Happy Birthday Clinton!

One of the great things about homeschooling is that you can learn things however you want. This year we are having a Presidential Birthday Bash and celebrating each US president on his birthday. We haven't gone as far as birthday cake yet, but we make an attempt to learn about him. Today is Bill Clinton's 63rd birthday. We learned about him yesterday by reading a library book. The kids then invited a "guest speaker" to our "class". It was none other than.......Bill Clinton himself:

So yes, Bill likes to play the tenor sax, he was born in 1946 in Arkansas. We learned some other things, but didn't get into the whole Monica Lewinsky thing. These kids books kind of skip over some things.

That was yesterday. Today I allowed the kids a good session of airplane rides. Today I tried a new trick. Who needs a gym when you have two 30 something pound weights to press?

The new trick.

(Sorry about the butt shot, but I didn't want to crop it though because I wanted you to get the full effect of the trick. Maybe we'll try out for America's Got Talent next year.)

The traditional airplane ride.

We call this one the Unicycle. Sarah complains that it hurts her crotch.

My month old pedicure is still looking pretty good, but it looks like I need to shave my feet. I just never think to.

Date Night

Yesterday morning my husband came downstairs and found Rachel chowing on some chocolate chips. I was so proud of him for taking a picture. I've trained him well.



Later that day I found Rachel changing her baby doll's diaper:



None of my other girls have ever been that interested in baby dolls. However Rachel is beginning to express some interest. It makes sense. By 18 months of age, the other girls had their own real live baby doll to love. Rachel doesn't know about real babies yet. She has to settle for plastic. Oh, and the green marker on her is compliments of Jason. We were using some new dry erase books to learn letters and numbers. Jason thought he would try the whole dry erase thing on his sister. It didn't erase as easily as it did on the laminated pages of the book.

And if you're wondering if I ever dress this child, because she is unclothed in the majority of pictures and videos I post, it's a totally valid question. Let me explain. In the spring I filled her drawers with the spring/summer 12 month wardrobe. Now that her pot belly hangs out of most of her clothes, I really need to move her up to the 18 month wardrobe. I believe the bin of 18 month girl's clothes is in the attic. Everyday I say I am going to go up there and look for it, but I don't because it is surely like 100 and something degrees up there. So I keep her naked. It's very much the same reason that Jason is still wearing 18 month and 2T clothing when he should be wearing 3T. However his clothes are in an upstairs closet that is blocked by some of my husband's stuff. We're taking a little trip next week, so I should have them out by then. I can't be vacationing with a naked baby. ......Or can I?

Every Tuesday my husband takes a child of ours on a date. Tonight was Rachel's turn. He took her to get a cookie and to Barnes and Noble. He took her in the smaller car, a car she has never been in. He said she looked a little unsure about the whole situation. Kind of like when you put your pet into the car to take it to the vet. They just know that something is up and get all nervous. She didn't want to eat the cookie. She probably thought it was poisoned or a trick. She's seen Snow White. My husband said it seemed like she felt a little lost without her siblings. It was too quiet and tranquil. She began to warm up to the situation at Barnes and Noble and my husband just let her walk around and he followed her. She even let a little girl read her a book. That must have made her feel at home. She probably thought it was one of her siblings.

U.S. Presidents

We are studying U.S. Presidents this year. Tonight at dinner Bradley told Daddy the names of the presidents that are on "that mountain". Then Daddy asked Bradley if he's ever seen the other side of Mt. Rushmore. Bradley said, "No." So Daddy went to my computer and showed the family a picture of the other side of Mt. Rushmore. Do you want to see it?

Click Here

How cool is that? I totally did not know that!

Sunday School

For the past 8 years I've always had a pre-nursery child during Sunday School which was my ticket to sit in the hall/lobby of the church building to nurse, feed, or chase a baby, infant, or toddler. But Rachel is now 18 months and qualified to attend nursery so I no longer have my ticket to the hall class. Usually I have a new baby at this point, but I don't, so I feel obligated to go to Sunday School with my husband and learn some spiritual stuff.

Today the lesson was on Eternal Marriage. We talked about what it felt like to know that we would be married to our spouse forever. My husband raised his hand. He most always has relevant comments to add to the discussion. So I sat there next to him, anxious to hear what he had to say about being married to me forever. He said, "When you know you are with this person (your spouse) for eternity and can see the big picture, it helps you to better put up with them in this life." The teacher saw my raised brow and he smiled, and then my husband realized he kind of sort of put his foot in his mouth until the man in front of said, "Yes, I'm sure your wife feels exactly that way."

I really need to get me a ticket back to that hall class.

Every week after church we cook breakfast for lunch - scrambled eggs, hashbrowns and toast. While my husband and I prepare it, the children help clear and set the table and then they do their own thing while they patiently wait for the food. Today it was this:

Bradley did a prophet matching game while Rachel watched.

Wendy helped scramble the eggs.

Emily read a library book about being a kid in ancient Greece.

Jason colored a crossword puzzle.

Sarah played dolls.

Yeah, I know, not that exciting, but I wanted to add some photos to my text.

Library and Walmart

This afternoon we went to the library to pick up some books and DVD's I had on hold and we ended up coming home with 34 books and 4 DVD's. Then we had to go downtown to pick up a couple of books that my husband's former coworker was borrowing. (It was good to see you, Ian!! Ian is the awesome person who replaced my garbage disposal and a loyal blog follower.)

Then I needed to go to Walmart to pick up a few groceries, like 4 gallons of milk, 5 lbs. of bananas, 2 lbs. of strawberries, crackers, pretzels, animal crackers, Parkay Spray Butter, and chocolate chips. It was dinnertime by the time we arrived. We decided to eat some McDonald's because Super Walmart is absolutely and totally One Stop Shopping.



One of the things I love about blogging is that you can share the most intimate details about your life. It's like virtual voyeurism. I am my own paparazzo. It still surprises me that people are actually interested in my life. So I thought I would get a little more intimate this evening and tell you what we ate (This could possibly be even hotter than my laundry post):

Total order:
Quarter Pounder Combo Large with Diet Coke and a splash of Dr. Pepper - Daddy
2 Cheeseburgers -Mommy (and I shared husband's fries and drink)
1 Hamburger - Emily
1 10 piece McNugget Combo Large with Sprite and Orange drink refill - Bradley and Jason
1 Large Fries - Kids
1 10 piece McNuggets, Sweet and Sour sauce - Sarah and Wendy
(All kids share one large drink)

TOTAL = $21.82 (or something like that)

David had a phone interview this afternoon. We were celebrating by dining out. When he actually gets a job or a paycheck, we'll throw in 8 ice cream cones too!! Woo hoo! Party hard at Walmart McDonald's!

Sometimes there are moments in parenthood that you just have to pretend didn't happen or choose to forget. Like this evening as we were leaving McDonald's and I filled the kid's cup up with orange soda. David was getting the shopping cart and I turned around to call for Jason and found him eating the French fries that Wendy dropped on the floor. I forget sometimes that children need to be trained in certain things. It's not innate common sense to not eat food off the floor at McDonald's. Kids are so gross sometimes. I held in my gag reflex and kindly told him, "Eww. Eww. Eww. Yucky! We don't eat food off the floor, especially at McDonald's." But he gave me that little innocent confused look that implied he was thinking, "But they are so yummy. Why would we want to waste them?"

As we were in line waiting to check out I admired the 20 something newlywed couple in front of us. I admired her perfect haircut, her sparkly new wedding ring, her face full of collagen, her beautiful tan. She most likely didn't have a single stretchmark on her body. **sigh** I noticed they only had to buy a half gallon of milk, one box of granola bars and other small quantities of food and had enough money to blow on a big box of Milk Duds. Then I remembered I have this:

I wouldn't trade them for anything. Not even bigger, perkier breasts.

Your face is going to stay that way.

And there's more, but Blogger is very slow at uploading photos.

Appreciation

Today Emily wanted me to do Wendy's hair like this:

Emily specified that she wanted it like Jasmine's hair (from Aladin), but pigtails. While doing Wendy's hair I gained appreciation for all the effort my mother put into doing my hair every morning before school. I wore pigtails (sometimes with braids) everyday. It's not easy getting the part just right and the hair flat on the head. Which is why I think I'm fine with the girls taking care of doing their own hair every morning which usually looks something like this:

Beautiful!

Speaking of appreciation, tonight I was folding the girls load of laundry in their room. With 4 girls, it's quite a mountain of clothing, especially since many days they love to do a wardrobe change. My husband came in the room and sat down for a moment while he got Jason ready for bed. I looked at him and caught him glance at the clothes scattered about the floor. It was a look that said, "Holy freak, that's a lot of clothes and I'm glad I'm not the one who has to fold and put them away!" The expression on his face was the golden moment of my day. He didn't have to say anything, I could tell he appreciated my laundry efforts.

Blogging Blues

I have a little case of the blogging blues. Don't worry it shouldn't last long. I got my period today and it hit me like a brick. I felt great all morning and then suddenly the headache came on, my body started aching, the cramping began and I became very irritable. (Sorry male readers, but I just have to rant on about this today.) It's got me a little freaked out though because it came 4 days early on my 24th day of my cycle. That just seamed a little freakish to me because I've been quite regular the past few months. Anyway, of course I had to Google it and I determined it might be due to a short luteal phase which either means I have low progesterone which means I might have high estrogen. High estrogen increases your risk of breast, ovarian, and other sorts of girly cancer and makes it hard to conceive or stay pregnant. So yes, I'm am most positive I am going to die of cancer now and/or never have any more babies. Sorry. I go through hypochondriatic doom and gloom phases every now and then. It shall pass once my hormones begin to balance out again. My husband surprised me with a hot fudge sundae tonight when he came home from a meeting. He's learned over the past nine years that the way to a woman's heart is through ice cream and chocolate. I think Emily is learning too because she made her very first cheesecake today all by herself (I helped her with the oven, of course). We haven't tried it yet because it had to cool in the refrigerator, but I'm thinking breakfast?

Never tell a girl...

Today at lunch my husband told Rachel that her outfit made her legs look fat.

Afraid that Bradley might think he was serious, my husband quickly let Bradley know that you NEVER tell a girl she looks fat. I know my kids listen to us because today Wendy told me that when she grows up she's going to get married and then have babies. She clearly demonstrated that she understood the correct order of things.

More Sleep Eating

As you might recall, Rachel as always been a very good sleep eater. She was good at it a 9 months of age and still continues at 18 months of age: (I trimmed the first 45 seconds of her sleep eating off of the video.)

Picnic at the Park

A couple of weeks ago our family discovered this really cool park nearby. Now our kids beg to go there every Sunday. Last week it was raining, so we took them today. We packed a dinner and ate it on the boat. The kids like to play Nephi's journey to the promised land, Noah's Ark, and pirates.

It's way cool.

I told my husband that he needed to take more pictures of me so if I die my children and grandchildren can know what I looked like. Since there are so few pictures of me I need to remember not to join in on the funny faces.



Daddy's dinner - a leftover piece of pizza.

Rachel gazing at the sea turtle from the boat.

The captains.

The sea turtle.

The cupcakes our next door neighbor gave us.

It was a great evening. A little hot and buggy, but great.

This afternoon we took naps. Wendy slept with me on the family room couch. When she woke up she saw my painted toenails and said, "Mommy, why you have paint on your toes?"

I said, "Oh, for fun."

Then she said, "Why Daddy not have paint on his toes?"

"I don't know."

"Daddy should have green on his toes."

"Why?"

"For fun!" (Duh!) "When I get to be a mom, I put paint on my toes?"

"Yes."

Then Wendy gave me a big grin.

"Mommy, I'm hungry. I want a banana, would you like a banana?"

"No, thank you."

AND...

My youngest daughter does speak! Tonight when the children were getting ready for bed, Rachel was getting into the box of wipes. My husband said, "No, no, no."

Then she looked at him, thought for a moment and said, "Yes, yes, yes." (of course it wasn't pronounced so clearly, but you get the idea.)

SHE SPEAKS!

The Heartbreaker

Before my parents-in-law left today, they gave some gifts to the children. As we watched them play with the toys, my mother-in-law said, "He's going to be quite the heartbreaker when he gets older, isn't he?" (She was referring to Jason.) I agreed and then a minute later captured this:

Yes, he most definitely will have swarms of girls swooning over him.

Tupperware Cabinet and Dinner Out

Today I cleaned my Tupperware cabinet:

Ta Da!!

So I only actually have, like, 5 actual pieces of Tupperware. But isn't it cool that we actually still call it a Tupperware cabinet despite the fact that it's mostly Glad, Rubbermaid, empty Tollhouse cookie dough containers, Pyrex, and hospital insulated 1000 mL water mugs (I have six of them).

Then my husband's mother took us out to dinner to my favorite restaurant. I ate a 7 oz. filet mignon, sweet potato, and caesar salad. As the hostess took us to our table, my husband observed the couple's faces at a neighboring table. He could tell they didn't look too happy to have six young children seated next to them. But as the couple was leaving they made a very nice comment to us about how well behaved our children were. They told us they were better behaved than their own grandchildren. We thanked them and patted ourselves on our backs. We've had people comment before on how well behaved our children are. But it totally makes me question what they are expecting when they see six children sit down at a restaurant table. Do they expect them to be running around and screaming? Whining? Blowing spit wads through straws at the ceiling? Dancing on the table? Is it that surprising that all they do is sit in their chairs, sip their lemonade, and color with crayons on their kid's menu? I'll admit it surprises me after seeing how they act at home. I did take note they did not comment on my kids being cute.

Or well-dressed:

I was so hungry before we left, I just didn't care that Wendy was wearing her turquoise I heart Sweet Treats shirt under her 4th of July dress.

We of course ate dessert - The Chocolate Stampede:

It was stampeded in a matter of minutes:

Then we went to the airport to pick up my husband's dad, the Senior Citizen Manscout:

Yeah, it's a long story...

My Kids

Tonight when I was cleaning the playroom I found this:



Bradley proudly admitted it was his work of art.

Should I be worried? Or am I raising a potentially successful proctologist that will take care of me when I'm old?

(Take care of me financially not medically.)

And here is my caveman toddler that still hasn't learned how to speak a single word. She's not crying. She's grunting and it seems to get her what she wants. Maybe if I didn't do her hair like Pebbles Flintstone she would begin using civilized speech. Or is this all part of 6th child syndrome?

One of these days she will say, "Me want sippy cup."

Errands and Ice Cream Sandwiches

Today I ran a few errands with my girls, minus Rachel because she was sleeping. While we were driving Wendy said to me, "Mommy, when I grow up I will marry Daddy?" I explained that only I would be married to Daddy and that someday she would find a handsome young man to marry. She seemed pleased with that. Then we talked about marriage, babies, and getting older. I made sure to emphasized that babies come after you get married. Then Wendy said, "When we get old, we die?"

I told her, "Yes, hopefully we will all die of old age." I explained that sometimes people die when they are young and even children can die. Then the girls brainstormed different ways people can die such as disease, being shot by a gun, burned by a fire because the smoke alarms didn't go off, strangled, stabbed, heart attack, etc. It was a nice morbid conversation. I went back to the positive and said again, "Hopefully we will all live to be old."

Then Wendy said, "I grow up on my birthday."

Sarah said, "It will be a lot of birthdays before you're a mom."

Then Emily clarified, "You don't have to be a mom to be grown up. You just have to have babies to be a mom."

I clarified, "You only have to have one baby to be a mom."

Then Sarah said, "And you don't die right away when you get old." Which made me ponder, when do we get old?

Then we talked about how smoking is bad for you and the girls recapped the Brady Bunch episode when Greg gets caught with a pack of cigarettes in his letterman jacket pocket, but it's not really his because the jacket was actually his friend's and they got switched. I love the Brady Bunch. Such good morals despite the super short mini skirts.

Today we also made homemade ice cream sandwiches. TOTALLY not worth the effort. I would much rather pay $3.00 for a box of a dozen Great Value ice cream sandwiches, but it was fun. Here is them eating the dessert (Wendy and Daddy missed out on the fun because they were on a date.):

Emily's was round.

Bradley's was square.

Sarah got the biggest one.

Jason wasn't so sure about picking it up. He ended up eating the ice cream with a spoon.

Rachel got a smaller modified version of the ice cream sandwich.

And here is a video that shows a little of what I deal with on a daily basis. It's juvenile behavior, but I LOVE Sarah's laugh:

Girl Church and Tantrums

Tonight I went to Enrichment Night at church, which basically means the women get together and hang out and get enriched. Tonight we had a "picnic" and each lady brought a salad topping that began with her name. So we ate salad with a variety of toppings. There were pine nuts, carrots, pineapple, hard boiled eggs, kidney beans, tomatoes, cheese, broccoli, and more. I brought mushrooms, but while I was in line I suddenly thought of Mandarin oranges. That would've been so much better. The meal ended with Costco cheesecake. Delicious!

After we ate, each lady shared three things from her purse that described her. We knew about the purse thing ahead of time. The three things I brought were: 1) my camera because I never go anywhere without it and I love to blog and Facebook, 2) an ABBA CD with my favorite ABBA songs and a Clorox bleach pen because I love to listen to ABBA on Thursday afternoons while folding laundry with my kids, and 3) a piece of fresh ginger root because I love Asian cuisine, especially when it has fresh ginger. So basically we were enriched tonight by getting to know each other and eating fresh good food.

The younger kids always get a little confused as to why Mommy goes to church by herself on a random week day. I just tell them it's girl church and they get to go when they are 18 (the girls). They are fine with it. It means a fun night with Daddy. Tonight they watched 2 episodes of Doctor Who. The other evening Sarah asked my husband, "Daddy, why do boys go to scouts and girls get to have fun?" She has that right!

This morning Wendy threw a tantrum. The girl is going through some terrible four's. She was throwing a fit because I wouldn't let her watch TV. I know. I'm a horrible mother. She shouted and shouted, "I WANT TO WATCH TV!" Finally I slung her over my shoulder carried her upstairs to her bedroom and plopped her on the bed and told her she could come down when she stopped crying and got dressed. I don't remember how long it took, but she finally came downstairs calm. I'll admit I had forgotten about her. She asked me nicely to help her get dressed. I did.

Later this afternoon, she recapped the moment and said, "Mommy, I cried a lot today. I wanted to watch TV."

I said, "You sure did. It was naughty to cry like that."

She agreed and then mildly reenacted the tantrum to demonstrate what she looked like. I think she recognized the absurdity of her unreasonableness in a 4 year old sort of way. Then she said, "Mommy, Jesus loves us."

I said, "Yes he does."

She said, "I love Jesus."

I said, "I love him too. Come here." Then she crawled onto the bed where I was laying and gave me a hug. Then I said, "Don't cry like that again. OK?"

"OK."

"You may take one stuffed animal to bed."

Gospel Sign Language

Today when we picked Sarah up from her Primary class at church she proudly showed her Daddy what she made. They traced their hands, cut them out, and taped two fingers down with a nice message about honoring parents. Sarah was quick to clarify, "Daddy, it's sign language for love NOT rock n' roll."

Also this evening we watched a Living Scripture movie and ate popcorn for dinner. At the climatic moment of the movie Sarah spoke up and assured everyone that, "The bad guy ALWAYS loses in church movies." Her observation made me happy. She's right. If we choose the right and choose to be good guys, we will ALWAYS win. What a comfort that is.

Hampton Inn Comes Highly Recommended

Our 24 hour date night was a success. We were working within a budget so we decided to live it up on the North side of town where hotel rates are a little bit lower because it's further from the beach. I have to say, you can't go wrong with a Hampton Inn. They offer:

Hair dryers in embroidered bags.

Extra large showers with WaterPik shower heads.

Granite bathroom countertops and fancy faucets.

32 inch LCD HDTV. (However the channel lineup could've been a little better. Not as many choices as I thought there should've been and no OnDemand Movies to watch. They did, thank goodness, have Nick at Nite.)

King bed with plush white down comforters and 4 pillows. The bed was a little firm for jumping, but I got in a few good jumps.

After we checked in, we were going to go to a nice Japanese steakhouse, but David forgot his nice shirt, so we opted for a casual salad and pizza instead. Then we went and got some chocolate chip cookies for dessert. We didn't bring Yahtzee, but instead we brought Farkle which is another fun dice game. Then we watched a lot of TV. It's too bad all the movies on HBO were inappropriate and rated R. I wanted to watch Knocked Up.

And I didn't get a picture of it, but we ate a delicious free continental breakfast. On the menu this morning was egg patty, french toast sticks, and assortment of muffins and bagels, cereal, juice, and fruit. Yum! I could hardly sleep last night because I was so excited to eat breakfast in the morning. I was so afraid that the dark curtains were going to make me sleep past 10AM and the food would all be gone. We managed to get downstairs by 9:30. Phew!

After we checked out, we headed downtown to be tourists in our own city. It was so freakin' HOT! I was miserable. It was in the high 90's with like 99% humidity. I bought a Jumbo lemonade at the farmers market to help prevent me from passing out. Here is my husband modeling it with his Dr. Pepper T-shirt. I couldn't figure out why some lady was looking at my husband funny while we stood there listening to the fiddler. Then I realized she was staring at his socks.

Rachel was extremely mad at me for ditching her. She was fine while we were gone, but she cried and cried when I got home and she didn't want to look at me. This evening we celebrated Sarah's 1/2 birthday by going to Chili's with David's mom:

Cheers!

The Molten Chocolate Cake was devoured in seconds.