MISSING

One very oversized cat

Goes by the name Harrison or Mačka

Sleeps belly up for most of the day

Loves human attention

Will only drink out of the bathroom sink

Harrison is a very scheduled cat.  He comes in at 6:30 when I'm making breakfast and pigs out like he hasn't eaten in days, meows by the bathroom until someone turns on the tap in the sink for him to get a drink, sleeps belly up in random places around the house, eats around 10 and 11 and 12, sleeps, goes out around 2 but comes back in rather quickly to eat again, sleeps on someone's bed until dinner time, eats, meows by bathroom, wanders in and out of the house until 10ish, eats, goes out for the night.  Repeat the next day.  He's pretty lazy but he NEVER misses his breakfast. 

The morning that he did not show up for breakfast or lunch and still wasn't around after church at 4:30 left us very worried about him. We spent almost two hours calling for him, checking the roadside for him, wandering the fields and ditch banks and neighbors yards looking for him.  Nothing.

We reminisced for the next while about what a great, lazy cat he was and all the funny places and positions that he would sleep in. We teared up a bit remembering how good he was to let kids cuddle and play with him and how many nights he took charge of the bed time routine.

  

We gathered around the computer to look at pictures of him.  We downloaded the most recent ones from the camera which happened to be taken the night before.

 

Nathan prayed that if he was alive he would find his way home or if he wasn't that he would be happy in heaven while he waited for us to get there.

We were finally accepting the fact that he was just gone when he wandered in around 9 pm as if nothing was different.  What a punk!!  He was a little impatient with all the hands on attention, squirming out of the many hugs and kisses he was getting.  It was one of those times that I really wished I could speak cat.  Where had he been???  He had to be somewhere that he could eat food because he wasn't acting hungry.  He doesn't eat the mice, birds or bunnies that he kills so we knew he was either being fed by humans or stealing out of another pets bowl.  And knowing his sleep schedule he was probably bearing his belly side to some neighbor with happy kids begging to keep him or a lonely senior citizen glad for the company. 

He got a good lecture from Nathan about not wandering off and an abundance of loving attention afterward. 

Harrison must have been worn out from his adventures because he spent all of Monday sleeping in Vivien's empty bedroom where it was cool and quiet.

  

By Tuesday he was back to his normal schedule.  Our family is complete again as he wanders out with the kids to play, sleeps wherever he wants to and shows up right on time for breakfast.

Boxing

After Tae Kwan Do class Nathan is usually a little wound up and needs to get a few more kicks and hits out of his system.  That finally motivated LeRoy and Derek to clear a spot in the garage, climb in the attic, set a sturdy bolt and hang the punching bag that we inherited from my brother (or stole after he left home depending on who you hear the story from).  

The boys really like having the punching bag hanging there.  Derek ended up with a few bag burns and sore muscles after a few days of bag beating. I've thought of going out there and punching it myself a few times.  I briefly attended a summer fitness class where we did bag workouts and I found out that it's a good way to get rid of some pent up anxiety, tension, stress, anger.  Not a bad thing to have hanging around a house full of Edwards boys.

Bye, Bye Blue Hair

May  7, 2012

When we scheduled a time for Erika and Bret to get their wedding announcement pictures taken Erika decided she was done with blue hair.

The blue would not let go they had to strip it twice and color it twice.  After four hours she had the color she wanted.  Or close to it.  Because of stripping it there was an orange hue to the whole thing but Erika liked the strawberry blond look that it gave her.

So Pretty!
(The pout face was for an "I miss Bret" picture)

The Vegetable Thief

My vegetables are constantly running low.  I can leave the refrigerator stocked with two containers of cherry tomatoes and the next time I return there is only one container left, if I'm lucky.  I can slice up two cucumber for dinner and before we can all sit down to the table half of them are missing.  Baby carrots disappear at an alarming rate. I can't say that I mind having this problem.

The thief:

I have caught him sitting in front of the TV munching away on baby carrots and tomatoes.  He will hide in the pantry eating his stolen vegetables.  This time I found him sitting outside on the swing enjoying a moment to himself enjoying a cool breeze along with the vegetables.

As we planned our garden this year we let the kids decide what they would plant.  Nathan did not even hesitate.  He wanted an apple tree and a tomato tree.  The apple trees are yet to be planted but we did get his tomato "tree".  I knew that the chance of me eating any tomatoes off of Nathan's plant was extremely slim so I picked up a second one.  Hyrum has claimed it as his.  I still might not get any tomatoes this summer.

Nathan was so excited to pick and eat his first tomatoes!  He checks several times a day to see if there are any that have changed to the perfect red.

The wind has knocked the plants over a couple of times and while I was standing them back up and showing the boys how to water them I caught myself talking to the plants.  Nathan and Hyrum giggled and asked me why I was talking to a plant and I explained that plants grow better if they have sunshine, water, and love; that it has been proven in experiments that plants who have good music played for them grow better than plants that have hard, bad music played for them.  Later that afternoon Hyrum informed me that he sang two nice songs to his tomato plant and he didn't even say "guns" in his songs.  Nathan always remembers his watering days and he also talks to his plant, especially the little green tomatoes, encouraging them to grow so he can eat them.

This is not a new thing with Nathan.  He has been eating fruits and vegetables from the time he was 4 months old.  His first fruit was a plum that my dad gave him at a family reunion and at 5 months he started gnawing on carrot and celery sticks to comfort his teething gums.  When he was 16 months old he walked to the back of our half acre lot and plucked a zucchini from the garden, dragged it back up to the house, and proceeded to eat a vegetable that was nearly as tall as he was.

The Sock Box

was overflowing!

The match makers sounded like they were in a serious game of Socky Go Fish.  Do you have a Keds L with a blue toe? No, do you have a solid white calf length.  Yes!  Do you have a grey toe, grey heal?  (In unison)  WE ALL HAVE THOSE!  

Haircut?

Yes, Please!

Hyrum insists that he do his own hair and he likes the messy look. I even caught him trying to use Erika's hairspray because he didn't want it "to move".  And another time he used hand soap because he couldn't find the gel.  He can spend quite a bit of time in front of that mirror.

The Four Wheeler

When we moved into the country we didn't realize that having a form of snow removal besides the good old shovel was nearly mandatory.  We have been rescued by our neighbors for three winters.  They have used their own four wheelers to clear our drive way, remove the snow plow mountains across the front of the driveway and plowed out our employees vehicles after the winds blowing up the edge of the ditch bank had buried them.  We have awesome neighbors!

This year, LeRoy was determined to be legitimate country folk.  He traded almost two months worth of evenings doing electrical work for a gently used four wheeler.  The only problem with our plan was that winter never showed up this year.  The boys put on the snow blade when a brief storm actually covered the drive way.  They quickly cleared the new snow and stood back proud of their accomplishment.  Within a couple of hours the snow was gone and they realized they didn't really need to use the four wheeler to do what the sun had done everywhere else.  After another week they just took the snow blade off and it's been sitting by it's lonesome self in the shed ever since. 

The kids were so excited when it was dropped off to us!  They rode it around the subdivision and through the empty field until their faces were frozen from the cold November air and the gas tank was empty.

The younger boys love it when the older boys give them rides! It's fun to watch them hang out together and take turns.  They really started to enjoy it when the weather finally turned a little sunny and warm so they could ride even longer and not freeze.  Nathan and Hyrum like it best when Levi takes them because he lets them "drive".  Really, their hands are just on the handles but they feel so big and in control.

One of the ICES rules is that exchange students cannot drive any form of vehicle.  Vivien may or may not have driven once around the block.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

I try to feed my kids nutritious meals and my little boys are generally very good about eating vegetables and fruits.  It's fun to surprise them with theme plates for lunch.  They get so caught up in how cute their food is that before they realize they are eating something new (like the chive sprigs on the lady bugs) it is gone and they are asking for more.

However, waffles with ice cream and chocolate syrup do occasionally make it to the dinner table.  At least the strawberries are healthy.

I will admit that fried chimichangas are a biweekly regular around here. The satisfied tummies and praise that I get for fixing their favorite meal make my post-frying headache worth it.

At every meal it seems that I have someone complaining but I also have someone who is quite happy with it. Nathan was just as happy with his cucumbers as Derek was with his waffle.