Being Refined

Gratitude Journal 3/27/11

2011-03-27T14:25:00.002-06:00

Today I am thankful for:

1) My neti pot

2) Quick recovery from the cold that knocked me out yesterday

3) That my big boy is such a fabulous helper. Even when he doesn't want to be. Even when the other kids are running around like little monkeys instead of helping.

March Artwork

2011-03-26T19:03:00.005-06:00

Yellows

by Benny

Yellow Giraffe

by Benny

Katie's Beauty 2

by Katie

Ice Cream Good

by Sammy

4 Cannon

by Sammy

Katie's Beauty

by Katie

Gratitude Journal, Day 23

2011-02-23T22:10:00.004-07:00

Today I am thankful for:

1) A kind referral to an awesome midwife (Thanks, Cathy!)

2) Outback Steakhouse. For some reason I was craving their steak, and it and the Caesar salad made the BEST meal I've had in months! And for the friend who came over and watched my kids so I could duck out and pick up dinner for all of us.

3) That my hubby made it safely back to his regular work location, after being stuck at his conference location waiting for a flight. (And my hubby in general. Miss him terribly!)

Gratitude Journal, Day 18

2011-02-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

Today I am thankful for:

1) That the big kids wore their new glasses all day long

2) That none of my kids have developed a lazy eye (apparently 2 are in danger of it)

3) That we were able to get out of the house today. I had some serious cabin fever!

Gratitude Journal, Day 17

2011-02-17T17:15:00.001-07:00

Today I am thankful for:

1) That my FIL's stent surgery was successful

2) My housekeeper

3) My phone

Gratitude Journal, Day 16

2011-02-16T21:51:00.003-07:00

Today I am thankful for:

1) No more fever in the little guy

2) Half a decent night's sleep, and everyone sleeping in

3) The lasagna I found in the back of the freezer when I was hungry, but too lazy to cook.

Gratitude Journal, Day 15

2011-02-15T23:05:00.002-07:00

Today I am thankful for:

1) That my baby is coughing less and is less feverish tonight than he was the rest of the day

2) That my big boy can entertain himself almost all day long if need be

3) That the 2nd desk is out of the office. One step closer to making it into a girl's room.

Gratitude Journal, Day 14

2011-02-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

Today I am thankful for:

1) That the sickness this week is only a cold, and nobody is throwing up

2) A clean, organized bathroom

3) That my husband did not get blown up by rockets

Growing weeds!

2011-02-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

The kids are getting BIG! 33", 41", & 48" tall, and 25.5 , 35.5, & 47 lbs. Wow!

posted from Bloggeroid

Adventures in Organizing, Part 4

2011-02-14T15:21:00.009-07:00

Master bathroom. Once a messy jumble of forgotten toiletries, carpeted with dirty clothes who couldn't find their basket. Today, a retreat haven. (If you can ignore the messy master bedroom in the mirror.)

Before:

(this was actually a pretty good day, compared to how it looked before the recent purge)

After:

Hubby's cabinet. Not much stuff in it since he's not currently here. Actually, that's not true. Even when he's here, almost all of his bathroom stuff fits neatly inside his dock kit. Now, this cabinet is housing the bathroom tissues (we always need a tissue box within reach in this house!), space heater (which we use on cold nights), and a box of his bathroom things to go through/purge when he gets home.

My cabinet. Pretty uncluttered before, really, (probably because everything lived on top of the cabinet!) but now virtually empty. Houses extra towels (we pared down to 2 towels per person long ago), kid bath stuff, and my makeup/travel bag.

The drawer. I had it organized, once upon a time, but curious little fingers worked hard to undo that. ;) But it's all fixed, now! (Empty basket for kids' tooth flossers when I find them again.)

One of the big drawbacks of this bathroom is there is no high-up storage. Not really a problem for two kidless people, which we were when we bough this house. Big problem for attachment-parents of a two year old who will help himself to the flavored toothpaste every chance he gets. The cheap solution - hang a suction cup basket up high.

Towels currently being used (typically the same ones over and over) live on hooks. (No change, here.) The kids' towels live in our bathroom because their bathroom is too small for me to get into to bathe them. And our bathtub is big enough to fit all 3 at once.

My personal shower stuff lives in another suction-cup basket at the back of the shower. Since I've switched to natural/homemade toiletries, this basket is a lot less cluttered! Hubby's things live along the window ledge and/or in the built-in cubby at the front of the shower. (Sorry, no photo.)

The "Toilet room." I have a love/hate relationship with this room. I've mentioned before that I have claustrophobic tendencies. So I rarely close the door when I'm in here. But sometimes (like when I'm sick) it is nice to be able to close the door and have a little privacy.

Unlike the closet, I mostly really love my bathroom. My biggest complaint about it is its lack of appropriate storage for feminine hygiene products. (Well that and the brownish-pink accent tiles in the shower.) There is no place for storage in the toilet room, which is where I think they need to be kept. And remembering to grab something from the cabinet under the sink BEFORE I sat down was always difficult for me. The solution I came up with was another pocket organizer (like the one in the coat closet) for the back of the toilet room door. There is also a basket of rarely-used but still-wanted bathroom things (e.g. curling irons, nail polish, hair spray) which used to live under the cabinet or in the hall closet, but will soon live in the high pockets of the same organizer.

Gratitude Journal, Day 13

2011-02-13T21:15:00.002-07:00

Hmmm. I realized that somewhere along the way, I lost track of keeping up with this. Drat!

Anyway, today I am thankful for:

1) That God made us all different

2) People who are willing to share their time and talent in order to help me out (today especially Kerry, Mike, & Christine)

3) That we are relatively healthy, and the bugs we have caught this season have all been pretty minor, and nobody has anything chronic.

Adventures in Organizing, Part 3

2011-02-11T15:21:00.000-07:00

This closet didn't look too bad before, or so I thought. But it is much neater now, and reorganized to be more kid-unfriendly (for the things like cleaners and medicines which need to be kid-unfriendly, I mean).

Top row: medicines, first-aid, bandages, etc.
2nd row: cleaning supplies & hair trimmer
3rd row: "Bathroom Store" - Extra things for when we run out (toothpaste, tissues, cotton swabs, ...)
4th row: "Baby" row - Basket of baby-care stuff. (Temporarily home to 2 bags of give-aways, but after that stuff is gone, cloth diapers will go on this shelf.)
5th row: Extra linens
Bottom: Extra blankets, and humidifiers when not in use

Adventures in Organizing, Part 2

2011-02-04T20:22:00.002-07:00

I was probably more scared of this organizing job than any other in the house - the master bedroom closet. Especially since, in it's vast overstuffedness, all the extra jackets/coats got relegated up here as well.

Once again, you will notice I forgot to take before pictures. (You will probably notice this theme quite a bit. I'm so gung-ho to get to the final results, I almost never remember the before pictures!) Suffice it to say that this closet was a big, jumbled mess. Also, my clothes were all on the other side of the door, which meant that to get to them, I had to go into the closet and shut the door. I can get pretty claustrophobic pretty quickly, so this was very frustrating for me. (To the tune of I have hated this closet's guts for the last 6 years.) All my non-pregnancy clothes were in a jumble on the floor waiting to be put into a space bag. There was no space for folded clothes. It was just a big, huge, mess. And that was with half the clothes that *should* be in it, being in baskets or the crib or on the bed or on the floor of the bedroom. Which is another beast for another day.

First view inside the closet: Right side - My clothes on the bottom, hopefully seasonally-appropriate clothes for hubby's visit home on the top, my pants and hanging dresses (read dress, because I hate them) on the left. On top of those, some shelves (which I can't reach, but will get a stepstool expressly for the closet/upstairs use) for me to put my folded casual pants/jeans. Extra purses on top of this shelf.

Straight-on view of this same area. Jewelry organizer (funny if you know me), summer pants, and my shoes organizers just to the left of that. Plus the couple of pairs of footwear I own that wouldn't fit in the organizer, on the floor under the hanging clothes.

Inside the closet, you have to shut the door to access the rest of it. Hubby's stuff in this area - belts, sweats, & hats. Lots and lots and lots of hats. (To be honest, I think about 1/3 of them still haven't made it back in here.) To the right of that, his hanging clothes and shoes. (I would never have thought to put shoes up high like that. But he is plenty tall enough to reach them!) And there was no room for them on the floor for all his boots. Which didn't make it into any of the pictures. But believe me when I tell you they take up the floor space of half the closet's perimeter!

Between my shoes and the wall are the dressy things we don't use very often, and all the coats that got brought up from the coat closet downstairs.

I have to admit I am pretty amazed at the results. It is still too overstuffed in my opinion, but it looks 1000x better than it did!

Gratitude Journal - Day 3

2011-02-03T21:39:00.001-07:00

Today I am thankful for:

1) Music, and being part of a group that makes it

2) The neighbor who watched my kids so I could go to rehearsal

3) That my husband still knows how to melt my heart with sweet words

Gratitude Journal - Day 2

2011-02-02T20:46:00.002-07:00

Today I am thankful for:

1) A decent support network in a city/state so far away from our families

2) No more throwing up

3) The blessing of fertility

Gratitude Journal - Day 1

2011-02-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

Today I am thankful for:

1) A furnace that works (Our high today was -1.)

2) My children

3) My husband's willingness to work so far away to support his family

Testing Blogaway

2011-01-29T08:58:00.001-07:00

Mobile blogging, test 2. This post is from Blogaway.

It has convenient toggles for bold, italics, and underlining. Plus some other buttons I'm not sure about yet.

Testing Bloggeroid

2011-01-25T13:42:00.001-07:00

I am looking for a good Android app that will let me make new or edit existing posts. I will let you know how it goes. This post is from Bloggeroid.

posted from Bloggeroid

Adventures in Organizing, Part 1

2011-01-24T13:59:00.002-07:00

A friend (who used to be a professional organizer) is helping me get my house organized. The first area we tackled was the coat/jacket/bag/purse storage. I found an old photo of the disorganized hall tree, but I wish I had thought to take before photos of the closet. (Of course, I probably would have been too embarrassed to post them!)

This is our "shoe bench." It used to be home to our jackets (5 people, 5 hooks, made sense to me!), purse, diaper bags, work bags, keys... Anything we needed when we walked out the door. Unfortunately, it also was usually a dumping ground for anything we came inside the door with.

Then:

Now:

Inside the shoe bench I used to have 5 boxes, one for each person, for hats, scarves, and gloves. The boxes were always overflowing, and it was hard to find matching things in them. Now the inside of the bench is home to our bags - music class, dance class, MOPS, extra pullups and clothes for the boys in case we are out for a long time, plus an extra-large diaper bag I can grab if we're taking a long outing, and a purse for me to use on the rare occasion I get to leave the house without the kids.

The top of the coat closet is mostly the same, but more organized. The plastic drawer that used to hold adult hats is gone. Left on top is our swim bag, beach towels, and couple of tall things (world map for next year's school and roll of drawing paper), because they fit nicely there and are protected from little fingers.

The inside of the closet looks vastly diffferent. Instead of being stuffed full of every adult-sized coat and jacket in the house, it now has room on the left for most-used adult jackets (limit 2 per person), and on the right side we have hooks so the kids can hang/retrieve their own jackets and backpacks. (Big deal when you have multiple kids, and are about to be the sole care provider for a newborn!)

Inside the door we hung a pocket organizer, which is the new home to all of our hats, gloves, and scarves. Each person has his/her own row. Including the baby. (And I have two. Because I'm special that way. ;) These things are so much easier to find/choose from now! I love this!

A Year Without - Day 24

2010-12-16T21:24:00.005-07:00

Today was a very, very lazy day. According to the weather reports, it was supposed to be a snow day. There wasn't much snow, but it sure was cold!

We went to CarMax today to look at a van that, on paper, looked perfect for our family. 2 years old, low mileage, fully loaded, and with TWO DVD players! I sort of wondered, before going, whether I should wait until I had someone to watch the kids. But I wanted to put their carseats in it, anyway, and they were pretty excited about checking it out. So we all went. I now regret that. It was too cold to get in and out, especially with trying to buckle carseats in an unfamiliar vehicle. Then, to top off the chaos, #1 son had an ill-smelling poop accident in his pants while he was playing in the playroom, and #2 son choked on a piece of apple which didn't all come up, but I didn't know that, so he was super-fussy/screamy for the whole test drive, and then he threw up in the playroom when it was time to leave. (Luckily, I had a quick thought and caught it in his hat.)

I went to that dealership with all my paperwork, ready to come home with the van, but when I drove it, I wasn't super-impressed with how it felt ("Plasticky" is the term that came to my mind. Sort of how I felt 9 years ago before we bought the truck, when we test-drove a Saturn SUV), and I was extremely disappointed to find that even though it has 7 seat belts, there is no way it could be more than a 6 passenger vehicle for us:

Do you see how little room is between the 2 carseats in the back row? I couldn't even fit Benny between them! And they were shoved up against the sides, as far as they could go.

Ugh! I am so freakin' disappointed! Now I don't know what to do!

I researched skinnier carseats when I got home, so perhaps we *could* make this van work. Sunshine Kids makes this carseat which has a much skinnier base than the ones we have. A different company makes a travel vest which, except for the lack of side impact protection, is supposed to be safer than a booster seat. Not ideal for every day, but if we needed that extra seat for another person, it could work in a pinch. (It might also work fabulously if we do end up meeting hubby in Europe in September like he's asked us to do.)

I got asked today if I've given up on this blog. No, I haven't. I'm just behind. (Hopelessly behind...)

A Year Without - Day 23

2010-12-15T21:00:00.003-07:00

Benny woke me up saying "Oh, pease!" Usually I can tell what he's asking for, but for some reason, this time it took me 10 minutes to figure out he was asking for Cheerios.

Awesome Kerry watched kids for me this afternoon, and Jeff's John picked me up at the carwash after I dropped off truck to be detailed. (Gotta get it ready to sell, you know.) When I got back, I watched Zachary so she could bring Haley to ROTC. It was a decently warm day, so I cleaned out hubby's car (to get it ready to be detailed), while Zachary, Katie & Benny played on the scooters and bikes. That didn't take as long as I anticipated (mostly because I shoved a bunch of junk I didn't know what to do with into bags and boxes), so I packed a bunch of stuff to mail to hubby.

When Kerry came back, she stayed with the kids again while I took the car to drop it off and pick up the AMAZINGLY IMMACULATE truck! WOW!!!! Those guys worked a cleaning miracle!

I'll get the car tomorrow if the snow's not too bad, otherwise it will probably be this weekend before I can pick it up. Then we will be that much closer to selling them and getting something that will fit all of us once the new baby comes.

2 of my kids, just being themselves. Nothing exciting. But I want to post anyway, because they grow so, so quickly.

Katie loves to dress up. Whether ordinary clothes, or special sparkly ones, she usually changes outfits 3-10 times per day!

Benny is one hungry boy! He is always asking for a "'nack!"

A Year Without - Day 22

2010-12-14T20:55:00.003-07:00

It was not a good night last night. My tummy got very upset in the middle of the night. I intentionally turned off my alarm because of it, which made us late for music class. That, and being unbelievably tired, pretty much set the tone for the whole day.

Somehow we managed to forget to do our music class homework this week. How is it a week from the last time, anyway? It seems like 2 days ago, max.

I noticed this morning that Katie's face is not straight after dentist yesterday. One side of her mouth is hanging a bit lower/differently than the other. I will have to keep an eye on that.

My friend Lynne, whom I met when we lived in WY, came over to help tonight. She brought her little girl, Leia, who is about B's age, and cute as a button. I was too tired to do much, although I had heated up soup in the crockpot for dinner, but she cleaned the kitchen for me. It was such a blessing - exactly what I needed. It's so good to have helpful friends!

Just for fun, here is a photo from the bigs' music class this morning:

A Year Without - Day 21

2010-12-13T21:49:00.004-07:00

Today was an exceptionally long day. It started about 3 a.m. with an urgent, too-long bathroom run. (Perhaps the reason I felt so funky all day yesterday is that I was fighting off some bug or another. And perhaps a bug also explains why the 5yo had 2 poop accidents last night when he so desperately wanted to do the sleep over too. Or maybe not. That's becoming expected...)

Then my alarm went off at 6. As much as I know my day goes more smoothly when I can get up and get a shower before my other alarm clock wakes up, I ignored it.

I have no idea what time we really got up. I did get back to sleep shortly after the alarm, and the boys woke me up later. They had raisins and rice milk for breakfast, because I was feeling rather listless.

I took a bath and got us all dressed so we could go get Katie. We finally made it over about 10. I planned to pack her up in the truck and take us all out to an early lunch, since I hadn't eaten and the boys had basically just snacked for breakfast. But I got in and sat down, and had NO energy. And the boys immediately went to playing. Kerry graciously cooked and fed us breakfast, and we talked while the kids played until noon.

Then we headed for the library to pay fines and pick up our hold books. While we were there, I got reminder of Katie's 2:00 dental appointment on my phone. Good thing I was paying attention to it! And double-good thing I had changed the reminder from a 15 minute one to an hour one, or we would never have made it! I really hate making Monday appointments for anything, because in the 3 days between the reminder call and the appointment, there is a 110% chance I will completely forget all about the appointment. And since I generally have a rule about not making appointments on Mondays, I rarely remember to check my calendar on Monday mornings.

I hurried the kids through the automatic check-out. We grabbed lunch in the drive-through at BK, and ate it on the way to the dentist office. (I really need to remember to go back and check their foods for soy oil/lecithin since Sammy has to avoid those too, now!)

Our pediatric dentist is on the other side of town. But we know his family through our homeschooling group, and his office is way cool, so it is worth the drive. Katie got to watch a movie in her chair while they worked on her teeth. They administer nitrous oxide during the treatment, so she was as cool as a cucumber. She has come a long way from our visits to our first pediatric dentist, who did not have cool colors decorating his office or TV monitors on the ceiling, and where I had to coax and cajole her for 45 minutes to even open her mouth. Heck, at this dentist's office, she doesn't even want me back there while they're working on her. I guess I might interrupt her movie. That is just fine with me. The boys and I hung out in the waiting room, where I got some things accomplished via my awesome smartphone, the boys played with the cool toys, and I occasionally read books to them.

I played with GPS navigation on my new phone (have I mentioned that I LOVE THIS PHONE?!?!) on the way home from the dentist. I figured I'd better learn how it works when I actually know where I'm going, rather than when I actually need it. This probably doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but for someone who has been wishing for a phone with GPS capabilities for four years now, and has never owned any other king of GPS unit, it was a dream come true!

We got home just in time to grab the dance bag (Oh how I wish I hadn't dismissed that fleeting thought of "Maybe I should grab the dance bag" on my way out the door at 9:45 this morning!) and let the big kids go potty. B fell asleep in his carseat, so I just left him napping for the 10 minutes we were at home. Then we turned around and headed halfway back across town for dance class.

Since it was the last class before the holidays, moms got to watch. For some unknown reason, I was on the ball during that brief potty break and actually remembered this, and grabbed my camera.

After class I asked if they wanted to go look at a new van or go home. They unanimously voted to look at a van. Even the B was excitedly saying, "Me, van!!!" We went to the Chrysler dealership to look at Town and Country models. I don't particularly want a Chrysler (would MUCH rather a Honda or Toyota) but I was given a set dollar amount that I could spend over trade, and Chrysler is the only one that I can afford all the options I want and still get one that is low mileage. The kids loved the van that we sat in. I wasn't impressed. Too much money for my taste, especially for something that, though looked nice, felt sort of cheaply made. I never expected anything to come of it, though. A new vehicle, even with trade-ins and end-of-year incentives, and me talking them down as low as I possibly can, is still outside of the price range I promised I'd stick to. Plus, we bought the truck I currently drive as new vehicle 9 years ago, and it was such a stressful experience, and the thing lost so much value just from us driving it off the lot, I've proclaimed ever since that I would never buy a brand-new vehicle again. (I do reserve the right to change my mind at any time, but this time probably won't be it.)

On the way home our gas light came on, so we stopped at Costco for gas. While we were there, we decided to get tomorrow's shopping done this evening. Everyone was hungry, so we had dinner in the deli first. Last time we were there, the polish sausage looked suspiciously similar to the (soy-containing) hot dog that I had, so I checked their allergy menu again. Sure enough, the brand of polish sausage that does not contain soy, they no longer carry. Ugh. So much for eating in the Costco deli any more. Poor Sammy had a churro for supper.

We got our shopping done and headed home. By the time we got everything unloaded and the cold stuff put away, we were all exhausted. I left the pantry stuff in the middle of the kitchen floor, and we all trudged upstairs to bed.

A Year Without - Day 20

2010-12-12T21:35:00.000-07:00

I almost got to sleep in today. 7:00 is better than 6:00 or 6:30...

We didn't find the Daddy online this morning, despite it being his day off early. At 7:30 I told B, "Daddy said he was going to be online when I woke up, but I don't see him. I'm so sad." He said, "Me, tooo. Had, Mama." So so so cute.

We finally saw him online online about 10:45. 10:15 at night his time. His internet connection was totally down before that. We didn't get to chat much at all. :(

I was a total bum all day. For hours I kept thinking, "I need to get up and get everyone ready for Mass." But never could muster the energy to get out of my chair. I just sat there. Kind of in a daze. I felt so.... blah. Funky. Immobile.

Finally at some point that afternoon I realized I hadn't eaten anything substantial all day, nor had I had anything to drink. A couple of glasses of Vitamin D water and some food helped a bit. I was finally able to get up and get some clothes on.

Katie had planned a sleepover with Zachary for tonight. Her very first one. I have no idea how the girl who comes up from wherever she's playing, crying because she can't find me, at least 3 nights a week, thinks she is going to stay all night at someone else's house. But it was her idea, and she seemed pretty determined. Even as I was leaving.

We had dinner and played a game at Kerry's house. It should have been fun, but I was in a sad, grumpy funk.

Sammy was going to have a sleepover there, too. I told him that was fine with me as long as there were no poop accidents today. Then there were TWO. TWO! Ugh!!!! Both at Kerry's house, at that. I am so so so so so so so tired of the poop accidents. My pregnant nose can't take any more!

Tonight I realized I have not been feeling baby kicks today. It had me really worried. Then I drank more water, and there (s)he was. Whew! (I'm going to have to pay a lot more attention to that now. I guess I've been too sad to notice. Plus, is it just me, or is the air extra-dry this winter?)

Did I mention that I'm sad and I miss my honey?

A Year Without - Day 19

2010-12-11T21:47:00.002-07:00

Guess what! I got to sleep in until 7:30 again today! It felt AMAZING!!!

This morning CBS decided to bump Busytown Mysteries for a stupid basketball game. And I forgot to check http://titantv.com/ before turning on the TV. You cannot imagine the whining and wailing that ensued. From the almost-6-year-old! UUUUUGH!

Today we baked chocolate chip cookies. I didn't think we'd have all the right ingredients, but we found a simple kids-bake recipe in my Mrs. Fields Cookie Cookbook that worked well for us. We just substituted applesauce for the butter. They were a little mushy, but OOOOOH SO YUMMY!!!

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon talking to a financing guy at our insurance company's bank. Turns out, because I/we sign everything electronically, they didn't even need the POA I faxed them yesterday. He got me all set up for a loan, enough to finance the whole van including tax, etc. if I want to. Of course, I don't want to. I want them to give me a better-than-fair price for our 2 trades so I only have to finance about 40% of it. But that's probably too much to hope for.

This evening Kerry was babysitting 3 of the kids from MOPS, Katie's age and younger, so we all went over there for dinner and a big playdate. Benny & Katie spent at least the first half hour loving on the baby girl (I can't remember how old, maybe 6m?) and giving her kisses. It was so sweet, and made me feel much better about what life might be like after my "yellow baby. MEEE (the) baby!" becomes a middle child.

A Year Without - Day 18

2010-12-10T21:01:00.001-07:00

This morning I didn't get to see hubby because his internet connection was terrible again. We ended up chatting with Skype text, because we never could get the video to work. Booooo! Seeing his smile is such a great start to my day. I really miss it when I don't get to see it.

I told him about phone I got for him when I got mine, and he wants to try it. I am having a difficult time figuring out if it will do him any good or not. This list seems to indicate that it won't work. But this map and this list seem to indicate that it will. As do the Verizon salesman who sold me the phone, and the customer service rep at the call center (who was brand new and had to have a 20 minute consultation with her manager while I was on hold to even figure out what I was asking her, to know how to answer me. Lovely use of my time, eh!) Anyway, he gets a comm stipend from his company that will help us pay for the $65/month global data service. And if it doesn't work out, we can always switch him back to the other phone. So there really is no reason not to try it.

I realized today that my car registration expired last month. And the grace period is up at the end of this month. Since I'm planning to get a minivan anyway, it only seems logical to me to go ahead and do it now, rather than pay to register a vehicle for a whole year that I might only keep for 2 or 3 months. So to get the ball rolling, I faxed the POA hubby left me to the 2 lenders in our banking/insurance companies that were advertising the best rates (3.99%), and talked with some of their loan officers. I also got quote on the insurance changes with another vehicle, and was pleasantly surprised that it will not be too much more expensive than what we already have.

The kids are so good at entertaining themselves these days. Usually they just play and watch movies in the basement while I am working on mail or whatever other mommy/household duties call. This morning was videos on the couch in PJs day. But this evening.... We had to have a ball. A "cat ball." Katie the dress-up queen wanted us all to dress up like cats and dance around the house. We never did get the ears made, but everyone (except mom, somehow) ended up with gold garland for a tail. It was pretty funny. She is so creative.

Unfortunately, that creativity can extend to danger and destruction when Mommy is otherwise occupied. While I was trying to talk to loan officers this evening, she and B dug into my serger drawer in the dining room, stole the thread to use it as kite string (they were watching the Little Einsteins Dragon Kite episode) and managed to wind it around the middle section of the house, twice, and around Katie at least 4 times. Thank Jesus she finally asked for help. I thought they were just chasing each other around as usual. Not with string. I had to cut her loose. And the house, too. I was pretty irate and yelly about the whole thing. The stress of everything is really getting to me. But in another week or two or ten I will hopefully laugh about the whole thing.

In case I haven't mentioned it, I am loving this phone! As soon as I can figure out a good task list to get on it, that will sync with something on my computer so I can access it either place, I will totally be in business. Meanwhile, it has been fun listening to instrumental Christmas music on Pandora while I am lying down with the little one. (And, I'll admit it, more often than not falling asleep when he does, too! I am totally sleeping for two these days!)

A Year Without - Day 17

2010-12-09T21:50:00.005-07:00

Today was a MOPS day. I like being at MOPS, but the whole getting up early and trying to get everyone ready to be somewhere for 8:45 in the morning kinda ruins the whole experience for me. Today was the Christmas party. We got some neat ornaments with our kiddos' pictures on them. (I helped take a lot of the photos, and was still surprised at how cute they turned out!) There were lots of sweets to eat. Hardly anyone brought anything to drink. I brought apple juice, but only because I'd forgotten that for the Christmas meeting, everyone is supposed to bring something, and I had to grab it in a hurry on the way out the door.

Didn't get to chat with the hubby today, because we were not home. I logged into MSN on the new phone, in case he tried to chat, but he didn't (and I'm not sure I would have heard the notification anyway). But I did get some nice emails from him. :)

Have I mentioned that I LOVE THURSDAYS!?!?!?!? Thursday is housekeeper day. I don't think we've ever needed her more than we did today. Luckily she is very forgiving and flexible. She couldn't even clean for all the random STUFF all over the floor. I asked my kids to help her pick things up and put them away, and to my great surprise it was Katie that actually helped, instead of Sammy who I expected. B needed a nap right about this time, and I unknowingly fell asleep right along with him. Woke up to a picked-up house. It was great!

Tonight the kids Skyped with MawMaw & PawPaw. That was fun. Then Haley came over to babysit while I ran to the bank, looked at a van (**really liked it!!!**), and went to worship team rehearsal.

Missing my honey a lot. Hope I get to talk to him tomorrow!

A Year Without - Day 16

2010-12-08T08:26:00.009-07:00

Benny slept until 7:30 this morning! WOO-HOO!!! The first thing he did was ask for an apple. (Now that we have some more. Glad we got to do PART of our Costco shopping yesterday!)

We found "Dada!!!!" online at 8:10 this morning. That was before he ate supper, so he couldn't chat long. The kids were so happy to see him. (And I too, of course!) B kept saying "Ho (Hello), Dad!... Hi, Dad!... Hey, dad!" It was too cute! He came back later, but unfortunately, the connection was pretty bad (again), so we eventually had to resort to IM (again). :(

Worked on mail/paperwork again today. There is a big honking reusable shopping bag full of it just making me so stressed. (Everything is making me so stressed! I have got to do SOMETHING to alleviate this stress. It is not good for the baby.) So I decided to just tackle it. That meant that the kids went mostly unsupervised for a huge chunk of the day. I cannot deal with paperwork with anything less than full attention. Sometimes even that is not enough for me to know what to do with it all. But I got through a WHOLE LOT of it today. Whew! I do feel a little better.

My phone is dying a slow, noisy, inevitable death. The phone itself is mostly functioning fine, but I COULD NOT get it to charge today. All day long, no matter which way I turned it or how I jiggled the wire, it would not keep a steady connection to charge the battery. After 5 hours of this annoying "boo-BEEP! Bee-BOOP!" crap rattling my very last nerve, and nothing working to get the thing charging (including some battery re-seats, cajoling, and eventually some very choice words I cannot repeat), I admitted defeat.

Awesome Kerry watched my kids at her house tonight so I could gather all the Christmas presents from various places in the house. Unfortunately, I took advantage of their absence to hit the Verizon store and buy a new phone (I thought about trying to do without, but got really nervous at the thought of driving 3 little kids around in the Colorado cold. Especially after our truck left us stranded about 3 or 4 weeks ago!). That ended up taking 1.5 of my 2 hours to get stuff done. Too many decisions. I got a Droid X and eventually ended up taking advantage of their buy one get one free offer to get hubby a global Droid 2, because they told me since he was out of the country we could activate then immediately deactivate the phone, reactivate it when he comes back and not have to pay the internet service fee until then. And if he decides NOT to activate it and keep his old phone, that is apparently OK too.

But that trip left me with only 30 short minutes to sort gifts before Mass. So they didn't get sorted. But at least they all got gathered into one place.

I was feeling so YUCK this evening. Didn't I sleep in this morning? Then why was I SOOOOO tired this evening? I don't remember being so tired in weeks. Or months. Ugh! During the middle of Mass I also realized that I was extremely hungry. Because apparently in the distraction of all that doggoned paperwork, I forgot to eat a real meal, and just snacked all afternoon.

Oh, and after Mass, a friend who I'd sent that help email to told me she'd start checking on me after Christmas. That made me feel a lot better. Especially since I complained about it just yesterday.

Before I picked up the kids, I ran by the grocery store and picked up the Mini Ravioli that I'd been craving for weeks. (Hey, I'm pregnant; don't judge!)

A Year Without - Day 15

2010-12-07T18:30:00.006-07:00

I realized today that we totally forgot to factor in the cost of postage during a deployment. $12.50 a box is *I GUESS* not really that much, but if we mail 2-3 packages a month, it will definitely add up.

Our home alarm randomly started working again. I had thought it wasn't working because there were magnets missing from the hole in the door jam. Turns out there maybe should not have been any. The ones from the door disappeared (kids again, I'm sure) and the alarm suddenly worked. I'm glad. I've been putting off calling around to find a new alarm service. Because ADT wanted me to pay nearly $300 between the trip charge and the parts I thought I needed.

Music class today went much better than last week. For starters, I made Sammy wear pullups. Because I was determined not to have a repeat of last week. Benny and I were able to go to the post office and mail some letters/bills from the paperwork that I worked on yesterday. The kids were reasonably well-behaved, and we were able to run some of our errands afterward instead of having to go straight home.

We had lunch at Costco's hot dog shop, then shopped in the store. Got about halfway through before Katie HAD to go potty. Ugh. This is the OTHER thing, besides getting ready to get out the door, that I find extremely frustrating about having kids. When there's no other grownup to help, and someone has to go potty, whatever anyone is doing has to be completely aborted so everyone can go to the potty. After Costco we FINALLY got Sammy's bloodwork done. He cried the whole time the needle was in his arm. Then the nice man gave him a sucker and he was perfectly fine. He later admitted (when I asked him) that he was crying more because he was scared than because it hurt that badly.

After that, I was done. The kids were happy to be home to play, anyway.

About the time my hubby left, I sent out an email to 25 people asking for help (with the kids, around the house, as I get bigger and less bendy from pregnancy, etc.) I have to say, I am VERY disappointed in the lack of responses. Less than 10 people have even replied. Several of those said they'd get back to me later, and haven't. I am already starting to feel very stressed and overwhelmed, and already at the point where I don't want to ask anyone for help. Which I knew I would get to, although I didn't expect it this soon, but that's WHY I asked for the help when I wasn't stressed, because I knew once I got too stressed I wouldn't be thinking clearly enough to ask or even want to ask for help. I am afraid I am going to burn out the one or two people I do feel comfortable enough to ask for help even when I am stressed.

We didn't get to talk to the Daddy this morning, because we were in music class during his free time before bed. I've been thinking about buying Skype credits so he can call me via Skype and it will on my phone, for times when I'm not at the computer. Or maybe I'll go ahead and get myself the new phone so I can do MMS. (But probably not. I have that emergency fund goal I want to meet first.)

A Year Without - Day 14

2010-12-06T21:34:00.007-07:00

Good morning Benny woke me up at 6:00. I used to love the extra time him waking up allowed me to spend with him. But lately I am SOOOOO tired all the time, I just wish he would learn to sleep a little later. Even 45 minutes would be a big help.

My stinkin' phone refused to turn on today. That made me mad. I am really, really, really trying to make it hold out until we get the emergency savings fund built back up. Eventually I pulled the battery for a bit, and put it back in. That did the trick. But then it kept doing the charge/don't charge/charge/don't charge thing that it does occasionally. It took a little more wiggling of the wire than usual to get it to actually charge.

I tried to work on mail today. Have I mentioned how much I hate mail and paperwork? It stacks up until I think I have time to deal with it, which is almost never. Then I go through it and don't know what to do with all of it. It's so overwhelming. Why can't these people just leave me alone?

We had ANOTHER broken glass incident today. This makes the 3rd one in 2 weeks, if you count the unexplained shard the bottom of my foot found in the kitchen the day my honey left. This time it was in the basement. Benny had broken a glass tealight holder that, as far as I knew, was upstairs in the alcove area. Grrr!

Besides opening the mail, I worked on sorting it into manageable piles. Bills bills bills. Tricare unexplainably denied claims. Paperwork. Yuck! IRS. Paperwork. YUCK! YUCK! YUCK!

I tried unsuccessfully to get the kids ready early enough to get Sam's bloodwork before dance class. They didn't cooperate. By the time we drove by the lab, there was no way we could do the test and get to dance class on time. Grumble.

I had planned to run our other errands (like shopping at Sunflower Market, since we were on that side of town) after dance class, but it was just TOO DOGGONED COLD. And I was feeling pretty down and defeated by that point anyway.

I talked to my aunt, who had once offered to sell me her van if she decided to get a different vehicle, about us needing a van soon. She talked it over with my uncle, and they decided they weren't ready to get rid of it. Which may be just as well. I'd have to drive to Louisiana to get it. And then sell the truck down there. That just sounds like more work than I am up to.

A Year Without - Day 13

2010-12-05T21:41:00.014-07:00

The Skype session with the Daddy did not go so well this morning. The internet connection on his end was Terrible. We ended up just IMing. I really missed seeing his face, although truthfully I think we communicate better via IM than we do any other way. Always have.

The B had diarrhea this morning. I was hesitant about bringing him to church because of it. I do not deal well with having to clean up poop away from home. But there was a lot, so I took the chance that he was cleaned out. He wasn't, but thankfully we didn't learn that until half an hour after we got home from church.

There was some broken glass this morning. I don't even remember what it was at this point. Benny got ahold of something and it broke in the living room. I wish I could say my vacuum sucks. But it sucks. I ran over the area 4 times and was still finding shards I could pick up with my hands. Ugh.

I told the kids it was time to get ready for church, and got the usual "I don't want to go to church!" I told her since there was no Daddy here for her to stay with, she had no choice. This of course made getting everyone READY for church a slow, painful, nobody listening to Mama process. I HATE getting ready to leave the house. It is rarely worth the effort. (Mass, of course, is always one of those times that it IS worth the effort.)

Somehow, even through that, we finally left on time for once. But nobody was fed. I cut some apple slices for them to eat on the way. 3 lights later, I realized I'd forgotten Sammy's EpiPen and inhaler, and had to turn around and go get them. So much for being on time. :(

I didn't know the music we were playing, but I figured, hey, why let that stop me. It's pretty easy to follow along in some kind of rhythmic sense. You know the offertory and communion songs will be slow-ish. And the opening and closing will usually have a faster tempo (although not this week.)

Mass was an adventure, as it usually is with small kids. Kerry, my angel, watched them for me, along with her own, while I attempted to play with the worship team. B took it upon himself to sing his own "Mama Bum!" ("Mama drum!") song QUITE LOUDLY, over and over, while I stood at the congas. Sam melted down after the girl in front of him went to the back and got one of the kids' activity sheets, because he wanted his own. B ran away, out of the sanctuary and into the hallway, and tried to go downstairs to the basement, at least 3 times. It left me wondering whether the effort, and what I'm having to ask of friends to accomplish being able to play, is really worth it.

When we left, there was no snack for K in the truck 'cause she decided she didn't like Pringles, and that was the only thing we had to eat in the truck. But she was hungry (I didn't manage to feed them before we left, like I should have, remember?) so she got into her predictable blood sugar too low/stubborn as she can be mode.

I asked her what kind of snack would make her happy, and she said, "Beans! Monica's tacos!" I'm always up for Monica's/not cooking. And I always know the kids will eat well when we order from there. This time I decided I wanted to try something new. Sammy got the carne asada tacos. I got a supposed bean burrito & and enchilada. When I got home, my "bean" burrito was the usual shredded beef one I get. I was mad. Oh, and we tried their new menu item, churros. B+K ate their usual beans and rice. Lots of them. I thought the food was kind of bordering on blech. Nothing has been tasting good to me lately. Not the Greek food I ate at Kerry's the other night. Not this...

Back at home, the kids destroyed, er... I mean played in, the basement while I wasted time on the computer, and talked to my Granny-Gran for a little while.

The baby has started kicking me when I lie on my belly. I guess (s)he is growing and protesting having his/her space invaded. It's about time to start putting something under me to make a belly hole now, too, I think. There is something noticeable to me there, now, when I lie on my belly. More than just the fat rolls, I mean.

Poor Sammy has been asking every day, "When is Daddy coming home?" Breaks my heart! I'm sure he remembers the answer I give him every time ("Daddy will be gone for a very, very long time. Until some time around Katie's birthday.") and just hopes that at some point the answer will be different.

A Year Without - Day 12

2010-12-04T20:44:00.004-07:00

Another day at home. Everyone woke up pretty early this morning, I think by 7:30. After breakfast, we did our usual cleanup of the living room before Hooray for Huckle (Busytown Mysteries) came on. Only this time, I told them they had to clean up the basement, too. Because I wanted my side of the room back. So I IM'd the Daddy while I supervised. Even though they had like 2.5 hours to get it done, they barely made it. It's hard, cleaning up, when there are so many fun and distracting things to play with.

There was only one episode of Huckle today, due to a basketball game or something, and I forgot to warn them ahead of time, so a meltdown of the 5yo ensued. We flipped through channels and the only thing "kid" on was Cyberchase on one of the Spanish channels. They 4yo insisted on watching it. The crying 5yo could NOT understand why I didn't put it on the English channel for him. So he cried even louder/harder. This led us to a search of Netflix, who luckily had some Cyberchase episodes in their "watch instantly" section.

Kerry came over with her "boys" (hubby and BIL) to help change the 13' high lights in the living room, 3 of the 4 of which had burned out. The first ladder they rented was 16', and too big to stand up in the living room. While they traded it for a 12'er, I went to Lowes to get light bulbs, since I didn't finish running all my errands this week. I got LED bulbs, in the hopes that it would lower my electricity bill AND be longer than 2 years before we need to change those again. I also got some LED reflector floods for the basement, but got confused by the wording in fine print, and may not be able to use them in the can fixtures. I will have to call their customer service department on Monday to find out for sure. And, unfortunately, I've been so mind-frazzled this week, I forgot to pick up anything else I needed from Lowe's. Like plastic film to stop the windows from being so doggoned drafty. Or sealer for the futon frame. Poop. I feel like I'm losing my mind most days, and it's very frustrating!

While they were here, the guys also fixed the drafty door from the house into the garage, and figured out a solution for the front door, which apparently isn't closing properly, fixed Katie's closet door which was off-track, and looked at the hallway closet door and figured out it's missing a roller or something. Wow! I am not used to so many things getting done around here in such a short amount of time. It was extremely nice!

After they left, we all just relaxed together. While I was channel-surfing (I don't know why I even bother. Nothing good EVER comes on. Except Monday and Thursday nights at 7.) I saw on the all-news channel that today was the last day to send to a 093 APO to get it there by Christmas. I didn't know. Glad I got that package in the mail yesterday. But I didn't intend for it to be his Christmas present. :(((

A Year Without - Day 11

2010-12-03T20:43:00.004-07:00

Errands became crucial today, since we never made it out of the house yesterday. We pulled a name off the giving tree at music class, and I didn't realize we were supposed to return the gift to class this week.

After we chatted with the Daddy (Oh, I am loving Skype! Although his connection is usually not great and we usually end up IMing before the conversation is over.) and got dressed, we went to the post office to pick up priority mail boxes, and to Target. Unfortunately, by the time we got to Target, it was 11:00, and I realized I had 3 hungry kids and no snacks. So There I Am, pushing a heavy buggy through Target with 3 hungry, grumpy kids. I told them if they would be on their best behavior and let me get quickly through the store, we'd go out to lunch at their favorite restaurant (Red Robin). The big 2 were FANTASTIC! Only needed to be reminded once, maybe twice. The little one, not so much. It's hard to be 1, and starving, driving through aisles full of fun food and snacks and your mama not letting you have any. I forgave him, and took him out to lunch anyway.

The kids enjoyed Red Robin's new "Ziosk" computer, which had a few games on it. The nice ladies at the table next to us let B have theirs, which they weren't using, so he could play, too.

After reviewing RR's allergy menus, I discovered that I should be asking for "no seasoning" on our fries and Sammy's burger. Or my food for that matter. Because they have soy in their seasoning. Stinkers! (But, at least they don't have soy, milk, or egg in their hamburger buns!)

After lunch we came home to potty, put together the gift for the girl off the giving tree and Daddy's care package, and wait for the repairman to fix our appliances. And, though I didn't know it at the time, for B to finally take a reasonably-houred daytime nap! The repairman was pretty prompt, and the work was quick, and somehow the baby even managed to sleep through all the vacuuming and banging.

After B woke up, we went to Kerry's, where she watched the bigs while B & I went to the post office to mail Daddy's box, and to the music teacher's house to drop off the Santa gift. Then we went to get some takeout for supper. I got Greek for us, and picked up some more of those yummy NYPD wings for Kerry. While we were waiting for the food to be cooked, we strolled over to the Verizon store and checked out the latest phones. I asked the guy if the Droids ever go on sale, and he said the closest thing he's seen to it is their BOGO deal right now. I told him that didn't matter, because my hubby was in Afghanistan for the next year and didn't need a cell phone. He told me I could buy it anyway, and just leave it in the box for the next year. It was a little tempting, except that my hubby does not want a phone with internet access, and I am pretty sure Verizon corporate would have something nasty to say about me taking a free phone and not activating it.

We had dinner, and the kids played, and stayed too late at Kerry's. Came home and pretty much collapsed into bed. Fun day, mostly, but I probably should be more careful in the future not to let myself get this tired!

A Year Without - Day 10

2010-12-02T09:45:00.002-07:00

It was a long night last night. Sam woke up at least twice during the night. And the B, who didn't nap yesterday until 4, and then didn't wake up from that nap, woke up at midnight demanding food. Somehow he managed to go back to sleep after I fed him an orange (at his request. Not my first choice for a midnight snack, for sure!). He woke up for good at 5:30. Or at least that's when he woke me up, complaining that it's "die-eek! Die-eek, Mama!" (dark)

I needed to run a thousand errands today. Get & deliver gifts for the girl whose name we picked off the giving tree at music class. Get Sammy's blood allergy test done (like 6 weeks overdue now), grocery shopping at 3 or 4 different stores, look for stuff to put in a care package for the Daddy, library... Whew! And on a normal day with kids, about 3 places is my limit. But when I have to stand out in the cold waiting for them to get situated so I can buckle their seat belts... 1 or 2 and I'm about done.

The Daddy was online for quite a bit this morning. It was so nice to chat with him, and I didn't want it to end. Yet every second that ticked by, I heard our chances of actually getting out the door to run the errands slip, slip, slipping away. After our nice long chat, which ended about 11, everyone needed lunch. By the time lunch was over, Mr. 5:30 a.m. was tired. By the time he woke up at 2:30, I pretty much gave up on running errands. I knew it would be at least 3:30 before we could even get out of the house, and would be dark before we finished even the second one. So I decided for my own sanity it would be better to try again tomorrow.

'Cause some days are just like that around here.

A Year Without - Day 9

2010-12-01T16:12:00.003-07:00

Busy day at home today. I actually got to sleep in until 6:30 this morning. That was pretty nice! The kids wanted oat bran for breakfast. Good thing we haven't run out of that yet! Unfortunately, we have run out of my dairy-free soy-free butter-substitute, which made it less enjoyable for me. Oh, well. I will make it to the store one of these days.

B has had some stinky, runny poops today. I wonder if that was part of Sammy's problem with not going to the bathroom at music class yesterday.

I spent pretty much the whole morning cleaning up for repairmen who were coming after lunch. Every room of the house was a disaster. We got the main floor looking pretty nice, and shoved the toys back to the kids' side of the basement to make a path to the mechanical room in the basement. We had a heater checkup, during which the guy also checked out our humidifier (which we had turned off for making really strange whining noises) and said he couldn't find anything wrong with it, except for the pad needing changed. The appliance repair guy also came this afternoon, fixed the burned-out oven heating element (apparently when they die, that is how they go, and I didn't have anything to do with it, except that I was the one who happened to turn it on.) He also fixed our bum icemaker and didn't charge me. The tube that brings water in from the back of the freezer was frozen over. Nothing was busted like we thought. All he did was took out that tube, ran it under warm water, and replaced it. Wish I had known that 2 years ago!!! He will come back in a couple of days to fix the washer and dryer, which are 11 years old and not behaving entirely correctly.

If you are in my city and need an appliance repair guy, I highly recommend him. He was very friendly, and his rates were great! Sam at Citywide Appliance Service

After he left, I decided it was too late to run any errands, so I washed 4 loads of laundry, and we went to bed.

Nothing exciting going on here. (Which is just fine with me!)

A Year Without - Day 8

2010-11-30T05:40:00.007-07:00

I have been up since about 3:30 today. I heard Sammy miserably crying "Maaaaaama!" several times. He told me his feet hurt. When I asked where, he pointed to his arches. I massaged them, and he said they felt better. I covered him up, turned up the heater because it was FREEZING in the house, and he went right back to sleep.

It is extremely drafty in this house this year. We are having to set the heater higher than normal in order not to be unbearably cold. Even our guests commented on it. I guess I need to get window film from Lowe's and cover the windows.

I couldn't get back to sleep, so I tried to write, get some laundry done, and work on the mail. But when I got to the laundry, B heard me and decided to investigate. When he saw me, he said his usual "Eeeeeeeat!"

So I cooked breakfast. We had a little bit left of the "natural" pork sausage Costco started carrying. I really like this one, and hope they don't go back to the other. I decided I REALLLLLLY wanted eggs over medium and some toast to dip in the yolks. I overcooked my eggs, and set the oven on fire making the toast. (It was quite pretty. The heating element on the bottom lit up and burned around like a sparkler. Unfortunately, as we found out later, it left me with a non-functioning oven. And untoasted bread.)

We didn't get to talk to the Daddy when he got off of work this morning (night time for him) because we were already gone to music class. :(

Sammy had a poop accident in his pants during Benny's music class. And didn't tell me. Later, during his class, the teacher came out and asked me if I had any extra pants for him. When I went to clean him up, oh the mess! He had nasty, thick, sticky, sandy poop down both legs, almost to his socks. When I asked him why he didn't go to the potty, he said, "I was having too much fun playing with the toys." I was very lucky that the teacher's daughter had extra pants for her kids, that she let us borrow. And wipies. It took nearly half a pack to clean him up.

It was not a good day for me. Waking up at 3, ruining my eggs, the flaming oven, and now this. I was the camel's back, and that was my straw.

When they started giving me flak about getting buckled and being hungry in the truck, I yelled at everyone. I could not take any more. I told the kids we were going to go home, they were going to eat whatever I decided to fix them, and they were going to take a nap. And THEN we could talk about reading our new books. They must have figured out that I meant business, because they were all silent on the way home. Even though I turned off the music. Because I was so past the end of my rope, I couldn't take that, either.

B fell asleep on the way home (not surprising considering his wakeup time) so I put him down to nap on the bed as soon as we got home. Then I tried to figure out what to do about lunch. My original plan had been to grab lunch at the Costco deli and do some shopping, take Sammy to get some arch supports for his shoes at Junior Bootery, and a half a dozen other errands that are about to go stale. But now we had to go straight home. I was so exhausted from being hopping mad and being up since 3, I couldn't figure out what to fix. So I opened up and warmed up a can of beans. And told them that's what they were getting, and I didn't want to hear anything back except "Yes, ma'am." or "Thank you, Mama." When it was heated up, I apologized for letting my anger get the best of me, but Katie sat on the couch harumphing and crossing her arms as tightly as she could across her chest over and over, and giving me the stinkiest stink-eye that ever did stink. (I highly suspect that my picking up on/assuming the feelings of those I'm close to has passed on to the next generation. Great. I'm going to have to be very careful about controlling strong emotions now.)

We had a playdate scheduled in the late afternoon. I was SO drained I thought about cancelling it. But I was SOOOOO drained, I thought it might be better to have someone else entertaining the kids so I could nap, cool down, or whatever else might bring me back to an even keel.

After lunch, I had Senor Poopy Butt take a bath, which he wouldn't do without me in the room to supervise. Then I sent him and his sister off to watch a movie so I could nap with the baby. Not sure how long I was out (maybe 50 minutes?) but when I woke up, I was alone, and heard them all 3 playing elsewhere while the movie was still running in their bedroom.

Our playdate came, and the company helped my blood pressure a lot. Zachary distracted Sammy and Katie in the basement. Benny popped back and forth between the kids and the grownups. I was going to make steak and sweet potato fries for supper, but when I turned on the oven, it never preheated. So we went to plan B - pizza & wings from NYPD Pizzeria. Kerry worked on her Jesse tree ornaments, and I just sat around like a bump on a log. Because that was all I had the energy to do.

The Daddy had said he might try to get up early and Skype with us, since he missed us that morning. But we didn't hear from him. That's probably okay. I collapsed into bed shortly after the playdates left, about 8, and was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

A Year Without - Day 7

2010-11-29T20:46:00.006-07:00

Still feeling blah today, although I did manage to actually get some stuff done. This morning we cleaned the "grown-up" half of the big room in the basement. I.e. reclaimed it from all the toys that had migrated over but weren't supposed to be there.

Some time in the last few months, we started catching a Denver PBS station (12) in addition to our local one. While we were in the basement, I re-searched for channels on that box, and was surprised that it found it. There was a lot of interference, though. We really need a stronger antenna for that location.

We had leftover turkey and green beans for lunch. And Katie had her favorite "cucumbeh salad" with the last cucumber.

This evening we had dance class. We managed to forget the shoe bag, and I didn't realize it until we were 5 minutes down the road. So we had to turn around, and that made us really late. I hate being late!

On the way home, in the 22-degree freezing cold, Benny, for unbeknownst reasons, refused to get buckled. And fought with me for at least 5 minutes until I could force him into his buckles. NOT FUN. I look forward to getting a minivan so I can get it, get the heater going, and buckle the kids in from INSIDE the vehicle.

That pretty much sapped the little bit of energy I'd managed to muster. I stopped at our favorite drive-thru, Monica's Tacos, for supper. They only gave me one order of beans instead of two, and they put cheese on the beans in my burrito plate, when I specifically asked for "No cheese on anything." Is it Monday?

This evening the kids watched Bob the Builder on Netflix in the basement while I Skyped with my mom, and worked on a photo project for a friend. (And tried to watch House, but it was a rerun.) Then everyone got a bath (well, everyone but mom) and we went to bed. The closest thing we've had so far to an ordinary day.

On the way up the stairs, and every time I got out of the rocking chair today, I noticed that my belly was feeling really heavy. The baby must have had a growth spurt yesterday. Maybe that explains why had no energy!

A Year Without - Day 6

2010-11-28T09:21:00.007-07:00

Happy Birthday to my love!!!

I have been up 3:30 this morning. I am not sleeping well. Any night. Last night I kept dreaming I would sleep through a Skype call from my hubby. Then I'd wake up to check, but there was nothing. THEN, I'd toss and turn for a while before I could fall back to sleep. Repeat all night, until I give up trying to rest. I guess I am more anxious to talk to him than I realize. (So if you talk to me, and I seem extra-distracted, or extra-grumpy, now you know why. And I'm sorry!)

The kids woke up with runny noses this morning, and we ran out of our liquid Vitamin D yesterday. :( They were also CRAZY today - Katie and Benny, usually my two peas in a love pod, were yelling and fighting with each other all morning. I don't know if I should attribute it to missing Dad, or being sick, or being hungry (it got better after lunch), or what. I don't know if I even care. I'm just glad it stopped. I couldn't take much more of it. I am starting to think that my ability to cope is directly related to my level of rest.

Today I am feeling physically blah. I don't know if it's the bad sleep, or that I've forgotten to take my vitamins (I can't even remember whether I remembered to take them or not. How sad is that?) or that I've been eating white rice and too much (not white) bread lately, or what. I basically sat in the rocking chair in the living room most of the day, unable to do much more than sit.

There are a bunch of light bulbs burned out around here. Most of them happened before the tall man left. Why I did not get more and insist that he replace them before he left, when I know I can barely reach them on the stepstool and should not be reaching on a stepstool in my condition, I do not know. (Oh, yes I do. It's because my ability to plan ahead functions at about 25% most days. That is not a skill anyone ever taught me. And now I'm just an old dog.)

People keep saying that I am strong. I'm not so sure about that. I'm doing what I have to do for the good of my family. Am I strong just because I'm not having a mental breakdown every day? Or running home to my Mama. (I seriously considered it. Some other day I'll talk about why I decided not to.) It's not like I haven't begged at least 25 local people for help while he is gone. How strong does that sound?

My 5yo pulled off his toenail today. The whole thing. His 2nd toe had been looking infected. We put triple antibiotic on it for a few nights, and that made it look better. When Robyn got here, she told me that his toe looked exactly like what eczema has done to one of her toes in the past. I have no experience with eczema, so I hadn't even considered that as a cause. But I put his steroid cream on it, and that made it look better, too. Anyway, today when I went to check it, I noticed the nail was missing. I asked him if he pulled it off or it fell off, and he said he pulled it off. (Blech!!!) When I asked him why, he said it was hurting. I had no idea it was hurting, because every time I check it, I poke and prod it and ask him if it hurts, and he always says "No, it doesn't hurt." Boys!

This afternoon Kerry's husband and live-in BIL picked up the innerspring futon mattress they'd let us borrow for David and Robyn's visit, so David wouldn't have to sleep on an air mattress with his pelvis injury. While they were here, I asked them to pull down all our Christmas boxes from the high shelf in the garage. The kids were SOOOOOO excited! They couldn't wait to put up the tree. As in they wanted to put it up before our friends even left! The stand to our full-sized tree broke several years ago, so the only functional tree we have is a 3' one. But that's a good size for a mama who is feeling quite overwhelmed. We put the tree on a table in the corner of the living room. As fast as I could pull ornaments out of the box, they would each come back for another and run to put it on the tree. When I broke the first ball, I decided to mostly skip the breakable stuff. This turned out to be a good decision, as they mostly can't keep their curious little fingers off their favorite ornaments.

Early morning I finally got to IM and briefly Skype with my honey. :D It was so nice to see him. The anxiety that I'd been carrying, that I wasn't even aware of, is mostly gone now. The kids were so very happy to see him, too. He is very loved, and very missed. (And hopefully I will sleep better tonight than I have been.)

Chicks and Salsa

2010-11-28T05:05:00.000-07:00

Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My kids LOOOOOVE this book! The 1yo makes me read it to him every time he sees it! They all love to yell "Ole!" with me after the animals try new foods.

View all my reviews

A Year Without - Day 5

2010-11-27T21:57:00.006-07:00

I deemed today "catch-up day." There was so much laundry to be done. At least 4 loads lurking on my bathroom floor, 2 comforters and a sleeping bag littering the laundry room floor, plus random pieces strewn all over the house. (Have you ever played the "Nanny Mania" game? I used to think it was rather far-fetched, until my kids started getting big enough to undress themselves, and help themselves to things in the kitchen!) I am not usually this bad about washing the laundry (putting it away, yes, but not washing it), but I got behind when I had to wash so many sheets, etc. during last week's stomach virus. I also had an extra load or two of dirty dishes, due to being more interested in visiting with my company than cleaning my house during the short time they were here. I did well until about 3:30 p.m., when I just lost all my steam. Oh well. There is always tomorrow to finish. Or next week.

Today we introduced two of our friends to Skype. Kerry has an Android phone, and I was/am curious how its Skype app works, since that is the kind of phone I hope to get when I can finally replace my Palm Treo dinosaur, so I convinced her to set up an account. We chatted on our computers for a little while, and hopefully will get to try the phone here in the coming week. Then I had the brilliant idea to ask my Roomie if she had Skype. She didn't, but set it up, and we were able to chat with AND SEE her and Mason this afternoon. That was fun!!! I am sure we will be doing it on a regular basis, if we can mesh our schedules.

Poor B, both times he heard the Skype ring today, came running to computer, excitedly saying "Daaaaaaaaaad!!!" And was a bit sad when I told him it was not Dad, but someone else.

On the "Pu'up" front, B is still adamant about only wearing them, and not diapers. I suppose after almost a week of this, I should admit defeat and pack up the diapers to get them out of the way.

This evening as I was nursing B to sleep, I noticed that my Skype online status was set to "invisible." I wondered if that was why I hadn't heard from my hubby. I changed it. Hopefully I will get a call from him tonight.

A little later, while I was writing this post, Katie came running up to my bedroom from the basement, with tears in her eyes, saying "I thought you were gone!" I can see I'm not the only one severely missing The Daddy.

When he was going to bed, Sammy couldn't find his most favorite stuffed animal "Ophiana," an echidna we got from our Australian IACE exchange cadets back when we lived in NM, nor the "comic book" that Aunt Robyn had helped him write while they were here, which he desperately wanted for a bedtime story. This ensued a 30+ minute failure of a search, all over the house. Eventually I convinced him to give up, but not without many tears.

Overall I think I can safely say we are hanging in there pretty well so far. Yes, everyone is more emotional than usual, and yes, we are experiencing a lot more tears. But with love and hugs and prayers, I think we will get through it.

A Year Without - Day 4

2010-11-26T21:54:00.005-07:00

I usually avoid the Black Friday shopping madness, but our new Cloth Diaper Market had a super-fabulous deal (like almost 50% off) on something I'd been eyeing for the kids for almost a year. (It's a surprise; you'll have to wait a month to see what it is.) So I left the kids in Robyn's care and took off for a tiny bit of alone time.

When I got home, David and Robyn were trying to make some copies made for something they had to get in the mail today, but we discovered the kids had most inconveniently used the last sheets of printer paper to make comic books or art or something. So I ran to Costco to get another pack of paper. And picked up some more printer ink while I was there. Not a trip I'd planned, but at least I was able to pop in and out without dealing with kids and carseat buckles in the freezing cold.

Rachel turned 10 last week. While she was here, I asked her what she wanted for her birthday. She eventually settled on us all going to play Glow Golf. Katie had a free pass that she won on hole 18 when we went there for Zachary's birthday party in July. Because of David's injury and his difficulty walking, we had to get him a wheelchair. That was a bit of an adventure in itself, as one of the footrests broke pretty much immediately after he sat in it. The kids all had fun playing Glow Golf while Robyn (with David in tow) got some shopping done at a store she likes but doesn't have back home. Kerry, Zachary, and Uncle Andy met us at Glow Golf, but then Zachary took off for the opposite course after we started playing, so we didn't get to talk to them much. We tried to play both courses, but my kids were done about halfway through the second one. Katie got another free pass on hole 18, and Sammy was super-sad that he did not. Sammy attempted the laser maze, although the noise inside it really got to him, and he got scared halfway through. Rachel tried it, too.

By this time it was past time to go, and Benny was melting down. I don't recall him not getting enough sleep last night, but only 2 or 3 other times in his life have I seen him SO upset from being overtired. He started crying when I wouldn't change his pullup on the kiddy jump seat in the mommy's bathroom (like that's even possible!) and screamed pretty much all the way home.

It turned out to be a good decision that I made the gumbo yesterday, because I would not have had the time or energy to do it today. I left it on low while we were golfing, so it was warm and waiting for us when we got back home.

We spent the rest of the day lazing around, kids playing Wii, grownups eating gumbo and talking. Our guests left after supper, so they would be able to make Rachel's skating show rehearsal tomorrow morning. Not long after that, I put B to bed, relaxed a bit myself, and then got the bigs in bed.

This morning I figured out that even though I hadn't heard personally from the hubby, he had actually made a few posts on Facebook. So at least I knew indirectly he was OK. Still looking forward to a personal email or a late-night Skype from him.

A Year Without - Day 3

2010-11-25T13:57:00.011-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have so much to be thankful for this year. Babies. Baby on the way. An income for our family, generated by someone who loves us so much, he'd even endure going away to provide for us. Climate control. Warm clothes. A pantry, freezer, and fridge full of food. Friends here to celebrate with us. God is great!

This is the first year I didn't have to set an alarm to get the turkey cooking. Benny's normal 6:30 wake-up was just the right time. (Although, honestly, if it hadn't been, we would have snacked more and eaten later. Because I was tired.) Unfortunately, I was so tired at that hour of the morning, I didn't even notice that I put the turkey in the roasting pan UPSIDE DOWN. But it turned out to be a fortunate mistake. It was THE juciest turkey I've ever made. David even thought I'd done it on purpose.

It was a nice, relaxed day. Just like we like our holidays around here. Cooking in the morning. Eating lunch (but not gorging on it until we were miserable! A big key to actually enjoying the holidays!) and relaxing in the afternoon/evening.

Here is our menu for the day:

Salad (Spinach, Romaine, Roma Tomatoes, Mini Cucumbers)

Wild Rice Blend

Green Beans (flavored nicely with Newman's Own Tuscan Italian Dressing)

Baked Sweet Potatoes (the way God made them, not adulterated with marshmallows or any of the other things I don't understand why people put into them)

Cranberry Relish (WOW! Going to make this stuff every year from now on!)

Turkey (I use The FlyLady's Recipe)

Apple Pie (photo on yesterday's post)

Peach Cobbler

I was rather proud of myself that everything on the table started out fresh, not canned or frozen (well, except for the pie crusts), and was healthy for everyone at the table, despite 4 of the 7 of us having multiple allergies, intolerances, and other food issues.

Some time in the afternoon, I decided to make tomorrow's gumbo today. I remembered that somehow, I always end up making David's gumbo the last day he's in town, and it always tastes so much better the next day, after he's long gone. So this year I was determined to fix that. It made for a long day of cooking, but I think was ultimately worth it. I unfortunately didn't remember that there was NO ROOM IN THE FRIDGE for a giant pot of gumbo, nor were there any/enough containers to hold all seven quarts of it. Robyn wisely pointed out that it was below freezing outside, so we ended up putting the whole pot in the bed of my truck in the garage. Hooray for Colorado weather!

While I was cooking the gumbo, Robyn & David napped again. The kids played a lot of multiplayer Super Mario Brothers on the Wii. Even Katie got in on the game. They seemed to really enjoy it.

Later in the evening, I finally had some free time to show Rachel Dance Dance Revolution, like I'd been wanting to since she arrived. She was really good at it! (It was a lot of fun, but I should not have turned off the jumps before I tried to play. Even though I was wearing a belly band, and holding my belly for the jumps, and even though this baby only weighs 6 oz., I was SOOOOOORE when it was all over.)

Katie and Rachel (and R&D&I) watched like 4 or 5 episodes of Liberty's Kids before I had to get the big kids ready for bed. Poor B had fallen asleep sprawled out on the floor before I even finished the gumbo!

I waited all day to hear from my honey, but there was nothing. I am trying not to think about how sad that made me. Hopefully he is OK, and will Skype me tonight. (And hopefully I will not be so exhaustedly asleep that I will miss it.)

A Year Without - Day 2

2010-11-24T20:18:00.008-07:00

Today went by pretty quickly. Poor Rachel got woken up when B made me go downstairs for something to "eeeeeat! Me eeeeeat!" and "ink! Mama ink!" about 6:30. The other kids weren't too far behind in waking. We had a nice and leisurely breakfast of oat bran (which B won't eat), eggs (which S can't eat), and toast (which K won't eat). But I couldn't get it ready fast enough for hungry B, who found the leftover blueberry pie on the countertop, and kept saying, "Pie-ee!" over and over and over. I never did manage to convince him that we were saving the pie for after lunch. But eventually he realized I wasn't going to give him any now, and ate what I gave him. (But when he wasn't looking, I stirred some of the juice and blueberries into my and Sammy's oat bran. Sneaky mommy!)

David and Robyn slept in a little, despite the kid noise, which was good, since they didn't arrive until close to 2.

I didn't get to go shopping for the last-minute groceries the day before, with all the cleaning, and the being too sad to get dressed, but that worked out OK. The bigs stayed home and played with Rachel, and Robyn decided to accompany me to Costco.

Just as I was getting ready to leave, my computer started mysteriously ringing. It was The Daddy. Hooray for Skype! It was so nice to see his face, and hear his voice. He had finally arrived at his hotel in Doha, Qatar. It was about 11:00 here, so the poor guy had been travelling for 30 hours. All the kids got to say hi to him. I could have talked all day, but I could tell he desperately needed sleep. And the groceries weren't going to get themselves. He said he'd call again when he could. I hope he is able to call before he checks out of the hotel in another few hours. Yes, I'll be asleep, but it may be the last chance he gets for a reliable internet connection for quite a while.

I made my first apple pie this evening, while the guests caught a nap. (Or maybe it was my second. I can't remember.) I used the bought crust, so it wasn't homemade. But that was the plan all along. There's only so much I can do in one day. I did slice and peel the apples myself. David has Type 2 diabetes, so I had to use splenda instead of sugar. (We usually try to stay away from the artificial chemicals around here.) All I did was mix the apples, some Splenda, a generous helping of cinnamon, and a couple of teaspoons of No-Egg (for thickener) around in bowl. I even figured out how to lattice the top. When I pulled the extra crust from around the sides, a bit of inspiration hit.

(Unfortunately, I am no artist, and it turned out looking more like a cherry than an apple. And next time I need to remember to use more apples/make a heaping mound under the crust. The pie was a little too sunken.)

Robyn introduced me to cranberry relish tonight. Wow! All I could say was, "Why would anyone eat canned cranberry CRAP when they could have this?!?!?!" It was amazing. So fresh. So REAL FOOD. All she did was mix a bag of cranberries, an orange, 3-4 cups of pecans, and a bit of Splenda (again, we would normally use turbinado or honey or something around here. But we didn't want to upset David's blood sugar) in a food processor. It was a good thing she made such a big batch, because Rachel had a bowl of it as soon as she figured out what was going on in the kitchen. ;)

The kids had a fabulous time playing with Rachel today. Sammy showed her some Wii games, and Katie played with the Dora toys that Rachel had handed down to her last year or the year before. Katie was hanging on her all day. And Rachel was eating it up. It warms my heart so much to see them loving on each other.

The B decided today that he no longer wears diapers. Occasionally he'd been wearing Sammy's "pu'ups" after bath, just like Sammy. Today there was no diapering. Any time I mentioned the word diaper, the reply was an adamant "Pu'up!!!!" So while we were at Costco, I bought him some in his size. I am not happy AT ALL about this development. I didn't (and don't want to) factor the cost of multiple daily pull-ups into the budget. And I don't want to think about those nasty chemicals on my baby's bottom. But even the pull-up-type cloth we have is still a diaper to him. And he is INSISTENT! I guess next week we might have to start really working on the potty thing, to see if we can make these things last longer. Changing poopy pullups is only slightly worse than changing poopy underwear. (Hmmm, there's a thought. I wonder if he'd wear the training underwear if I pulled it out of storage. I might try that if I can ever get caught up on the laundry.) Oh, and I wish Huggies would print the sizes on these stinkin' things!

Today, again, we were a little too busy to be sad about the absent Daddy. But in retrospect, his presence was greatly missed. I couldn't help thinking how he would have been sitting in his rocking chair, telling stories with David all day long, chasing the kids, catching my eye and giving me a bit of a smile when he thought nobody was looking. I hope he is getting some good rest in that hotel bed right now. No telling what kind of accommodations he will have when he gets to his final destination.

Love you, honey!

A Year Without - Day 1

2010-11-23T20:53:00.004-07:00

The daddy left via cab at 5:15 this morning. Until 12 hours before that, we had thought his flight out was in the evening. It's a good thing we are flexible in this house.

At lunchtime I told the kids that we would officially declare our house a "safe place to talk about feelings." Then I told them that I was feeling sad that Daddy was gone, and that I missed him. Sam said he was feeling, "glad. Because Daddy has a job." Our boy is very astute, and I think he was picking up on how NOT having a job was affecting his Daddy. Katie said, "I am feewing EXCITED!" When I asked her why, she said it was because her Daddy was earning money to take care of us. The B indicated that he was happy, because his cup was "Aah-whoa" (his favorite color).

There was not much time to be sad today, though. Our Thanksgiving guests will arrive from New Mexico some time while we are asleep. We spent the whole day cleaning and organizing. Nobody in this house can seem to pack for a trip without leaving the house looking like a tornado hit it. (Don't take that as a complaint. I do realize I am the biggest culprit. Luckily, yesterday, *I* wasn't packing.) I'd managed to get the guest room straightened enough last week, but today we still had to pick up toys from the basement, hallway, living room, and dining room, get the dining room table cleaned off, catch up on the dishes so we could find the countertops, vac all the carpets... You get the idea. It was a very busy day. We didn't finish, but I was ready to collapse onto a soft bed. And of course the kids won't get themselves ready for bed. So I called it good enough. The guests have a clear path to their sleeping places, and there's nothing growing in the bathrooms. Anything else is just icing anyway.

We had blueberry pie for supper tonight. I bought a box of 8 pie crusts at Costco a few weeks back, because Sammy had been asking about making a pie for a while, and they miraculously didn't have any eggs, peanuts, dairy, or soy in them. Yes, I *should* make my own crust, but I figure I can attempt that after I get the fillings figured out. Anyway, I wanted to make a pie with this crust before I attempt to do one for Thanksgiving dinner. And after I made the pie, I was too tired (read lazy) to make anything else for dinner. I only used 1 cup of sugar instead of the 2 the recipe called for. It was plenty sweet enough, but it was super-runny. Next time I need to make sure to put some kind of thickener in it.

NOW there is time to be sad. I miss my honey. When I'm tired or sad (and tonight I'm both) there's no better place to rest my head than the hollow of his shoulder. It will be months before I can do that again. I look forward to it.

A Year Without

2010-11-23T06:26:00.001-07:00

My awesome hubby took a job away from us for a year. We won't get to see him much while he's gone, but we should be able to communicate often enough via Skype and email, and in a more one-sided manner, through this blog.

I've been toying with the idea of playing one of the post-a-day games that other people are doing on their blogs. I had thought I'd do photos. But this seems like the kind of thing I'd like to keep a journal of. And there's not much chance I'll actually sit down and hand-write anything.

So here goes nothing. I don't promise to actually write every day. But I will try to write about every day. (Then I will be sneaky and back-date it, so nobody knows just how sporadic and inconsistent I really am.)

Library book

2010-07-04T17:45:00.001-06:00

Space Pirates: A Map-Reading Adventure by Scoular Anderson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My map-loving 5yo really loved this book. It's good for teaching or reinforcing kids' map skills, but he might have been just a little young for it.

View all my reviews >>

Pancake Faces

2010-06-03T10:05:00.000-06:00

5-31-2010

Cool New Socks

2010-03-23T18:16:00.000-06:00

My big boy requested that I put a picture of his new socks on my blog. He specifically asked for the blog, and not Facebook, so "everybody in the whold world" could see them.

His sister is just as proud of her new socks, and wanted to show hers off, too.

Wish they made cool socks like this in my size. :(

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Why you should never

2010-03-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

...leave your precocious preschooler unattended with new bottles of finger paints.

Hoarders, part 3

2010-03-04T20:16:00.009-07:00

Here I am in my brokenness. The bare-naked, butt-ugly truth that is my mess.

I haven't seen the top of my desk since sometime in the Fall of 2009.

The basement is, as always, a disaster. I'm surprised we haven't lost any kids in there yet!

The laundry facilities. Not good, but they have been so much worse.

Our "shoe bench" that no one has ever been able to sit on, in the 2+ years we've had it. As you may have guessed from the pile of stuff in front of it, some days we are lucky to even get to it.

Our homeschooling shelves look nice and neat and organized...

...but good luck getting to them!

We haven't seen the kitchen countertop in at least a month.

The map that the kids keep knocking over and leaving on the floor. And the old picture frames that need new pictures and a home on the wall.

A basket of WHO KNOWS WHAT that has plagued various rooms in my house for the last 2? 3? years. (Victory note: I went through half of this basket with the help of my housekeeper, and found the title and lien release to my husband's car which has been lost for... 3 years?)

My dining room table, which is almost never clean to eat on.

The hallway that is almost always littered with something. Or many things.

The pathway to my bedroom, littered with toys.

The countertop in what used to be my husband's bathroom (off his computer room). It should now be my kids' bathroom. If only their lazy (overwhelmed) parents would get their crap outta there!

The usual state of the kitchen sink. Although the dishwasher runs 1-3 times per day here, we are perpetually 1-2 loads behind.

The cluttered cookbook corner.

More lost kitchen countertops.

The inside of my bathroom cabinet, which has been 1/3 emptied by a little monkey who left its other contents all over my bathroom floor.

Two boxes of random crap that I cleaned up from the bathroom counter & floor. Oh how I wish I was one of those people who could just dump the contents into the trash instead of having to go through them all!

My bed. In my defense, I usually do try to keep it cleaned off, and this particular day was using it as a staging area to bag up things we're not currently using like outgrown kid clothes and maternity clothes. (Yes, my baby is 13 months old and I have not put away the maternity clothes yet.)

My bedroom floor. I can barely move around in here.

If you were to go upstairs in my house, you might think I was a collector of porcelain shoes. However, if you were to ask me about them, you'd find out the truth. The collection belonged to my grandmother. They were very special to her. I ended up with them and feel too guilty about keeping them around, but also too guilty to let them go.

The banister top, which in theory should contain nothing. (Yes that is toddler art on my wall. From the 2nd toddler. It's been there at least 2 years.)

A box of random junk just inside my bedroom door.

The nightmare that is my closet.

The bathroom countertop, after I cleaned 2/3 of the stuff off of it.

So... now you can see why I'm at the end of my rope. Yet, I still struggle mightily with throwing anything away. Even though I am reasonably certain there is peace on the other side. (There is, isn't there?)

Smoothie!

2010-03-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

We've been experimenting with whole food smoothies the last month or so. This yummy concoction had: 1/2 banana, 1/2 pear (with peelings), 1/2 apple (with peelings), a handful of spinach, a handful of baby carrots, 1/2 a roma tomato, 1 cup chopped pineapple, 1 cup green grapes, and 1.5 cups of frozen blueberries. Add just enough water to get the blender going, and blend on the highest setting for several minutes. Yum!!!

Random Breakfast

2010-03-04T19:51:00.000-07:00

Frosty Beauty

2010-03-04T19:36:00.000-07:00

2-20-10 Snow Day!

2010-03-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

Sammy had a sore throat and didn't want to go out in the cold. But the other two had a blast and a half playing in the snow while we shoveled/swept!

Pattern Boards

2010-03-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

... and other imaginative adventures!

Love Notes

2010-03-04T19:22:00.000-07:00

Artwork

2010-03-03T11:14:00.008-07:00

"A fish and a turtle are going to be eaten by a whale. Yonah is going to be drying off by a fire. And the turtle is trying to save his brother from the whale. There's a bunch of... well, a pelican is landing on an island. This bad guy (bottom right-hand corner) is wanting to stop Jonah with his magic wand. A whale is spraying water out of his blow-hole. These fish are going to get its brother while it's eating lunch. So I tried to get all the crystals. It was the only way to stop the bad guys. Because they were afraid of light, and all the crystals had light. If he collected them. That's a door (upper right-hand corner). And it has a crystal behind it."

"It's a bunch of bad guys over here. They look mean, but they're kind of friendly. A few of them have spikes. But this one (right side) has a taaaaaalll spike. And this (middle) is a silly one. He has no feet, and he only flies. This one (left) has flying feet and a tooth sticking out of his mouth and one eye. And so does this one (middle). He looks like him, incept he is looking blue instead of red. This one (???) has a few spikes, but not many spikes. This one (top left) has a magic wand poking out of his head."

Hoarders, part 2

2010-02-12T09:45:00.010-07:00

So there I was, stewing in my own self-conscious guilt about why I have never been able to get rid of useless junk like a normal person, and not able to come up with any insights. All this stuff had been floating around in my head for many months. At least since Kristy made her teaser post about organizing last September.

Meanwhile, one of my friends on Facebook was posting about making her packrat husband throw out all his old love letters from his ex-girlfriend. And I thought, "But you're not supposed to throw away old letters!"

Why do I think this way???

I was pretty sure that someone, somewhere had the answer. Written down. I didn't care if I had to trudge my way through a psych textbook to find it. I needed it, and I was GOING TO find it.

In desperation, I poked around the Hoarders website, and ended up at childrenofhoarders.com's Understanding Hoarding page. It had lots of links and was pretty overwhelming, (I am really starting to think that the older I get, the worse my ADD-like tendencies get. Especially since FB. But that is another rant for another day.) but I did notice there was a short book list. I got on Amazon and looked for those books and added them to my cart. Then, like the good little money-conscious wifey that I would like to be, I ignored the cart and looked for them in my library's online catalog.

I found a few - not the one I most wanted to read, but decided that was OK (this is big. The old me would have gone back to the Amazon tab and ordered it on the spot!) and hoped the others would still be helpful. While I was waiting for the books to arrive I saw the 40 Trash Bag Challenge on Sue's Blog and thought, "How timely!" A few days later I saw it again in a link Danielle Bean posted on Facebook. I loved the idea, but didn't start it. The problem, again, lies in actually being able to make the decision to put things IN the bag.

"Why, oh why, can't I do this?!?!?!?!?! What in the world is wrong with me?!?!?!"

Hoarders, part 1

2010-02-11T21:11:00.004-07:00

Have you seen A&E's Hoarders? I saw some friends chatting about it on ~~TimeSuck~~ Facebook and was immediately curious. We don't get cable/satellite here, but I've been watching episodes on the website. They put up a new one every week.

I suspect the show was started for shock value, to make you wonder how anyone could live like that. But I cried all through the first episode I watched, because I could totally relate to the hoarders. I looked around my house and wondered if they might be coming for me next. Realistically, my house is not nearly bad enough for them. But to me it seems like it is! Then, I thought of two different relatives for whom they probably OUGHT to come. But don't ask for names, 'cause I'm not interested in incriminating the guilty. (I probably shouldn't even have gone there. But if you know who I'm talking about, you know who I'm talking about.)

I don't think I'm entirely a hoarder. I do not (or should rather say no longer) have the problem of always acquiring new things without getting rid of the old ones. I just can't get rid of the old stuff. This problem has caused me to be stuck in an organizing rut lately. Lately being the last, oh, 4 or 5 or 30 years! I can get 2 or 3 rooms COMPLETELY CLEAN, only to have all the other ones go to pot. I can't ever seem to get caught up, because by the time I can get back to the piles of homeless stuff, they have been picked through, pulled at, strewn about. Moved somewhere else. Fallen over onto the floor. You get the picture. Not to mention all the toys that get strewn everywhere while I am paying attention to my stuff instead of my children.

So I get mad. I get frustrated. I get discouraged. I get depressed. I get to hating myself. I go hide my head in a silly Facebook game. All the while The FlyLady's words "You cannot organize clutter - you can only get rid of it!" float around quietly in the back of my head. (Side note - apparently sometime since I stopped getting her emails 4 or 5 years ago, this phrase was modified to "You cannot organize clutter - you can only organize the things you love!") But I couldn't just get rid of things. I couldn't even tell you WHY I can't get rid of things, but there is something there, some idea (or ideas) buried deep in my belief system, that keeps me from throwing away or even giving away most of the stuff.

The more I thought about this, the more it bothered me. Why should my mistaken impressions, or worse yet somebody else's, rob me of multiple hours every week that I could spend doing something else? I have much better ways to spend my life than to keep picking up the same piles of stuff that get knocked over, or need to be moved so we can use the space they're occupying. It's like my FlyBaby friend Erin said, "I don't want my kid to grow up hearing, 'No, Mommy can't take you to the park today. I have to move this pile of crap from over here to over there.'"

I thought and thought and thought (and even prayed a little. Though not enough. Another story of my life I intend to change) about why I cannot just say, "Oh, I haven't used that in x years, it's OK to get rid of it." I desperately wanted answers, but no amount of introspectiveness brought them out of hiding.

Adventures in King Cake making

2010-02-03T17:54:00.005-07:00

What do allergies and living in Colorado have in common?

Neither are conducive to getting a good King Cake when you want one. (Plenty of yeast, dairy, & eggs in there.)

We tried to make our own tonight. I used this cinnamon roll recipe (subbed whole grain spelt flour and rice milk) and pinched the ends together instead of cutting out the rolls. Then we made the frosting out of powdered sugar and rice milk, and colored organic cane sugar with food coloring (I know, I know!!! But it's a King Cake!) for the toppings.

The results were pretty, but left a lot of room for improvement taste-wise. I think we will have to try again tomorrow! :)

Pre-frosting

Post-frosting

Can't wait to eat it!

Can't let the extra frosting go to waste!

We couldn't stop handing out slices until SOMEONE found the baby!

Sammy wanted to make sure Katie had a turn at the baby, since he got the one last year.

(Or so he says. The post says otherwise!)

homemade popsicles - a lesson in problem solving

2010-01-06T00:19:00.001-07:00

It started out innocently enough. We were working on our second lesson of Right Start Mathematics (Level B) and using our craft sticks as tally sticks. I inadvertently called them "popsicle sticks" and the mania began. "I want popsicles. Mama, will you please get me a popsicle?" I told them we didn't have any. "Oh, I know! We can make popsicles!" They were pretty excited and convincingly insistent.

Then there was the problem of what to use to make them. We finally decided on bananas, apple juice, and 2 spoonfuls of leftover cranberry jelly. We don't have popsicle molds here (just why that is, with these popsiclephiles, is beyond me!) so we used our applesauce cups that we keep around for side dishes, snacks, and painting.

Then the real problem. How do we get a popsicle stick to stand up in a bowl of liquid. I thought about stuffing blueberries in the bottom and trying to prop it up, but in a moment of inspiration, I turned to my big boy instead. After all, what new 5-year-old doesn't need a lesson in problem-solving?

His first idea was to stick an ice cube in it. We tried that. The stick refused to go into it. We fished the too-hard ice cube out, and before I could even get it into a nearby plant pot, he suggested we stick an apple in the cup. Genius! I cut 2 ~1/3" thick apple slices, trimmed them so they were round, and stuck the knife through the middle to make a slit. As an added bonus, the apple floated nicely on top of the thick banana mixture, making a nice drip-stopping base. We stuck their sticks in the apples, froze the popsicles, and 4 hours later...

Distractors

2010-01-06T00:03:00.002-07:00

Now that Katie is interested in Hooked on Phonics, I fretted for a short while about what to do with one kid while the other is doing their reading. I shouldn't have. They find their own things to do. Usually the *same* thing. Yesterday it was this NickJr.com printable.

The left one is Sammy's, and the right one is Katie's. Sammy kept rolling dice until he could color in all 6 rows. Katie gave up quickly and played with Benny and the Little People instead. But Mama was able to give everyone the attention they needed while they got their reading done, and that's what counts!

Benny runs!

2010-01-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

A mere 5 days after walking on his own, Benny started running.

Recycling crayons

2010-01-05T23:56:00.003-07:00

How this idea escaped me before, I don't know. But when I stumbled across it (while searching for Thomas the Tank Engine images, of all things!) I was very happy to have something to do with our bits and pieces of broken, dull, chewed crayons!

Crayola crayons melted much more evenly. The leftover restaurant crayons tended to separate into different layers, and were very stinky.

They were a big hit, and are now the first thing the kids reach for when it's time to color.

Let me see that!

2009-12-31T10:40:00.001-07:00

My dad took this picture of B the other morning:

After the camera flashed, B walked toward him, reaching for the camera, and said, "Yemmie seedah!"

Photos from our latest trip

2009-11-30T02:47:00.002-07:00

2009 Thanksgiving+

(lots and lots of photos here!)

AND...

200912 Natchitoches - City of Lights

Waterfalls!

2009-11-24T12:31:00.000-07:00

Click below to visit the album.

Wichita Falls

Sammy's aliens

2009-11-18T13:55:00.001-07:00

We are on an alien-drawing kick this week.

I'm in semi-big trouble, and I need your prayers

2009-11-18T13:24:00.005-07:00

Or ideas. Or both.

I might have mentioned before about pulling a muscle in my arm back on the crazy trip, and it not healing.

This was back in April or May. It is still not healing. And on top of that, I keep re-injuring it. My left arm. The one I would usually hold the baby with so I can do things with my dominant hand.

It has gotten bad. It hurts to move it, period. Some days, like today, it hurts even when it's still. My doctor and my LMT both told me, if I don't stop using it and let it heal (which they both estimated would take 8-12 weeks) that I will injure it permanently.

I have honestly *tried* to stop using it. But I can't. Sometimes just rolling over in my sleep pulls it again. The other night I lost my balance, fell, and had to catch myself with it.

I thought about putting it in a sling. I probably need to put it in a sling. But holding it (even with it resting) crooked hurts, while letting it hang there doesn't. Then I thought about putting a sock on my hand so I'd remember not to use it. But I can't stand having my fingers covered.

I just can't figure out how to function without using it at least a little bit. The laundry I figured out. But do you know how hard it is to put clothes from inside a top-loading washer on the right, into a front loading dryer on the left, with your right hand? Try it sometime. I can't wash dishes one-handed. Yet. This one I could probably figure out with practice. But... I can't change diapers one-handed. Have you ever tried to snap a cloth diaper on a still baby with one hand? I have tried, on several occasions, and I can't do it. Now how about a baby who's trying his mightiest to roll over and crawl away from you? I can't for the life of me figure out that one. I just don't think it can be done. What about a 20+ lb baby who can't get up and down stairs by himself. I have to pick him up and carry him with me any time I change floors.

The Beco has been helpful. If the baby needs held for more than a minute, into it (on my back) he goes. One night we went somewhere and I forgot it at home, so I put him in the ring sling. He was sitting on my left hip, and my arm wasn't involved in the sitting or holding him at all. But somehow that injured my arm worse, AND pulled my shoulder out of place, too.

AND, I'm using the other arm so much (95% of the time), that IT is starting to hurt, too...

I'm at a loss. I can't clone myself. My husband can't (or won't) pick up the slack around here of any of the things I can't do, except for carrying the baby the once or twice a week we might actually go somewhere together. Our closest family member lives 12 hours away. I have friends, but.... who I don't expect any of them could or would want to come spend all day with me to snap diapers or carry the baby behind me for the next 3 months.

I am fresh out of ideas. If you have any, please send them my way. Thanks!

On the homeschooling front...

2009-11-18T12:42:00.004-07:00

I hardly ever post any more. Stupid Facebook! LOL!

It's not original, but it's probably new to all but 1 of you. These are excerpts from an email I wrote to a friend this morning. Just in case you care.

My big (big big big huge gigantic I totally suck at it) problem is the day-to-day and week-to-week consistency. And even worse than that is tracking/logging anything. We have not "done" school in a month, at least, although we do learn... just not with the boxes. Perhaps I should put a positive spin on it and say we are 100% unschoolers this last month or two!!! ;) But I will get there. I bought RightStart Math level B (used) for Sammy, plan to start that in Jan. I made him an addition chart 0-4s to fill in the other day and he thought it was the neatest thing he ever saw! He also loves the few math books and games we have. So I know we will be doing a good bit of Math when we get (re)started, just because he loves it so much. He hasn't touched his Hooked on Phonics in a month, but his reading has progressed, so I think when we get back to it he will breeze through a lot of it.

I've been putting a lot of thought the last few months into what programs to use. After much thinking, a little bit (not enough, I'm sure!) prayer, and some observation/analysis of my kids' learning styles, here is what I have come up with:

Writing: Handwriting Without Tears (currently doing. Both kids. Katie loves this!)
Music: MusikGarten classes once a week (been doing since Katie was a baby)
Social Studies/History/Geography: US map on wall, study 1-3 states per week. Supplement with NickJr.com state fact cards, and anything we care to look up online. When we're done with that, I have a world map. (currently doing)
Reading: Hooked on Phonics, followed by classic or Newberry award winners (currently doing)
Religion: learning basic prayers, reading Bible stories and stories about saints (currently doing)
Math: RightStart (starting in Jan '10)
Spelling: Sequential Spelling (starting in Aug '10?)
Science: Apologia (starting Astronomy in Aug '10? Or maybe Jan '11 if I am still as disorganized in Aug as I am now. LOL!)
Foreign Language: They want to learn Spanish. I need to look into the Muzzy program. When they get a little bigger I would love to pick up a Rosetta Stone Homeschool version for them. Also, we will inherit my goddaughter's Latin program, for when they are a little older.
Art: I suck in this department. Right now this is just free play with playdoh, paints, crayons, etc. Do you have any suggestions for something more directed?

Love^3

2009-11-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

This IS the Droid I'm looking for, Obi-Wan!

2009-11-10T18:18:00.009-07:00

I have been a smartphone user for almost 5 years now. I got my first one, a Kyocera 7135, when I was a new mom fresh off of maternity leave. I completely forgot about a very important morning meeting with a client, two days after forgetting about our weekly staff meeting (can we say MAJOR mommy-brain!?!?), and my boss pretty much insisted that I get a PDA. I have always been a bit of an obsessive technophile, and found the thought of carrying around two devices (cell phone and PDA) reprehensible. So I got a smartphone. They were fairly uncommon back then. But from the beginning I was hooked. I think it was even more useful for organizing my personal life/home responsibilities than it was for work. (And it was very useful for work!)

Not even year later, when my device started acting squirrely, my TEC insurance replaced it with a Palm Treo 650. Apparently the 7135 was not compatible with the new 911 rules and was no longer being supported. It was a decent phone, and had much better multimedia capabilities. I was very happy. A year and a half ago, my cell phone carrier was offering the Palm Treo 755 for $99. I also had a new-every-two credit of $100 on my account, so I was able to upgrade phones for free. The 755p was old technology by the time I got it, and what I really (really, REALLY) wanted was the new Palm Treo Pro, but it was $200 and required an additional data plan of $50/month. Since I was now a stay-at-home-mom, I pretty much had to go with the free one. Yes, it was old technology, but not as old as the one I had been using. It was a little faster, a little more responsive, and I was still mostly happy.

But I knew what I was missing. I wanted a phone with GPS. I wanted a phone with a bigger screen. As big as the whole device. I wanted a phone with a fast web browser. A FULL web browser. (Yes, even though I never used it. I still *wanted* it!) I wanted a phone with voice recognition. I wanted a phone that was pretty much a mini-computer. I also wanted it to be a Palm, since I've been a happy customer of theirs for so long, but it seemed that Verizon was no longer carrying any of their products.

A few months ago I was thinking about switching to Sprint, to save a little money on my monthly bill, and if I did, I was going to get the newest Palm phone, the Palm Pre. Luckily, I had the good sense to ask my FaceBook friends who were Sprint users what they thought. About 80% of the replies I got were people who detested Sprint and got away from them (or plan to) as soon as they could. I also found out that a friend who lives in a more populated area of Louisiana than my parents, has very spotty service with Sprint. That was pretty much a deal-killer. Too bad, too. We would have saved over $50/month, even adding data plans. I guess you get what you pay for...

Just for kicks, I also went to the AT&T store and looked at the much-lauded iPhone. I probably would have been impressed with it if I had not been using a PDA phone for years. I liked the multimedia capabilities. But overall, it just didn't impress me. I think the thing that bugged me the most about it was that it didn't have a memory card slot. Also, I really didn't want to switch to AT&T after all the grief they gave my father-in-law about wanting to charge him hundreds of dollars for breaking his contract when he wanted to cancel my MIL's phone after she died.

Over the past year I'd browsed through Verizon's "smartphone" offerings - BlackBerries, more BlackBerries, HTCs... They were all decent enough phones. But nothing had everything I wanted in it. Nothing jumped out at me and said "I'm the phone to have!!!"

Until now.

The "Droid." A full-phone screen. A phone with Google's Android operating system. A phone with voice-commanded GPS. A phone that multi-tasks. A phone with a 5mp camera with a flash and image stabilization. Aside from not being a Palm product (and since Palm is apparently a dying company, I'm not sure that even matters any more) it is exactly the smartphone I've been looking for. And then some.

Too bad I'm not eligible for an upgrade discount until March.

The other night I went in to the Verizon store to see it. I thought surely it couldn't be as fast and as awesome as all the hype. I thought, if I looked at it, the schoolgirl crush I had on it would be broken, and I'd realize I could wait until March (or later) for the price to come down, and to be eligible for my discount. It was a good idea right? Only, the phone really was that fast. And really was that cool. And I still can't stop thinking about it.

So if you weren't quite sure what to get me for Christmas... well, now you know. ;)

All Hallows Eve

2009-10-31T21:15:00.000-06:00

Click here to see all the photos:

Halloween 2009

9 month old cutie

2009-10-22T20:43:00.000-06:00

Spider Halloween Craft

2009-10-21T23:54:00.000-06:00

You would not believe how much fun the kids had making these Halloween decorations!

We had "spiders" for lunch the other day

2009-10-21T22:41:00.000-06:00

My couch was littered with sleeping children tonight...

2009-10-21T22:29:00.000-06:00

...until one fell off!

9 months old

2009-10-16T22:30:00.002-06:00

Dear Benny,

You turned 9 months old today. You are quite an ambitious little guy for someone so young! You have been crawling for about a month, and can get around as fast as any of us can walk. You love it when someone holds your hands, because then you can walk and run instead of crawl. You are getting pretty good at pulling up on anything that will hold still, and at balancing yourself, so it won't be long before you are walking and running without Mama's help.

Yesterday you taught yourself how to slide down off the couch onto the floor. This morning you climbed up the two steps to Mama and Daddy's bedroom with no trouble at all, even though it was your first time attempting it.

You have two teeth on the bottom, one just poking through the top, and two more close behind it. You refuse to eat baby food or anything off a spoon. If you can't pick it up with your hands and feed it to yourself, you don't want it. You usually eat Cheerios, but lately seem to really like Rudi's raisin bread.

You weigh about twenty pounds. You say "Mama," "Dada," "Katie," "bubba," "bye-bye," "bah," (ball) and "nint" (basement - your favorite place to be) on a regular basis. Your eyes are still an amazing shade of blue, and I am hoping they won't change like your brother's and sister's did about this age. You no longer have much interest in your baby toys - now you want whatever toys Sammy and Katie are playing with, especially Little People and trains/tracks. You are starting to notice their videos on the TV and will watch them with some interest, especially if you can do it from Mom's lap.

You are quite an amazing little guy, trying very hard to be big instead of little. We love you, B!

New Pajamas!

2009-09-11T22:29:00.000-06:00

Katie took this last one. She has been fascinated with taking pictures lately. I don't know WHERE she gets that from! LOL! She did really well considering how heavy my camera is!

The Amazing Benny

2009-09-02T17:58:00.004-06:00

Benny has mostly suspended his public speaking endeavours during the past week or two in favor of gaining some new physical feats. Today he clapped his hands for the first time, and crawled. (Well, "crawled" is a relative term in this house. Perhaps I should call it forward mobility instead...) For those of you who have seen my house, he made it from in front of the half-bath door, to the bottom of the stairs in the dining room. It took him 15 minutes - mostly because every 4 inches he had to stop and clap at himself - but he did it all on his own!

He also has the annoying habit of arching his back while he's sitting on your lap, so that he falls feet first onto the floor, and then turning his head up to look at you as if to say "We goin' strollin'!!!" I was NOT ready to be walking a baby around the house yet. Why is he in such a hurry?!?! ;)

A great day!

2009-08-19T15:27:00.001-06:00

We had our first day of co-op this morning. Now we are swinging and telling knock-knock jokes. Even li'l Benny tries to say "Who's there?" with us. :)

Zamboni

2009-08-14T12:23:00.002-06:00

We are at the World Arena watching Rachel compete in the USAFA National Showcase. Katie is just as fascinated with the zam as she is with all the skaters! Her big brother is ready to go home, though!

He said "Bep!"

2009-08-14T07:35:00.005-06:00

Benny is 2 days shy of 7 months old.

He is a little communicative genius. (Katie was, too. I used to call her "Communi-Katie".)

This morning he woke up alone (unusual) and started belting out "uh-uh-uh-uh-uh" ("up-up...") This was his first word, just like his big brother before him, and he has been using it for at least 2 months now.

He's been saying "Mamamama" for at least a month. He got "Dadadadada" about 3-4 weeks ago. This week they're shortened to the more familiar "Mama" and "Dada"

He says "Nay-nay" when he wants to nurse. He's had that one at least 3 weeks. If he's really desperate, or can't seem to get my attention, it's a pathetic-sounding "Naaaaay-naaaay, Maaamaaa!" (That's 2 words together!!!!!!)

On Monday he said "Bye-bye Dada" to his Daddy as we were waving goodbye to him at the door as he left for work. (Another 2 words together!!!!!) He did it again today!

He says "Tay-ee" and "Nama" when he sees his sister or brother. Or sometimes even if he *wants* to see them. (I.e. "Take me to where the bigs are, Mama!!!")

When he hears his brother and sister talking, he emulates, with matched intonation, whatever vowel sounds were in the words they said. 4+ and 5+ syllables.

This morning he knocked a toy wayyyyy out of his reach. He looked at me, intently, to make sure I was paying attention to him, and said, very matter-of-factly "Bep." I asked him, "You need Mama to help?" and his face lit up and he wiggled all over. (His usual response when you understand something he's trying to get across.)

If this is normal, don't tell me. I like thinking my baby's a genius. :)

p.s. Big thanks to my speech pathologist Roomie who clued me in with the first kid that the more you talk to your babies, the faster they learn language. I have proven her right 3 times now! (Like any kids of mine had a chance of anything but me talking their ears off, right?!? But I do do it more, and more purposefully, because of what she said!)

Ice Kate

2009-08-12T21:04:00.001-06:00

We had fun skating with Rachel & Felix today! Sammy gave up early on, but we had to coax Katie off the ice to go eat lunch!

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Alexander has nothing on my day!

2009-08-07T02:21:00.005-06:00

4 a.m. I wake up to find my pants soaking wet. I wonder, worriedly, if I have reached the stage of complete bladder failure. Then I realize my 3yo is sleeping with her head at the foot of my bed, and my bladder is still full. I am annoyed, but simultaneously relieved it wasn't me. Change clothes, empty bladder, strip daughter, roll wet sheets to pile in the middle of bed, put dry towel over wet spot, move self & kids to the other bed in the room.
6 a.m. Fussy baby wakes up wanting to nurse. I am, reluctantly, up for the day
7 a.m. Morning-person 4yo wakes up and is *very* upset that I want him to finish his "Good Morning Checklist" (get dressed, eat breakfast, etc.) before he starts his schoolwork. Pitches fit. Baby pitches fit too, just because. Throw clothes on, indending to shower/change later (when I have more time. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)
9 a.m. 3yo wakes up her usual sour mood. Pitches mild fit. Baby pitches fit, too, because he's tired but refusing to nap. Put baby in Beco carrier on my back, get the dishwasher half loaded, and feel like I might actually accomplish something today.
10 a.m. get halfway through school and realize the 3yo has had no breakfast, and I have only had 1 slice of goat's milk cheese quesadilla.
10:20 a.m. I realize what a horribly foul mood I'm in today, and try to curtail it. I am not successful, and my efforts just irritate me further.
10:30 a.m. 12:30 Zoo date calls and says they're finished with their errands early, can we go early. I say sure.
10:32 Realize that last night I took the car seats apart to wash the too-oft peed on covers (thinking now we have bladder control and they'll stay clean. Right???) Frantically call friend back to explain and hope she'll reschedule. She says get there when I can. Think I probably wouldn't be so stressed about this if she wasn't waiting for me to show up with her free entrance tickets.
10:33 assemble car seats, install them, try to install baybay's "big boy" (convertible) car seat that he's probably needed for 1-2m now. Realize it's threaded all wrong, have to take it apart and rethread, too. Still have to get baby dressed. I have been sweating like a pig for at least an hour. I know I'm dehydrated, unshowered, unshaven +in shorts. Know I should put pants on but am too darn hot to do it. Start to feel weak and dizzy, and wonder if I've eaten anything today. Realize wet sheets are still rolled up on the bed. Too bad about all of it - running too late to do anything but cry about it, because it's now
11:55 Fill kids' rice milk cups, fix myself a big go-mug of water, take a frozen water bottle for the ride home, say a quick prayer of thanks that my friend suggested eating there because if I'd had to pack a lunch, we'd be leaving another hour later
12:00 drive out the driveway. On the way to the zoo, we discuss giving Mommy plenty of lead time about needing to potty, so we have time to find/walk to a potty
12:45 arrive at the zoo. When I open 4yo's door, he asks if I have any extra clothes for him. So much for the clean car seat cover. P.S., I don't. Luckily, friend loaned us some. 4yo learns the phrase "going commando."
12:50 3yo says she needs to go potty. We go to the bathroom. She takes one look at the toilet and refuses. Get 4yo changed and make him carry his own nasty wet clothes out to the stroller.
1:30 We finally make it to the food area. As I'm standing in line, I seriously wonder if I'm going to pass out before we get the food. Spend a small fortune on food.
1:50 sit down to eat, get hamburger halfway from the table to my mouth, and 3yo announces she needs to go potty. I lose it, speak rather unkindly to her, take a big gulp of burger, grab a handful of fries, and find the potty with her. She takes one step in the bathroom and refuses to go. I half yell that she *is* going because I am not having another kid have a potty accident at the zoo. The other 10 people in the 20 sq. ft. 3-stall 95 degree bathroom must think I'm the meanest lady in the world. 3yo screams, kicks, and tries to fight the whole time I pull down her panties and hold her on the toilet. Also refuses to wash her hands, so I have to pick her up and force her to do it. Did I mention that this whole time I have the baby in the Beco ON THE FRONT??? So I have to reach around him to do all of this?
2:00 I ***finally*** get to sit down and eat. 3yo is pitching a medium fit, demanding that I sit on her side of the table and feed her. 5 bites later, still shaky and mildly dizzy, the 4yo has to go potty. And will the 3yo, who was so scared of the bathroom, stay with the friends? No. She has to come, too. So we traipse back into the 105 degree bathroom. At least there is no arguing this time.
2:30 Everyone is finally fed, in a better mood. Enjoy the rest of the zoo experience, although it is hard pushing 70 lbs of preschoolers in the heavy double stroller while carrying 18 lbs of infant on chest. Luckily friend+friend's daughter take turns with me. Still apparently manage to re-injure my left upper-arm muscles which have not healed in the last 2-3m.
4:00 leave the zoo and drive home, hoping everyone will fall asleep on the way and mom will get a break. Only the baby obliged.
4:45 arrive home to a cleaner house. Thank God for the housekeeper. Play in back yard for 20 minutes until the rains come. Set kids up with playdough so I can cook supper. My feet & legs hurt so bad, I only find the rocker, not the kitchen.
5:30 scream at kids who have shredded the playdough into little bits all over the previously housekeeper-clean floor. Threaten to send them to bed for the night with no supper. Remember to throw wet sheets in the washer.
6:00 Finally got kids to put away play-doh, get table cleaned off, serve chips and salsa for supper because my legs hurt too much to do anything else. Fix myself a salad, but by the time I actually get to eat it, the croutons are soggy and nasty.
6:30 Hubby comes in living room to thank me for stopping yelling at the kids, but has to stop mid-sentence to yell at the 3yo who is rolling the Little People SUV over her baby brother's head. (gently, but still...) Can't bring himself to finish the sentence after that. I feel guilty getting mad at him for yelling at the 3yo since I did it a lot more, and a lot louder, than he did.
7:00 3yo tells me what a great mommy I am. I thank her for telling me that, adding "because I feel like a really BAD mommy today." And apologized for getting so mad and yelling about the play-doh. She said, "No, mom. I happy about the play-doh. You hewp me cwean up." Can I feel ANY worse today??? Dry sheets and wash diapers. Bathe & PJ big kids. Nurse baby, who seems more interested in trying out his new tooth on mom. Read a bunch of Dr. Seuss. Everyone totally forgets about bedtime prayers/Bible, which is weird. Usually at least one, if not 2-3 of us remember.
9:30 last 2 kids finally fall asleep. I am ready to crash but hubby wants to watch a movie. Can't pass up this opportunity, as at this time of day he is usually too glued to his computer to notice any of the rest of us.
10:15 Find hubby on his computer and ask him if he was waiting for me to do something before starting movie. He gets off his computer and starts movie. Put diapers in dryer and wash uniforms. Watch Pan's Labyrinth. Weird movie. Not sure what I was supposed to take away from it (other than the thought, "Neat visuals!").
12:00 movie over. Need to dry diapers longer before drying uniforms.
All this time, since arriving home, my left upper arm has been hurting, worse and worse. Hem-haw about whether I need to go to the ER, but after hours of debate, massage that helped quite a bit, drinking lots, and a nearly-skin-burning bath that makes it feel SOOOOMUCHBETTER, I decide it's just the unhealing muscle(s) complaining about a really stressful day.
1:30 a.m. Finally get hubby's uniform for tomorrow in the dryer. Should go to sleep but feel the need to write. Vent. Something.
2:30 a.m as I'm writing this blog entry, I hear the 4yo talking (probably in his sleep) upstairs. I check on him to make sure he's OK, and he and his freshly clean sheets are soaking wet. Despite him going potty right before bedtime. I set him up a blanket on the floor (where he usually sleeps anyway!) and pull the wet sheets off his bed.
3:11 here I am still typing. Why am I not sleeping again?

And yet, at the end of the day, as grumpy, cranky, yelly, end-of-my-rope as I was, I feel extremely thankful. We're healthy. I have babies. I have a housekeeper. I have a hubby who is an excellent provider.

I really can't even remember what I was so cranky about.

Good night!

Found some pictures I love!

2009-08-03T02:11:00.004-06:00

These poor things, and 1082 of their siblings, have been held hostage in my camera for something like 2 months now. I finally got them downloaded and organized into their proper folders tonight.

Here are some that I couldn't help but share:

Every once in a leap year blue moon, I take the perfect picture. One that no matter what digital enhancements I try to do to it, I just plain like the original better. This photo of Katie at a friend's birthday party is one of them.

One day in June I was crazy enough to think I could handle 3 children alone at the zoo. We had a really fun time. Here is Sammy eating his apple on a rock he climbed on all by himself. It's not a perfect photo, with the other zoogoers in the background, but it is a perfect reminder of an awesome day!

I don't even remember taking this one, but, oh! It takes my breath away AND melts my heart.

Babywearing at it's finest! Frazzled mom with fussy baby, desperate to get something done, attaches him to her back, and Voila! Super-happy baby and a getting things done mom!

I need help with composting

2009-08-03T00:52:00.003-06:00

I am tired of putting perfectly useable fertilizer down the garbage disposal. But I am not exactly sure where to start. Our neighborhood nazis have strict rules against offensive smells emanating from peoples' properties, so I need something that is pretty well enclosed to hold our compost. I'd like something that doesn't require us to go out and turn the compost over with a shovel every couple of days. And also something that makes it fairly easy to get the "finished" compost out without digging through all the muck at the top. And something that reasonably inexpensive. Does such a thing exist?

Also, I need a good list of what can/cannot go into our compost. I know meats are not supposed to go in. I know soft fruit peelings can. What about tough things like avacado or banana peelings? I know the coffee grounds can, but what about the filters? Are newspapers OK or not OK? (not that we subscribe to the paper, but these things are good to know...) What about things that have gone bad (like the moldy strawberries that are in my fridge right now)? Or flowers that once decorated our table but are now wilty and sad. Grass clippings from the mowed lawn? Leaves from pruned trees and bushes?

What kind of composting are you doing, and what advice can you give me?

Colorado Renaissance Festival

2009-08-01T23:03:00.000-06:00

After almost 7 years of living here, and we FINALLY made it. What a gorgeous day! 70 degrees and sunshine, with beautiful sights, smells, and sounds around every corner!

(Click the collage to see the Picasa Web Album.)

Naptime!

2009-07-30T12:28:00.002-06:00

Backyard fun part II

2009-07-23T11:09:00.001-06:00

Backyard fun!

2009-07-23T10:43:00.001-06:00

He'd better have a good memory!

2009-07-15T12:24:00.001-06:00

I'm sitting here on my computer and hear Sam on the floor behind me saying, "Let's play the memory game." I turned around to say OK and this is what I found...

Irony

2009-07-15T11:38:00.001-06:00

My little "food magnet", who can't eat anything without getting food all over both of his hands and at least 1" around his whole mouth, just produced a finger painting only dirtying 3 fingertips. Index, middle, and pinky!

His sister, on the other hand, had no problem getting dirty!

We miss you Grammy!

2009-07-06T20:01:00.003-06:00

Your birthday celebration just wasn't the same without you.

I keep thinking about how much you would be loving on my baby, if you weren here (if you were here and feeling good, that is) and I feel bad for him that he will miss out on all that. But I promise he will know how much you would have kissed and hugged and snuggled him if you were here.

Your other grandkids just keep getting bigger and bigger and smarter and smarter. It is fun watching all the cousins playing together this week.

We had pizza ala your recipe today. It was nearly as good as yours. You would be surprised who did the cooking!

Miss you!

Aunt JuJu

2009-07-03T16:07:00.001-06:00

...loooooooves "her" babies! :-)

Hilarious!

2009-07-01T19:17:00.003-06:00

I found this random ad at the top of one of my Facebook pages:

The funny part is the guy in the pic is my friend Brien. We went to The Institute together. My junior year, I participated in this computer-generated love matching compatibility test thingy. (I can't remember if it was sponsored by a club, or was someone's computer project, or what. Does anyone remember?) Anyway, guess who was my #1 match.

Is The Universe trying to tell me something? Doesn't it know I already picked a mega-geek to be happy with?

Upright

2009-06-26T19:09:00.002-06:00

The Daddy just put Benny on his feet on the floor. He immediately grabbed the Little People Parking Garage (chest-height to him) and held on. So the Daddy let go of him. He stood there for 15 seconds, all by himself.

It's a good thing I'm already used to babies who want to grow up way too fast.

In related news, Katie announced recently that on her "bayth-day" she turned 3 years old. And on her next one, she's turning 10.

Happy Half-Birthday Sammy!

2009-06-26T08:57:00.003-06:00

Things you can do at 4.5:

Read
Use the potty
Put yourself to bed
Wash your own hands with no help
Help clean up after dinner
Help clean up after playing with toys
Cut your own pancakes
Write letters and words
Simple addition and subtraction
Ask "why?" about EVERYTHING!
Make and give gifts to people to make them so happy
Come up with your own list of things you can do and have Mama type it for you

More photos from Friday's Sprayground adventure

2009-06-22T23:51:00.000-06:00

We have a reader, ladies and gentlemen!

2009-06-22T23:18:00.001-06:00

Sammy has been blasting through Hooked on Phonics Kindergarten. One of the little monkeys made off with the workbook long ago, but luckily his reading skills blossomed enough that by the time this set piqued his curiosity, he really didn't need it. Today he finished the last of the 14 story books, and finally got to put the "I did it!" sticker on his chart.

On to the first grade level tomorrow. I am one super-proud mama!