Anastaya's 14th birthday party

Anastaya had her birthday party last week.  Her birthday is at the end of January but around here, we think the important thing is to have the party, not to have it on the birthday!  A few of her friends did tease her about having a party so far from her birthday.  We always plan an activity to do for each party.  Anastaya loves cute socks and decided that for her party, everyone would decorate socks.  We found some smooth weave socks at Target and some fabric markers at Michaels.  The girls began by drawing their designs  on paper.  Then, it was time for the real thing.  They spent almost an hour on their socks and each was as unique as the girls.  Anastaya chose to do pink zebra stripes.

Once they were done crafting, it was time for cake and gifts. 

Anastaya went easy on me and we got a cake from Costco.

The girls may be 13 and 14 years old but that didn't stop them from going down the fire pole repeatedly or enjoying the zip line outside.  When things were winding down, Anastaya got out her nail polish and the girls got to work doing their nails.  The kitchen reeked of nail polish chemicals when I walked in to check on them.  No wonder they were so giggly!  Isaac asked me part way through the party what it was about girls that make them laugh at so many things.  I told him he'd never understand.

In other adventures...
While in the car by myself Sunday, I re-discovered the joys of driving alone.  For one, there aren't two people competing to talk to me at the same time.  But, most importantly, I have full control over the heater.  We heat our home with wood.  Wood that we have to scrounge to find, haul home, cut, split, stack, and haul over to the house, and finally burn.  There's always the worry in the back of my mind of where we'll find next year's wood.  So, most of the time our house is on the cool end.  It's not unusual for me to wear a jacket all day long and for the kids to huddle up under blankets.  But, the heat from the car is free and unlimited.  I can crank it up!  Usually when I'm with the kids just as I'm starting to bask in the warmth, someone starts to complain, "It's too hot!", "I'm feeling sick!", "Turn down the heat!"  I think our kids are also used to a cool climate.  Sunday I was in the car by myself for an hour and the heat was cranked up the entire time.  Pure bliss.

Cats
If you drive up to our house, you might see a big beautiful white cat lounging around, or you might catch a glimpse of a calico cat disappearing into the garage.  You'd be justified in thinking that we have several cats as pets.  But, although you can often see a cat somewhere around the house, they aren't ours.  These are the same kitties that I had an adventure catching last fall.  More details here.  We have five feral kitties that give us quite a bit of humor.  We feed them on the porch next to the dining room.  I enjoy watching them and I wouldn't mind if they got tame enough for us to pet.  We've got a huge sliding glass door and while we sit eating our dinner, the cats are often eating theirs as well.  They're totally wild so as soon as they notice that they have our attention, they scatter.  Even though the food is only about three feet from our table, they forget we're there, get distracted and start eating.  Suddenly, they realize we're watching and they're off and running.

Sunday we learned that you don't have to be a domestic cat to enjoy chasing a red dot.  We had the laser pointer out for Ramirez, my mom's dog, to play with.  The cats happened to be eating so we shined the light outside through the window.  It was irresistible temptation for the cat to chase it.  Monday night we got it out when four of them were out eating.  Pretty soon, they were chasing the dot, playing with each other, acting just like a bunch of house cats.  Even though they're scared of us, we can play with them through the window now.

Can You Say Lazy?

I looked out the window the other morning and saw the above scene.  I thought Isaac was trying to manicure the lawn like a golf course.  It turns out that the mower deck on the riding lawn mower wasn't working and Isaac was too lazy to push mow.  He wanted to mow the lawn so he could run his RC car around.  Miriam thought it was amazing to watch the RC car go around, until it did a big flip in the air and broke an axle!

Cramped Quarters

                       "Light the oven," she told Gretel. "We're going to have a tasty roasted boy today!""

-Hansel & Gretel

 
One of the joys of heating with wood is needing to clean out the chimneys periodically.  In this photo, Dode had finished brushing out the chimney by standing on the roof and is now hooking everything up inside.  Look nice and cozy?  It reminded me of the story of Hansel and Gretel and the wicked witch.  I don't know that he'd be very tender and tasty though.