Dirt

We love dirt at our house. We have a special area in the yard where the dirt is used regularly for all sorts of things. Some days worms are discovered there, other days it becomes a pond and sludge pit. A few of our garage sale Rescue Hero toys have moved outside to live in the mud and have become part of archaelogical digs. Rescue Hero fossils anyone? Mostly though, they just like to get their hands and feet in it, squishing and digging and playing. I'm an equal opportunity mom too... so Louise is allowed to get as down and dirty in the mud as the boys.
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We did a kid swap recently, passing off Gus to Ron's sister for the afternoon in exchange for her oldest son Berik. With his red hair, he looks more like Louise's brother than her own brothers.

A tree house is growing at our house:: part three

Spring is blooming at our house. Actually, these photos were taken last week in the middle of flowering glory. We have two flowering crabs and an apple tree... each with their own beautiful color of blossom. The tree house is mostly complete, except for the roof. The kids got to hang out up there and enjoy the fun spindles Ron installed to make it safer for the little ones.
In the midst of all the building, he realized that another branch would have to come down off the apple tree, while in full bloom. Quickly I grabbed my clippers and transformed it into a monster sized bouquet for my dining room table. The scent of apple blossoms lingered in the house for days. Ahhh, spring.

A tree house is growing at our house:: part 2

More updates soon. It is getting close!

Saturday morning at our house

We had a lovely Saturday morning, soaking up the sunshine as it came pouring in our windows. The boys woke early and occupied themselves with their Legos at the dining room table while we slept in, well, until about 7:30. The coffee was hot, the cinnamon raisin swirl bread was actually swirly, and art projects were flowing.

The Biffy and other Environmental Considerations

Have you heard of this before? If you aren't familiar with it, check out their informational, if cheesy website. I first learned about it from my friend Nora and then was able to check it out in person when I visited her recently.


Up until recently, my prior experiences with bidet-like products were limited to fancy bathrooms in hotels/homes in Europe and also in China, where a small hose was located close to many non-toilet type toilets. Without getting too personal, I had always wondered why the Western world was happy with just toilet paper. I mean, how can you really get clean with dry paper? I had sensed that many Americans were a little squeamish about bidets, often hearing them used as foot tubs or as the brunt of jokes. I've since learned that much of the Muslim world is equipped with washing devices near the toilet too.


In a nutshell, I was thoroughly impressed with the Biffy. Nora's husband Jon swore to me that the hookup of the biffy took mere minutes and that even their 4-year-old son was capable of "biffying" himself. Himself? Impressive. This I had to introduce to my boys.

[I can't believe I'm blogging about this... YIKES!]

The premise of the contraption is simple. A small device is attached to the left side of the underside of your toilet seat. You attach a small hose to the water input for your toilet, which attaches to the device. When you are ready to use it, simply make sure you sit back on the seat, then push back the lever. While you do this, another lever swings into the toilet area, squirting water upwards to do the rinsing for you. There's a little switch on the handle that can be used to adjust the pressure from a trickle to a gushing geyser. The directions say you can "pat or tamp dry," I suppose using toilet paper or a towel saved specifically for this purpose. To each their own on this one... but I have heard of households who save a lot of money on their toilet paper bills with this little guy.

We ordered a biffy for ourselves and for an unnamed local friend (people's toileting habits should remain private, right? Except for those of us willing to share to the world in the name of promoting a cool product, eh?) My brother-in-law helped me hook it up while our collective five children watched. Expecting that it would be a great interest to all of them, particularly the mischievous 3 and 4 year olds, we carefully explained that it was not a toy, that it was only for helping themselves stay clean and fresh smelling.


Ten minutes later Carl came running down the stairs yelling, "Mom, they're squirting the ceiling!"


"The ceiling?" I wondered aloud.


As I reached the bathroom, I saw two wet boys running out, dripping with water, soaked all the way through. I couldn't help but smile when I looked up and saw a circle on the ceiling of where the hyper-powered Biffy had been squirting. Wow. The floor? At least an inch of standing water. Definitely funny the first time, but I worried about future damage to our tin ceilings in the kitchen below. A short, calm lecture followed about the importance of using it only post-potty time and not for other uses. My threat of removing the biffy must have worked.... no more incidents, just proud, fresh smelling boys.


On another note, many folks out in the blogosphere have been taking note of things they can do to help out during the rough financial times we're facing now, both to help their pocketbooks and become more green. Eren has a list of what her family is doing for their own stimulus package. Here's another website dedicated to being greener and living more simply.


Here's a list of a few of things we're doing:

1. Square foot gardening again this summer... this time, we're not letting the compost-planted pumpkins take over.

2. Joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)-- essentially a farm you become a member of and receive a crate of the recent pickings every week May-October. The one we're joining has GOATS and I can buy raw milk for cheese making. Stay tuned.

3. Cloth napkins. I keep a basket of them in the dining room and each person has a wooden napkin ring (made by my dad and decorated by the each family member). We use the napkins until they're dirty enough to wash, then toss into the laundry. Guests get clean ones, of course.

4. Reparing holes in jeans. Lots of jeans piling up here, so today I went to the fabric store to buy patches. Lots and LOTS of them.

5. Bar soap vs. Liquid soap. Think about the packaging necessary for liquid soap vs. bar. All that plastic... for what? We still have some fancy Bath & Body Works stuff for guests, but as soon as our supply runs out, we're headed to the bar.

Many more green things happening here, but that's the subject for another post. In the meantime, what are YOU doing to save money and/or live more simply?

[For those of you still wondering about the biffy... it self-cleans. Yes, indeedy. I wonder if it could be trained to fold laundry too?!?

Getting Ready for the Holidays:: part 1

One of my favorite ways to bring our family into a new season is to fill the window boxes and pots with seasonal things. In the spring it is pansies, the summer is impatiens, sweet potato vines and geraniums, the fall is pumpkins, gourds, leaves and sticks, and winter is greens and whatever I find drying beautifully in my yard. This year was no exception.

Last week when I returned from Puerto Rico I thought it would still be warm enough to fill the boxes. My thought was, "It's not that cold yet. The dirt can't be frozen hard." I was wrong. Frozen solid. With the boys playing nicely together in the yard while Louise napped, it was the only time I would find to get the job done. Into the kitchen I marched seeking warmth for my dirt. Hot water in pitchers, and pitchers and more pitchers. I coaxed the solid dirt into letting a few spritely branches of spruce and scotch, a birch branch or two, a hand full of pinecones and some dried hydrangea flowers slip into their stiff slumber. With a handfull of showy grass heads and some berries my parents had gathered on an outing, the boxes were complete. My fingers were frozen too, but the smile was large on my face. Check. Getting ready for the holidays has begun.

A sneak peek at the porch makeover

My Mom and I decided that we wanted to do our own version of a HGTV makeovers. She wanted to bring some summer to her living room and I wanted to declutter and re-do the color scheme of my porch. Here's a sneak peek of my before pics. (Note: it was raining the night before so I had to bring in all kinds of yard/gardening junk on the porch.)

The before:

We did the work early last week and I'm almost done. Just a quick trip to Ikea this week and I'll be done. I'm so excited!