Sunglasses, Bunny Slipper, and Golden Book

I'm blogging a little early today because I have a hot date with my husband tonight. We are getting a full 24 hour date night, thanks to my husband's mom who is brave enough to watch all six kids for that length of time. The kids didn't understand why parents would want that much time away from their children. I explained that it's just nice to sleep in a clean bedroom void of random toys and scattered clothes. It's nice to be guaranteed undisturbed slumber in the early morning hours void of baby cries and loud children playing. It's also nice to eat hot breakfast prepared by someone else who also cleans the dishes. Yes, I'm looking forward to our quiet evening reading our scriptures, playing Yahtzee, jumping on the bed, maybe going to the pool, and watching Nick at Nite because, you know, that's what parents do when they go out.

This morning Rachel came downstairs before me and I found her like this:

I love kids. But sometimes I just need a break from them.

Typical Thursday

Let's see. I don't have a whole lot to write about today. My mother-in-law is in town again and my husband and I got to attend a wedding reception this evening. We are hardly recognizable without our crowd trailing behind us and a child on my hip. It's such relief to be able to go out in public and not have to constantly count to six and to be able to have a conversation with an adult with good eye contact because I don't have to constantly look away to make sure one of my children isn't poking the wedding cake or piling meatballs and baby carrots on his plate.

And the really good news is that we get to go out again tomorrow night. Woo hoo! Go mother-in-laws!

Jason and the Ballpoint Pen

Canvas #3 - a little side table in my kitchen

It's so hard to get mad at him when he is so proud of his work.

"Mommy, wook! I daw!"

(Add big cheesy grin.)

Magnetic Paws

As I cleaned the kitchen this evening, I found more evidence of children in the house:

A New Canvas

Real quick post because I have to go watch the Bachelorette Finale. It's all about priorities.

Jason tried a new canvas for his crayon drawing today. I think I should maybe hide our Harold and the Purple Crayon book until Jason gets a little bit older.

Arachnid Saturday ** Movie Spoiler**

I don't feel like I have much to say today. I watched Spiderman today on TNT while I ironed clothes and tidied up my bedroom. I felt that I was left hanging though so I had to watch Spiderman 2 this evening. Thankfully we happen to have the DVD. I'm not much of a super hero movie buff, but I like the love story. Although, I think I would've written it differently. I just don't think MJ is going to be happy living in a dump while her boyfriend is always away off to save the city. I don't see much point in watching Spiderman 3 because the love story seems to be over.

Now it's midnight and I should go to bed. I'm teaching the lesson in Relief Society at church tomorrow because the teacher totally bailed. Ha! I'm totally cool with it though because she is one of my loyal blog fans and she's totally excused because she is attending a funeral. The lesson is on adversity using this article. That's a piece of cake topic! I'm sure all I will have to do is say, "Who here has experienced adversity?" And then 18 hands will fly up and we will chit chat away about all of our problems and how we deal with them from a spirtual perspective. It's like an hour of free therapy.

Twins and more toilet problems.

Today I was digitally thumbing through my July photos with all my children gathered around. When I got to this one...



...Sarah asked, "Mommy, is that Wendy or me?"

So to all of you who have a difficult time telling Sarah and Wendy apart because of their similar stature and hair color, don't worry because even they can't tell themselves apart.

It's easy for us to differentiate them at home. All you have to do is listen to their voices. Sarah has the deep, raspy voice that I always wanted and Wendy has the high pitched munchkin voice that I still have.

Other news on the home front:

Wendy got Crayola Washable Markers for her birthday. I was stoked that they were washable because Crayola has "washability you can trust" so I let Jason in on the fun.

He decided he should use the toilet seat as his canvas. No big deal, right?

Well....Crayola should say, "Washablity you can trust if you read the fine print." The fine print says, "Keep away from wallpaper, painted walls, finished and unfinished wood, vinyl, carpeting and other materials that cannot be laundered." **SIGH** As if you have time to read fine print when you have kids. The marker did NOT come off the toilet seat. Apparently it only washes off from skin and most washable children's clothing.

So today I switched the downstairs toilet seat with the upstairs one to keep our guest bathroom presentable. I think life might be easier if we just dwelled in a tent. Or is it dwelt in a tent?

Good News!

The toilet is fixed!

I went to Lowes tonight to get me a 3 ft. snake. As I predicted, we did not need the 15 ft. one that attaches to an electrice drill. It was just toilet paper. I'm happy now. I could start a plumbing business unclogging neighbor's toilets for $80 a pop. Athough that would probably be a pretty crappy job.

Of course along the way I stopped to Target to return my new dresses that looked like nightgowns. Then I stopped to Kohl's to return the load of work clothes that I bought my husband a month ago for his new temp job that never turned permanent, and then I spent the rest of my birthday money on clearance clothes for me.

It was a good night. Fixed toilet, new clothes and John Tesh and I had a little bonding time in the car ride. Ug, but now my kitchen is still a mess. I can only do so much in one day. That will have to wait until tomorrow.

The other night I went to check on the children and I found this:
Jason had a nightmare the previous night. I guess he thought he would crawl in bed with his little sister for some added security. It kind of looks like synchronized sleeping.

My Little Pony and Rainbows

My toilet is still clogged. I sent my husband out to buy a snake today. He bought a 15 foot one. I only need about a 3 foot one (I hope). Maybe I will get out tomorrow to get one. But anyway, I guess it's good exercise in the meantime to run upstairs to go pee.

Sometimes when the kids are snug in bed and I'm all alone in the quiet downstairs sweeping the kitchen floor, little evidences that kids are still in the house make me happy.

A Poopy Day

Today was a doozy. It began with me not wanting to do anything but sit on the couch and read a book or watch TV. I felt so guilty though as my ill husband (he's come down with what I had a couple weeks ago) was working hard upstairs to produce some sample code for his job interview. So I got off my butt at around noon when I heard Sarah say, "MOMMY! Jason pooped on the playroom floor!" I was hoping it was on the wood, but it was on the carpet. So I got my box of wipes and started cleaning the first spot when Rachel came over and stepped on one of the turds. YUCK-O! I hadn't even gotten to cleaning Jason up yet, when I heard Emily cry out, "MOMMY! Jason is sitting on the couch!" Arrrgghhh! So I went to the couch and as I predicted there was a nice big skid mark down the back cushion where he sat. GROSS-O! I totally give up on the potty training. I'll be happy if Jason is trained by the time he graduates high school. I'm taking a potty training pause. The kid can poop to his heart's delight in diapers.

Later this afternoon, the toilet overflowed. Thankfully it was just toilet paper. I guess all this potty training has made Jason curious and he unrolled nearly an entire roll of toilet paper and flushed it. And flushed it again. Each time filling the toilet with 1.5 gallons of water until the bowl couldn't hold anymore and it spilled over making a lake onto the wood floor. It took several bath towels to soak up and I still couldn't plunge it. I hope it's just toilet paper. Who knows? It could've been a matchbox car, plastic corn on the cob, or a Kelly Doll. There were no eyewitnesses and Jason answered "yes" to everything I asked him. I think it's going to need a snake unless the toilet paper, matchbox car, corn cob, or Kelly Doll dissolves overnight.

Later this evening Wendy was randomly saying obnoxious things like, "Poopy on Sarah. Poopy on Emily," etc. Emily is pretty good at ignoring the childish nonsense, but Sarah was having a difficult time with the vulgarity. I was half paying attention while I was checking my emails and Facebook. Then I heard Sarah go ballistic with screaming and tears. I asked Sarah, "What in the world are you mad about?" Sarah replied, "Wendy said, 'Poopy on Camden.' Those are my FRIENDS she's pooping on!" (Camden is a girl in Sarah's primary class.) I couldn't help crack up at the fervor of her defensiveness. I told her it made me happy that she was such a loyal friend and told her to just ignore her younger sister.

And then I had this happen: Rachel thought it would be fun to climb on the table and tip the gallon container of milk over and spill it on my kitchen floor that we just cleaned on Clean Tile Tuesday.

I also overheard Sarah get mad at Wendy tonight for telling Emily that Sarah doesn't like chocolate chips. Sarah shouted, "WEN-DEE!! It's supposed to be a secret!" I turned my head at that one and said, "Sarah, you don't like chocolate chips?!" She replied with a slow shameful shake of her head. Yeah, she better be ashamed!

Sunflowers and Cookies

Today I harvested some of my Mammoth sunflowers.

The big sunflower heads weighed about 3 lbs. each. They nearly tackled me to the ground when I clipped them from their stalks.

One sunflower head gave me 2 cups of sunflower seeds. The others are still drying.

Emily made cookies all by herself today with her sibling helpers. She made Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Crinkle cookies. I helped her with taking them out of the oven and transerring them to the wire rack. We gave 3 to the next door neighbor, but I didn't have the courage to give them to the other neighbor yet. Maybe tomorrow. I love having a competent 8 year old resident baker! However, I think I need to invent a mixer with 6 beaters so each child can have one. Too much arguing over who gets to lick them!

Sunburns and Cookies

Do you ever have one of those days that you are just in a bad mood and can't snap out of it? I'm having one of those days. I think it has to do with the fact that I got sunburned yesterday and I'm extremely mad at myself for allowing it to happen. I did take precautions, but it seems that they were ineffective. Anyway, I just wish I had a rewind button and could do yesterday over and put on a different sunscreen or reapply it once while at the beach. My husband helped put things in perspective for me today and told me about a friend he had in high school who's mom was a "professional tanner". At first I thought he was talking about a leather maker, but no, she was an actual professional tanner who tanned her own hide. She laid in the sun for hours to get a deep dark skin glow and entered competitions that judged contestants on how tan they were. (My husband might have been taking advantage of my gullibility, but I'm going to believe the story because it did make me feel better.) So in other words, my three hours in the sun yesterday probably isn't as big of a deal as I'm making it out to be. My husband said I'm probably causing more damage to my body stressing about it than the actual sunburn.

My bad mood could also be due to the fact that my Aunt Flo is visiting. She is never fun.

Anyway.... I've decided to have cookie science this week. Cookies are more fun that cakes. We also had a lesson on charity at church today. I think we might bake some cookies and bring them to neighbors. I have this one neighbor lady who lives by herself. I've tried being friendly to her, but she is a tough person to read and I've had a difficult time trying to get to know her. I hope she likes cookies.

Beach Day

Today we went to my husband's high school reunion family beach day. We are skipping the dinner tonight because it costs $40 per person and if I'm going to spend $80 on a date it's not going to be with a bunch of people my husband was "kind of" friends with in high school. But the beach was fun. We were there between prime sun hours of 11AM - 2PM. I don't usually go outside for more than 10 minutes unless it's after 5PM. Suntan lotion is such a hassle. But I was so careful to lotion up every inch of the kids, but in all the commotion of getting ready, making lunches, and getting bathing suits on, I forgot to put suntan lotion on my chest. I was so mad, but it doesn't look too bad. I'll just use a lot of aloe. It was worth the few natural highlights the sun put in my hair today.

Now I'm tired and trying to get a clean house so I can have a restful Sabbath tomorrow. Thank goodness for Spongebob Sponge Bash this weekend. It's keeping my kids occupied and out of messy trouble.

6 Little Monkeys Sitting in the Crib

My husband took the side off of one of our vacant cribs so Sarah could have her own bed as we try to get her to sleep through the night dry. The girl is 5 1/2 and has never woken up dry. I'm thinking there is a link between eczema and bladder control. It's a very unscientific theory considering my study only has 4 potty trained subjects. My husband didn't tell me he was going to do that. Now I have to find another spot for my spare blankets.

On the employment front, my husband's temp job ended two weeks ago. We thought it might become permanent but they said, "You finished everything we needed you to do." So, yay! We are on to new and brighter things. It kind of makes you wonder what kind of company still has their employees using 50 lb CRT monitors. If they weren't willing to upgrade computer monitors, it probably wasn't likely there were going to upgrade my husband's pay. My husband had 2 encouraging interviews this week. We hope something might come from them. Let's cross our fingers and say a prayer. Talk about a trial to teach a person/family patience! I think I'm going to be an expert on the subject in not that long.

I wasn't so blah today. Thank goodness!

And now as I was just about to click "Publish Post" my husband brings this downstairs:

One little monkey jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head.

Mama did not call the doctor, but cleaned him up, doused the small wound (it's not as bad as it looks) with alcohol and applied a butterfly bandage. He already has a big scar between his eyes, so not a big deal. It adds character.

Blah

I feel very blah today. All I wanted to do was sleep. I'm not sick or anything, just blah. I grabbed a little bit of rest between the 10 loads of laundry I did. I didn't sleep, but I sat on the couch and read a book about how to make cakes. It made me want to try to make one from scratch. We've been slacking on the science for the past couple of weeks, so I'm thinking of having some food science. The science of cakes. The book was written, I think, by someone from England. The recipes called for size 3 eggs and caster sugar. I wonder what size eggs American chickens lay?

I also received a package in the mail from Target. I got some birthday money from my parents that I was instructed to spend only on myself. I obeyed and bought $50 worth of clothing from Target which also got me free shipping. I bought 2 cute dresses (same dress just different colors), a white shirt in 2 different sizes, and a pink shirt. It's been a while since I've worn a dress. I'm usually a shirt and skirt person. But when I tried it on and was trying to decide if I liked it, Wendy came walking in the room and said, "Mommy, is that your nightgown?" I think I'll be taking those back. Aww, that's too bad. I might just go to the store and look at the clothes racks. It's too hard to shop online. The online images with models with tall bodies and big boobs isn't realistic.

I think I might actually go to bed early tonight. I know my kids aren't going to forget that it's waffle Friday tomorrow and I need to get enough rest to be in the mood to make them.

No pictures today. Sorry. I did take a picture of two lizards, but I might have to up my blog rating to PG-13 if I post it. It was a good picture though. Poor lizards. They get no privacy.

Just another day

I have blogger's block right now. I think I'm still caught up on the fact that Jillian dumped Reid last night on the Bachelorette.

I took no pictures today. My visitors left. I ate a half price Sonic Burger for dinner and my awesome husband also brought me home an ice cream sundae. That's about it. Oh, and I also got unfriended again on Facebook.

Soak and Slide

Today we pulled out the Soak and Slide. Amber brought one along on her trip and since it was the last afternoon that they will be here, we decided it was time for the fun despite the thunder.

Rachel enjoyed drinking the water. Notice she is wearing the same bathing suit Sarah wore to the beach the other day. Also notice that she is the "fat one" still sporting her thigh butts.



The skinny one borrowed the cup. Man! I've yet to see Rachel's ribcage.

So the fat one drank direct.

A little bit of soaking and sliding.

I wouldn't normally post a picture of a pregnant woman squatting, but in all fairness I got my ugly feet posted a couple of days ago and it was a good group shot of all the action.

So yes, we will miss our visitors. I pretty much had my own personal chef. Today's menu included strawberries and cream crepes for breakfast, grilled tuna sandwiches for lunch, and zucchini and chicken enchiladas and Mexican rice for dinner. All in exchange for me washing the dishes, of course. Very delicious!

Typical Sunday

Ok. So I had to go back to the old school way of posting comments. I've had a couple people tell me that they are unable to post a comment on my blog. I don't know what the problem is, but go ahead and comment to your heart's content.

Today was a day of rest. We went to church. Wendy slept through primary, I think because she has gone to bed late for the past 3 nights. Her teacher thought she was ill, but I assured her that she wasn't.

We came home, ate lunch, took naps, ate dinner, played a game, and now the kids are in bed. I wish I had something more exciting to blog, but I don't.

Nine Kids

On Thursday my friend Amber came to visit with her 3 kids for a few days. So we have nine kids ages 8, 6, 5, 4, 4, 2, 2, 17 mo., and 17 mo. It's been a good time. Lots of noise and mess.

Last night we gave them ice cream on paper plates.

Today Amber and I took a couple hours to go to Walmart to pedicure our feet and shop for some necessities. We left my husband home to watch the kids. (The babies were sleeping and one konked out while watching a movie.)

They've been good helpers. They helped us make pizza yesterday before the beach.

So far I can't decide if all the chaos is inspiration to have more children or a good form of birth control. Hmmm...

The Beach

Every summer we take the kids to the beach. You would think we would go more often considering we live so close, but we don't. Six kids at the beach is tiring and messy. We opt to go at about 6PM when the parking is free and we don't have to worry about sunscreen. Here are some pics thanks to my friend Amber who's visiting with her 3 kids. She thankfully didn't forget her camera battery in the charger at home.

Sarah 2009

Sarah loves to dig in the sand.

Sarah 2006

Notice she wore the same bathing suit in 2009 that she did 3 years ago. She insisted. Thank goodness for elastic and Spandex.


Wendy

I asked Wendy if she wanted me to put her hair up before we left. She said, "No."

Rachel

Rachel's first time in the Ocean. Looks like she lost her left leg.

"Would you believe that dang thing is following me AGAIN?!"

Bradley

He's a typical boy at the beach. Swimming, building, digging.

Jason

"Beach!"

He defines the ocean as "the beach."

Emily

The romantic who admires the beauty of the vast sea after attempting to dig a hole to China.

Good day!

Robbing the Cradle

Rachel has a boyfriend. His name is Grady. Rachel is a whole 2 weeks older than him. She likes her boys young. Now if only her mother could teach her some modesty and put some clothes on her one of these days...

7-8-09

Today I found the children having a fashion show. There was Belle, Sleeping Beauty, and a Bride. There was some contention because Bradley told Sarah she wasn't beautiful. I explained to him that you never tell a girl she isn't beautiful. He understood and agreed Sarah was pretty but explained there was chocolate on her dress. Because of the drama, I decided to award winners according to 3 different categories. Prettiest Shoes, Best Twirly Dress, and Prettiest Dress.

Judge Bradley examined the contestant's shoes.

The winner was.....EMILY!

Sarah and Wendy weren't too happy about not winning and Sarah threw herself on the floor in protest. I took video of the rest:

You can hear that Sarah wanted 4 rounds of competition instead of 3. I think she wanted to increase her odds of winning. This also shows why my girls don't do beauty pageants. Sarah would certainly be the contestant that pours grape juice on her opponent's evening gown.

SUCH DRAMA!

Catching Up

Ok. So I have to get used to this whole blogging thing again. Just to quickly get you up to date:

4th of July!!

A friend of mine reminded me about Sparklers. I remembered that I had some in my kitchen drawer so I got them out for the kids.

Emily had a great time with them.

"Hot! Hurt!"
And it's totally a good idea to let your two year old be in charge of the matches.

Bradley wet down his face and shirt before doing the sparklers.

We had front row seats to the neighborhood fireworks show which also included smoke inhalation and shortness of breath the rest of the evening.

My sister sent festive necklaces.

5th of July

Rest. It was fast and testimony meeting at church. Since Wendy is a big 4 year old she wanted to bear her testimony at church. I rolled my eyes as she walked up to the stand with Emily and Sarah. I knew she would freeze and cause an awkward silence and I would look like the foolish parent that allowed her to go up there unassisted by an adult. I was right. She did freeze. Emily and Sarah looked at each other and made visual conversation. Finally Sarah got out of her seat and whispered some simple words into Wendy's ear to repeat. Thank goodness for a five year old to the rescue!

Bradley was reading a functioning portion on my blog. He saw the post where Rachel finds her shadow. He was cracking up. He said to me, "Mommy! Come here! You've got to read this!"

I said, "I know what it says, Bradley. It's my Blog."

He said, "But Mommy, you have to come here and read it. It's so funny."

I said, "Bradley, you do know that I wrote that, right?"

He said, "Yeah, but just read it."

I finally stood beside him and listened to him read me the captions. It was worth watching Bradley crack up at his sister.

Today

I've declared Tuesday as clean the kitchen floor day. I've concluded that I'm in a bad mood when my kitchen floors are dirty. We have a method and each kid gets a rag and we scrub away. I just love a clean floor. Meanwhile, of course, Jason was walking around without a diaper because I am half attempting at potty training and he somehow got himself on the playroom table and pooped and used half a roll of toilet paper trying to wipe himself. Two year olds are so disgusting. Thankfully Rachel didn't get involved in the ordeal.

I got my hairs cut today. Four inches. As the lady shampooed my hair with some minty scented tea tree shampoo she asked, "Would you like your eyebrows waxed?" I politely declined but thought, "What?!! Doesn't she clearly see that I spent a half hour last night plucking about 5 lbs. of hair off my brow??" I held in my 1/2 cry and 1/2 laugh and thought, "Wasn't Brooke Shields considered beautiful?"

As I sat down in the chair with the towel on my wet head she asked me what I wanted done with my hair. We discussed my hair. She told me I had a lot of hair and I mentioned that I wasn't used to having wavy hair because it had been completely straight my entire life until I had kids. She was surprised when I said I had kids. I told her I had six. She said she thought I was colleged aged. Yes!! She totally redeemed herself from her eyebrow comment. Of course she remarked about my age while looking at the back of my head, but still, she thought I was 10 years younger than I am. I guess that can happen when you go out without your wedding rings wearing kid's pink glitter shoes.

My mother-in-law is here so my husband and I got some free babysitting for a date night this evening. We went to a Mexican restaurant and pigged out on free chips and dinner. Then we went and took a walk along the beach. It started raining. We ran to the car and went to Target. Then we made the obligatory stop to Barnes and Noble. It was so nice to get out, but the kids were still awake watching a movie when we got home at 10:15PM. We paid our babysitter with a Sonic milkshake.

That's all. I'm totally back.

So my website has been down for a few days. There was a fire at the data center where my website is hosted. All is well. It's just taking them an unpleasantly long time to fix it!!! I thought for a moment I would get a nice blogging vacation, but I decided to keep writing anyway. I can still write and publish later. So that's about it for today. My website is broken and I'm unhappy about it.

Kids!

Today Wendy wanted to wear the dress that Sarah was wearing. Now keep in mind that these girls are 17 months apart and Sarah is about 1/2 inch taller than Wendy. Sarah told Wendy that when she grew up, she could wear the dress. But Wendy was so confused and looked offended. Then Wendy replied, "But I DID grow up!" How could Sarah forget that Wendy turned 4 yesterday?

My husband was taking a class tonight, so after we folded laundry and were waiting for him to come home, I let the kids draw pictures with the markers that Wendy got for her birthday. Emily drew this:

This is a picture of Emily folding laundry. She's got the perspective of the laundry pile exactly correct. However, we do not stack our folded laundry in rainbow order.

Last night when we were getting the cake ready for Wendy's birthday Emily was on a desperate search for paper plates. I said to her, "Emily, if we didn't have paper plates last night, and I haven't been to the store, how would we have paper plates tonight?" She agreed with the logic, but was still desperate to find some. At first I thought she wanted to make it a little more festive, but then I realized that she was afraid she was going to have to wash dishes again after cake. I assured her that I would wash the dishes and that she only washed them the night before because it was MY birthday. She was extremely relieved and immediately settled for the plastic plates.

Happy 4th Birthday, Wendy!

Today was a mellow day for Wendy's birthday. I'm afraid I stole all the fun and energy yesterday for my birthday. I woke up with pink eye and a sore throat. So we hung around most of the day and watched TV. Oh yes, and we watched Enchanted, which I loved. Except it was difficult for me to want Patrick Dempsey to be the Prince knowing the sleazy role he plays in Grey's Anatomy. I think Disney should've picked someone...like say... that is as handsome as Zac Effron because he's pretty hot. Anyway... it was Wendy's day and she totally enjoyed the TV time. I think two of Wendy's favorite things are chocolate and TV.

BIRTH

I'll be the first to admit that Wendy did not take any prizes for being one of my more beautiful babies. Sarah has that prize.

ONE YEAR OLD

Wendy walked at 9 months and cut her first tooth at 20 months. It was a very odd sight to see a toothless walking baby like her. Do you think there is a family resemblance to our current baby Rachel?

TWO YEARS OLD

She definitely started gaining more beauty at age 2. We had a luau for her 2nd birthday during our visit in California at my parent's house.

THREE YEARS OLD

So BIG!

FOUR YEARS OLD

...and a beauty.

I think.

Tonight before bed Wendy said to her Daddy, "Daddy, remember when I was a little girl and I was just three?"