Awyn's Mess - the lite version

Yes, her room does look a bit like Barney and Barbie mated, and spewed their love children about my daughter's room with lavender and pinkness that cannot be ignored. And folks, this is AFTER I helped her do some serious picking up. The view is from her walk-in closet. What you are missing are the pastel butterflies on her curtains, and the purple sponging on one wall. She has tri-toned walls, in shades of pinky-purple. Yes, to those who know me, this is my nightmare bedroom scenario. All it needs are a few more bits of lace, and I swear, I'll lose it. But I can't deny my Princess anything, especially a bedroom that was already purple when we moved in.

Messy Bedrooms

You know, I can get Sam to clean his room now, but when he was 4, there wasn't any chance of it. Sometimes I could trick him into making a game of it, but usually I had to go clean it myself. I don't know why I'm expecting Awyn to suddenly turn into a clean-room girl. I just love it when she flops down on the floor, couch, or her bed and declares herself so so sleepy, she can't possibly help clean right now. Then she takes her master disaster skills into her brothers room and destroys it too.

I need to weed out more of her toys. She has too many, that's part of the problem. I just have such guilt when I put toys up - because I know I'll forget about them, and typically she'll outgrow them before I pull them out again. It happened with Sam so very often. And then I'll have guilt. Guilt that I put a beloved toy away to be forgotten. Guilt that I'll now probably have to throw it away because it's not quite nice enough to find a new home for.

I have toy guilt. I can't stand the idea that a poor toy won't be loved, or was loved and then abandoned. I still try to tuck Awyn's kitty in with her at night, and she's soooo moved on from beloved kitty. Kitty became a fast favorite. Daddy found Kitty at Alco, in Alpine Texas. He selected this lovely brown kitty for our little girl, and she loved it so much it was hard to pry it away from her to pay for it. A couple months later when we realized the depth of her obsession, we hastened back to Alco and bought their entire stock out - so we would have back-ups. I did NOT want to be that mother on my favorite mommy bulletin board posting a "have you seen any of these - desperate!" search for my baby's lovey. The stash of kitties remained for a couple years, untapped. Until the move. I left Kitty in a motel room on our way back from our house-hunting trip. When we got home, I broke into the stash, took the tags off New Kitty, and had it in her hot little hands before she could squeal for it. Suddenly, she quit dragging that cat with her. Inseparable no longer. Mama Kitty, as she had become known by then, now tends to occupy the bottom of her stuffed animal stash. I do admit, when she misplaced her little bear the other night, to tricking her into accepting Mama Kitty instead, and I smiled.

My little girl is growing up so fast, I can't hardly stand it. Except that I'm really looking forward to her cleaning her own room.

Wichita Mountains

Last Monday we went to the Wichita Mountains. This included a trip to Meers for lunch, and a stop in the Holy City. We've done this before, but this time we were showing it to the SCA who is currently at Chickasaw NRA. Yes, the Holy City is inside and on federal land. It was built by the WPA. They produce a passion play. It's something you have to see to believe. I'll post more pictures of it later. Meers has Meers burgers, giant hamburgers with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and mustard. They are so big that they are cut into quarters. They make them out of longhorn beef that they raise themselves, and it's 97% lean. It's wonderful. They serve fantastic cobbler and vanilla ice cream.

It was a fun trip, and good company.

Sam sticks out his tongue; Awyn walks on Dad

I like how Awyn is walking on Eric's shoulder here, and Sam is sticking out his tongue at me.

Awyn and Daddy

On top of Mt. Scott. Sam was too grumpy to get out of the van once we got to the top of the mountain. He was tired, and wanted to play video games. Eventually he stopped pouting and realized we were having far too much fun without him.

A hard cross to bear

I fully admit that there is a more controversial version of this picture. I stood up there too, thinking maybe I could use it for a facebook profile pic. I decided against it so as not to offend friends and family. Awyn wanted up there as well, and this is how she hammed it up. It does rather sum up some of her experience. She had a bee in her bonnet for the first half of the trip. I figured out what was wrong after watching her wriggle in her seat at Meers, complaining that something non-specific hurt or was ouchie. One forced trip to the bathroom, and she not only quit asking to go home frequently, but instead became a happy, chipper little girl. You do owe it to yourself to click on this picture to enlarge it. The expression on her face is priceless. I'd blow it up, but it doesn't hold up to that very well.

Furry Mojo

The other day one of my sisters asked me if Mojo finally grew out all of his fur. When we first got Mojo last Fall, he had been shaved so as to better treat all of the lesions on his skin, and the serious flea and tick problems as well. As you can see here, he's very fluffy now. In fact, I've had him professionally trimmed once, and I've trimmed him up twice. I'm not that good at it, but I try to keep his beard from dragging the ground, and with the heat of summer and all of the burrs in our yard, I try to keep the rest of his coat a few inches off the ground as well. I'm just sorry I hadn't brushed him before taking this picture. He's a gorgeous Pom when I've properly groomed him. He's finally becoming park of the family - and developing an actual personality and some playfulness. He's becoming more socialized all the time. Maybe someday he'll be a real dog...

Butterfly release

You know, I posted that picture of the butterfly release, and never explained it. Hmmmm. Rather a long time ago now, Sam received a butterfly cage with a coupon for caterpillars from his grandmother. I can't remember why we couldn't send off for them right away, but then we were moving, and then we'd just moved, and so on and so forth. Well, we finally sent off for the caterpillars. We got them, but they'd already entered chrysalid stage, and the two that actually emerged were, um, not normal. So thanks to a guarantee from the company for "three perfect painted lady butterflies", we got five new caterpillars, still in larval stage. They did what they were supposed to, and we had five perfect butterflies. After about a week of enjoying them, we released them into the wild. The kids adored the butterflies, and I think we'll get some more another time. Awyn wanted to keep them forever and ever, but I was afraid I'd forget to feed them and kill them early, so I pushed for an early release. She was adamant that she wanted to keep them until they died, right up until I casually mentioned that they couldn't get married and have babies if we kept them in their cage. She was trying to take them outside right then and there. Awyn takes weddings and babies very seriously. Now whenever we see any butterfly that even remotely resembles a Painted Lady, she points to it and exlaims, "Look, she's got married, she's a mama! She loves me!" Ah the eternal life of the butterfly that isn't killed by a girl's mother.

Butterfly release time!

Daddy's turn with a sparkler

These were wooden instead of that ultra-hot wire kind I remember as a kid. Fireworks didn't seem to last as long, but it's been a good 15 years since I bought any or set any off.

Swimming Pool!

Awyn loves Purple Hoople. It's a nonsense word Eric made up, and Awyn decided she liked it and has applied it to a floating turtle thing. Sam likes the snow/water pulling thing. I can't remember where it came from; it was new when I blew it up. Debbie, I'm thinking maybe it came from you guys?

Awyn and my afghan

I finally finished this afghan. Mom says she gave it over to me in 1993. I'm not certain how long she'd been working on it, but nevertheless, it's taken me far too long to take it up again. It was actually a fairly nice sit-in-front-of-tv project, and I listened to my ipod a lot. Mom, do you remember why pink? This is how you know I didn't choose the colors. I like the white, the teal/blue, and the dark red, but I'm not sold on the rose/pink. I used up all of the pink, almost all of the white, but still have a couple skeins of the blue and red left.