Mariela is Four Months Old

Mariela learned how to affect change in objects directly within her reach.

Here, you see her touching the object.

In this photo, observe Mariela has made contact and said object is swinging much to her delight.

Here, she is reflecting on how this new skill may be parlayed into many years of grabbing objects and swinging them, throwing them, and generally making a huge mess so as to participate in the sibling ritual of destroying the house for Mama.

The Star Tribune and My Dad

I don't like to do too much political stuff on this blog, so I'm going to start a different blog that's more opinion about politics and religion, etc.. Check the sidebar for the link soon, but I just had to post this...

My dad has been trying to get letters published for AGES to the opinion editors at the "Strib" for years. FINALLY they printed one of his letters in today's paper! He has said for years that they are "just a bunch of communists over at that paper" and I tend to agree to a point. They have put a few conservative writers here and there (what's that saying about a stopped clock?) and they have had a few, nice articles that weren't TOTALLY biased in the last couple of years, but for the most part they could be categorized as typical MSM. Yesterday my dad called all irate about the day's letters from readers. There were more than a few about this story about some boys killing a puppy and how they didn't get a harsh enough punishment. My dad was practically crying when he dictated his letter to me so I could e-mail it. I edited it a bit to get his feelings more accurately represented as he was pretty sad/raging about the whole situation. Here is how I wrote it:

"Two American soldiers were captured, tortured, and brutalized in an unimaginable way, then beheaded. They were left in the open and used as "bait" by placing a minefield in and around their broken bodies. No reader editorials responded to this terrible incident. But, some damn dog was killed by some children in North Branch and your bleeding heart, leftist readers inundated the editorial page with their pitiful letters of outrage about this slightly disturbing but ultimately small event. Where are your priorities, people? Why is your outrage so misplaced? What happened to our society where a sob story about a dog garners more pity than a story of man's inhumanity to and torture of another man?

John (last name)
(city name, MN)"

They e-mailed back this morning and wrote that they needed a phone number and address to consider printing it, but Dad called this morning to tell me that it was published! They changed the wording slightly, though. I think it changes the feel of the letter and I don't like how they edited it, but here it is:

"Tucker and Menchaca: Outrage is misplaced
Published: June 23, 2006

June 23 letters in a batch

Netlets for Thursday, June 22
Two American soldiers were captured, tortured and brutalized in an unimaginable way, then beheaded. They were left in the open and used as "bait" by placing mines in and around their broken bodies.
Apparently fewer readers responded to this terrible incident than they did to a dog being killed by some children in North Branch. These bleeding-heart, leftist readers inundated the editorial page with pitiful letters of outrage about this slightly disturbing but ultimately small event.

Where are your priorities, people? What has happened to our society when a sob story about a dog garners more pity than a story of the torture of our soldiers?"

I thought it was amazing that they printed it, until I looked at it from their point of view and realized that they probably LOVED the fact that my dad was insulting other people (their readers) and they probably didn't "get" that he was really insulting the paper itself. I should have made that point a bit clearer as NOW it looks like the paper wants it's readers to react to Dad's letter and think bad things about him.

Oh well, at least his point was made and I think it was one worth making.

memememememe...alllllll about memememe

This one I got from Christine via one of my favorite sister's blog (not the related kind of sister, the other kind!) and I thought it would be a fun one...

ABC MEME:

ACCENT-Whaddya mean, "accent", I'm an Ameerahcahn from Minniesohhhhdahh, we don't have accents, dontcha knohhhh.

(don't know why there isn't any "b"...Looked it up and found out it was 'bra size', hehe)

CHORE I HATE- cleaning out the sink trap (shudder) EWWWWWWWWW, I'll take dirty diapers over that ANY day!

DOG OR CAT?-Neither Here is a perfect illustration of why.

ESSENTIAL ELECTRONICS- My stove (I know, I know, LAME!)

FAVORITE COLOGNE-Stetson cologne, Stetson fits, 'cause there's a little bit of Stetson in ev-ry man (whispers) or woman...(haven't found anything good since the eighties)

GOLD OR SILVER-silver...unless you're talkin' about teeth, of course

HOMETOWN-better not say, might give up my incognito blogger identity but it's a town named after a REALLY cool archangel (hinthint)

INSOMNIA-every night, how the heck do you think I have time for this blogging business?

JOB TITLE-I don't work, remember, I'm a stay-at-home, bonbon eatin', manicure and pedicure gettin', mall shoppin', arm candy, trophy wife of my husband, duh.

KIDS-no, I don't have any goats but I have 5 children

LIVING ARRANGEMENT-shackin' up wit the hubsand and the critters in a two story with a front porch.

MOST ADMIRABLE TRAIT-my never ceasing, all encompassing, ever impermeating humility. Aslo my perfect spelling abilitties.

HOSPITAL STAYS-multiple surgeries for ear problems, one time for a breast surgery (tmi, sorry), and of course the 5 kiddos

PHOBIAS- running out of cereal

QUOTE-"GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH!"- Patrick Henry

RELIGION-W.I.N.C (also Roman Catholic)

SIBLINGS-2 sis,3bro

TIME I WAKE UP-whenever Niklaus comes in to bonk Mariela on the head while I'm trying to nurse her and catch 2.3 extra seconds of sleep

UNUSUAL TALENT OR SKILL-I can turn my eyelids inside out, pump my shoulders like a creepy body builder, spin my fingers in opposite directions, and LOTS of other useful things like that...actually I can 'speak' and understand American Sign Language, if the signer is really slow and patient!

VEGETABLE I REFUSE TO EAT-squash still makes me gag

WORST HABIT-biting my nails when I read...which is a LOT of the time

X-RAYS-lots and lots, that's probably why I glow and my kids are so weird

YUMMY STUFF I COOK-homemade soups

Busy Summer Days

We have been so busy this summer with trying to be busy. Do you know what I mean? For instance, when we have nothing scheduled like Dr. appts, etc. I feel like we scurry around all day looking for things to fill the time and pretty soon the day is done. I LOVE this way of life! I'm so happy to not have baseball or camp or anything else that we HAVE to do and we can do whatever we WANT to do instead...well, the free stuff, anyway! My favorite thing of all, so far this summer, has been just staying home and waiting for people to come over to visit us! I got to plant my flowers over Memorial weekend and the house always looks so pretty when it's decorated for summer.
Also, we got to meet our neighbors Laura and Eric who have a little boy named Brendan. They have lived here longer than us but we hadn't met them formally yet because they had twins (due the same time as Trine was with her twins) but they were born the previous October and were very preemie (One of their boys died shortly after birth and he is not forgotten!) and couldn't risk public exposure. He is a beautiful little boy who reached for me when he met me for the first time! He just didn't get that shyness and his mom says he does that for everyone. He is truly a miracle child! If you refer to my previous post you will read how we are expecting another convict for the baby jail next year so I put this next picture to show what we basically do all day as many days as we can and what we will hopefully be doing all next summer, too!
Butch's mom and dad stopped by and we celebrated his dad's birthday. I love seeing Sue's eyes in my children's eyes and Harold's dimples in my children's cheeks. Harold was sporting his "Red Green" 'spenders for the occasion.

Mariela looks like she's got fireworks coming out of her head in the picture of her and Sue!
Speaking of fireworks, the kids were worried that the rain would spoil the friendly city days fireworks on Friday but it only drizzled a little and they were able to watch from the neighbor's deck. We went to some of the citywide garage sales and found a remote control car for Matty and a bunch of other useful things. Matty let Niklaus try it out.

Our neighbor across the street is soon having their first baby so the "baby" stuck in storage for a number of years is now out the door!
Butch and our new friend, Eric(dad of baby Brendan)helped Mike get the car out of the garage to display it in the drive to sell. I thought this was a cute picture of them, kind of a "slice of life" picture of what it's like in our neighborhood. I love our neighbors and we always help each other out.
We had my friend Megan and her hubs and the most beautiful toddler in the world over on Memorial Day but my pictures didn't turn out and I don't know how to post video on blogger. Maddy and Niklaus were laughing hysterically at Weazy and it was cute to see them giggling like that.
On the nice, warm days we've been having, we pull out the good ol' slip 'n' slide and whoever is near is welcome to give it a go!

Mariela is growing...not out, but certainly UP! She's the pipsqueekiest child I've had, by far! She smiles a lot but can't purposefully reach out for things, although she did manage to hook Weazy's hair. She didn't mind, she loves her baby sister as do the other siblings. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have big sis Katrina to hold Mari when I need to get something done!

She's also the only child in my little family with BLUE eyes!

We got a new mattress for Trina so I was hoping to put a free sign on the old one but the kids liked jumping and playing on it so much that I think I'll keep it around for a while (I keep it hidden on the porch so's we don'ts look TOO WT!).


That's it for now.

It took me so long to put together this post, you could almost say it was quite a "feet" (sorry about the bad pun)...

Early Training For Career in CSI

I have an awesome post brewing, but blogger is having trouble uploading pics so just hold on for a bit for an update with some great photos!

Just A Yearly Checkup, HUH?

...UMMMM...Mat's claim that he doesn't ever get any is wearing pretty thin right about now...