Daley Ponderings

Since we're now into the second year of using the woodstove, I thought I would post an update about it. I bought five cords of wood this year, (we bought around four and a half last year, and used around three).  I got around one cord of black locust each year, and that wood is really... (More)

If Heather hasn't been writing recently, that means I'm not writing at all... First, the basement - after all of the ongoing water problems, and finding out this year that only fixing the gutters was not going to fix the entire problem, and if one is going to get water a couple times a year,... (More)

11/6 - Noah and I were making rice krispie treats and Noah was stirring.  He asked for a marshmallow, but I said no, they had to go in the recipe and he could have one of the finished products.  Well, he decided to snitch and got a natural lesson.  I, only a few feet away in the... (More)

11/1 - Jonathan, "My favorite color is green."  Noah, "My favorite color is green, too!"  Jonathan, "Faith, what's your favorite color?  Is it green?"  Faith, "No, flower." 11/1 - Jonathan lost his left front upper tooth!  He bit into a grape (boy, that tooth must... (More)

10/3 - Jon felt the baby kick!  Since then, Jonathan and Faith have thought maybe they felt it.  If the kids were ever up when I was still in bed but awake in the morning, they would definitely be able to feel it. 10/3 - Noah counted to 20 on his own.  He is most comfortable... (More)

This morning, we drove up to the birth clinic where Jonathan and Noah were born.  Their midwife has retired (she wanted to before Noah was born, but actually did right before Faith was born) and her daughter has taken over the job.  We had met C before, when she was helping out her... (More)

This is short but my pocket notes are full and I need a new paper. 9/25 - Noah, wearing his Swiss tshirt and red shorts, "This is my hockey outfit.  My hockey team is called Swiss Fire!" In lieu of nursing for any length of time (which is very irritating when pregnant and seems to get... (More)

Inspired by an article in Family Fun magazine, I developed a fun motivator for bedtime cleanup that really works.  Before, there would be lots of complaining, dilly-dallying and nagging.  Now the house is clean every night before bed and the job is done quickly!  Here's how it... (More)

We arrived at the Fitzkees' house on Thursday night, and Nick said we could stay as long as we wanted.  We ended up extending our trip by a day and coming home on Tuesday, which was a good decision.  I think we spent the right amount of time for the whole family to enjoy the... (More)

I've wanted to bike to DC for a while, but there never seemed like a good opportunity to do so.  Once we purchased the tandem bike, and started thinking about the possibility of biking all over the country, the Washington trip seemed like a good first step. The trip did get... (More)

This is going to be woefully brief.  The bike trip was adventure after adventure, lots of fun, but lots of work.  Among the things you'd normally expect on a bike trip, it included four tire blowouts on the triple-tandem, a torrential downpour, a tent with no stakes, Jonathan riding... (More)

Cycles did not return after the miscarriage, and that along with other symptoms leads me to conclude that I am pregnant again.  The due date I am calling March 1. (I don't really think I can count the miscarriage as LMP and I have reason to believe that ovulation was a week later anyway.)... (More)

I decided to (mostly arbitrarily) call today the last day of Kindergarten.  Tomorrow will be the first day of First Grade. I wanted to post because of Jonathan's answers to some of the logic problems he had today. For each line, there was a list of five objects or... (More)

6/1 - Noah's use of /f/ in everyday speech has increased immensely and he now uses it in a substitution.  3 = "free" 6/1 - Jonathan cut Faith's bangs "because she asked me to."  Forgot that part about asking Mom or Dad...  He actually did a good... (More)

Here's my take on the biking/camping trip. With last year's notes, it was actually pretty fun planning camping meals for 14 people, the vast majority of which are young men.  I only made two mistakes, one was forgetting oil for the eggs (we used some butter from the mountain pie... (More)