Tiny visitor

Today we had an unexpected visitor.  Our kids were peacefully napping upstairs (don't you LOVE Sunday naps?!) and Brian noticed a bird in the backyard.  Here is a picture of our little visitor:

It's a baby wild turkey.  He spent about an hour in our backyard, then tried to fly away, only to crash into our backyard-neighbor's window.  I think he's injured (from before the crash) because he didn't fly very well.  After the crash, he wandered another yard over and found a quiet place to hunker down.  I wish I knew how to help him. I hope he heals quickly and can return to his turkey family soon.

Thanks for visiting, little friend.  Gobble, gobble.

** Update:  Our little friend came back.  Several hours after hiding in our neighbors backyard, he flew back to our yard.  In fact, he crashed into our back sliding door and landed in our basement window well.  Poor guy.  He ended up staying there all afternoon and night.  He was still there this morning when we woke up. Needless to say we started getting attached. We named him Sam Harrington Turkey.  A few hours into the morning, I noticed he wasn't in the window well anymore and figured he had finally flown away.  He didn't get very far.  After a few morning errands, I found him wandering around in our yard again.  He must really like our back yard.  He spent most of the afternoon exploring the weed beds and pacing along the fence.  I haven't seen him since about 2:00, so he must've finally flown away to find his family.  It has been a very fun 24 hours spent with our little friend Sam.  Even though he was only here for 1 day - I got a little attached.  I'll miss that cute little guy.  :)

Look how well he was camoflauged in our window well.

Orange you glad...

...it's Orange Week?!

Isn't orange such a wonderful color? It's one of my top 3, if not my very favorite. This week we filled our bellies with an array of sunshine-y foods like clementines, carrots, and sweet potatoes. And, to strictly follow my made-up color week rules, we included three new foods: tangelo, nectarine, and a horned melon (also called a Kiwano melon or African horned cucumber). Yum yum!!

Isn't that melon cool?? The little bumps are actually a little prickly & sharp. I didn't even know what this one would be like inside, but wanted to give it a try anyways. That's what color week is for, right? When I saw this bad boy in the store, I just had to buy it. It's an expensive little bugger ($4)!!! I had to look it up online for instructions on how to eat it and was glad I did.

This is what it looks like inside:

It's really seed-y, and the green fruit inside has a texture like Jello that didn't set up.  Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?  We each tasted the green flesh raw, which tasted a little like a mild kiwi, and then strained the juice out by pressing the insides through a sieve and blended it up in our strawberry-banana smoothie for breakfast. Yum!!

Here are the reviews:

Sweet Potatoes:
K :) :) :)  N :) :) :)  S :) :) :)
Tangelo:

K :(  N :)  S :) :) :)

Nectarine:

K :)  N :) :)  S :) :) :)

Horned Melon:

K :)  N :)  S :) :)

Sloan has picked our color for next week.  Can you guess???

Nope. Not pink. She actually chose BROWN.  I wonder how many new forms of chocolate I can find.

Purplicious

Food should be in color.
I have taken a stand. I've decided that I'm tired of my kids turning their cute little noses up at any food that has color.  I don't understand it.  Kids should LOVE things with lots of colors, right?  Mine don't.  So, I've come up with a scheme to get them to enjoy colorful food.  This week began my experiment of having color weeks.  The kids get to choose a color and every week, we are going to eat as many foods of that color as we can, with the requirement that atleast 3 of these foods have to be NEW (to them).

So....

HAPPY PURPLE WEEK!

Noah got to choose the color this week.  It was fun taking them to the fruit stand to choose purple foods.  We bought black grapes (usually we buy red, so these are technically new), plums, blueberries and eggplant.  We also made purple smoothies.

Another rule of color week: It doesn't count to dye another food that color (that was a suggestion made by Kimball...purple eggs) - it has to be a food that exists in that color all by itself.

The reviews:

Grapes:

K :) :) :)  N :) :) :)  S :) :) :)

Plums:

K :)  N :) :)  S :) :) :)

Blueberries:

(cooked in pancakes)

K :)  N :)  S :) :) :)

Blueberries:

(raw)

K :(  N :(  S :) :) :) (this girl LOVES fruit)

Eggplant:

(eggplant parmesian)

K :)  N :(  S :(

So fun!!  I think we'll enjoy this experiment. Kimball has chosen ORANGE for next week.

YAY FOR COLOR!

A question of tact.

Yesterday, I found myself at the boys' swim lessons...and left questioning all I know about society.

No, not really (about society, that is), but did experience a large dose of baffle-ment. (is that a word?  It is now).  Here is my story:

The boys have swim lessons at the Kroc Center (kind of similar to a YMCA, but a little fancier and cheaper).  Every day, we arrive about 5 minutes before Kimball's class is to begin.  Usually the seats are all taken, and we stand around for a few minutes while the just-finished swimmers towel off and move on their way.  Yesterday was no different. We patiently waited for a few open seats and grabbed a bench as someone else left.  Shortly after Kimball's lesson began, Noah told me he needed to go potty.  Realizing that it was still very crowded and we might lose our seats if we took our stuff, I strategically laid out our towels across the bench and placed our very large red swimming bag in front of the bench to save our seats, and left the boys' flip flops under the bench.  We went to the bathroom which was just around the corner of the pool and were only gone about 3 minutes, if that.
Upon my return I found....wait for it.....someone SITTING ON MY STUFF.  Not kidding.  I was SHOCKED.  Are you kidding me, people??  A lady and her son sitting on our bench, on our towels, next to our bag.

Here is a diagram I drew of what our stuff looked like on the bench before we left for the restroom.  I think that it acurately represents my belongings as they were:  (don't laugh...my Windows "Paint" skills have deteriorated over time)

Would you sit on this bench?  Holy cow.  Baffled.  So, to give her the benefit of the doubt, I thought maybe she's just resting her tired feet for a moment, and when she sees us coming, she'll surely get up and excuse herself.

NOPE.

Even as I returned to the bench, with what I'm sure had to be obvious disgust on my face, she sat, unmoving.  I thought for SURE when I asked for my towels, that she would embarrassingly apologize and move, realizing her mistake, but she just lifted her cheek slightly just enough for me to pull my towel out from underneath her.  Once we had our towels and bag, we found a few chairs just down a little from the bench and sat.  I couldn't believe what had just happened.  Can you?  What is wrong with people.  It seemed that she had absolutely NO IDEA that she had done anything wrong.  I couldn't believe someone could be so rude. I cannot believe people anymore.  One of my BIGGEST pet peeves is discourtesy for others.  Seriously.

Today was much better...that is until someone (not the same lady) sat on our seats again.  This one wasn't quite so drastic.  Our towels were not sprawled out on the chairs, they were just in front of them.

Unbelieveable.

Thanks for listening.  I hope you enjoyed my diagram.

Humor me

So, I FINALLY began my journey of reading the Twilight books. Yup.  And am very sorry to say that...I am...GULP...a....fan.  Ugh. I thought I'd never utter those words. I finished the 1st book today.

Since I unprofessionally watched the movies before I read any of the books, I really tried to keep the faces and images from the movies out of my mind as I read the words.  And was somewhat successful.  I think that now that I've finished the book, I can say that I have formed an image of what would be, in my mind, the perfect Edward.  Humor me, here.  Now, don't get me wrong - - I don't mind their choice of, oh, what's his name...but think that I could've done much better than those high-paid casting directors.  Ok...so there is ONE little flaw to my perfect Edward...he is made up of several different celebrities.  I couldn't decide on just one, which I'll admit could be a slight hurdle if I ever did pursue the casting director type career.  But all that aside, if I could have cast an Edward, based on my images after reading the book, and completely trying to block out old whats-his-name, here's what I came up with:

His voice would sound similar to this guy:

His muscles would look more like this guy's:

And he might've resembled this guy:

Or maybe looked a little like this guy:

Eh?? Eh??? What do you think?  If you could combine all these guys, wouldn't that be the perfect Edward?  Huh??  I know, right!!! :)

I am such a nerd.  Time for book two...

with this guy:

Ok...so I guess they didn't do THAT bad of a job.

Aren't you ashamed that you know me. (don't be too harsh...you know you were thinking about it too.)