Our video camera was missing for a little while...

A caution to those with motion sickness. Amateur in training. This may be hard to watch.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I get so tickled watching Nathan's reaction to being told to take the camera back to me. He's compliant at first, then about half way there he realizes it's not what he wants to do, so he starts whining, "noooo", "noooo" and has a pity party on the couch.

A Hero on a lawn mower

Sweet dreams

Busy-time activity

Katherine finds the darnedest things to keep her busy while Nathan is napping and I'm catching up on phone calls or computer work. The animals are usually on the other end of her creativity. I've caught her feeding cat food to Gracie one by one, moving George's food and water bowl to a remote location stuck deep inside a corner somewhere in the house and doctoring Gracie with a sports ball pump and her doctor kit.

This day was a little less clean-up work for me, thank goodness.

Pigsty Playroom

I remember wondering why my mother periodically referred to our home as a "pigsty." I knew that was a place where pig's lived, but I couldn't really understand the correlation to our house, because there was no poop or mud covering the floor. I knew it was something she was passionate about, because of her tone and body language, but truly understanding what it meant, was foreign to me. Basically, it translated into: I have to stop playing.

Well, enter in my "mini-me" and our conversation about a month ago...



Me: Katherine, does this room looking like this not bother you?

Katherine: No.

Me: Well, it bothers me. I can't even walk through here without the fear of stepping on something and breaking it.

K: Don't step in here.

(Heavy voice inflection here)
Me: I don't WANT to, but you've been asking me where stuff is a lot lately and I know it's in this mess somewhere.

K: You can't find it in here?

Me: No, can you?

(Nathan dumps an entire bin of trucks on the floor)

K: No.

Me: Well, then it must be time to clean it up, because we don't live like this in this house.
(The dreaded statement all us mom's eventually resort to because we're trying to reason with an "infant" in the reasoning-department and heaven forbid someone actually see us live like this: mere mortals)

K: Why not?

(Frustration level rising)
Me: IT'S DISGUSTING! Bug's can very easily find a home in your baby's clothes. You can't find anything and I'm tired of tip-toeing around this room and mentally blocking it out because of it's horrid appearance!
(Throwing in the bug comment to appeal to her sense of gross-ness doesn't work. Bottom-line: kids are not playing in the playroom anymore. They've started dragging the mess out into other areas of the house because they can't maneuver around or find anything in the room either)

K: Can you help me find my baby's bottle?

Me: See? That's what I'm talking about! If this room were clean, you'd know exactly where to find it. Where is it normally kept?

K: In that purple bin with the other baby stuff.

Me: Thank-you. Let's start cleaning up. I've decided today, is clean-up day.

(In a pitch so high, dog's have a difficult time hearing it)
K: But I wanted to go to the li-bary and go see AC and then go to the playgrrrrrooooouuuuuunnnnnnddddd!

(Nathan trips over something and hurts himself. I take a 30-second break to console him)

Me: Maybe later, but for now, this room must be cleaned. I thought if I left it messy for long enough, you'd eventually want it cleaned also, but I guess not. Start picking up all the dress-up stuff and put it away.

(Lots of bantering back and forth about why, I don't want to, yes you have to now, but I wanted to go to the playground, maybe later, how about clean the room after the playground, it's time to now, why isn't Nathan helping, I'll give him something to clean up,outing, poochy-lip, etc.)

K: This room isn't that dirty.

Me: You don't think so?

K: No. It's pretty clean.

Me: That's enough trying to change my mind. This place is a pigsty so start cleaning.

The vicious mom-cycle continues...

The Okefenokee is A-OK

Our annual family reunion trip in September with Bamah and Papa to GA usually means a stop at the Okefenokee Swamp Park. It's just about the right timing to let little legs get out, run around like crazies, then get back in the car for a nice, cool napping place until we get to our destination.

It's one of those places Jim has fond memories of. They made the same trek for the same reunion while he was growing up and there are stories to tell each time we visit.

We saw plenty of alligators and listened to the story of how Jim's older brother was being stalked by a 12-footer when he was Nathan's age.

Katherine wasn't that impressed with the alligators climbing up on the dock below or animals flying or scurrying above.
We fed an otter and a squirrel.
We went on a boat ride through the swamp.
We watched a reptile show and enjoyed the MAJOR differences in our two kids.Notice her hand being retracted and his hand is in motion toward the alligator?Here, Daddy had to guide his hand away from the alligator's mouth.
You couldn't have offered her a personal trip in Cinderella's pumpkin coach with a full-blown princess wardrobe included to get her near those reptiles and he would have carried them around with him all day if we let him. I don't even think a little "bite" would have deterred him.

The highlight of our trip was definitely when Nathan got to get up close and personal with an alligator baby. There was a room full of 30 people giggling and ahh-ing so some of his expression might be wondering why everybody was looking at him, in addition to how weird those little claws must feel.
We took a ride on the train.
Nathan even got to sit up front and blow the whistle.
We visited it's farmyard.

And got some great family photos.
Three generations of Boyer men.

Thank you Bamah and Papa for our wonderful trip.

Their reading nook

Fall garden

The change in seasons and beautiful weather has spurred on my need to change things up in our house. But instead of the house, this blog is getting the brunt of a full-blown make-over. I still don't feel like it's where I want it, so basically: more changes are coming. I think.

It is time again for our garden to grow. Jim had a couple extra helpers this time.

They prepped the ground...
They learned about planters...
They planted...
And Daddy got out the lawn mower.

Planting Day: October 3rd

I am so thankful our children get to experience this living in the city.