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I was out in our muddy mess of a backyard the other day and noticed something odd sticking out of one, no wait! two of our tiki lanterns.  Upon further investigation, I came to a sick realization that it was the remains of two birds protruding from the unbelievably small holes in the tops of the lanterns.

I completely and immediately lost my appetite, and spent the next hour trying to conjure up the sad scenarios of these poor creatures' demises.  "Maybe they squeezed themselves in there to be warm, and then got stuck."  "Maybe something smelled good and they went for it."  "Maybe they were trying to make a little winter bird house."  Seriously, I really did think all these thoughts. And, most importantly, how in the world am I going to deal with this mess?

My mom came by later that afternoon for a visit, and I was relating my sickening tale. She decided to creep out and take a look, and...

oh, wait.  It was the lanterns' wicks .

The wicks!

Please tell me I'm not completely crazy, and that the picture does look like a bird!

at least the good doctor gets some form of entertainment in every once in a while.

my loverly little lady at 4 months

can't imagine life without her!

getting in touch with our inner beasts

Grant getting intimately acquainted with his friend Hippo

The Food Chain in action

Lately, we've discarded all and any mention of Star Wars and replaced it with an all-consuming love of God's creatures great and small.  My day will start out (literally,  I mean from second ONE) with one of my boys proclaiming, "Mom, which meat-eating desert animal do you want to be?"  Or,  "Mom, you can pick your fourth favorite species of shark to be today."  The other night Nate and I were out to dinner when the sitter called:  Jack was running a fever and was awake and unhappy.  We hurried home and were waking him for some medicine as he uttered, sleepily but articulately:  "RE-TI-CU-LA-TED PYTHON!"  What a dream we must have interrupted!

Good thing we live in a cool place where there's a fabulous aquarium and a huge, nearby zoo to feed the fetish.  

to a lovely pediatrician, dictated by Jack and transcribed by his mom

I sent this in the mail today.  Hopefully, its intentions will be well-received.

Dear Dr. Woehling,

You asked me to write you a letter when I started going poop on the potty, and I did it!  I've gone ten times since I visited you!  I like Miralax because it makes my poop soft.  I did NOT like the enemas because they were like little drills.  Every time I poop, my Grandma takes me on an outing.  I even drew a picture of my poop for you. {unfortunately not included in this post.} Thank you for telling me lots of good ideas!  See you soon!

Love,

Jack Richards

mostly for the out-of-towners

Here are a few pics of us mosying around... nothing too exciting, especially considering my great lack of photography skills.  Grandparents and other adoring fans: feel free to look past that and enjoy the exquisitely dashing Richards clan.

sledding with Grandpa: could life get any better?

Here's what I woke up to one morning.  Never could I have imagined how priceless some 99-cent safari hats from Michael's could be.

This is Miss Caroline, pre-baldness.  Sure enough, she's losing hair by the hour!  We're holding our breath to see what comes in.  In the meantime, she's got some really cute veins on her head.

Ring-Around-the-Rosy with Grandma, aka Jack's fiance.  ("But Grandma, if I marry you, then I'll have TWO Grandma Richards!")

Happy 3-month Birthday, sweet Caroline!

This was supposed to be a perfect Valentines Morning photo op with the two boys kissing Caroline on her cheeks.  Sounds cute, right?  Jack, however, decided to let Froghead act as proxy for himself. Froghead doesn't like girls, I was informed, hence the distance from her.

Ah, the ExerSaucer!  A new phase begins, one in which my legs will now be clean shaven!

just a little amputation

For fear of this blog starting to sound like a bag-on-Nate forum, let me be clear:  he is a wonderful, compassionate physician, an awesome dad, and the only man on earth that could ever put up with all my antics.

That being said, I must chronicle our little twenty-second conversation this afternoon:

Nate: "Babe, let me call you back in a sec.  I'm just scrubbing in for a quick little amputation."

Me:  "A quick little WHAT?"

Nate: "Oh, just this old guy's foot.  It'll be quick, I promise."

And for once, I was the one who was speechless, even past the point of monosyllabic grunts.