Breakfast is a Circus at My House

 I found the coolest waffle maker ever at the Family Dollar.

It makes waffles in the shape of lions, elephants and giraffes.  (Pardon the blurry pictures).

 I was skeptical that they would come out as neatly as pictured.

But they did.  I had to trim a little of the overflow off, but they popped right out without a problem.  The most challenging thing was making sure to pour batter right into the trunk, tail and legs - all the skinny areas.  I mixed my batter in a measuring bowl with a pour spout, so that helped.

Pretty cute :)

 Our six year old is obsessed with waffles. It's all he will eat for breakfast. (That, and a piece of fruit. He had already devoured the banana when I took this picture.)  So when I found this waffle maker, I knew it would be a big hit.

So if you're trying to solve the age old question of how a person could eat a whole elephant, here's a simple answer for you :)

These sure are a lot of fun. Even the ten year old asked for waffles this morning.  I might have to buy a second one so I can make allergy free ones for him.  I'll have to see if I can find a recipe that would work though....

Winter Friends and a Swimming Update

We're very blessed with the place we live in.  We have a great house, an amazing view, and plenty of live entertainment.  The yard has been full of deer lately.  There is one particular plant that grows in patches around our yard that they especially love.  It reminds me of clover, but it's bigger and bushier.  And when it dries out the seed pods rattle like the sound of a rattlesnake.  No idea what it's called, but the deer love it.

This young buck stayed to visit all day a couple days ago.

 This picture was taken from our master bedroom on the third floor, looking straight down over the deck.  He was within 12 feet of the door downstairs.

 The ten year old took these pictures of the bunny.  We have lots of rabbits around here too.

 He was right outside the downstairs door - closer to the house than the deer was.

 The ten year old also spotted an eagle flying over our yard one of the days I was in town taking care of Papa.  He got some great pictures.

 These three are Magpies.  I love their coloring, but most people around here (especially ranchers) think of them as a nuisance).

Here's a picture of the eagle with a magpie.

 Swim therapy for the 6 year old has progressed amazingly well.  His instructor asked for the brothers to come too, and that has helped him to loosen up and be more comfortable in the water.  And the brothers are loving it too.

 He's still afraid to get his face wet, but with the goggles on, he will look under the water.  We had great success Monday when he didn't have his goggles on, and willingly got his lips wet twice.  Lol. We celebrate small victories here as well as big ones.  He will also lay back and get the back of his head wet (very cautiously and not for long - ha.) But considering when we started, he was terrified to even touch the water, this is huge progress.

 The three year old is fearless.  He makes me nervous.  He'll march right out to the deep water with his brothers, with no concern for whether he'll be able to touch or not.  He's so small the slightest current or disturbance knocks him off his feet.  I haven't been swimming in the mornings because we're there for such a short time, and I have a very small window between the time the lesson ends and the time the bus arrives.  One of these days, I'll get the guys together earlier and we can swim before the lesson.  Hard to do when the lesson starts at 9, and the boys are not early risers.

November Reading

 I finally had a chance to get back to reading more.  Things have settled down some here. I had been taking care of my in-laws the last few months, but now they are both in places where they can get the help they need, so I'm back to a little more normal schedule ... though normal for me has changed.  One of the biggest changes is that I am now working two part time jobs.  And one of those is a bit of a dream job for me.  I'm now a librarian!  I've wanted to do that since I was a little kid. :)  I used to organize my books and make cards so my sister and I could pretend to check them out.  

So now I have a great reason to say my reading is necessary ... research for work, right?  :)  And my other job includes a lot of down time where I am free to read (and get paid for it lol).  So here's what I read in November...

November Totals:
Total books - 4
Total pages - 1,754
Total inches - 7

Year to Date Totals:
Total books - 56
Total pages - 16,514
Total inches - 65
(in other words, WAY behind where I expected to be, and where I was last year)

I read:

1. The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak, a Turkish author.  This was for my evening book club which focuses on books from different countries, written by people native to those places.  I couldn't get into this book.  It was about whirling dervishes and the Sufi poet Rumi.  The book is written with a connection to present day, so parts of it are present tense and parts are history.  The historical parts were interesting, but I couldn't buy into the present day story.

2. The Bone People by Keri Hulme, a New Zealand author - also for evening club.  I really liked this book.  It was very well written, though poorly titled, I think as it was hard to even understand why she chose that title.  It's a pretty depressing story, but I did enjoy it.  She writes well.

3. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult.  Talk about depressing subject matter.  This was about a school shooting.  I really like Picoult's writing, and will probably eventually read all of her books.  This is the third one I've read.  Very well done, but not nearly as good as The Storyteller, which is one of my all-time favorite books (but extremely depressing and heavy, dealing with the Holocaust).

4. A Sudden Light by Garth Stein. This was probably my favorite of all of these books.  I wanted to read this new book by Stein because I loved his previous book - The Art of Racing in the Rain - which you really should read if you haven't.  He's a very good story teller, and I couldn't put this one down.

Happy 6th

We are now the proud parents of a new six year old.  He was quite excited to celebrate his birthday.  (And now that it's over, he's already telling us what he wants for his next birthday. HA)

 He really doesn't like sweets or desserts, so birthday planning is a little difficult.  But he does happen to love chocolate glazed donuts.  So he got to start his day off with a big one of those.

 We put the candle on the donut and sang to him at the breakfast table.

 He had to wait until evening to open his presents.

 He loved the minion hat and gloves we got him.

 He had to pull it all the way down so we could see what he would look like as a minion. :)

 This summer I saw that Kohl's was having their Little Critter and Little Sister stuffed animals and books on their Kohl's Cares program.  We live hundreds of miles away from the nearest Kohl's (not exaggerating) so I had my sister pick them up for me and we saved them until his birthday came around.  This kid loves to read and he loves stuffed animals, so it was a big hit.  It was kind of funny though, when Grandpa called and he told him he got a little sister for his birthday.  I had a lot of explaining to do - ha.

 His ten year old brother got him a toy car.

 He was doing pretty well with the unwrapping until he decided he needed to wear the gloves that came with his minion hat.  It was pretty comical, and it really slowed down the process.

 He had to show the Little Critter doll the book about him.

 Grammy sent him a horse that looked like his Sadie horse he gets to ride in therapeutic horseback riding lessons.  It has been a real hit.  The three year old is really into toy horses and especially likes to play with Sadie too (mostly when his brother is at school - ha).

 Grammy also sent a game called Jumping Jack.  It is really a cute game.  You spin to see how many carrots you have to pull from the garden, and if you pull the wrong one, the "Jack" rabbit pops up into the air.  If you catch him before he hits the ground, you win the game. If you miss, whichever player has the most carrots wins.  The boys think it's hysterical when the bunny pops off the top.

 Since he's not into cake, we got him ice cream and cookies.  He's not really into cookies either, and ended up picking all the m&m's off the cookies and leaving them behind - only eating the cookie part (which is the exact opposite of what most kids do.)

 He likes "Rocky Road" ice cream - and any chocolate ice cream with stuff in it is called Rocky Road.  He doesn't like soft serve chocolate ice cream, and he doesn't like vanilla or any other kind than "Rocky Road."

I think he had a pretty fun birthday.  Messy, but fun.  :)