Meet The Nat Pack!

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The Nat Pack: The super fashionable, super mod, super hip family consisting of Nat, Pete, Jakob, Brock, Troy, and Ivy. Like The Rat Pack, only younger, cuter, and not as rich or famous.
Showing posts with label tree. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tree. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Photo a Day: Kitchen Sink/Window

I tried to take an all-inclusive picture, of my sink and looking out the window, but I couldn't get it to look right (it was too bright outside). So you get two pictures, with a bonus key code thing so you know what you're looking at! YAHOO!!

These pictures are very typical. Sometimes there are more dishes waiting to the right to be rinsed. This pictures was taken on a good day.



A) I have a total of one live plant sitting by my sink. I do not have more plants in my house, because I know I would absolutely forget I have them and they would die from lack of water. Even with the plant sitting right there, I forget to water it most of the time. Thank goodness this plant is forgiving. It was a gift a year ago from the stake roadshow committee; it's called an angel something-or-other. It replaced the other plant I had in there that was shriveling up at the time.

B) The rinsed dishes go on the left, which is weird because my dishwasher is on the right. But when I have backed-up dishes that haven't been rinsed, the longer counter (on the right) holds those dishes; there's not enough room for my laziness on the left side.

C) The to-be-rinsed dishes, or, the soaking dishes. Pictured above is my crock pot, which I use at least once a week if not more. I love crock pot meals.

D) One of Brock's birthday gifts. (Which maybe I should blog about that someday, eh?) He asked for a Venus fly trap. We planted it in this cute pot. I had high hopes for it. But unlike me (the under-waterer), Brock basically drowned it to death. It shriveled up and died. Poor thing. I have not moved the pot, because one of these days I'm going to learn how to really take care of a Venus fly trap, and we will get a new one and hopefully not water it to literal death.

E) Our many, many medicines that we've had to take in the last month-and-a-half. The kids all got this weird fever sickness, that really didn't have any other symptoms except for the fever that always hovered around 102 for about four days. And then it went away. I had sinus infections (plural), and Pete this last week had a stomach bug or something that lasted for about 4 days (but no fever). It's been super fun.


My kitchen window looks out to my backyard. My huge, empty backyard.

A) You can't see it really well in this picture, but figure A is above our trampoline frame. During the winters I didn't take the cover down. So then last summer, the cover rotted through by the rings, and broke. We need to buy a new cover, although I would love to get a bigger trampoline instead-the one we have is smaller, and shorter, which was nice when the kids were smaller and shorter. But now, a bigger one would be fun. So, maybe this summer.

B) One of our spindly little trees. We actually have quite a few trees planted in our backyard. The thing is, we've only lived here about 6 1/2 years, and a lot of our trees are only a couple of years old at the most. I checked, and they all made it through the winter, so that's good.

C) Our ghetto swing set. The kids love it, but it is totally falling apart. The swing chains have plastic covers on them that have rotted off and are falling down. The rungs leading to the little slide have broken through the screws multiple times, and then I've duct taped them in place, and then they have slid down the outer rails. So they are all crooked and jacked up. My kids don't care. But still, I should do something about it, right?

D) Again, you can't see it very well, but we have a row of trees along our back fence. To give you an idea of how deep our backyard is, though, that pine tree back there (which is a good 10 or 15 feet from the back fence) is taller than I am. When I bought it, it maybe came to my waist. So it is growing. And not that being taller than me is a huge feat, but in the picture it looks like it's about 3 feet tall.

So there you go. Kitchen sink and kitchen window.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Just Can't Get Enough!

A couple of Sundays ago, this happened:

How, you may ask? Pete sat down. Yep. Just plain old sat on Ivy's bed, and the frame broke. Just add it to the list, my dear. Here's a closer look:


We "fixed" it. It's very white trash, but we turned the bed around so you can't tell. (We drilled long boards along the frame on both sides. I should submit it to the website There, I Fixed It.)

That day at church I was joking with a couple of friends about "what's going to break next? a kid's arm?"

...

...I shouldn't have done that.

Because then our cute little Tuna decided to up and croak. This is all I have left of it now:

It was about time, I guess. It should have probably lasted only about 6 years, and it lasted 12 years. My stomach started getting all churny at the thought of having a car payment again. Ugh.

But.

Look at Tuna's replacement!

I think this car was especially meant for us. It's a Chevy Cobalt, it has five million buttons in it (including seat warmers-how cool is that?), we got it at a great price at a great rate... I'm still trying to think of a name for it. But our minivan doesn't have a name, so maybe it will be nameless for a while.

In the non-broken side of my life, my parents decided to be all awesome (like they always are) and got me some new trees for my backyard!

I can't wait until they're all big and pretty and giving us lots of shade.

This one has lost a lot of leaves, though, in the insanity we Idahoans call "wind". (If I could, I would seriously dome my whole backyard. Like a big greenhouse or something. Stinking wind. Which blew all five copies of my Sunday paper all over my neighbor's backyard yesterday. Sheesh.)
So, back to the whole "what's going to go wrong next?" You know, besides car wrecks, and sickness, and broken air conditioners, and cameras, and other car deaths, and beds. That's right! The fun hasn't stopped there!

Pete is back in the the hospital today, with his 6th kidney stone. (No matter what/how much he drinks, he will always produce stones. He's just lucky that way.) You can read about his last experience here and here. Pete went in last Thursday, and the doc told Pete to take some drugs and he should pass it on his own. Things seemed fine, until last night, when his pain came back with a vengeance. After a few very frustrating hours at the hospital, and a 2 a.m. call to our urologist, Pete got admitted to the hospital in the wee hours, and he'll be getting surgery tomorrow.

Today I had this song running through my head. (I can't POSSIBLY imagine why. *sigh*)


(P.S. Young Dave Gahan looks like Shia LaBeouf. And 80s dancing is really funny.)

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Broken

I love my boys. Really, I do. Which is probably why they're still alive right now.

Just kidding. Well, not about the love thing....

Okay, let me start over. Lately we've had a lot of things break. Some of it has been the kids' fault, some of it is just the nature of "stuff". But it always seems to happen all at once. I already mentioned our car's woes. But now our other car has joined in, with an almost flat tire, a broken seat belt, and the glove compartment refuses to shut. Fixed the tire, but the other stuff not so much.

My boys have discovered a new hang-out: under the kitchen sink. And they've taken the phrase "hang-out" literally, and probably hung on the sponge-holder thing, which now refuses to close all the way.


Here's my sad Charlie Brown Christmas tree. See the ribbons clumped? And the anti-ornamented spot at the bottom? That's why the tree came down the day after Christmas, my friends.


Plus, I didn't want any more ornaments to meet the same demise as these two did:

The snowflake on the left my mom attempted to tape back together. The star on the right was one of my favorites, and Memo chewed the arms off. (Although I think I liked it more when I thought it was wood; I then discovered it was styrofoam. But still.)

Our doorknob on the back door broke, so we were sporting this fine, white trash, duct tape look for a while. The front door deadbolt broke the day after. Luckily I'm somewhat of a handywoman (cough! hack! -sorry, give me a minute to collect myself after the laughing hysterics stop), and they've both been fixed. (In my case, "fixed".)


We can't even keep cookies unbroken around here.


Other stuff in the broken category: a picture frame for Pete's diploma, the door on our entertainment center, Pete's headset to the computer, crayons-always, a few of the kids' books that I put on the bookshelf (silly me, thinking books belonged on a bookshelf), a couple of drill bits from my attempt at hanging a shelf in our garage (handy, remember?), half of our toys because it's apparently the cool thing to hit toys with other toys...the list goes on and on.

But...things not broken: three little boys' chicken necks. Yet. (Just kidding. Kind of.)

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

New Christmas Tree Ornament

I had heard cats liked climbing Christmas trees. She also likes batting at the ornaments, and pulling on the ribbon hanging from our tree.


Between her and the boys, our once put-together, eclectic ornamented, red-and-gold themed Christmas tree is a saggy, limped ribboned, ornaments-all-rehung-on-the-bottom-and-front-two-branches Christmas tree. Kind of Charlie Brown Christmas tree style. *sigh*