The Other Photos......

So I finally sent out my New Year's letter (I gave up with trying to get it out before Christmas, so calling it a "New Year's letter" takes the pressure off).
I almost didn't send a picture.  We've been plagued by various illnesses, and things have been tight financially, but then I thought.....  The pictures are my favorite part of receiving letters!  Plus, it's only like $7 to print them if you have a coupon.
I never made it to my sister's to have her take nice portraits of us.  So we herded the kids outdoors today (first day above freezing in weeks!) and tried to get a decent shot.  (And yes, Gideon is in his pajamas.  It's just normal day attire for us!)

Trying to photograph children is like herding cats - impossible!
Gideon would not stand still.  At all.  (If they held him, he screamed.  If they let him go, he charged straight at me.)

Oh, by all means, let's bring the dog in!  That will help......

And of course when Gideon does stay put, no one is looking at the camera.

Almost......

Close.....  But I was hoping for better smiles.

 

In the end, I went with the first photo I took.  I wish you could see Zadie better, but they're all real smiles, and it shows their real personalities.  And this is real life for us (chaos)!

I Hate Printers.

Does any one else think that printers were invented by Satan to be the downfall of humankind?  I hate printers.  I don't think once in my life, ever, have I not had problems with our printer.
Today's scourge:  I need some graph paper for Nathan to do his Math.  Let me run upstairs and print some off.  Googled it, found it in less than a minute.  Push print, and..............  "Carriage Jam.  Clear carriage jam.  Press OK."
OK.
Grind.  Think.  Spin.
"Carriage Jam.  Clear carriage jam.  Press OK."
Open door to verify it is not jammed.
OK.
 "Carriage Jam.  Clear carriage jam.  Press OK."
OK.
 "Carriage Jam.  Clear carriage jam.  Press OK."
OK.
Unplug to reset.
Grind.  Think.  Spin.
Everything is acting okay!  Push print.........
GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So a 2-minute interruption for school turns into a 30 minute fight with technology.  And we skip the graph.  Again.
Is there any printer that doesn't do this sort of thing?  Or is it just my unfortunate bad luck?
This one's specialty is running out of ink halfway through a document, so you have the last 3 pages of something you can't even read.  Then it will pop up with a message, "Ink Running Low."  Ya think??  And it loves to pull that on sheet music that I've downloaded and am only allowed one printing.

Home. Sweet. Home.

What I didn't mention publicly during all of this work being done on our house, was that we couldn't live at home while it was being done.  In order to get the support beams under to lift the house, all of our plumbing had to be torn out.  And our propane had to be disconnected.  (So no hot water or stove.)  Not to mention, our house was up on blocks-----!!!
So for 12 weeks we lived in the basement of Paul's parents' house.

The older kids' "room."

Our "room."
(Have I mentioned we don't ever ---ever---- make our beds?)

Gideon's "room."  (About 5 steps away from ours.)

And let me tell you, I was dreading it.  Not because it was with Paul's parents (although I would have much rather lived with my own parents, in the house I grew up in), but because it was with people.  I go for days without talking to another adult besides Paul, and I'm okay with that.  I like it, even!  Having other people in my business, and knowing when I'm doing my business, and most of all, knowing when and how often I don't do anything at all was really making me nervous.

But I guess it's just another way of knowing that God was in this plan....  Twelve weeks, and no problems.  In fact, we worked out a pretty sweet deal of me cooking and Doug and Janice cleaning up.  And I took naps.  A lot.  They were so helpful and accommodating, even though I'm sure our circus drove them nuts on occasion.

The only thing I did miss, is that for 12 weeks, I didn't feel like Paul and I got to have a real heart-to-heart conversation.  Some things you don't want to do in front of anyone, even people you love.

We moved back in last week.  It started as an overnight "campout" (plumbing was operational, but no hot water and no stove) last [a week ago] Sunday night, and turned into a "we're not leaving."  We had to borrow Elizabeth's (Paul's sister) shower and kitchen the next night, but by Tuesday the electricians had our hot water tank hooked up and now it's HOME-SWEET-HOME!

Our propane still isn't hooked up.  Apparently there's only one technician to lay line for this whole side of the state, so it was over a month out.  So it will be the end of this month before we get it.  We checked in with other companies in the area, but I can't justify the $600 price difference.  We're going to learn to love (or possibly loathe) the electric skillet and crock pot!  

I can't wait to show off pictures of the basement!  We are doing final touches to get everything finished and operational and life-can-begin-again, but by the end of the week the essential stuff should be done.  (Other stuff will be done over the winter, or over the next several years.)

........Just in time to leave again for a vacation we've had planned since February!!!

"School's Out for the Summer...."

(Okay, so that's a rock song.  It only is a clever title if you know the song.....)

So, today..... We finally finished school.  

IN MY DEFENSE, we've kind of had a big year.  New baby, huge house project......  But seriously.  Considering we started 1st grade for Nathan in April of his Kindergarten year..... It's kind of embarrassing that it took until August to get done.  

We had about 10 "Spring Breaks" - as in "my kids are completely stir crazy and the weather is nice, so it's easier to just let them play outside literally ALL DAY LONG than it is to fight with them about coming in to do school" breaks.  That was the biggest thing that set us behind.  We were doing pretty good, even considering new baby last winter, until the weather got nice.

Several people told me that you don't have to finish the book.  Public school standards are 80% of the textbook (I was told), and the first part of the year is all review anyways.  But it's the principle of the matter!  You're not done until it's finished!  Otherwise it just feels like you're giving up and letting your kids win.

I have been starting school on the oh-so-appropriate Labor Day, but our kids are going to get lucky this year.  Paul and I agreed we can't even attempt to start school until the house is completely finished, so it will be mid-September before we start.  Maybe the later starting date will make me even more diligent to stick to it and not get behind.  

We'll see.......

(And Jacob is not finished with his preschool.  But considering he doesn't even turn 5 until the end of October, I'm not worried about that at all.  We will start Kindergarten whenever we get around to it..... Which will probably be right around his birthday.)

Happy Birthday to Zadie......

......two months later......

Happy Birthday to you!

On a side note:  This year I decided I'm done with traditional birthday cakes.  We don't like cake, apparently.  The boys get all excited about me making one, and then after the party, the rest of it sits on the counter for a week until I throw it out.  What's the point of putting effort into something we don't like?  So Zadie got a raspberry dump cake.  (Which, incidentally, wasn't as awesome as it sounded.  Should have stuck with peach.)

Spring Purge

It's that time of year again..... 2 weeks til the yearly garage sale, and I have spent most of the last 24 hours purging, sorting, deep-cleaning, and re-arranging.
Every year, I do the purge, and I can't believe the amount of crap I get rid of, but every year, there's more crap to get rid of!  (Yes, I said "crap".  Twice.  But I've been cleaning all day, so that's just how I feel.)  And I'm not buying more stuff to replace what I've gotten rid of!  So where is this stuff coming from??!  And since I've gotten rid of so much, why does the house not seem any more empty???
GAH!
This year has been an epic purge.  I'm cutting ties with clothes - emotional ties, and obligational ties.  A dress I wore on my honeymoon, a sweater I was given so I feel obligated to wear it.  The pants that were a steal of a deal, but lets be real:  after 4 kids, will they ever fit again?  Clothes I wore and loved when I was working retail, but now I dress up once a week, so I don't really need them.  So many clothes.  I purged 2 boxes, plus about 30 "hanging up" pieces.
I also went through the kids' clothes.  I got rid of anything of Zadie's that I didn't just love, and almost everything Gideon has outgrown.  I also sorted through clothes he hasn't grown into yet, and got rid of anything I didn't love - which was almost all of them, considering we got tons of hand-me-downs.  His 0-18 months now fit in 1 box, rather than 3.  I have figured out for the boys as babies, I prefer them to dress in miniature of what they will wear when they grow up and choose their own clothes (jeans and t-shirts), rather than cutesy outfits.  He'll have lots fewer pieces, but still plenty.  It's back to that obligation to wear thing, just because it's in the drawer.
Now all those things can be in someone else's drawers, because they can love them.
I also did a kitchen purge, and a bathroom purge.  Can you believe people snatch up things like half-used lotions and rubbing alcohol?  I got rid of a large box of stuff just from the bathroom.  Do we really need four different ointments for cuts and scrapes?
Our garage sale is always epic.  People comment that they always look for us to have our sale (at my sister's mother-in-law's, in town), because we "always have good stuff."  (One man's trash, another man's treasure!)  I think it's an illusion, because we always have at least 4, if not 6 or 8, households contributing.  So there's enough good stuff that it overshadows the junk.
And with the cleaning has come re-arranging.  I moved furniture around in our bedroom, and also in Zadie's.  Our bedroom is going to be awesome.  I can't WAIT to show off some before-and-afters.
We're doing a major home improvement project this summer, so part of the desire to purge is so there's not so much stuff in the way during all the work.  But still.  I've learned you can survive without "stuff."  I've not had a toaster for over a year, for example.  (I make toast on the griddle - 8 pieces at once!)  I would rather let our house breathe, bless someone else with something they need and want, and just let go........
Don't you just love spring cleaning?? :)

I'm a Good Mom.... I'm a Good Mom.....

If you could only have heard the cacophony of sobbing coming from upstairs, you would think someone had died.
In reality, what happened was fighting and arguing and complaining over an XBox Kinect game.
We haven't played any games on the Kinect all summer.  It's November, and with the time change, it's dark by 6.  No more playing outside after supper.  So I thought I'd break out the Fruit Ninja and let the boys have an evening of fun, since Paul is working nights.
Yeah, well.  That worked for about 10 minutes.  Then they started fighting over who got the red side.  Then they started arguing about playing this game or putting in the other game (Kinect Sports - which I'd already said we wouldn't be playing tonight).  Nathan had an epic meltdown when I said no, so I made him stand outside.  Meanwhile, I tried to get Jacob back in to Fruit Ninja, but for some reason the sensor wouldn't read me.  As I tried to figure it out, he flipped out on me.  So I decided we'd had enough XBox, and turned it off.
Cue the chorus.
Nathan had come back in and was still hollering, Jacob was sobbing and whining, and Zadie joined in just because she could, I think.
In the midst of this, the dog had followed Nathan inside and was scavenging for food, so I kicked him outside and fed him.  He snapped at one of our orphan kittens that was too curious about his food, and killed it.
I didn't even bother telling the kids about the kitten.  They started fighting about something else, while still sobbing, so I sent them to brush their teeth.  They figured out I was sending them to bed.  At 6:30.
Oh. My.  Gosh.
I would have laughed if it was someone else's kids.  It was so dramatic you would think it was fake.  When I finally got them upstairs, I get this from Nathan, "I don't like this place.  I'm going to live with another Mom."  I said, "Good luck with that."  (So mature.)
I prayed with them, gave them both kisses, and came downstairs.  They were asleep within 20 minutes.
I know that I did the right thing, and I maintained a cool head the whole time, not spanking them all the way up the stairs like I could, and maybe should, have.  But still.  It would have been so much easier to put the other game in, or pacify them with a movie.  Instead, I sent them to bed upset, and let them think I'm the meanest person ever.
I'm a good Mom, right?

Cracks Me Up, Every Time

Mom, I'm a cheetah!

Of course, I hear it like he said it, "I'm a shee-tah," as he runs into the room and slides to a stop in front of me, which is why it cracks me up.  I don't even remember why he didn't have any clothes on.  He was drawing on the window with dry erase markers, and decided to draw on himself as well.

And, seriously, look at that smile.

Here We Go Again!

So, my boys both potty trained early.  Nathan just before he turned 2, and Jacob just before he turned 18 months.  (Jacob's motivation was getting to pee outside like his big brother.)  (And these are their starting ages, not when they were accident free, obviously.)
So, naturally, I figured Zadie would be 5 before we got her potty trained.  Because the other two were too easy.  I wasn't even going to start trying until after the new baby is born.
However.....
On Tuesday, we had a rare Mommy/Daughter afternoon while Paul and the boys went and "helped" cut silage at my parents'.  I took Zadie's naptime diaper off and was letting her "air out" before I put another one on her.  I went to do something in the kitchen, and in a few minutes she came to me, jabbering at me like whatever she was saying made complete sense, and then turned around and walked back to the living room like she expected me to follow.  She led me over to the bookcase, where there was a puddle on the floor.  She pointed to it, and then to her crotch, jabbering like she was explaining herself.
Okay.  Apparently she gets the whole potty thing.
I let her go naked for another hour, because we were the only ones home.  I decided it was time to get out the potty chair, just to get her used to seeing it, and we'd start messing around with it.
Later, about 10 minutes after I put her diaper on, she came to get me, again jabbering and pointing at her crotch.  I felt her, and yes, she was wet.
Okay.  She definitely gets it.
So I guess we're starting potty training!
(To spare you the math, Zadie is 18 months old as of this week.)
She was just a little bit wet when we got home from practice, so I took off her diaper and put her in training pants until bedtime.  I sat her on the potty and read a book to her, and..... SHE WENT IN THE POTTY!!!!  (I get a little bit excited about these things.)
I do the naked method.  Some think it's gross, but it's what I've found works.  I put her in a dress and just leave her naked underneath.  We've only had moderate success in the three days hence - none in the potty the first day, and once each yesterday and today.  (I'm a little distracted most days, so I don't always see her when she stops and gets that contemplative look on her face.)  And about half the time, she comes to get me to show me the puddle.  But she's holding it, because she's only peeing 3 times a day (not counting naptime diaper).  And being able and aware of holding it is the first step.
So we'll continue.  It may be 6 months before she gets there, but I figure it's fewer diapers I have to buy or wash in the meantime.  Especially being just 8 weeks from having another one in diapers!
Go, Zadie, go!

"I Just Stay Home."

How many times have I said that, in response to insurance forms or acquaintances asking if I work?  "I just stay home."
Because I don't do anything for income.  I don't babysit or do cleaning like I used to.  I don't do bookkeeping or sales.  No part-time job.

I do just stay home.

But I had the realization today, "just" staying home is the hardest work I've ever done.

I have no down time, all day long.  I mean, I do take sanity breaks (and lately, naps).  But it's at the expense of not getting something else done.  I get to the end of the day, and there are things looming over me, reminding me that I chose to take a break rather than push on.  (I'm looking at the laundry piles that need to be folded, while I sit here blogging.)
I don't know if it's because I make my work harder than I need to by not being organized.  If we're a messier-than-normal family.  If I'm a bad mother because my kids don't know how to clean up after themselves.  Maybe we're home more than most, so as a result the house is in a constant state of being destroyed.  (It's like bailing water on the Titanic with a teacup.)
They say to save yourself time by doing that two-minute job now, rather than put it off til later.  My problem is, I find fifty thousand two-minute jobs every day.  My one-year-old scattered the bath toys all over the bathroom.  We had an exceptionally crumb-y lunch and the floor needs swept.  The 3-year-old spilled the dog food when we was feeding the dog.  The DVDs have piled up on top of the TV cabinet and need put away.  The blankets in the living room need folded.  The mail needs sorted.  That shelf needs dusted.  The kids' books need straightened.  Here's a piece from Uno Moo that got left out when we put it away.  
All of those little two-minute jobs.  All of the other more-than-two-minute jobs, like cooking (3 times a day) and laundry and scrubbing the tub.
Then add in the time it takes being a mother to my kids.  They say at this age, parenting is 90 percent teaching and discipline.  I definitely feel that.  Which makes me feel like I need to spend even more time on good parenting like reading, talking, and playing.
Not to mention, we homeschool.
And I teach violin to my boys, 5 or 6 days a week.
Oh, and I give piano lessons to my nieces.
And occasionally, I'm a good wife and pay attention to my husband, and help him out.

But, nope.  I don't work.  "I just stay home."

Recently. More or less.

A quick glance back through my recent blogs shows it's been at least 2 months since I've given a thorough update.  So I'll try to run down what we've been doing and what's on my mind.
First off, I'd like to say happy birthday to my mom.  Her birthday is today, and I'm honoring her by having a slice of AMAZING from-scratch coconut cream pie that I made.  (Along with a cup of decaf.  Perfect combo.)  My best pie to date, if I don't say so myself.
Secondly, I'm thinking of changing the name of my blog.  I'm not exactly a new Mommy anymore, with #4 on the way.  I mean, there are always new things in the adventure of Mommy-hood, but.... I've got a neat name in mind.  I'll see if I can change the look of things around here.  (Sometime in the next year..... Or two.....)
I don't know what we were so busy with this summer, but it seems like it has been non-stop around here.  I can give you a run-down of September, at least - Paul served at two Encounters, and had to work the other two weekends.  He's had days off (his work does a rotating shift) but between errands, church stuff, and family stuff, we hadn't had a day at home with nothing to do until last week.  It was so nice.  We also started school and Awana.  I finished my ladies' Post-Encounters the same week Paul started his with the men.
So there's been just a little bit going on.  Between my naps and eating bon-bons.
Okay, so there really have been naps.  Almost daily.  I don't sleep well at night, which leads to debilitating exhaustion in the afternoons.  I have every intention of powering through, but reading to the kids after lunch kills me.  More than once I have been asked, "Mommy, why do your words sound funny?" as I am falling asleep mid-story.
So, in baby news (since that's the cause of exhaustion)(well, one of 4):  I will be 30 weeks this week.  According to my weekly email updates from BabyCenter.com, baby is 15 inches long, and 2.5 pounds.  Oh my goodness - getting so big!  We are still working on names.  We had a girls name settled, then I found one that I liked better, I think, but Paul's not on board.  And we're still up in the air on a boys name.  But I can tell you for sure it won't be Whale Pig.  (See last post.)  I've gained more weight than I care to admit, but the lovely news is that the doctors office measures from your first appointment (2 months along).  So according to them, I've only gained 15 pounds!  My veins are definitely worse, so I am in the compression stockings constantly.  My hernia also has gotten worse (Yes, the hernia I got fixed last summer.  It only stayed fixed for a week.), and is huge and ugly and generally painful.  The stockings do kind of keep it pressed in, but I have to get out the sexy belt a few times a week when it's really popping out.
I think I've finally figured out how home-school is going to go this year.  I am not "one of those" moms.  My vision of all my little students gathered around the kitchen table, dutifully working on their papers..... Um, NO.  If I can manage to get both of the boys at the table at the same time, Zadie is standing on the table, throwing things.  What works best is to do school one at a time.  Some days it's Nathan first, other days it's Jacob.  No particular rhyme or reason to who goes first, other than who happens to be most eager or need a change of scenery (picking fights with siblings).  I tried having Nathan do seat work (practicing writing, etc) while I help Jacob, but even if he's not doing his actual school, he's still at the table, and gets fidgity halfway through his lessons.  So I just let him play.  Plus, having one of them playing while the other does school keeps the little girl entertained better.
We have had some major attitude problems from Nathan over school.  Not wanting to try, telling me I don't know what I'm talking about, etc....  GAAH!  Paul discovered that praying with them at the start of the day seems to help.  He did a little devotion time with them, but last week I just prayed with them individually, which I like.  I want to find a way to have a prayer time with each child every day.
With Nathan, we are only doing math and reading.  I figure that come December, I won't have much time, and these are the main things he needs to learn.  Plus, the more I try to teach other things, the less I can focus on getting him to read!  It seems like it's taking so long, and just not clicking with him.  I try to remind myself, he's a boy, and he JUST turned 6.  He's not that behind.  But I also don't want to make excuses for him if he's not trying hard enough.  But math, he's really good at.  Maybe I'm biased, but it seems like it just clicks for him.  He knows all his doubles (1+1, 2+2, 3+3, etc) up to 10+10, and his +1's.  He's writing "number sentences" (5+3=8, etc), and grasps the concept.  This was what he tells me last week:  "We had 8 kittens, but one died, so that's minus one, equals [counts kittens present] five."  (Hey, he understands the concept.  Just doesn't have all the tables memorized yet. :) )
Jacob learned how to write his name in the first two weeks of school.  It's not perfect, and the letters aren't always in order, but I thought it was pretty awesome that he went from knowing nothing about letters to being able to do that.  He has some in-depth preschool material, but I'm definitely not doing it as in-depth as I did with Nathan.  Part of it is that Jacob knows a lot of it already (he knows all of his shapes, colors, how to count, and recognizes numbers up to at least 5), but the other part is the time factor.  Jacob is still 3, and his attention span is pretty short.  I just want him to be able to recognize and write his letters by the end of the school year.
We squeeze science in whenever it comes up.  Part of home-schooling is looking for those teachable moments.  For some reason I mentioned "invertebrates" on the way to Awana last week, which led to an explanation, which now Nathan understands:  Vertebrates have backbones.  Invertebrates do not.  We play a game - "Is a worm a vertebrate or invertebrate?  Is a cat....?  An octopus?"  Lesson learned.  They are outside a lot, so have tons of questions about things outside, and I take the time to explain them to the best of my ability.  It's not in a textbook, but it's still science.
All in all, I probably spend at least 3 hours a day just on one-on-one school or violin.  Add to this wrangling a one-year-old, the house, and the garden.... No wonder I'm tired all the time.
Zadie is 17 months and quite the feisty little thing.  She isn't talking yet, but makes her opinions quite known.  She has said words very clearly, she just doesn't use them.  She babbles a lot.  And I mean a lot.  She steals my cell phone constantly (screaming fit if I take it away), and loves any toy phone she can get her hands on.  She is a very in to shoes, and wears everyone's around the house.  She'd change her own shoes every 10 minutes if she could find more of her own.  I told Paul this is not an obsession we will feed.  She can have a pair of good shoes, and a pair of every day shoes.  She doesn't need more, no matter how cute little girls shoes are.  I can tell already we are going to have another strong-willed child, like our oldest, on our hands.  Things will be interesting in a couple years.  She loves to wrestle with her brothers.  If they are rolling around on the floor, she'll wade right in to the middle of it.  She loves getting dirty as much (or more!) than they do.  She's discovered the world of under the deck.  At least once a day I have to lure her out from under there (sometimes using my cell phone as bait).
We've been having issues with Jacob biting lately.  NO idea where this came from.  He bit a friend at church, and left a huge bruise on his arm, and bit Zadie later in the week.  This is a habit that must be broken.
Nathan lost another tooth tonight.  He's up to 5, 3 of them (including tonight's) lost in accidents.  When he came in to my Bible study room at church this evening to tell me he lost a tooth, I was expecting it to be the one that's practically dangling on the bottom.  Nope, it was an only-slightly-loose top one that got knocked out when he collided heads with Willie.  Maybe those top ones will finally come in, now that there's room!  (It's been 9 months.)
In non-child-related news.... My sister comes home from Africa in a month!  I was thinking, Jacob was 18 months old and not talking when she left in 2011.  When she gets back, Zadie will be 18 months.... and not talking.  Just trade one for the other, I guess.
Okay, enough updating.  I'll close with some pictures of my entirely too-grown-up children that Paul took this morning.  He was trying to get a picture of Zadie in her Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) outfit, but she wouldn't hold still.  (Click on photos and Blogger will open up a full-screen slide show, so you can see them better.)

Let's pretend you don't notice how horribly messy the house is in these pics.  And I feel like I shouldn't admit that it's twice as bad tonight, thanks to the oldest and youngest not taking naps.  I'm not touching it.  The kids made the mess, the kids will clean it up.... Tomorrow.

Love the 70's vibe he's got going on here with the shirt unbuttoned. 

So big.

Love, love, LOVE them.

Allow Me to Excuse Myself.....

I typed this last week.  It took 5 days to remember to get it posted.  Such is my life right now.

So, someone I know in the Eastern Hemisphere kindly reminded me I haven't updated my blog in.... a long time.
Allow me to offer my excuses:
First off, I've been sick.  I got sick a month ago, thought I was well, and then after a weekend at Women's Encounter (and only about 10 hours of sleep total all weekend), the cold came back with a vengeance.  Over the last week, I have been coughing so hard I pee myself and have to wear a pad all the time.  (Not a pantyliner, an overnight pad.  So attractive.)  I'm pretty sure I've popped myself a hemorrhoid, and my hernia has doubled in size.  I'm coughing that hard.
In the midst of this, I am trying to find the house for the mess.  We've had rain every day for the last week and a half - not complaining about that! - but that means the boys and their mess have moved inside.  There is a constant supply of mud to play in, which means multiple wardrobe changes and baths a day.  I don't discourage the mud-playing for the most part, because they're boys.  But after the third set of clothes, I may say something.
Then there's the things that I really need to get to.  Like weeding the garden or flowerbeds.  Or cleaning our bedroom - which I'm questioning whether I've cleaned since Zadie has been born.  Or practicing wedding music for a wedding we'll be playing at in a month.  Or sorting and putting away Zadie's out-grown, and soon-to-grow-into clothes.  Or - this is a big one - going through my curriculum and deciding what we're going to use for Nathan's school this fall.  (Yeah.  School starts in less than a month, on Labor Day.)
So can you tell where blogging ranks on my list?

Lesson Learned?

So I am an advocate for having children help with disgusting or difficult tasks, either as discipline/punishment, or just to learn that there are unpleasant things that sometimes have to be done in life.
So this morning, I announced to Jacob that he would be helping me clean the bathroom today.  Apparently he's been using the hands-free, pee-by-faith-not-by-sight method when he gets up at night to go potty.  I suspected it was him, but never had proof until last night.  Both boys woke up at the same time (allegedly one for a drink, and one for anti-itch medicine on his chiggers), and when I made them use the toilet before they went back up, there was the unmistakable sound of pee not hitting the toilet.
So when I explained this to Jacob, I was expecting whining, arguing, feet-dragging.  Instead, I got a, "Oh.  Okay!"
If they're excited to do it, are they still going to learn the lesson?
However, to help ensure the bathroom cleaning doesn't become Jacob's permanent job, I have now become the potty-patrol Nazi.  (Since Jacob potty-trained so young, and was so excited to go on his own, I wasn't as diligent on teaching the proper method.)  I feel a little weird, standing over him as he pees.  "Both hands!  Shake it off!"  But the smell of pee when you walk in our only bathroom is just disgusting.  I'd rather take care of the origin of the problem, rather than have him happily cleaning the bathroom.  (His wife will thank me later.)

Summer Slump

So I don't really have any excuse for not posting, other than sheer laziness.  Why clean the house, when I could sleep?  (Or eat....)  Why fold clothes, when I could sit on the couch and stare at the wall?  (Or tv if the kids are asleep.)  Why play with the kids, when I could wander from room to room, wondering what task I had thought I needed to do there?
So you can guess where blogging ranks on the list.
Geez.  That makes me sound like I have a severe case of depression.
Nope.  Just epic pregnancy brain syndrome.  Combined with the beginnings of summer cabin fever.
The garden is kind of in between stages - my meager spring crops (lettuce, radishes, etc) are done, and my summer ones are not on yet.  We got a late start on the garden because of the wet spring (not complaining!), so everything is behind.
My plans for summer school aren't quite what I thought.  Kicking the kids outside to play trumps fighting Nathan to stay at the table and pay attention.  We are doing a lesson of reading (phonics?  He's not actually reading yet, so I'm not sure what you call it.) every day after lunch when the younger two go upstairs for naps.  He's okay with that, because it's too hot outside by then, and there's no distractions playing nearby, tempting him with toys.
Paul and I have joined/started a Bible study.  (Actually, separate, but related studies.)  Ever since we got married, we had a couples group that got together every other weekend (due to Paul working the other weekends), so we really didn't have time to do a Bible study also.  As we all had kids, it got harder and harder to get together, and since Zadie was born a year ago, it felt very forced to try to get together (8 or more kids,  ages 5 and under, may have had something to do with that....)  After the first of the year, I told Paul I was going to quit pushing to get together.  Apparently everyone else felt that it was time to move on as well, because no one's been trying to get us all together. :)
So I told Paul, if we weren't going to do that, I wanted to join a small group.  There are small groups at our church, but I don't really know if it's proper to invite yourself to an established small group.
But our group kind of materialized on it's own.  Paul and a group of guys from our church went to Encounter in February.  They had follow-up Bible studies for about two months afterwards, and then decided they wanted to keep meeting.  Their meetings were on Tuesday nights, our band practice nights, and one of my singers' husband was in the Bible study, and rather than drive separately from our hubbies (we both live out of town), we would just hang around and visit while we waited on our husbands.  We decided to do something constructive with the time, and start our own study, and two other wives wanted to join us.  So we start with the guys, and have a time of worship together, and then separate and do our studies and prayer time.  We ladies are doing a study of the book Your Spiritual Gifts Can Help Your Church to Grow by C. Peter Wagner.  We've really enjoyed the time and discussions, even if we are a bit distracted by children.  The guys are really getting a lot out of their time together.  And I am so excited about what God is doing in their lives.  The changes in all of them are obvious.  I am so glad they have their time together to grow spiritually and encourage each other.  Men need MEN to encourage them.
In completely unrelated news....
I hate cleaning the kitchen.  It is the most frustrating homemaker duty of all of them.  Most other jobs you do, you can at least tell you've cleaned recently, and they kind of stay semi-clean for a few days.  The kitchen can go from sparkling clean to toxic disaster area in an hour.  Having to endure this process 3 or more times a day is maddening.
As frustrated as I get at my boys for their whining and arguing, when I think about it, I am so proud of them. They are 5 and 3, and the amount they already help out around the house and yard is actually quite amazing. Nathan's daily jobs are unloading the silverware from the dishwasher (which he complains about as much as I complain about cleaning the kitchen) and taking the scraps to the scrap pile (compost heap).  Jacob's jobs are feeding the pets and taking the recycling to the back porch.  They both help Paul take out the trash and take their dishes to the kitchen.  Nathan vacuums, and helps weed the garden and flower beds.  After I pulled the beets, I showed the boys how to wash and take the leaves off them, and they did the rest by themselves and brought them to me in the house.  They water my flowers, and haul branches to the burn pile.  It makes it sound like we run a child labor farm, but it makes me very proud that they see that there is work to be done, and being part of our family means helping out.  (Lest they seem too perfect: sometimes it does take a lecture to remind them of this.)  It also makes me look forward to they day that they are old enough to clean the kitchen by themselves  Especially when there are four of them..... I'll never have to clean the kitchen again!!!  (Insert evil laugh here.)
Okay.  Paul is working nights, and I probably should head to bed soon.  The unfortunate truth of the matter is, that no matter how late I go to bed, the kids still get up at the same time.

And Now for a Brief Word from Our Sponsors......

Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I've posted.  Really, since I've even thought about my blog, even.
We've got sunshine, kittens (oh my gosh, please make them go away!), and flowers.  Who has time for internet??
It's been awesome around here.  Despite snow on the 2nd of May (yes, snow), and a brief stint of too-hot weather in the low 90s, we've had some perfect springtime weather.  The kids have been outside constantly, and we're in full on shorts and barefoot season.  Thankfully it's dried out a little bit, so we're not doing multiple wardrobe changes a day anymore.
Zadie has figured out how to toddle her way out to the play set.  She can climb the ladder to the slide platform on her own.  I was cleaning the kitchen, and I noticed her on the ladder (five steps, 4-foot-tall or so) and hustled out there, trying to not frighten or distract her from holding on. "Nathan!  Get behind Zadie so she doesn't fall down!"
"Oh, she's gone up the ladder and down the slide all by herself!"
I still try to pay attention, but it's been 2 weeks, and she has yet to fall down.  She's happy and entertained, and I'm getting the kitchen cleaned.
We found 5 kittens a few weeks ago.  We knew they were somewhere, because our basketball-shaped mama kitty became thin as a rail overnight.  A week or two later we found three more from another litter.  Then Sunday we found two more - no clue who these belong to, because now all the litters have congregated under the deck, and the mothers nurse them interchangeably.  PLEASE MAKE IT STOP RAINING KITTENS.  Ugh.  We had like 8 cats to begin with, from last year's population explosion.  This is beyond way too many.
We're almost done with school.  We've kind of stalled out.  It's tough to make them do school when it's so beautiful out....  I am a firm believer that kids - boys, especially - learn by doing.  So I want them to be able to play and explore.  But we do have an amount of work that needs to be done at the table as well.  He's done with his math, and all the reading/phonics I think he needs for the year.  We just can't quite finish up his science book.  We've got about 5 lessons left, and my goal is to have it finished by the end of May.  Part of the procrastination about finishing is the fact we won't really be "finished."  I'm going to make him do something all summer, probably switch on and off - a day of reading, a day of math.  The reading I know we'd take a major step back if we let him take a break.
The first of the month was unusually cool and wet, so my garden stalled.  However, I just don't think my beans are going to come up.  So confused about them.  I used these seeds last spring (they're old), and they didn't come up.  I used them again in the fall, and they came up beautifully.  Thankfully, those seeds are all gone, so no more mystery adventure plantings.  We still need to get tomatoes planted (I keep forgetting to go buy the plants!), but otherwise, we're mostly planted.  (Besides obviously needing to replant the beans.)
Since we had cool weather, our flowers are delayed coming out, but the blooms are lasting a lot longer, and I'm loving it!  I'm slowly getting my beds weeded, what hasn't been trampled by kids and kittens.
Anyhow.  Speaking of cats, the boys left the door open, so I need to chase a crumb-sniffing mama cat outside.
Enjoy the day!

Overheard: The Left Coast

My brother JC has been in Los Angeles for two weeks for work.

Via text:

• Welcome back.  Tomorrow's forecast, 60 with rain.
• Better than liberal with a chance of hippie like I've been living with for the past two weeks.

Overheard: (I've got a backlog.)

Nathan:  Mrs. Dean [his Sunday school teacher] said God made Adam and Eve out of dust.  But she is wrong.  God didn't make Eve out of dust.  He made her out of Adam's nipple.



Jacob (As he positions himself in front of the toilet to go potty):
"When I'm big, and I'm a daddy, I'm going to have a big......"
(Nathan yells something.)
"When I'm big, and I'm a daddy, I'm going to have a big...."
(Gets distracted again.)
"Mommy, when I'm big I'm going to be a daddy, I'm going to have a big...."
(Yet again distracted.)
Me:  "Jacob, what's going to happen when you get big?"
Jacob:  "I'm going to be a daddy, and I'll have a big.... combine!"

(What did you think he was going to say?  Yeah, I'm 99% sure "combine" wasn't where he was originally headed with that thought.)



Me [working on identifying numbers for school]:  "Grammy is almost 55.  Can you find 55 on the number board?"
Nathan:  "Or.... Grammy is almost 100."

(In Mom's defense, Dad will be "almost 100" before she will be.)



Zadie:  Daa.  (As she reached her hand out to Paul while watching him play violin.)
She's starting to babble like whatever she's saying is making perfect sense in her brain.  She is also understanding things we say.  You should have seen the absolute hissy fit she threw when I told her "no" to playing with the humidifier the other day - whooee!

Vitamin D Day

So... It's January 28.
And it's 75 degrees outside.
Absolutely beautiful!  I told Paul I was going to make the boys play outside all day, even if I had to chain them to a tree to keep them out there.  We're skipping school, skipping naps, and soaking up all that sunshine vitamin.  The boys have dirty faces, dirty feet, and just a hint of a sunburn.  Zadie's knees and socks are filthy.  She had her first taste of dirt.
Perfect.

Spring Cleaning

I'm not one who does spring cleaning every spring.  I do it whenever the mood strikes.
Which, lets face it, is never.
But it's kind of gotten to the point that I can't ignore it.  I don't know if it's because of the very dry, dusty year (two years) we've had or what, but the dust situation in this house has gotten epic.  I've got dust bunnies, which are usually only under the beds, hanging off the walls.  I've successfully ignored it for the last several months, but I can't any longer.
It's time to do something about it.
But the thing I hate about deep cleaning, is that whenever you decide to finally deep clean one area, it makes the adjoining areas look even crappier.  I didn't set out to deep clean the entire front room.  It started with just organizing my bookshelf.  Which led to a book purge.  And I figured since I'm handling all the books anyways, I might as well dust them all and dust the shelves really good.  (And since the aforementioned dust epidemic is so bad, it's beyond dust rag, beyond Swiffer even.... I'm dusting with the vacuum.)
But then deep cleaning the shelves and the wall behind it made me realize how I needed to do that.... to the whole room.
So I just finished vacuuming the entire ceiling (wood).  I had been ignoring it, but once you do a section, you have to do the whole thing.  I didn't realize how many tiny cobwebs had been up there holding dust.  Gross.  (But it looks so nice now!) I also washed down a wall, which makes me realize how badly I need to do that around the whole room.  (Although it will probably wait until tomorrow.)
But cleaning is like crack, I tell you!  You get one room done, and it's gleaming and organized, and you want that for your whole house!!!
I guess I know what I'll be doing for the next month.......

Christmas

Okay, so I think we've FINALLY recovered from Christmas.

It was different this year.  Not only was my little sister in Africa, so were my dad and brother!  Dad and JC left December 13 and spent two weeks with Carlsie in Zambia.  They returned December 30, bringing a lovely little intestinal virus with them, which we all got after spending New Years Eve and New Years Day together.  Gag.  (Literally.)
So our Christmas was pretty low-key.  We went out to the farm for Christmas Eve, which is our tradition.  We didn't do any gifts, but just hung out, made Mom watch The Emperor's New Groove, and called Africa.  All of us talked to all of them.  (It was 5 AM Christmas Day there, and they were getting up to go on a safari!)
Christmas morning we did gifts with our small family.  We spent more on the kids that we originally planned, but they still only got 3 gifts each for the boys, and one gift for Zadie.  Both of them needed new tires for their bikes (completely bald, white fibers showing).  We had NO IDEA how expensive tires were!  We could replace the whole bike for just $10 more than buying two new tires. Nathan's we decided to get the next size up bike, so it was more than a $10 difference, but we were going to have to get him a bigger bike by this summer anyways.  So besides the bikes, we got them each a "bucket" of figures - Nathan of Army figures, and Jacob got dinosaurs.  I had bought them new Eichenberger Farms shirts when my sister did an order, and decided to just wrap theirs like gifts, even though they weren't really.  We got Zadie a "Baby's First Christmas" ornament.... I didn't realize how much she'd have fun with wrapping paper, or I may have wrapped up some more things just so she could rip off the paper.  (The boys were 3 and 2 months old for their first Christmases, so were clueless and indifferent with gifts.)

We went out to Paul's parents' house for lunch and spent the day there.  My mom came for lunch since she would be alone otherwise.  It was bitterly cold and windy, so after lunch and gifts, my sister-in-law Elizabeth and I went to help my Mom with chores and opening gates, while the kiddos (and adults?) napped.  (Having someone open gates, so you don't have to stop and get off the tractor to open and close every gate cuts choring time in half.)  Paul spent a chunk of time while we were there finishing up my Christmas gift.  I had told him I wanted him to build me a new book case for our toy "corner" behind our bedroom door.  We had a ladder shelf (built by his dad) similar to the one at right, and had accumulated too many toys and books to fit on it (not to mention the boys used it for just that.... a ladder).  He designed and built not only shelves, but also a toy chest below it, so that we don't have to stack their big toys under our end table any more.  I love it!  It's beautiful, and makes the corner look so much neater.  He really did an excellent job on it.  

We had it piled high within a half hour of getting it home. :)

Paul took the two days after Christmas off, so we had him home all week.  I wish I could say we spent the week relaxing, but we were on the go all the time.  I can't even tell you what we did, but I just remember thinking it wasn't really a vacation, since we weren't home to enjoy it.  We had somewhere to go every single day.

Nathan played his first special for church on December 30.  We started working on "Joy to the World" in October, and felt he had it down enough to play in front of the church.  Of course, he made some age-appropriate mistakes, but I am still very proud of him.  (And definitely jealous of his innocent confidence.)

Paul went back to work the night of New Years Eve.  I took the kids over to our good friends' (basically 2 more siblings) house, Jared and Christina, who only live about 5 miles from us.  JC put his pictures on the big TV, and he narrated them for us, which we enjoyed (and I'm sure he enjoyed knocking out 7 [?] families at once to not have to answer individually, "How was your trip?  What did you do?")

I went with the kids to my extended family Christmas at my grandparents' house on New Years Day.  I enjoyed visiting with my aunts, uncles, and cousins.

The day after, in the middle of his normal breakfast battle (No, I don't like this, it's icky - sob, sob....), Jacob threw up.  We just figured he had gagged on the pancakes he was throwing a fit about.  But after about 3 more times of puking that morning, it was obvious he had a bug.  Nathan came down with it that afternoon.  I woke up the next morning with an upset stomach and other unpleasant symptoms, but thankfully never threw up.  It was a violent, but apparently a very fast moving but.  It put you through the ringer for about 12 hours, but then it was gone.  We thought Paul had miraculously avoided it (he usually gets sick just from hearing about someone who's got a stomach bug).  He went to work as usual Friday morning, feeling fine, but then called me about 5.  I was like, "Why are you in your truck?"  (I could hear the wind noise in the background.)  He says, "Yeah, I puked at work."  Lovely.  He was over it by the next morning, but felt weak enough he didn't think he should go in.

So that's our Christmas in a nutshell.  I'm sure I have other things to update about, and I'll remember them...... eventually.........