Snow

Snow...

Helping daddy shovel the walk and cleaning off my grandma's car.  

I get paid for this, right?

My size snow cave!

Daddy, an angel?

Not if I can help it!!!

Uh oh...he's an angry angel.

Lesson learned.  Don't ever destroy Dad's snow angel.

"Mom!"

 "See what dad did?!"

Mmmm....mom makes it all better!

Sippin' Hot Cocoa...

 ...in my new snow lounger.

 Ahhh, now this is the good life!

All Tucked In!

Our nightly ritual...

with a twist.

two little monkey's

Monkey

See,

Monkey 

Do!

Never thought I could do it.

Guess what!

My daughter is twelve and I can finally French Braid!  

Go me!

Pinky swear!

When choosing the color of your first cast...

I suggest you choose a lighter color, so people can sign it.

However, I wouldn't suggest wrestling with your ten year old little brother...

...just in case he accidentally breaks your other pinky, too.

Back To School shopping...EEK!

Today I registered my 14 year old son, Casey, for High School. If that isn't traumatizing enough, I about had a coronary when they told me what I needed to pay in order for Casey to receive his schedule. Having made the decision early last year that Casey would travel daily to a public charter school that specializes in performing arts, we knew there could be extra costs associated with that. We are also well aware that High School costs are staggering. Having two almost 17 year olds...we're used to the $100+ each fees.

Registration Fees: I forked over the main High School fee of $101 and asked for the Performing Arts charter school to defer the remaining $85 dollars (not including the $35 year book), and then I promptly cried (inside).

You see, the twins register on Friday and there we will have to slink down in our chairs and ask to speak to the Vice Principal to see if we can defer their fees throughout the next few months. After that, the boys will be given their schedules (but not their school ID's until it's paid in full) and we'll need to walk down the hall to have their pictures taken. We'll choose the cheapest package, but it will still cost us about fifty dollars total.

I have a suggestion for schools though...can we not have picture day the same day we are supposed to pay registration fees? PLEASE!?

Thank goodness the other two are in Elementary school. The costs there are far less, even when you count in the extra tissues, clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, EXPO markers and other things the teachers ask for. I'm willing to buy these extra items, even if I do spread it throughout the year to help make things a bit more bearable.

For those of you keeping tally, it seems that we'll spend over $450 dollars just to register the three High School boys. Five kids photographs will cost us (cheapest package) about $130 and come 2nd Semester, we'll have more fees, I'm sure. Oh, and we can't forget the Yearbooks....those are the most important, right? Hehe.

Supplies: I spent $63 at Target on the basic school supplies (I still need about $20 more, but waiting to make sure they really need it first). Thankfully, my mom bought the majority of the kids school clothing. What a blessing!!! We really don't go all out, just some basics. Jeans without holes, new shoes, socks and a couple new shirts. Chloe got the most outfits, but I made sure everything can be worn in the winter, too. I'm not buying new shorts for school....they can wear the ones they wore during the summer. When it starts to get cool we expand the school wardrobe with a few long sleeve shirts to wear under the t-shirts they already have and I tend to bargain shop for $2.00 t-shirts that go on clearance in the Fall.

Oh, and do you like how I conveniently avoided the fact that I have been blogMIA for, like, ever?

:)

Happy Birthday, Caleb!! & Updates

Today is my baby's EIGHTH Birthday!

I can't even believe how quickly these years have just flown by. It seems like yesterday that he was snuggled to my breast for nourishment, comfort and love.

I remember how sweet he smelled.

I remember his adorable smile and how his giggle would make me burst into laughter.

He loved being next to me in his sling and I loved wearing him.

He was a high-need's baby and I didn't mind a bit. All he wanted was his mommy (and daddy) and you know what? That was A-OK! When he was a toddler, he would bring me the sling so that I would wear him. All I had to do was tighten him in and he would be at peace. We would be at peace.

We nursed for two and a half years. Towards the end, I was not offering and not refusing. He weaned himself...when he was ready. I'm not sure I was ready, but I was proud that I gave him the chance to become independent on his own. Oh, and while he was a high-need's baby, co-slept, breast-fed on demand, wore cloth diapers, spent most of his first two years in a sling and didn't eat solids until he was 11 months old....

He is, and always has been, my most snugly and independent child.

After he finished eating dinner this evening, he came over to me and put his head on me. I knew he was anxious to open his gifts, but he wasn't feeling well either. His face was flushed and his eyes glossy. I asked him if he wanted to lie down in my bed while our family guests finished eating and visiting. He asked me to come with him and so I did. We snuggled together while I rubbed his back. I enjoyed every minute of our time together. Luckily, Caleb loves to snuggle and sometimes I overlook this need, so I'm thankful I wasn't too busy to see the opportunity. I would have missed it otherwise.

Happy 8th Birthday, Caleb!!!

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Have you ever felt like you didn't know what to write and when you did write something, it sounded awful and scattered?

That's how I've been feeling for a month, or so. I'm not interesting, funny or thought provoking.

How depressing.......

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Semi-Organized Mom's Surgery Update:

I will be having my first big oral surgery this Wednesday. I'm really nervous about it. Even though I know what will happen, I can't help but feel a little anxiety about it all.

First, I'll be put to sleep under general anesthesia.

Second, Two of my teeth will be removed and one of them is my impacted eye tooth.

Third, I will have a bone graft where they remove the eye tooth....complete with cadavar bone. Ewww!

I've taken Wednesday-Sunday off from work, so I'm hoping to get some rest while the kids are at school. I know I'll be well taken care of and am grateful for the help my wonderful IRL friend has offered. She is picking my kids up from school on Thursday (offered Wed, but Rob will do that.) and I'm sure she'll help out Friday if I need her to.

I think the fact that I don't know how I'm going to feel, how quickly I will heal, how much pain I'll be in...well, that's frightening to me. Am I overly anxious? Probably. Or maybe what I'm feeling is just "normal". Regardless, most people don't really openly discuss their teeth issues and if they do, it's not usually about losing teeth, implants or pontics.

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I went to a Women's One-Day Conference at my church (SMCC) on Saturday. My friend accompanied me and we both had a wonderful time. I enjoyed the worship, the amazing lunch and I couldn't get enough of Wendy Blight, the guest speaker.

She spoke so many truth's and God's promises. I felt like she was speaking directly to me, at times. I think I'll stop here, because I want to devote an entire blog post to my thoughts. If you want to learn more about Wendy and Proverbs 31 Ministries, click on the link above.

Toyless

At some point, during our busy weekend, Caleb (our 7 year old) decided that he wanted to sell all of his toys (except the Lego's, of course!) so that he could buy more Lego's. He has tried this several times before, but I've usually persuaded him not to. Caleb is not easily persuaded, however, and has researched Ebay, Target and Walmart to see how much money he needs to make so that he can buy the Lego's he wants. He even went so far as to price his used toys so that if all of them sold, he would have enough money. For sure, his math skills come from Daddy and well, we all know where his organizational and thinking ahead skills come from, right?

Right!?

I didn't get a photo of his "Toy Sale" table, but I did happen upon this little number.

This sign was made by Casey (our 13 year old) to advertise a (well played with) train table that was dontated to Caleb's cause by a neighbor who was nesting. She gave explicit instuctions that "She did not want the table back." Thanks neighbor, it's still sitting in our garage, and congrats on your new baby boy! If you didn't catch the sign, here it is again.

Coming from a child who has struggled with reading, writing and putting words into a sentence, I'm very pleased! This is amazing progress for Casey. I will have to talk to him about the value of used items, though. Fifteen dollars for this train table is bordering on "usery".

Semi-Toyless (except for thousands of Lego's and the small fact that nobody bought anything from him), Caleb began finding alternative things to play with. Since mommy and daddy would say no to real knives, no doubt, he found plastic hangers to use as weapons.

Ingenious!

After fifteen years of toys (lots of toys) and spending money on things that would entertain the kids, I wonder why we didn't think of belts and hangars much, much earlier.

Basement or Bachelor Pad?

Chaos has been a daily part of my life since the day after the last day of school. If you're keeping track, that's seven weeks today. Amazingly, I'm still alive. I have yet to pull my hair out, but I will admit that I've:

*Lost my cool with the kids more than I will care to admit.

*Cried a few times because I was so frustrated.

*Yelled at my husband because the kids were driving me crazy. It's his fault ya know!

*Wondered what I could do to get me arrested for the weekend. A 72 hour hold would be a vacation, dontcha think? Three meals, adult conversation, no lego's to trip on...

*Devoured a few Dairy Queen chocolate ice-cream cones.

*Developed several charts (behavior, cleaning, reward, etc) and none of them have worked.

In our house we have 5 bedroom's. Brenden & Braden share a room, Casey & Caleb share a room and Chloe has her own room. Rob and I have the Master and the last room is my craft room. I have grandiose plans to make amazing things in there, but I'm always too busy. Everybody's room is messy, including mine.

Since the beginning of this year we have decluttered and organized not one, not two, not three, not four, but five times. Five times that I've blogged about, I might add. That means I've spent the majority of this year contemplating and stressing about clutter and being unorganized. That's simply not okay.

It is pouring like mad outside right now. It's 12:31 AM, everyone is asleep and it's quiet (finally) except for the loud thunder, pelting rain on the windows and the waterfall coming from the front porch gutter. I love the rain...and the quiet...

But, I digress. The first thing I did this morning, before getting out of bed, was to pep talk myself into going downstairs. I knew what I would find, no matter what the kids said. It would be a huge mess, a disaster, broken promises, bold-faced lies and disappointment. I am never prepared for this, but I really didn't have a choice. I was down to my last pair of panties and I had no clean clothes left.

The basement (lower level where the boys rooms are, a bathroom, dance room, laundry room and living room) is my biggest nemesis. I hate going down there. Mostly because no matter how much I implement cleaning and laundry schedules, they never seem to get done. I've even stopped going downstairs to tuck the boys in or say goodnight because I just can't take it. Yep, that's me, avoiding the problem.

After hitting the bottom step I forced myself to look around the corner. I was shocked at the mess. I guess it's good that I was shocked (I still have hope), but that could mean I suffer from early onset dementia. I'm not sure which it is and I'm not ready to find out. The basement was worse than I thought and I could feel myself start to boil. I yelled for the twins to wake up and for the rest of the kids to come downstairs. I then yelled for Rob to come and see the mess. I wish I had taken pictures because you would have been absolutely horrified. There was laundry all over the place. We have tons of baskets and the kids had told me they sorted out the clothes. They had not. There was food, bowls, plates and cups hidden here and there. When we moved the sectional pieces food fell out. Animal crackers, chocolate chips and wrappers fell all over the floor as well as itty bitty Lego's. Burrito wrappers and napkins (at least they used those) were stuffed in the cushions. I was disgusted for several reasons:

1. We had just gone through this whole scenario a little over a month ago. We disciplined the kids, took away privileges and had a nice discussion about helping out and finishing chores. It stayed that way for a week or so, but then the kids destroyed it again.

2. Our major rule is that we only eat and drink in the kitchen and yet a few of my children are quick to not comply.

3. I had a busy week and I trusted that they were doing their chores. I was tired and did not follow through with checking on what they said, but at 15 and 13, I shouldn't have to. They lied to me and I allowed them to do things I wouldn't if I knew what the basement looked like.

I was just too tired and lazy to follow through. Partly because I knew what I would find and I didn't have the energy to deal with it at that moment and partly because I wanted so badly to trust that their word was good. I was disappointed in myself and them. More myself though.

So, today (a Utah holiday) was a fruitful day. After my inital freak out session, Rob and I gathered the kids in the basement and put them to work. Casey, Chloe and Caleb were sorting out all the clothes and Brenden and Braden were helping me re-organize the living room. My mom bought us a used sectional when we moved in here last August, but the kids have distroyed it. I'm so glad we didn't spend the money on a new couch! They, mostly the twins, are just hard on couches and I don't know why. Anyway, I asked Rob nicely if he would mind getting it out of the basement. It's uncomfortable to sit on and takes up so much room. The twins and Rob moved each heavy piece out to the garage so we could try to sell it or give it away. We moved our smaller couch into place, dusted all the furniture and sorted all the DVD's.

All of the boys cleaned their rooms and organized their belongings. The twins even changed around their bedroom and I was pleasantly surprised. They did a great job! They straightened up the bathroom, too. I told them they should look at everything that is in their room and ask themselves these things:

1. Do I really want to save this?

2. Do I want to clean it every week?

3. Is this trash? Clothing too worn out/holes?

They listened to me. I didn't even have to stand over them and hound them about every little piece of trash. I did have to tell them they couldn't go out with some friends to a skatepark because they wasted the day away when they could have been cleaning their room. I told them they could either do it right or they could just wake up Saturday morning and start with the room. They knew I meant business, but I didn't imagine they would really clean and organize! Maybe some of me is wearing off on them. Hey, I'm only thinking about my future daughter-in-law. I will raise son's who are willing to get up in the middle of the night with a crying baby, ready to cook a meal, clean the house and do the laundry. I will.

I've been able to venture downstairs many times today and, believe it or not, I was happy. I didn't have fears of possible anxiety attacks and that is a good thing. I wish my children would understand how much energy I have when things are clean and picked up and how miserable I feel when things are messy and overwhelming.

When the big cleaning fest was over, I was able to get six loads of laundry done. Today (Saturday), we will wash the remaining clothing/towels/sheets. This will put us back on track for Monday morning when our previously defunct laundry schedule will be resurrected once again.

Laundry Schedule

Monday- Casey & Caleb Tuesday-Brenden & Braden Wednesday-Chloe Thursday-Mom & Dad Friday- Make up day so we can remain a little flexible. Saturday- Sheets, towels, blankets.

My first set of schoolers will head off to school in just three and a half weeks. That's not long. We have tons of things to do (swim, bbq's, pay school fees, etc) before then and I am going to try hard to make this schedule work. Again. So, unless I want to live off anti-anxiety meds I need to start crackin' the whip. On me!

No more being lazy! It doesn't take long to check if chores were completed.

Check the basement each day, no matter what.

Follow up on what needs to be done, redone. Don't let it go!

Issue proper restrictions if needed.

Keep at it! It will get better!

Is it really only Friday?

I chose this photo because there is absolutely NOTHING on the floor. No clutter, no trash and nothing hanging over the railing to dry. Amazing! I also chose it because I miss Casey and his sense of humor. I can't wait till he comes home from Youth Camp.

Tomorrow is the last day of Irish Dance Camp. I love dance camp, but it's very tiring for upper level dancers and their parents. Especially if you have more than one dancer in different levels. I feel like I haven't been home much at all. I came home yesterday with the intention to do laundry and clean a bathroom, but I made macaroni & cheese & frozen taquitos and popped in a movie while the kids played. We then went to Dairy Queen for some ice cream cones because I'm a nice mommy and well, a yummy chocolate cone sounded scrumptious. Today was dance camp and from 10 AM - 9 PM I was gone. We also had our annual Dance Camp BBQ at a local pool, so coming home to finish the laundry I started yesterday start the laundry I've been neglecting didn't happen. We arrived home around 9:oo and I am too tired to do anything, but type this blog, read some blogs and go to bed in approximately 15 minutes.

Chloe has learned so much at this dance camp and I'm very proud of her amazing growth this past year. Casey has been at youth camp, but will be home tomorrow to catch the end of dance camp. He will have to work hard to catch up with everyone else, but he can do it.

Rob has been up at youth camp with Casey and things have been amazingly calm around the homefront. I didn't get anxious or frustrated and I didn't cry because I was overwhelmed. In fact, I never was overwhelmed. This is an amazing accomplishment for me.

Only a couple catastrophes happened this week while Rob was gone:

1. Lilo dumped a tall glass of water on our iHome. It's making funny noises, so I unplugged it, let it dry and took the batteries out. I'm so bummed!

2. Brenden & Braden (TweedleDum & TweedleDee) went swimming yesterday and didn't put on any sunscreen. They came home as lobsters and today Brenden has been pretty sick with tiny blisters on his back. I'll keep watching him.

Not so bad, but two things I wish didn't happen. I am extremely tired and need to relax, so I'm going to take a break from the blog for a couple days. I need to get my house in order (too many loads of laundry) and spend some time with my hubby when he returns. A very special day is coming up next week. I'm so excited! Can anyone guess what it is?

Big Canyon Ranch

This is where our daughter is until the middle of this week. I'm sure she's loving every minute of it. I miss her, but I'm glad she had the opportunity to go. Our 13 year old will get his chance starting Wednesday evening.

Now this is my kind of camp!

The Grove, where they worship and pray. It's beautiful down here!

When you walk in the front door, this is what you see.

Chloe's bunk. She wanted top bunk and got it! She loves her leader, Lauren. I'm glad she is comfortable there. I hated leaving home. I think it was because I knew I couldn't just call my mom and say "Hi, I love you." Very scary for a small child. Anyway, Chloe had to be coerced to come downstairs and give her daddy and I a kiss and a hug. She happily gave us one of each, but was having so much fun she forgot to say "Bye!".

I bet these would look even more beautiful in the wild. Regardless of my personal feelings of killing things and stuffing them to hang on a wall, they do appeal to the rustic feel of the cabin.

A little kitchenette. How quaint! How come I didn't get to camp like this?

A lone picnic bench. I imagine many people were prayed for right here and possibly many lives (young and old) were forever changed.

The pond.

The temporary mess hall. The larger one will be built soon.

The patio outside of the temporary mess hall.

An innovative fly-trap.

Garbage can with a fly trap over it. They also had many fly traps hanging from tree's around the camp. I plan to find out what it is this week.

The view from upstairs.

I hope my daughter and son enjoy their time at the ranch this week. I pray that their lives will be forever changed, that they will boldly follow Christ and further their relationship with Him.

God Bless, my little ones. Jesus loves you!