Leotards and Leporids

My blogs have become quite, uh, how you say?  

Formulaic.

Yes. That's the word.

Some uninspired commentary accompanied by pictures.

Katie likes to go back and look at old blog entries, especially ones about herself as a baby.

I read those entries and think to myself, "What happened to my creativity, my verve, my rapier like wit?"

Here's a good, and very relevant to this month (as I'll explain later), example from October 2006:

To binky, or not to binky: that is the question.

Whether 'tis smarter in the long run to suffer the cries and screams of an unsettled baby, or to take measures against a sea of tantrums, and by pacifying, end them?

To pacify, to sleep; no more; and sleep to say we end watching Nick @ Nite and the thousand sleepless hours that we have become heir to; 'tis an outcome devoutly to be wished.

To binky, to sleep; To sleep: perchance for more than four hours; ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of binky-dom, what bad habits may come?

Alas, it has suffered from a determination to run myself into the ground volunteering to do WAY too much stuff in the name of making my kids education more fulfilling and their lives super-awesome.

Such is mommy-hood. 

And now, on with the show.

We had a pet moth for a day.

As you would guess, his name was.....

.....wait for iiiiiiittttt.....

Mothie.

The second week of June, Katie's school had Spirit Week.

Here's Katie all prepped and ready for "Crazy Hair Day".

Some PNW wildlife.....

Mikey's hand is there to give you some perspective as to exactly how big and gloopy this slug was.

And even MORE wildlife!

Did you know that we have tame unicorns here in the PNW?

No really.  We do.

It's true what they say:  Cats love people who hate cats.

Here's a cool phenomenon.  This is a rainbow halo around the sun.

It's officially called a sundog.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, now introducing the next star of stage and dance.......

KATIE!!!

It was Dance Recital time!

Here's a nice picture of Katie with her costume hat on.

This was a serious recital folks.  Kinda like the ones I remember as a kid.

Katie had to have her hair done in a "ballet bun" (her hair was too short for a bun, so I plastered it to her head).  She had to have stage makeup on.  She had to wear an elaborate costume.

The recital was at a performing arts center - the big time.

It lasted three hours.  And her group was performing as group # 43 out of a total of 44 groups.

She told me that the wait wasn't that bad.  She got to wear a pretty outfit, hang out with her class, play games, do crafts, watch The Little Mermaid and make new friends.  Hmmmm.  All things Katie loves to do.

And here she IS!

(Second kid in from the right, in the back row) 

She had a great time and wants to continue with her dance career.

Next year - Jazz.

"I LOOOOOOOVE DANCING!!!!"

Next up, it was field trip time for Katie.

Her class went to a local park to "investigate" plant life as part of their science curriculum.

In reality, they played on the giant playground, went for small hikes, climbed trees......

....and ate popsicles.

Very messily.

Mikey calls them "pop-sticles".

You would think that an almost 7 year old could manage a popsicle better than a preschooler.

Not so much.

And then, just like that, school was over!

Summer was here!

It was a nice weekend this past weekend.  I decided to pull some weeds in our yard.

I thought it might be time, as some of them were taller than Katie.

As I was chopping down a giant fern (they are EVERYWHERE here), I noticed a little brown furry thing huddled at the base of it not moving.

Upon further investigation, I realized it was a baby bunny.

So THAT's what that rabbit hanging out in our yard was up to!!

Armed with knowledge gleaned from a 2 minute search on the internet, I did a quick search of the garden area and found some brothers and sisters huddled in a burrow.

We weren't quite sure if the little bunny was ready to be on his own.

In my search for the burrow, we ended up finding two other siblings.

One that didn't mind being caught and another who was pretty fast on his feet.  We decided to let him run free.

All in all, there were six baby bunnies.

The internet said that if the bunnies eyes were open and their ears were up, they were ready to be on their own.  But, they seemed SO small - about the size of a chipmunk.

We decided to return them to the burrow and let Mommy Bunny decide if they were ready to skedaddle.  Mommy Bunnies will not abandon their babies if they are handled by humans, by the way.

Katie wanted to help.  So, we got our gloves on and began "Project Rabbit Replacement".

The next day.  The mommy bunny must've paid a visit to her babies.  The nest was disturbed and she was hanging out in our yard.

And then when we went to check on the babies two hours later... and they were gone.

All six baby bunnies.  Gone-zo.

I searched the yard for live or not-so-alive bunnies, but found no trace.

We wish them the best wherever they went.

The kids visited the dentist last week and I got the "gotta get rid of the binky/finger sucking" speech. Again.

So, we did it.

Mikey gave up his binkies.  Katie began the process of breaking the finger sucking habit.

With all this craziness going on, some of us are a little exhausted.