Archive for pets

A Cricket or Two. Or Thirty.

It’s been a really busy week so I’m putting up a post from the archives, for a laugh (or a few shivers) – however frogs and crickets strike you. I cracked up remembering this day, and I’m so glad my kids are past the stage of wanting a new pet every week! Enjoy! :) …

You’d think the mice were enough.

But somehow our kids came home from grandma and grandpa’s house with frogs.

It’s my fault, actually.

I said they could.

However, I distinctly remember saying they could bring two.

They brought six.

I could’ve intervened, I know. But when I saw how tiny the frogs were, I figured, two or six–what’s the difference? They’re actually pretty cute.

Besides, it’s not the frogs that are the problem.

It’s the crickets.

A couple of days ago, Mike woke me up with a gentle shake and a…

“Gen, I’m sorry, but I have a meeting I can’t be late for and I just noticed there are crickets all over the house.”

Crickets?

Not exactly the sweet cup of coffee he brings upstairs most mornings. It took me a second to understand what he was saying.

See, we’d bought this thing for the frogs called the Bug Box.

It’s a whole little cricket ecosystem, all in one box. Tasty, plump morsels that stay fresh, too. And when it’s time to feed the frogs, you just open the little trap door on the side of the box, shake a cricket out, then close the door. Or at least that’s what I did.

I even taped over it for good measure.

Apparently, crickets eat tape.

And after they escaped through the hole, they proceeded to gallivant around our kitchen. And our living room. And our dining room.

The picture doesn’t do the scene justice. This just happens to be the only cricket that would stop hopping long enough for me to get a shot.

I don’t know how many crickets come inside those Bug Boxes, but let me just say there was a great turnout at the cricket party at our house that morning.

The nice, little 6 a.m. cricket party.

There I was, on my hands and knees (without coffee, I might add), chasing crickets around with a paper towel and tossing them into the frog cage. Except for the crickets that were a little too fast or a little too big.

Those I might’ve pinched a little too hard.

At least the frogs were happy, though.

Even if I wasn’t.

Until I had my coffee.

Then I felt better.

Mostly. Because, still, all that day and the next, we found crickets around the house. Running along the baseboards, lurking in the corners, hopping across the carpet.

And, call me weird, but that gave me the willies more than finding my daughter’s mouse in the laundry basket.

Way more. :)

How to relax and de-stress: 3 easy tips anyone can follow

1. Rest your head.

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2. Notice the beauty that’s right in front of you.

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3. Take time to daydream.

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Have a relaxing and stress-free day everyone!

I’ve got a busy week ahead (I’ll need to remember this relaxing advice!) so I won’t be hosting Mom-Monday next week, but I’ll be back after that and I’ll post the winner of He Heard Hannah as soon as I get back. :)

photo credit: My daughter! I loved these shots that she took of Bailey so much that I just had to use them! And, let me tell you, Bailey is stress-free as they get!


For more “Wordful” / Wordless Wednesday photos, stop by Angie’s SevenClownCircus, Parenting by Dummies, 5MinutesforMom, A Beautiful Mess, Dagmar’s Momsense, Liveandloveoutloud, and Andthenshesnapped.

Pets and more pets (and then there were two)

A couple of weeks ago, we went to a Fall Festival at my son’s school, where he won two goldfish at one of the booths. Suffice it to say, we’ve had enough fish adventures (or, actually, enough pet adventures in general) for my taste and I wasn’t exactly happy.

The fish have since died (does it make me a bad mom to say I’m not really sorry about the loss?) and we are back to just Bailey and Charlie, but the whole episode with the fish reminded me of our pets from the past…

so I had to share this little adventure we had with my daughter’s mouse Blackberry again. Have a great Monday, everyone. And stay away from those mice! :)

*originally posted in 2009

Considering a mouse for a pet?

It’s the mice again. And they weren’t in the dollhouse this time. They were in the house. The real house.

A few mornings ago, I heard my daughter shout from down the hall, “Mom! Blackberry’s gone!”

“She can’t be gone,” I said, hoping like anything I was right.

But when I checked the cage, only one of the mice was in there. The door was cracked open and Blackberry was gone.

Somewhere in our house.

My mind raced…

What if she’s been running around all night? What if we don’t find her and she dies, and then we DO find her? Or what if she finds her way into the walls and we can’t get her out?

I flew into action. “Hurry! Search your rooms. Look in the closets and under the beds. This is serious!”

We ran from room to room, my daughter on the verge of tears the whole time. “What are we going to do if she’s gone, Mommy? My POOR Blackberry!…”

Poor?

Okay. I’ve said it before. I’ve grown sort of attached to the pet mice. But the thought of having one running around our house who-knows-where for who-knows-how-long gave me the willies. So when I went into the laundry room and saw wood shavings (chewed off from the bottom edge of the door) all over the floor, I was relieved.

I didn’t care (at the time) that the door looked terrible. What mattered was we had found the mouse. Or, by the looks of the laundry room, where she’d been all night.

We searched under the washer and dryer. And behind the door. And then I eyed the basket of laundry—the CLEAN laundry waiting to be folded.

“I bet she’s in there,” I said.

And sure enough, after lifting a few things out…

“Oh, Blackberry!” my daughter laughed. “You’re sooo cute! And sooo smart!” She picked her mouse up and smiled. “Isn’t she smart, Mommy?”

Well. That’s not the word I would’ve chosen right then.

But I was glad my daughter was happy. And I was even more glad to be able to put her mouse back in the cage, and lock the door.

So now I have a word of advice for anyone considering getting a mouse as a pet.

Be prepared.

They’re (sort of) cute. And tiny. But they sure can lead to some big adventures. :)

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Blogging, Courage, Tomatoes and Inspiration

Happy Friday, everyone! I’m joining Jennifer in 7 Quick Takes today. After being “away” last week working on writing deadlines, I feel like there’s a lot to share…

1. Just an fyi about some upcoming changes around here. I’ve been looking into migrating my blog from Blogger to WordPress for a while now (I’m still having issues with comments on Blogger) and I finally decided that I’m going to make the move. I’m also going to have my writing/speaking website (GennyHeikka.com) combined with my blog here so I’ll have one home on the web, instead of two. Even though you’ll see a few changes in November, most of it will be behind the scenes. After everything is said and done, if you type in www.mycup2yours.com, it will simply forward to GennyHeikka.com, and you’ll still get updates if you’re a subscriber or a follower. I’m super excited about the upcoming changes!

2. Also on a blogging note, I thought this post over at Facebook was good: The Five Worst Ways to Title a Blog Post. Worth the read! (I changed the title of this post because of it… not sure if my title is better now or not, lol!)

3. So much has been happening at Courage to Be You, the non-profit I volunteer for.

The Courage Concert a few weeks ago was amazing and the Awards Gala last Sunday night was incredible. Truly. I’ll be sharing more about C2BU in future posts, but in the meantime, take a minute to stop by our website and browse around. So many things are happening to help rescue and restore children out of trafficking and I’m honored to be part of this amazing organization. Lives are being changed, including the lives of volunteers. (I know mine has changed!) I can’t wait to tell you more about how I originally got involved and what’s happened since then… future posts to come!

4. Switching topics… Holy tomatoes! My sister-in-law gave us a huge box of tomatoes  on a recent visit and I couldn’t be happier. I made the biggest batch of pasta sauce I’ve ever made (I have four containers of it in the freezer) and it’s so good. There’s nothing like fresh, ripe, garden tomatoes!

Aren’t they gorgeous? And this is only a third of them!

5. Such a fun thing to share: remember when my daughter and I went to the pound to “look” at cats and ended up coming home with Charlie? Well, we went to the pound again a few weeks ago, but this time the cat was for my sister-in-law.  Meet Moe:


Isn’t he cute? (My daughter had so much fun helping to pick him out!)

6. Have you seen this video In God’s Heart I Am? It’s inspired by Holley Gerth’s beautiful book God’s Heart for You. Take a few minutes to watch the video (get out the Kleenex… it s powerful!), then head over to InGodsHeart.com and share your own word, or read more about Holley’s book at In(Courage). (Click here if the video isn’t showing below.) Inspiring!


[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnQvp8_41Uo]

  7. Last, a totally random tip: I found a free online file conversion site I wanted to share with you. It’s called Zamzar and it’s really cool. I needed to convert a PDF file and wasn’t able to do it on my computer, so I sent it to this free site and got it back, converted, in my email within a couple of hours. It was great! (I’m not getting any perks to tell you about this; I just thought this tool was great and wanted to tell you about it.)

Have a fun weekend, everyone! Don’t forget to stop by for Mom-Monday. I’ll be sharing a powerful mom-story from one of my friends, Shannon. It will tug at your heart and have you nodding your head in agreement at how hard it is to be a mom sometimes, but it will also inspire you and remind you that even though doing the right thing isn’t always easy, it’s still the right thing. See you soon!

Life’s rough (or not)

Bailey and Charlie catching an afternoon nap…

Life’s rough, isn’t it? :)

For more “Wordful” / Wordless Wednesday photos, stop by Angie’s SevenClownCircus, Parenting by Dummies, 5MinutesforMom, and A Beautiful Mess.

The color on these birds!

I took the kids to a zoo not far from our house a couple weeks ago. We met my family for sort of an end-of-the-summer day together. It was a great time and the kids loved seeing their cousins. They loved the Lorikeets too. (There’s an enclosed area you can go in and feed the birds. They land on you and eat right out of your hands.)

At one point, my son had five birds perched on him at the same time!

And you can’t really tell from the photo above, but the color of these birds is unbelievable! (Perfect for sharing as a Wordless/Wordful Wednesday photo.)

For more “Wordful” / Wordless Wednesday photos, stop by Angie’s SevenClownCircus, Parenting by Dummies, 5MinutesforMom, and A Beautiful Mess.

Something borrowed, something new

Remember the Robin’s nest I told you about in the tree in our front yard?

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A couple weeks ago, we had another bird try to make a nest on the balcony outside my daughter’s window:

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It didn’t work out so well because of the holes in the balcony. (The grass kept falling to the ground.)

Still, the bird persisted.

She sat in the nest (no matter how sparse it was), and even laid an egg.

For few days, she warmed her egg, faithful as ever.

And then it started to rain.

The balcony isn’t covered and the nest was exposed to the wind and rain. Sadly, after a little while, the mama flew away, abandoning her egg.

Then, something happened.

My daughter opened her window to check on the nest the day after the storm.

And the egg was gone.

At first, we thought it had fallen to the ground, but there was no sign of it. Then we thought, even though balcony is on our second story, maybe a predator go to it.

Until we saw this:

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Just thirty feet away, in a nest in a tree on our front lawn–the very same nest and the very same tree that the Robin lived in last summer–sat the mama bird, as content as ever.

And even though we can’t tell for sure, because she never leaves her new nest, my daughter is convinced that she found a way to move her egg from the old nest to the new one.

More likely, she laid a new egg in her new nest,

but it’s been fun to watch,

and even more fun to wonder… :)

For more “Wordful” / Wordless Wednesday photos, stop by Angie’s SevenClownCircus, Parenting by Dummies, 5MinutesforMom, and A Beautiful Mess.

The surprises of being a mom…

The other morning, our house got unusually quiet.

I went upstairs to see why,

half-expecting something to be wrong.

But what I found was my daughter sitting in the sunshine reading, Charlie under her knees…

and my son relaxing a few feet away on the couch, Bailey on his lap.

After several weeks of sick kids (my daughter had strep throat then pneumonia, and my son had pneumonia too), it was a moment I was immediately thankful for…

Both my kids were feeling better,

the house was calm,

and, like the sun coming through the windows,

the moment felt like a warm touch on my shoulder,

comforting,

peaceful.

As a mom, these kinds of moments can sometimes be rare,

but when they happen,

and you’re reminded of the love you have for your kids,

the love in your house,

the love in your family,

even the love your kids have for their pets,

you just want to pause, soak it all in,

and revel in the constant surprises

that come with being a mom.

“There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. It is God’s finger on man’s shoulder.” ~Charles Morgan

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Thanks for stopping by for Mom-Monday – a day for mom-stories, tips, articles and inspiration. To join in, all you have to do is add your URL to the link list below and put my button anywhere on your site. It’s as simple as that; no post necessary. Just an easy way for moms to come alongside other moms!

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But Mommy, he LOVES us…

We drove into our garage not too long ago and my son yelled, “I just saw a mouse jump out of my soccer backpack!” (We keep his backpack near the door inside the garage.)

Sure enough, after checking his backpack and finding a half-chewed granola bar, we knew we had a visitor during the day.

Later, when we drove into the garage again, I saw the little mouse run down our shoe rack.

We’ve never had mice in our garage before and to be honest, I’m much more freaked out about spiders than mice. (I thought our pet mice were kind of cute.) But the idea of putting my shoes on and finding a wild mouse inside gave me the willies.

We bought some mouse traps.

But when my daughter saw them, she was mortified and said,

“You’re not allowed to kill him! You’re just allowed to shoo him away!”

I explained to her that there’s a big difference between pet mice and wild mice.

To which she replied (completely serious)….

“But, Mommy, he loves us. Why can’t we just let him stay?”

(With the way she is with animals, I think she really is going to be a vet someday.

I think she really is… :)

Related post: 
Considering a Mouse for a Pet?

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Thanks for stopping by for Mom-Monday – a day for mom-stories, tips, articles and inspiration. To join in, all you have to do is add your URL to the link list below and put my button anywhere on your site. It’s as simple as that; no post necessary. Just an easy way for moms to come alongside other moms!

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The Perfect Pumpkin(s)…

We went to the pumpkin patch this weekend and had a great time.

It was a perfect Fall day: crisp, a little cloudy, but beautiful.

The kids had fun riding the train,

seeing the animals,

eating caramel apples,

and watching apple cider being made.

Even though it rained a little when we were there, it didn’t cut our trip short.

The kids still took their time finding just the right pumpkins.

My daughter picked out a small, smooth one, perfect for carving:

And my son?

Well.

He has a different idea of what the perfect pumpkin looks like. :)

 

He started to carve the biggest of the four as soon as we got home,

and then went outside,

found two earthworms,

and put them inside his pumpkin… 

“To see if they like to eat it, Mom.”

Boys and worms… I’m telling you! lol

For more “Wordful” / Wordless Wednesday, stop by Parenting by Dummies or 5MinutesforMom.