Valentine's Day - The Day After

I used to consider myself a Stay-at-Home mom/Homemaker/Blogger. But I'm afraid that I don't deserve the "blogger" title anymore. It makes me sad. But what matters is that I'm blogging now. Sometimes life happens and I just have to take an evening or week...or two weeks...or three... to do nothing but watch TV while I watch what other people are pinning on Pinterest.

My last post was February 14. I had plans to blog the following day with our post Valentine's Day candy shopping excursion and field trip to learn fractions and percentages, with an emphasis on 1/2 and 50%. We went to Walmart and Target. Walmart was by far the bigger jackpot. Target was nearly entirely out of any good candy, but I did get a cute apron. Here are the pictures of what the kids picked out:

Each kid got to pick something. These aren't necessarily what they picked for themselves. I just told them to grab something out of the cart so I could take a picture.

 After Walmart we were hungry so instead of going home to eat lunch we stopped and got pizza pizza at Little Caesar's. You really can't beat pizza for $5 each. We usually have frozen pizza for lunch on Fridays, so I substituted it on Wednesday and it only cost a few dollars more.

They played on the playground for a while. I love having a 10 year old to help push the little ones on the swings.

Playing in the sandbox. Yes, they are all mine. That's a lot of kids.

Then we went to Target. Since they didn't have much to pick from, I let the kids play in the outdoor section where the lawn furniture and grill are. They never have a lack of imagination. However, they got in an argument. Emily wanted to pretend they were adults who were in their 30's. Bradley thought playing a game "in your 30's" was dumb. He wanted to play a game where they were in their 20's and in college. Their arguments were cracking me up. They ended up playing separate games.

Meanwhile, George took a nap on the Valentines' Day clearance pillow that we borrowed for a moment.

Jason has no idea what Twilight even is, but he HAD to have this Twilight tin! he just thought it was so cool, mostly because it came with an Edward necklace.

Rachel HAD to have this Barbie heart box. Can you imagine the disappointment and tears when she opened it and discovered there were no chocolates inside? Yes, it was devastating, and in my opinion, quite rude for the candy company to do something so deceptive like that. I even paid a $1 extra for the "Barbie" box. Thankfully Rachel has some very kind sisters that shared some of their chocolates. Jason's tin contained the same candy as Rachel's, but he didn't seem as bothered by it because he had his chain necklace as a consolation prize. He shoved all of the gummies in his mouth at the same time.

Sarah and Emily picked these heart boxes. I see they are gaining wisdom as they grow older. The bigger the better.

This is the whole stash that we came home with. Bradley chose a bag of caramel filled Dove milk chocolate. I had to pay close attention while checking out at Walmart because not everything was ringing up at 50% and the clerk had to manually ring it.

Mom and Dad's stash and my new cute apron.

OK, that is the day after Valentine's Day. I think I will end this post here. I have more to say about my past week.

To be continued....

Love at First Sight

So a few weeks ago there was a good deal on Woot for the Shark Pocket Mop. I don't usually like gimmicky cleaning gadgets because they are more of a disappointment than the awesomeness they portray on the infomercial. But I couldn't pass it up because it was about half of the retail price. I figured if I didn't like it, I could probably Craigslist it for close to the amount of what I paid for it. Well, it arrived, and of course it didn't perform as awesomely as I hoped it to. However, I am well aware that there is no miracle solution to cleaning a kitchen floor of the dirt and grime that comes along with a nine member family. I still love Shark though. She doesn't make the job go any faster, but I like the fact that she steams the floor and sanitizes it for at least the next day for when George eats food off the floor. The best part about her arrival was that she is the perfect companion for Dyson.

It was love at first sight and they celebrated their first Valentine's Day today.

Jason and Sarah. I think the throat hold just looks so loving.

We don't normally celebrate V-day on the 14th because I don't like spending full price on flowers and chocolate, but my husband broke the rules and bought flowers for the girls from the boys. I suppose it's my fault, because I asked my husband to pick up some milk, butter, and bananas on his way home from work and he got sucked into the peer pressure of all the other husbands at the store buying stuff for their wives.

Rachel admiring her carnation. She was the rebellious girl today that didn't wear pink, red, or hearts.

Wendy thought the girls' flowers were better than Mommy's flowers because they were bigger. She hasn't caught on that carnations are a B list flower. The white ones will make good science experiements though, when we put them in a glass of colored water. 

(I can't help but be practical and educational with my flower receiving.)

My pink roses. Whenever my husband buys me flowers I can't help but think of what kind of dent it put in my budget. I really do appreciate them. But I appreciate even more the grocery store sushi my husband brought home along with the flowers. I love grocery store California Rolls!

Can you see my new cabinet behind me? Remember way back in January when I had a Solution Resolution to fix my kitchen counter clutter? Well I did get that accomplished. I still need to post 'after' pictures, after I get my kitchen counters cleared....AGAIN! 

My next door neighbor brought over a 7 oz. giant Hershey Kiss today that she got at work. She didn't want it because she doesn't eat milk chocolate (Why doesn't she eat milk chocolate? I don't know.) But we graciously accepted it. In order to serve it fairly, we had to weigh each serving to make sure each child got exactly 1 oz. I like to call it Chocolate Math Class.

George enjoying his ounce of milk chocolate.

The kids did some artwork today. I really liked what Emily painted. 

Tomorrow we will continue our annual tradition of shopping for chocolate the day after Valentine's Day at 50% off. Another Chocolate Math Class. 

In other news: I went to the doctor again today for a regularly scheduled prenatal checkup. My abdominal aching returned yesterday afternoon and it radiates to my back. He agreed to scan my gallbladder, but they didn't find anything. I'm beginning to think it's simply just mid-back pain due to a shift in my center of gravity, since my belly significantly popped out about a week ago. It doesn't feel very digestive system related anymore, but rather more muscular-skeletal. Pregnancy in my 30's isn't what it was like in my 20's. It's no wonder that pregnancy at age 35+ is labeled a "Geriatric Pregnancy". So, I'm not going to be paranoid about it and I'm NOT going to Google any symptoms because it will only cause me to stress and not blog, and we can't have that!

Or or oar or ore?

[Ok, so the title of this post has nothing to do with what it is about. It's just a question the kids came up with at lunch today while we were talking about the difference between "ore" and "oar".]

On with the post...

I am dragging my reluctant fingers to the keyboard to do something other than check Facebook or Pinterest. I am self-diagnosing myself with ADD. I just can't keep my brain focused. I'm sure it has nothing to do with raising and homeschooling seven kids, I'm just....well, here's a picture....wait.....let me tell you about Sarah's birthday......in a minute. I want to show you a picture....no wait, let me tell you how this past week the stomach bug went through our home. Ug. Yes, it was yuck and I'm just recovering.....ok here's the picture: (That's just a glimpse of how my brain has been functioning lately. Annoying, right? And if you can translate my unfocusedness into housecleaning, you might be able to imagine what my house looks like. Everything is either 1/4, 1/2 or 3/4 of the way clean, with an emphasis on 1/4.)

This year I was going to write a To Do List at the beginning of each month for all the things I wanted to accomplish that month. January's list was pretty successful. Over a week ago I sat down to write my To Do List for February and this is how far I got because I got distracted. Needless to say, you can't go very far on a To Do List if you can't even To Do writing the list!

OK, back to the stomach bug. Wendy started it on Monday and she had it for two days. Usually if sickness goes around our house, more than one kid will get sick. But she was the only one, which led me to wonder if she had appendicitis or something because she was complaining about her lower abdomen hurting before the puking started. Then I got paranoid about the undercooked hot dogs we ate on Sunday, and I was afraid she had Listeriosis, and that I would have it too, and it would kill my fetus. (Listeria can do that.) But then Emily and Bradley both got sick on Wednesday evening, followed by Sarah and Rachel on Thursday evening. (I will admit I secretly rejoiced when the two kids who did not eat hot dogs (Emily and Rachel) threw up and I was able to throw my Listeria paranoia out the window. I think George had the illness in the form of a liquid diaper, and Jason seemed to miraculously get by unscathed. We think it might have to due to him eating so much fruit to keep is immune system going. Thankfully the bug seemed to be a sort of 24-48 hour thing depending upon how long the child wanted to milk it for some TV time. My husband and I both had something funky going on too, but no throwing up, thank goodness. We were just both very tired and I had a very bad crampy feeling in my upper abdomen ALL week! At first I thought it was just growing pains of my expanding belly, but by day five I thought it might be something else. I went to the doctor and he diagnosed me as having "The Bug". I totally thought I had gallbladder issues, but I started feeling great as of Saturday afternoon. 

The good news is my doctor was not busy the day I went in. I told him he was torturing me by having me wait until the 28th to find out if I am having a boy or girl. So he said, "Do you want to find out today?" Without hesitation I said, "Of course!!!" So he led me down the hall for a complimentary "Social Ultrasound." But I'm going to keep you in suspense for now because I feel like I cheated by getting a sneak peek. I get my official anatomy scan on the 28th to make sure she has a heart, brain, etc. Did I say 'she'? I meant 'he'. Now I've got you confused. At least we know he/she has at least one hand:

A few fun things have happened since I last posted. Here they are in pictures:

Rachel's Birthday on January 22

 

Can you guess how old she is?  She's either 4.....

....or 44. (Emily decorated the cake.)

She got a Spongebob Barbie from us.

Sarah's Turned 8!

I guess there is no theme to the birthday cakes this year.  This year I have ADD, not OCD.

Sarah got baptized on Groundhog's Day.

Daddy baptized her.

A group shot.

The next day I put my free labor to work and we painted a section of our fence in desperate need of paint.

The next day I painted our bedroom. I don't have a good picture yet. The color is called "Moondance". I thought it was a light blue, but it's actually a light grey. I'm not 100% happy with the color, but it's better than the pink we had for the past 3 years when we traded rooms with the girls.

That's all for now. Dentist appointments tomorrow. The kids are looking forward to theirs. I'm not looking forward to mine.

And since you have been so patient to get this far in my post, I'll let you in on a little secret.....It's a Girl!

Kitchen Counters - Utter Fail

Side note: If a cow stops producing milk, do they have an udder fail?

Ok, back on topic. Last week my goal was going to be clearing my kitchen counters. Well, hmm, I did not accomplish the task. I made progress, but they get messed up so quickly!!! So I tried to determine the problems so I could come up with solutions:

Problem #1: Dirty dishes on the counter.
Solution: Clean them.
This can be a problem for me. Our day is pretty fast-paced, so it's hard for me to get a moment to wash the dishes in between meals and I'm not Type A enough to really even care. For now, the solution is to TRY to clean them in between meals and hopefully have a dirty dish-free counter by bedtime.

Problem #2: No place for food items, such as bags of pretzels or chips, or for boxes of crackers, etc. 
Our house is not equipped with a pantry. It's a very poorly designed kitchen. I mean, it's nice and spacious and there are plenty of cupboards, but there is not a walk-in pantry or even a large, tall cupboard or closet. (We don't even have a hall closet for jackets.) I think our 1200 square foot apartment, when we first got married, had more pantry space than this house. Because there is inconvenient storage for these types of food items, they usually end up on the counters or on the playroom floor. Bad.

Solution: We have a back porch off our kitchen, and ideally I would enclose it and make it a sort of mudroom, butler's pantry, food storage type room. It's a dream of mine. But since that would likely cost in the 10's of thousands of dollars, I decided to buy a temporary cabinet at Lowe's to put in another area of the kitchen. The white matches our existing cabinets and it should nicely enclose the awkward packages of food that are encroaching my counter space and causing my utter fail. Right now the cabinet is sitting unassembled on my kitchen floor. I need to work up the courage to put it together. Here's a pic from Lowe's website. I'm kind of excited about it. I hope it holds up well:

It cost $138, which I still think costs a lot of money, but much less than $10,000. It's all relative.

Problem #3: Unorganized baking center.
For Christmas my dad gave us a Kitchen Aid. I was very excited because I'm not much of a baker and I thought that this might be an inspiration to be able to do some hands-free mixing. I have a nice spot for it in my kitchen, but my ingredients are not very handy. I want my ingredients to be handy by the mixer so that I'm inspired to bake.

Solution: I want to install a pullout drawer in one of my cabinets where I can put my flour, sugar, etc and easily scoop it into the mixer. The ones at Lowe's are about $55-65 which I think is expensive. I've been searching online and I think I can get a comparable one for about $37. Still haven't decided yet. I might just have to squat down and pull the containers out from under the cupboard. Gaw! It just feels so primitive! We MUST have convenience and exert as LITTLE effort as possible!!! Ok, so I might be getting a little spoiled here. I think I better start a budget and practice my squats for now.

Ok that's all for now. Totally boring post, but it's been what's been going on in my mind. This week's assignment is supposed to be kitchen cupboards and drawers. Thankfully, I did mine not that long ago, so I'm in pretty good shape in regards to my drawers and cupboards. Getting this cabinet assembled should help with with the kitchen organization overall. I'll keep you updated.

Ugh. I'm annoyed that I just created such a boring post! Such is life. I'll leave you with pictures:

 

 I took these last week. My counters have improved, but they still need some work. This is the counter that accumulates the dirty dishes.

This is the clean dish side. It's usually stacked with drying dishes.

This is unusually cluttered due to the holidays, but unfortunately it's still pretty bad. Aren't you excited to see the after pictures? Me too! This is where my beloved Kitchen Aid will go.

Solution Resolution

Tonight's Family Home Evening lesson was on New Year Resolutions. For our activity the kids wrote down at least three of their own resolutions. They came up with them on their own....well, maybe with a little help from mom and dad. At least the ones that seem to recur among children.

Emily's

Sarah's 

When I asked her what she meant by "riding" she said, "You know..." and then gestured with a writing motion. I think what she meant was spelling. And "cleaing" means "cleaning".

Bradley's 

Focus on piano, obedience, trying new food, and cleaning*

*Really need to do!" I'm glad he realizes that.

George's 

Learn how to properly dip a chocolate chip cookie in milk. It's not necessary to dip the hand past the wrist.

 Wendy's

Jason's

He chose not to write down any that mom and dad suggested, and he came up with this one all by himself, with a little help from an older sister with spelling.

Rachel slept through Family Home Evening.

In addition to our individual resolutions, my husband and I made a joint one to find Solutions to problem areas in the house. For example, my husband was very frustrated with our shower curtain hooks in our bathroom because they didn't slide smoothly. So he bought new ones that are very slick. He also bought a new shower curtain because ours had a lot of mildew growing on it and it was yellowing from all the times I have bleached it. Now my husband says that his day goes so much better now that he has a pleasant shower experience in the morning.

I found a cool website via Pinterest that focuses on one problem area of the home per week for 52 weeks. This week's focus is kitchen counters. Hopefully by Saturday I will have some good before and after pictures. Kitchen counters in our house are a major clutter magnet. I have to put my thinking cap on and find some solutions!

New Year Resolutions (5 of them)

Did you think I was dead? My sincerest apologies for the two month leave of absence. I'm not sure that anybody really even cares, but I do. I feel like I missed two whole months of documenting my life. My occasional Facebook Status update will have to suffice to fill in the gap. Anyways, I would like to call my leave of absence a bloggatical. You know, like when a professor leaves to go do something for a semester or two, they take a sabbatical? Well, yeah, that's what I did, except I'm not a professor. So I'm not really sorry, because the break was nice, but I should have warned you so you didn't think I died November 2. My daughter, Emily, finally got upset with me. and is strongly encouraging me to blog. I think she misses her weekly 15 minutes of fame.

Instead of trying to catch up with telling you everything that's been going on over the past two months, I'm starting fresh at the beginning of this year, and I'll throw in a thing or two from the past two months as they come to mind or relate to the topic.

So what are my New Year Resolutions? I don't like to get overly ambitious so that I don't feel like a failure by January 7th, so I'm going to keep it simple. I actually haven't put a whole lot of thought into it as of yet, so I am brainstorming as I type:

1. Increase my gratitude. I simply want to be more grateful for things, people, and experiences (including trials). And not only to feel the gratitude, but to express it as well. I don't think it's something I'm bad at, but I want to be better. I want to write down the things I am grateful for either on my blog, a thank you note, or in my journal.

2. Be faithful at keeping a written journal. My husband gave me a journal for Christmas and on the cover it says, "Love Your Life". I do love my life, and I want my descendants to know that I love it too. In case the Internet blows up, at least I will have a hard copy to prove it. I want to write at least a few lines a day and if the day was really exciting, I might actually write a whole page.

3. Be a Better Blogger. I'm not going to try to set a specific goal for how many posts per week. I just want to be consistent. I think I already used up my vacation leave the past two months.

4. Gain 35 pounds. I'm getting a little tired of stocking up on food because we are running out of space in our closets and under our beds, so I thought a little extra storage on the body might be helpful. Also, I think it's fun to gain weight.

5. Have a baby by the first week in July. I hope I didn't just jinx this whole having a baby thing. But I'm out of the closet now (my doctors words, not mine) because I just said it. Yes, I hope to be an octamom this summer. So this resolution possibly explains my bloggatical. There are moments in life when you need to set your priorities. In November and December my priority was to lay on the couch and watch Hallmark movies while I snacked away the nausea and paranoia. Hopefully I will be able to lose the 35 pounds by December and be done with that goal.

Yes, I've been super paranoid for the past 9 weeks. "Super" is actually an understatement. My blighted ovum in June permanently scarred me in regards to getting excited about pregnancy. But there was a heartbeat at 6.5 weeks this time around which was much more exciting than an seeing an empty gestational sac. There was still a heartbeat at 9.5 weeks. And there was yet, still a heartbeat at 12.5 weeks. I made my husband come with me to my last appointment this past Tuesday because I was so sure I wasn't pregnant anymore and I didn't want to be alone when the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat. So my husband stood my side as the doctor put the doppler on my abdomen. I heard something beating. I thought it was my own heart beating. Then my husband asked, "Is that the baby's heartbeat?" I piped in, "No, that's mine." Then the doctor looked at me confused and said, "No. Your heart is not beating 160 beats per minute. That is the baby's heart beat." He had to prove it to me and show me that mine was beating at 90 bpm because I didn't believe him. Like I said, I've been super paranoid and pessimistic this whole time. I need to get over it.

Ok, so there you have it. My New Year resolutions. Hopefully I will be consistent. You guys are my cheerlearders.

I need to post a picture. Don't I?

My physical journal. 

I don't usually post pictures of myself on my blog, but I was having a relatively good hair and complexion day on Christmas Eve. Pictures of kids coming soon. They are much cuter....

And if you feel inclined to comment, let me know what kind of posts you like to read. I need some direction on what to write about. I have all sorts of topics running through my head throughout the day, which I think overwhelms me at times, and my indecisiveness prevents me from writing anything at all. I can post about homeschooling, my attempts at organization, my cooking (I'll warn you that this could be boring), my messy house (lots of content for this one), my kids (that one is a give-in), my self-diagnosed ADD, my Hallmark movies, my stack of unread books on my nightstand, or I could simply just post about George because he is the the cutest kid in the family right now. (Don't worry, I haven't offended any of my other kids by writing that, because we voted on it, and it is unanimous.) I'm just curious what ya'll want to know about.  

Christmas Eve

Holiday Halloween

Ok, so I'm not a huge fan of Halloween. Why celebrate something that revolves around evil? We rejoice in goodness and light. However, I'm not going to be totally bah humbug, so we dress up and go trick or treating because really it's all about the free candy. Right?

So, if we are going to do Halloween, I require my kids to dress in a theme because my I have a theory that themed costumes receive more candy. There are lots of themed ideas, but the difficult part is getting them all to agree who is going to be what. For example, the Wizard of Oz would be a perfect theme, but nobody wants to be the wicked witch and all the girls want to be the Glenda, and it always ends up in arguing. This year I threw a few ideas on the table and finally one morning they came downstairs to breakfast and announced that they agreed to be holidays. Surprisingly there was not much arguing over who was going to be what holiday because the holidays are not very gender specific. I can honestly say that this year's costumes were VERY low budget. Now, of course I'm a tiny bit of a saver and suffer a mild case of pack-ratness which comes in very handy during times like this when some creativity and improvisation is essential.

Here they are:

Thanksgiving

We had the black tights, brown shorts and brown shirt. We cut feathers from 2 white poster boards ($0.69 each) and spray painted them with paint I already had. I also bought the foam for the turkey feet ($0.99). We stuck some feathers in her hair that I bought 10 years ago for a Thanksgiving project when Emily was 19 months old. The feathers are attached to Emily with a belt and some yarn around the arms. Total cost $2.47.

Fourth of July

Bradley is wearing a pair of my red capri pants to which I applied masking tape stripes (he is wearing a belt. My waist is not the same size an 8 year old boy's), a blue suit coat, a red sash from one of the girl's dresses for his tie, a vest from his magician's costume, and my husband's red striped socks. The hat is also from his magician's costume that he got for Christmas last year from my dad and sister. We put on red and white construction paper stripes, a blue velvet fabric scrap, and a white felt star. And of course cotton ball beard and eyebrows attached with double sticky tape. Bradley's costume cost $0.

Valentine's Day 

Sarah is wearing her pretty pink princess dress that my mother-in-law made last year. I attached some red felt hearts and paper Valentines. She is wearing heart ornaments around her ears and we made her a red glitter heart head headband. She is also wearing pink fairy wings that I had stashed in a closet. Sarah's costume cost $0.

Easter

For Wendy I cut out the bottom of a basket that has been sitting in our garage for the past seven years. It hung on her with grosgrain ribbon that I had in my ribbon stash. I made her some bunny ears from stiff felt ($0.99). I attached our plastic Easter eggs to a large wad of plastic Walmart grocery bags. The basket is essential to the costume or else the costume has a totally different look. Total cost $0.99.

St. Patrick's Day

This one required a little sewing. I made Jason a very rough pair of drawstring pants and a vest, because everyone has a yard or two of green gingham in their fabric stash, right? (No awards for the sewing. There were no hems or pretty stitches.) The green sequin bow is from some St. Patrick's Day goodies my mother-in-law sent a year or two ago. The hat is from our German family reunion in 2008 and I added a green shamrock to the side. Also the green boots are something that have been kicking around the house for awhile because I had to get them when they were clearanced for $2 at Walmart. Total cost $0. 

Christmas

Ok, so Rachel wasn't the most cooperative when it came to her costume. I had a great idea to transform Rachel into a Christmas tree. I had the perfect dress I was going to dye green and decorate like a tree. But she refused. I probably could've gone forward with my plan, but I really didn't want to put forth the effort of Rit dye if she was going to be a pain about it. So since she had a red dress, that my mother-in-law also made last year, we improvised and she was transformed into Holiday Barbie. I added holly leaves and berries to her beauty pageant sash to help make things a little clearer that she was Christmas. I'm still disappointed I didn't get to dress her as a Christmas tree. But you can't reason much with three year old little girls because all they want to be are princesses, and I couldn't convince Bradley to wear a dress.

Halloween 

I had an orange t-shirt about 2 or 3 sizes too big for George. I put it on him and wrapped a rubber band around his waist and the bottom of the t-shirt. I tacked on some black foam (that I already had) jack-o-lantern facial pieces that I cut and....Wallah!...a pumpkin. I would've taken it a step further and made him some leaves for his head, but George doesn't like things on his head, so I didn't bother. We stuffed his shirt with some of those big packing bubbles, like the really big ones that come in a perferated strip. You know what I mean? Anyway, we were lucky because we had just received about three packages from Amazon packed with them and they worked out really well, and he didn't mind being all puffed up all evening. Total cost $0.

Happy Holidays!

Oh and here is Emily's beak that we forgot to have her wear in the other picture. It's made from a birthday hat and orange paint with a red feather attached.

 Ok, so we might have added a little bit of evil to the evening. But it only lasted 2 seconds for the photo.

Halloween was a success. $3.46 for seven costumes and 17 pounds 10 ounces of free candy later, we are finished for another year. Moving on to Emily....I mean Thanksgiving.....