Things that occurred during my first month of marriage to Marty

There are a couple stories blended into this one entry-

Story #1- Most of you know that I had a hamster named Ernest Hammingway ("Hammy"). Yes, he was the hamster who promoted literacy. I did, indeed, use the word "had" in that sentence. Well, Sydney and Gracie decided to put their fingers in Hammy's mouth a couple of weeks ago. Hammy reacted as anyone who had had fingers shoved in their mouth would react- he bit! This, of course, created chaos... not by the girls, but by Marty. So, before I could put bandaids on the girls' fingers, Marty put the hamster outside... get this... he put the hamster outside with the dog. We have a chocolate lab. His name is Haze and he is two years old. He has decided to make a habit of killing wildlife in our backyard. For example, he actually killed a bird. Instead of leaving it at the back door, as a cat would do, Haze completely destroyed everything of the bird except its feathers. Back to Hammy- as you can imagine, Hammy did not have a chance. So, we are less one animal. Amazingly enough, I am not sad.

Story #2- I will title this story "The Case of the Missing Lip Gloss". A few days ago, my pot of Burt's Bee's lip gloss went missing. This is not a surprise as my girls love to use lip gloss. Well, a couple of days after I noticed the missing lip gloss, the kids were in Logan's room with the door closed. All was quiet, so I decided to go investigate. I open the door and the cat came flying out of the room. I then smelled this fragrant, fruity smell and began to wonder what the heck it was. After puzzling over this mystery for a while, the cat came back into the room. She looked wet and smelled like strawberry. A few minutes later, I realized that the kids had smeared that lip gloss all over the cat. I found the empty, broken pot of lip gloss this morning.

Story #3- A couple weeks ago Marty killed his first buck (a male deer for those who may be ignorant). Since Marty and I are going to go hunting over Thanksgiving break, I decided to watch Marty clean and cut the deer. I want to be able to clean my own deer, if/when I kill one. All-in-all, the deer cleaning was not a bad experience. It was about like cleaning a fish.
A week later a man comes over with live quail. These quail are to be used at the men's wild game supper at our church. Marty and his friend set up in the back yard so they can kill and prepare the quail. After watching the men do it a couple of times, I got brave and tried to kill one. Juvenile quail are not huge birds, but they are sure hard to kill. So, I am just-a-twisting the bird's neck and nothing happens. Finally, Marty had to step in. So, I finished by plucking and gutting the bird. This is an experience that I didn't mind being part of, but I wouldn't care if I never had to be part of it again. Cleaning quail was totally different than cleaning a fish.

The Bird

So, the girls came running in the house exclaiming that the neighbor gave them a bird. I turned around, and to my horror, Syney was holding a real, dead bird! Both girls were glowing with pride as they showed off the bird. I looked at them and asked them if they realized that the bird was dead. Sydney said yes. Gracie said no. I explained to them why touching a dead bird is not a good idea and told them to hand the bird to me. Once they handed it over, I told them to go wash their hands with hot water. They obeyed and I put the bird in a ziploc bag. I washed my hands and handed the bag to the girls and took their picture. It was such a random thing. I always seem to collect random things- bones, feathers, rocks... now dead birds. Hmmm :)

Speaking of feathers... Marty killed a turkey and plucked the feathers so the girls would have something to decorate their Thanksgiving take home project for school with. Sydney's teacher sent a big poster cut out of a feather for Sydney to decorate. Mimi worked with Sydney and hot glued real turkey feathers on the poster board. Mimi called it "Sydney's Shake a Tail Feather Thanksgiving Decoration". Perfect name. Here is how it turned out-

A Story From Aunt Kristi

I went to pick them (Sydney and Gracie) up from child care (Pace Christian Academy in 2006) to spend the day with them and they looked at me like "... and who are you?" I thought the lady wasn't going to let me have them. On that same day, I took Syd and Gracie to ChicFilA and we ate lunch then they went to play in the little play area. Sydney shoved a little boy down the slide and the mom looked at me like "are you gonna do something about that??"... And I thought to myself "well, not now because I don't want you to think I'm doing it for you!" I pulled Sydney aside (after lady EyeBalls left) and we discussed pros and cons of pushing people (turns out Sydney couldn't think of any pros ;) and I asked Sydney if the little boy was still there, would she want to tell him she was sorry? Nope. And off she went, climbing up into the play thingy. NExt thing I know, here comes Gracie giril screaminig and tumbling down the slide and Sydney standing at the top looking at me like "does she know I did it?"... Yeah, I knew. Well, I had promised ice cream cones if the girls were good. Gracie got hers but Sydney didn't get hers. Later that day when you picked them up, Gracie gave me the biggest hug in the world and told me she loved me. THe Sydney gave me a hug and told me she loved me, too, but as she walked away, she turned around and said "Thanks for bein' mean!!!"

Story #1 by Mimi Rogers

October 1, 2009

Mimi took Sydney and Gracie to McD's last night where they received "beautiful" Barbie bracelets w/ their meals. Gracie cried so hard when she lost them, Sydney lovingly gave Gracie hers. This morning Sydney said, "I really would like to have my bracelets." Gracie gave them back and said, "I want to do for Sydney what she did for me." Then Sydney gave 2/4 of them back to Gracie. I love the love they share.

I plan to start writing little events that occur in our family. I hope to one day print them out and keep them in a notebook to share with our children some time down the road. We have had so many sweet, funny, and tragic moments in the four years that Marty and I have been together. We've had cats smothered in strawberry flavored lip gloss, kids that painted each other, baby powdered each other, and used markers to decorate each other, we been camping, lost treasured items, and most of all learned to love each other.

I look forward to sharing these stories with you :)

**In the picture- Gracie, PapPaw, Mimi, and Sydney at Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa Summer 2009