When you give a kid a camera, part II

More pictures from my little amateur photogs. I really love doing these kinds of posts. You can see the first set again here.

Finding my place to be happy

For the last few years I've been struggling with the question, "Am I doing enough?" in regards to serving our church and serving God, more specifically. I've felt restless and useless and incapable of doing more than I was already doing. At church, I joined things and volunteered for things and none of it felt right or the opportunities fell through or I just couldn't make it work, no matter how badly I wanted to do it. I prayed and prayed about where I was supposed to be serving God. I sing in the choir and that's working great for right now, but it has just not felt like it was enough. I wanted to be more involved in church....I've been getting so much out of it and I was feeling the need to give back. I wanted to get more involved in community outreach projects. I was asking God where he needed me and what I should be doing, but nothing ever happened. Like I said, as I tried to find more places to plug in and get involved, things just didn't work out.

And then one morning, I woke up and it occurred to me: As Christians, we don't just serve God through our church or community. We can also serve God by serving those that he places in our lives. Duh. I have this man whom I love for my husband and these children I adore as my sons and what blessings they are! I can see how they are exactly the right people for me to be surrounded by. It's taken me longer than I'd like to admit to see it, but I finally realize that for this season in my life I can serve God simply by loving and blessing and serving within my own four walls. God has blessed me with this beautiful family and I can give back to him by loving and supporting my husband and by nurturing, guiding and teaching my children. He loves them just as much as he loves the people in my church that I wanted to serve and just as much as the people in the community that I wanted to reach out to. And I can be a blessing by letting most of my focus go to my family. I can finally tell myself, IT'S OKAY. And I can finally be happy with that.

Think he hears this often?

I sat down on the couch for a few minutes and Zachary came up and snuggled in my lap. We start chatting and laughing about something funny that he does (I'd explain it, but I'm afraid it would just sound strange). He said something really funny and I pulled him close to me, gave him a big hug, kissed the top of his head and said, "I LOVE you!" To which he added: "I'm so cute!" Which is how I usually finish that thought. :)

Prayer request

I mentioned in a post last week that my cousin (who goes by BJ when she comments on my blog) was having her baby this week. Well, she did. Sweet Baby Alex was born yesterday morning. But he's had a bit of a rocky start and now I'm asking you to pray for him. I don't have too many details of it all, but I'm fairly certain his condition is not critical, however he and his mama (and daddy and brother and sister, too) could certainly use some extra prayers. He took his first breath before he was all the way out, and ended up inhaling some fluid and now he's having a little bit of a rough time. Pray for him if you're the praying sort and I'll update you when the situation changes. Thanks!

You should see this

Saturday night, Fox News aired a political forum hosted by Rick Warren at his megachurch, Saddleback Church. He hosted both presidential candidates, separately. He asked them both the same questions and while Obama went first, John McCain was not listening. It was an amazing thing to watch and I hope this format will be repeated in the future. There was no bashing of either candidate. I think it truly showed what each candidate was about, and if there was someone watching that hadn't yet decided who they were voting for, I don't know what else they'd need to make the decision.

I tried to find a video or transcript, on the Fox News websited, but this is all I could find. Basically a synopsis of what was said. But as much as it pains me to link to CNN, they have the whole forum on their website. It's lengthy, but I hope you take the time to watch it. I haven't watched it on the CNN website, so I don't know what they've added at the end as far as spin (if they did), so keep that in mind.

Why the third child doesn't have as many pictures

I lost my camera. That's why. Thankfully, I found it again, charged it up and have been taking pictures like crazy trying to make up for lost time! Hoping that Marc-Adam won't notice when he's older that there seems to be months missing from his second year. Looking through the pictures that were already on the camera from before I lost it, I lost it a short time after this post, I guess. Marc-Adam has also taken up the hobby of photography, as well. We've gotten some interesting shots from that. And I can't bring myself to delete them. I'm going to post them, I think. But not now, I have to make breakfast. And maybe not this weekend, and maybe not the beginning of next week....my cousin, BJ, is having a baby #3!! But now I'm rambling...

Oh, and we finally have someone coming to look at our house on Monday. At this point, I'm not sure if I want them to buy it or not. Part of me wants them to love it and buy it, the other part doesn't want to think about moving now. I'm out of the mood.

Crazy

I recently realized that when Stephen was Marc-Adam's age, I had Zachary. And when Stephen was Zachary's age, I had Marc-Adam. C.R.A.Z.Y. I love all my boys dearly and don't even want to imagine life without them, but sometimes I wonder what the heck we were thinking! When I hear about someone getting pregnant while their youngest (or only) is 1 year old, I think, "Wow, their kids are going to be really close together!" Then I realize, WAIT, I did that! TWICE. Even now, Marc-Adam seems so young to be a big brother. He's my baby. But I do love that my boys are so close in age. And that not even Stephen will be able to remember a day when he wasn't a brother.

At least I wasn't wearing white

We went to a wedding this past weekend for a cousin of Sweet Hubby. Normally, I love weddings, but not this time. And it wasn't because of anything about the wedding.

I agonized over what I was going to wear. I didn't want to be overdressed, but I also wanted to dress up a bit. This couple is only getting married once, and it's not very often that Sweet Hubby and I get to dress up and go somewhere just the two of us. I had decided to wear this cute cute outfit of a top and skirt. Then at the last minute, I changed my mind to wear a cotton dress. It's a pretty dress and it looks really cute with a certain pair of shoes.

So we get to the wedding, say hi to a few of the people that we know, and right in the middle of a conversation it suddenly hits me like a mack truck that I wore that same dress to the wedding shower six weeks before. Now, I know that may not sound like a big deal to some of you, but it was a huge deal to me. I rarely see most of the people that were at the wedding. The last time I saw them was at the wedding shower. I probably won't see them again until the next wedding in that side of the family. They probably wouldn't have remembered what I wore to the shower if I had worn something different to the wedding, but I'm convinced that they knew that I wore that dress the last time they saw me. And I was so self-conscious about it the rest of the night. Drrrr. And as much as I love that dress, I'll forever have to think about when I wore it last every time I take it out of the closet.

New friends

I updated my blogroll to more accurately reflect where I'm spending my online time. Most of the old favorites are still there (aside from my cousins who went private), but there are some new favorites there as well. I think a few of them I started reading around the time that I last updated the list, but didn't want to commit yet to adding them to my sidebar. But I've spent some time getting to know and love them. I think you might, too.

You might remember my friend Chewymama. Well now Chewymama has a personal blog where she blogs about her family happenings (including the recent birth of baby Abram!! YAY!).

Jana blogs at Dress-Up and Diaper Changes about life with 3 young kids (I can relate!). We seem to have a lot in common and I love reading her perspective about being a mom and what goes on in her life.

I think a lot of you read Mommy Daisy already. I was late to board that train for some reason. She's a fun read and blogs about her life and happenings with her too cute son!

Blissfully Domestic and Marriage Hacks are new, too. Definitely interesting reads and both give you things to think about regarding your roles as homemaker and wife (assuming you are on one or both of those).

I also updated the link for Total Mom Haircut. I had no idea how terribly outdated it was. Sorry Beth!

I hope you enjoy reading these new additions!

Lessons learned

Lately, Stephen and I have had several talks about what it means to be in control of our words and "taming our tongues". He has a habit of just talk-talk-talking all.day.long, especially when he's mad or upset. He talks so much that he frequently says things he shouldn't. When he gets to that point, he "loses the privilege to talk" for a while and must keep all thoughts and comments to himself. It's been fairly effective in making him think about what he wants to say instead of just saying anything that comes to mind. But it's definitely a work in progress and I realize that it's a lesson learned over time and with a dash of maturity.

So. Last week, I had a huge blister on the inside of my lip. It hurt to talk. And now that it's all healed up, I have some kind of sore on my tongue on the opposite side of where the blister was. Now it really hurts to talk. So much so, that I try my hardest not to. And when I do, I talk funny and everyone's been asking me to repeat myself. They don't get a second chance, because I'm not opening my mouth again. I only say things that are truly important and need to be heard. It's been a nice little lesson, because I think I might be figuring out where Stephen gets his diarrhea of the mouth verbosity.

A few days ago, Sweet Hubby and I saw a friend from church in the grocery store. We stopped and chatted for a while. As we were walking away, I slapped my forehead and asked Hubby if I talk too much. He said no, but I'm thinking he was probably wisely avoiding the landmine I had just laid out for him. The thing is, I often walk away from conversations slapping my forehead and wanting to kick my own behind because I felt like I talked too much. There have more times than I can count that I have yelled at my self internally, "Just SHUT UP already!!"

So, because of this monster on my tongue, I've lost the privilege to talk. Interesting, huh? I talk to the kids all day long, and most of it is important. We talk about all sorts of things and Stephen has been asking lots of questions lately, especially questions about God. So we have to talk. But outside of those conversations, I'm seeing how much I say that is unimportant. I'm filling their ears with nothing but words, and they are reflecting that. I had no idea that I had a need to tame my own tongue. I get it now. It's definitely something that I need to work on.

Let's just hope that the kids don't catch on too quickly and start to take advantage of this.

I may not be around much this week

Starting tonight, Sweet Hubby's off for a whole week! He got the little impromptu vacation because he volunteered to take another manager's shift because she was going to be out for a wedding. So he worked 8 nights out of 9 and now he doesn't have to go back to work until next Tuesday night! I'm so looking forward to having him around this week. It's been well over a year since he's had this kind of time off. Once our friend Edouard moves on, then we might be able to do some fun things. Which means I may or may not be around blogging. Unless something really funny happens.

And speaking of something really funny happening, here's a little scenario from yesterday:

I was on the phone and Stephen asked if they could give their superheros a bath (which means they want to play with their action figures in the sink). This usually makes for a colossal mess, which I'm normally willing to deal with, but not yesterday, so I said no. A few minutes later, Stephen came out of the bathroom yelling, "MOM!" and I knew something was up without him even saying anything more. I went into the bathroom where Zachary was standing on the stool at the sink with a "Bambi caught in the headlights" look. I couldn't tell that he was doing anything more than washing his hands, but he gave himself away. His face melted and he said:

"I told Stephen not to tell!!"

See y'all around!

Still in disbelief

It was a heavy morning in church today. No one really knew what to say or do. It was agonizing dropping off Marc-Adam in his class knowing his little friend wouldn't be there anymore. People were gathering in the halls outside the nursery, crying. Parents and nursery workers were extra sweet with the kids, all of whom were too young to even know what happened, much less understand it.

My heart breaks for what my friend must be going through right now. I can't even wrap my mind around that kind of pain. It's so unnatural. I guess I'm feeling a little bit of survivor's guilt, wondering what separates me and this baby's mother that she's been dealt this overwhelming hand. Her heart will never recover. And I get to kiss all of my babies tonight.

I've also been feeling a little bit frantic when the kids are out of my sight. Last night, as I went to bed, I panicked a bit because I felt like I couldn't be watchful if I fell asleep, that I wouldn't know it if something horrible happened. I felt the same way when dropping the kids off at nursery and Sunday School because as much as they're well-cared for there, strange weird things happen all the time. All these awful "what-ifs" kept streaming through my head. It's like I realize that I have a whole lot less control over what happens to my kids. I've been praying more than ever today for the health and safety of my children. I pray for that every night with them, but now I find myself almost begging God to spare me from that nightmare.

Experiencing the death of a child has got to be the worst kind of suffering there is. It affects everyone who has ever had contact with that child, or any child, for that matter. It makes every moment shorter and finite. And all the things that we think about and do and obsess about seem trivial. Nothing else really matters except that I made sure when my kids went to bed tonight that they knew that they are wonderful creations of God and that they are safe and loved and special. Everything else just fades away. I guess that's the blessing that comes out of an unimaginable tragedy like this. People are more real. They re-prioritize. Life is lived better. Too bad we can't all figure that out before something like this happens.

So sad

I just found out that a baby from our church passed away earlier today. I just can't believe it. He was 15 months old. Just last Sunday I was marveling at how he was in the "big boy room" in the nursery with Marc-Adam now. I've played with that baby and held him and let him drool on me. I can't imagine what his parents, especially his mother, must be going through. It was a tragic accident, but I think given the circumstances, his mama might blame herself.

Please pray for the family. I don't want to give their names for the sake of privacy, but when you bring it to God, I trust that he knows exactly who you are praying for. And hug your children close tonight.

Darn those female parts

I'm finally feeling better after two days of nasty pain. At first I didn't know what was going on, but after a late-night ER visit, we deduced that it was probably an ovarian cyst that burst. I've had cysts before. Large ones, too. When I was newly pregnant with Marc-Adam, I had this large lump on my left side way down near my c-section incision. My doctor initially thought it was a hernia. Turns out it was a cyst. On my right ovary. It was so large that it had caused my right ovary and fallopian tube to fall over to the left side. The doctor was seriously concerned about an ovarian torsion (which is the fancy schmancy way of saying "twisted tubes" (on a completely random note, wouldn't that be a cool name for a punk rock band? The Twisted Tubes)). It never happened, praise God, but instead the cyst just kinda deflated. I also had cysts when I got pregnant with Stephen and Zachary (and as an aside, I'm in no way implying that I might be pregnant, I'm just saying that I know I had them then because I had the ultrasounds to see them...I've most likely had them at other times because of the pain I get at ovulation, but my pregnancies are the only chances I actually get to see the cysts).

So anyway, I'm feeling much better. I never did find out exactly what was wrong because I never got an ultrasound. We waited for hours at the ER, and I got tired of waiting. Then when I called my doctor to try to get in to see her the next morning, the nurse wanted to get snotty with my because I didn't stay at the ER for the ultrasound. But by the time we had finally left the ER, I had been up for 20 hours and I was getting NO REST thanks for the plastic IV thingy shoved up my arm and the pain that I came in with (which was diminished by the pain of the IV thingy being shoved up my arm). The ER people were annoying me because no one really knew what was going on. So I left. Against medical advice. I never thought I would be one to do that. They made me sign a paper that said that I could die if I left. Like they were going to convince me with their scare tactics. Besides, I would have bet the offending ovary that it was indeed a ruptured cyst. The pain was like none other. I didn't have much of a sense of humor Wednesday night, but on the way to the ER I joked with Sweet Hubby that wouldn't it be funny if I were actually in labor and didn't know it?

He didn't think it was that funny.

I have a confession to make

Hi, my name is Alli and I'm addicted to the TV show TMZ.

It's sad really.

I watch it every night. Even when I'm really tired and want to sleep, I make myself stay up so I can watch it. I don't even know who half the people they talk about are because I'm so out of touch, but it's really funny. And what I love is that the show doesn't glorify the behavior of the rich and useless (beyond having an entire show about it) but instead pokes fun at them.

I've been using a significant amount of willpower to not get on the website. I'm afraid of what the addiction will turn into if I have TMZ at my fingertips any time of night or day. But I had to go grab the link for this post. I told myself I would not look at the site, but just get the link to make sure it was right. I still had to look. And found out that Shia LeBeouf might not have been the one at fault in his wreck last week. And I'd go get the link for you in case you didn't know about that story, but I must.stop.here.

I'm so lame. You got any confessions?

Fair and balanced

I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to try to even things out in regards to my posts about my kids. I have nearly twice as many posts about Stephen than I do about Zachary and Marc-Adam. Obviously, it's not because I love Stephen more or because I find him more interesting. I love all of my kids individually so much that sometimes it hurts. And they're all full of life, funny, smart and sweet. It's just that Stephen gives me more blog fodder that I think would be interesting/funny to you, my reader. The mind of a five year old is an amazing thing, y'all. I don't think I've ever been around a five year old for an extended period of time. So it's truly fascinating. But so are the minds of my three and one year olds.

So. I've decided to do a little "random things" meme about my Zachary. Things that I find cute, interesting or funny about him that I think would give you, my readers, a better idea of his personality. Here we go.

• His eyes are so very expressive. Sometimes it's humorous how he uses his eyes to get a point across. And if you tell him to look at you while you're talking, he'll do this creepy eye thing that makes you want to tell him to stop looking at you. But you can always tell what's going on with Z by looking in his eyes. They give him away every time.

• He speaks with a slight lisp. And I didn't realize it until recently. It's even more pronounced when he's very excited. Come to think of it, all of his little speech impediments (that are normal for a 3 year old) are more pronounced when he's excited or mad.

• He's the most laid-back of all my boys. He loves wrestling with his daddy and brothers, and loves a good game of Guess Who? and loves to race cars around the living room, but after a while, he needs some down time and time to be alone, so he'll snuggle up on the couch (sometimes on me, if I'm there) and just be.
  

• He's loud! Oh my word, he's loud. Now I know that he's three and and that children of all ages are loud, but geez! When all three kids are playing and they're yelling and laughing and carrying on, ZACHARY'S is the voice I hear above it all. He has two volumes....loud and asleep.

• He loathes eggs. Until recently he wouldn't even allow eggs to be on his plate. A few months ago, he decided he would eat a boiled egg. After I picked myself up off the floor, I gave him one. Now he eats them with us, but only the whites.

• He loves knock-knock jokes. And tells the same one over and over again. About bacon. Going to the bathroom.
  

• He's started to sound out 3 letter words (especially "at" and "am" words). Although, I realized yesterday that he has trouble identifying the lowercase letters.

• He sleeps with several stuffed animals and carries two of them around. He's named all of them, can remember their names and insists that you call them by their names. What's funny is that the names he's given them are fun and funny...I don't know where he came up with them. They are: Sam the fire dog, Sophie a blue dog, Peanut the one-eyed eagle (after Peanut the mouse in the Magic Treehouse Books and Zachary makes me go looking Peanut's eye every time it falls out), Junior the dog he won out of the claw machine, JoJo the white tiger, Bumpy the seal, and Arky the seal ("Cause he goes 'ark ark'"). He carries Junior and JoJo around with him. And then leaves them where he can't remember. And then makes the whole family go on a search and rescue mission.
  

• And speaking of carrying things around with him, he still carries a "lovey". He also still sucks on his two middle fingers, but only when he has lovey. He is beginning to leave lovey at home and in bed more often, though.
  

• I always thought he looked more like Sweet Hubby, but the older he gets, the more he looks like me, I think.
  

• I love loving on and cuddling with all my kids, but he's definitely the cuddliest. And gives the best kisses. Lately, he'll come to me for no reason at all except to say, "Gimme a big kiss!"

• He's the only one of my three kids to have a nickname (but he only lets me and Sweet Hubby call him those names): Z, ZZ and Z-man. But don't call him Zach! He won't let anyone call him that.

• He wants to play the accordion and play basketball. Not at the same time of course.

• He is the member of this family that marches to his own beat. The great thing is, though, that his own little beat compliments perfectly the rhythm of our family.
  

I can't think of a title

We had a pretty fabulous weekend. Things just kinda fell into place, I guess. I've mentioned before that Sweet Hubby was working a 4 day on/3 day off schedule, but that changed this week and now he's working 4 days on/4 days off. So that means that every few weeks, he'll have weekends off! So this week, he had W/Th/F/Sat off. The kids talked their grandparents into letting them spend the night--one night with each set of grandparents, so Sweet Hubby and I had two whole evenings to ourselves!! It was sooo nice and what I love about us is that whenever we don't have the kids, it's never awkward for us, we just fall right in to being "just us" with plenty to talk about and lots to do.

Yesterday, we threw some of our junk treasures into my cousin's garage sale (thanks bj!) and made fifty bucks out of it. For minimal work. The kids weren't there the night before when we started getting stuff together and tagging it. When Stephen saw a kid walking around with one of our old toys, he said, "Hey look Mom! That's just like the toy we have at home!" On one hand I felt bad for not telling him that it was ours from home, but on the other hand, I had to kind of giggle to myself when I responded, "It sure is!"

I had an interesting conversation with Stephen this morning. You know Stephen lost his first tooth last week. I've never said anything about the Tooth Fairy, but kids just kinda get indoctrinated with that kind of stuff, so he knew about it and was excited about leaving his tooth under his pillow (we ended up leaving on his night stand). If you've been reading my blog for long, you know how I feel about Santa. I feel the same way about the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and all that. But in his excitement about his first tooth, I didn't want to ruin it for him. So I neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the Tooth Fairy when he lost his first tooth. When he would say, "The Tooth Fairy's gonna come!" I would say, "Okay!" And I played the part and left him some money. The next morning, the first thing he said was, "SHE IS REAL!!" I just smiled at him. And I never brought it up again.

Then this morning in the car on the way home from church, he sweetly asked, "Mama, did you take my tooth when I left it for the tooth fairy?" I felt a little cornered and stalled by asking him what he meant. And I did want to get to the bottom of his question and give him the information he was asking for. He asked again if I took his tooth and left the money instead of the Tooth Fairy. Then I asked him what he thought happened. He said, "I think you did it." I try to never actually take the fun and the whimsy out of those situations, so I said, "I think it's fun to pretend to be the tooth fairy." He asked if I wore a tu-tu when I did it. Then we giggled about the idea of me sneaking into his room wearing a tu-tu and plastic wings with a magic wand. It was great and I love that he can ask me questions without worry and that he knows he'll always get a straight answer from me.

I KNOW I've been talking a lot about Stephen the last few weeks and not much about the other boys, and I'm going to try to balance it out over the next several posts, but Stephen's just giving me so much to think and blog about. Here's another Stephen-ism:

Lately, any time he asks me a question, before I answer it for real I ask him what he thinks about it. Today, he asked, "Mom, do you have spit?" Yes. "Does Ryan have spit?" Yes. "Why did God give us spit?" What do you think? "What is spit made of?" What do you think? "I think it's made of bubble wrap and water." I laughed and asked why. He spit into his hand, showed me and said, "See? It looks like bubble wrap and water." And you know what, y'all? It does look like bubble wrap and water.

My boys, they like to move

The boys were running around playing this afternoon and ran into the living room where I was. Stephen was chasing Zachary and eventually grabbed him by his shirt and yelled, "Stop, Zacharyyyy!! I want to show you my moves!"

Zachary's response? "But I want to show you MY moves!!"

Brotherly Love

As we were starting our day, Zachary asked what was for dinner (no, we hadn't even eaten breakfast yet and yes, they do ask about food 2 0r 3 meals in advance). I told him I didn't know yet, I couldn't remember what was on the menu.

Stephen was quiet for a few seconds and then quietly said, "You."

A few seconds later as he realized what he just stumbled upon, he told Zachary again, a little louder, "Zachary, we're gonna eat you for dinner." Big grin shot my way. I tried to stifle my giggle.

Zachary blew him off at first, but the more Stephen said it, the more serious he sounded and the more worried Zachary looked. I was just going to let it fizzle out on it's own, but it was obvious Stephen was having too much fun to back down, and Zachary was getting a little frantic. At one point, I think I heard Stephen say that when he was a baby, he had another brother and we ate him. I had to end it there.

But it was funny.

And it sounded like something Sweet Hubby or I would say. Only we would know when to stop.

I wonder when Stephen and/or Zachary will tell Marc-Adam that he was adopted.

Shark tooth

A couple weeks ago, Stephen was eating a rice cake and realized that his tooth was loose. It was the first tooth he ever had. Then about a week later, I noticed that the adult tooth was growing up behind it. I admit, I freaked out a little. I took him to the dentist and all is fine. I called him "Shark Tooth" since he almost had two rows of teeth.

Today, Sweet Hubby had a doctor's appointment and my mom met us at the office to help with the kids. I went back to the exam with Sweet Hubby and when we came out, Stephen came running up "Hi Mom and Dad!" and I immediately noticed that his tooth was gone. I was so sad that we've spent all this time talking about it and wiggling it and it fell out in the 30 minutes I wasn't with him. But he's SO excited.

He's just precious with the tooth gone. The adult tooth will take some time to find it's proper place, so for a while, it will look like there's no tooth there. I just can't help but look at him smile and think that his smile will never be the same. And I remember thinking the exact same thing exactly 5 years ago when that same tooth first popped out. He looks so grown up....and soon more teeth will fall out and adult teeth will come out.

And then he WILL be grown up.

As much as I love the gummy grins of babyhood, I think I'm going to love the gap-toothed grins of childhood.

And it's NOT called an outfit

Earlier this evening, I met Zachary in the hall and realized he had changed into his favorite Buzz Lightyear jammies. I said, "Oh, Zachary! Did you get yourself into your jammies all by yourself?" He said, "No, I'm just playin' dress up."

Not realizing he can hear us, I hear Sweet Hubby say from the other room, "Oh, lord, Zachary, you should have just put your jammies on."

Apparently, Sweet Hubby has a problem with calling that game "dress up".

A peeve and a rant

Can I just tell you one thing that peeves me? And lately, it peeves me more than all the other things put together.

It peeves me when people say they're going to do something, and then they don't do it. OR when they say they're going to do something in a certain timeframe and it happens in a time frame twice or even 3 times as long.

Case in point: I had to have some brake work done on my car yesterday. We took it to the shop where the car-fixer people told us it would be ready by lunch time (this was about 9am). At 4pm, we still had not heard from them. Sweet Hubby was asleep so I had to call them to find out what the deal was because if I didn't have to wake him, I wasn't going to. I finally got a hold of the owner and he said, "Let me find out what's going on and I'll call you right back." He must've said "Right back" three times. 45 minutes later, we still had't heard "right back" and we decide to head up there because they close at 5pm and we'd like to have our car back before they do. Turns out they had just finished (and still hadn't called us). It really shouldn't have surprised me because this is the place that had our car for a full month when I wrecked it a year and a half ago. But you know, I would have been much happier if they had said, "It won't be ready until Friday, we'll call you when it is" and then called us when it was ready earlier. That would've been fine. That would have been great! But it annoys me when someone says they're going to do something and then doesn't. I would be much calmer and happier if people just did what they said they would do. WHATEVER that is.

Another case: The realtor who says he'll be by that afternoon to take pictures of your house and then doesn't show up for 2 days. He then calls and says he'll be there in 45 minutes and doesn't show for 1 hour and 45 minutes. And comes during nap time.

*sigh* There. I feel better. I'm a little cranky.

Summer Boredom Busters

This is a post that's probably best suited for Works for Me Wednesday, but I always remember that it's Wednesday too late. And this is on my mind now....

So it's HOT here. And the goal of everyday for me is to stay inside as much as possible with A/C on. I seriously wilt in the heat....headaches, nausea, weak and shaky feelings. I just can't handle it. So needless to say, we've been in the house a lot the last few weeks and for a while, the kids were getting VERY restless. I realized that once all the games had been played, all the books had been read, all the shows on DVR had been watched and the kids were tired of each other, I needed to come up with something fun, NOW. So here are the a couple of the things we do when nothing else works:

*Sock Wars. This is so fun, y'all. I'm guessing you could just let the kids loose and play by themselves if you have to, but I can't resist a game of Sock Wars with my kids. Gather up as many pairs of balled up socks as you can...kids socks work best and I'd say 10 or so pairs per person is the most fun. Get on opposite ends of the room and just throw the socks at each other, all the while trying not to get hit. Silliness is key, too. I love getting my kids really distracted with something silly and then pelting them when they least expect it....they fall over laughing, they think it's so hilarious. And the good thing about the socks is that there's really no way anyone can get hurt by getting hit...unless they get in the eye unexpectedly, which has happened a few times here, but they quickly get over it. Anyway, we wear ourselves out with this game. And my kids can't believe I'd let them throw things at each other OR make a mess like this.

*Window coloring. Did you know that dry erase markers come off windows easily? I learned that by accident one day when Marc-Adam colored every surface in the play room with a marker (however, dry erase marker does not come off walls or rugs so easily). I use this one as a last resort simply because even though the older two kids understand which surfaces we can color on and which we can't, Marc-Adam does not. But if you don't have little ones around, letting the kids color on the windows is great fun.

*Milk blowing. Ok, this was not originally my idea, and personally, I think it's weird and kinda gross, but my kids LOVE this. Get a plate, a small cup and a straw. Fill the cup about halfway with milk and put the cup on the plate. Let the kids use the straws to blow in to the milk and make bubbles. If they overflow the cup, it'll drip on to the plate, so there's little clean up. Seriously, my kids could do this for half an hour. It's so weird. After a while, the milk gets warm and slobbery and then they want to drink it which really grosses me out, so I try to take it away before they get that idea. But if they do drink some, it's no biggie.

So what kind of boredom busters do you use?

That's some mighty efficient churchin'

So the boys have been attending VBS at a local church this week. Stephen's been calling it "Vocation Bible School". Teaching the kids about the love of Jesus and preparing them for life by teaching them a trade. That is a church with a mission.

**********

He also was telling me about some of the snacks they've been enjoying. Here's the conversation we had about a particular treat called "Stick Together Campfire":

Me: You should tell me all the ingredients so that maybe we can make it together.

Stephen: Well...you need english muffins, cream cheese, pretzels, candy corn and raisins. Oh, and Oreos...you have to have Oreos.

Me: So how do you make it?

Stephen: You put the cream cheese on the muffin, then you stick the pretzel in the middle and stick the candy corn in the pretzel and you put the raisins around the edge.

Me: So what do you do with the Oreos?

Stephen: Oh. You just eat those.

**********

The kids are supposed to be showing off what they learned at VBS during that church's services on Sunday morning. It's not our denomination of church, but the boys are very excited so we're going to visit this weekend. I talked to a church member and deacon today (so I could kinda get an idea of what to expect since I've never been to this denomination of church) and they said they may or may not have childcare for the kids, but that they were welcome to come to worship with me. I just had to smile sweetly at them and thank them for that offer....they obviously have not met my children. The idea of sitting an entire church service--one that we are visiting and are not familiar with--with all of my kids, by myself, makes me want to hide under the pew...and I'm not even there yet. But I want to support my boys on something they are so excited about. They've been practicing their songs all afternoon.

To my "Baby":

My dear sweet child, you must slow down this growing up thing of yours. Your babyhood is going by entirely too quickly for me. I feel like you've turned into this fiery little toddler before I've even had a chance to blink.

I absolutely love the sweet new little sound you make when you give kisses now, but oh I do miss the open mouth slobbery ones. And when I hold you chest to chest in your rocking chair to relax or spend some quiet time with you, your legs are almost too long to sit like that comfortably for more than a few minutes. Your newfound independence is wonderful and it's amazing to watch you venture out in to your world without me, but I wonder what happened to the timid toddler that would cling to me for a while to check things out before inching away to find things on his own. Your vocabulary is growing by the day, and while we always talk correctly with you, there's a big part of me that doesn't want the day to come that you start saying all your words correctly. I enjoy too much the cute little way you have of saying things.

It's interesting and bittersweet to me how I can be so excited and so happy to watch you grow and flourish and thrive in our family and at the same time be so sad to know that the those sweet cuddly moments of babyhood have slipped through my fingers, like time always does. So slow down, Sweet One, so I can take in this moment in your life, right now. Things often get rushed in this crazy life of ours, but I never want to rush you....I never want to wish away this time. Take your time. I'm here and watching and enjoying every minute of you.

Love,
Your mama

Let's play "Who's Going Down First?"

Sibling rivalry.

Humph.

I don't think that term does the actual relationship justice.

It's like "morning sickness". Uh, yeah. Right. Try using that phrase around a woman who has had her head in a toilet around the clock for 5 months.

Sibling rivalry. Sure.

I think the more appropriate term for what's happening in our house is "Sibling Death Match".

Rivalry. Pfffft.

What the heck was that?

Stephen and I are getting ready to take a day trip out of town this afternoon. I'm milling around and getting things packed and he sees the shirt that I'm wearing tomorrow hanging up on a door knob. He tells me, "MAMA!! I love this little dress you have!"

"It's a shirt, honey."

"Oh. Well, isn't it a little small for you?"

"No, it fits. I'll wear those pant with it."

"Hm. Lemme see."

He then proceeds to bring the shirt over and put it up to me, and then looks me up and down.

"It's a pretty shirt."

And then he walks out of the room.

Potty mouth, Part II

Sorry I haven't been around much. We had to move all the furniture out including the computer table (which lives in our room) to paint and for the new carpet. The furniture hasn't been put back yet. I'm at my folks' but here's a little something I had in my drafts from last week.

Sweet Hubby was moving the furniture out of the boys' rooms so that the new carpet could be put in. He was taking the mattresses off the bunk beds when Stephen walked in.

Stephen: Dad, how do you get that damn thing out of there?

SH: What?

Stephen: Nothin'.

SH: What'd you say?

Stephen: I didn't say "damn".

I see him everyday, but I miss him

Sweet Hubby's started this overnight schedule where he works 4 nights in a row and then he's off for 3 days. The days that he works, I just count on not seeing him except for about an hour for dinner. He doesn't get home in the morning until breakfast time, then he goes straight to bed. He wakes up around 5ish, showers and then leaves directly after dinner. Which means for the majority of the week, I wake up and go to bed alone.

The days that he's off are great. We get to spend a lot of family time together and we get a lot done around the house. But it seems like all our time is just covering the basics. Even when we get a chance to actually have an uninterrupted conversation, we just talk necessities, like the finances or schedules or what needs to be done to the house and when.

The last few weekends, the kids have gone to their grandparents. Which leaves me at home alone after Sweet Hubby goes to work at 7pm. That was nice the first weekend and okay the second, but this weekend, it kinda sucked. I've eaten almost an entire pan of brownies since Friday night and I've watched far too many shows about selling houses. My house is clean and the laundry is done, so there's not much to do in that area. Although, I have become obsessed with bringing my scorched yard back to life, so the last few nights I've spent a lot of time outside moving the sprinkler. In my jammies.

I'm kinda lonely. And feeling pathetic. There doesn't seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Sweet Hubby's supposed to be working this schedule for 6 months. There's talk that his manager might bring him back to days, but we're not sure about that yet.

I'm gonna go finish off the last brownie.

It's official

There's a sign in our yard and our listing should be on the MLS very very soon.

We're selling our first house!

What a fun guy!

There's this show on Discovery Kids called Grossology. I let my kids watch just about anything on DK except Grossology. I watched half of an episode with the kids once and it was banned. The name says it all. Trust me.

So Stephen was watching a bit of Prehistoric Planet (which is super cool and a new favorite) when a Grossology commercial came on. So he says, "Hey, mom, the next Grossology episode is about basketball and a fun guy. Can I watch it?"

"No."

"But it's about fun guy. Please?"

"What? Sorry. No."

"It's just a fun guy, Mom!"

A light bulb came and I tried to stifle a giggle. "FUNGI! As in mushrooms and such. Not a fun guy! No, you're not watching it."

Evidently, the fun guy that that episode is about is the kind that gives one athlete's foot. Nice.

The randomly randomness of random

The last two days I've been desperately trying to think of something to blog about that doesn't have anything to do with selling the house or the possibility of Sweet Hubby's job change. It's nearly impossible. So I decided to tell you some random things about myself. Aren't you excited?

(On a side note because obviously I can't NOT blog about the house or the job: We don't even have a sign in the yard yet or have a listing agreement signed and someone is coming to look at the house tomorrow. And Sweet Hubby called last night to tell me that his job change probably won't be happening. But I was asleep when he called and I keep feeling like the phone call might have been a dream.)

So. The random things.

*One of my greatest pleasures is eating a bag of peanunt M&Ms and finding one without the peanut. It is the goal of every bag for me.

*Sometimes when the kids aren't around and I'm just watching TV, I'll watch some of their favorite shows if there's nothing else on that interests me.

*I think I'm addicted to change. It occurred to me that we've had some kind of major change every 9 months-a year since we got married 7.5 years ago. We've moved three times (not counting the move to the first apartment), Sweet Hubby's either been promoted or completely changed job 5 times, we've had 3 babies (and I'm counting getting pregnant in my "9 months-a year" statement), we've had 6 different cars, we've repainted something in the house 5 times, and I'm constantly moving furniture around. Every once in a while I start to get itchy for a big change. Even when something good changes, I get excited about it.

*I ate Pringles and half a root beer for dinner the other night.

*I've had to cut back on watching Fox News because all the election talk is starting to make nervous now that we're down to one repub and one dem. I also had a dream where I had a conversation with Hillary Clinton. I decided it was time to turn the channel once in a while.

*I'm realizing now that I'm trying to get the house ready to sell that I must be hopelessly unorganized. If we move, I'm going to try to be so much better about it. I cleaned out Marc-Adam's closet yesterday and was just so irritated with myself.

*I still have clothes in my closet that I wore in high school. Not much because I have cleaned out my wardrobe several times in the last few years, but I still have t-shirts that I wore in high school (and one or two from junior high!) that I still wear.

*I have tan lines across the top of my feet from my flip-flops that I wear all the time.

*I have a hard time remembering my age and all my personal numbers because my brain is so filled up with everyone else's numbers. I hardly use mine anymore.

Don't pay attention to anything I say

So our situation might be changing. Again. Sweet Hubby might be making a change in his job, in which case we might not be moving. Again. There's a lot of "might"s in our life right now. I promise I won't be blogging about anything else until we know what's happening for sure.

All systems go

So after whining and pouting about not getting the numbers we wanted/needed, I decided to call the realtor and tell him what else we were planning to do (paint the exterior, paint the kitchen, etc). I asked him if we could list higher than the number we wanted. He said "sure" and that all the improvements would help. YAY! We're having the carpet people come out Monday to measure the rooms that we're getting the carpet in and that should be put in about 10 days from now. Sweet Hubby painted the master bedroom (that used to be dark purple) and we've got the next week lined up with all sorts of projects. It's a little difficult to plan on the projects since Sweet Hubby works from 8p-8a and sleeps from 9:30ish am-4:30ish pm.

Anyway, all that to say: we're putting our house on the market!

Yay!

Nassomuch

So we finally heard back from the realtor. And the numbers he gave us were about $5000 lower than our lowest allowable number that we decided on. Bah.

So now we either sit tight for a while, or we try to get a second opinion. Although, I'm not sure it'll matter. I'm not sure if "second opinions" are customary in the home selling process. There's really no one else in town we want to use.

Bah.

I'm done now.

Have you ever had a really overwhelming project? Have you ever started said project and then decided you were done with it only halfway through?

Our master bedroom closet was a nightmare. Shameful, really. So, because of this crazy idea that I got that we should sell our house, I decided now would be a good time to clean it out. So I cleaned it out. It's now empty except for the things neatly stacked on shelves and hung on rods. And now I've decided that I want to be done with this project. Except half of the contents of the closet are now strewn about my bedroom in various and random piles. Most of it is laundry that needs to be washed. Oh, and did I mention that our bedroom needs to be cleaned out by some point this afternoon because Sweet Hubby has decided he wants to paint it? Did I also mention that he had 2 wisdom teeth pulled this morning?

We are a bucket-full of crazy. With a little bit of lazy added in.

It's a dangerous combination.

Deep breaths and prayer

We had a realtor out yesterday afternoon. He's supposed to be calling us tomorrow with the figures of what he thinks we can sell it for. Please pray for that. I've now got it in my head that there's no way we can get what we need to be able to walk away with a nice little check to go toward the next down payment. And as much as I know my parents love us, I'm fairly certain that only God himself would want to house my entire family for more than a few months. If we don't get enough equity out of this house it would take us much longer than a few months to save up what we need.

I've really got my heart set on moving out of this little town now. I've started looking at houses and churches and thinking about how much money we'll be saving in gas and how we'll be so much closer to our pediatrician and the hospital that we had the last two babies at. If the realtor doesn't call back with the "magic number", my heart will be broken. I've let myself get entirely too excited at the idea of moving.

So I'm doing lots of deep breathing and praying and remembering that I'm not in control of this.

That's the good news and the bad news.

The almost big news

So obviously I haven't been blogging much. I've had a few things on my mind that I don't really want to blog about just yet. And if I can't blog about those things, then I just can't blog because I'm not really thinking about anything else. But I decided to relax a little and blog about the biggest thing taking up my brain cells right.

We're going to try to sell our house. I've been straightening and cleaning like mad for a few days because I called our realtor (that sounds so hoity-toity, "our" realtor...he's just the guy who sold us this house). He hasn't called us back yet, but I want him to come over and take a look around and tell us what we can do to help this house sell ASAP. Not that we are in a particular hurry, because we aren't, I just don't want to have the house sitting on the market for months and months. We are going to make some cosmetic changes. We're going to recarpet the bedrooms. I think two of the bedrooms have the original carpet. Shag carpet. Dark brown shag carpet. Actually, I love it except that it's brown and shag. I loved having it in the boys' rooms and in the playroom (before we ripped all the carpet up in the living areas) because it's so soft and plush, they almost never get hurt when they fall on it. Our bedroom has some nasty well-loved berber carpet which is reminding us of one particular fit that one of our children threw and also of one particular illness that the same child had. It's in nice shape, y'all. So we're going to replace it all. And then all of the flooring in our house (except for a few closets and the utility room) will have been replaced. We're also going to repaint the kitchen and the exterior of the house. Right now the outside is brick with a nasty yellowish beige and brown trim. We're going to paint the yelllow white and brown black. It should look much nicer. We also have to put a few finishing touches on our last remodel project that never got finishes. And Sweet Hubby will have to fix the ceiling in our room where he accidentally made a nice little entryway for himself via the attic.

The down side to making all these changes is that we don't have the cash to do it right now. Which means we'll have to put it on a credit card. We recently paid off all of our credit card debt, so it's a little painful for us to have to charge again.

We're hoping since we've made all these updates (because the house was firmly set in the 60s when we moved in) that we can get quite a bit of equity out of the house. The plan is that we'll sell the house for as much as we can get and then move in with my folks for a few months while Sweet Hubby is working overnights (he just started that shift this weekend and will be working it for the next 6 months). For those few months we'll be trying to save our money like mad to put a decent down payment on the next house. Which will be in a nicer area with more to do and a bigger homeschool community. It will also have everything we should need within just a few miles. And that will be.so.nice. Because as it is I have to drive at least 20 minutes to do anything. The gas is killing us. Sweet Hubby will actually be a bit closer to work and it will be much more of straight shot for him.

So that's the plan. I'm cautiously excited. I know the housing market stinks. And I know that no one in their right mind should want to move out here. But we have a nice little house with a huge yard and all we need is one person or family to want to buy our house. I can't wait to buy a new house. I've already started looking and there are at least a hundred in the area in which we are currently looking (although, I'm not married to moving to that area).

WFMW~Pill Taking

I always feel weird about doing a Works for Me Wednesday because my tips are always so simple that I think everyone on earth must be doing them and I'm just so silly because I think I figured something out on my own and think that I need to share with the world. When the world already knew. But here goes one anyway, because I think it really could be a big help if people don't already do this.

Some pills are hard to take, right? Either they are really big or they are just plain nasty. When I was pregnant, I had to take an iron pill that was both. But I figured out a way to get it down without having to taste or feel it.

Before you put your pill in your mouth, take a good sized sip of whatever you are washing your pill down with. Then push the pill in your mouth (obviously, your mouth will have to stay closed since it's full of drink and you may have to suck the pill in a little) You have to be careful to not let the pill turn sideways, so it's best to swallow as quickly as possible. That's it. I never taste or feel pills anymore. You might have to try this trick a couple of times before getting it just right, but it's so much easier than the regular way of taking the pill then drinking the water.

Go check out some more great tips at Rocks in My Dryer.

After a dose of Tylenol and a short nap, I was able to haul my rear out of bed to have this conversation with Stephen:

Stephen (to himself): Damn, damn, damn.

Me (calmly, after overhearing him): What'd you say?

Stephen (looking a bit like a deer in the headlights): I was just saying damn. Not like, "Damn, you're stupid" or "Damn, dad did something bad". Just damn. I don't want to get in trouble! I wasn't saying it bad!!

Me (trying not to fall out of my chair laughing and keep myself from crying because it hurts to laugh this hard): Okay. I appreciate that you weren't meaning anything bad, but it's still not an okay word for 5 year olds to say.


I have no idea where that came from.

I'm afraid the conversation won't come across on the blog nearly as funny as I found. But I suppose you just have to know Stephen. For the record, he might have heard the word damn uttered a few times in our house, but never "Damn you're stupid" or "Damn, dad did something bad". Really, it's just damn. And honestly, "stupid" is more of a dirty word in our house than "damn".

A little update on Marc-Adam

In case you were wondering, Marc-Adam's illness and fever went away on Friday almost as quickly as it came on. He had us pretty worried, but he's completely back to normal now.

However, now I'm feeling pretty crummy. I'm pretty sure whatever is going on with me is completely unrelated to M-A's illness and not contagious, but it is keeping me from feeling normal and productive. In fact, it took everything I had just to get out of bed this morning. And now, I'm going to go lay back down while the kids are resting and pray that I can get back up afterward.

The good news and the bad news

Good news~I found my camera!! I just know you've been dying to see pictures of my new-to-me piano and all the tasty peaches we got.

Bad news~I don't when I'll be able to post them (I'm not doing it now because that would require going out to the car and I'm just not gonna) because M-A's got a nasty fever and is stuck like glue to my chest for the majority of his waking hours. We took him to the doctor today and we think he's okay, we just need to keep an eye on this fever and look out for any new symptoms.

You know you've been spending too much time with your kids when....

....you use words like "potty" and "night-night" in conversation with other adults.

Yeah.

How cool!

I use the word "cool" too much. Maybe I should try "neat", "neato", "swell".....maybe not.

ANYWAY, I stumbled upon this website today called, Laptop Lunches. They're neat (haha, I can use that word) reusable lunch boxes with containers that are all BPA, lead and phthalate free (honestly, I don't know what phthalates are, but the lunch boxes are free of it). Obviously, we won't be needing a lunch box for the school lunch, but we do take lots of field trips and have play dates at lunch time. I'm thinking these are perfect for each of the kids. I want some.

Oh, and check out the photo gallery of lunches. It's inspirational, I tell you.

Wow, did I just say that?

Stephen and I were having a "teachable moment" this afternoon and I caught myself saying this:

Stephen, there are times when we're really angry or upset or things seem really bad and we don't feel like praying. Those times when it's hardest to pray are the times when we need to pray the hardest.

I was pretty impressed with myself. That's pretty deep for me.

Did you see this?

Seriously the funniest thing I've seen all week. I was literally laughing out loud and clapping my hands. That kid ended up winning the whole shebang.

To baby or not to baby?

That is the question.

I've really been struggling with this lately. For some reason, I feel like we need to make the decision now, or at least very soon, about whether or not we are going to have more children.

On the one hand, I look at my boys, and they fill up our lives so much. They are busy and boisterous and fun. We've gotten in to quite a routine around here, especially Sweet Hubby and I. It takes us very little time to get out the house and when we are out, we work really well together keeping the kids together and getting everyone taken care of. Marc-Adam will be out of diapers within the year, I think. And soon, it will be easier to get serious about homeschooling--once he gets a little older and is better able to sit and be entertained by whatever activity we are doing. (For the last several months, he's just been whining and screaming and tearing things off the table when we try to do school.) It's hard to imagine getting to that point and then starting all over again with a little one. I also consider my pregnancies. I border on narcolepsy when pregnant. The fatigue is killer. It's gotten worse with each pregnancy, I guess because with each pregnancy, I have more responsibility than I did with the pregnancy before. I also have to deal with gestational diabetes. And the chance of morning sickness. That seems like a lot to think about when these days, I'm lucky to get two meals and a shower in one day. Once in a while, I take a look in the rearview mirror of my van, or around my dining room table, I look at the sweet faces that fill me with so much love and joy and I think, "This is so good....this could be complete."

On the other hand....well, on the other hand is my heart. There are many more days when I think that there's no way our family is complete. I look at the faces of my boys and it's hard for me to imagine what my life was like before them. For a long time after Z was born, Sweet Hubby wasn't sure he wanted a third. Finally we decided that we would have a third child. I look at Marc-Adam and I can't believe what we would have missed out on if we had the decision the other way. I don't want to miss out the next little person, either. I realize that that way of thinking could get us in a situation like this, and while I admire that family, that's not where I think our family is headed. For so long, I thought that we had at least 1 more child in our future, maybe even 2. But the further away we get from babyhood, the more I'm starting to wonder.

Complicating things even more is Sweet Hubby. Usually his head and heart are in agreement. He may have them decided one way for a long time and then change his mind, but he always has it made up one way or the other. But he's feeling the same way as I am. We had a long discussion about it yesterday. We have a lot to consider. And it's not a decision we'll run into lightly. We also realize we're not the only ones making the plans. So, after we talked about it for a while, we decided we were both going to spend some time in prayer about it. It seemed silly that we both were struggling with this decision and not even thinking to pray about it.

I also don't want to let Marc-Adam get too old before we try again. Me still being in my mid-20s, I have plenty of time. But I honestly don't want Marc-Adam to be 4 0r 5 and then start all over again. So I feel like we should be making this decision and doing something about within the next year or so. The original plan was to try for a Spring '09 baby. That thought scares me now. It doesn't scare me as much as it did 3 or 4 months ago, but maybe that's just because M-A is getting a little easier to deal with.

So that's the question. And I just don't know the answer. I want an answer. I don't want to spend the rest of child-bearing years asking that question.

My week-brought to you by the letter P

Peaches~We took the boys to an orchard yesterday to pick peaches (we did this last year as well, I might have blogged about it then). It was so much more fun than last year because we went early in the morning and besides it being cooler, the kids were in much better moods first thing early in the morning. I never really liked peaches until we picked our own last year. I still don't eat them often, but these are really good. Stephen's eaten three today. Marc-Adam even ate one (he had to eat it whole as he refused to eat one when I chopped it up). Zachary tasted one and still doesn't like them. Anyway, we got a large box full. Last year, I made lots of baby food for M-A and froze it. This year, I have no idea what we're going to do with all these peaches. I guess we'll be eating lots of smoothies and maybe fruit salad.

Piano~My piano came yesterday! I'm very excited about it. The kids love it. It sounds much better than I thought it would. However. It is very large. Large. Much larger than I anticipated. It sticks out quite a bit in our living room. Making the rest of my furniture look like doll furniture. I suggested to Sweet Hubby that maybe we could move it to a different part of the living room. He moved it yesterday along with my dad, father-in-law and cousin (THANK YOU GUYS!). After I suggested moving it....well, let's just say that if looks could kill.... I'd at least be in a coma. So it might stay there for a while. Drawing all attention from everything else in the room. Which I guess could be good since my floors are in need of a good clean.

Promotion~I just got a call from Sweet Hubby saying that his manager pulled him to the side earlier to tell him that he (the manager) told HR that Sweet Hubby is promotable now. Which means a promotion may be in our very near future. Please pray about that for us.

Pfamily (I know, let's pretend the P is silent, just roll with it)~ I haven't blogged about our weekend, but we spent it with my cousins and aunt who might be the nicest people, well, ever. I always enjoy spending time with them and I wish we could live closer so that we could do that whenever we want. The kids all get along splendidly together, too. And I love the late-night talks. Can't wait to do it again in a few months. We got some great pictures of all the kids together. Which leads me to my last P....

Pictures~ I seem to have lost my camera so I can't provide proof of the peaches or the piano, but I can show just how cute my kids and "the cousins" (as my boys call them) are.

All our kids (8 of them! Under the age of 6! I daresay this is the best looking group of kids around):


My boys (I love the pictures we got of them):


Pfun, pfun stuff! :)

Ask me why I feel the need to say this

Zachary: (holding up his forefinger to his daddy) Daddy, I have a boogie!

Sweet Hubby: Well, go get some toilet paper to wipe it on.

Me: Take a piece a toilet paper OFF THE ROLL before you wipe it!

VERY interesting

Not quite sure what I think about this. (Scroll down to the very bottom and read the paragraph that says, "Contest open to...." on the bottom right of the page.)

On the one hand, I think they should be allowed to make whatever rules they want for their contest. It's their company, their contest, their prize. We can't just boycott because we don't like they way they've set it all up. We CAN however make a choice to not patronize their restaurant. But we certainly don't need to grab our torches and pitchforks. On the other hand, it's slightly offensive that they are so explicit about their ruling. There's not even an explanation (although, any rational thinking person could probably see why they've excluded homeschoolers, even if it's still not a good explanation).

And by the way, in Texas a homeschool IS a private school. So there. I think some homeschooler should enter and then when they win, they should point to Texas law that says so.

Oh, the chaos. It must end.

So y'all. My house. It is such a mess. And not just now. Always. I just don't know how to make it not be so. It's such a delicate balance between housewife/homemaker and SAHM/homeschooler. Those things, in my mind, are two totally separate jobs. Just because I'm a SAHM does not necessarily mean that I'm also a housewife. But I think that logic might be just my way of justifying the fact that I suck at housewifely duties. The cleaning and the cooking and the decorating and such, it's all so unnatural to me. If it weren't for these three little boys that I love so dearly, surely I would be destined to live a life of total simplicity and have a job which requires NO organizational skills or the ability to make order out of chaos. If I had had some forethought, I would have taken some pictures of my living room before I straightened up this afternoon. I could take some pictures of the rest of the house to show you, but then I'd have to shut down my blog, take my children and move in to hiding because then I could never have contact with or look any of you in the eye ever again.

I suppose I AM making progress. I'm actually getting slightly better in the kitchen. I'm actual starting to enjoy my own cooking and the process of cooking. Even if the rest of my family still doesn't enjoy my meals, at least I do now. And I have meal planning and grocery shopping down to an art. I am proud of that. What's more, I actually enjoy that.

A while back, I also started a Flylady inspired "control journal"/household notebook of sorts. It's still unorganized and things fall out and stick out of it all over the place (oh the high school flashbacks!), but it's all there in one spot, and I do use it several times a week at least.

But everything else is just an unorganized mess. Behind every door and in every cabinet and drawer is evidence that things are getting out of control. I keep thinking that if we just had a little extra spending money I could go to Wal*Mart or (the mother-ship) IKEA to get some Stuff to help get me organized. But really, y'all, I think it's me that's the problem. Not my lack of Stuff. I probably have plenty of shelf space and tote things and storage space to make sense of our home. I just have no idea how to get from Point "No really, we just got hit by a freak indoor tornado" to Point "Yes, we have everything under control and know exactly where a pair of scissors and a flashlight (WITH WORKING BATTERIES) are in case you should need either of those during your visit". I'm a grown-up now. With a family and responsibilities and such. My house should not look like just a larger version of my childhood bedroom (which, by the way, was also a nightmare).

And I won't even get into the actual cleanness of my home. I've tried every kind of routine and schedule you can imagine. I can't make anything stick (I could, however, make a routine stick if I just dropped it underneath the kitchen table....everything else gets stuck to the floor down there). There just doesn't seem to be enough time to do everything that I think should be done. And it's more important to me that I spend a lot of time with my kids than it is for my baseboards to be swept or my windows to be cleaned. I did talk to Sweet Hubby about this and we decided that we would take one day a week when he is off to actually CLEAN the house, not just straighten up. Once we get it relatively clean (considering we have three perpetually clumsy, sticky boys), I don't think it'll take more than a couple of hours one morning a week to get the whole family working to clean the house. So I'm hopeful (and grateful to Hubby that he seemed totally onboard) about that. I do get the boys to help as much as I can now, but they are about as good at the cleaning jobs as I am. So not much happens. But hopefully, with the new plan, I won't have to worry (or feel guilty) about it anymore and I can focus on the dishes, the laundry, the straightening up (all of which the boys help with) and just spending time with the kids and homeschooling.

But in order to start really feeling good about it all, I feel like I have to get the house straight, clean, and organized to start with. I have no idea how that's going to happen. I did get quite a bit done today while the kids were with my ILs, but there's still SO MUCH left to do. It's a tad overwhelming. Actually, it's a lot overwhelming. I want to tackle it and change and be better about the housework and the organization thing. And there are times where I put my mind to it and attempt to be better. But then I feel like I'm forcing myself to be something I'm just not and I always fail. I've prayed about this quite a bit. And I think that's where the small improvements (with the menu-planning and household notebook) have come from. But I still need big improvements.

Like a maid.

I'm not a lazy person. Why is this so hard?

It's MINE!

I WON!!

Tidbits

Just a few tidbits from the last week at the Sweet House.


There was a major haircut last week. I hadn't cut his hair in months. It started to get curly, which fascinated me and it was so cute! It got hard for me to decide to cut it. But I finally did.





He also had a major milestone!


"My very own liberry card!"


Marc-Adam had a milestone of his own in that I had to put up a Pack 'n' Play to use for "time-out". This is what he thought of it.




I should have known.


And my new favorite picture of Zachary.



We've been doing some fun homeschooling stuff this week, too. I'll post details and pictures in a few days.

Also, I don't want to say too much yet, but I've got my eye on something big that I've been wanting for a while. A couple of friends got one of their own, so I decided to start looking for myself. I'm bidding on one on ebay right now. The auction ends tonight and so far, I'm the highest bidder. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be thinking good thoughts for me. It would be a dream come true to get it and if I win this auction, I'll be getting it for a STEAL!

Oh, my. And ew.

Don't read this if you're squeamish and/or plan to eat eggs in the next decade.

But if you're a fool for weird stuff, like me, then please read on.

Speaking of simple satisfaction....

After I wrote yesterday's post, I had a playdate with another mom. She's super smart and does all kinds of neat things with her kids and she should totally be homeschooling, but she's not (well, not officially right now at least). Anyway, she and I started talking about a unit that I'm getting ready to start with the kids and she suggested that I check out the library near her house. I'd thought about that before, but we don't live in that county and I didn't think we could get a card to a library outside of our own county. Our library is mediocre, at best. It's small and most of the books are older. I can rarely find what I'm looking for if I go in there with something specific in mind. It really had me kind of worried because of the unit study approach we're going to take in homeschooling. I can't afford to buy books all the time and our library just doesn't have much.

So, back to yesterday's conversation....she said she would ask at the library the next time she was there. I decided I couldn't wait that long, so I called them yesterday afternoon and asked if I could get a card. They said yes!! I was so excited that I loaded Stephen up (I was already at my mom's so the younger two stayed with her) and off we went.

Y'all. Talk about simple satisfaction. My library card to that library has made my year. It's HUGE (the library, not the card). Just the children's library is the size of our entire library here at home. We can check out SEVENTY-FIVE books at a time each. And the kids can have a card whenever we see fit! Which means we could have 375 books if we wanted. And, oh the selection! I got several books on our new unit study and still left the majority on the subject on the shelf. They have so many different series of books and rows of early readers. We were there for over an hour and a half and I still didn't get to explore everything I wanted to look at. We can also search their card catalog online and reserve books or transfer books from other libraries in the county.

If you've always had access to a large library, please take time to really appreciate it next time you visit. It really is something special.

Simple Satisfaction

Here's a sort of meme that Shannon started and that my cousin did. I thought it looked fun, so here's a short list of some small, simple things that are very satisfying and that make me happy:

*watching my kids eat ice cream cones or homemade cookies

*sending someone an e-mail and then having them reply immediately (it tickles me to think that that person is sitting at their computer at that very moment, too)

*thin cut, homemade onion rings

*seeing my kids show a small act of kindness to a stranger

*getting the kids to bed on time, crawling in to bed with my favorite marshmallow cookies and watching LOST with Sweet Hubby

*playing hide and seek with all the boys and Sweet Hubby

*the way Marc-Adam pats my back when I pick him up

*the way Marc-Adam says "thank you" ("tin too?")

*reading out of chapter books with the kids at night (I love how they remember what happened in previous chapters/books and how excited they get to see what happens next)

*my pink rubber gloves

*my "Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" ringtone

*the smell and sound of sauteeing onions

*how Z says "chocolate" ("shockwit")

*waking up before anyone else in the house is awake

And it only goes down hill from here.....

You know you have at least two little ones of the boy variety in your home when a good portion of the conversations begin with:

"Hey, you know what would be really gross....?"

Oh, yeah...

I meant to mention in my last post that the other day we went to a small town festival on Saturday. While we were walking around, Stephen saw a sign and then quickly informed me "Hey, mom, there's a horseshoe tournament at 1:30."

He just read "HORSESHOE TOURNAMENT" as quickly as you or I would read it.

He's five.

I don't know if I can keep up with this kid.

Decent sleep=better perspective

So I wanted to update you with what's been going on with Stephen and his sleep issues. Thankfully, most of the behavior issues have resolved (I think I've mentioned that before), even though we still have outbursts every now and then.

The sleep issues have NOT resolved, however, he's not having the outbursts at night anymore.

As I mentioned previously, after they broke the air mattress (and for the helpful commenter telling me where I could get a new one, I DON'T need a new one but thanks for the "help") I started sleeping with Zachary. That got old fairly quickly and then it suddenly occurred to me, "Hey! HE'S the one that needs to be in the same room with me. Why should I be the one to be uncomfortable trying to make that happen?" So I made him a little pallet in our room (from the day of his birth I've been adamant against sharing my room with a child, but I had to surrender a little) and told him that if he woke and felt the need to wake me up to go into his room, then he would just have to lay on our floor, because I would not be sleeping in his room. He wasn't too keen on the idea and told me that he was going to hit me with his pillow. Nice. And true to his word, I woke at 5:30am (that's the latest he's ever slept without waking since all this started) to a slap in the stomach with a pillow. I convinced him somehow to go back to bed for a few more hours, and he did. He got a lot of praise, a new movie, and a piece of candy AND a breakfast date with his Grammy the next morning. Obviously though, all that didn't matter because he hasn't done that again since. But he has been using the pallet, has even said it was comfy, and I've finally convinced him to not wake me up when he comes in (he still does wake me up, but he tries not to). So I've been sleeping in my bed!! YAY! And then I had a playdate with a mom that I really really like and she told me that all three of her boys sleep in her room (and she's pregnant! go figure!). That made me feel better about our little arrangement. I'm hoping that eventually, he'll just quit getting up and coming in our room.

And on an ego-stroking note, the other night, I was praying with the kids before bed. I said something that I say a lot in my prayers: "Help me be the best mommy I can be for them." I finished up the prayer, we all said amen and Stephen crawled up in my lap. He said, "Mommy, you don't have to pray to be the best mommy. You already are."

*sigh* Have I mentioned he's my favorite?

I'm kidding!! Totally kidding.

But it was the best thing anyone's said to me in a long time and he was totally my favorite in that moment. He was completely sincere and it's fascinating to me that I can be so crabby at times, yell at times, fall short and make him mad and he still thinks that I'm the best. He knows I'm not perfect. And he's taught me that being the best and being perfect are two separate things. I can be my best by doing the best I can with what I have and by continually striving to be better. But I'll never be perfect. And that's okay. Heck, that's freakin' GREAT! How boring must perfect be?

Time for a break

I haven't been around much on this little blog o' mine. I think I need a little bloggy break. I'm feeling a bit out of sorts in my "real life", and I'm afraid that if I continue attempting to post on a regular basis that my blog will become a whine-fest or just a big ol' downer. And that's not what I'm here for. Heck, that's not what you're here for. So I'm going to take a break for a little while. I'm sure I'll be posting when something cute or funny happens, but if I tell myself that I'm on a break, then that takes the pressure off to blog regularly. And I'll definitely be keeping up with your blogs and trying to comment to let you know I'm still around.

Love all around.

You know you are a tired mother of 3 young kids when....

...the oldest child tells you that the youngest child has somehow gained possession of the bag of Goldfish crackers and is eating out of it and you don't go find him to take it away from him before he dumps the whole thing. Instead, you just blog about it.

Move along, nothin' to see here

I don't really have a purpose to this post. But I feel like I should post.

So the kids and I have been sick the last few days. We originally thought that kids were sick due to something they ate, but then concluded (after we thought the worst was over and that it was something ate and took them to church) that it might be a bug because I started throwing up and we hadn't eaten the same food since Friday morning. Now I worry that we not only infected the t-ball team, but also three different Sunday school classes, the church choir AND the praise and worship band. Because there is no limit to our friends or our germs.

I'm going to take back all the stuff we bought for Stephen to bribe motivate him to sleep in his room without me being there. He cries about not getting the stuff in the morning, but doesn't care about it at night. And I've had enough of sleeping in bed with Zachary. So I'm taking the stuff back to get a new mattress, and to get poor Zachary a mattress pad. I've been meaning to get him one since he moved to that bed at Christmas, and am only now just realizing how uncomfortable that mattress is. So Mama's getting baby a mattress pad so he can be more comfy.

That's it. See? I really don't have anything to post about.

Wha...??

Zachary burped quite loudly at lunch yesterday. Stephen said, "Zachary, you can control burps! And toots."

Zachary said, "And beavers?"


Um.....sure?

Y'all, I'm just. tired.

I'm so frustrated and tired and....I don't know what else. I feel like I'm at the brink of cracking. The last few days I've just felt like I don't know if I can do this for one more second.

We're back to having problems with Stephen. We've had a really hard week, and beyond the frustration of his behavior, I feel like it's putting a strain on our relationship because I don't really like him right now. And I'm sure he doesn't like me because I've lost my cool more than a few times this week. I'm not handling this round of negative behavior as well as the first round. So on top of everything else that I'm feeling, add guilt. Because I feel like I'm wasting time being so frustrated and angry with him. But I certainly can't feel or act like everything's roses, because it's not. Everytime we "fight", it's like I've put a chink in our relationship, in his trust for me, in his ability to be a normal, loving, well-adjusted human being. I can't handle the feeling that everything I do is going to affect who he is and what he does for the rest of his life. Does anyone understand?

And, y'all. I just want to be able to put the children to bed for the night, and crawl in to my bed and sleep all night. But that hasn't happened in over a month and a half. And now they've broken the air mattress I sleep on. Two nights ago, I slept on the air mattress anyway, and by the time I woke up at some point in the night, I was also sleeping on the floor. Lemme tell you how fun that was.

I sit here in tears because I just love that child so much and I hate what's happening. I hate that I don't like him. I hate that so much of my energy goes into disciplining and coaxing and, I have to admit, yelling. I hate that I see that reflected in how he handles everything else....the anger.

I just want things to go back to normal. I don't know how to get there.

I took Stephen to the store yesterday to let him pick out several toys/movies to use as motivation for him to stay in his room while I slept in mine. He picked out some cool stuff. The idea was that he would get one every few days if he stayed in bed all night, and we would work up to the big toys. And then I told him that if he could stay in bed 2 full weeks, we would have a party. I meant it, too. I seriously would want to throw a party if we made it 2 full weeks. I told him that if he couldn't stay in his bed without me being in there, then I was going to take all his toys back so that we could afford a new air mattress. However, we didn't make it one night. I ended up in his room (in bed with Zachary, actually, and sleeping with a three year old has got to be something like sleeping with a large octopus) at about 2am. That's when he told me, "It's okay, Mama. You can take it all back. That's okay." GRRRR!!!! That's SO NOT the point!! I fussed and complained...I didn't go to bed till almost 1am and I was beginning to get dizzy I was so tired. And then I forgot that I had told my neighbor that I would take her daughter to school today so she called and woke me up before 7am. And given that I felt like I was on the brink of losing it altogether yesterday, when I was relatively well-rested and not cranky, I can't imagine what today will bring. I can't stop praying for God's grace and mercy.

Can you feel the love?

Part of a conversation we had this weekend regarding whether or not a fire should be built in the backyard to enhance the "camping out" adventure Sweet Hubby and the kids had this weekend:

"Fine. If you burn this house down, you don't get to live in the new one."



No fire was built, just so you know.