Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Mouse capers

Well for those of you staying up late at night pondering our mice problem I'm here to put you at ease. I woke up this morning to find two cute little gray furry friends in the trap I put under the sink last night. Mike put them in our little cage and set them out in the garage for the day.

After careful consideration we decided to let them go in an open grassy field after dinner tonight. They were just too wild. Every time we got near the cage they started jumping and hitting the wire bars and stuff. I don't think I could have ever cleaned out the cage or fed them without them hopping right out of there. Also, Amy got me all worked up about contracting Hanta virus through contact with rodents and their droppings. Yuck. One way to talk sense into me is to threaten me with a deadly contagious disease.

So anyway, our whole family went and set them free together. We told the kids that they were wild mice who didn't deserve to be in a cage. Then we opened the cage doors and watched as both mice did not want to come out. They even jumped in their little exercise wheel and started being all adorable and stuff. Finally, Mike took the top of the cage off and one of them hopped out and ran for cover in the tall grass. The other one (Anatole, I'm afraid) hopped out and got so freaked out he ran in the opposite direction of his friend into a completely open and coverless area. I fear he's doomed. I said a prayer for their safety and we bid them a fond farewell with Jake and Emma lamenting that they were sure going to miss Anatole. Good luck mice friends. Oh, and please don't come back to our house.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Monday, Monday

1.) When the kids and I got out of school today the temperature gage in the JEEP said 122. Texas forever. But Texas? totally unacceptable.

2.) I'm afraid the mice have gained control of the kitchen. They seem to be going from under the refrigerator to under the stove to under the kitchen sink and then through the dishwasher and making a big loop. We have set out mouse traps that have not worked. Today, I moved one of the traps under the kitchen sink which is where a lot of activity seems to be taking place. It's time to man up around here. If this doesn't work I'm giving Mike full authority to use his military training and whatever means are at his disposal to get rid of the mice. I've tried to be compassionate, but look where that's gotten us. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

3.) I had hoped to use a quote from Friday Night Lights in every bullet point of this post. Alas, I can't remember any other quotes. Actually, the fact that I remembered two is remarkable and due solely to the fact that they were used so much during the show. Mike on the other hand, can remember lines to movies he saw when he was seven but he can't remember to stop and get milk on his way home from work. Why is that?

4.) Is anyone else out there anxiously awaiting the fall television programming season? I'm ready for some Modern Family, Big Bang Theory and Survivor. I would really love to see another season of Friday Night Lights so I can adore Coach Taylor and his wife Tami from afar and pretend like they are real people I'm friends with. But the people at NBC or wherever decided to rip out my heart and cancel one of the only quality programs on TV.

5.) That is all for now. Thank you.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Big Girl Bed

A couple months ago I bought a Groupon for $150 off of a new mattress at Mattress Firm. Seriously, if you haven't gotten on the Groupon band wagon then you probably live in a cave somewhere. You should really move out of your cave and sign up. They have great deals. Anyhow, yesterday we went to buy Emma Mae a new mattress for her big girl bed. The crib we bought her converted to a full size bed and I've been itching to redecorate her room for awhile now.

At first, I was looking everywhere for something very sweet and girly. I was thinking pink/purple butterflies or flowers or something. But I never really found anything I loved. And let's face it, this is all about me. Emma Mae doesn't really get a say in this room. It's my time. In five years we'll redecorate again and she can choose what she likes.

I started noticing all of the cute zebra print stuff out there and I picked up a few things here and there when I found them on sale. So, here's the almost finished product. I think I'm going to take back that curtain and get another one that's pink with a stripe of the zebra on it. I have a few more trips to make to Hobby Lobby for some wall hangings and we're done. What do you think? I didn't make it look too harloty did I? I don't want her to have the room of a harlot. Try to picture everything without the smudgy fingerprints on my camera lens!






Thursday, August 25, 2011

Seriously. You're not going to believe this.

Remember how I suspected that we had a mouse in our house? Well, about two days ago Zoe the cat was stalking the refrigerator again. This time Mike was home. So he moved the refrigerator out of the way and again we found no mouse. But, I'm sad and grossed out to say that we found some, um, evidence of a mouse.

Remember how we had captured one of the mice out in our garage in a fish tank and were keeping him as a pet/prisoner of some sort? Well, this morning I got a case of the crazies while we were out running errands and bought a small cage and some bedding for Anatole. It's very hot here and I didn't want him to die of a heat stroke out in the garage. He's an orphan. He's had a tough go of things lately. It's a hard knock life. I thought we could bring him inside in a cage and be one big happy family.

Well. Mike put the cage together right before lunch. Then he went outside and coaxed Anatole into a Tupperware container. Then he brought Anatole inside and tried to drop him in his fancy new home complete with an exercise wheel. Anatole revolted. He jumped out of the Tupperware and took off. The kids were screaming. I was screaming as I jumped up on the nearest piece of furniture. Anatole ran under the couch. Then under a shelf. Mike caught him two more times and attempted to get him in the cage. He did not want to go. Ungrateful orphan. The next thing we knew Anatole was running under (you guessed it!) the refrigerator. Self fulfilling prophesy I guess.

Mike moved the refrigerator out again. No mouse. Mike took apart the refrigerator. No mouse. I have no idea where this mouse (these mice) are. But I know for sure there is at least one in this house. And as Mike pointed out to me what if Anatole is a boy and the other one is a girl? We could have a whole mess of mice in here.

If I hear squeaking in our bedroom in the middle of the night again I'm out of here. If I can move that is. My back is out again and fleeing from an escaped mouse today did not help things out at all. Sudden movements are killer. My back is whack. Not to mention my brain. I mean who tries to get one mouse out of their house while simultaneously bringing another mouse in their house? We need help!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

School!

Our first day back to KKW was a success! My class of little ones did surprisingly well. Between all of the diaper changes, snacks and attempted naps the day flew by. Jake's teachers said he did great and he seemed really happy at the end of the day. Emma Mae had a rough start but her teachers said after about an hour she settled in for the day and did good too.

Here are the pics we took before we left home this morning. You can kind of tell Em was going to have a rough start!




Yes, Jake did wear that hat to school although his teachers made him take it off in the classroom.




Their backpacks are bigger than they are this year but I figure they can grow into them over the next two or three years!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Oh boy

Wow. I totally failed in my goal of blogging every day this summer. I'm a little behind. I'm going to catch up with a list.

1.) Mike turned 30 on Aug. 17th. His dad and I have been planning to have a surprise party for him for the last year. We almost pulled it off too. I rented out the clubhouse in our amenity center for Friday night. We invited people. We kept it a secret. But then one of his best high school friends whom Mike hasn't seen in 11 years posted on his Facebook account Friday that he was in Texas. Mike knew something was up then. He also claims I was acting suspiciously. I never act suspiciously. It was still a nice party and Mike was surprised when he saw our friends Mike and Ivy who flew in from California for the occasion. Mike told me the week before his birthday that he feels like he always gets jipped on his birthday so I'm hoping this party made up for that a little bit! Also, a big thank you to Mike's dad and his wife Sally who helped me so much with this party.

2.) Today is the day that Rick Springfield was born into this world changing my life forever. Happy 62 Rick!

3.) Tomorrow is our first day of "school" this year. Please pray for me and my co-teacher Jana as we "teach" some precious little 15 month olds this year. Let's hope my back holds out so they can call me Ms. Kim instead of Grandma.

4.) Also, as long as you're praying you might want to lift one up for Emma Mae's teachers this year. She is a pill. Enough said.

5.) I'm hoping this year will be the year that people realize Emma's name is Emma Mae. After all, it's on all of her labels. And she will tell you adamantly that her name is "Emma Mae Fwinn!"

6.) We have adopted one of the mice in our garage. He's in a tank and we named him Anatole. I'm considering buying him a small animal cage and bringing him inside. I also may have bought him a treat at WalMart last night. The crazy never stops over here.

7.) I spent one day last week searching for a mouse in the house. Zoe (the cat) was stalking something under the refrigerator for a good two hours. Then she moved to the stove for another hour. I swear I saw something stick a body part out and then bring it back in real fast when it saw her looking at it. I took the kids to the pool because I was a little freaked out and then when Mike got home from work he moved the refrigerator and the stove. Nothing was there. Except for various toys, a magnet and a dog hairball the size of a chihuahua. However, two nights this week I have been woken up by the sound of something squeaking in our bedroom. I seem to be the only one that can hear it which makes me think the crazy is in my brain alone.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Prayer time with Jake

Dear God,

Thank you for my sister, my mama and my daddy. I like everyone. I like Spiderman, Iron Man, the Hulk and Captain America. Amen.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

What I do when I'm stressed

Yesterday we stayed home all day because I was babysitting. By 10am I really needed a nice, dark, quiet place to hide. Instead I did some therapeutic cleaning. Namely, the inside of our microwave. It has never been sparklier. Jake and Emma had both been banished to their rooms to play with their own toys all by themselves since they couldn't play nicely together. I may have threatened to throw all of their toys away if they didn't start playing with them. Emma may have told me that she did, in fact, WANT me to throw away all of her toys. Logan was told to stay in the playroom and to leave the other kids alone before their bad manners rubbed off on him. Nice.

Anyway. The twenty minutes I put into cleaning that microwave probably saved lives around here. Also, I managed to burn off a few of the calories I put on earlier shoveling brownies down my throat at 9:15am because Emma was throwing a 40 minute temper tantrum. A tantrum which began because I had the nerve to take her out of her swing outside so that Jake could have a turn. A tantrum that continued because I had the gall to demand that she stop yelling at me and trying to kick me when I manually put her in time out. Oh, the two's. How I can't wait until you're over. Seven more months to go but who's counting?

Later, I continued my cleaning spree while Mike was cooking dinner. Yes, I have a hubby that will cook dinner when I've had a bad day. I count my blessings! So, I decided to clean our bathroom. I hate cleaning bathrooms and put it off as long as I can stand it. Actually, I only cleaned the sinks and the toilet but I felt pretty good about it afterwards.

This morning while I was taking my shower, Emma was in there (of course!)and we were playing hide and go seek. It's really easy because I'm counting in a glass shower and she is hiding in the closet right in front of me over and over again. She thinks it's awesome! Anyhow, I guess she needed to poop but decided to put it off due to all of the fun she was having. By the time she ran to the potty, it was too late. There was poop everywhere. In her underwear, on her legs and all over my newly clean, shiny toilet.

We ended up staying home all day today also because of the babysitting. I did take the kids to the park for an hour before it became hot enough to fry bacon on a plastic slide. I love the smell of bacon but not when it's coming from my children's thighs! I decided to fore go stress cleaning today and instead opted to just stick my head in our clean microwave when the going got tough.

Monday, August 8, 2011

My new favorite obsession



This is my new favorite lunch food. You toast a piece of whole wheat bread and then spread mashed avocado all over it. Then (depending on how you roll) sprinkle salt on the avocado. Kosher salt is great but if you're hard core then go ahead and get out the sea salt. Now, this is great as is. BUT, if you happen to have some home grown tomatoes in the kitchen, you should slice one up and put it on top of the toast. Yum!

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Prayer time

Jake and Emma love to pray. Well, Emma loves to make the rest of us pray. We don't sit down to a single meal without her holding out her little hands and shouting "NEED TO SAY PRAYER!" She will not be dismissed. There will be no peace until a prayer is said.

The rest of us usually take turns saying the prayer before dinner. This is a sampling of what Jake's prayers sound like:

"Dear God, Thank you for my mommy, my daddy and my sister. I love my mommy, my daddy and my sister. Please let Emma get her tonsils taken out. Amen"

"Dear God, Thank you for mama, daddy and Emma. Thank you for getting my tonsils out when I was four. Amen."

"Dear God, Thank you for...(see above). Please let me have a ____ (insert whatever toy he is currently obsessing over.) And please let Emma get her tonsils taken out. Amen."

He is hilarious. I think he might be confusing God and Santa Claus a little bit but I totally get why. He seems to think that ever since he got his tonsils taken out he is better at everything he does. He is faster, smarter and bigger. That's why he wants Em to get hers taken out I think, not because he wants her to be in pain and agony for two weeks like he was!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Mouse update

Well, Operation Mouse Relocation didn't go off exactly as planned. When Mike got home from work he went out in the garage to assess the situation. All three mice were still in the tank. They had even built themselves a little home out of paper and sand. They were all huddled up together being all cute and stuff.

We debated back and forth for minutes about whether we should keep them as pets or set them out in the wild. We even called our neighbor over to ask his opinion. He said something about a hammer and their heads so I quickly dismissed him.

Eventually, I had to go inside and tell Mike to do what he though was best as long as he didn't hurt them because the decision was causing me way too much angst and emotional stress.

So I hear him out there with Jake and Emma and I just had to take a peek. Mike was standing hovered over that tank with a tupper ware container trying to catch those mice. The mice were jumping all over the place trying to hop out of the tank. The kids were screeching. I could tell those little mice were just so scared and I had to go back inside to regroup. If I was in possession of anti anxiety pills I so would have swallowed some at that point.

Anyhow, this is how it played out. One of the baby mice got away and scurried away to safety somewhere in our garage. Mike caught the other two seperately and let them out seperately in the vacant lot right beside our house.

So, here is my problem. I am obsessed with the fate of these mice. I cannot let it go. I'm worried about the little bugger still in our garage all alone without his family. How will he survive? I'm very worried about the two in the vacant lot. What if the baby didn't reunite with its mama? It is like a bajillion degrees in Texas. I'm afraid they will die from the heat or from a snake or from a bird. I fear that they are soft from living high on the hog in our garage and have lost their natural instinct to survive in the wild.

It didn't help matters much this morning when my daddy told me that the baby is probably already a member of the food chain. Note to my friends and family. Please let me live in my delusional world where cute little mice do not fall victim to large menacing animals. It's the only thought that is keeping me sane. I live on the border of extreme anxiety and barely able to cope. I'm afraid finding out that we sent those little mice to meet their doom would send me right over the edge. Seriously. I haven't slept well the last two nights for all the thinking about them.

So, we did what any rational couple that just got rid of two mice from their garage would do. We left the garage door open that night in case they made their way back the thirty feet it would take them to get back in. No sight of them yet. But, I'm still hoping.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Plagues and such

A few weeks ago we discovered that we have mice in our garage. I have heard some skittering about when I open up that door and then we noticed a hole chewed through the bottom of Brady's dog food bag. Okay. No problem. Live and let live I say. As long as they don't come in the house I'm going to pretend I don't know they exist.

But then a couple days ago I opened up the garage door to go out and although the light was off I could still see a little gray ball of fur bouncing around at my feet inches from the open doorway. I did what any nature loving, animal hugging girl would do. I screamed bloody murder and slammed the door as hard as I could. My big, strong hubby came along and opened the door and although he did not see the mouse, he did hear it and he heaved the big huge bag of dog food off the ground and put it on top of an empty fish tank we have sitting in the garage to get it off the floor and out of the reach of the little mousy paws and teeth. Problem solved.

Not quite. I can still hear them. Now, when I open the door I open and shut it quickly a few times before I go out while loudly telling the little mice that I better not see them when I turn on the light. Fast forward to today. I took the kids to the pool. We go through the garage to get our stroller with all of the pool stuff in it. I did my ritual door opening. No mice. They listen and obey. However, when we came home we entered the house through the garage door. I sent Jake and Emma ahead of me because I am their shirpa and I was busy hauling all of the gear from the stroller to the house.

Jake turns around and tells me "Look Mama! We have some cute little mousy pets!" I really thought he was just messing with me. And I thought he was stalling about going inside so I tell him "great! GO INSIDE." He did after repeating his story about the mice three times. We get in and Emma says "MAMA! The micey so cute!" So I said, "wait a second, where did you see mice?" She says "in the cage!" And Jake's all "SEE? I told you mom! There are three cute little brown mouses in that cage out there! Can we keep them? PLEASE?"

Ya'll. I had to open that door to see for myself. I did my door opening ritual. I looked out through a crack and into the abandoned fish tank. There they were. Sitting up on their little legs, whiskers twitching, just looking at me. A mama and two babies. And they were cute. I screamed and slammed the door shut. Then I called Mike and told him the news. He said "want to keep them? we can put em in Emma's room."

Ya'll. Mice carry the bubonic plague. Don't they? I hope I'm not falsely accusing them but I think mice are responsible for wiping out a big chunk of the human population years ago. I'm all for respecting all life forms and I don't want to kill the cute little mice, but I will not have them in my house! We need to come up with a plan for operation Mouse Relocation as soon as possible.

I confess I went out into the garage to take some pictures for the sake of the blog. First of all, there were only two mice in the tank at that point so I was a little freaked out. Secondly, it's hard to take pictures of something when you're too scared to get up close. Also, do you see the hole in the dog food bag? Clearly, these are not ordinary mice we are dealing with. They are problem solvers. And thinkers. And all the things I wish my kids would be.Trust me, these are pictures of the offenders. What do we do??