Poor Baby

My dog! Baby the dog. While mowing the lawn this afternoon I left the gates open. Someone let baby out of the house. No big deal really. She is my shadow and is tripping me every time a back up. So when I came in the house I didn't see her but not too worried. We all walked up to school and picked up Max and Sam. Somewhere around 4:30 or 5 I finally started to wonder about her. The kids were eating and she was not around. I asked Pete if he had seen her. No. I look all over the house and the yard. No where to be found! I drove around the area, very slowly, looking for her. Nothing. No splattered dog either- Thank God! She is not that smart of a dog! Pete went running and I was hoping he would come back with her. Nope. I looked up Animal Control to see their website. It was 5:30 and I was pretty sure they were closed so I didn't try calling. The fee is $50-75 I think to bail out a dog. I also figured nobody would turn her in THAT fast. Hopeful she may turn up over night. So I made signs to hang up. I took Max and Sam with me while we walked the area looking and posting signs. I then had 2 different guys stop to tell me she had been picked up in the afternoon. Apparently some older couple found her, held on to her and since no one came looking they called animal control. No, she of course does not have her collar on. DOH!! The kids always try to drag her around if she has it on. Plus she is basically an inside dog. Currently, I have no idea where her collar even is. The kids stole it. I do put Ralph's old collar on her if needed.

Her is the lovely, short and to the point Lost dog poster... (yeah, she is more gray than black in her old age)

Me and the kids get home at 7:30. I quickly look at the animal control site again. They closed at 6:00. double DOH! I SO should have tired at 5:30!! My poor Baby! She is such a nervous dog anyway. They don't open till 10:00. I left a message so they know she has an owner.

I was going to post about Baby anyway- she just turned 16 years old April 28. Here is her birthday picture!

Worm hunting

SO what do little boys do outside besides play in the mud? That's right, they worm hunt!

Joe can spend hours outside looking, collecting and relocating worms. He digs them out of the rock pit, collects them in a jar then lets them go by a place we planted sunflower seeds. He looks for worms pretty much everywhere outside though.

Hunting for worms

Ike with his handful of worms

Worms!

Joe and his worm

Ike copies everything the other kids do. He follows Joe like a shadow.
The picture below shows Joe and Ike hanging out under the deck. Joe is trying to tell me he is going to make a mudslide but not play in the mud. How does that work? Also, the wood all piled here is the "fire" that Joe built with spare wood. Joe loves to build with just about anything. He has loved the extra wood in the back yard!

a few pictures of Max

So the other week I didn't have any pictures of Max when I posted the other kiddos. Here are a few of Max. He was playing with his voice box (for once) and was having fun pushing things over and over again. Then laughing. And yeah, he found the 'fart' button that night! Thankfully it's not that much of a funny thing he wants to keep doing it over again. Just that one night!

Easter eggs

I wasn't gonna post any Easter egg pictures but I changed my mind. Really, this is the first year I have done this with my kids. The thought of little kids and LOTS of dye sort of turns me off from dying eggs. However, I decided I would try it out with the kids this year. Yes, my sister called me a mean mom for not letting them do it before! I just think I wasn't brave enough! Let the fun begin...

Something must be interesting...

Joe decorating his eggs

Our dyed (not decorated) eggs
A 'fancy' egg
Ike loved dipping his hand...
This is the face I got when I told him to stop..
Joe's hands
Max and his finished eggs
Sam and one of her finished eggs (notice her hand)
Sam wasted no time in killing and eating her egg!!

Robin's nest

We have this magnolia tree in our front yard...About a week or so ago I noticed a robin building a nest in it. Very cool! We can watch the mother sit on eggs, and then watch the baby birds once they are hatched. Well then I did not see any bird in that nest for at least a week. On Friday I was snooping again and saw a mother robin sitting in it. YAY- she is back! I'm sure the bird feeder only a few feet away is a major perk for her. I tried to snapped photos of her and her nest without bothering her. Didn't go so well! I did get one but it's hard to see. (look in the yellow circle). Then she flew away. oops! So we left her alone and went in the back yard instead.



Mama Robin after she flew out of her nest. She did not go far!

MUD

the muddy mud pit in the back yard is a huge attraction to the kids. Below are pictures of a "cleaner" playtime in the mud. Really this is nothing to what I have walked out and seen! Usually I can't even see skin color on feet, hands and part of their legs and arms.

Joe

Ike

busy

I think I have been neglecting my blog! With the weather starting to warm up we have been outside much more. I have also gotten through all my pictures from our Wisconsin Dells vacation (from last summer) and posted them on my website. It took me long enough but I finally got it done.

Last Fall we redid our deck. We still need to finish the last parts this Spring/Summer. Like figure out what we what to do for the shading/roof and re-do the steps along with a new concrete slab at the landing. Then after all that we also will be putting rocks under the deck to expand the kid's play area. But for right now we have all the dirt from those big holes under the deck. The kids LOVE the dirt. They like to pour water all over it so it is all MUD. They then decide a mud bath sounds good and proceed to cover themselves with mud. Lets just say the kids have been getting baths a lot more than normal! I think there are at least 10 pairs of muddy shoes out back. Oh well, they have fun.

Hope everyone is enjoying Spring. Now, I need to catch up on my blog reading sometime.

a few pictures

Here is picture of my favorite daughter!! I took this while on Spring break. It was to show that she is getting freckles.

Here is one that Sam took of Me and Joe.

Here is Ike and his big brown eyes.

What? none of Max? I will have to look for a good one that was recently taken and post it.

Don't you love it when...

*** Do NOT continue reading if you are eating! Just warning you!***

Don't you love it when you are finishing stuff up on the computer (like that last blog post) when your little 1 year old comes over, climbs up and sits in your lap? Except your trying really hard to ignore that smell! Then your leg is felling warm. You think- maybe your leg is cold and he is warm. But then again, you think it could very possibly be something leaking out of a certain someone's diaper. You look down..... and you see this.........










OH MY!! Ike got a bath right away!

DnyaVox V -- Max's voice box

Laura has asked to see pictures of Max's voice box. I am finally getting to that. He still only uses it at school and not so much at home. It is also still pretty new to him considering all the stuff on it. It comes with tons of pre-loaded stuff. You can modify it any way you want. Add pictures, change voices, use your own voice, add links (although we have not got that far yet), really - anything you want to do on it, you can probably do. There is a lady that comes to school and tries to show us how to program the thing. She does one or two items each time in hope to not overwhelm us! I think most the people at school are probably better at programming it than I am. I know his para is is! I think she is the one who has done most the programming on it. The pictures actually did not turn out that well.


Here is the carrying bag. We only use this to transport it back and forth from school


As it starts up... (and see the black carry handle? One could use that or a strap that goes across the chest diagionally. Max has a cary "bag" that his Para put on it- her mom made it)
Here is Max's 'home' page.

A page where we have added pictures that states who we are (this is in the video)
And it is acatully a computer with Windows on it! We have it password protected so Max cannot get the the Windows screen. It has internet connection (we have not set it up yet)
And for laughs... a bathroom...
Can you read it....


Yep, for all those boys out there- It comes preloaded with "fart" on it. (see video!!)

OK- I have never added video on here before so here it goes! I used one true media opposed to the blogger one. I notice most poeple use OTM and there must be a reason. I had 2 video but it made it into 1. The first part is just showing you the voice and screen navigation. The last part is for anyone who wants to hear it fart! HaHa

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com