Just In Time

Friday morning when we gave Jasper fresh hay in her hay box. Instead of eating it, she immediately grabbed large mouthfuls of hay and started building a nest. The next morning we noticed more than half her fur had been plucked out, also for the nest.

Saturday she was still working on completing the nest. She didn't need me to help, so I decided to play the NEW HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE game on Xbox360!!! Sorry, got a little carried away. Anyway, in the middle of playing I started wondering how the bunny was doing. So I paused my game and went outside. I was shocked to see one baby bunny wriggling on the ground. She must have pushed it through a hole at the top of her cage. Then the bunny fell 2 feet and crawled a little to the spot where I found it. (remember that 50% of first time bunny mamas kill their first litter) When I opened the cage, I found one more baby, that had been kicked out of the nest and put both bunnies back in the nest. That's when I noticed baby #3, which was lifeless. He had several bite marks on it. I left that one out so Haven could see it. Jasper jumped in the nest I put the babies in, but whatever she was doing to them caused them to make distress noises.

So then we had Operation Rescue to get the bunnies away from the Murderous Mama. And when I say "we" I really mean "me". I endured bites and karate chop front paws and got the baby's nest safely out. I transferred the nest materials into a cardboard box. Mama Jasper is now temporarily staying in a small cage in the kitchen, while the babies stay in their little box in a closed room where no kitties can get them either.

It's next to impossible to bottle feed baby bunnies. You almost always get the milk into their lungs and then they die. So what to do... what to do.... Well, I hold down the mama bunny twice a day until all the babies drink their fill. I had to do it once with a litter when I raised them in high school. They will be weaned around 8 weeks old.

Right now they are very cute. I've taken the liberty to call them bun-buns. Because one is "bun" and the other is "bun". Together, they are bun- buns.

Aren't they cute? Yeah well, I guess that brings our current count to 18. But no worries. We will NOT be naming the bunnies. Because we all know that naming animals leads to keeping animals. Seamus' birthmom Alexa gets first dibs on a bunny.

The third bunny that was assassinated by his own mother was put on the porch. I would've let our outside cat eat it, but he sniffed him a little and then walked away. Silly. Marshall said he'd throw it in the trash in the morning. But today the baby was gone. There's only one possible solution. The baby was taken by a band of roving raccoons, who apparently took the baby and buried him in the ground. Or, perhaps they revived him and are raising him Jungle Book style. Or maybe the neighborhood hawk swooped down and got him. Either way, there's no more dead baby bunnies on our porch, for which I'm happy about.

Anyway, we're super thrilled that we put the bunnies together, and 30 days later, we have babies!

In case you're wondering... this put our current pet count at 18.

Funny Friday

The Cat-erpillar

I'm fairly certain that any bad day I'm having can be resolved by watching this video.

Sisterly Love

I'm gonna start this off with a Q&A.

How many of you have done your baby books for all your children?

*not raising my hand*

Ok, how many of you have done your baby books for some of your children?

*still not raising my hand*

Alright, how many of you have done a baby book for ONE of your children?

*still not raising my hand*

I know, right? And my oldest is 9 and 1/2. Oh I started with the best of intentions, but never made it past his 2nd month.

Here's where my sister comes in. My sister is doing the oldest profession in the world. WHAT?! I'm talking about being a teacher. Get your mind out of the gutter!

So my sister. Let's call her BethAnn. She hates when I combine her middle and first name like it's all one word, but it's my blog. BA has her summers off work. Her last week of school, she was telling me on the phone that she wanted to get a job this summer, just to keep her busy.

Me: "Why don't you catch up on all your family scrapbooking this summer?"

BA: "I'm already caught up on all my scrapbooking."

Me: "Then you can do MY scrapbooking this summer." (joking)

BA: (with a super excited voice) "CAN I????"

Me: "Can you?"

BA: "CAN I????"

Me: (getting more excited) "CAN YOU????"

Through that very dynamic conversation, my sister and I reached the mutual agreement that I would email her pictures of my kids, and she would scrapbook the first year of their lives. Plus a scrapbook of our favorite Ethiopia pictures. Plus a smaller scrapbook of our family to send to Marlie's relatives in Ethiopia. That's FIVE books. I can't believe how much I just lucked out, and she's so excited because she LOVES to scrapbook and is happy to have something to keep her busy this summer.

Of course when we made this little agreement, I didn't know it would entail getting daily phone calls for my sister, asking for MORE MORE MORE pictures because she's some sort of super-fast scrapbooking freak. Everytime she calls, it's like this...

BA: "Whatcha doin' right now?"

Me: *gets up and walks over to my computer* "Uh... um... going through iPhoto to select the next pictures I'm going to email you?"

BA: Yeah, right.

But GUYS! Never again do I have to feel guilty about not having made baby books for my kids! And BA swears that SHE is the one who lucked out. (cough, weirdo)

I mean, first she saves my life when I was 4, and then she scrapbooks all my books for me! We even have plans for her to do family books for me next summer where she can scrapbook pictures from ages 2 to current.

As good as this sounds, you would be even more excited for me if you have seen her amazing scrapbooks that she has created for herself and others. If you don't believe me, go visit her website Beth's Notes, where she sells handmade cards. Click Here if you want to read what I had to say about it. (And you should click the link and read it. Trust me it's worth it.)

Even though I like to remind BA that she is my much, much, much older sister, the truth is, that having her in my life, makes me the luckiest sister around.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to hurry up and email another batch of pictures to my sister, before she calls me. Again.

Wacky Wednesday #58

WHOA! Sorry guys. I should've warned you that this picture is NSFW. Check out my metal mouth. You like? And that beautiful lady on my back is my much, much, much older sister. Yeah, she definitely got the better genes. Or should I say jeans? As you can see, she was clearly the master at that little fold and roll technique.

Of course I was rockin' my stirrup pants and my Santa Barbara sweatshirt. (loved that soap opera) You like the tear at my knee? Yeah, I paid extra for that. *shaking head no*

So would you like to know why my lovely much, much, much older sister gets the very esteemed Wacky Wednesday feature?

Well then I hope you enjoy disappointment.

Ok, kidding. I'll tell you tomorrow.

Gaming The System

The summer is upon us. Last Sunday began the summer program for Children's Church at our church. Before last summer, there was the addition of a new Children's Church Head Honcho. Let's refer to her as CCHH.

Now this CCHH is coming from a different perspective than previous CC Leaders.. It is my perception that CCHH wants to do whatever is the easiest for the staff. And I get that. Understandably, the easier it is on the staff, the lower the turnover rate will be. But CCHH has turned to the parents to fill in the gaps, and the Children's Church has become more and more rigid. Seems like new rules keep appearing each week that make more work for the parents and less work for the staff. If we didn't love the church so much, we'd be tempted to leave.

The Sunday School teachers get the summer off, as usual. But instead of finding a summer teacher crew like they USED TO before CCHH took over, they now harass the parents into volunteering for the entire summer. Oh, did I say volunteering? What I meant was forced labor. Oh yes, because right before last summer began, we parents all got a lovely email from CCHH informing us that the volunteering was mandatory. And parents were obligated to volunteer at least one time for each child they had in Children's Church. That lovely email also informed us that if we did not sign up for a particular date, a date would be assigned to us and that date for volunteering would be mandatory. Have I used the word mandatory enough?

Well we paid our dues last summer. Marshall and I volunteered for three Sundays in our kids classes. But apparently that wasn't enough to keep from being harassed each and every week (in person, through email and through phone calls) to volunteer for more Sundays. By some strange coincidence I wasn't available to answer the phone every time they called. *thank you caller ID*

And I'm not exactly sure why, but we continued to be harrassed every Sunday to volunteer to help the regular teachers during the school year every time we picked up our kids. We're talking, the kind of pressure that puts Used Car Salesmen to shame.

Sidenote: Ok, just because I have three kids and adopted two of them, does NOT mean I like other people's kids. (unless you're someone I know in real life and in that case I adore your kids. Cough, cough) Having to volunteer in Children's Church is like the 9th level of Hell to me. Is there even a 9th level? Anywho... I justify it in one sentence. "Dude... it's just not my gift."

So, with Summer looming & the mandatory volunteering coming around again, I knew I had to do something. Because if CCHH came up to me in person to pressure me to volunteer, I'm pretty sure there would be a slight possibility I would go postal on her. And going postal on someone in church is highly inappropriate.

I found a way to game the system. We decided to take our kids out of Children's Church for the summer. The summer curriculum is mostly video-watching anyway. And our church just started a brand new service called the 9:01am service. (not to be confused with the 9:00am service) The 9:01am service is held in the Discipleship center. They're calling it a casual and interactive worship service. Casual because the room is filled with round tables and is family friendly. Interactive because a topic, relevant to the sermon, is introduced before the sermon starts and you're encouraged to discuss it with the people at your table. Also interactive because you are encouraged to tweet (use Twitter) during the service. They even have their own hashtag, so when you tweet, it shows up on the big screen for everyone to read. Just make sure you don't accidentally tweet something embarrassing, because that might be AWKWARD.

So this past Sunday we sat as a family in the 9:01am service. We even get our own band & live music for the worship part. Once the sermon in the regular sanctuary starts, it shows up live on the big screens around the room.

(here's a front view during the worship part)

(side view)

We were sitting toward the front of the room, so there were a couple more screens and lots of tables and people sitting behind us. I would've taken a picture of that as well, but it would've been difficult to take stealthy ninja cellphone shot of them, seeing as though they were all facing my direction. Holding up the purple iPhone in their general direction might have given me away.

The kids did a great job and enjoyed sitting through the service with us. And we enjoyed the cuddle time with them.

I snapped a blurry pic of Haven and Marlie during the last song. They were swaying back and forth to the music while hugging (hence the blur).

And Marshall and Seamus were dancing together, having a great time. (also blurred as a result)

Do me a favor, and don't tell anyone we were dancing. Because we're the frozen chosen Presbyterian.

Oh, and CCHH, just a little heads up: I will not be participating in the mandatory volunteer program this summer. Kthxbai.

Funny Friday

Buffy the Vampire Slayer vs. Edward Cullen

This is SO well done, and hysterical!