My Purple Brain*

Your Brain is Purple

Of all the brain types, yours is the most idealistic. You tend to think wild, amazing thoughts. Your dreams and fantasies are intense.Your thoughts are creative, inventive, and without boundaries. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking of fictional people and places - or a very different life for yourself.

What Color is Your Brain?

*I never knew my brain was purple. I actually don't think this fits me very well any more (it fits my pre-mom self, though); I do have a pretty good imagination, but in my current state, most of my thoughts involve more practical problem solving like, "Where did I put the keys?" or "Where did I put my kids?" and "Do I even still have a brain?"

I do like to think, however, that my aura is fluorescent pink.

Rocks and Robins Eggs

We went boating at Massacre Rock on the Snake River today. It was lots of fun. Even Drew liked it. He was hesitant at first, and hated his life jacket, but pretty soon he settled into the groove and had a good time.

It was a gorgeous day for boating, but too windy for wakeboarding (which was ok for me, since I can't wakeboard this summer, anyway). We saw a lot of pelicans on the water today, and think I even saw a great blue heron (or it might have been some kind of crane; I didn't get a very good look at it). We also saw an area of the shore that had been burned by a lightning strike last night; it was still smoldering.

We stopped for lunch at the Shelter, which is a little area on the shore that a friend of ours rents from a local farmer. It's secluded from the main boat dock, so we never have to worry about finding an open table. There's just one picnic table under a little structure with a roof and two walls, the other sides being left open. There is also a rope swing, and last year I enjoyed swinging off of it into the water. This year I had to settle for watching, but next year I think I'll try a flip.

The kids love to stop at the Shelter and play; I guess they get sick of being on the boat all the time. Our friends' kids were looking for crawdads, of which they found dead ones in abundance. We saw a little frog that didn't seem terribly afraid of us, until we tried to catch it. Drew and Owen thought it was hilarious to watch it jump and swim. They've never seen a real frog before, and I don't think they made the connection from the cartoonish frogs in their story books to the real thing. But they loved it nonetheless.

We were at the Shelter for a couple hours, and Owen spent most of that time in the water, throwing rocks and splashing and laughing. Drew spent a surprising amount of time in the water, too; he's not as brave as Owen, but he also doesn't like to be the only one not doing something that looks fun. Owen slipped in the water a couple times. He was trying to pick up rocks off the riverbed, but because the water was waist-deep on him and his arms are short, his face ended up in the water, causing him to sputter and lose his balance. But it didn't deter him much. He continued to harvest rocks, and when he got tired of throwing them, he decided to eat them. Unfortunately, some of them were covered with algae. Yuck!

Drew got tired of the water, and went exploring on the shore. Our friend's kid, Ashley, followed him around to make sure he didn't get hurt. Every now-and-then, she would dash back and report: "Drew found some flowers!" or, "Drew found some berries!" I asked her to make sure he didn't put anything in his mouth, so she ran back to him and made sure. Then she came dashing back, saying, "Drew found a blue egg!" I said, "Oh! It must be a robin's egg!" Ashley turned to Drew and asked him if she could see the egg shell. He wouldn't relinquish it, but put it right into his mouth. I grabbed him and scooped the shell out of his mouth. Sure enough, robin's egg blue. It was pretty, until Drew chomped it to smithereens.

Finally, our afternoon came to an end and we headed home. The boys were quite tired, since they woke up earlier than usual and didn't get any afternoon nap. Drew fell asleep within two minutes of being buckled into his car seat. Owen fell asleep about half-way home. These are the kind of summer days that get me through the cold Pocatello winters. I'm just looking forward to next summer, when I can take more part in the action.

'Oppies and Fiewors

Happy [late] 4th of July! I hope everyone had a fun, safe time. We had ourselves a fun little celebration. We had a barbecue and invited some friends over to eat and to light fireworks with us. It turned out to be a really nice evening. I ate too much, as usual, but at least I didn't get sick this time.*

I made some cheesecakes, and I got a little enthusiastic and turned them into the following:

Drew and Owen had a grand old time. I have never seen Owen so excited about anything in his entire life. All 20.5 months of it. When we started lighting the fireworks (or "fiewors" as he calls them) he started yelling and jumping around and pumping his little fists in the air. He had an ear-to-ear grin on his face the entire time. He was so fun to watch. Owen didn't care for the city fireworks, which we watched from our back yard (they light the fireworks at the fairgrounds, which is about three blocks from our house), he just enjoyed the chance to be running wild in the back yard, having all the fun toys to himself.

Drew liked the all fireworks, but got a little scared at the ones that boomed and crackled. He loved the screamers, though. He kept saying, "Woo. Wooooo!" over and over. And he really enjoyed the city firework display. Everything was "pippie" (pretty). Drew's favorite though, were the little Snappers that don't need to be lit; you just throw 'em and they pop when they hit the ground. The boys can never throw them hard enough to pop, so they have to stomp on them. Owen likes that part a lot. We opened up a pack and would go outside and throw a few every day this week. I would say, "Do you guys want to go throw some poppers?" And Drew would yell, "Oppies!" and run for the door.

Here are some pictures from our fireworks:

The biggest smile Owen's ever worn...

And some of my favorites from the city's display:

*We went to our friend Little Mary's birthday party on Tuesday. She turned five, and got a Cadillac Escalade for her birthday. They had a barbecue there, and I ate four hot dogs, some potato salad, a bunch of potato chips, a piece of cake, some ice cream and a can of soda. I think I might have also had a few chocolate covered pretzels and some honey-roasted peanuts. I'm pretty sure I went far beyond "eating for two." I woke up at 4:00 the following morning absolutely sick. I kept everything down, but I don't remember having a worse stomach ache in my life.

I Have a Bobbum!

The boys and I had Family Home Evening tonight for the very first time. I'd been at kind of a loss as far as lessons and activities go; what do you do with kids that can't sit still for more than about 45 seconds? I decided I'd practice my nursery lesson on them. The lesson is called "I Have a Body." It delves into body parts: arms, legs, hands, feet, et cetera. It also talks about keeping our bodies healthy. We didn't get to that part. Maybe we'll do that next week. For today, we just pointed to our noses, eyes, bellies, and, Drew's favorite, our "bobbums." He knows so much about that particular body part, because I'm often reminding him to sit on his bottom rather than trying to stand on his chair at the table or stand up in the bathtub.

The lesson went well; it lasted about two minutes, then we played ring-around-the-rosies for about 4 minutes, which is actually much longer than my attention span usually lasts for that game. It's getting too hard to "fall down" and stand back up again. But the boys love it. When they fall down, they really go all out. They plunk themselves down onto their bobbums, then they proceed to throw their whole selves onto the ground so they're just laying there laughing hysterically. And when they get back up to play again, they always giggle as they hold hands and walk in the circle. It makes it worth it to tire myself out a little, because they're having so much fun.

It's Yucky! I'm Sick! I'm Gonna Puke!

I made Thai food tonight. This is the first time I've attempted a real Thai recipe. I think it turned out really well. I didn't have any Thai basil, which is actually a main part of the recipe, but I discovered that cilantro has a quite similar flavor. There's just a little pizazz that sweet basil doesn't have. I felt a little bad that Lura couldn't eat it. She said it was good, but that it was too spicy. I had no idea how spicy it would turn out, but I guessed that the recipe would be pretty authentic based on the website I got it from. So I actually put less peppers in than were called for and it was still quite spicy. Andy and Westley liked it, though. Westley kept wiping his tongue with his hand as though to wipe the spice off, but he kept saying, "I need more!"

Westley wasn't a huge fan of the dessert I made, though. I made sweet sticky rice with mango. I had neglected to buy an extra mango, so there wasn't quite enough to go around. Westley didn't want to try the mango (even though yesterday when he saw it he said, "I need to eat it. I need to eat the red and yellow apple"), so he and I had our rice with nectarines. I suppose I should say I had my rice with a nectarine. Westley just ate a nectarine. Lura got him to taste the rice, but he quickly spit it out and looked like he was really gagging. He kept threatening to puke but, thankfully, never did. Drew and Owen liked the rice, but not so much the nectarine. Maybe the nectarine was too tart after the sweet rice. Like drinking a glass of orange juice after eating a bowl of Froot Loops.

Over all, I was quite pleased with my meal tonight. It reminded me of Thailand, minus the MSG. My baby really liked it, too. She got pretty hyper and did a few jumping jacks while I was eating the dessert. So I guess she'll come out liking Thai food (or she'll come out a sugar-holic).

Here are links for the recipes I made tonight (they really are tasty, regardless of what a two-year-old says about sweet rice):

Sweet Sticky Rice and Mango:

http://importfood.com/recipes/khaoneeomamuang.html

Thai Pork with Fresh Basil:

http://importfood.com/recipes/padkrapaow.html