Pitter-Patter

Just a couple of things that make my heart pitter-patter. :)

Cute kitties & gorgeous fabrics.

(((Sigh)))

Our new baby is named Jean Grey. The girls love her.

Love. Her.

And I like her quite a bit too. :)

And this fabric? We are going to have some fun together over the next couple months. Many of these are fabrics that I've been drooling over for a couple of years. I was giddy when they came in the mail today.



Dancing-around giddy. Pestering-Nels-to-tell-me-how-much-he-loved-them-too - kind of giddy. It was ridiculous, but I am SO excited!

Day 11: Something Blue

As you may know, I really love fish.

Growing up, my mom had several different aquariums and I've loved them ever since.

When I was pregnant with Lilie, I got our first fish tank. We just had a few fish that I'd picked up at Walmart. Nels thought I was silly.

"Fish are the stupidest pet ever." He told me. I tried to explain to him that fish aren't really a "pet" like a dog. They're not meant to be. He stuck by his opinion.

A few years later, he bought me a bigger aquarium for our anniversary. :) He loves me.

Last year, as he was watching my fish and their newly hatched fry, he told me, "You know, I'd never own them myself, but I can see why you like them so much. It's like you are creating your own little world in there."

Ahhhhh . . . sweet validation. :)

When we moved last year, I sold all my fish. It was a sad day and to say that I "sold" them is really not true. I gave them all away to a person that I'm not even sure he knew how to take care of them well enough to have them last a week . . . I was a little bit heartbroken. However, I'd had a baby two days before and we were moving in about a week.

Nearly eight months later, I finally got my tank set up again and I've been so happy with it. I went with some beautiful fish called discus and I'm loving it. I'm still working on getting it fully stocked, but so far, so good. These fish are a bit more high maintenance than anything I've had before, but with some work and some prayers, they seem to be doing really well. :)

So. Photo Challenge.

My most recent BLUE crush.

Our Wild Life in the Great North

I grew up in rural Utah. I'm not unused to seeing deer.

I'm not one of those people that go to Yellowstone and have to stop for every chipmunk or buffalo they see.

But I must say, the amount and proximity of the wildlife in Northern Idaho is still surprising to me.

On one section of the highway from Sandpoint to Missoula, they actually have electronic signs warning people of the bighorn sheep that may be on the road. We've yet to drive past when the sheep weren't there.

Terrible picture, I know. But you get the point.

I've heard several people in our ward talk about bears getting into their garbage or glimpsing them as they bike up to the ski resort and then there are the ever-present deer. Everywhere. Do you ever get used to deer playing in the field across the street while you ride bikes with your kids? Or hopping across the road as you walk to get your kids from the bus stop? How about eating grass in the field behind your house while your kids jump on the trampoline in the backyard?

It's just a funny sight.

However, NOT as funny as what our kids practice at school.

In Utah, they always talk about the next big earthquake. "It could happen any day and we live right on the fault line." So from elementary school on, we had earthquake drills. And of course the occasional fire drill. Probably typical for most of you reading this. Nowadays, thanks to psychos, they also practice "Lock-Downs".

When the girls began school here in Sandpoint they came home one day saying they had to have "Inside Recess" that day. It wasn't snowing, so I asked them why.

Hazel: "There was a Moose Alert."

me: "What?"

Hazel: "A Moose Alert."

me: "What is a Moose Alert?"

Hazel: "It's when we can't go outside for recess because there's a moose by the school."

me: "Are you serious?"

Hazel: "Yes! The lunch ladies said that one time they saw one looking in the lunch room windows!"


About a months later, Nels forwarded me some pictures that a friend in our ward took on his way to work that morning.

Just a mama and two "babies" roaming around outside our apartment building.

Hazel came home from school that morning and told me that her teacher (who lived right down the street from us) was late getting to school that day because the mama moose was outside her front door when she needed to leave for school and when she went to the back door, one of the babies was there. :)

At Book Club, one of the ladies was talking about how that mama moose actually gave birth to those two calves in her front yard last year! :)

However, not everyone thinks this situation is as laughable as I do . . .

A couple weeks ago, the girls came home from school and told me they'd had a Moose Alert again that day and weren't able to go outside for morning recess. A minute or so later as I was thinking about it, I started chuckling. When Hazel asked me what I was laughing about I told her,

"It's just funny -- that you have Moose Alerts at your school."

H: "Why is that funny?"

M: "I don't know. It's just funny. Other kids have Fire Drills and Earthquake Drills and you guys have Moose Alerts. I think that's kind of hilarious."

H: "I don't think that's funny, Mom. Moose are very dangerous."

Scaredy Squirrel

And she shall call him Acorn.


Several weeks ago, Lilie got it into her mind that she would catch the squirrel that lives in our big ash tree. To me his name is always Bob or George. I like good solid names like that in squirrels. Lilie decided that Bob needed to be our buddy. She wanted to look at him, study him. Secretly I think that she was hoping to learn the magic behind scaling trees and wires . . .

I study him every morning, out the window, while I wash the dishes. He and his "friend" chase one another up and down our pine trees, accomplishing great feats of acrobatics as they fly through the air from branch to branch and around and around and around and around the trunks. Playing peek-a-boo.

Many in our fair city detest these hyper little rodents. They eat their strawberries, apples, plums, sunflowers, cherries, etc. and apparently do damage to homes and cause power outages. Besides, they're not really indigenous to the area.

I, however, love them. (What's a little power outage, anyway?) I think they are one of the most fascinating creatures to watch. If I had to be any animal, it would probably be a squirrel. Like this one. LOL. :)

Back to Lilie.

I let her come up with her primitive "traps" - using things like our cooler - with cherries tomatoes as bait. :) When I mentioned Lilie's obsession to my neighbor, she offered the use of her real squirrel trap. Which she uses to catch the little monsters that eat her fruit. She then takes them to Animal Control . . . and . . . dum, dum, duuummmmm. Of course we had no desire to "dum, dum, dum" George. We just wanted to look at our little friend.

We set up the trap with half the sunflower head from our garden. As I was getting lunch ready, I looked out the window and saw our crazy little critter bouncing around the trap. Lilie was SO excited! She ate her lunch in record time. Elsie immediately decided that she didn't really like mac-n-cheese (even though she's been asking for it for a week!) and rushed out the door before I could come up with a threat (for not eating any lunch).

We thoroughly enjoyed watching our buddy freak out while buzzing around his dungeon. He, on the other hand, was not thrilled and in his zealous attempts to ram himself through the 1-inch square holes, was banging up his noggin pretty good. We really wanted to hold on to him till Hazel got home from school, but I'm pretty sure he would have had a heart attack by then.

Lilie christened him "Acorn" and then raised the hatch and watched him rush back to his nest.

Poor little fella. We've probably scarred him for life, but it was really fun to see him up close. I've probably committed some sort of crime by letting him go - seeing as how there's an enormous fine for anyone who releases any squirrels in Idaho Falls (they really are a huge nuisance). But we could never end Acorn's life. He's been our buddy for years.