth, so now it just looks........less crowded in there.

Same thing is happening to the other middle bottom tooth. I'm going to remain hopeful that the upper teeth will high tail it out of there before the permanent teeth start coming in so I can have my photo.

So I asked Eric what his friends get for their teeth from the Tooth Fairy. He said one friend, who lives across the street, got ten cents. Hmmmm, I'm thinking we're going to look like parents of the year here when we give him a buck or something. My bubble was quickly burst, however, when he went on to happily explain that his school friends all got five bucks for each tooth. I guess being parent of the year will evade me again....Easy come, easy go.

Edited (7/4/08) - Talk about a lucky kid! After he fell asleep I went into my wallet to grab out a couple bucks for the tooth. I was telling Mike that all I ended up finding was a ten and a five. He actually asked me which one I gave to the boy! Hello?! Uhhhh.....the five? So I guess I'm parent of the year by default. Haha! Hopefully Eric enjoys it. Next time the tooth fairy will be more prepared.

Isn't an introduction in order?

If you already know me and we keep in touch regularly, then you can just skip right on by this post. I assure you, it'll be redundant information. But if you're catching up with me and it's been some time, or just stumbled upon this blog and are bored out of your mind, then an introduction is in order.

I'm Cheryl. It was an extremely popular name in the 60's when I was born (and that's as close to knowing my real age as you're going to get.) I've been married to Mike for almost 9 years (been together for......geez, 13.5 years?! Time flies when you're having fun.) We've got a little ranch house in a typical suburban neighborhood in a small Midwestern town. The only thing lacking is the picket fence and the dog in the back yard. I won't get a dog till we have a fence; winter lasts for about 8 months around here and there's no way I'm walking Fido to do his business when it's sub zero. So we have cats instead.
This photo is, unfortunately, over three years old. Since I'm the photographer in this family, I rarely get photographed since I'm always behind the camera, not in front of it. I haven't changed all that much in the past couple years.

I'm a stay-at-home-mom (or have been since my youngest was born). Overall I don't miss the stress of balancing a "career" and the demands of home life. Sure, there are days I question whether giving up the extra income is worth it - I think that's what I miss most about having a "real" job, but at the end of the day it always comes back to "Yeah, it's worth it." One day my kids won't need me as much. When that day arrives, then I'll go back to a tax-paying job. But for now, I have the best job in the world: Raising my kids and taking care of my family.


I volunteer at a no-kill animal shelter and it's sort of hard to not fall in love with all of them and want to take a few home with you (I dare you to try! ;-D). Mike drew the line after the second cat. We have two big-boy cats - Keats [white] and Milo [tabby] (14 and 12 lbs. respectively.) Keats was the name the shelter gave to him, and since it was an author I enjoyed reading in college, we chose to keep the name. My daughter was only 2 years old at the time and she thought he was a keats......not a cat, but a keats. It took a while to clarify with her that Keats was a Cat, not a keats. Follow? Milo should have been named Rascal. I don't think I need to elaborate further on that.

I have two children - a 7 year old boy and a 4.5 year old girl (who constantly tells me that she wants to be "all growed up and 6 years old".) Eric came into the world weighing a whopping 5 lbs. 3 oz. (yes, full term). It's just not fair when a woman gains 40 lbs. while pregnant and then has a 5 lb. baby.

And Charlotte didn't just come into the world; we're talking Talladega baby. At least she helped me redeem myself by weighing in at 5 lbs. 11 oz. [eye roll]. Yeah, another 40 lbs., another peanut baby. At least breastfeeding helped me lose all that excess weight [double eye roll.]

I finally quit smoking 1 year, 8 months, and 15 days ago, but who's counting? (Just to clarify, I didn't smoke while pregnant; heck I even took nearly two years off from 2000-2001. WHY did I start again?! It's an evil habit.) The amazing thing is that I don't feel like I'm going to die when I do aerobic kick-boxing, weights, and now that the weather is nice, bike riding. I've got two young kids to keep up with and stay healthy for, so that's reason enough for me to keep plugging away.

In reviewing my post, I realized I left out all the usual get-to-know you stuff, like how I love puffy clouds, the wagging tails of puppies, the giggles of my children, reading, photography, scrapbooking, a good clean joke, going to church, cats, a leisurely meal - especially if crab legs are involved, and a balanced checkbook. I love checking stuff off on my daily to-do list, getting an honest-to-goodness old-fashioned letter in the mail, and a great fitting pair of jeans. And that's just for starters! Maybe I'll do a whole post about everything I love! My one pet peeve, though, is bad drivers. One of the best bumper stickers I ever saw, and I want it for my own car, is:

YOU'RE DRIVING A CAR, NOT A PHONE BOOTH.

Isn't that great? Don't you want that bumper sticker too? :-)